probably one of the harder photo fridays for me given that all my recent work is macro florals and landscapes. this is a modern sculpture that resides alongside the guadalupe park trail near the HP pavilion in downtown San Jose. I shot this with my pencam a couple of years ago.

   
while on an offsite for work I was stricken by spiking high blood pressure and ended up in the emergency room and then the hospital for the weekend. what a lovely way to spend the weekend - far from home, no family, no friends except via phone if they call in and no internet access. sounds like hell. anyway, a couple of pencam shots of the view from my room. lots of tests later, I was released and allowed to fly home. I am doing better now but it was a scare and not really that fun.

pics from my photo workshop are coming, i promise!.

we did a long bike ride on saturday. the entire length and back of the Alameda Creek trail which goes out from Niles Canyon to the Bay marshlands and back—22 miles in all. It was flat and cool but the wind from the bay was intense making it seem like we were doing all 11 miles uphill. of course the ride back was somewhat easier—until the wind changed. needless to say we were whipped. i took a couple shots with the new pencam but it was better being there in person.

researching for my book, I spent the better part of a day last week downtown at the new Martin Luther King Library. this is an awesome place. 9 floors of books, periodicals and media all available to the sjsu students and citizens of san jose. I love libraries.

i love flying and looking down over the land as the airplane crosses. i like to wonder about the patterns and what kind of people made the farms down below and what kind of lives they lead. i love it when i am coming home and i can begin to pick out areas that i know and find my house. the view from above is so interesting, no matter whether its over the clouds, the farms, mountains or my own house. (these pics shot coming home from dulles thursday evening and with my new mega pencam - still working out the kinks with the adjustable lens)

friends at work decorated my cube for my birthday friday. what fun! check out all the pictures.

hiking today through big basin redwoods state park. the trees are large. really large. I am in awe and have captured quite a few images that I am working on in print form. I also carried the trusty pencam and shot this view up to the sky.

death valley hills :: february 27 2003

after spending 5 days down in death valley with cameras and fellow photographers, i have decided to take a break from this site to focus time on the craft of photography and on refining my photo portfolio (not online). i'm sure i'll be back after a rest and some creative rejuvenation.

with bobble things hanging down, this tree is self decorated for a party.

stomy skies over the bay.

softness of the pencam inside captures gus (pronounced goose) in a rare moment of being nice.

sometime, the pencam can actually capture some pretty interesting things. a seagull out as shoreline.

there's always something new to see at shoreline. biking yesterday I passed this row of pylons and was intrigued by what the circular metal pieces were for.

biking at shoreline yesterday and these lumpy, bumpy moguls on the hill caught my eye.

another mirror project submission - from my trip to virginia. kooky.

The last of the pencam shots from my trip to Virginia. Shot from my hotel room. The day is wet and soggy, but the trees that I see from my room are intense and brilliant. During the week I was there, this red tree was like fire and then began to burn out as the rain pushed the leaves off and they collected beneath. I love fall and it is one of the things I miss most living in California.

Am travelling to the East Coast this week on business. I actually flew out on Wednesday and was here in the DC area before they captured the sniper. Needless to say, it is a big relief that he has been caught since I am here 4 more days. I took a drive out to Front Royal - Shenandoah Parkway - to see the fall leaves. Things were not to peak yet. The traffic was terrible, so I cut north up to Winchester and then over to Middleburg and through the heart of Loudoun County. I really love this area.

The 2nd San Jose Art Market was happening today - downtown San Jose, near the San Jose Rep, booths with local artists selling their wares and working. I rode my bike over and there was some pretty cool stuff. This is going on every weekend for the until November - christmas presents...there was also Swing Dancing and music over by the San Jose Museum of Art...

Just two of the several cool old motel signs that flank both sides of Monterey Highway as it comes into downtown San Jose. I took a bike ride this afternoon down there - usually I am in the car and in a hurry - but today I decided to ride down and snap a couple of pics. There are lots more - for those kind of drive in motels that became popular in the 1950's. A couple even have little carports next to each room.

Sunlight in trees as I rest halfway in the long Coyote Creek ride. And then a trio on horseback pass by. This day has seen a bobcat, several dogs and now horses.

Went camping last weekend to the high sierra. We drove over to Mono lake and camped on June lake. The drive was long - through Yosemite and over the mountains. But it was beautiful. We loaded up the jeep with us, our cameras and the dogs. I shot a lot with the large digital as well as slides and black and white. All that film is yet to be processed. I also snapped a few with the pencam and managed to capture some of the cool windmills coming through the Altamont pass on the way home.

my neighbor has a cat. her name is chloe. she spends a lot of time hanging out in our yard and driveway - and on my car. her little paw prints are always found on my windshield.

Hard ride out at Alviso trails this afternoon. The levys go out into the bay are much farther from land than the trails that run through Shoreline park. The wind makes riding difficult at best and challenging to say the least. It's a great workout - almost as hard as doing hills. The sun was at the perfect angle and there were Pelicans and large grey birds - Great Blue Heron? One was a baby still with the soft floppy feathers they have atop their crest before they get all slick and grown up.

The pictures are in and collected together in a little slide show. My trip was fun and the summit intense. Lots of side meetings for things I am involved in and plenty of gatherings in the bars and restaurants. Not sure I really like Vegas all that much but I barely got out of the Bellagio. It was great to see some of my favorite folks gathered all in one spot - Lou, PeterMe and PeterMo, John, Christina, George, Jesse and Rebecca as well as fun to meet some new folks - Molly, David, Lane, Mike.

Big truck in my mirror. Big truck running me down. Yikes!

Got my tire fixed - and purchased the right tools for next time so I can deal with it myself - and went out to Coyote Creek again this evening to do a ride. Did the full 18 mile, against the wind coming back. It was intense and I am tired - 25 miles today plus a walk. Shot these with the pencam and stitched them together to make a panorama. The light was intense. Check out the rest...

Words fail me. I cannot attempt to explain the field of concrete corn. Although there is a good historical explanation on the placards next to the field (which I did not photograph). I was warned about it beforehand, but when I came upon the concrete field of corn, I was amazed and astounded that such a thing existed. (Columbus , Ohio)

the bottle cube at work is a closed cube that has been filled (2 feet or so) with empty Aquafina bottles. Fun times had by all as team members dove, swam and sank in the experience. (shot with pencam)

Rode Coyote Creek trail today (17.5 miles). Windy and a little rainy but that makes for a less crowded trail. It is quite lovely this time of year as the hills are turning bright green while the trees and marsh grasses are browns, umbers and golds. Saw a bobcat and peacocks along the trail. This shot is facing west looking over the farmland and orchards that are left down in this area. Need to shoot this with another camera as the Pencam is not too great for landscapes.


Rode Los Gatos Creek trail yesterday from home (14.5 miles). Windy as ever but nice nonetheless.

Took the train to work today while Mom and Dad kept the car. Took a chance that the PenCam would be able to shoot outside the window as the train passed by interesting things. One of the shots was submitted to the Mirror Project.

It was great fun for all, good for team building and super for ringing in the holiday season on a light note. Particularly for this year.

A long row of trees flank the drive at work. I have wanted to photograph them for weeks as they have been affected by wind and the sun and now the turning of fall to winter. I brought my PenCam today as I went from one building to another and got the last of them before all the leaves are gone with the next rain.

I have been going out to Shoreline as often as possible to ride. I can get there from work easily - take the bike to work on the back of the car, and ride the one mile to the Stevens Creek Trail which hooks up with Shoreline park and the Baylands marsh trails. These are some shots from November.

Got together Saturday with the Boxes and Arrows gang to socialize a bit and to have a catch all working session while George was up from LA. We had a great time, got a lot of work done and Lisa and I took CalTrain home. Here are a couple of shots around the table. Starting from the left image: George Olsen, the waitress, Chad Thornton, Christina Wodtke, Jay Allen, David Bloxsom and Lisa Chan. All are shown in the third shot. Jay really stands out in the orange and I am not sure what Christina is doing in the second image.

Subtle signs of winter in the bare and beautiful thistles. Shots taken a couple of weeks ago while in N. Virginia. I took a walk before I hit the airport along one of the bike trails. I had forgotten about thistles and cool they look. They don't seem to have them out here in California.

Lunch today at a chinese restaurant. A nice change from the Thanksgiving leftovers. Took some Pencam shots to record the event and stitched them together to capture everyone. I am reflected a couple of times in the mirror. From left to right: Matt Leacock, Jennifer Cherk, Rich Fulcher, Rob Starling and Bradley Allen.

Individual images here: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Biking Coyote Creek trail yesterday in the rain was fun. No people and an intensity to the landscape with the grey sky. A little rain - not to much so I wasn't too wet. First time out there by myself. At the end there were a bunch of gravel trails and horse trails, so I explored them a bit. Must have been some of the old outbuildings from when this was a farm - now used to store equipment for the park rangers.

Went out for a relatively short ride on Saturday (13.5 miles) along the Los Gatos Creek Trail. It was the first time I had been on the trail with my new speedometer/odometer so I was able to see how far it really is. There were a lot of geese in the way at the lake area near the 17/85 interchange. When I was done I snapped a few pics of me in the side mirror. The last one turned out cool because I caught the reflection of the mirror in the window.

Sunday we went for a long ride out at Coyote Creek (18.2 miles). No pics here - too concerned with a hard workout and maintaining an above 15mph speed despite the mountain bike tires. As usual, Sheila was long gone and I rode by myself. Gotta get a new bike. It was foggy and cold when we started, but it probably was the reason why I saw a bobcat. Very cool. At first I thought it was a dog, then I realized it was a cat - a large cat with orange and tan and black stripes. Much bigger than a house cat, with a bobbed tail and big feet. I wanted to snap a picture, but I wasn't close enough for the PenCam and I ddin't want to scare it or provoke it.

It was a great ride and I am sore in my legs for the first time in awhile.

Biking out at Shoreline park today, I came upon the strange hill (that I have seen before but not really noticed) that was full of interesting elements. Pilings and concrete barriers guide you through the trails up and over the hill. All of this is on the descent path of the small airplanes coming into the Palo Alto airport. So you feel surrounded by the land elements as well as overhead by the airplanes and the birds. As always the Pencam provides an interesting and ethereal record to the landscapes.

 

 

The ride was great - if windy - and provided lots of views of many nesting birds. The last shot is at Starbucks where we went for caffeine replenishment after our hour long ride. Of course I only looked at the items in the case.

Have started biking the Los Gatos Creek trail with my sister. She started riding while in Texas this summer and now has gotten me to join her. I have been riding with her for a couple of weeks now. We get up and get out around 7:30 - probably not as early as many biker type people, but about as early as I can manage, since I am a late nighter. Although I find myself going to bed earlier and earlier. The ride is nice, quiet and serene. Lots of marshlands and ducks and geese along some of the ponds. We turnaround at Vasona Lake and ride back to Willow Glen. Works out to be about 16-17 miles round trip and takes me an hour or a little under.

 

 

In response to the 9/11 tragedy. I hung the flag outside our front door. A lot of the neighbors did the same. It is very moving to drive around the neighborhood and see the flags on houses and the red, white and blue ribbons on cars and porches.
In a quite unpatriotic gesture, someone stole my flag this weekend.

Last week when I drove up to San Francisco for the IA/UE Cocktail Hour, I snapped this picture of the San Francisco skyline becoming enshrouded with fog. Of course I was driving 65 mph and shot it with my PenCam so it has a really cool edgy fuzzy quality to it.

Spent today galavanting around San Jose participating in the A-Z City Challenge as part of the Lomo Sampling Games. These are happening all over the world over the month of September and then winners will get a trip to Vienna, Austria. Lomo is a russian camera that seems to have this cult following. We went to a gallery opening last night at Gallery AD - Anna Domini that had a showing of several hundred Lomo shots. I had heard about the competition via an email, but got more info last night and decided to participate. (warning: Trying out a new DHTML script for the popup page of images and captions. This popup window with the pics seems to make Netscape 4.x on the Mac crash. It is a little slow to load on Netscape on the PC but does work. Every now and then a weird error message pops up but it doesn't seem to keep the page from working. I am working to fix it.)

Sheila's dogs have the backyard and take full advantage of the various topography. They play, dig holes and drink out of the pool. They are crazy and fun and a pleasure to be here. This album - which contains 82 shots - is an experiment with the LowRes setting of the PenCam as well as a test of the MAC plug in that allows the PenCam to import/download into the Mac rather than the PC. If you are interested, I will post the plug-in - which by the way works through Photoshop very nicely.
Still working on the DHTML and javascript to have captions shown with the pics and also to show different size photos. All these images are the same size and I didn't rotate the verticals. So some more bugs to work out with the popup window but it is still cleaner than all individual HTML files. (warning: this popup window with the pics doesn't seem to move past the first image in NEtscape 4.x on the Mac. I am working to fix it.)

Went biking today at Shoreline Park, actually slightly north of there in the Baylands preserve. It was fabulous and we rode until the sun set.

Spent this past week in Dulles, Virginia on business. Basically visiting the mother ship of AOL. Some pics of my trip are posted. All were shot with the Pencam. The highlight was a meandering drive out to where I used to live in Loudoun County.

My birthday was this week and I am feeling rather old. Mostly because I am getting old and some because my 20 year high school reunion is around the corner. Yikes! Birthday was celebrated over the course of several days. Cowboy Junkies at the Mountain Winery on friday evening and then getting my car washed on my actual birthday - the 8th, eating sushi in Santa Cruz and visiting with friends. Took some Pencam pics of my day plus coffee this morning.

Firedrills at work remind me of school. Everyone is glad for the break but is kind of bored standing around waiting. As always I had the Pencam on me and snapped a few.

I like the fact that most of us are not really very near the offical "Assembly Area" red dot. But we did all have to check in. Some people (Vitaly and Rob) took the evac very seriously and proceeded to play game of chess. Ernestine (the dog) was very concerned.

Leaving on a jet plane at an airport where you still walk outside to board the plane. And so starts a quick weekend to Phoenix.

Tuesdays are guitar lesson days. Today was pretty typical, except we went off site to have lunch and it was hot as hell. Carrying the pencam around and trying to take candids and more spontaneous shots. check out the pics.

Messing around with the Pencam to see what happens with images taken while moving. The great thing about having a convertible is that you can take picture while driving without having to worry about getting the inside of the car. I basically held the camera up and snapped, not really knowing what I would get since I didn't look through the viewer. That would be worse than talking on the cel phone while driving. Kind of cool - I especially like the ones that are a little off kilter.

Railroad crossing around the corner from my house	Neighborhood called Palm Haven	More palms - reminds me of movie shots of LA
Palms in the side mirror	Going to work, travelling on 280. I had hoped to catch the mountain views ahead.	At work. Speaks for itself.
Going home down 101, the day is gone and the road stretches on.	Coming around the airport.