Posted 4:32 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: April Showers

For Christmas you ought to get a beautiful Christmas-themed photo. But I don't have one. So here's a rainbow from April:

Rainbows over Pukalani, Maui
April 2009

This was taken with my 17mm lens, which I bought in March expressly for capturing full, beautiful rainbows such as this. Since then, such rainbows have been scarce. Mostly they appear over the highway as I'm driving down the mountain, and I don't have my camera with me.

You can (very) faintly see a secondary bow, mostly on the right-hand side. And you can make out supernumerary bows inside the primary (click on the image to enlarge).

Labels: April 2009, Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 9:56 PM by Angie Schultz

No Girls Allowed

This crap again:

The stereotype of computer scientists as geeks who memorize Star Trek lines and never leave the lab may be driving women away from the field, a new study suggests.

I suggest that the sort of women who are likely to be completely turned off by that aren't the sort of women who are likely to take up computers as a career anyway.

At our weekly staff meetings there's bound to be at least one Star Trek quote. This week it was, "Excuse me, where are the nuclear wessels?" Once it was "There are four lights!"

(For the record, we are not computer scientists, but real scientists -- except for the ones who are engineers.)

Me, my boss, and his boss occasionally play ¿Quién es más geeko? I frequently win. (See what I did there? I keep a file where I store the special characters necessary for the accents. If your computer doesn't have the fonts, they may look weird. Geeky and pedantic!)

Many years ago, two of my female scientific colleagues were asked to go to a school to show girls what a female scientist looked like. I read about it in the paper a few days later. Someone was saying how good this was, because "Girls have this image of a scientist as someone very nerdy, and out comes this woman in a nice dress." I thought, honey, if a girl is scared out of a scientific career by the idea that she won't get to wear a "nice dress," she doesn't belong there in the first place. You have to have more mental toughness than that, and more dedication.

(The amusing thing was...they did indeed wear their nice dresses. And their high heels. And the one asked to represent the physics department was an undergraduate in her first year, if I recall. She once refused to clean out a test tube because the acetone would ruin her nail job. She switched to the education department the next year.

I, with a Master's at the time, was not asked, possibly because I did not look nearly as good in a nice dress and high heels. Way to empower, ladies!)

But back to the article:

"When people think of computer science, the image that immediately pops into many of their minds is of the computer geek surrounded by such things as computer games, science-fiction memorabilia and junk food,"

Seriously? Scared off by junk food? Are they forcing the junk food down your throat? Does the science fiction memorabilia consist of Frank Frazetta's near-naked chicks? Really? You know, those are worth some money.

"That stereotype doesn't appeal to many women who don't like the portrait of masculinity that it evokes."

Let's pause here to gasp in wonder and amazement at the juxtaposition of the phrases "computer science", "science fiction", "video games", "junk food", and "portrait of masculinity". When you guys were being stuffed into your lockers by the jocks, I bet you never thought you'd be held up as a "portrait of masculinity", eh?

In the first experiment, about 40 male and female students entered a small classroom that either contained objects stereotypically associated with computer science, such as Star Trek posters, video game boxes and Coke cans...

Really? Coke cans?? I'd have probably been wondering how I could kipe some of the posters. (Hmm, 1977 original Burger King Luke Skywalker poster?? Nah, got one.)

Somewhere, there's an office where work halts while the other workers describe in detail their dates, their clothes, and the cyooot thing their kid did. I won't be working there. Wouldn't fit in.

Now, I really have to go. I gotta bake Christmas cookies tonight. (No, really.)

Posted 10:56 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Lickity-Split

Boats on Sugar Beach, North Kihei
Feb 2009

And that's how this week's FF was posted, lickity-split! (No, of course it is terribly late.)

(By the way, Mr. Boat Owner, the Google consensus is that the spelling is lickety-split.)

(You might need to click the picture to enlarge it and find out what all this lickity-split business is about.)

The lateness of the FF (as if any of my imaginary readers cares) is due partly to the untimely death of my old friend, the 19" Samsung monitor. I came home one day to find it cold and dark. I performed the flashlight test, in which you shine a flashlight in its face and see if anyone's still home, and it passed that. That is, its only problem was that its backlight was out.

This was Niles's monitor, which he was generously loaning me. He knew a guy in Houston who could fix it for $90, and it was probably worth fixing, because it was a good monitor. So when he went back to Houston after Thanksgiving he took it with him.

The original box wouldn't fit into his suitcase, so we spent a lot of time pulling boxes out of the closet, trying to find one that would fit. Then he carefully packed it to cushion it for the flight.

And then the TSA ruined it.

When he got home he found a giant scratch in the screen, probably from when they opened the box. His repair guy says it's not worth fixing now. I told him that he ought to file a claim for at least the difference between the repair and the cost of a replacement. But it sounds like he thinks it's not worth it. (I'd do it, on principle.)

That monitor cost Niles $850 in 2004. Today I bought a 24" Samsung for $250. Progress!

Tomorrow I begin the grim task of editing xorg.conf to accommodate the new monitor. Pray for me.

Labels: Feb 2009, Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 10:52 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: W-W-W-WIPEOUT!

Since last week's FF was AWOL, today's FF will be in fabulous QuadroVision!

These pictures were taken at Ho'okipa Beach Park in May of this year. They're hand-held shots using a 70-200mm zoom at 200mm, so they're not the sharpest pictures in the world.

However, I am now convinced I need a longer lens, so I may capture the stark terror of man meeting ocean at high speed.


Pictures almost as nice as mine here.

(This FF was delayed while I spent about fifty flippin' hours getting the image/text alignment right. There's still more space between the images than I want, but to hell with it. Interested/frustrated parties may read the six-year-old solution here. Look for the answer by "Birdman".)

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii, May 2009

Posted 10:04 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Krakatoa, West of Kihei

Run! The volcanos are revolting! Oh, wait, that joke doesn't work.

Sunset from Kihei, Maui, Feb 2009

Fortunately, neither do the volcanos. According to the USGS, the last time that end of Maui erupted was 385,000 years ago. (As opposed to 400 years for Haleakala.) I'm sure it's just lulling us into a false sense of security. You can't trust volcanos.

This picture was taken from the rocky, smelly, seaweedy beaches of North Kihei. Nice sunsets, though.

And now, thanks to the miracle of Google Maps, I can show you a street view of the location:

Ta da!

Cross S. Kihei Rd. (first commending your soul to God, because you're likely to get run over) and enter through the little gate. That's a public shore access.

Continue down the little path until you come to the knee-breaking descent onto the beach. Try not to fall into the canal.

Just look at that sky! Look at that gorgeous weather! It makes me want to move to Maui. Oh, wait... My point is, that's an unusually beautiful day, even for Maui. No haze, no vog, no cane smoke.

Such is my deep and abiding love for my two or three readers that I spent hours, I mean fricking hours, trying to embed that damned view. I finally had to steal the essential piece of the code from a better blogger (cough) Lileks(cough).

There's not much of Maui covered so far, although one of my co-workers said he saw the Google car upcountry. Soon, you won't need me to show you Maui (sniff). On second thought...the Google car didn't take that picture of the sunset.

UPDATE: No, there was not an embarrassing typo in the title. You didn't see that.

Labels: Feb 2009, Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 10:28 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Red Sky at Eve, Astronomers Grieve

Don't think there was much astronomy done that night. Nice sun pillar and crepuscular rays, though.

Sunset on Haleakala, May 2009

You can just see the peaks of the West Maui Mountains rising above the clouds.

That's the same sunset as this one, by the way.

You might like to see this APOD picture taken (by someone else, on another night) from the same vantage point.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 10:50 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Sea Stripes

Beach Stripes
North Kihei, Maui
May 2009

I always write these danged things late at night when I'm very tired and it's all I can do to churn out a photo.

So here's a rare morning view of Mai Poina Oe Iau beach in Kihei. I always say that I could take better photos if my knees would work (these stripes would look much cooler from a lower angle).

Sorry, that's all you get.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 10:00 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: An Embarrassment of Riches

One of the reasons that FF has been late/AWOL recently is that I now have 25 rolls of film developed and printed this year (and another half dozen sitting on the shelf, wating to be sent off). Another couple rolls and I'll have exceeded my Best. Year. Ever. (as measured in photographs taken), 1995.

So it's gotten a little tedious to pore through all the rolls, looking for something different. (I have lots of beach sunsets. I am tired of beach sunsets.)

Anyway, here is Iao Valley State Park.

Iao Valley State Park
May, 2009

The park has been on FF before (here, and here, and here). This is looking down from the main path into a little botanical garden. They must have been renovating it at the time, since it's so brown. The Iao Needle itself is far to the right (and far above) this view.

This was taken with the 17mm lens. I had better pictures taken that day, but they all required cropping, and I thought it was a shame not to use the full field of view. (I see that my previous photos of the Needle were not that great; I'll have to post one from this set, eventually).

You have to be really careful when you use this lens, or you'll get distortion. Sometimes it can't be helped, as here. For example, I think that palm tree on the right is actually upright.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 9:50 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Cloud Cap

Have you ever seen a cloudcap like this, or this? (Both Mt. Rainier there.) Ever wonder what they might look like from the mountain top?

Like this:

Beneath Haleakala's Cloud Cap
March 2009

My fair companion Tommy G was working with me that day. I don't remember what the sky was like when we arrived at the summit. We went in for a bit, came outside and...holy cow! Thin shells of cloud were flowing across the mountain top. Tommy, bless his heart, urged me to take pictures while he began our work.

This was the first time I wished I had a video camera. Still pictures really can't capture the beauty and wonder of these clouds.

After a few minutes it was gone, and the sky cleared completely. (Only to cloud up again later, and become very wet and eventually icy.)

I raised the blue and cyan saturation here. It looks much better, but I felt a little guilty until I pulled out the slide and found that it was really blue.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 7:47 PM by Angie Schultz

Fair to Middlin'

I am, by nature, a kind of a stick-in-the-mud. I want to go places and do things, but when the time comes to do them, I think it's just too much trouble and expense. Why should I change my comfortable routine just to go on an exciting vacation, huh? I wanna stay home.

This is where Niles always has to step in and insist, and I whine about it right up until the time we get back home, at which point I decide I had a terrific time and wanted to stay longer.

And that's why I didn't go to the Maui County Fair last year. "Oh, I'll get down there and I won't be able to find it; where do you park, anyway?; it'll be a lot of walking; I don't want to go on the rides by myself; what's the point?" And Niles was not around to make me go.

But I love county fairs. I have many, many fond memories of going to the fair with my grandparents in Indiana. And in Missouri, I actually won a blue ribbon for my brownies when I was about ten.

And this is Maui! A county fair on Maui! How cool is that??

So this time I decided to ask my friend and fellow stick-in-the-mud Tommy G to come with me. Tommy has lived on Maui for thirty years, and last went to the fair in 1988, so he figured it was time to go again.

I was going to take my camera, but decided at the last minute that it would be too dark to take hand-held pictures. Tommy brought a digital camera, so he will be today's photographer.

Photo by Tommy G

Tommy and I agreed that our main interest was in the agricultural exhibits, not in the rides and games. Tommy expressed a strong disinclination for the rides in particular. "There's only one cotter pin between you and DEATH!" he explained. I thought perhaps the Tilt-A-Whirl would be safe enough, or perhaps the six-foot-high roller coaster, but didn't press the point.

Below we see the Starship Enterprise, decomissioned and humiliated. (No, sadly, it wasn't really a Star Trek ride, or I would have defied the cotter pins to do their damnedest.) Next to it is "Pharaoh's Fury". The white circles are the spirits of cotter-pin victims, futiley warning people away. Either that or dust on Tommy's lens.

Photo by Tommy G

(What's funny about this is that Tommy is a keen motorcyclist, riding what is known in the vernacular as a "crotch rocket" -- I forget the exact type. He's also given to riding mountain bikes down actual mountains. He says the difference is that, on his bike, he is in charge. I didn't tell him that he only thinks he's in charge. Isaac Newton is actually in charge at all times.)

As agricultural exhibits go, the fair left much to be desired. Any county in Indiana, even the urban counties, would die of shame to put on a fair this lame. There were only about half a dozen cows (mostly from one ranch), no pigs, two or three horses, and three alpacas. Plus a bunch of rabbits, many chickens, one pheasant, and a chinchilla.

It was interesting to see the many varieties of chicken: Buff Orpingtons, Rhode Island Reds, Jersey Giants (which were indeed giant), and one rooster whose breed was given as "Cockzilla".

I assure you, no good will come of doing a Google search on "cockzilla".

After viewing the animals, we wandered over to the plant exhibit, taking the back way around the midway, a dark passage through which strange, pungent odors wafted.

Inside the hall o' plants, there were flowers:

Photo by Tommy G

Mostly gingers of various kinds there, with birds-of-paradise on the right.

And more flowers (orchids this time):

Photo by Tommy G

You know, those are designed to lure you in. "My, what pretty flow---AIEEE! OH MY GOD! HELP!! HEEEELP!!" But the tendrils bind you fast, exuding a substance which slowly dissolves your flesh. If you're lucky, a rescue team will arrive in a month or two, and put you out of your agony.

Note the volcano in the background. It had a river of orange "lava" running down the side, and I kind of remember it chanting things, but that might have been due to the effects of the pungent odors we walked through on the way over.

And, at last, fruits:

Photo by Tommy G

Try not to be frightened by the fruits on the upper right. The red things are rambutan (from a Malay word meaning "gelding"), and the things next to them are hideous bloated larvae from some species of flesh-eating insect. Sorry, my mistake, they're noni.

The fruits included a wide variety of passion fruit. You must be 18 to view this image:

Photo by Tommy G

The most numerous fruit represented were avocados. Tons of avocados. In stark contrast to Indiana, however, there was only one corn entry, and I'm sorry to say that it was not up to Midwestern standards. It won a blue ribbon. (On the other hand, the avocado section of Indiana fairs tends to be pretty sparse, too.)

As we were staring at the fruit, Tommy said, "You know, Maui's most important agricultural product is not represented here." And I replied, "Dude, I think we walked through the marijuana exhibit on the way over here. Didn't you smell the fumes?"

I was keen to see the Home Ec exhibits (cooking, sewing, decorating, etc) -- I wanted to know what kind of brownies won blue ribbons on Maui[1] -- but there were none. Instead there was a "Better Living" exhibit that turned out to be filled with purveyors of healing crystals, aromatherapy items, feng shui services, massage therapy, acupuncture, Verizon wireless, etc.

One of the joys of going to the fair is eating things that are bad for you. I looked forward to a bit of this. I was eager to sample again the dubious delights of the corn dog (Tommy: "Made with real dog!"), but we didn't see any.

In Hawaii, however, you don't just get the corn dog, the funnel cake, and the cotton candy. You also get: loco moco, musubi, poi mochi, pansit, braddah pops, chicken hekka, dry mein, chow fun, malasadas (dang, missed those too), and lau lau. (As given here.) If you want to know what half that stuff is, you'll have to google it, because I have no clue. I see that the Boy Scouts were selling pronto pups (same as corn dogs), but I didn't come across them.

So, that was the Maui County Fair. Exciting, eh? Can't wait 'til next year!

[1] This marijuana joke was made entirely inadvertantly. Please enjoy.

Labels: Hawaii

Posted 8:54 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Pining

Norfolk (or possibly Cook) pines from the Haleakala Hwy.

Maui Pines, March 2009

I think these are on the Haleakala Ranch. Kahului Bay is in the background.

(Says here those are Cook pines. Another pic of them at the link.)

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 6:12 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Hair-raising

Tripping through the photo archives for something neat, I came across this, and my hair stood on end (click on the image for maximum hair height):

Sunset on Haleakala, May, 2009

Then again, perhaps it was only static electricity.

P.S. Yes, I'm cheating on my Fridays again.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 7:35 PM by Angie Schultz

Threat Condition: Chocolate

This just in: Research company Mindlab International has issued a press release (printed in its entirety by lazy media outlets all over the UK), announcing its findings about "biscuit" injuries. Apparently fully 50% of Britons are such klutzes that they can't have a nice cuppa and a sitdown without wounding themselves:

More than half of all Britons have been injured by biscuits ranging from scalding from hot tea or coffee while dunking or breaking a tooth eating during a morning tea break, a survey has revealed.

Hmm, what about afternoon tea breaks? Anyway, the company ranked "biscuits" (which are not really biscuits, but cookies of some type, by their potential for DEATH[1], thus creating the Biscuit Injury Threat Evaluation (geddit?).

This study was commissioned by the makers of "Rocky", some sort of chocolate bar cookie thing. I wonder whether they were happy or dismayed to find that their own product ranked as the third most dangerous.

It found almost a third of adults said they had been splashed or scalded by hot drinks while dunking or trying to fish the remnants of a collapsed digestive.

All together now: ewwww! (Seriously, digestives are the shiznit, as the kids say nowadays, especially when covered with dark chocolate.)

More unusually, three per cent had poked themselves in the eye with a biscuit and seven per cent bitten by a pet or "other wild animal" trying to get their biscuit...

One man even ended up stuck in wet concrete after wading in to pick up a stray biscuit.

[Insert Michael Moore joke here.] What kind of a spaz do you have to be to poke yourself in the eye with a cookie? Unless it's one of those star-shaped Christmas cookies...naw, you're still a spaz.

Hey! If you took one of the super-deadly "custard creams" to a Tea Party, would you get arrested? Would Obama paint you as a "bitter cookie-clinger", and Maureen Dowd call you a racist? Let's find out! You go first.

While "researching" this story, I came across a reference to an Australian cookie called "Iced Vovos". Sounds like an occupational hazard of figure skaters. I strongly urge you NOT to do as I did, and do an image search for Iced Vovos, especially if you are packing a Y chromosome. Seriously. There are some things better left unknown.

Via Rand Simberg.


[1] Or, you know, an injury of some sort.

Labels: Too Much Time on My Hands

Posted 7:21 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: On Liberty Island

Liberty Island, 1975

A somewhat better picture taken at the same time is here.

Lileks has a post, with a video at the bottom. Click on the link for the larger version, if your bandwidth permits.

InstaUpdate: I think Lileks's server has buckled under the load. Already. Check back later. It's important.

Labels: Foto Friday, New York

Posted 6:10 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: April Fool!

Ha ha! You thought there wasn't going to be a foto today, didn't you? You probably thought it was flippin' Tuesday already, the 8th, and Friday was daaays ago. Shows how much you know.

No, it doesn't matter that it's September, this was taken on April 1st this year:

Sunset from North Kihei, April 1, 2009

I remember this sunset. I had loaded up the camera with cheap -- sniff -- consumer-grade Fuji Superia 400, because I wanted to take pictures of something too unimportant to blow good film on. Don't remember what that was, now. And then I went and shot the whole roll on this one sunset, which you must admit was pretty cool.

The striping effect is from shadows cast by clouds onto other clouds.

Ah, Kihei. Hot, muggy, smelly Kihei. I remember taking walks along the beach, trying hard not to twist my ankle on the coral, or step on a dead fish, or into a decaying pile of seaweed. And then going home to my sweaty little lair and listening to the neighbors scream. How I don't miss it.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 7:12 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Morning View

Morning View, July 2009

Here's the view on a morning where the mountains are free of cloud. This is somewhat rare.

I am expecting something like 11 rolls of film back in a few days, and there will be some non-View pictures in there. Soon I will be done unpacking (yes, still at it) and I can get out and take more exciting pictures. I used to go to the beach a couple times a week, at sunset, but I have not been out at all, anywhere, since moving. I have spent all of my free time unpacking. Almost done now.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 5:38 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Sedentary Sunset

I, like, had to lean forward in my chair to get this sunset. So exhausting.

Sunset from upcountry Maui, July, 2009

Tropical Whatsis Felicia turned out to be a big ball of nothin'. The wind did take a heavy toll on the avocados, but none were heaved through my windows, as I feared they'd be.

(This picture was taken weeks ago, and so has nothing to do with Felicia. I'm just giving you an update on the dreaded Great LaRouche Avocado Massacree, which was cancelled for lack of interest.)

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 8:46 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Fat Fruit

Avocados, Maui, July 2009

Today, fatty balls of nature's goodness. Tomorrow (well, Tuesday) deadly organic projectiles from HELL! We're expecting a tropical storm, and the avocados have me surrounded.

(On the other hand, if the power goes out and supplies can't get through and I run out of food, at least I'll be up to my ankles in guacamole!)

Long-time residents I've talked to are all extremely nonchalant about the oncoming doom. When Rita was bearing down on Houston in 2005, I couldn't look at the soap swirling down the bathtub drain without quivering. There's a hurricane in the tub! Flee! (This is true; you'll remember that Rita was three or four weeks after Katrina.)

By the way, I'm rather proud of this picture. I finally figured out what the focus ring was for. Hey, look! I can move this, and the avocados are in focus, but the background isn't! Neat! Most of my pictures are focused at infinity. I sometimes contemplate gluing the ring there.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 5:00 AM by Angie Schultz

Time Capsule

I'm supposed to be unpacking.

I am unpacking.

Specifically, I just unpacked a picture frame. My paternal grandfather made this frame out of walnut. It's a very fancy one, which swivels between two pillars. Now that I think of it, I can't imagine why you'd want it to do that, but that's how he made it.

It was wrapped in a small plastic garbage bag, then in newspaper -- a lot of newspaper -- then in a brown paper grocery bag, and hogtied with packing tape. So it was quite a struggle to free it.

When I got to the newspaper I was curious as to which paper it was. I don't remember seeing this frame recently. I didn't think it was out in Houston, nor did I take it to Australia. California, maybe.

Nope. It was the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from August of 1993. That's 16 years. This newspaper is old enough to drive. It's been 16 years since this frame has seen the light of day.

(Which is over half the frame's lifetime. Grandpa carved the date in the bottom of the base: December 1979.)

What was going on in August of '93? The headline reads, "Free Trade Accord Gets Back on Track." Just reading that is putting me to sleep. I can't read it through the tape; something about NAFTA.

Most of the front page is local stuff. One juicy local story: "160 Shots Fired in 10-Minute Chase." 100 rounds for the cops; 60 for the perps. There's also a section on the Great Flood of '93. And then there's "Tiring Pope Urges Ministry to Young" (that would be the failing John Paul II, who finally "tired" twelve years later).

Oh, here's the TV section. What's on TV? Murder, She Wrote is on Sunday at 7pm. Murphy Brown, Monday at 8. Egad, Full House, Roseanne, Coach, Seinfeld. Plus, Nick at Nite was still worth watching. Remember that?

Real estate! Housing developments springing up like mushrooms! In the town where my brother lives, new houses going for $77K. Nice looking ones, too.

Big ol' ad section for Levitz Furniture. "Since 1910". Went belly-up last year.

Ah, the comics. Calvin and Hobbes, Outland, and The Far Side. *Sniff* 1993, it was a very good year...

The Outland is a eulogy for photography, now that that newfangled "digital computer imagery" stuff that all the teeners are into has come along. My AE-1 begs to differ.

This has been the news from August 14, 1993. Next up, a gripping report on the status of my laundry. At this rate, I'll have to get a Twitter account.

Posted 10:06 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: More View for You

What's that I hear you say? "Let's see more of that great view, Angie!" Why, glad to oblige!

Sunset over Maalaea Bay, July, 2009

The island of Lanai is in the background. I had to go out into the road to get that one. I have a more spectacular sunset that I didn't have to get out of the chair to capture. I'll post that in a week or two.

When I was looking for a place to live I'd see places advertised as having a view, and thought, "View, Schmiew. I don't need no stinking view. I do want walls of my own: no sharing." But it's nice to have a view.

I had forgotten how very very much I missed living in the country. It's so quiet and peaceful. It reminds me of my grandmother's house. You could bathe in the silence in that place. (Grandma had a sweeping view of majestic...cornfields.)

The other night I was lying in bed and heard...footsteps. Very slow footsteps in the grass outside. Oh, no! Someone's prowling around! I waited for a moment, and then I heard, Phlphlphlphlp! It was the landlady's horse.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 6:40 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: A Room with a View

Doo doo doo, lookin' out my back door...

The View, July 2009

UPDATE: Oh, great. No sooner do I post my new view, than I wake up to find it gone! Someone has stolen my view!

And now a helicopter is buzzing the neighbors' house. Are the police on the case, or are view thieves using helicopters now?

(Actually, we're just having some fog this morning. Worst since I've been here. Don't know what the helicopter's about, though: that's just plain weird.)

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 4:17 AM by Angie Schultz

Weather Report

Instapundit has a round-up of weather reports from around the nation (says it's chilly in Knoxville). A friend visiting the Northeast says it's cold there.

Meanwhile, in Houston, it's in the high 90s (as one of Glenn's correspondents notes). It was 104 at the end of June.

Niles bought me a nice wireless weather station for the new home, but strangely enough, he doesn't want to hear about the weather...

Me: Overcast and 75 degrees at 2:30pm, with an overnight low of 56.
Niles: Shut. Up.

Hopefully Foto Friday will resume next Friday with fresh pics.

Posted 6:07 AM by Angie Schultz

A Lesson in Geography

Instapundit writes:

And here’s a report from Sunnyvale, California: “For several hours, the sidewalks around the intersection at Stevens Creek and Winchester boulevards were clogged with crowds..."

Except that the intersection of Stevens Creek and Winchester is in San Jose, not Sunnyvale. A Sunnyvale man is quoted at the top of the article, leading to Glenn's confusion.

I post this EXTREEEME trivia because
a) I am always nostalgic for Silicon Valley, and
b) I'm trying to stay awake for 45 more minutes.

I am still in the midst of moving. I am now safely lodged in the new home. I love it. For one thing, I am now safe from tsunamis, here on the volcano.

The mountain decided to herald my arrival with an earthquake. 3.5, I believe. No tsunamis are known to have resulted.

Posted 2:04 PM by Angie Schultz

Movin' On Up

Movin' on up
to the East Side
to a dee-luxe apartment
in the sky-yyy

That'd be me. I am indeed moving up, to the East side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky -- so deluxe it's not an apartment but a house. For the first time in nineteen years, I will not have to share walls with another person. It's out in the country. It's cool and quiet. It's closer to work. And it's got a view you won't believe.

Until then Foto Friday will be on hiatus, because I'm packing.

Posted 3:47 AM by Angie Schultz

Celebrity Non-Sighting: Lindsay Lohan

There were no celebrities sighted this week at the fashionable watering hole I frequent (the local Safeway). However, the young man who is my informant tells me that he was driving right behind Lindsay Lohan the other day.

Me: Was she sober?
Him: Don't know. She had on sunglasses.

She was driving a rented Mustang, he said.

Frankly, I couldn't pick Lohan out of a line-up if the other participants were Rosie O'Donnell, Mr. T, and Dick Cheney, so I don't know how he knew it was her behind those sunglasses. Still, I report, you decide.

Labels: Too Much Time on My Hands

Posted 10:34 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Rainbow Road Warrior

I got some 17mm rainbows still in the can(ister), but here's what we have today:

Rainbow over Haleakala Hwy
Pukalani, Maui, Sep. 2008

And it's a double, too!

You see that a lot here -- rainbows that you could almost reach out and touch. This one seemed to end just on the side of the road. We didn't have time to dig for gold.

This was taken through the window of a moving car, so you see motion blur on the right. The darkness outside the window is probably due mostly to polarization from the windshield.

No, I was not driving.

Last week's Foto Friday was canceled due to laziness.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 4:57 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Clouds

And now for a little something abstract:

Sunset clouds
May 2009

This was taken with the 17mm lens, pretty much directly overhead. I would have liked to get the horizon -- or better yet, the mountains -- in the shot, but you take what you get.

The Foto Fridays have been late because I'm usually too lazy to hook up the big monitor so I can edit the pictures for color. One of these days I'll have a desk -- rather than a card table which was supposed to be a kitchen table but is being used as a desk -- and the big monitor can stay up permanently.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 6:51 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Memorial

Vancouver Memorial
Kihei, Maui, Nov. 2008

Hmm, I suppose this should have gone next week, but I didn't think of it until it was too late. Oh well.

This is a memorial to George Vancouver, who visited Maui in the years 1792-1794. Why this rather handmade memorial was put up in (I believe) 1960, I don't know. The roundish thing in the center is a beehive-shaped plinth made of concrete and dark rocks, with a memorial inscription inscribed in the wet concrete with a finger, or possibly a stick. I keep meaning to write it down, but it's hard to read in some places. To either side of it are totem poles. They make a nice silhouette agains the sunset.

Here you can find a picture of one of the poles in broad daylight (scroll down a bit). I can never haul myself out of bed early enough to get morning shots.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 10:33 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Shadowplay

Sunset from N. Kihei, Maui, Nov. 2008

The only really interesting thing about this picture are the "feathers" at the bottom. That's the shadow of the spray as the little wave breaks against the beach. I was surprised I was able to capture that -- especially during what must have been a fairly long exposure, 1/30 second or so -- but I've seen it in a couple of images since, so maybe it's not that hard. Or maybe 1/30 of a second is not that long.

The other day I went out to Ho'okipa where the weather was beautiful and there were many surfers. I took some pictures through the telephoto lens, though it will be a while before I have them processed (I'm trying to cut back on my film habit). I was able to use 1/1000 second on many of them, but I figure there will still be motion blur. I was taking pictures of surfers doing that thing at the top of the wave where they fishtail the board and the spray goes flying in an artistic fashion. And each time I found myself trying to "help" the surfer to reach the top by pushing him with my camera. I suspect that doesn't work.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 7:00 PM by Angie Schultz

OMG! Celebrity Near-Sighting!

NEWS FLASH: Chris Noth was seen in my local Safeway today. I didn't see him, but the teenage checker told me about it. The lady bagging the groceries told me Brad Pitt had been in once, but I don't know how long ago that was.

If I had seen Noth, I bet I wouldn't have known him from Adam, but he'd be one of those people standing in the middle of ice cream aisle, blocking all progress while deciding between Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey. Damn Safeway's full of 'em.

I have no information on Noth's actual purchases. Forgot to ask. I told the checker that I preferred Jerry Orbach to Noth. Now that's how you know you're getting old, ladies.

Posted 3:51 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Do You Canoe?

I realized too late that this is a really lousy scan. I needed the film in a hurry so I took it too the drug store, where they scan it at about half the resolution they ought to. But I didn't have time to dig out a new picture.

Canoes on Maui, Mar, 2009

These canoes belong to the Maui Canoe Club. They look so dashing drawn up onto the beach that everytime I go by I think, I should get a picture of that. So when I got my new lens (this is taken with the 17mm lens) I made sure to get shots of them. I don't think they turned out well; I didn't capture the dashing. (I was testing out the lens, and was in a hurry.)

What you might not be able to see from the lousy scan is that the outriggers have little eagle heads on them. For cute! Er, I mean, dashing.

(You note the darkness at the right-hand corners? That's vignetting from -- I hope -- the polarizer. The lens is so wide that it sees the edges of the polarizer! I have to get a special slim polarizer for it, which cost a bundle. Sigh. More toys! Handy hint: pick a hobby where you never run out of things to buy. It's more fun that way.)

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 10:01 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Sandset

I so totally did not forget to post a foto this week; that was your imagination.

Sunset at Mai Poina Oe Iau Beach, Maui
Nov, 2008

That defocus in the clouds is your imagination, too.

I love the colors reflected in the sand. I keep trying to repeat that, and failing. It looks good to my eye, but the camera doesn't capture it.

This sunset is the same as this one.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 5:41 PM by Angie Schultz

Our Sophisticated European Brethren

The fellows at David's Medienkritik don't post very often these days, more's the pity, so I only drop in every once in a while. That's why I'm over a month late in noticing this: Obama-Fingers! Yes, delicious frozen fried chicken fingers, "mit Curry Dip". Complete with American flag and the Golden Gate Bridge looming mysteriously in the background.

It would be unfair to expect the Germans to be aware of our every cultural taboo (hell, I don't know them all). But tough: raaacists!

More cheerful is this ad for a Russian ice cream. Looks like they hired a Japanese artist, what with the shiny happy anime character. Babelfish says that the ad copy translates to "in all on the mouths dark in the white to go out of mind give". I think they're calling him a coconut. Remember that, Obama.

Took me a heck of a long time to get Babelfish to cough up a translation making even that much sense. Turns out those things that look like lower-case m's are actually lower-case t's. Them Russians is sneaky.

I'll try to have a better translation for you later in the week.

UPDATE: I have it on good authority that the translation reads:

"Everyone says: Dark in the white gives (and here the translation breaks down somewhat) coolness."

Of course, there's also the possibility that it says:

"Everyone says: Dark in the white is one crazy giver, man! So get your hands out now!"

Posted 9:31 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Williams Tower

Williams Tower
Houston, TX
Jan, 2009

Again, not the best picture in the world, but it's different -- not a boring old spectacular sunset or rainbow.

We went down to the Williams Tower on a weekend, when the parking's free. Unfortunately, a lot of other people had the same idea, and it was too crowded for good pictures. (That's a great skyscraper site in the link, by the way.) I wanted to get some black and white shots of the Tower and the Waterwall opposite it. But nothing doing.

Labels: Foto Friday, Texas

Posted 6:38 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Wide Angle

Choices, choices. Do I give you a crummy photo with my new lens? Or a good photo with my old lens? Or a good photo with my new lens, though those are kind of scarce?

This is what I mean by "crummy":

Sunset on Haleakala, looking East
Mar. 2009

It's crummy because there isn't anything spectacular in it. But my eye kept wandering back to it, so in it goes.

This is actually more ESE, to be terribly pedantic. To the right of center you can sort of see Mauna Kea, on the Big Island, wreathed by pinkish clouds (click for a larger image). On the far right there's a dark swelling which is Mauna Loa.

I got a new 17mm lens! I bought it for bagging rainbows, but most of the rainbows I've managed to capture with it so far have been distinctly unimpressive. The other day I did get a fantastic, glowing, full rainbow, but I haven't got the film developed yet.

I had 15 days to evaluate the lens, so I ran out and blasted away in random directions using cheapo film, shooting whatever was there, to make sure there weren't any hidden flaws. Then I took the film to one hour photo developers, so I could have it back quickly. (Usually I send it to Kansas.) This means that the five rolls of film I shot did not result in top-notch photos.

Super-wide field is a whole new world. You have to be more careful about metering, since the lens will capture large areas of the sky, which may be very differently lit than the center. You can see that in the upper corners of this image, where the sky overhead becomes much darker than the central subject. I don't think it would be a good lens to use with slide film, except in the middle of a bright day.

You also have to be careful around vertical structures, because they lean if they're not (vertically) centered in the lens (I've found this with the 28mm too, to a lesser extent). It can get tricky if your composition requires them to be off center.

The exposure business had me a little disappointed with the lens, since I shoot a lot of sunsets. The actual sunset is a smallish bright space surrounded by darkness. This is not helped by the fact that it's only an f/4 lens, so you have to have lots of light or a slow shutter speed or fast film.

But it does a pretty good job on those cloud formations. That part is going to be awesome.

By the way, when I say the lens is "new", I mean it's new to me; it was made in 1982. I have waited four months for one of these babies to come on the market (the right market, i.e. not eBay). So I am very jazzed about it.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 6:18 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Mirror, Mirror

This was just some random couple who wandered in front of me. They threw something into the pond for their dog to fetch, and destroyed the perfect mirrored surface. So I shot them! (With the camera.) I figure if they're going to get in the way, they may as well improve the picture. I also have a picture of them cuddling. That'll learn 'em.

Sunset, Waipuilani Beach Park
Maui, Nov. 2008

I've tried to redo this shot with a better sunset. But it requires low tide and low wind. Everytime I go out there it's blowing a gale.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 12:50 PM by Angie Schultz

Around the World in 80 Telescopes

Here's a fun thing : a live, 24-hour webcast from 80 observatories around the world. Starts in Hawaii at 5am Eastern (2am Pacific, 09:00 UT) on April 3 (11pm HST on April 2).

There's a schedule at the bottom of the page. It jumps around a lot geographically, not going strictly east to west. There are also two Antarctic telescopes involved. Keewwwl.

I only heard about this yesterday, or I would've posted earlier to give my vast readership more notice.

Wish I'd thought of that title.

Posted 5:55 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Sunset, on the Rocks, Twist of Orange

This isn't a very good picture (it's under-exposed), but thanks to the scaling, you can't tell!

Sunset at Mai Poina Oe Iau Beach, Maui
Nov., 2008

I love pictures where the sky reflects in the sand. I get this accidentally; every time I try to do it, it doesn't quite work out.

On the far right, a headland on Maui; to the left of that, the island of Lanai; just visible over on the far left, the island of Kahoolawe.

For ten years or so, Niles has had a Hawaii calendar to keep track of his appointments and so forth. Last year I sorted through the available selection to find a good one. No...no...sniff my pictures are better than these...no...whoa! One calendar had a picture of this very scene (on a different day), but it was a good picture, with the rocks gleaming gold in the sunset. Man, wish I could do that.

It now occurs to me that taking the picture while the sun is still up might help. Write that one down! (I usually end up taking more pictures after it has set, when the cloud colors are prettier, as here.)

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 8:05 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Surf Nazis Must Die!

One of WWII's more obscure skirmishes came when a group of specially-trained German windsurfing paratroopers were dropped by Japanese forces off the coast of Hawaii, as a prelude to the invasion of the islands.

It didn't go well.

Windsurfers at Ho'okipa, Maui
July 4, 2008

OK, no, that's just Ho'okipa on the Fourth of July. But they do look like they're attacking, don't they?

By the way, this was posted on Friday the 20th, and if you don't remember seeing it then, it must be because the Nazi windsurfing paratroopers have brainwashed you.

Make that Nazi windsurfing ninja paratroopers. Now we're cookin'!

By the way, Surf Nazis Must Die is the name of a real movie. It's allegedly not very good.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 3:32 PM by Angie Schultz

The Decline of Civilization, Part MMXXXVIII: What's Happenin'?

What's happenin', young barista, is that C.M. Kornbluth is looking more and more prescient with each passing year. This saddens me, because people who sagely cite Kornbluth tend to not know who the rubes are, if you get my drift.

And no, I do not want a locococamochafrakkincino.

Saaay, if I buy my beans at Costco, I won't have to deal with braindead Starbucks employees. Of course, Costco's the seventh circle of Hell, so there's a certain trade-off.

Posted 3:14 PM by Angie Schultz

Frostbite Falls, Mauisota

I just want to announce that I got frostbite last night.

I blame global warming.

That is all.

Posted 10:45 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Double Trouble

Rainbows over Pukalani, Maui
Dec. 2008

Gorgeous, gorgeous rainbows that morning. Was very tired. Tried to get photos anyway. Tripped in the weeds and fell on my face. I could hear the rainbows laughing. By the time I'd gotten into position, they'd faded.

As I drove away, they brightened again, and followed me halfway home, taunting me. Rainbows are evil.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 10:06 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Mt. RAY-nier

Watch out! Mt. Rainier has a death ray and it's not afraid to use it!

Mt. Rainier, Sep. 2005

(The clouds, see, look kinda like a ray. No? You don't think so? Well what do you know about it, anyway?)

The keen-eyed among will have noticed that this is not Maui! I thought you might like a break from all the tropical beauty. Also, this picture comes up in my screensaver rotation and I keep wondering why I haven't posted it.

Labels: Foto Friday, Washington

Posted 3:31 PM by Angie Schultz

PJF: RIP

Philip José Farmer has handed in his typewriter and gone to that big fantasy kingdom in the sky. He was 91, which was good innings, as the Brits say. If I'd known that, I'd have stopped hoping for him to continue with the Opar saga.

According to Wikipedia, Opar was a frequently-visited ancient city in the Tarzan novels. Since my acquaintance of Tarzan is more through movies than the novels (I need to rectify that), I had not known that.

I picked up the Opar books while in Oz, and found them good, rip-snortin' yarns in the old tradition. Maddeningly, Flight to Opar ends with Hadon and someone else (a woman, if I recall -- maybe a princess -- the books are back in Houston so I can't check) struggling over some mountain pass. Hanging from a cliff for 33 years. Man.

Well, Farmer took Burroughs's ideas and wrote new stories about them; perhaps someone else will take up the Opar saga, and get Hadon and the girl off that mountain.

I sure wish I had the first DAW editions, just for the cover art (Hadon and Flight). (The covers displayed here are for the Methuen editions I have.) I was thinking that those covers looked like the work of the fellow who did some of the covers for Lin Carter's Green Star series. That link says that By The Light of the Green Star and As the Green Star Rises had their covers done by Roy Krenkel. And, sure enough, he did the original DAW covers for the Opar books. (See here for Hadon and here for Flight.)

And, of course, he has a Wikipedia entry. The work of the seriously nerdy is made easy in the 21st century.

Posted 10:15 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Ahhhh...

This is a restful view, don't you think?

Sunset from Mai Poina Oe Iau Beach
Maui, November, 2008

In fact, it's so restful that I almost forgot to make a title for it.

If you Google around for the name of that beach, you get variously Mai Poina Oe Iau or Mai Poina Oe Lau, because in a san-serif font capital I and and lower-case L look alike. (They're different when I type them in Blogger's editor, but identical on the blog.)

But I'm pretty sure it should be (to be precise) Mai Poina 'Oe Ia'u, which means "Do not forget me." (As here, for example.)

But spelling is so unrestful.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 10:30 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Armed and Dangerous

Pedestrian crossing
Paia, Maui
July, 2008

No, I don't know. I suspect it's supposed to be paintball, but I can't be sure. This sign is outside the Paia Community Center. The day we were there, two cop cars were in the parking lot, not 30 feet away. So I'm assuming the police are aware of the situation (the sign was there the previous February, too).

Across the street is a sweet little Asian/Swiss Colony building that, at the time, I pegged as a church. It sits right on the ocean. I have a picture of it, but there's no indication as to what it really is. World's Cutest Armory, perhaps.

(Ah, it seems to be a Buddhist temple. Of course.)

Paia is a self-consciously funky little town full of laid-back surfing types and groovy artists. So you'd naturally want to go armed.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 10:17 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Power to the Polarizer!

This week: a paen to the power of the polarizer. The first photo shows a dramatic sunrise.

Sunrise on Haleakala, Polarization 1
December 2008

And now we rotate the polarizer 90 degrees, and get this:

Sunrise on Haleakala, Polarization 2
December 2008

These two pictures were taken seconds apart. I like the first one much better, but I admit the second one more closely resembles what I saw with my eye.

I particularly like the curly clouds in the upper left. In the second polarization you barely notice them; in the first they're dramatically different in color from the linear clouds. To my eye, using the first polarization, they were almost white, but the film doesn't capture this.

The actual sunrise is about to take place off to the right. It's not nearly so cool.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 10:20 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: On the Rocks

This is not the bestest picture in the world, but it isn't a rainbow OR a sunset, so it's different.

Rocks at Ho'okipa, Maui, July 4, 2008

If you can believe Wikipedia, Ho'okipa is one of the premier windsurfing sites in the world. There were windsurfers that day, and I have pictures, which I'll get to eventually. They're really not that great. The waves weren't doing much.

I like the colors in the image, especially the red dirt. The polarizer works surprisingly well on dirt.

I don't really like people in my pictures, and often people do not care at all to be photographed. So I tend to be kind of diffident, retreating behind a tree or something so as not to intrude, or to get an angle that will block out the people (although that's not always possible, as we see here, or here).

I've found that gives the pictures kind of a creepy look, as if there's something frightening about the subject (see, e.g., here, where the menace is undercut by the buildings looming in the background).

Anyhow, there's a suggestion of that here. For some reason that wooden fence scares me a little. Looks like it might be a good place for a suicide/murder, and subsequent haunting.

Of course the tourists gawking all over it detract from that mood. I'll try again, maybe on a day which is not a major holiday.

Or maybe, for full creepiness, it has to be in black and white.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 10:12 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: The Romance of Radar

What could equal the beauty of sunbeams illuminating a radar station?

UPDATE: See update at bottom.

Sunset with Radar, Haleakala
Nov. 2008

The thing on the right is a weather radar station, or so I'm told. What the thing on the left is, I don't know ("This End Up"?).

I was going to give you a completely different sunset (if you can imagine), but it required a lot of further "processing", so it'll have to wait. This picture is stunning as wallpaper for my big monitor at work, but it also shows I did just a tidge too much contrast fiddling to bring out the sunbeams. You can't really see it here, though.

It's not all sunsets around here; today I took pictures of the sunrise. Which, from a west-facing beach, is not all that exciting.

I measure the quality of my life in terms of rolls exposed. That is, the more rolls of film exposed, the better my life. 2008 weighed in at something like 16 or 17 (haven't sent it all off yet). This does not match the magic year of 1995 (34, I believe), but is much better than 2003 or 2004, when I had two Christmases on one roll.

I plan to keep Kodak and Fuji in business through 2009.

UPDATE 02/10/09: I have it on good authority that the thingy on the right which I was told was a radar station is actually a transmitter for the FAA. And the thingy on the left ("This End Up") is a GPS antenna.

Not changing the title though. "The Romance of FAA Transmitters" just doesn't soar, dammit.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii