This Old Blog

While perusing Kirk Tuck's blog I was reminded of the serious red dot issue with the E-PL2. I offer the following two photographs I took in Boston with my E-P2 (sorry, no E-PL2) that don't have the Red Dots of Death. When I traveled to Boston the week of 3 April I took the older E-P2 with me along with a motley bag of lenses to play with. While I didn't post everything I took while in Boston that week, I did happen to post two images that should have created red dots, but didn't. E-P2, M.Zuiko 14-42mm, 14mm, f/5, 1/1600s, ISO 400 The image above was taken with the kit lens on the last day I was attending the SIW, early in the morning. The image below was taken in the early afternoon on the Sunday I arrived in Boston with a 30-year-old OM film lens. You'll note typical lens flair and starring, but not the Red Dots of Death. You'll have to take my word for it, but on those photos I didn't post that also contained flairs such as these, they didn'...

It's the end of my stay in Boston. I've absorbed about all I can stand at the SIW before my head explodes. I've packed so I can get up at 4am, get to Logan by 5, and board my 7am flight that lands in Orlando at 10. I played the tourist one more time and took a few more snapshots around Boston. Of all the ones I've taken while in Boston, this one of the Vespa is probably my favorite. When I first spotted the Vespa I had to stop for a moment and consider why the owner had done what they'd done. The sign has a horizontal double-ended arrow that explicitly points to the right and left, but not in the center. Did the Vespa owner interpret the arrow to mean that the center of the sidewalk right behind the sign post was the only proper area to park the Vespa? Or maybe the owner thought their Vespa was so small that no-one would bother with it. If I were the owner of the tow-truck who showed up to tow it, I'd hang it from the end of my crane like a dangling Chris...

I didn't go out for something to eat until fairly late, around 8:30pm. I took the E-P2 plus the Sigma 30mm along with me, and that was a mistake. Rather than go and get a bite, then do some night photography, I did the night photography first. By the time I was done with the little bit of photography I did, it was past nine and just about everybody was closed. Except for a local McDonald's. So I got my usual chicken sandwich (everybody makes the same chicken sandwich, no matter what). And then, on the way back, took a few more photos. Everything was taken in manual mode, ISO 400, f/2 or wider, with a bit of bracketing thrown in for good measure.

After spending the last two days somehow convinced I was living one day in the future, it's good to be back, temporally speaking, with the rest of the World. And the World rewarded me in Boston by pushing out the rain and delivering a rather sunny day. Cold and windy, but still, sunny. I delivered my presentation at the SIW this morning. Twice. In two different venues. I guess what I had to say was considered of interest. Before each presentation, I watched the room fill with folks. I then stood up and, with 19 slides and 25 minutes I gave a fast-paced jam-packed delivery, trying not to just read the slides but actually say something useful. At the end I'd get a few questions, polite applause, and then a number of folks who filed in would file right back out. Modeling and simulation folks make for an interesting crowd. At least they were polite and didn't throw things. With the rainy weather gone, the skies were partly cloudy and delivered yet another kind of light to...

You're looking at Rowes Wharf, one of the pricier locations in Boston on the harbor. I know of this place because this is where Breakaway Solutions was once located. I was hired by BS for 87 days in January 2000, right when the Dot-com bubble was starting to burst. I'd been working for SAIC as a software and systems engineer on the JSIMS program for over a year. SAIC was a sub to TRW, who was the lead integrator.  I'd gotten pretty burned out working on JSIMS. JSIMS had turned into a death march, with 16 hour days and six day weeks before I left. Many in the government at the time I was ready to leave were looking to kill JSIMS, and SAIC didn't appear too keen on finding a new spot for us on another program. It really hurt. I'd been given a merit award by SAIC the middle of 1999 for the work I'd done up to that point, but by December 1999 the whole thing had turned into a huge political train wreck that had already gone over the cliff. It just hadn'...

The last of the snow. The rain that threatened to fall on Boston kept its promise. It wasn't a torrential Florida rain, but it was cold and wet enough to be miserable. And did I mention it was cold enough? Right on the edge of the harbor was this little pile of dirty snow, a leftover from the last big snowstorm to come blowing through weeks before. This pile, and one other about 20 feet away, were hanging on in defiance of the 50 degree weather. Not far from the lingering snow was this bronze of leaping dolphins. The bronze was exquisite. I concentrated on picking views that appealed to me. On the way back to the hotel at the end of the first day, it started to rain - again. And of course, I had to wait for every crosswalk. Good thing, as at one of the intersections a couple of Boston's fire trucks came by and turned down the street at the intersection I was attempting to cross. I would have loved to have stayed around and taken a few more photos of the trucks, but ...

Caught a Delta flight out of OIA to Boston so I could be here bright and early Monday morning for the Spring Simulation Interoperability Workshop being held at the Marriott Long Wharf Hotel by SISO, the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization. I came to present a paper, and while I was at it, see if I could photography some of Boston. The hotel I'm staying at is about a half mile from the Marriott. I'm going to walk back and forth and carry a camera in case I see something. When I got to Boston this afternoon I went out walking with the E-P2, the 17mm and the OM 50mm. I photographed a fair amount, some of which I liked. The light was incredible in Boston, helped by the fact that by the time I checked in and hit the streets with my camera it was the golden hour. The section of Boston I walked around was absolutely magnificent in the afternoon light. I wasn't the only one with a camera. I spotted lots of Canon and Nikon DSLRs, especially with twenty-something...