This Old Blog

Two weeks ago gas was $1.91 at this gas station. Today when I filled up the price was back up 37¢. Even diesel hasn't risen this much, only 15¢ during the same period. Yeah, those speculator-driven free markets are so wonderful.

Seen while driving down Universal Blvd , stopped at the light at the intersection with Sand Lake. It's good to know you can get unlimited light bulbs with your zombie survival gear. You can always be guaranteed your lights will stay lit when the zombies come for your brains. Makes it easier to target the zombies before they get you. And always remember: Rule #2 .

Lucy and my Samsung The blogging cat Food and thoughts Alone with themselves Panasonic GX1 with 20mm f/1.7 at f/1.8. Post processed in LR 5.2 and Silver Efex Pro 2.

Step 1: Get everybody lined up Step 2: Decouple the nose from the mooring mast Step 3: Pull 'er waaaayyyyy back Step 4; Rev up the engines, let 'er go, and let 'er fly Finding a sufficiently large blimp, plenty of helium, a well trained staff, and airport facilities to do all this is left as an exercise for the reader. NOTE: This is BBC's science team in Orlando. More information here: http://www.blimpinfo.com/uncategorized/bbc-announces-cloud-lab/

Gutting and replacing the interior I first wrote about this former Albertsons in January 2009 . By the time I photographed it it ' d been closed for six months, since September 2008. Sometime during early summer 2013 a construction crew showed up to begin a transformation into a new Publix. In my January 2009 post I'd documented that Publix had purchased a number of the Albertons stores. I had no idea it would take Publix this long to put this particular purchase to use. By the time this store opens later this year it will have been five years since it closed, which is a rather long time for such prime property to have been idle. Marketplace is in the Dr Phillips/Bay Hills area, with Windermere and Isleworth (think Tiger Woods) right close by, so this isn't a particularly depressed area. It shows just how deep and broad this Great Recession has been. It will also be interesting to see how many new jobs this store provides. Groceries are labor-intensive, requirin...

Dr Phillips Art Center construction Dr Phillips Art Center construction Hotel construction near Universal Studios, Turkey Lake Road I've been running around like crazy today in preparation for a trip starting next Monday. One of my multitudinous errands was to take the Prius in for one of its 5,000 mile maintenance checks. I dropped it off and then went back later in the day to pick it up. On the way back from picking up the Prius I stopped off at several major construction sites along the way home that have been in operation for some time in Orlando. When I say for some time, I'm talking about a year or longer. These aren't the only sites; many sites are operating at least six/days week, and the Dr Phillips Art Center has been running sever days/week. All of this ongoing construction would seem to indicate the start of an economic expansion cycle here in Orlando. Spiffy McDonald's, West Sand Lake Road and Turkey Lake Road One of life's little...

A Tina Fey moment reviewing photos Today my youngest and her SO had lunch with us at Bikkuri Sushi on East Colonial. It's been a few years since the last time we were there (my wife, my daughter, and I), which if memory serves was Mother's Day 2011 . It's still upstairs, which means I have to tramp up two flights to get to the second floor. The knees didn't seem to mind. This is the second consecutive weekend I've seen my youngest. It was last weekend that I drove up to deliver an antique chest-of-drawers. She and her SO were down in Orlando to decompress. Both of them had just completed a summer semester; summer semesters are always compressed, and my youngest in particular had taken an advanced undergraduate math class (she's studying to become a nutritionist). We would have had an early late lunch, but traffic on I-4 is, as always, a mess, and my youngest still hasn't developed a sense of direction or timing. But I love her regardless....

Another Taco Tuesday at Tijuana Flats. My wife and my GX1 were with me. It's a cheap place to eat out when you're tired from a long day at work and don't want to cook. Two loaded chicken tacos, chips, and an endless diet Coke for five bucks. What's not to like? I got back into the black and white mood this evening, inspired by " Southwestern Russia with a Leica Monochrom and 35 Lux by Daniel Zvereff " on Steve Huff's blog. I was taken with both the photography and the story that goes with the photos. Try to pixel peep the photos, and you'll be disappointed by the lack of "cutting" sharpness. Stand back and look at them, and I find I'm overwhelmed by them. What they might lack in technical sharpness them more than make up in their emotional edge. My photos aren't anything like his work. For one thing even though the 20mm was opened up to f/2, it doesn't have the shallow depth of field his 35mm has. While I recognize an...

I've been hearing about random acts of violence since I was a kid; that's over a half century for me. Later some "comedian" came up with "random acts of kindness", later followed by "random acts of art" until the meme was "random acts of [fill_in_the_blank]." For me it's turning into random acts of photography, for no more reason than the mood strikes me at that particular moment. Shapes, colors, textures, design, it can all come together at the most improbable moment. Which is why I carry a real camera at all times, even though I supposedly have a decent camera in my Galaxy S4. While the Galaxy S4's camera is indeed much better than the camera in my former HTC myTouch 4G, it's still a crappy camera for all but emergency situations. Nothing beats having a regular camera (E-1, GX1, NEX 5N, E-M5...) for the ability to hold it assuredly with one hand, shutter release comfortably under the forefinger of the holding hand. In th...

Rain or shine (and a lot more rain than shine due to a tropical storm out in the Gulf and headed our way), the Dr. Phillips Art Center continues to inexorably rise above the skyline and the elevated 408 expressway. I stopped by on the way home, parked, and walked about in the mist with the GX1 and 20mm lens. I'm in that mode where I use only one camera and one lens, and right now it's the GX1. They're getting ready to add flying extensions to the zig-zag roof they've been working on since late last year. It will be interesting to see how it looks when it's finally attached. I'm kind of curious how the fly structures will be balanced. I can only imagine what the structural loads must be in a hurricane. This season's first tropical storm, Andrea, throwing wind and rain this far east while it still churns to the west of us in the Gulf, is a gentle reminder of the things to come later this year. I have a feeling we're in for a wetter hurricane season th...

Personal favorite BBQ eatery I took the time off this Memorial Day weekend to not do much of anything when measured against the efforts of others. I didn't go shop at any sales (although I drove my wife over to return some merchandise at a mall), I didn't go to any special holiday activities (although there were plenty), I even stayed away from anything work related (I did not once check my work email). I spent the last three days doing nothing except exercising downtime, which allowed me to clear my mind and find a calmer spot in the universe. And along the way, I ate BBQ not once, but two days in succession, something of a guilty pleasure for me. Today was probably the most active day of the three-day weekend. My wife had some items to return to a Vera Bradley outlet store at the Premium Outlet Mall. The only reason she shops there is the occasional 60% off sales that crop up. Our plan today was very simple; drive her over, drop her off, and then get out of the mall ...

"Classic style" Burger King, John Young Parkway I have been living in interesting times for the past few weeks. I'll get into more details in a later post, but suffice it to say I'm no longer in Kansas, at least career-wise. And so I've been working quietly but extensively in the background, coming up with a plan for what to do next with the rest of my life. Today I went out on a shutter therapy break, using an Olympus E-PL2 and the f/8 15mm body cap lens. I'm still enamored with the dramatic tone art filter, which is what I set the E-PL2 to use. I also turned off autofocus (it's certainly not needed) and turned off "autochimp mode" by turning REC VIEW off in the menu (Menu -> Wrench (or Spanner for you Brits) -> REC VIEW and then turn down the time to briefly display until it's zero). With all of that the E-PL2 executes as quickly as a film camera. It becomes a true point-and-shoot but with a nice big sensor. Most of the photos...

Technical Sony NEX-5N with Sigma 2.8/19mm. Post in LR 4 and Color Efex 4.

Saturday morning started way too early for me. My Saturdays are sacrosanct; I consider it, along with Sunday, to be my days of rest. But my wife had an early morning MRI appointment at Florida Hospital. So I woke us both up while it was still dark, even for daylight savings time, and drove us both to the appointment. The MRI waiting room was done up in classic Florida Hospital tans and browns. I suppose they carried out some sort of study and decided this had a calming effect on people waiting in their waiting rooms. Or maybe it was picked because it's the cheapest. Regardless, I got to sit for nearly two hours while they ran all the tests on my wife. I'd brought my Nexus 7 tablet with me, and settled down reading my Analog and Asimov science fiction magazines via the Nook app. In the background a large flat panel TV was playing episode after episode (no commercial interruptions!) of Law and Order, from the seasons with Jerry Orbach as Det. Lennie Briscoe. It's kind of...