25 December 2007

One machine to run them all

Taken 24 December 2007 at my desk to show off the 30″-inch Apple Cinema HD display and the Sony Trinitron Multiscan CPD-E500 display respectively displaying Mac OS X Leopard and Windows XP Home in VMware Fusion. KonicaMinolta Maxxum 7D.

29 June 2004

Synchronicity

Taken 11 April 2004 at my desk when I realized I had two instances of Microsoft Windows 98 running Microsoft ScanDisk. Fuji Fujifilm Fujicolor Superia X-Tra 800 in a Minolta Maxxum 700si.

30 September 2003

The yellow thing?

Taken 30 September 2003 in the parking lot in front of the main building at Washington Dulles International Airport. Fuji Fujifilm Fujicolor Superia X-Tra 800 in a Minolta Maxxum 700si. The used Egg Yolk Yellow 2002 Ford Focus I bought on the sixth. Waiting for a pair of international travelers to clear customs. I have deleted the grocery sack under my front bumper.

05 January 2003

Conrail Quality now serving the Norfolk Southern as a New Year’s snow falls

Taken 05 January 2003 at the yard near my house. Lexar Media 128 MB Compact Flash in a Minolta DiMAGE 7 with version 2.00u firmware upgrade. The camera reports for this frame a time of exposure of 1:51:23, the zoom lens set at 50.3mm, the shutter speed 1/180s, the aperture f8, and a setting of ISO 160 sensitivity. It was time to change the photograph on the home page, anyway, and a fortuitous snow helped me out. The caboose from the dispatch below remains at the ready, on the left.

31 March 2002

I so TOTALLY had to build this

Taken 27 March 2002 in my work area for LEGO® construction. Fuji Fujifilm Fujicolor Superia X-Tra 800 in a Minolta Maxxum 700si. Sometime last year, a member of the LEGO® Users Group WAMALUG, Kevin Loch, decided to build Metrorail cars. Because of the unusual manner of construction, his subway cars were somewhat fragile even after he shortened them to a non-prototypical length with only two pairs of doors per side. Rather than gratuituously suggest from the sidelines that he improve the structural integrity, and because I could see that he was not a frequent user of the transit system (Kevin had left out any underbody detail), I decided to see what I could do. Several purchases of sets in quadruplicate to obtain the necessary parts later, I had completed a rendition that was squeezable but only marginally less implosive-explosive. I was looking through a photo album for another reason (I wanted to find my photograph of non-revenue Norfolk Southern rolling stock for my planned all-Technic railroad car) when I came across a shot from 31 March 1996. I had been driving along Eisenhower Avenue past the Alexandria yard of WMATA, and the photograph showed what I took to be a disabled, single Metrorail car on a transport trailer. As I had recently been playing the DVD of Legally Blonde the thought came to mind that I so TOTALLY had to build this, and the little Ford Bronco lead vehicle as well. At the WAMALUG meeting, it made an impressive sight, although Kevin did challenge my use of hinge plates 1×4 in black for certain areas (which may or may not be fair, as inspection of photographs of his creations suggests he made the same choice) but I bought yet another set in quadruplicate and addressed that issue. I revised the rendition of the Ford Bronco, too, and now the trio sits atop some of my many Akro-Mils Storage Centers and may one day be a part of another train layout we display.

02 March 2002

Irrelevant cat syndrome strikes again

Taken 02 March 2002 at the house of mature relatives. Lexar Media 16 MB CompactFlash in a Minolta DiMAGE 7. The camera reports for this frame a time of exposure of 12:50:26, the zoom lens set at 18.7mm, the shutter speed 1/15s, the aperture f3.5, and a setting of ISO 200 sensitivity. A frequent visitor, today it found the view from the living room window endlessly fascinating.

23 December 2001

An asset to the Norfolk Southern still!

Taken 11 November 2001 at the yard near my house. Fuji Fujifilm Fujicolor Superia X-Tra 800 in a Minolta Maxxum 700si. How could I resist taking photographs of this particular Norfolk Southern asset? A red caboose still in use in the 21st century? It showed up a few weeks after September eleventh and has been here ever since. I was sufficiently excited by the simple presence of this type of non-revenue rolling stock that it took a WAMALUG member to point it out: the overpainting on the side covers the logo of the Norfolk and Western. That sure dates it. [Update: a few days after I posted this photograph, graffitists got to this equipment and defaced it.]

30 October 2001

There is a difference at AMC (so they say)

Taken 10 June 2001 at a new, large movie theater somewhere on the East Coast (with an address of 206 Swamp Fox Road). Fuji Fujifilm Fujicolor Superia X-Tra 800 in a Minolta Maxxum 700si. This is the kind of shot which shows what high-speed film can do for you. I had just finished seeing Best in Show for free and had reached the door, when I turned around and as far as I remember brought the camera to my eye and pressed the shutter release in one motion. Perhaps there was a little fiddling with the zoom ring for composition.

30 September 2001

The 1912 S and M Simplex, the last big chain drive car in America

Taken 30 August 2001 on my second floor. Fuji Fujifilm Fujicolor Super HQ 100 in a Minolta Maxxum 7. The camera reports for this frame a time of exposure at 10:48 p.m., aperture priority mode, 1/60 s, f8, 50 mm focal length in the (24 to 105) mm lens, no exposure compensation, flash, no flash compensation. I had been flipping through an encyclopedia of automobiles so thorough that it lists manufacturers who only made a few examples, yet so oblivious that it does not list the Zastava works. By placing the space seats in the position I did, I prevent minifigs from sitting in the car. A rubber band and micromotor pulley simulate the chain drive (just visible under the back fender) and I used the new 3 stud long gray pin from one of the Bionicle sets to mount the rear wheels.

11 September 2001

This view destroyed by terrorism 11 September 2001

Taken sometime in August 1979 from the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. Safeway 100 (a house brand film probably by 3M) in a Minolta srT-202. I was on vacation with brother, mother, and an aunt after my first year of college.

15 June 2001

Hard at work 14 years ago

Taken sometime in March or April of 1987, at my place of employment. Kodak VR-G 100 in an Olympus XA using the self-timer. It is a weekend day sometime after a passable barbecue in Orange, Virginia where I first heard the joke that contributes to the plot of the 2000 film Center Stage and sometime before the automotive tour I describe below. The personal computer was heady stuff around the office when I purchased it. A 4.77 MHz machine with the turbo button pressed! I would soon have problems running the WordPerfect 4.2 word processing software (from Satellite Software) in the turbo mode, though, and with the hard drive as well. I would do a low-level format and replace the drive and controller, but nothing would be solved. I do still have the telephone and printer (its cut sheet feeder is just visible) but only supervisors get corner offices these days. How come these photographs of me are so old? I don’t take so many of myself anymore and I don’t have model releases for those photographs that include someone else.

18 March 2001

Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

Taken 02 May 1987, at an overlook along the road in the park. Fuji Fujifilm Fujicolor Super HR 200 in a Minolta srT-202. Here, we discovered that Arizona remains on Mountain Standard Time year-round. It was day eight of an automotive tour of the United States I was taking. That’s a Ford wristwatch I got for test driving the new Taurus that I am wearing. I still have the L. L. Bean Gore-Tex® fabric jacket.

06 March 2001

My tax dollars at work

Taken 04 February 2001 through the window next to my front door. Fuji Fujifilm Fujicolor Super HQ 100 in a Minolta Maxxum 7. The camera reports for this frame a time of exposure at 5:12 p.m., program mode, 1/45 s, f3.5, 28 mm focal length in the (24 to 105) mm lens, no exposure compensation, no flash. The Alexandria (Virginia) Police Department have used this particular cruiser scheme for about 7 years, I think. Equipment-wise, they are distinctive in the area for the blue lights on the front at the bumper. The swoopy light bar seems of recent vintage. The department maintains a month’s worth of daily crime reports at their report page, so I just missed the opportunity to learn what this visit was in response to.

24 February 2001

Mid-life crisis? Not me!

Taken 28 December 2000 at the 2000 Washington Auto Show. Fuji Fujifilm Fujicolor Superia X-Tra 800 in a Minolta Maxxum 700si (built-in flash). When I got the chance to sit behind the wheel of this 2001 Audi S4 Avant, I felt right at home. I did not have any trouble getting my hiking boot past the brake pedal to hit the accelerator like I did in the Volkswagen Passat on the upper level. Of course, I then realized, the Passat had an automatic transmission and with a (six-speed) manual transmission, the pedals in the Audi are small. (Both my cars have had manual transmissions. I have driven cars with automatic transmissions only infrequently.) The resemblance of the S4 to the Passat is very apparent, but check it out—only the Audi offers a garage door opener built right into the sun visor. At this trim level, though, there is no alternative to leather seating. I would have to decide what is important to me. Should I buy a station wagon just for the wiper in the rear window? Mature relatives would probably not enjoy the legroom in the back. I have repaired my current vehicle, so there is no rush.

12 February 2001

Uh, that’s me on the left

Taken 03 May 1991 at the Mercury Seven Foundation 30th Anniversary of the Flight of Alan Shepard as the First American in Space , a fundraising dinner held in the ballroom at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Tickets were $150. Numerous members of the cast of Star Trek The Next Generation were there, along with creator Gene Roddenberry. I took along my Olympus XA and this is one of the results from that evening. A year earlier, Jennifer Hetrick had played the character Vash in the Captain’s Holiday episode of Star Trek The Next Generation and just the previous month had appeared in the Qpid episode. She would later reprise the character on Star Trek Deep Space Nine. She has also been on The X-Files.

I had to use my flatbed scanner to scan a print, as my transparency scanner was inadequate to deal with the harsh flash on the two faces. Hetrick's dress is really blue. In preparing this page, I found another fellow with a photograph of himself with Jennifer Hetrick.

06 February 2001

I make no promises as to the quality of this web space

Taken 18 June 1999 at the VA-233 overpass leading to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. Fuji Fujifilm Fujicolor Superia 800 in a Minolta Maxxum 7000i. Conrail and its promise of quality are no more, of course, in view of the purchase and dismemberment of the railroad between CSX and Norfolk Southern.