Mon 19 Dec 2005
Mark Clawson pressed the shutter on this one today:
And here’s my picture of Mark and Kristi:
My assistant Mark and I worked in an office building near Portland’s John’s Landing neighborhood. We shot portraits and headshots for CTC Consulting Inc., a Portland based consulting firm.
I rented a Profoto D4 Generator and 3 Profoto strobe heads for the job.
Sun 18 Dec 2005
Sun 18 Dec 2005
After Jim Campbell’s reading at Powells last Thursday a bunch of us gathered at The Rose and Raindrop for beer and conversation. Jim and my brother Sam are friends from their college days.
Jim, second from the right, refused to sign our copy of his recently published non-fiction book, The Final Frontiersman, until he’d had a couple pints.
Jim starts the book with two interesting quotes:
“It is not on any map. True Places never are.” -Herman Melville, Moby Dick
“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.” -Leo Tolstoy, Family Happiness
I look forward to reading Jim’s book.
Sun 18 Dec 2005
Click here and see if California owes you money. If you’ve ever lived there I highly suggest the click. Turns out I’m owed 60 bills and both my brothers somewhere around 75 each.
This is the email my wife Michelle sent out to our family members last week:
All,
Some of you don’t get emails from me very often, but I felt compelled to
inform as many people as possible of something that may be of benefit to you
or someone you know. Some of you may already be familiar with this.
Just for giggles the other day I decided to check a website where one can
search for unclaimed property that may belong to them and is currently being
held in some State treasury account. This is the link:
http://www.unclaimed.org/mainframe.asp?VisitorType=owner/
It’s the website for the National Association of Unclaimed Property
Administrators, and unlike some sites it’s totally free to do a search and
you can search all 50 states very easily. Unfortunately I didn’t find any
unclaimed money for myself in any of the 5 states I have at one time or
another called home, but I did find money belonging to my: father, husband,
grandmother, niece, two brothers in law (Sam & Chis), and father in law.
Now, before you go thinking that it might be odd to check on other people in
this respect, those of you who know me, know I’m one of the chintziest
people on the planet and the idea that the government is holding on to money
that rightfully belongs to somebody else gives me the hives. So, in the
spirit of giving, I need to tell you to go get your money!! The claim
process seems to be pretty easy as well, fill out a form and mail it into
the appropriate state treasurer or controller’s office. All the information
is on the website.
Be careful also, because there apparently are people out there that charge
you for finding your money. Don’t pay anybody to find something you can find
for free.
Good luck and Happy Holidays!
- Michelle
Mon 12 Dec 2005
Great skiing was had this weekend during the extended temperature inversion here. Saturday on the typically crowded south side we saw 4 skiers from Olympia, Washington and two climbers from Aloah, Oregon.
Saturday we climbed above the hogsback and Sunday we skied White River canyon. The warm temperatures on the mountain made all but the deepest sastrugi skiable this weekend.
Saturday pictures:
Sunday pictures I shot on Ben McKinley’s digi camera except for the one of the guy with the green shirt and purple headband:
Thu 8 Dec 2005
Tue 6 Dec 2005
Listening to vinyl on a turntable is fun. Some say even quaint. At the same time it’s a pain in the ass having to flip the record every 20 minutes or so. Not to mention the inevitable scratch or warp that sends you scurrying across the room to adjust the stylus. I’ve been meaning to experiment with digitizing some of my vinyl for a long time. This is the first record I decided to experiment with:
This 2 record live album was a seminal listening experience in my youth. The record is more ‘new wave’ than punk really and still a lot of fun. Last I checked Amazon a ‘very good’ copy fetches $70. Whoa.
Last night I patched our turntable directly to a G5 iMac with Griffin’s iMic cable and software. The results were disappointing though it was great listening to Urgh! A Music War for the first time in how many years?!
Without a pre-amp or receiver the configuration didn’t seem to do a very good job cutting out an annoying low-end hum. There is an “RIAA EQ” function that is supposed to serve as some sort of pre-amplification but the results this first time around were just o.k.
I read this helpful tip yesterday, “May I suggest that you connect the turntable earth wire to the iMic RCA plug, as leaving this connection float may cause that nasty 50 Hz test tone.” The “50 Hz test tone” might be the annoying low end hum caught on my recordings? How cool if that’s the fix! Any audiophiles willing to translate?
Next time around I will first try connecting the earth wire and if the hum’s still there I will run the turntable through a receiver.
Sun 4 Dec 2005
When you think of light perfectly fluffy powder you think of Utah, Alaska, Wyoming, Colorado and even New Mexico. Seldom do you think of Mt. Hood, Oregon and lucky for us today was a seldom kind of day.
Thanks for letting me snap your pictures Lynn & Laura. You two tore it up today!
Sun 4 Dec 2005
This is one of favorite breakfasts. Egg in a hole. A college friend from Little Compton, Rhode Island introduced me to it. I wonder if it’s an east coast thing?