Last night on the way home from the Pewaukee fireworks display, I was remarking that I used to hate such outings. You’d have to go hours early to get a spot. That spot would be a mosquito breeding ground. You’d be elbow to elbow with 5,000 of your closest friends and neighbors–all of whom would be drunk/crying or otherwise super annoying. You’d get sunburned. Concessions–if there were any–would be far away, at the end of a long line, and cost you triple what they’d cost anywhere else. All this for a ten minute fireworks display. Then you get to battle bumper to bumper traffic for an hour on the two mile journey home.

No thanks. At least that’s what I’d been increasingly saying in my late 30s.

But last year and this year were different. We’ve been going to Pewaukee lake, and the experience is well worth it. Strategically camped on the lake side of west Wisconsin avenue, we had ready access to beer from Seester’s Cantina, ice cream from the Chocolate Factory, and even a takeout dinner from Park Avenue Pizza. There was live music, a nice beach to enjoy, and fun strolls up and down the street if anyone got bored.

Plus, the fireworks were good! Photos courtesy of moi and some helpful tips from Lifehacker.

The only bummer about last night was that on our way home we hit Waukesha fireworks traffic and got rear ended by some guy in a pickup truck. And the Subaru Forester is less than a month old! Grr.

Anyway, we’ll likely hit Pewaukee next year for the 4th. See you there!

Tags: 2008, fireworks, independenceday, july4, pewaukee, seester's | No Comments »

Some people will insist that Independence Day in the United States is an occasion ill befitting a partisan political rant. To those people I say: Screw you. Read another blog.

With that out of the way, let us consider the sad fact that the American right has effectively co-opted patriotism. Not only have they convinced themselves–and the media– that they are the most patriotic Americans alive, they have convinced many lefties as well! Many’s the time when I have seen left-leaning Americans shy away from expressions of patriotism simply because they believe such expressions connote the kind of jingoistic right-wing craziness that makes them want to vomit.

To those Americans–my fellow liberals and Democrats–I remind you that America is ours, too.

William Lloyd Garrison is ours.

Frederick Douglass is ours.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is ours.

Martin Luther King is ours.

John F. Kennedy is ours.

Barack Obama is ours, too.

So, let us give thanks for the benefits that these and other patriotic Americans have given us.

If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a forty-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights- you can thank liberals. if your food is not poisoned and your water is drinkable - you can thank liberals. If your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family - you can thank liberals. If our rivers are getting cleaner and our air isn’t black with pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still green - you can thank liberals. If people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone has the right to vote; if couples fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally begun to transcend a segregated society - you can thank liberals. Progressive innovations like those and so many others were achieved by long, difficult struggles against entrenched power. What defined conservatism, and conservatives, was their opposition to everyone of those advances. (Joe Conason)

Finally, it is with all this in mind that I wish you a heartfelt and happy Independence Day here in the greatest nation on earth.

Tags: independenceday, july4, liberal, obama, patriotism, Politics | No Comments »

Toilet |’toilit|
noun
2 [in sing.] The process of washing oneself, dressing and attending to one’s appearance: Her toilet completed, she finally went back downstairs.
* [as adj.] Denoting articles used in this process: a bathroom cabinet stocked with toilet articles.

Speaking of lists, welcome to my bathroom. Here’s a list of noteworthy products I use in it:

• Paul Mitchell Tea Tree Shampoo. Minty.
• Mitchum unscented roll-on anti-perspirant. As far as I know, there is no stronger antiperspirant around. Plus, this unscented one doesn’t compete with my aftershaves and colognes–where I’d rather my scents actually came from.
• American Crew fiber molding cream. I don’t have a lot of hair, but except for when it’s really short I need something to comb into it for manageability. (You cannot call such things “product,” however. If you do are definitely metro.) This one has medium hold, no shine, and no scent.
• Wahl electric clipper. For trimming down body hair.
• Cool Mint Listerine. There’s nothing else like it: an in-your-face blast of bracingly minty antiseptic. Not for wimps.
• Colgate toothpaste. That’s paste, not gel. The standup tube is good for one-handed use, too.
• Merkur classic safety razor. You can’t beat this kind of shaving with a stick–and definitely not with your seventeen-bladed, vibrating, nuclear, Mach 27 razors. Try not to weep when I tell you that the replacement blades are about 60 cents each.
• Crabtree & Evelyn best badger brush. You cannot beat the lather you get from a badger brush and high quality shaving cream. This is a pretty decent brush, too, considering the bargain price.
• Crabtree & Evelyn Nomad after shave balm. I give it a B for soothing and a B for scent. I sometimes hesitate to use after shaves in general though, because they may compete with my cologne.
• Feather high stainless platinum double-edged razor blades. My face is not tough, so it surprises even me that the blades I like best are also the sharpest ones there are.
• Taylor of Old Bond Street Eton College shaving cream. I love Taylor’s shaving cream, and the Eton College is my favorite scent.
• The Body Shop men’s shaving cream. It’s rare to find decent shaving cream at the mall–but I really like this stuff. Gives a good lather and smells reminiscent of an old-time barber shop.
• Taylor of Old Bond Street Eton College cologne. This scent is really me. I sometimes experiment with more citrusy ones in warm weather, but I always come back to Eton College.
• Taylor of Old Bond Street no. 74 Victorian Limes cologne. For warm weather. Smells wonderful, but fades rather quickly.

So there’s other stuff I use, but none are very noteworthy or interesting: Any old comb, cheap nail clippers, two sizes of scissors for various depilatory purposes. Now and then I’ll bleach my teeth, too. That’s really about it.

What are your favorite grooming items?

Tags: shaving, toiletries | 2 Comments »

This post on Digital Pro Talk–with which I vehemently disagreed–got me thinking about my own wedding shoot gear. If you’re not a photographer or techie-nerdy type, go ahead and skip this post.

First, my primary gear:

• Nikon D300 camera. Rugged construction, superb noise performance at high ISO values, 6 frames per second in continuous mode, very high quality screen for checking exposure/color/focus, can serve as a commander for off-camera flashes such as the SB-600. It’s a perfect camera for this kind of work.
• Nikon MB-D10 battery grip. To remove all doubt about whether you have enough juice in camera to last the whole day. Also, it provides a vertical shutter release and other buttons/dials. If that weren’t enough, it raises the frame rate of continuous mode to 8 frames per second–for those really fast-moving brides.
• Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 lens. Fast, cheap and reasonably good optics. I shoot 75% of the day with this lens–even ring closeups and cake toppers!
• Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8 lens. Fast, cheap and reasonably good optics. I shoot most of the ceremony itself with this lens. It’s pretty compact for the range, too.
• Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens. Very fast, very cheap and very good optics. I sometimes bust this sucker out for bride glamour shots and other one-person portrait situations.
• Nikon SB-600 flash. A flash is a flash–except when it can be triggered remotely by your camera via infrared signaling. There are other ways to trigger remote strobes, but, hey, this method is built-in to my camera and the flash already.
• Powerex 2700 mAh NiMH batteries. Five to six sets of four, minimum, all freshly charged. Two sets go in the MB-D10 grip, three sets get rotated in and out of the SB-600 flash. Bring the charger, too.
• Small umbrella stand. I haven’t done this yet, but next time out I’m fixin’ to hook up the SB-600 to one of them and set it up for the posed shots.
• Lightsphere II clear flash diffuser. This stays on my flash 90% of the time. If I have a reflective ceiling, I leave the lid off; if not, I leave the lid on. Note: they make a universal-fit one now, so get that one instead.
• Four compact flash cards, 4-16 gig capacity. This gives me capacity for thousands of high quality shots. I always use more than one card so if one is damaged/lost/stolen, I don’t lose the entire shoot.
• Domke super compact black canvas bag. This is a shapeless old hat of a bag that I just love to death. It’s constructed like a tank, it’s easy to shoulder around, and I can shoot out of it. Handy for lens swapping while I sneak around the church during the ceremony.

Now, the backup stuff:

• Nikon D50 camera. Extremely capable and reliable, but it only goes up to 1600 ISO–and is noisy at that level already. Sometimes I use it during ceremonies when I don’t want to swap lenses on the D300. Sometimes I give it to an assistant to shoot a “B-roll.” Sometimes it stays in the bag.
• Opteka power grip. So I can put two batteries in the D50.
• Sigma EF-500 flash.
• Lightsphere diffuser to fit the Sigma flash.
• A handful of 2-gig SD cards. For potentially thousands of high quality jpeg shots out of the D50.
• Lowepro Slingshot 200 AW. I bought this to serve as a carry-on for when I’m flying with camera gear. But on wedding shoots I stuff it with all my back up gear.

I do bring other stuff, like my Macbook Pro, my iPhone for calls and Google maps navigation, a large umbrella for rain, a credit card, some cash, etc. But other than that the only other thing I might bring is a partner to help me carry all this junk around!

If I were going to make any gear changes, I’d think about augmenting the remote strobe/umbrella stand situation by getting a second Nikon SB-600 or -800 flash. I’ve also considered swapping out the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 for a similar but longer and more rugged Nikon 85mm f/1.8.

Update: I did some rough math in my head and all this stuff–primary and backup gear–has a replacement value of at least $4,500.

Tags: cameras, equipment, photography, weddings | No Comments »

Look, I know I mentioned this before, but I just want to reiterate that really excited about this.

Speculation about release dates seems to be anywhere from holiday buying season 2008 and holiday buying season 2009. Sadly, my money’s on the latter.

Tags: blizzard, diablo, diablo3, diabloiii, videogames | No Comments »

You’ve always wondered what a techie nerd like myself really does all day. Well, wonder no more.

Tags: funny, nerds, techsupport, video | No Comments »

One evening of experimentation and I’m hooked. A strobist is born.

Now I need some colored gels so I don’t have this shocking color mismatch. Even so, the result is pretty cool, eh? For some shots (like these) I simply had someone hold the light just out of frame on the left. For other shots I used it as a light grenade: like when I stood it on the DJs table, aimed it at the ceiling, and proceeded to work the entire dance floor.

These people at Nikon are very, very smart.

Tags: CLS, flash, light, nikon, photography, strobe, strobist | No Comments »

I totally want to go glamping.

I think the Tanzania site looks particularly enchanting.

Tags: camping, glamping, tanzania | 1 Comment »

I shot a wedding yesterday–from 9 am to after 10 pm. I did get a couple of breaks, but man that’s a long day. Especially considering that I have to shoot another one today!

The low point of the day? After the ceremony we took posed shots, including a couple outside in a light rain. Immediately after this I dashed to my car intending to speed off to the reception hall. That’s when my flash hit the pavement.

I saw plastic scattering in different directions. You can’t know what this feels like until two young people have signed a contract with you, given you money, to come through for them on their once in a lifetime event–and then you have an equipment failure mid-way through the day.

The busted flash–my Sigma EF-500–still seemed to work, but I wasn’t sure if it was working correctly or reliably. Nor did I have time to test it. So I stopped by Art’s Camera in Pewaukee to see if I could grab a replacement unit on the way to the reception in Brookfield.

Art’s didn’t have the coveted Nikon SB-800, but they did have the SB-600 for $199. (Which isn’t too bad. I checked it on Amazon later and it was going for $190.)

What’s cool about the SB-600 is that the pop-up light on my camera can trigger it remotely. And this morning, thanks to this brief tutorial, I got it to work. (Here is why anyone would care, courtesy of Ken Rockwell.)

I think I’ll try experimenting with this for a few of the posed shots today, or maybe some glam shots of the bride.

All of which just goes to show you that sometimes what seems like a big misfortune actually can turn out pretty well in the end.

Tags: accident, artscamera, flash, kenrockwell, lighting, nikon, photography, sb-600 | No Comments »

I got this email from her recently.

Hello All,

I have enclosed pictures of my most recent project. I was deputized a few weeks ago as a Deputy Commissioner of Civil Marriage. That means that I could perform wedding ceremonies.

This was through the Los Angeles County Register Recorders Office in anticipation of the possible overwhelming rush by same sex couples to marry after the law change on June 17, 2008.

I was at the Norwalk office on Wed. June 18th (about 8 commissioners were performing ceremonies) and there were a few same sex couples and a lot of straight couples but not the big crowds that they expected. I performed about 7 ceremonies that day (2 lesbian, 2 gay ceremonies and the rest straight couples) There was a wonderful warm atmosphere and everyone was so gracious to all the newlyweds.

The following week, I was at the West Los Angeles Office (at LAX) and I did an overwhelming 14 ceremonies in one day (there were three of us doing ceremonies). Only 2 were same sex. All in all it has been one of the most enjoyable, fulfilling and memorable experiences in my life.

How can I describe the joy and the gratitude that I felt from all my couples. Some came in regular street clothes and some a little more dressed up (but no wedding gowns). Some were so choked up that they couldn’t “repeat after me” and some were crying. Some came alone and some brought family and friends. Two couples each brought up to 25 family members and friends and some had video camera and most had still camera.

Some already had rings on their fingers (they took them off and re-placed them for the ring ceremony) and many had little boxes with them of new rings. Some wanted to read their own special vows and that was very touching.

I hope that I will be called upon, frequently, to perform ceremonies, but there are many regular commissioners who have been doing this for a long time and they don’t give up this duty often.

I just wanted to share how I have been spending my time. What’s happening in your life?

Tags: california, email, gaymarriage, helen, marriage, mom | 2 Comments »