Think about that for a moment there. Live video to the web, with viewer feedback. Real-time.

Video taken from RSA 2008 keynote using Qik and Nokia N82, handheld

This is the kind of use for advanced technology that allows one to talk about enabling citizen journalism on a massive scale without getting laughed out of a room full of journalism majors, or worse, broadcasters. However, one point that established media types will bring up is the concept of GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. People used to watching news on major broadcast networks have a very high expectation of quality when it comes the the finished video product. Conversely, people who go to video websites like YouTube have a much lower expectation of quality because they don’t see it as competing with television or other traditional broadcast networks.

What does this mean for something like Qik however? It means that if people are going to use this application for something more serious then the more trendy lifecasting applications there has to be a concerned effort to work at improving the quality of the video output to Qik both in content and in raw video quality also. Improving the content of Qik videos is something that is outside of the scope of this article, but improving the raw video quality from Qik is not.

The biggest problem with getting good video out of these phones comes from the fact that they are, in essence, phones. There are camcorders that take better video, cameras which shoot better quality pictures, in essence these phones are technological compromises albeit getting less compromised with each revision. One of the biggest complaints about video quality however arises from Jerky-Cam(tm) a.k.a hand-holding the phone and not holding it steady enough. This has a two-fold effect on the video due to compression being done on the video. First, the video becomes more and more garbled as the codec struggles to keep the output video within the boundaries of the bandwidth limits its settings. Secondly, this additional movement causes the codec to spend more bits encoding movement leaving less bits available for detail in the scene.

The easiest way to combat shaky-cam is to mount the camera onto a tripod, yet this introduces some issues that are unique to the mobile video world I suspect. Chief among these is portability, after all we are talking about taking a small phone and now having to lug around a tripod that is many times the size and weight of the phone itself. More important however is the fact that the phone manufactures havent seen fit to add a standard 1/4″ screw thread mount point to their cameraphones, making use on photographic or video tripods more problematic then it should be.

Partially extended Manfrotto 682B monopod

After looking around the market for solutions to this problem I had a brainstorm and came up with the following solution that I think is a good first step towards getting better video out of Qik and other video applications on the cameraphone in the future. Manfrotto is a well known and respected manufacturer of tripods, monopods, and other gear for photo and video professionals. As it turns out they make a self-standing monopod, the 682B, that lets you have a free-standing monopod. While this is not as stable a platform as a traditional tripod would be it is significantly lighter, smaller, and more portable then others. Using this as a platform for a Nokia N82 for use in Qik is a good compromise between size, weight, and stiffness. However, even using the monopod we still need a way to mount the cameraphone on. This is where the Nokia DT-22 universal tabletop tripod comes in. It comes with a screw-tight clamp that fits most all N series phones and easily detaches from the tabletop tripod and will screw onto a standard 1/4″ camera screw. If you wish to point the camera at various angles you will want to invest in an inexpensive ball mount for the monopod like the Manfrotto 484RC2 mini-ball head with quick-release plate mount.

View of N82 from the front of the Monopod

However, we still have some other issues to address that are more difficult to handle with a mobile phone device. These devices are not equipped with the kinds of designs or battery life that enable them to take video for long periods of time, say and hour or more. Most of these phones would be bricks within the inside of an hour of doing live streaming video to the Internet. Because of this we also need a portable power supply to help augment our phones internal battery. This is where the PPC Techs Lil’Sync USB battery power supply comes in. It’s a 4400mah rated Li-Ion battery and it charges via mini-USB and can charge one device via a regular USB port. Combine this with a Nokia CA-100 USB to DC charging cable for your N series Nokia phone and you now have a way to keep the battery lasting longer for video recording.

Velcro backing to hold Lil’Sync to Nokia DT-22 clamp

Now once you have assembled all these parts you may still have one important hurdle left to jump over if you live in the United States like I do, bandwidth. Unless you are using a Nokia N95-3 or N95-4 model designated for North American usage you will have imported a European GSM phone that has support for 3G networks only on European GSM frequencies and at best will only have access to an EDGE class network for streaming your video over. This means that any attempt to stream video, even if on lower quality settings and a 320×240 resolution in Qik will result in instant building delay between what users on Qik.com see verses what you are seeing in real-time with your phone. It also means getting user feedback will be greatly delayed or nonexistent as well. Short of having an N95 with support for North American 3G networks you will have to rely on WiFi networks for streaming. This works in fixed known locations, but not on the road in random places. For these situations there is a final part to this solution made by a company called Cradlepoint.

Cradlepoint makes EVDO to WiFi bridge routers, specifically the PHS300 or Personal Hotspot. The PHS300 has a built-in Li-Ion battery for 2-3 hours of use without having to be plugged into an outlet. Using an EVDO USB adapter or a EVDO ExpressCard/34 combined with an ExpressCard/34 to USB adapter along with a subscription to a subsequent EVDO unlimited data plan you can provide a WiFi signal to your Nokia with sufficent upstream bandwidth to support full real-time video streaming.

Nokia N82 with Lil’Sync and CA-100 USB Charge Cable

At this stage I have assembled all of the parts mentioned in here except for the Cradlepoint PHS300 which is my next step. I may have to machine a custom mounting plate to hold the PHS300 and the Lil’Sync onto the camera ball-head mount. I will report back once I have acquired the unit and looked into integrating it into the monopod.

Ultimately however, there are still some issues with the phone as a streaming video platform. Namely, when someone calls you! When using Qik, if you get an incoming phone call your video will stop streaming and you wont be able to restart your video stream until after you get off of the phone, unless you are using WiFi for your streaming connection from what I have seen. The Qik client itself is also undergoing frequent changes and the company and its main coders are rather open to suggestions and enhancements to the program which is great.

All of the information can be found on the Evite which is here:

Evite for Dan’s 32nd Birthday Party!

The important thing to remember is that it is THIS WEEK on SATURDAY. I have email addresses for a lot of you people, but not all of you so I have posted this on MySpace where a bunch of you are as well as on my main blog, Vox, LiveJournal, and Twitter.

Hope to see you all there!

You may also have noticed that the blog is now running WordPress 2.5 and this has caused its own set of headaches. Namely, dealing with broken plugins, semi-functional Wordpress themes and general digital decay and cruft. Most of the blog is working but you will see some parts are, shall we say, running at reduced capabilities.

On top of all of this I am also attempting to figure out where I am having my birthday party still. My real birthday was April 12th which has come and gone and I was unable to celebrate at the time due to working in San Francisco running a show for work. I had a place in mind to have a party this Saturday evening on the 26th, but that fell through. My other alternate in mind wont work either since I know the person will be out of town in the mountains for the weekend. This leaves me with two remaining options, one in Marina Del Rey but I’m not really sure how many people would be able to make it or want to drive all that way or try and figure out yet another possibility. In any case, if you’ve got any ideas I am all ears.

In any event, when you pickup your registration info and show badge you’re handed three things. A show planner, the addendums to the show program, and how to connect to the RSA WiFi network. The howto document for connecting to the wifi is larger then the show program addendum! So while in the press room I attempted to get online with RSA wifi network and discovered that I might as well have been trying to negotiate with the Packet Nazi (motto, “No packets for you!”). So why is this so damned hard? Lets outline the problems here:

1. Your RSA website name is different from your RSA WiFi name
2. Your RSA website password is NOT your RSA WiFi password
3. You must be running an OS that speaks WPA and PEAP. Support WEP only? Tough titties for you.
4. To get your RSA wifi password, you have to login with a RSA website password not given to you. So you must request it be sent to your email.
5. Your RSA website login is NOT your email address (seriously, wtf were you thinking guys?

So basically, you have to login to the RSA website with something other then your email address, with a password that is auto-generated for you. Except you dont remember the username you specified, so you have to get THAT emailed to you as well. Then, once you login to the RSA website you can get your WiFi password.

Armed with that password, you then use PEAP and 802.1x to login to the WiFi, EXCEPT your username here is now your email address you used to register your RSA badge with! Basically, I watched a few people in the press room struggle with this, myself included. And in one case, a person had a laptop that only supported WEP and they had to revert to a wired connection. Incidentally, the WiFi instructions document covered only Windows systems and only briefly mentions OS X in it anywhere and doesn’t give instructions for OS X. Where is my FAILboat?

Did I forget to mention that most of these steps you cant do unless you are connected to a network of some kind? Catch-22 galore, yay!

Moral of this story? RSA needs single-signon badly! I mean, why on earth do I need a separate username and password for the RSA website different from my RSA wifi credentials?

http://tinyurl.com/2hsxpl

It’s Apartment 204 in Building 6. Right now the Building 6 elevator is broken so you need to park closest to the Building 7 elevator and someone will let you in the door. To park take the small traffic circle and drive down the ramp to the bottom level parking structure. There will be a phone on the left, dial 262 for the apartment for someone to buzz you in. Park as close to the Green Building 7 elevator as possible. You might have to park a ways down the structure depending on how crowded it is.

It’s a pretty big apartment, lots of room. Booze and food will be there, but as usual if you want to bring some beer or food that is always welcome. There will likely be some kind of console gaming going on either Rock Band or Guitar Hero III or the like. The apartment also has a pretty huge outdoor deck as well for all the smokers.

Anyways, let me know if your going to make it or not. Hope you all have a great New Years!

What this means is that barring any bizzare unforeseen circumstances (i.e. I owe the uni money somehow, I turn out to be a figment of my own imagination, etc) I should be officially graduated from UC Irvine with my bachelors degree in Information and Computer Science.

So what does this mean for you, the non-existant reader who cares about this? Well since UCI only does commencement once a year it means I wont walk until June 2008 roughly, and tickets for commencement go on sale sometime in March I am told. It supposedly takes the university about seven weeks to process the paperwork to certify and print a degree at which point they either mail it to my permanent mailing address or notify me that its read to be picked up.

I already have a job as a consultant which I am now going to be working for full-time basically with benefits and other nice things which should help me out a lot with my stupid money troubles finally. The plan so far is to spend some time paying off my small remaining debt and taking car of a few things on the car I have had to put off and then getting a decent amount of cash saved up before moving out of the parents house.

Now as far as celebration of my graduation goes, frankly I have no idea when it will happen or what shape it is going to take. This is complicated by the fact that basically I am already working full-time and have some big projects in the works already for CES (which I am going to again to work) and some other stuff. I would like to have a party with all of you people that could/would want to do such a thing as soon as I can figure out a good time for it. Odds are sometime the weekend after CES or in Janurary sometime since everyone is going crazy with holiday events.

I saw the below photo while scanning through Digg while waiting for some software to finish compiling. I think it is pretty telling as to why it seems so many people these days who are watching the various news networks are not as well informed as they once were. In a nutshell we can blame the proliferation and boosting of importance of fluff/celebrity “news” pieces. Oh yeah, and commercials for making sure you dont die/your dick feels big enough for your ego/buy a SUV/etc.

Next up we have a high altitude photo taken from a NASA chase plane of the Space Shuttle Columbia taking off from Cape Canaveral

Here we have a graph of US national debt as a percentage of GDP. Notice the difference in spending patterns of the “new Republicans” verses the supposedly spend-fast Democrats. Just goes to show that sometimes parties change their mantras without people really realizing it. After all, GWB was supposed to be a small government Republican when he ran back in 2000. If we only could have had things gone differently.

I thought this piece of work was interesting because I have seen it used for both sides of debate on wether or not God exists. Atheists look at Nature and marvel at its complexity and beauty that it forms out of the natural laws that man has discovered and began to learn over the course of time. On the other hand, proponents of the existence of God look at something like this and point to it as proof that nature, reality and the whole of being must obviously be the work of a creator.

Ok, last but not least is this riotously hilarious photo from The Onion. I nearly choked on my drink when I saw this and simply had to share it with everyone. Don’t say I didn’t warn you earlier!

While I was at it I also updated all of my plugins and tinkered around abit with the backend scripts for the Redoable WP theme I am using in an attempt to get some annoying MySQL errors to stop when I am in the administrative interface with some luck. Apparently the  author of the theme is swamped with real work and uni studies so I can understand their predicament. In the meantime I might go check out the K2 theme people and see where they are these days. Last I looked it was at a point where you had to sync with nightly SVN updates which I thought was rather ridiculous a thing to have to do for a bloody WP theme to work reliably.

More updates to come.

Except, if you go to the DMV website and try to lookup your fees online you have to have a RIN number to enter in along with your license plate number for their system to show you your registration fee information. But I never got a renewal letter from the DMV, so I have no RIN. So no online help there.

Some perusal of the DMV site does net me a 800 number to call. I call it and am immediately in voice menu jail, however the system wasn’t designed by Kafka so after about two minutes I was able to navigate to the “Talk to carbon-based lifeforms” option. After waiting on hold for about another minute a decently nice guy comes on the phone to help me out. I explain I had gotten no renewal notice and that I know my registration is probably due ASAP. The man then tells me “Oh, well the computers here are confused because it shows the title for your car was transfered in 2005″

WHAT? THE? FUCK!?!?!?

I talk to the man some more and ask him “What is the name of the person it was transfered to?”. He tells me “I can’t give that to you, its a conflict of interest.” So I try a different tactic “Can you tell me exactly when the transfer supposedly happened?” He says Janurary 16th, 2005. “Wait a second, I got a license renewal notice for 2006! How come that one got mailed to me if the title was supposedly transfered to someone else?”

“Dont know” he says.

“If I come into the DMV office will they be able to tell me the name on the transfer?” I ask him.

“Yes”

“How come I never received any notification paperwork from the DMV at my permanent mailing address, which has never changed since I’ve had a license in CA?” Getting pretty fuming mad by this point wondering if this was some kind of aborted ID theft attempt or something.

“I don’t know sir, you’ll have to talk to someone at one of the field offices about that”

Gah….so now I know how much my registration will cost me (way too much thanks to 4 old parking tickets now totaling $572 dollars, thanks County of Los &*^&*^%# Angeles) and have to smog the BMW and go into the DMV office to find someone to talk to/yell at for this title nonsense. Le sigh.

Richard and Michelle’s Wedding Photos I took 

Apparently something pretty massive went down at the 365 Main colocation facility in San Francisco at around 1:30pm-ish. More importantly however, this looks like there was a power outage in a large portion of the SOMA district of San Francisco that affected somewhere between 30,000-50,000 people. From what some friends of mine told me there was a total of 6 different blackouts over the course of the last few hours. No word yet on what exactly caused any of this still. Blame chocolate covered manhole covers or the like.

LiveJournal is down! Netflix, down. Craigslist, down. Yelp, down. Technorati, down. Vox, down. TypePad, down.

Yet this is supposedly a AAA-class facility with plenty of online generator backup. Yet all of these major internet websites are down. Why? What the hell happened up there? Did a major transformer in the facility blow or something? Did dickless turn off the containment field or something?

What is even more HILARIOUS is this press release claiming 2-year long continuous uptime just 90 MINUTES before the colossal clusterfuck began. Just to add to the hilariousness of the situation the Onion News Network did a spoof news piece on something similar to this happening that you should all view!

This is why I host my blog and photos on my own server that I have control over and just push updates out to these services. Sometimes even the big guys fuck up their contingency plans.

1 Who contacted me spontaneously (from Riverside)
1 Who IM’ed me spontaneously (from Alabama, see below)

1 Whom I contacted, they wrote back, I responded and they responded back, only to not hear anything from them for 3 weeks since. So not sure what to think. She seems nice and interesting and said she was on vacation at the time of her last response but that was three weeks ago so I sent her a quick note asking what had happened to her. Maybe she just got busy with life, who knows.

The one who contacted me from Riverside seemed nice but Riverside is just too bloody far away from everything I do. School, work, you name it not a single lick of any of it takes me out to Riverside. So that’s just not workable for me. After all I have to be practical about what I am capable of dealing with time-wise and distance-wise and I know Riverside is just too damn far.

Now the one from Alabama who spontaneously IM’ed me. Oh boy, that one has crazy written all over her. She talked to me yesterday and it was the most singularly weird conversation I have had in a long while. I tried to be nice, but I’m not sure this woman got the point that I am not looking to start a long distance relationship anytime soon. Just check out this chat log from yesterday and you will see what I mean. And remember boys and girls, I get to pay Yahoo! $24.95 a month for the privilege of talking to people like the one below. Sweet Baby Jesus.

7:22:44 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Hello…..how are you doing today,? my name is Joyce , just wanted to IM you if we can chat together or what do you think!!!!!….
7:23:26 PM doctorwho21: Hi there, who is this?
7:23:43 PM jen.lasweetbaby: sorry my name is Joyce from Yahoo Personals
7:23:59 PM doctorwho21: oh ok! Sorry, was just a little confused
7:24:08 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Oh….okay
7:24:15 PM jen.lasweetbaby: my name is Joyce
7:24:21 PM doctorwho21: Hiya Joyce. I’m Dan
7:24:35 PM jen.lasweetbaby: and am new member on there , just wanted to Im you if we can chat sometime
7:24:42 PM jen.lasweetbaby: nice meeting you Da
7:24:44 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Dan
7:25:17 PM doctorwho21: Yeah its ok, I dont mind
7:25:27 PM jen.lasweetbaby: okay..thanks
7:25:34 PM jen.lasweetbaby: how old are you ?
7:25:41 PM doctorwho21: But you profile says your in Alabama?
7:25:46 PM doctorwho21: I’m 31
7:26:27 PM jen.lasweetbaby: yes , i just like to chat with someone long way , coz i dont know where we cpuld meet if God to let Us to each other better
7:26:40 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Or dont you want to talk to me since am in AL?
7:27:11 PM doctorwho21: It is nothing personal, but I have done long distance relationships before and I have found out that they have not worked for me in the past.
7:27:37 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Oh….i think god dont want you both to meet each other
7:27:58 PM jen.lasweetbaby: well i do believe in Gods word and i like going to church
7:28:28 PM doctorwho21: Ah ok, well I am not very religious I’m afraid.
7:28:43 PM jen.lasweetbaby: afraid of what !!!
7:29:04 PM doctorwho21: I was just saying that I am not religious
7:29:36 PM jen.lasweetbaby: oh….okay got it
7:29:53 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so dan do we think if God can let Us we gonna be togther
7:30:04 PM jen.lasweetbaby: am just alone nobody and i need someone to make me happy
7:31:19 PM doctorwho21: Right, uhm, I hate to sound down here but I really am in no place to be doing a long distance relationship. I am looking for someone local Joyce.
7:31:56 PM jen.lasweetbaby: well if you say so
7:33:44 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so what do you wanna talk about now?
7:33:54 PM doctorwho21: I don’t think you understand. I am working on a degree right now and have little time for much beyond work, school, and possibly starting a relationship locally. If I was going to be getting into a long distance relationship I would need to be done with my degree and in a better position financially.
7:34:20 PM doctorwho21: Whatever you want to talk about is fine with me
7:34:44 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Thats okay by me and if you think we can ever meet then
7:34:51 PM jen.lasweetbaby: what are you really lookingfor
7:36:11 PM doctorwho21: Well I am looking for someone I get along with and can talk to along with a dash of physical compatibility as well.
7:36:26 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Thats cool
7:36:34 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so can you tell me more about you sometime
7:38:17 PM doctorwho21: I guess, but I really dont see how we would possibly ever meet up?
7:38:40 PM jen.lasweetbaby: how and why do you say such thinggs?
7:40:24 PM doctorwho21: Because its how I see things? Your on the opposite side of the country. I have no idea where I will end up when I am done with my degree but there is a good chance I will remain in California. Hence my prefrence to try and find someone locally.
7:42:01 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so are you saying we cant never meet in person ?
7:46:14 PM doctorwho21: I’m saying that I dont see how it would happen since I am in no position to travel anytime soon. I also hardly know you, not to mention since your profile isn’t complete it makes it difficult for me to know if we are physically compatible either. This whole conversation sounds like someone asking me if I might ever go 2000 miles to buy milk from the store instead of going across the street to the local store, sight unseen. I also mentioned I’m not a religious person, nor am I likely to change my stance with regards to that anytime in the foreseeable future. While I am sure you are a nice person, you are coming on sort of strong and I know very little about you. I would prefer to take my chances locally where I have the ability to easily make plans to meet with someone verses trying to invest time in a long distance relationship that could very easily end up not being what either person wants.
7:47:54 PM jen.lasweetbaby: ohh….
7:47:58 PM jen.lasweetbaby: can i add you?
7:48:14 PM doctorwho21: I thought I already authorized it?
7:48:24 PM jen.lasweetbaby: No
7:48:26 PM jen.lasweetbaby: i dont think so
7:48:28 PM jen.lasweetbaby: you havent
7:49:04 PM doctorwho21: I just allowed it?
7:49:17 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Okay
7:50:32 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so what are we gonna talk about now
7:50:59 PM doctorwho21: Whatever you want, you caught me in the middle of reading for one of my classes
7:51:28 PM jen.lasweetbaby: lol….well i want to know what are you really looking for
7:51:43 PM jen.lasweetbaby: and what type of relationships are you seeking for on here
7:52:25 PM doctorwho21: One second
7:52:48 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Okay
8:01:50 PM doctorwho21: I’m looking for a woman I am compatible with, ideally someone to date and maybe develop into a more serious relationship if I feel comfortable about that.
8:02:29 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Thats nice
8:02:39 PM jen.lasweetbaby: when did you joined this site?
8:04:11 PM doctorwho21: a month ago
8:05:47 PM jen.lasweetbaby: oh….
8:05:57 PM jen.lasweetbaby: and you never met any lady so far /
8:06:04 PM doctorwho21: nope
8:06:13 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Okay then
8:07:34 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so tell me more fof you
8:07:42 PM jen.lasweetbaby: or what doy uo wanna know about me
8:08:39 PM doctorwho21: Why did you decide to talk to me?
8:09:09 PM jen.lasweetbaby: i think you’re looking for a serious relationship right ?
8:09:36 PM doctorwho21: eventually, yes, but I’m not going to jump right into one. I want to get to know someone first
8:10:05 PM jen.lasweetbaby: yes thats what we’re doing
8:11:09 PM doctorwho21: right, but I prefer to meet people in person to make those kinds of determinations. I have had experiences in the past where people online were not what they represented themselves to be.
8:12:04 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Okay,,,,then
8:12:16 PM jen.lasweetbaby: i think we have to add this then
8:14:59 PM doctorwho21: add what?
8:15:24 PM jen.lasweetbaby: i mean end this
8:15:41 PM doctorwho21: the conversation you mean I assume?
8:15:52 PM jen.lasweetbaby: yes
8:15:58 PM doctorwho21: Okie dokie
8:16:38 PM doctorwho21: Good bye
8:16:46 PM jen.lasweetbaby: its okay

Seriously, I just want to meet someone relatively normal-ish who is local and whom there is at least some kind of spark with.

Case in point, this past 4th of July it looked like no one had any kind of group activity planned. No BBQs, no parties, no get togethers, hell not even a trip out to go see a new movie. In other words, pretty damn bleak. There had been a potential prospect for a party to go to, but my friend whom knew the people throwing it decided not to go and I wasn’t one to try and worm my way into a party where I didn’t know anyone.

So starting on the 4th of July I get an invite on MySpace for my friend Jim’s birthday, to be held on Saturday the 7th in the evening. Good, right? Well my friend Jason Bender had gotten a hold of me like a week and a half previous and let me know his birthday was going to go down the same night at The Edison in Hollywood. Conflict, right?

But wait, theres more! The next day, the 5th I get another invite to a birthday party for my friends Alia and Irene….on the same day and time. Great, so now there are four birthdays spread across three different locations on the same night. At which point I talk to Adrienne and she tells me that my friend Rich who is getting married is doing some kind of party that same night!!!! Whom I then ask about what is going on, only to find out that event is cancelled.

Except the next day I then get an invite for Rich’s birthday dinner on….you guessed it…the same freaking night. So we now have five birthdays in four different locations, three of which are in Orange County and the last which is up in Hollywood. So I decide to stick it out down in OC and hit all the parties I can so I can see people I hadn’t seen in quite a while. It was sort of like a bizarre triathlon of some sort, but overall it was a fun experience.

Now, onto the photos from the parties and other events recently!

Everyone who made it to Rich’s 31st  birthday party at the teppan house they picked in HB. All the July birthday party photos are here.

On Friday and Saturday I spent a few hours getting tanned/lightly sunburned while getting some photos of surfers and hot surfer babes from off the HB Pier at Main St.

Friday’s photos at Huntington Beach

Saturday’s photos at Huntington Beach

Last but not least are some older photos I had neglected to upload. First we have a few shots I took at sunset near the Seal Beach Naval Weapons base not too far south from home here. I really like how the colors in the sky came out that particular day, just awesome light.

Finally we have photos of the Friday night Big Bang fireworks show at Angel Stadium in Anahiem from back in early May when I went to see the Angels kick the White Sox a new one. I didn’t have my tripod with me so I was having to hand-hold these shots so they didn’t come out as good as I wanted them to, but it gave me some experience working on my handheld technique. This particular photo however I thought turned out not half bad:

In movie related news I can recommend anyone go see Transformers, especially if you are a big fan of the show. Michael Bay somehow managed to make a truly kickass movie with my childhood franchise memories. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, you should do yourself a favor and go out and see it right away.

And for those you you playing the home version of our game, apparently none of you people did a damn thing today.

If I don’t hear of anything I may just head out to the beach for some sun.