July 2011 Archives

Fri 07.29.11 - Today at 10:56am, Solomon Daniel Callis was born. Big congratulations to Tammy, Ryan, and the whole of the Callis family!

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nikon D70s, more photos to come.

Yesterday about 2pm, I was waiting on someone and decided to check my Twitter stream on my mobile, when I saw that singer Amy Winehouse had been found dead.

Russel Brand describes why best in 'For Amy':

"When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they've had enough, that they're ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it's too late, she's gone.

Frustratingly it's not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene."

While I did not know Ms. Winehouse, I have had that phone call a few too many times. Over the years, more than a fair share of the highly talented artists, musicians, and writers I have know have fallen down the black hole of addiction.

Todd died. Jimmy shipwrecked his life on the siren singing razor rocks of heroin. Others woke up years later and we got the call that they were stopping. Years eaten by the locusts, not to be rewound, but now alive and trying to thrive.

I truly would have wished Ms. Winehouse had woken up one day and decided that she wanted to start on the long, hard road to recovery and sobriety rather than being found dead. But what is done is done.

Ms. Winehouse, thank you for all the heart and soul you put into your music and shared with us. I truly hope you have found peace, rather than just oblivion.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen at the OC Fair livestock barns with her Nokia N8.

Sat 07.23.11 - This morning my Mom and I went to the Orange County Fair for the FFA/4H Junior Livestock auction. It was good to see so many local teenagers involved in animal husbandry, particularly in a county known more for trophy wives, Republicans, and botox than for raising lambs, hogs, goats, turkeys, chickens, and steers at one's local high school. Before we started raising ego'd stucco'd mcmansions and silicon body parts, Orange County had some of the richest farm land in the country. Luckily that is not all past.

We bid on and won two lambs at the auction, a 111 lb lamb from the La Habra FFA raised by Manuel M and a 120 lb lamb, Thor, from the Mission Viejo FFA raised by Ta Tyanna H. The proceeds of the auction go towards the kid's college funds. Good luck to Manuel M. and Ta Tyanna H!

Above photo of the 2011 Grand Champion Hen Turkey by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Fri 07.22.11 - Dinner at George's with Mom, Joe, and Christine. Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Friday 07.15.11 to Sunday 07.17.11 was CampCamp 8.0 in Truckee, Calif. The above photos were taken as I drove up from the LA area to the Tahoe area, while at CampCamp, and then on the drive back home.

I truly enjoyed CampCamp 8.0, not only for the lovely location, but for the great hangout time with friends old and new. Jason S brought lots of games, others brought musical instruments, Jackson, Courtney, Robert, & Jonathan cooked wonderful meals, photowalks with Jason S, Sergio, Winnie & Jenny, Hoff slept off jetlag, Annie knitted marvelous bits for the new baby & Amelia, and Amelia and Scruffy provided lots of entertainment - over all an excellent weekend in the mountains! Big thanks to MJ for organizing us!

And one day, I will beat Sergio at Settlers of Catan. One day...

Sun 07.17.11 - Today I was struck by a serious case of closet envy. Yes, closet envy.

The closet in the room I am staying at in the Camp Camp 8.0 rental house in Truckee is every thing I wish my closet was: big, walk-in, two clothes hanging dowels, shelves, etc.

Oh, wait. The current Closet of Doom at my place in Seal Beach is big-ish in a long way, walk-in, has two dowels for hanging clothes on, and has four shelves. So, why do I have a serious case of closet envy?

The Closet of Doom is less than 30 inches wide, 6 feet deep and over 8 feet tall, which results in it only being good for storing, stacks and stacks, layers and layers of boxes in. The closet in Truckee was roughly 6 feet long and 4 or 5 feet wide, nearly a square and had plenty of room to walk in and reach stuff hung or on the shelves even if it had stuff stored all over the place.

When I am dwelling on closet envy, I think it is time to move, as the Closet of Doom is not going to change shape, size, and its basic lack of usability.

Fri 07.15.11 - Driving northwards on Highway 395, somewhere between Independence and Big Pine, on the eastside of the Sierra Nevada mountains on my way to Truckee/Tahoe for CampCamp 8.0.

Thurs 07.14.11 - Close-up photos of a cactus flower and Scruffy taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 in macro mode.

Wed 07.13.11 - I am trying to reverse my blogging decline / slide into the morass of non-blogging. After five months sporadic, here and there a few times a week blogging, I endeavor to get back on the daily blogging habit, be it photos, text, or both.

So far so good this week. Remind me if I fall off the daily blogging wagon again...

Photo of local morning glories by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 camera phone.

Tues 07.12.11 - Today was a good day that started with a lovely and fun UX interview with Thomas Mann on Skype video. We had a good chat about mobile devices and travel. I love talking with good sharp, designers as their minds can leap from place to place and connections can be made. Thanks to Thomas!

And then Jeremy linked to Brian's conversation over at Google Plus about owning one's own stuff versus engagement in the here and now on whatever is the big right now online service.

I have been a proponent on this blog and in person of owning your own stuff on the internet for years, even during the boom years of 2005-2008 when everyone thought that the services and Web 2.0 would take care of everything and your data would persist no matter what. I had several memorable conversations in that time period with a few prominent tech folk about how we can't trust a company or online service with our data as we don't know when they will lose funding or lose interest or be sold off to folks who will turn off the service and what we will do about our data when this happens.

As the business cycle waxes and wanes, as companies furl and unfurl, I want to own my photos, my text, and my data. Not only do I want to store my data where it can be seen by the world, but where I pay the bill and can freely upload, download, and back up with ease. For me that has meant paying rent on server space and a domain name since 1999 and having duplication / triplication of backup both to a physical hard drive and a cloud service on top of my server space that this blog lives on, in addition to all the spaces and services that I participate in online.

This blog is my studio, gallery and reception space, as well my living room of which you are all invited to. I may visit many places online and some of them may be second homes, like Twitter, but this space is where my heart lives.

Where does your online heart and home reside? Do you have full, partial or no control over your online home? Do you care?

What happens if you don't want to own your own self-hosted blog, will more projects like Jaisen Mathai's OpenPhoto crop up that will allow all of us to share our data to online services but also have all of it backed up to our own accounts at Dropbox or Amazon S3?

Thurs 07.07.11 - It was for the BobbleHead give away, I swear... Innings 1-5 were fast & dull, innings 6-9 were more action packed.

The BobbleHead doll of Andre Ethier will be leaving on Monday for its new home in Kalkiji, Delhi, on CJ's shelf of figurines.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Dan, Earl, and Gracie at the Fourth of July dinner by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Yesterday, I tweeted:

Happy Fourth of July! Of all the holidays, this is my favorite to cook for, am about to start making food for the BBQ this evening. ;o)

This is absolutely true but also untrue. Absolutely true because it is a joy to cook a big meal for friends and family on the Fourth of July, as there are very few expectations that folks have of the day other than having fun and watching fireworks. Untrue, in that the food that is usually prepared for the Fourth is not particularly challenging for a cook.

Yes, Thanksgiving & Christmas provide a much meatier planning, preparing and cooking challenge for a cook to not only make the meal memorable, but also tasty and a not the same old same old. I truly enjoy thinking about, planning, and executing all the permutations of taste and possibility for those two holiday meals.

But, sh*t! Christmas and Thanksgiving come with so much family expectation, someone is always stressed out and on the verge of some family drama or another. And as the cook, I try not to absorb the waves of tumult, keep my head down and on task, but the waves none the less spoil the joy to some degree.

As a child, my memories of Fourth of July were of the few times that my Mom took joy in cooking, where she got inventive because she was out of the daily routine and she had a few days to think up and execute a menu. My memories of Fourth of July food were not hamburgers, BBQ and extended family, but of fried chicken, homemade potato salad, friends, and peach ice cream made in the hand cranked, salt outer container filled ice cream maker.

Fast forward to Fourth of July 2011, the Farmer's Market at the Long Beach Marina SE is bursting with the last of the spring fruits and the first of the summer fruits and vegetables. The seasonal possibilities are a delight. On Sunday evening, Erika, Thomas, Earl and I feasted on soft shell crab, two kinds of salad, and a first of the season peach mildly frozen homemade yogurt dessert. Yesterday for the actual Fourth, I made old fashioned potato salad, a big bowl of med-inspired rice pasta salad, and ratatouille of Farmer's Market summer vegetables on top of fish and steak. Tonight, my Mom and I are going to experiment with making fresh fruit ice (rice milk) cream.

All made with joy, eaten with wine & laughter, and very little pathos. Thankfully.

Fourth of July, I love you.

Sun. 07.03.11 - Photo of the moon and the declining dusk in Seal Beach with Ms. Jen's Nokia N8.

Happy Fourth of July!

Sat. 07.03.11 - Photo of Belle taken at Dog Beach with Ms. Jen's Nokia N8.

Sat 07.02.11 - This Wednesday, I installed the Meego 1.2 'MidSummer' Community release on to my Nokia N900's microSD memory card. My first act after booting up to the Meego side of the dual boot was to take photos to see how the N900's camera ran on Meego. The outdoor photos of neighbors Ryan and Tammy results were amusing as the light sensor didn't know what to do with strong sun v. shade, but the indoor photo of Belle turned out as nice as any photo taken on the Maemo 5 side of the Nokia N900.

The problem I encounted the last couple of days since Wednesday, is that due to the fact that Meego 1.2 wrote the photo files to the microSD MMC card that the OS itself is living on and I was unable to get the photos off as bluetooth on the Meego partition was not interested in talking to my MacBook and USB cable only saw the N900's Maemo 5 side of the partition, I couldn't get the photos off to show y'all.

At the urging of Jukka Eklund (@jukkaeklund) and Randall Arnold (@texrat) on Twitter, I posted a what is best practices question on the Meego Forum. The nice folks at the Meego forum suggested SCP to transfer my trapped photos to a server, this morning I ended up using SFTP on the N900 Meego's Terminal app to transfer the photos to my server and now to the world, or this blog post as the case may be.

Once I solve my Qt/deb/Meego issues that I talked about in my forum question, I will *hopefully* have a branched version of d-pointer's Quickflickr that will work on the N900's Meego side so I can send my photos directly to Flickr.

But not today, as I am helping my Mom move into her new summer beach apartment this afternoon.