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Friday, July 11th, 2008
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11:43 pm - More photos!
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Though I know I said I wouldn't dare touch my yashica photos in photoshop except to resize them, well...
I found this great photoshop noise reduction tool that does a gee whiz job at cleaning up images. It doesn't do anything else to the photo besides clean up the noise, and it does it rather well so I figured I'd go ahead and start using it on most of the yashica shots.
However, I certainly won't always use it on my yashica shots, and when I do, they'll always have a label at the end of the caption from here on out that will look like this: *NI so that you know its gone through one small filter.
Of course, most of the time I doubt many people would even notice the difference, but I'm a perfectionist.
So, without further ado....
We're on an adventure, Charlie! *NI (Cruise to Farallon Islands)
OM NOM NOM NOM (Botanical Gardens, GG Park)
Its like that Red Hot Chili Peppers song, except not because that song's probably about some freeway overpass in LA and being homeless and doing heroin or some lame shit. *NI (Cruise to Farallon Islands)
A digital shot as we cruise around the Farallon Islands.
Wandering aimlessly around the Botanical Gardens *NI
You see? He ees boyfriend. Built like Soviet Bear. (props to Mike for standing there for about an hour as I took a bunch of pictures and said, "NO WAIT YOU HAVE TO MAKE THAT FACE, NO LIKE THAT...YEAH OK...WAIT SHIT I MESSED UP, DO IT AGAIN.") (Lake Merced Foggy Day)
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(45 free-floating ideas | offer your ideas)
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| Thursday, July 10th, 2008
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5:20 pm
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| Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
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10:09 pm - Now With 50% More Cormorant!
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| Monday, July 7th, 2008
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5:27 pm - Writing Exercise - Dream/Story
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Since I had a slow day at work and a very weird dream last night, I decided to not only finally get to my next picture post, but also get some writing exercise in while I have all of this spare time.
I've decided to write a relatively short story based off of the dream I had last night. The challenge was just filling in some of the more disparate elements of the dream to make it a somewhat cohesive short story.
I've also included the next batch of pictures as something pretty to look at. They're interspersed throughout the story.
The State of the Us
We walked past trailers. My father and I took our time, meandering next to rows and rows of dusty trailers, the dirt kicking up around our heels with each step. We were standing directly in the recent dust bowl that had cropped up within the Great City. It was quite literally a dust bowl - as if some giant metallic scoop had come down from the sky and taken out a chunk of vibrant green earth to leave only the absence of beauty in its wake.
My father and I spoke little as we walked, making our way past the enormous expanse of abandoned trailer parks to a small lake in a great, dry clearing.
This whole region used to be a marshland, much like Florida. After that it had become a tropical region akin to Hawaii with a great lake. My father and I knew this topographical history well because we had lived here when I was a child. My father still lived here, but I was only visiting.
Do you see what the weather has done?" My father asked me irately, and for a moment I found the tone ironic. It was only a couple of years before that he had professed not to believe in what was happening to our ecosystem.
"I guess that's how global warming works." I said, a small hint of sarcasm in my voice.
"We used to fish here, me and your brothers." My father mused, almost to himself. Either he hadn't caught my tone or had chosen to simply ignore it.
I looked out at the small lake as my father lost himself in some nostalgic jog down memory lane. It was almost a pond, really. Although many fish still populated it, the combination of pollutants that had either leaked or been simply dumped into the drink had rendered them all inedible and so fishing had become prohibited. There were very few scraggly weeds dotting the landscape around the pond. Beyond that, only dirt and dying grasslands. This drying out had all happened within only a couple of years of very little rain and a lot of sunlight.
Granted, you could still find a lot of water within the Great City. The Great Murky River surrounded this region and also nearly circled the whole of the Great City, like a moat protecting the ruins of a once great castle. Beyond the slice of river that was visible to me lie the actual city itself, an enormous cluster of gray squares that gleamed coldly under the sunlight. I stared off beyond the dying lake and past the slowly churning river on into the city. I felt like I was flying over it, across all of those great grey structures and spires jutting out into the skyline.
"Its getting late." My dad spoke, breaking the silence and slowly bringing me back down to the earth, "You up for dinner?"
"Yeah. Sounds good." I replied brusquely.
We took the ferry across the river and on back into civilization. We hailed a taxi then, and chose a fancy restaurant to have dinner at.
I sat across the table from my father. He sat with his hands folded casually atop the table. I chose to sit up more formally in manner, my own hands folded unseen in my lap. After a few moments in silence, the waiter came by and handed us the wine list and two menus.
These usual formalities done with, we passed the wine list back and forth and discussed what we were going to drink with dinner. My father chose quickly while I pondered the choices until the very last minute as the waiter closed in on us.
"So what will we be having tonight, gentlemen?" The waiter asked formally. Lost in my own thoughts, I didn't make eye contact with him. His features were like a vague charcoal painting.
My father ordered a dark ale. I quickly scanned over the wine list for the third time, searching for anything with an interesting name.
At last I came across an unfamiliar wine that sounded like it tasted of an exotic berry. I told the waiter that this was what I wanted. Just as he wrote it down and began to leave, my father threw his hand up with his index finger in the air. The waiter turned around and gave him an inquisitive look.
"I changed my mind. " He said, and then - half-addressing me, "That actually sounds interesting, Casey. I'll have what he's having."
The waiter nodded and wrote something down. He walked briskly away.
The evening passed us lesiurely enough. I realized that I really enjoyed this time with my father. I missed it somehow, the simplicity of it. It felt lately like everything enjoyable in my life was a hearkening back to some earlier era.
After we said our goodbyes, I was to meet up with my younger sister and take the overnight ferry that traveled back to the mainland, away from the great city. As I stepped onto it, the familiar feeling that it was actually some sort of barge struck me. It was blue and metallic and vastly rectangular. It was almost like a floating bus. The seats were uncomfortable; rows of metal rectangles.
The sky was getting dark as the ferry departed from the mainland. My sister sat next to me, her eyes closed and her head leaning lightly against my shoulder. Next to her sat the minister that had overseen her activities at the camp. She had decided on her own to go to this camp that existed within the Great City. It was some sort of Catholic revivalism thing, I wasn't really sure of the details except that my sister had decided she needed to have God in her life and so chose to leave home for awhile and attend this religious camp. Initially my mother was adverse to this idea - though she promoted Catholicism, the fact that the details of this place were so vague to her worried her deeply, and so she attempted to prohibit my sister from going. This idea was laughed off rudely, like so many other attempts from my mother to change my sister's ways. I personally figured this whole camp idea might actually be good for her.
It soon became too dark to see. I closed my eyes for a moment and when I opened them, I realized I had been sleeping for hours. My sister was no longer by my side, only the Catholic minister. Some sort of occurrence had taken place at night, and so I questioned the minister suspiciously as to my sister's whereabouts.
He explained that the ferry had to be stopped and she had to be brought back to the camp. She had some sort of knee injury that was giving her issues and the minister felt it best to keep her there. She had been taken on a small boat back to the city as I had slacked in my duties to keep vigil over her. I felt guilty somehow, as if I had let something terrible happen. I didn't trust the minister's explanation - I felt it had more to do with liability issues, with something awful that had happened to her at the camp. This was all assumption and heresy as I hadn't even been aware of the injury or even bothered to ask her anything about her time at the camp, but nonetheless it gave me a queasy feeling as we trundled along the murky depths back to the mainland.
After the boat docked, I was picked up by my twin brother. I rode in the back of his truck among his junk and he instantly launched into a more or less one-sided discussion on various things. I felt bad because I was realizing that I had forgotten to bring a videogame system with me. I had wanted to show my twin brother the games on the system, but I hadn't even bothered to bring any of it with me. I felt like an idiot, so I decided not to mention it and hope he had forgotten that I had ever said anything about bringing it.
Back at the house, I opened the front door onto a scene of chaos. Various strangers in their early twenties that I knew instinctively were family friends reclined as couples on sofas, lay singularly across the couch, slumped their heads dazily onto the kitchen table. They stared at me as if they were expecting a gift and I were the one to bring it. My mother whizzed by several times, a harried expression on her face and her eyes staring widely around. After the third or fourth time, she finally noticed that my younger sister was nowhere among this motley crew and she appeared in front of me, the harried look becoming etched with worry.
"Where is your sister Where is she Casey Where did she go Don't tell me she's still at that ...camp," My mother blurted, only pausing to add an emphatic suspicious pause before the word camp.
"Mom, settle down." I told her calmly.
"Why wouldn't she call me?!?" My mother responded, and then before I could answer she continued with, "She NEVER calls me when I tell her to, I am so fed up with that girl, she thinks she can just run off and do whatever she wants, I'm telling you if she is an adult she should really start ACTING LIKE ONE."
I shook my head and slightly rolled my eyes, and then grabbed my mom's shoulders and looked hard at her face.
"Mom. I'm sure she'll call you when she feels like she needs to."
My mother seemed to be calmed by this assurance, and for a brief moment I felt very guilty as if I had told some poorly constructed truth.
The phone rang then.
It was my sister. She was heading home. My mom exchanged words with her, but I could tell she was glad to finally hear her voice.
I heard my twin brother's voice at the door so I turned around and
CB
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(21 free-floating ideas | offer your ideas)
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| Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
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3:13 pm - Woohoo STIMULUS PACKAGE! I AM THOROUGHLY STIMULATED!
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Err: We get checks from the government, and we spend it on beer! Mexican beer!
Ignignokt: That's the cheapest of all beers.
P.S. Yes I will get around to a photo post later.
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(6 free-floating ideas | offer your ideas)
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| Friday, June 20th, 2008
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8:50 pm - Oh, I get it now.
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| Thursday, June 19th, 2008
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6:06 pm
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So I was planning to post photos from my trip to the Farallon Islands, but I've decided for a few different reasons that I'd post them later. One of those reasons is because I'm really proud of some of the photos and might even offer up prints of them for sale, since I found a way that might be feasible without having to 'publish' them on some royalty free site thing. Of course, its still through another website service, but eh, whatever.
Even if I don't decide to offer them up as prints, I'll post them here eventually, but under a friends only cut and obviously very resized from the originals.
So instead, I decided to get started on a different set - one that chronicles all of the times that Rae has visited. They won't be in any particular order, though.
(HDR Shot, used my camera's basic image bracketing and post-edited in PS CS2)
This is how Sir Michael, Esq. shows he is quite disheartened by your abhorrent fashion choices.
Another HDR from Golden Gate Park, but very minimal post-editing.
You may certainly get deja vu (Natalie ;p) from this photo, it was the one I used for the first optical illusion 'color after-effect'
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(19 free-floating ideas | offer your ideas)
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| Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
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1:44 am
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The Conch
This is a story of a boy who lived long ago.
This boy lived along an ocean, and he swam far
into the deep blue
he lay in the sand as the sun warmed him and he
caught sandcrabs and starfish and
sometimes even
his meals.
On cold, windy days he huddled
underneath the branches and brushwood away from the shore and
listened as the wind moaned across the sand
and he
watched a fog roll in like
a stampede of flowing spectral horses
across a churning tide.
This boy had the ocean and he had
everything.
One burning summer day the boy found
an oddly shaped shell, half submerged
in the glinting sand.
Its colors drew him near, a yellow like
the angry sphere above him and deeper in -
a soft womblike pink suggesting
warmth and shelter.
He picked it up and held it to him, its colors
nearly blinding him as he felt its heat
gently radiating against his face.
He put it to his mouth and let out a mighty breath
a noise like some giant beast bellowing out
from deep beneath the waves.
He then gently put it to his ear
in hopes that he would catch the noise of
that great creature
as it called back
instead
he heard the promise of
an even greater ocean
with a wind that moaned deeper
than the one he knew.
This boy took his conch and he began to walk.
He walked away from the ocean he had known
away from the sand dollars and sea anenomes
away from the crying birds and the swiftly
rolling fog.
And he aged, but even as he matured
into adolescence and further
he always kept the conch
close by his side
and lost within the forests or
high upon windblown plateaus
he would hold up the conch
and hear the sound
of the deepest blue ocean imaginable
with enormous and wonderful creatures
and with a wind that blew in
thousands of seabirds
and great blankets of
a warm wet mist.
That is not how this story ends.
As the boy became a man and then slowly withered away
as he became familiar with so many
unknown surroundings and
as he learned to hunt
vicious creatures and to hide
within the treetops and beneath the earth,
he listened every night
to the promise within his faded shell and
he gradually became
desperate
to find that deep
blue ocean
he had known so well.
and then one day this old man
creasing the wrinkles in his eyes and
crying out from within
took a great rock and
smashed it
down upon his
deteriorating talisman.
No ocean, no great rolling fogs nor
moaning winds carrying seabirds and
churning tides nor enormous swimming
beasts beneath.
the shell was only filled with
a little bit of sand and
a vast
aching
emptiness.
-CB 08
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(offer your ideas)
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| Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
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7:35 pm - 6/17/08 This will be the last of this set.
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| Sunday, June 15th, 2008
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4:18 am - I felt like writing again.
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The Wound
Have you ever
had an instance
in your daily routine
the morning shave
I don't use cream on my face
I prefer the hard edges, I prefer
knowing by
feeling
Though sometimes
I can feel the sting
skin peeling off as
a small red dot appears and begins
to drip
Immediately you are to
cover it up
stop the flow
you are to use tissue or
toilet paper
anything at hand.
I go to work and hope
the blood has congealed
as I stand and stare and
smile
at the hungry crowd
Looking down (or is it up)
upon them
But sometimes
even if its just such a small
petty thing
it doesn't seem to
heal correctly; too rough or too
noticeable
and so we pick at it
until it bleeds anew
and sometimes I wonder
if I've picked at it too much
again
and I can see the horrified faces
of a thousand lost appetites as
it flows along my chin and
beyond my neck and I'm
smiling too desperately like
some bloodthirsty zombie
and its where you wonder
should I keep covering it up like this or
should we
break open the vein
already and
just
let it all flow.
-cb 08
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(6 free-floating ideas | offer your ideas)
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| Saturday, June 14th, 2008
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12:45 am - Ok, ok...two more.
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So, two more. These are from the Farallon Island trip.
Once again, stare at the black dots until the image changes. These will give you the ability to see forever.
P.S. They're smaller so I wouldn't have to cut them and because it seems to work better when you concentrate on a smaller scale.
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(13 free-floating ideas | offer your ideas)
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| Friday, June 13th, 2008
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8:03 pm - When you see it, you will crap bricks...
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| Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
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6:35 pm - 6/11/08 Finally updating again.
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| Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
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12:58 am - 6/4/08
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 Kate Wolf - These Days
Yes, Its another (wonderful) cover of that song, I found it from someone on the audiography community.
Mom.
Wild Dogwood.
When you rappel into the main chamber in the caverns, you have to guide your feet along some slippery, dripping stalactite formations like these as you dangle some odd 150 feet off of the ground.
I recently bought a Nintendo Wii - after months of trying to find one actually in stock, partly because I needed to have a few Mario and Zelda games in my collection, and partly to get Mike more interested in playing games with me. We've been playing this game called Boom Blox because it has a virtual Jenga mini-game in it that is incredibly addictive and fun. Mike also plays a lot of Super Paper Mario and has already gotten further past me in it. Rae (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) raegun came over after work the other day and in between going outside and doing a photo shoot in Golden Gate Park (you can see her awesome old-fashioned manual camera shots ))here(( ), we played Wii Sports against each other. She kept kicking my ass at everything though, so after crying loudly, I threw the controller across the room and told her to go away and that I hated her and never wanted to see her again.
Only the first part of that last sentence is true.
Or is it?
Anyhow, I'm looking forward to my older brother's wedding in July. I'll see family and friends (and "not-friends") - and I am looking forward to that.
Mike and I have been good. We do little things for each other when we can and I think those things are everything.
I'm at another point in my life where I feel like I'm looking backward at the past and then looking forward and seeing where the next good foothold will be.
current music: I don't do that much talking these days
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(27 free-floating ideas | offer your ideas)
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| Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
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9:39 pm - 5/28/08
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| Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
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10:39 pm - 5/27/08
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| Monday, May 26th, 2008
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9:12 pm - Did I miss a few days?
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| Friday, May 16th, 2008
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10:18 pm - A wonderful trip
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7:39 pm - Summer is pretty much here, with this weather.
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Some days you feel like you're just barely hovering over the greatest truths of the world and if only you could concentrate all of your energy you might tap into one of them, but there are too many to choose from and the music you're listening to and the thoughts you're having are all just so nice and full of warmth that you don't really want to feel hurried. You know that everything is somehow interconnected, from the conversations you've been having all day with family, friends and partners to even the most shallow things like the videogames you play or the doodles you draw, but you don't really know what it means, if anything at all.
Eventually the feeling passes, but for that moment you know that everything will improve, that the choices you and the people you know have been making have brought you forward a few steps closer to real, good change in your lives and maybe somehow the world at large. Even if those choices are as simple as being there to listen and talk.
Anyhow, I have a picture post from this last weekend, but it is really so massive (I have 250 some odd photos that I actually like, but I won't feature all of them by a long shot) and covers three of four days of nonstop vacation adventure, that I really am not sure where to start.
I'm thinking I'll just start somewhere in the middle and sporadically update with some number of photos between 3 and 6, from both my H2 and Yashica wherever I see fit.
I don't want to put too much order to a four day vacation that was mostly about freedom and challenging ourselves and having one of the most wonderful times I've had in a long time with my partner, my mother, and my stepfather.
Keep your eyes peeled for my first totally random update. Whenever I get to it, maybe as early as tonight. Maybe not.
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(2 free-floating ideas | offer your ideas)
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| Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
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5:31 pm - Photo Post Before The Big Trip
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So, I've been flaking because of Grand Theft Auto IV. Yes, my biggest vice in life is videogames, and GTA's latest iteration certainly doesn't help quell that addiction.
I've been good about it though. I've been keeping it in moderation.
Because of that though, I've been losing time with my daily photo posts - and instead I realized this would be a perfect opportunity to do a fun little project that includes songs that fit the Yashica seventies vibe.
Growing up, my dad (and my mom, to a lesser extent) used to listen to Todd Rundgren. My father listened to a lot of Todd Rundgren. He still does, if I'm not mistaken.
So, I decided to do a dual photo post wherein I'm dedicating the first part to the relationship between Mike and I. We've weathered so many storms together and I hope to continue to weather them in the future, from whichever direction they come. Even the most personal of directions.
Basically, expect a lot of pictures of Mike.
The second part of this special photo post is dedicated to certain friends, the only closest friends we've had in the past and probably the closest friends we'll have had in the future. I don't know if we'll ever be close again because of our unfortunate fall out, but I felt that I really needed to express that sadness somehow.
 Song For Us:Todd Rundgren - I Saw The Light
( Continue On In This Vein... )
 Song For You:Todd Rundgren - Can We Still Be Friends?
( Continue On In This Vein... )
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(1 free-floating idea | offer your ideas)
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