It may not be GLARINGLY obvious, but Amon really enjoyed the trains at the Detroit Historical society. We both did actually. There were buttons you could push to make it night time, to raise and lower hot air ballons, etc. It made me feel like I was 8 years old. Good times.

It may be hard to tell but nature's Remedy for the blood, apparently, involves the "arm of science" choking a...snake? This one really confused me. I guess in the olden days snakes made "moo" sounds as well as opposed to todays lazy snakes that just go around hissing.

Slackers.

Detroit

Yeah, that's right...Bunion Plasters

Megapixel Madness

DO NOT BUY A CAMERA JUST BECAUSE IT HAS MORE MEGAPIXELS THAN ANOTHER CAMERA!!!

I’ve been reading more and more articles lately saying that the number of Megapixels (how much information your digital camera captures when you snap a photo) is getting to the point where most people aren’t well served to simply look for the camera with more Megapixels.

Check out this link to West Coast Imaging for a fantastic (and colorful) chart illustrating how different megapixel ratings affect print quality at various sizes. (Hint: the number inside each little rectangle is the effective DPI. DPI is the dots per inch and is how you measure what quality a print is.)

200 DPI or higher is recommended for photographic quality prints.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t find myself printing out two foot by 3 foot prints that often. Ok, never. The largest I’ve ever printed out is 8x10, and that was in photography class in college. That means that for most people, the biggest concern is that they want to crop their picture down and only print part of it.

Let’s say you crop your picture down so that you’re only using the bottom left corner of the image (throwing away 75% of the image…seriously, shoot more discriminately). If you did this with a 4 megapixel image (2464 x 1632 pixels), the remaining image (after cropping) would be 1232 x 816 pixels. Tiny, right? Well that image could still be printed at roughly 204 DPI as a 4x6 image (remember over 200 is considered photo-quality). 4x6 is the standard size for prints from a photolab.

Bottom line…if you are going to be lazy and shoot pictures that have to be cropped to one quarter of their size, a 4 megapixel camera will still let you print photo quality images at the most common size. If you are going to print photos as 8x10s (without cropping) you only need 4 megapixels. Everything above that only serves to allow you to crop more and still print at the same size, or to print larger than 8x10 with minimal cropping.

This tells me that the most important thing in cameras, 4 megapixels and higher, is how well they capture color, sharpness, how good the lens is, how small or easy the camera is to use, and how much it costs.

Last thought. If you are only going to post your photos to your website then keep in mind that most photos get posted at a maximum of the screen resolution. Screen resolutions right now range from 1024x768 to 1920x1200. However, much more common is for images to be used on websites inline with the text at resolutions of less than 640x480. You could do this with less than 25% of a 2 megapixel image Please, please, please, do not spend a couple hundreds dollars extra JUST to move from 6 to 7, or even 6 to 9 megapixels. If the camera has other features,GREAT, if you absolutely know that you are going to crop most of your pictures, then consider it.

Flying Eggs (or Gregarious Gargoyles)

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” - Lewis

Very odd imagery to start my morning with…flying eggs.

So much to do and so little time, not that this time of year is really known for slowing down and reflecting. I’m overjoyed that fall is finally here. Sure, it may warm back up for brief periods, but there is no denying that it is here.

I have been put on notice that some people that read this blog would like to here more of what is going on. Writing in the few free minutes at work before I really get to working doesn’t allow for too much elaboration, but such time as I have I will spend.

Amon continues to work furiously at teaching 10^th graders what Holden means when he asks where the ducks go during the winter, and she has new technology to aid her. She was able to talk her department into letting her use a spare projector and a document camera for her classroom. This means skipping the step of transferring things she prints at home to over head; she can now simply put the printout under the document camera and project that onto the screen. As an added benefit, she can supplement the reading with relevant movie clips projected onto the screen, much better than trying to see a 29” screen from across the room.

For my part, I just completed a rigorous class and testing where I had to be away from work and home for 7 days. The end result of this, hopefully I’m not being too premature, will be an internationally recognized certification saying that I’m a good Audiovisual design engineer. I’d have to change my business cards to add CTS-D to the end of my name. Not as prestigious as P.E. (Professional Engineer) but acceptable for now. Technically I have E.I.T (Engineer in Training) after my initials, but don’t really bother with that.

Aside from work related matters, we’ve spent limited bits of free time over the last few weeks being entertained and entertaining friends both from in town as well as out of town. One of Amon’s friend from MI, Kimber, was in town for a conference so we got to spend some good times with her. Then we’ve hosted brunch for a couple of our friends Malcolm and Mary, and been hosted by our dear friend Adrienne (Canadian Thanksgiving party!), and by Oh-So-Generous Tom and Alana. Entirely too much food was eaten, and as always it felt like time went too quickly for all the talking, laughing, and hugging that felt appropriate.

This weekend we’ll fly out to Michigan to spend time with Amon’s mom and Allen as well as both of Amon’s brother’s. We’ll be back there for Thanksgiving, but further north near Traverse City, in Omeena, at her Uncle’s Bed and Breakfast for a family Thanksgiving tradition. It’s such a happy and sad occasion. I’m looking forward being a part of Amon’s traditions (and I’m certainly not dreading spending time at a Bed and Breakfast in Michigan!) and having Amon be a part of my traditions, but there is also that bit of sadness at not being able to be able to celebrate both of our traditions at all times. It’s just not possible to spread ourselves out that much, and neither would it be healthy. So, we feel good in the decisions we’re making, but I wish that there was some way to clone ourselves!

I hope that helps bring people up to date, and tune in soon for more photos. Some day, maybe I’ll get around to setting up my Flickr account better then I can just provide you all with a link to that.

Prost

Infectious Diseases

Thanks Apple. That's exactly what I needed. Really - I just spent all of last month going, "Gee there aren't enough songs in the world to get stuck in my head. Maybe Apple will use an incredibly catchy song to promote it's new Nano and then I can get THAT stuck in my head as well."

So, yeah. Thanks for that.





Woo Hoo...

Viva Voltaire

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. ~Voltaire

“One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.” - Luciano Pavarotti and William Wright, Pavarotti, My Own Story

6 days before he was set to arrive I stepped out of my apartment this morning and was greeted by that annual friend Autumn. So early, he must be as eager to get here as I am for him to arrive. Cultures have been celebrating the beginning and the end of the harvest season for as long as we’ve been an agrarian people. By the end of winter I’m blue and depressed, but Autumn brings out the best in us. Our windows have been open all weekend and the steadily cooling air has been immensely refreshing.

Autumn brings two things to mind: new beginnings and food. Thanksgiving, Christmas, football, harvest…these things bring different associations to different people but better or worse they mostly make me think of food. Thanksgiving is turkey and stuffing; Christmas ham and mom’s egg bake; football wings and nachos, harvest corn, apples, and bread.

I tried very hard to think of something else, but all I could think about this morning was the eggplant I have in the refrigerator, the beans and ham that I’m cooking tomorrow, where I can find the best recipe for apple pie, the fact that I didn’t buy any sweet potatoes, when I can invite people over for a roast. Cranberries, walnuts, sour dough bread, loaves of whole wheat bread, potatoes, carrots, squash are all going through my mind like a stock ticker.

In the comments section, feel free to let me know what foods you associate with Autumn. I’ll leave you with a few quotes I dug up from a post last year, plus a few more.

“Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.” – Jim Davis

Shipping is a terrible thing to do to vegetables. They probably get jet-lagged, just like people. ~Elizabeth Berry

Red meat is not bad for you. Now blue-green meat, that’s bad for you! ~Tommy Smothers

Ultimate Road Trip?

What makes a good road trip? The single most important requirement of a road trip is driving. Outside of that there seem to be wildly conflicting points of view. My beloved Merriam Webster defines road trip as: an extended trip in a motor vehicle. Somewhat lack luster. Wikipedia on the other hand, that wildly verbose collection of the “worlds wisdom” has multiple pages of definitions, examples, guides, and references, all of this plus a definition of road trip with 8 separate sub-types.

How’s one to sift through all of these competing views and articles to discover the real truth about what a genuine road trip is? Simply read the next line.

A road trip is any trip where the primary reason for going is the journey. There’s a saying that has become seemingly ingrained in our collective conscious that goes, “It’s about the journey, not the destination.” Despite the cliché nature of this aphorism its sentiment sums up the essential requirements of a road trip.

After establishing this truth technicalities can be added such as requiring a vehicle (not hiking, sailing, or flying), or sub-definitions definitions such as: speed run, park hopping, regional, international, etc. And those are all great things to think about if they lead to further interest in road trips, but ultimately a road trip must stay about the journey.

Having said all of that, a road trip typically has an ostensible “purpose”. This purpose helps to inform the itinerary, map out way points, and provides motivation when the generic concept of “going out and driving for 2 weeks” starts sounding too vague to get excited about. With that knowledge it’s easier to understand why the first step of a road trip would be to choose a destination, even though it’s really about the journey.

Interested in some good locations? How about going on a road trip to see 3 of the wildest holes you’ll ever see? The link below lists 7 of the most extreme holes in the world, 3 of which are in the US. If you want to drive to Canada or Central America (Belize/Guatemala) you could do a road trip to see 6 amazing holes (second link).

http://deputy-dog.com/2007/09/09/7-amazing-holes/
http://maptrot.com/mapView.jsp?mapId=a0a236bc-c3e7-49d5-bc17-48b6255e3ae4

Not interested in ridiculously large holes, then why not drive route 1 or route 66. Maybe do an east coast tour or just take a drive to see each of the house you’ve lived in? So many possibilities…

Community Book Shelf: RIP

Well, the grand experiment that was the Community Bookshelf never really took off. I think for that to work requires a critical mass of people such that whenever any given person logs on whether after days or weeks since checking there is something new to look into. With less than 50 members (less than 25 that were contributing members) it was hard to reach that point. The biggest thing that I miss about the bookshelf was the ability to post a short topic and get people's opinions. I can do that with the blog, but it's a bit of a side step from the usual, "self-indulgent inane claptrap dealing with naught but daily minutiae". I suppose my scattered readership will have to deal for one day.

Less eulogizing and more discussion I suppose.

I have been interested in building my library again recently. I'm going to post (below) the books that I'm most interested in reading right now, which largely fall into categories of classic literature, classic christian literature, and for lack of a better term fantasy (but "fantasy" used in the classical sense...more mythopoeia, not the more modern sense). In other words this isn't an exhaustive library list, but rather a books a "haven't read yet but want to"-list.

However, in addition to posting my list, I'm hoping that in the comments section I might hear back from some of you with what books you think I should add to my list and or what you think of any of the books on the list. Have you read some of them, did you like them, think they were terrible? Do they make you think of other books I should read?

There, I suppose that is verbose enough. Discuss :)

C.S. Lewis
The Pilgrim's Regress
The Allegory of Love
A Preface to Paradise
Lost Studies in Words
The Discarded Image
Letters to an American Lady
Letter to Malcolm

George MacDonald
Phantases
Lilith
The Light Princess
The Princess and the Goblin
The Princess and Curdie

G.K. Chesterton
The Everlasting Man
The Man Who Was Thursday
Orthodoxy
What's Wrong with the World

St. John of the Cross
Canticle and Dark Night of the Soul
Living Flame of Love

Herman Melville
Moby Dick

Tolstoy
War and Peace

Currently Reading

I just glanced over at the side bar and saw that it said I was still reading "Gilead". Yikes. Truth be told I finished "Gilead" about 2 days after Amon and I got back from Colorado. So much to do, so little time to do it. Updating the sidebar of the blog falls into that category of items reserved for ironing curtains and dusting the top of your book shelf; you know you should do it but somehow it always seems to not be done.

So SINCE "Gilead" I've read the Lemony Snickets books 1-5, part of "Lake Wobegon", bits and pieces of "The Dangerous Book for Boys", and have been brushing up on C.S. Lewis in preparation for the soon to be re-convening Inklings group. I'm currently reading Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughter House Five" as part of my ongoing attempt to read more of those English Lit. class/cultural classic books I some how missed out on. I while back I read "The Old Man and the Sea", and I've also read "Lord of the Flies" recently.

The book we'll be covering in Inklings this semester is "Surprised by Joy". It's Lewis's "autobiography" although I'd think today's literary critics would describe it as more of a memoir. It is certainly told with a point to make (how he became a Christian and what the motivation means for his literary aesthetic) and it only covers a portion of his life. I think it will be interesting to compare his attitudes and approach to life, literature, Christianity in "Surprised by Joy" (written relatively early in life) to one of the books we did last semester in Inklings "A Grief Observed".

Upcoming reads include something by Shakespeare (either a comedy or a history...who's to say), some Chesterton, probably re-read Phantases, some peruse the Annotated Hobbit, and An Acceptable Time, the other 8 Lemony Snicket books, and who knows what else.

Let me know your thoughts on any of the books I've mentioned...I'd love to hear.

Mike

Welcome back STS-118

The crew of STS-118 is back on earth despite questions about whether the shuttle would be safe to re-enter the atmosphere with a damaged tile. I was listening to an interview with a science and technology public affairs professor who was discussing the change or lack of change in NASA's culture regarding safety issues.

It's a very intersting topic. NASA is our nations space agency; it is not a private corporation. It makes me wonder what kind of discussions would be taking place if we were talking about a private corporation. On the one hand, being a public organization I would IMAGINE it is subject to more inquiry and public openness. Maybe not. However, I have to think that with private space ventures there would be a POTENTIAL for a more dollar oriented approach.

If NASA has to jump through hurrdles to get people thinking safety over money...what will happen with private space ventures?

I hope and wish that private space travel will start as soon as Virgin Galactic seems to imply it will (first commercial sub orbital flights by as early as 2009). There's a part of me that worries about what sorts of risks may be taken to be the first, the highest, the longest, etc. There's also a part of me that thinks that my kids are going to be able to come up with some really awesome sports and games on their vacations to the Galactic (Insert Corporate Sponsor) Center located in Geosynchronous orbit above the Barrier Reef.

Emperor's New Diet?

How much would YOU pay for "Gourmet Salt"?

I recently read an article that detailed a "salt sampler rack" (like a spice rack but with different salts) that sold for over $100.00. I just can't imagine who's buying over $100.00 in gourmet salt. I could see spending 5 bucks on some cool looking black salt, but I imagine that's probably still a pretty hard sell for most people.

Maybe I'm missing something.

Wedding Photo Sampler

I should preface these by giving a wonderful thank you to Joe Portnoy (joe@snaptography.net), for doing the photography for our wedding. I've known Joe for about as long as I've known anyone in DC. He has been doing photography for sometime now including weddings and freelance photography for well known companies such as XM radio. He recently went full-on professional and ours was one of the first weddings he's shot with his brand new gear.

Fortunately for us the new gear didn't get in the way of his great technique, only amplified the results! Joe was professional when required, and did a wonderful job of caputring the unique qualities of our wedding. Amon and I were less concerned with getting the same ol' posed shots and more interested in candid shots from ceremony and reception. We took a long time to plan a wedding that was uniquely us, and Joe did justice to all of that work by creating photographs that freeze moments and showed the true feel of our wedding. That's important on a day that seems to fly past so quickly.

Once we get all of the photographs back I'll put together a Flickr or other photo album, until then enjoy this small sampler.

Love,
Mike

Buechner

Have any of you read Buechners fiction, specifically Godric or Brendan? I'm curious to hear some feed back. The book Brendan is on my shelf of "to read" books and I've considered buying/borrowing Godric.

More to be posted soon. Until then though, thanks to everyone who has made it out to celbrate with us, and for those of you coming to the Missouri party - See You Soon!

Very Truly Yours,
Mike

P.S. If you didn't get an invite to the MO party, let me know. If you did but haven't RSVP'ed yet, let me know...my mother is still trying to figure out how many people to expect. Thanks!

First and Last

My first post since my "year" was up with drinking only water. I'm sure that I will post something more on this after I've been able to think a bit about what it really meant. I can say this though. The experiment with drinking water was a personal success despite the fact that my year of water was shortened into a "year" of water by some fairly monumental life events.

The first couple weeks were incredibly hard, though easier than I had expected. I love juice, tea is such a great way to relax, coffee is one of the best things to sip on a crisp fall morning while reading at a cafe. When having Italian food a glass (or half bottle) of wine does in fact go a long way towards encouraging you to slow down and savor the meal, and beer does wonders to a barbeque chicken pizza at your favorite pizzeria. Replacing each of those drinking experiences with sipping a glass of water was hard not only from a "breaking habits" perspective, but also from a social ackwardness perspective.

Probably the single biggest frustration was the first time I wanted to go hang out with someone, but wasn't hungry and just wanted to talk. We couldn't go hang out at a coffee shop, or get tea. What else was there to do??? Over the next year I figured out how to navigate these situations, but it took some adaptation.

If you ask me what my most memorable glass of wine was I can now tell you what the date was, where I was, who was with me, and what the situation was. There is absolutely no doubt. December 31, 2006 in New York City with Amon Krist, the girl I'm going to be marrying 6 days. I know this was the most memorable glass of wine because it was the ONLY thing I drank other than water during the entire 1 "year" experiment, the only exception, the only special allowance. I figured you only get engaged once, and if that wasn't a reason for a special allowance then nothing was. I don't remember the wine, how much it cost, what it tasted like, or what variety of grape went into it. I'm fairly certain it was red.

Which brings me to the last portion of "First and Last". If there were a count down to my wedding it would read: 0 Years, 0 Months, 0 Weeks, 6 Days. You'd probably say it was cheap for not having an hours and seconds countdown, but I'd say it was just careful planning so I don't have to calculate those after I've had my first beer in a year.

Of course I won't pretend that I can put into words what I'm feeling as I approach one of the biggest days of my life. I've tried but when I look back over it all of the words seem somehow incomplete. I feel like I'm beginning a journey that I have resolved to see to the end anticipating great times of joy and happiness, as well as recognizing (as much as anyone on this end of the journey can) that there will be twists and detours that never showed up on the original plan. It's a journey that despite my resolution, I don't know what to pack, what maps to take, or what supplies I will need.

I have all of these thoughts floating around in my head begging to be put on paper, or placed on the web. I know that trying to put any one of them up would be torture to the others and besides that give an unrealistic picture of what I'm thinking right now.

That is what you get between now and the wedding date. Come celebrate with us at one of the receptions and I can tell you what it's like having taken the first step.

Until then:

The Road goes ever on and on,
down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
and I must follow if I can.
Persuing it with weary feet,
until it joins some larger way,
where many paths and errands meet,
and whither then, I cannot say.

May God bless you and keep you. May he cause His light to shine upon you.