whirlwind

Well here we are at the end of the year, and I find myself with very little time and a lot to say. It's been a very hectic and incredible last few months with so much going on... moving into our new house just before Thanksgiving, then heading off to Delaware for a trial almost immediately afterwards. Then before we knew it Christmas had arrived and we hosted our first big Christmas party at our new home with the family and it was a big success. And now, all of a sudden we're at the end of 2010, and it seemed like I didn't have enough time to take it all in. I will of course have many photos and stories to share, and when time permits I will try to add them in. For now, I will keep it short and say a belated Happy Holidays to everyone, and wish you all a very successful and joyous 2011. Now I have to go and enjoy a fine steak dinner and some wine, and ring in the new year with my honey... peace out.

importation

We're about to move to our new place up in the hills but we have a few more days to go.  My vacation has begun though so that means ... Time to update the blog!

I know at least some of you have been wondering whether an iPad would make sense for their needs instead of a laptop.  So I plan to have several posts about using the iPad for different tasks that I've been doing, and how it has been better or worse than what I was using before, which was a laptop docked to a monitor, keyboard and mouse (essentially your typical PC). For this update I will focus on one of the functions for the iPad that I mentioned before:  managing and working with photos.  I have to say, that so far the abilities of the iPad are a little disappointing for me for this function.

Before I get into the details let me talk about what my typical photo workflow is in the context of the previous setup, using my laptop.  I take photos with my Nikon D5000, and I want to offload them from my memory card.  I use a USB card reader, and plugging in the SD card kicks open Google's Picasa image management software (which is free).  From there I can copy the images over to the laptop's drive, and back them up to      an external drive.  Then Picasa lets me review my images, delete the ones I don't like, and tag (star) the ones I like.  I can also adjust basic things like brightness, contrast, white balance, as well as rotate and crop the photos all within Picasa.  

Typically that's all I need to do with my photos, but if I need to, I'll open the photo up in PhotoShop if I want to do anything more advanced like touching up the photo, removing items from the picture, stuff like that.  If I want to use multiple photos together (for instance in my San Francisco series) to build a panorama I use Autostitch, another free app.  Save the file, and then it's back to Picasa.

From Picasa I can organize the photos into folders, and upload them to Picasa online so that I can share the photos with everyone.  I also have accounts with Photobucket and Flickr, but for those I just upload through the web browser.  And then I may publish the photos or links to them on this Blog or on Facebook.  That's about it, 99% of the time.  I very rarely print my photos but if I do I will pick them out using the Picasa viewer and export them to send to the printer.   

Ok, so let's move over to the iPad workflow.  I pop the SD card out of the camera just like before, and use the Apple Camera Connection Kit for the iPad.  Plugging it in automatically launches the iPad's Photos app, and it lets you select which photos to copy over from the card.  Like Picasa the app tells you if your images are duplicates of what's already on the iPad.  You can select everything with one button or tap individually on each photo to select it, and then start the copy process.  However in Photos you can't import the photos into a folder or name the folder.  They just all go into the Photos area.

Once they're imported you view them in Photos as well.  But you only have a few limited ways to sort or view them.  You can't actually move them into another folder or album on the iPad.  There are three views.  

1.  Photos view shows you everything you've got stored on the iPad, unsorted or grouped.  If you have 500+ photos loaded on your iPad, that's a lot of scrolling around through the thumbnails to find the photo you want.  
2.  The Albums view is misleading for me, because you can't actually organize your photos in this view or create any new Albums on the iPad.  It shows you any albums that you've created on your PC or Mac and then copied over to your iPad using the synch feature in iTunes.  In this view all your photos that you've imported through the Camera Connection Kit are    all lumped into an "all imported" album, and there's a separate album called "last imported" for the most recent set you imported.  Then there's a separate album called "saved photos" which contains all other non-imported photos, such as ones you save from the web while browsing, or images that are saved from other apps, whether they are drawings from a 3rd party doodle app or edited photos from a 3rd party editing app.
3.  The last view is Events which basically as far as I can tell, groups the photos you've imported based on what date you imported them.  Even photos taken on the same date, if imported to the iPad on different days, will go into separate Events in this view.

What else can you do in the Photos app?  Not a whole lot.  You can view and delete a photo, and you can email it, or copy it to the iPad clipboard.  You can upload a photo to your MobileMe gallery if you have an account.  No renaming files, no sorting into albums and no tagging.  And to back up the photos to another drive, you have to connect the iPad to your PC or Mac and do a backup through iTunes.  You can't connect the iPad to an external drive to back up the photos directly.  
    
Did you catch all of that?  To me it doesn't make much sense. The organizational function of the Photos app is very weak and I find it frustrating to work with.  It seems like the answer is to sort and organize on your PC or Mac and then synch over to the iPad but that kind of defeats the purpose of having the Camera Connection kit.   I guess if a good 3rd party app was out there that could take the place of the Photos app and add better functionality, that could solve this.  Or I hope that Apple improves the app with future updates.  

Well, let's take a look at the rest of the tasks I wanted to do.  I've been using Adobe's PS Express and Zagg Photo Pad for my photo editing needs. Both are very good for free apps.  The touch interface is kind of neat for adjustment sliders and for cropping photos, but sometimes lacks the precision of a mouse.  I also bought the IOS version of Autostitch ($2.99) for making panoramas.  These are all very cool but I do feel they fall a bit short of their PC counterparts.
  
I can't believe there isn't Picasa for iPad yet but I got the 3rd party app Web Albums which is ok for uploading pics.  There's also a Photobucket app which is pretty good for both viewing and uploading on the Photobucket site.    The closed nature of the iPad's file system prevents you from simply uploading a file through the web browser to sites like Picasa, Photobucket or Flickr.  You need to either have an app that supports uploading to the site or use tricks like emailing in a file if the site has that option.  Once you've got the images up there, linking to them in Blogger or Facebook is a little trickier on the iPad than on PC due to the wonky copy and paste functions, but it can be done. 

So most of the same abilities are there on the iPad, but there is that one glaring issue for me.  What I really want is a way to manage the photo albums on the iPad without going back to the PC.  Maybe this limitation is there by Apple's design, because the storage on the iPad is very finite and they may be trying to make the case for more cloud-based storage and sharing.  That's where the apps like Web Albums and Photobucket come in.  But coming from the PC world I can't help but think that so far, in this particular arena, the iPad falls short of the PC's power.          

clarity

Probably my last SF shots for a while... As we will be moving soon and no more Bay Bridge commute for me. Yay! Maybe I will return when the holiday lights are up around the City.

iterative

From City by the Bay

Quick posting for today -- one of my most recent panoramas of the SF Skyline. It's a stitch of 4 images taken with my kit lens, at 55mm, shot from Treasure Island. I think aside from the one with the crescent moon and the GG Bridge with the blue sky gradient, this is the best one I've taken so far.  Although I think the sky isn't as pretty here, this one is much sharper than the previous one.  This might be the one I send to the printers to make a nice framed print for decorating our house!  Which by the way, we will be getting the keys to the new place in two weeks!  Woot!  Exciting times ...

formation

From 2010-10-09 Fleet Week Airshow

October is my favorite month of the year, for several reasons.  It has the perfect fall weather that I like, not too hot and not to cold.  It also happens that my birthday is in October.  This year it was a particularly unique date: 10/10/10.  I don't know if it has any astrological significance, but see my previous posting about the power of the number 10.

Anyways V. took me out to the city and we had a wonderful day of seeing the sights... We parked at Fishermen's Wharf and had lunch at Hooters.  Afterwards we went to the pier and watched the Fleet Week airshow including a performance by the Blue Angels.  That's the other reason I like October, it's always when Fleet Week comes to San Francisco.  I had my camera with me and got some nice shots -- click on the photo above to see the rest of the photos.  And then for dinner we went to one of my favorite dining destinations in SF -- Espetus, the Brazilian churrascuria.  If you love eating meat like I do, you are doing yourself a disservice if you have never had dinner at a churrascuria!  We ate so much we had to roll each other out the front door.

If you know my wife V., you know she always tries to get me the latest in fancy technological gadgets for my birthdays and Christmas.  Well I wasn't expecting anything grand this year because we are trying to save up for the new house that we'll be moving into next month.  So imagine my dismay and outrage when I unwrapped her latest example of utter defiance.  An Apple iPad 3G.


I have to admit I wasn't that impressed by the iPad when it was introduced by Apple.  What is it, really, beyond a jumbo iPod Touch?  And why would I want it when for the same cost I could have a full-fledged laptop?

Several people I know got one, and they all tend to say the same thing.  "You have to try it, and then you'll get it."  And now I have, and I think I get it.  There's a few things remarkable about using it.  It's about the touchscreen interface, and how intuitive it is to use and navigate through the Web, flip through photos, and other objects.  Humans respond favorably to the sensation of touch, and when tightly coupled with a strong visual presentation, this is a significant break from how we traditionally have used computers and technology.  It's not just moving a mouse with your hand, and seeing a cursor move on the screen.  It's reaching out and touching an icon that you see in front of you, and seeing it expand or react to your touch, instantly.  It's also about how small and thin it is, small enough to hold in one hand and walk around with it, or sit on your couch and lounge around while swiping your way through the news or playing a game.  And it turns on instantly and is ready for you to leap onto the internet or into an app, with little or no start-up time.  I don't know if it's as "magical" as Steve Jobs would have you believe, but it is, like the iPhone before it, a game-changer in the technology world.

Now that I have one, and I'm told that the return policy is, well, not an option, the next question is, what to do with it?  One thing I suppose is to flaunt my technological superiority and hipness among my peers by dangling the lightweight tablet around my neck as a medallion, like the supa-fly funky fresh young man on the left.  Couple that with some kind of huge clock app (I'm SURE there's an app for that), and I'm Flavor Flav for the 21st century!  Yeah, boyeeee!

Here are some of the options I can think of, and will be exploring in the coming days:

Web and Reading.  Obviously a major function of the iPad is for surfing the web and reading articles, books, and email.  I haven't bought any books from iBooks yet but I probably will dabble in that, and maybe sign up for some online magazines.  So far reading the web and social networking has been great, especially with this app Flipbook that helps make checking up on your friends' activities and goings-on much more interactive and visually slick.  In the mornings I can roll out of bed, turn it on and immediately check traffic, weather, or the news without having to turn on a PC, and wait for the device to start up, load the operating system, etc.

Work.  I've already got my work email flowing in on the iPad, which lets me switch between multiple accounts on Outlook, Yahoo! and Gmail pretty easily.  The built-in viewers seem to open most PDFs, Word docs, and other typical business documents with no problem.  If I want to edit docs I'll have to splurge on some real business productivity apps like Pages, Numbers and Keynote.

Play.  Obviously there are plenty of games available for the iPhone and iPad.  There are plenty that are free to try out and they range from the simple like air hockey to more complex like Scrabble, and even to the highly complex like the turn-based strategy classic Civilization.  There are some racing games for the iPad that I will probably check out.  I just bought my first game which is a Real Time Strategy game called Land Sea Air Warfare.  I always thought a touch-screen tablet like the iPad would be perfect for playing a RTS and now I'll get to test that theory as I learn a new addictive game.  Oh, how many hours have I wasted playing RTS games?  A lot.

Photos.  Along with the iPad my family also got me the camera connect kit, which makes importing photos into the iPad a cinch.  So I am looking at the various apps available that will help me view, organize, edit, and share my photos more easily.  The view and edit parts are covered with a few free apps including a decent one from Adobe Photoshop, but I need to look for better ways to organize and then share my pictures online.  I've got the Photobucket app, but am considering buying another app that supports uploading to Picasa.  I'm a little suprised the built-in Photos viewer has no ability to really organize your photos on the iPad -- you basically need a Mac and iPhoto to do anything with them.  I guess it's Apple's not so subtle way of saying, "hey, you like the iPad?  Then you should buy a Mac to go with it."

Writing.  The touch keyboard is fairly easy to use especially in the landscape mode, but I might want to consider getting the wireless keyboard if I plan to do a lot of typing.  I am going to try doing more of my blog posting from the iPad to see how that goes.  A portion of this post was written on the iPad, but when it came time to add in photos and do some more writing I went back to my PC and keyboard.  For short posts it should be a lot more convenient.

Music.  Many have said or joked that the iPad is just a iPod touch enlarged.  So obviously it plays music.  The iPod functionality is nothing special, it just plays music like an iPod or iTunes.  It actually feels like something in between, it doesn't have all the same control features of iTunes like DJ mode or ability to edit ID3 tags, song titles etc.  But I'd rather just use my iPod Classic for playing music than have to plug in the iPad to speakers or use headphones with it.  I guess having iTunes and being able to shop for music is better, but maybe where it comes in handy is being able to run music apps like Pandora or Shazam.  But this functionality comes secondary to all the other functions in my mind.

That's it for this update.  Drop me a comment if you have ideas of other ways I could use my iPad that I haven't thought of yet.  After I have had a chance to use it some more I will give further impressions.

ephemeral

My mother-in-law's got this plant that blooms only once a year and the flowers only last one night before dying and falling off. I was there and took a few shots of one of the flowers in bloom.

From Flowers

From Flowers

From Flowers

From Flowers

From Flowers

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may;
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
~Robert Herrick

celebrity

My fellow racing and track-day cohort turned car builder Hong Quan has finally made it big time, getting some national exposure by having famed comedian, Tonight-show-host and car guy extraordinaire Jay Leno feature his custom-built 3-wheeler (some call them trikes) on his automotive website, Jay Leno's Garage! Congratulations to Hong and hope the build orders start flowing in.



Link to Jay Leno's Garage for more info and photos.

Looks like Autoblog has finally seen the light and posted up an article about the Prong 3 there as well... mainly riding on Leno's coattails.

Hong also made the local news on NBC... hope you remember the little people when you're rich and famous pal!

fame

If you haven't already, check out the latest overnight internet sensation that is sweeping Youtube and Facebook - meet Antoine Dodson. Some quick background: a young woman in Alabama wakes up to find an intruder in her bed, trying to rape her - she screams and her brother Antoine comes in and helps her fight off the would-be rapist; he manages to flee out the window he climbed into the room from. Police come, tv news crew comes, and it's all a very normal if unfortunate story for the six o'clock news... until they interview an angry and emotional Antoine, who has some things to say to his sister's attacker. After the story aired on tv, the video on the local news stations' website became their number one watched video, and Antoine becomes an unsuspecting internet star. As often happens these days, some creative types took the video and remixed it into what could become the next big internet viral meme -- and so I give you, the Bed Intruder Song!



The song and Antoine's diatribe are both incredibly funny, although the subject matter and his sister's ordeal are a serious matter. But the song is just so damn catchy, I can't stop listening to it over and over. I think it can be viewed as a powerfully sincere and angry anthem for Antoine and his sister Kelly, who want nothing more than safety and justice, and express their frustration at the environment and circumstances that they found themselves in.

You dont have to come and confess, we lookin for you, we gon' find you!
So you can run and tell that, homeboy!

Update: here are a few more covers that i found that I enjoyed.
http://youtu.be/HKraf32VU6M

http://youtu.be/Wid6V_f09rA

http://youtu.be/7wucEzYqTXk

http://youtu.be/Aud_wgLdrQI

visions

This post will just be a quick photo update...

Some fireworks photos from July 4th:


Also because I've been taking the Bay Bridge home after work now, I have had a few opportunities to stop by Treasure Island and take some nighttime skyline shots of San Francisco:

From City by the Bay

this one's kind of massive, and features a 3-image stitch I made with Autostitch, Photoshop and Picasa (click to enlarge):


the vista point on Treasure Island is super windy and cold at night so it's a bit of a challenge to capture some of these images; they're still not as sharp as I would like even with a tripod and various photog tricks people have suggested to me. I'll keep trying though, hopefully I will come up with some really nice shots that I would be proud to hang on a wall in our new place.

relocation

Happy Birthday, America! Happy Fourth of July! A lot has happened in the past few months... but in short we've sold our home, paid off our debts, put our stuff into storage and moved to Richmond! We found a buyer and after some negotiations with him signed a purchase agreement. We finished packing up our things and moved out last weekend, putting most of our stuff into a storage unit that's near our future home. We closed escrow last week and have moved up to Richmond to stay with family until our new house is complete. We had looked at renting an apartment but it seemed like a hassle and for the short term (four months) that we needed it, it wouldn't have been so cheap. So now we have a bit of a lengthy commute for the next few months but we're saving a lot more money by not renting. It's kind of a weird feeling not having a mortgage or any substantial debt to our names. Though that will certainly change again very soon when we move into the new house.

In the meantime, work continues as busy as ever... I had one trial that was scheduled to take place in Boston right about now but it was dismissed just before we were set to leave. I was a little disappointed we didn't get to go to Boston again but I guess I'd probably be working right now (on July 4th) if it had gone forward. But now my other case has been extremely busy and we're gearing up for the next trial in DC that starts in September.

I took some photos recently of an airshow - I didn't actually go to the airshow but it was going on outside of my office building one Saturday while I was working. It's kind of hard to keep focused when there's Harrier jets flying around outside your window. So I took a break and with the power of my 70-300mm lens was able to capture some of the cool aircraft flying around.

riparian

We've just come back from a 2-day trip to Yosemite Valley. The landscapes and scenery were pretty awe-inspiring. Here are some of the photos. I probably took over 700 photos in all but many of them didn't turn out the way I wanted them to. That's the great thing about a DSLR like the Nikon D5000, you can just keep clicking away and not worry about wasting film, and then go back and pick the best shots. Anyways we had a good time enjoying the natural beauty of Yosemite, and I had fun trying to capture some of that beauty with my camera. Oh and by the way the wide angle shots were done with a Nikkor 10-24mm lens I rented from http://www.borrowlenses.com/. It's a great way to get access to otherwise expensive equipment like this lens, which retails for like $1000.

spartan

Construction has started on our new home and our current place is still up for sale -- no decent offers have turned up yet. In the meantime we are kind of resuming our normal life although with a bit more economy and restraint. I've hooked the PS3 back up to the TV so we can at least watch some Blu-Ray movies.

Recently I watched John Woo's epic historical drama Red Cliff which runs a staggering 4+ hours across 2 discs. The film depicts the historical Battle at Red Cliff from 208 AD. Although it's a long film, I thought it was a triumphant return to form for John Woo -- the only disappointment for me was that long-time Woo collaborator Chow Yun-Fat withdrew from the film early in its filming.
But his fellow Hard-Boiled alumni Tony Leung does a reasonably good job playing the charismatic and wily commander Zhou Yu. Some of the memorable battle scenes feature the fearsome general Guan Yu, who to this day is deified by Chinese around the world, as the god of loyalty and righteousness.

Now I'm wondering if I should pull the XBox360 out of the closet as well -- next week the free multiplayer beta of Halo Reach comes out for Halo3: ODST owners... that would include me!  But that would mean I need to renew my XBox Live Gold membership which I let expire, so I'll have to think about it.  Not sure I'll have time to play games as work picks up again this summer...

In the meantime, I did take more photos recently - check out the collection below.  And we have a weekend trip up to Yosemite coming later this month, I am looking forward to seeing (and photographing) some spectacular scenery out there.



-p.

presentation

We've spent the last few weeks packing, throwing away old stuff, and lightly renovating the house -- mostly cleaning up and touching up the paint. We've been very low-impact on our home so very little needed fixing. Then came "staging" -- dressing up the place to make it look desirable to the maximum number of buyers. After a whirlwind tour of stores like Bed Bath and Beyond, Ross, Wal-Mart and Pier 1 Imports, we have decked the place out with all manner of new paintings, mirrors, lamps and bedsheets. Last weekend our place officially went out on the market and we held our first open house. Check out the photos, the place looks absolutely stunning if I may say so!



And if you're looking to buy a place and ours looks tempting, act quick! We've already got our first offer to buy over the weekend... we are still considering it.

Official Listing on our Agent's site

liquidation

As we get ready to sell our home and move to our new place we've started clearing out the extra stuff we've had lying around over the years that we don't really need. Less stuff to move = less trouble. It's not hard to imagine that I have quite a few auto parts stored away in the garage. So I've put up my original Lexus wheels from the IS350 for sale on craigslist. There's probably other parts I've kept around for no reason that will go to the dump or up for sale on craigslist, like extra exhausts, lug nuts etc.

Wouldn't you know it, the first three emails I've received about the wheels are all likely scammers. They either want me to click on some probably malicious link or spam that they sent me, or want to send me a cashier's check for the wheels, sight unseen. I just need to send them all my personal information so they can proceed swiftly with the transaction. The transaction of stealing my money, you mean? Yeah right sucker.

Check out this video at the Federal Trade Commission about filing a complaint online. I think it's unintentionally funny because everyone's all squinty-eyed until they get scammed, and suddenly their eyes pop open.

migration

Maybe I'm an optimist but I do believe that 2010 is the year that things turn around for us... and now I've put my wallet (and life savings) on the line to prove it. Last week V and I decided to buy a new house up in the Hayward Highlands. Right now it's still just a dirt lot on a hill, but in about 6 to 8 months our new home will be built and it's going to be very exciting to move into a bigger house. It's so big, the builder Toll Brothers doesn't just refer to them as homes, they are "estate" homes.

This is by far the biggest purchase we've ever made (eclipsing our current home by more than double the price) so it's really going to be a test of our financial strength. But it's all about risk vs. reward and we think it's worth the stretch. We've lived in our current home for 7 years, and this will be our home for probably the next 7 or more... and there's plenty of room so I doubt we'll outgrow this one. So here's hoping that in 7 years we are sitting on a big fat pile of equity.

Anyways we are pretty excited about moving to our new home, but some changes are in order before that happy day... we need to keep saving money to make our dream a reality and we plan to try and sell our current home very soon and move temporarily into an apartment to save even more as our home is built. It's certainly a real shakeup and turn of events for me, but I hope in the end it is worth it.

calibration

With time, misfortune can become comedy. You've probably heard someone say (or maybe said it yourself), "someday we'll look back on this and laugh". Usually it's said in the midst of an unfortunate or difficult situation. A few years ago I had that thought, as I stood in an open dirt lot, hands raised in the air as several policemen pointed their guns at me. Well actually, the thought was more like, "if I live to look back on this, someday I'll look back on this and laugh."

I suppose some background is in order. Somewhere back about 15 years ago or so, a friend and I decided it would be awesome to take up target shooting. Neither of us had any real firearms experience, so we decided to start our sharpshooting adventures with CO2-powered pellet guns. For some reason I think we were spending a lot of time hanging out at K-Mart and they had a selection of pistols to choose from, modeled after real guns. My buddy chose a Dirty Harry-style .44 Magnum revolver replica with the long barrel and 6 shots. My weapon of choice ended up being the Colt .45 semiautomatic replica. They were both made of black plastic, but from a distance they certainly looked like the real thing. Both guns fired .177 caliber pellets and used CO2 gas cartridges to propel the ammo with satisfying velocity, enough to let us blast small holes in soda cans and whatever else we happened to have around as a target.

After a ricochet from a more solid food can zinged right back past my head I figured that we should stick to thinner and softer targets. And maybe shoot from a farther distance than our backyards might allow. We were young(er) and (more) foolish, and one weekend it occurred to us that we should go find an open area to do our plinking in. I knew of some new housing developments nearby where the homes hadn't been built yet and there was plenty of space, so my friend, my brother and I hopped in the car and headed out there with our pistols and some cans for targets.

So we found an empty lot where we set up and started shooting. At one point I saw a pickup truck driving along through the development heading our way. Whoever it was spotted us and almost violently came to a stop. As I watched, it quickly backed up and sped away. I should have known right then and there that it was time to split. Instead we shrugged and kept firing away.

Maybe ten minutes later, the other shoe dropped. A black-and-white police car came along but stopped well short of where we were. Uh-oh. I motioned to my friend to cease fire and started to unload my pistol, tossing it to the dirt. Maybe a minute or so later, about two or three more police cars arrived. Backup now on the scene, the po-po charged up to where we were, lights flashing and all. One of them was a K-9 unit with a police dog in the back. Almost immediately the cops were out of the cars, guns drawn and pointing right at us. "Hands in the air!" one of them gruffly shouted. I'm pretty sure I put mine up immediately. Apparently either my brother or my friend wasn't quick enough, because the next command was "Hands out of your pocket, right now!"

Wind blowing in my face as I faced the five-oh, in my mind I was already expecting to see the flashing muzzles as they took us down. Maybe I had seen too many bad-cop movies but I totally saw the scene going down like this: One of the cops sees something they don't like and puts one of us down. The others open up on the rest of us either out of panic, or to cover their tracks and write up whatever story they want. Dead men tell no tales. "Yeah, the perps saw us come up and didn't cooperate, one of them drew for a weapon and we had to rock 'n roll on they ass!" We'd be face down in the dirt and they could drop a few planted weapons on us to justify the takedown. One of them came towards me and told me to turn around, away from him. Oh, shit.

But the shots didn't come. Instead I felt a hand patting me down, feeling what I had in my pockets. OK, maybe I'll survive this encounter after all. They had us standing there at gunpoint for several minutes, reaching for the sky while one of them checked out what we had dropped to the ground. It didn’t take long for them to figure out what we were up to, and that we weren’t hardened criminals in the middle of some high-stakes drug or arms deal. Just a couple of kids with pellet guns plinking around. Then they rounded us up and led us back to our car. They were surprisingly cool about the whole thing. Perhaps just relieved that it hadn’t turned into a shootout at the OK Corral. They returned our pistols and basically told us to get lost. Subdued and feeling lucky we had gotten off so easy, we got back in our car and got out of Dodge as quick as we could. Our interest in target-shooting diminished pretty rapidly after that. I think we took up bowling for a while instead. Nobody gets shot while bowling.

Years later, yeah I think I can look back on that incident and laugh a little. We were dumb kids but we managed to avoid Darwinian selection. And you know what, I still enjoy trying to hit a bulls-eye with a well-placed shot. A few months ago some coworkers and I got together, and some of them had rifles and pistols so we went down to the gun range and spent an enjoyable morning blasting targets. One of them had a powerful scoped AR-15 rifle that could nail a bulls-eye at 100 yards with ease. But when the time came to switch to pistols and do some closer-range targets, that was when the spark lit up inside me again. Like driving fast on a twisty road or at a race track, I really enjoy the focus and precision involved in target shooting. For that fleeting moment in time, you clear your head of all other distractions, and for me, the singular purity of purpose is where I can find inner peace. Am I a pro race driver or an expert marksman? Not at all, but as they say, life is about the journey not the destination. As long as you have fun, who cares if you don’t win the race or shoot a perfect target every time?

I hate to say it but in this crazy world sometimes you also need to be ready to protect yourself and those you care about, not just rely on the protection of others. So my pursuit of skill and precision has a practical aspect as well. After a lot of deliberation and consulting with some knowledgeable friends, I decided to purchase my own semiautomatic pistol. I went to the range a few more times, to test out some of the pistols I was considering. Ultimately I decided on the Sig-Sauer P226 .40SW, which is weapon of choice for many elite military and law enforcement units around the world, including the US Navy Seals, British SAS, and the NYPD. If it’s rugged, reliable, and accurate enough for these guys, surely it’s good enough for me. The .40 caliber round is also ideal for a home defense weapon due to its stopping power and accuracy. The Sig is a popular and sometimes hard to get pistol, so I put in an order at the local shop for one and can’t wait until it comes in!

renovation

You may have noticed a new look to this blog, I figured it was time for some change and hopefully it's for the better. I tweaked the layout to allow for a little more width in the main body column (that's the column you're reading this text in), and removed some redundant ads and links. I still have links to Amazon to the side and at the bottom if you want to keep helping me out whenever you purchase anything from them.

I enjoy buying stuff on Amazon myself... recently I've bought and thoroughly enjoyed watching The Clone Wars: The Complete Season One (TV Series) on Blu-Ray. The full length movie (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) that preceeded the TV series is not nearly as good (pretty lame plot-wise), but it is the starting point that introduces some new characters and reinterprets some of the old ones from the Star Wars double-trilogy. I got them both just to have a complete set.

I've also decided to try and get back into reading again... by which I mean something other than magazines and internet sites. I used to be really into the Tom Clancy novels like The Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising. One of my favorite books of all time was Without Remorse.
Now I've tried to pick up where I left off in the Jack Ryan series, with a book that's 10 years old at this point, The Bear and the Dragon. It's been years since I read books on a regular basis, so wish me luck.

decade(nce)

Happy New Year and welcome to the new decade! Wow, I can’t believe it’s 2010. It’s one of those futuristic numbers that I thought when I was younger, it would be so far off. So I have managed to cheat death and apocalypse for another 10 years.

It’s pretty customary to take a look at the end of a year, at the past year and try to remember the major events. I suppose it helps you to know where you’ve been, before you plan where you want to go next. So bear with me as I recap the highlights of 2009, even though I am a little late.

I think the biggest personal development for me in 2009 was taking one of my interests and moving it up to the next level – if you have been following along on this blog you probably already know what I am speaking of – Photography. It had always been an interest of mine ever since childhood, but this spring I really went into advanced mode by buying a Nikon digital SLR camera and a couple of lenses. I am fortunate to have a supportive wife who always encourages me to go out and get the best equipment, not just the best deal. And as I ended up traveling quite a bit in 2009, I got plenty of opportunities to get out there and just shoot, learning as I went. Some of the shots even turned out decent, if I may say so myself. Of course due to the nature of my work most of my free time to shoot was at night, which made it even more challenging. But I have much to learn still. I have found I favor static shots like landscapes and architecture, and shooting portraits and action definitely are not my strong points.

Professionally, it was almost certainly the busiest year of my career. Almost immediately following the trial I had in September 2008, I jumped onboard another pair of trial-bound cases and worked virtually non-stop. We had two trials in Washington DC in the fall, which meant lots of travel and ultimately I spent over a month in the capital. I haven’t run the numbers yet but I think I have 2700 hours logged for the year. I also hit my 10-year anniversary with the firm which is both amazing and depressing at the same time.

Thankfully, I was able to take a refreshing 3-week vacation with my honey V. once the trials were over. It was also our belated celebration of our 5th year anniversary, since I missed it while I was away at trial. We traveled to Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia to soak up the sun and devour the cuisine. And to take lots of photos, of course. It was just what I needed to scrape off the battle scars and regain my sanity.

In the electronic gadgets world, I’ve continued to collect nifty toys to keep me occupied in the rare free moments I have. V. somehow always manages to find me the greatest gifts! I have a Sony PSP to play games on the go, and a new pocket-sized projector to bring giant-sized movies with me wherever I go. Gran Turismo and Grand Theft Auto IV (with their multiple iterations of great add-on content) continue to provide me hours of entertainment.

On the automotive front, not a whole lot has changed with my rides. The biggest thing to happen was I ordered, and after 4 months of waiting, put on some new rims and tires on my Lexus. I’m very happy with how they turned out, and doing everything I can to drive and park carefully to keep them in their brand new condition.

So what’s next for 2010? Well it is the start of a new decade and therefore a great chance to make big plans and aspirations. Personally, I hope to keep taking more photos and learn to take better shots. Learn to be a better husband. And if the economy starts to pick itself up, move to a bigger house. With a bigger garage or driveway. And drive bigger and faster cars. Take more vacations. Lose weight and get in shape. Eat healthy. Improve my quality of life. You know, live the American dream, writ large.

Professionally, I am kind of at a crossroads. What I see ahead of me where I am, is the same thing over and over. I’ve already been put on another new case that is headed for trial later this year. I might make more money each year but the same challenges and tasks await. Arguably, I am near the top of my game here, so perhaps it’s time for a change? But with the economy in the tank right now changing jobs or professions doesn’t seem like such a brilliant path.

Executive summary: it’s a new dawn, a new day, a new life. Time to get out there and start living it. I suggest you do the same.