Category: Observation

Devalued, Dissappointed and Done

It’s time to set the get the ramps moved into position, 3D is full steam ahead towards the shark tank.  Probably a month ago by now, I went to see the opening of Thor with some friends of mine.  Admittedly, I was a fan of the groundbreaking 3D work in Avatar (which was previously blogged about here), but I started becoming skeptical based on some crap movies that simply added it as a gimmick – likely an attempt to get people not to notice how poorly developed the plotline was.  We decided to go all out on this particular showing and take in the new local IMAX screen which was actually showing the 3D version.  The first shock was the ticket prices were $15 and I am pretty sure that was matinee pricing.  Big cities may be used to that outrageous price, but trust me, this doesn’t play well in Peoria.  Now, I am probably a tad more sensitive to this than most, but I spent over $3K in LASIK so I would not have to wear glasses/contacts anymore.  Yet there I was paying for a pair of glasses to sit and watch a movie for two hours.  If you viewed the Avatar link above, you probably noticed how “Roy” cool I looked in those glasses (well, minimally, I didn’t look totally stupid in the theater).  Contrast this with the high dork level these IMAX 3D glasses produce.

A big thanks to Sung for his willingness to take my picture in the theater lobby.  Just shoot me and put me out of my misery.  To be fair, this was a big step up from the helmet we had to wear in Las Vegas to watch the last Matrix movie, but that was many many many moons ago.  The first signs of concern started with the 3D trailers.  There was some definite depth generated by the glasses that may have been even more enhanced by the concave design of the screen.  However, the depth was so large I had problems focusing crisply on objects that were moving a significant distance.  This resulted in the effect being a little blurry and almost jumpy as my brain attempted to process the visuals.  The hope was that this less than appealing effect was simply due to a poor use of the technology by the 3rd Pirates movie.  I ended up taking the glasses off for a rest before the start of the movie while rethinking the $15 premium.

Eventually the movie started.  Thor was always in my comic book reading collection primarily because they always had cool looking wolves guarding Asgard.  As a spoiler, there are NO wolves in this movie, immediately reducing the maximum stars possible to 4.  I’m not going to go into the real plot of the movie because a) I thought it was actually pretty boring and b) it really doesn’t deserve that much attention.  I’ll state for the record, that my friends thought it was okay and were at least entertained by it.  I on the other hand thought the plot line developed too clunky and the characters beyond Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings (a personal favorite of mine since seeing her in Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist) were average at best.  Loki didn’t feel right at all based on my on interpretation from the comic books, but Thor’s friends were just plain stiff.  At first I was down a little bit on Natalie, but decided it was due to having just seen Black Swan and couldn’t get those images out of my head for this more whimsical role.

My real complaint is on the 3D front.  I ended up having to take the glasses off at least twice during the movie to give my head a break.  Having to take in that big IMAX screen and then adjust to the depth effects took its toll.  The annoyance of having to wear glasses coupled with the slight headache had me asking myself “for what” by the end of the movie.  I thought Avatar leveraged 3D well to draw the viewer into the visually appealing Pandora landscape.  The 3D in this movie felt like simple eye candy that wore off after the first few tastes.  The heart of any good movie is the plot, character development and then enabling cinematography.  In my opinion, the director jumped past the first two and tried to cover it up with the latest industry trick.  Well, that appears to have backfired on the industry as a whole from my perspective.  At this point I’m probably done with 3D and there is no way in hell I’ll be spending any money on a 3D TV for the house.

Hit the jump to see some interesting pictures (also thanks to Sung) from the whole movie outing

Continue reading Devalued, Dissappointed and Done

Persevering through the Steamboat

Today we have another guest photographer (my wife)  bringing you images from my second race of the year.  More importantly, I have an action shot PROVING that I indeed ran this race (in case there are any doubters out there…hmmm who could that be?).  Last Saturday was the annual running of the Steamboat Classic in Peoria IL.  They actually have multiple options to participate in.  They offer the “World’s Fastest Four Mile” race and “Illinois’ Toughest 15K.”  This race has been somewhat of a nemesis for me having initially injured my hamstring in the 15K race a couple of years ago which eventually led to a major injury during the following Bix7 race.  Due to the rehab, I was forced to go with the 4 mile option last year, but this year I was back to defeat the 15K!  My training went well and I was already at 10 mile runs before the race date.  To cut to the chase, I man’d up and got me another medal for my slowly growing collection and another check on the Life List.

This was actually a pleasant surprise considering I almost pulled out of race 40 minutes before it started.  To set the stage, I have a fairly regular routine the week before an actual race consisting of a nice taper down and a steady diet of bland food.  For this race, I closed out my last 10 mile the Saturday before and reduced it to a 6 mile run that Monday.  That Wednesday was my 3.5 mile easy run to complete the training program.  For some reason the mechanics felt off on that last run even to the point I stopped and took my shoes off and put back on hoping something was amiss.  That didn’t help much, but it got me through the remaining miles.  While in the cool down my left hamstring developed a twinge that would not shake out.  Panic set in (well, actually anger first and then panic).  I went home and tried my best to rest it hoping it would disappear  – to no avail.  The rest of the week was spent trying to rub the strain out with a steady diet of a foam roller and anti-inflammatory cream used during my rehab.  By Friday night it was feeling pretty good, but I was not about to test it until the race.  On that same Friday I decided to go with a conservative hamburger lunch at a downtown street vendor followed up by the traditional home cooked carb loading spaghetti dinner that night.  All was good until some pains started showing up in my stomach around 10pm.  At midnight this turned into an all out evacuation on the hour until it was time to get up around 5.  So there I was carb-deloaded and questioning whether I could actually keep anything in the stomach.  Not wanting to throw the towel in yet (hell, I trained my ass off for this) so Linda and I headed down to the Peoria riverfront cautiously eating a couple of Eggos and gingerly trying to drink some Powerade.  If there is one bright side in this, I really wasn’t thinking much about the hamstring.  Eventually it came time to do the traditional pre-race picture.  That would be a look of serious worry by the way.

Now, some of that worry was due to the upcoming 15K with limited fuel.  The rest of that concern was the resulting composition for this shot.  “Not that there is anything wrong with that”, but that guy in the poster .. the one with the shirt off and staring directly at me .. was creeping me out.

Hit the jump to read more about Steamboat Classic 2011

Continue reading Persevering through the Steamboat

Racing Season is Upon Us

Although the guy code was in full swing, I needed to break away and work on some other posts or once again I’ll be struggling to get the quota done. Have no worries, I’ll continue to monitor the comments on the guy code post. Moving on, I wanted to officially kickoff the 2011 race season. Although it was a difficult season last year, I have a big goal for this year and so far I am on my planned schedule.  I do not want to jinx myself so I’ll keep that goal a secret for now. After 8 months of rehab on my damaged quad I’m finally back to near full strength and the miles are definitely far ahead of any other year at this time – this includes a weekly 10 mile run in the hills of Jubilee Park. I usually start with the Caterpillar 5K Power Race, but this year they decided to move it into June which effectively removed that from my race schedule. Instead, my first race was the Chase Corporate 3.5 Mile Race held on May 26th in Chicago IL.

Notice anything unusual about this pre-race picture?

Did you detect a certain feeling of coldness?  Maybe a little bundled up for a race that was being held in May?  Turns out this particular day put the whole gloBULL warming fear peddlers into perspective.  The race actually starts near Grant Park which provides a slightly chillier condition thanks to the wind blowing in off of Lake Michigan.  But the conditions this day lead to a feels like temperature of 38 degrees.  Now I definitely prefer colder over hot and humid days for racing, but this was ridiculous.  From the moment I stepped off the bus, I was second guessing my apparel choices.  But the coldness wasn’t the only issue we had to deal with.

Hit the jump to read the rest of the details on the race!

Continue reading Racing Season is Upon Us

The Guys Guide to Bathroom Etiquette – A Work in Progress

Updated:6/16/2011 – Bathroom etiquette has been a pretty hot topic as of late with some of my friends… that is when we can tear ourselves away from discussing the drama of Weinergate or Paris Hilton’s latest reality show.  There appears to be some confusion on some of the guy codes associated with the bathroom and I blame it all on our education system.  Just kidding, we all know it’s the fault of liberals.  Regardless, this situation must be corrected or there will be big trouble come the next Rapture prediction.  Clearly god will not take the risk of someone crossing streams or heaven forbid someone talking on their phone while in the stall.  In an attempt to document the major rules, I decided to go ahead and make a reference post…. and to give my friends the ability to quickly look up some protocols before using the bathroom at work.  Amazingly, I was able to find some notes I made about 10 years ago on this subject to use as a starting point (some of the points on that old list were cryptically written and I am having some trouble understanding what those entries were for – needless to say I may have been under the influence of alcohol when that was first penned).  Please post comments if you need a further explanation, desire to contest a rule, want to add some additional rules or maybe even need a call on a sticky situation.

Hit the Jump to see the Guy Code Rules for Bathroom Etiquette

Continue reading The Guys Guide to Bathroom Etiquette – A Work in Progress

A Double Helping

Linda: “Hey, I thought your little ego stroking blog was suppose to have trivial little observations on it with some meaningless babble about how it almost brought you to tears or something?”

Me: “Yep”

Linda: “Well, it looks like all you’ve been doing is barfing up photography related crap post after post”

Me: “uh, Sorry!”

Linda: “Don’t be sorry, get off your slacker butt and give the 3 people who actually read this drivel what they want”

Me: “K”

Well, that was awkward, but as always, she’s right.  I had to dust off my little blog idea notepad and fire up Photoshop to work on the required accompanying image.  Oh, for the record, I don’t cry … just wanted to get that out there for the record.  So today’s intriguing observation actually occurred a number of months back in the Menard’s parking lot.  Linda and I had done a little shopping and had made it back to the truck.  Okay, it is impossible for me to do a “little” shopping at Menards thanks to it being like a giant candy store for me.  Anyway, I had backed out of the parking spot and was proceeding up the aisle when we came upon an elderly man pushing a lumber cart with two full size plywood sheets on top.  Based on the brief time it took to pass him, it became apparent that he was struggling with the load trying to balance the weight of the plywood while negotiating the upward slant of the parking lot.  This scene actually hit a special chord with me.  Since owning our first home, I have been purchasing plywood, drywall and pressboard to complete one project after another.  Probably 90% of the time I am alone when the materials are bought and eventually hauled out to the truck.  I wouldn’t consider myself the strongest person out there, but I work hard to stay in some form of shape (thanks to a commitment in college to never become a stereotype of my geek profession).  Regardless of my bench strength, it is always a struggle to get those 4×8 sheets into the truck alone.  Add wind to that equation and you have plenty of fodder for a funniest home video show.  Not once has anyone offered to provide any assistance in this effort.  This doesn’t bother me on the receiving end, but I’ve always recognized this lumber battle and make it a point to offer my assistance to anyone in a similar situation (especially if it is WINDY!)

If I struggle with this type of material, clearly this individual was going to have similar issues.  After making my way past the guy, I pulled into an empty parking space and jumped out to lend a hand.  As soon as I got out of my truck and headed towards the man, another guy in the exact same truck (both in color and model) pulls into the empty space next to mine and gives me a nod of confirmation.  He had seen the scene and made the exact same decision.  By the time we had made it back to the old guy he had reached his vehicle which turned out to be a U-Haul truck.  The other guy asked him if he wanted the wood in the rental truck (mainly to confirm that we had the right vehicle).  The old guy was a little surprised and hesitantly said yes.  The other guy opened the truck up and jumped in while I grabbed the plywood and tossed it up to him.  The old guy thanked us for our help (still had a look of surprise on his face) as we put the cart back in the corral and headed back to our trucks.

It was an interesting coincidence that two people in the exact same vehicle saw the exact same scene and made the exact same decision to help someone out.  However, what really held my thought was how this situation even came to be in the first place.  I can understand nobody witnessing the guy getting the plywood onto the cart based on my experience that there is never anyone in Menards when you need help with something.  If one of the other employees had not assessed this situation, clearly the cashier could have sized up the customer and called in some help.  Apparently not the case!  In summary, it felt good on the soul to help my fellow man, but left a sour taste in my mouth due to the lack of customer attention from one of my favorite stores.   The good news of all this is my Rapture quotient should have gained a few points to the better… of course, that really doesn’t mean much anymore does it (ha)

When Man and Nature Collide

looking back, I have probably shot at least a thousand birds over my life.  Luckily for my winged friends (with the exception of two) these shots have all been with a shutter release and not with projectiles.  However, I must confess that indirectly I have shortened the life of a few.  Call me a softie, but this always saddens me a little when I think about how much pleasure I get from watching them gather around my feeders.  The irony of it all is that the feeders are often the catalyst for their accidental demise.  To fully experience living in the country, we architected our house to provide nice views into the surrounding woods.  This translated into a large amount of glass, the evil nemesis of all Aves.  Every once in awhile we hear a loud bang in the living room.  Being familiar with the common cause of this startling noise, I reluctantly head towards the windows.  Inevitably, this is the typical scene:

A perfectly good bird cut down by the magic of sand and a small cavity for brain matter.  Actually, I’ve seen humans walk into glass doors as well, so not sure how much the brain size plays into this particular situation.  By a general rule of thumb, the survival rate is directly proportional to the volume of the impact.  Through extensive trial and error, I’ve been able to improve this rate at least a little bit.  The success is dependent on how quick you can come to the aid of the injured bird.   Upon impact, the bird often loses consciousness and drops backwards onto the porch – the reasoning behind this still needs further research.  If the bird doesn’t snap it’s neck, it will show signs of convulsions both with fluttering wings and spastic feet.  This is exactly the state I found the bird pictured above (note I had the camera in my hand already taking pictures of some other subjects).  If you can get to the bird in this state, you must immediately flip it back over on its feet/belly.  If you leave it upside down, it will die every time (my apologies to all the failed experiments before this was figured out).  Kind of reminds me of my mode of operation with my drunk friends in college, but let’s stay on topic.

Hit the jump for some good news!

Continue reading When Man and Nature Collide

A Surprise Thrashing

Since the moment we started building our house in the woods, I’ve been busy taking photos of all the birds that drop by from time to time.  After awhile the diversity of species begins to fade as the same bird types tend to inhabit the same area year after year.  Some become so familiar that their tiny imperfections allow you to actually give them names.  Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy taking their pictures – if nothing else, the light settings and perch choices are always unique so there is always a challenge.  The main point of mentioning this is it makes new arrivals a big deal around here.  As soon as I spot a new bird type, I scramble for the camera in the hopes of getting a least some sort of picture to capture the moment (and to have proof for adding another check to my watch list).   As you can probably guess, I spotted a new bird to the homestead a few days ago.  Luckily, I was able to get a few shots.  As with all my pictures, the full versions can be seen on our Photography site at eddiesoft.smugmug.com. If you go there, you can view them at any size you want up to the original size (note, I always use medium for images in this blog).

So, after dinner I looked out and noticed a strange bird a ways out from the house.  Immediately thinking this might be a new find, I grabbed the closest camera (D7000) and headed out to the porch in hopes of snapping a few shots.  Our Beast was not currently on this particular camera having stored it away after our last photo shoot.  Luckily, the 80-200 glass was attached giving me some reach into the yard.

I was fighting the light going down as well trying to steady myself while hand holding the camera – must have been all the excitement of the chance to capture a new bird.  On full manual, I had to bump the ISO up to 800 for most of the shots in order to get the shutter speed I needed to help compensate for my shaky hands.  The shot above is a full shot giving you some perspective of the distance I was dealing with (this was at full 200mm I believe).  As you learn pretty quick taking bird pictures, any distance at all causes that bird to appear pretty small.  However, with the power of crop, we can take you a little closer in.

Hit the jump to see a lot more (and better) pictures of my feathered friend.

Continue reading A Surprise Thrashing

She Said Yes! Introducing the BEAST

I hope my blog readers know by now that my wife and I share a photography habit… I mean hobby. Unlike Linda’s dog agility hobby and my addiction to running, this hobby is one we equally enjoy. It also gives us an opportunity to spend quality time together which is difficult in today’s hectic corporate world and what seems like an endless queue of errands and fix-its. It is also one of the few activities I willingly leave the comfort of my bed BEFORE the crack of dawn. Every once in awhile we get the opportunity to upgrade our equipment. This always a stressful event based on the fact that photography can be an expensive hobby and we have specific shooting interests that can, unfortunately, force you into higher dollar items. Lately, Linda has been shooting in low light facilities trying to capture dogs on the agility course. I am always trying to close the distance between my camera and wildlife. In both cases, the telephoto is generally the go-to glass. Up to this point, our workhorse has been the 80-200 f/2.8. This glass is solid and has never failed us, but the lack of VR can result in hand held fuzziness and probably more annoying, the inability to put a teleconverter on it (thanks Nikon) keeps us just out of optimal distance. To be honest, I will always complain that I am just out of optimal distance no matter what lens we have because that’s the wildlife photographer’s creed.

A few weeks back, we decided to pull the trigger on new glass. There were a few options in the zoom category we investigated including upgrading our 80-200 f/2.8 to the newer VR (vibration reduction), going with a superfast prime lens (300,400,500) or bite the bullet and go with a relatively fast longer zoom with VR. Linda wisely pointed out that buying another lens in the range we already have seems pointless (even if it has VR). The fast primes in the 400+ range is wicked expensive and really inhibits composition due to not being able to adjust the distance making it difficult to use for the agility ring. This left us with the longer zoom option. After much debate, sleepless nights and more than a hint of hesitation we pulled the trigger on the Nikon 200-400 VRII f/4 (end to end). The VRII offered some compensation for the uplift in aperture and fit our budget a little better than the house mortgaging below f/4 models. With that decision out of the way, the hunt was on to actually find one. The tsunami in Japan had a big hit in inventories leaving a few older models available and only ONE current model in stock across every photography retailer we could find on the Internet. Long story short, we took an availability premium hit and locked into the new lens.

After a quick inquiry as to the arrival date (since the delivery date was fast approaching without notification), we were informed it was on its way. I do not know if it was a result of the inquiry or in respect to the purchase price, but the glass was upgraded to two-day express. Sure enough, the package arrived as notified. This is when reality set in. Check out the packaging required. (Note, Rizzi was a reluctant participant, but I needed some scale)

Exactly what have we gotten ourselves into. We knew it was going to be larger than our current zoom, but this might be on a whole different level.

Hit the jump to see what was in those boxes.

Continue reading She Said Yes! Introducing the BEAST

Bizarro Day

There are those days that are so monotonous you wished you had never left your comfy pillow.  However, there are some days that are full to the brim with bizarre events.  Saturday just happened to be one of the latter.  I generally do not provide a detailed blog account of my day because, quite frankly, my days are probably not that interesting (why else would I spend my time amusing myself by watching others).  Since there were so many oddities I decided to break from tradition and try to run you through my interactions today.

  • Eventually I shook off the sleep and checked out the weather.  Once again the Globull Warmers were eating crow as the temps were in the mid 30’s forcing me to choose the treadmill to get my 6 miles run in.  To keep the boredom to a minimum I decided to watch The Warrior’s Way thinking that sounded like an action packed movie that will keep my mind off the rubber belt under my feet.  That movie started out interesting and then went into a complete tailspin making my run feel like navigating through molasses.  If that wasn’t bad enough, about a third of the way through the run my heart took a jolt about throwing me into the wall behind the treadmill.  Some dumb*ss director decided the show wasn’t complete without a $#!#%@!$% clown.  A martial arts flick set in a Western setting must not of had the audience drawing power like a martial arts flick set in a Western setting with a clown!  I eventually got the heart beating normal again and closed out the rest of the mileage making a mental note never to watch anything from that director again.
  • With the weather as it was, there was not much I could do on the lot so decided to run some errands with Linda.  First off was lunch and that ended up being Panda Express.  While Linda ordered her honey walnut shrimp, I checked out the entrees and decided on one that had just been filled from the kitchen.  As I walked back to the clerk she asked me if I was with Linda and then handed me a shrimp on a stick.  For some reason I assumed Linda had asked her to give me sample of her selection or maybe they had too many to fit on her plate so just gave me a bonus shrimp.  having deduced that, I gladly accepted the shrimp and put the whole thing in my mouth at once.  Guess what?  It was not what Linda ordered, but rather their new hot/spicy shrimp.  In case you don’t know me very well, my body is a finely tuned ecosystem that runs on a spice scale of ketchup to mild Taco Bell sauce.  Ten seconds later my mouth was on fire and unable to really answer any of the clerks food selection questions.  Linda saw me in distress and I explained the situation.  Her response was “Just because they hand it to you doesn’t mean you have to eat it”, causing the clerk to laugh.  I think there needs to be a ruling here – I claim that if you are going to give someone a piece of food to try, you should be obligated to tell that person the spice level before handing it to him.  Anybody with me on that?  What if I had my gall-bladder out or not been in such peak physical condition … for the record, Linda is on the suck it up side of this debate.
  • With the fire in the mouth finally contained, we headed down to Running Central to pick up another pair of running shoes.  The weekly mileage is piling up as I set the groundwork for the half marathon later in the year (fingers crossed).  This is definitely the most miles I’ve logged this early in the season, but I am still 5 miles from where I need to be in September – but already at Bix distance and only 2 miles from the Steamboat run in June.  Two blocks from the store it literally starts to snow.  Last week I was running in 85 degree heat and this week I’m out in the snow.  Oddly, there was no place to park by the store so we headed around the block and parked in a community lot.  After a brisk walk to the store we opened the door to a totally PACKED store.  I’ve been going to this running store for years and it has never been this full of customers.  I took a glance out the window at the snow and then to Linda in hopes of an explanation.  My only guess is the local schools had track season starting and all the young kids in there were simply excited about getting their gear.  I think one of the female clerks recognized me and detoured over from her current customer and asked if she could help me.  As has been the case for the last 5 years my response was ” I need a size 10 Nimbus please”  Her response was “Wow, you’re easy I’ll go look for you”.  I mentioned her response to Linda as we headed to the car as a candid argument against her impression I’m full of strange quirks that puts me far from the easy category.  Funny enough, she didn’t even notice the lady ask me what I needed and didn’t understand why she was telling me they were out of what I wanted.  They offered to order a pair for me, but I always try them on since Asics has a tendency to tweak their Nimbus on every release and some of those are not for the better.  I was really happy with the service and that is definitely one of the reasons I take my business there.Hit the Jump to see the rest of the day with some fail pictures
    Continue reading Bizarro Day

More Gems from Fail Land

Every once in awhile I take the time to read our local newspaper.  Actually, read is probably too strong of a word.  It is really more of a scan since most of the content is already old news previously obtained from sources on the net.  The cut and paste from the AP feeds is quite annoying to the point the only sections worth looking at are the opinions page and the city state page.  The latter providing  access to the local crime activities (and to make sure my name didn’t make it there by accident!).  On this particular scan, two things stood out.  One of them was this picture from the AP (rights remains with AP)

There are a number of things that caught my attention here. First off, anyone who thinks the economy is anywhere close to being out of the woods hasn’t been paying attention to the news at all and therefore wouldn’t be reading the paper in the first place – making this entry completely pointless (more filler). Secondly, I share those same initials giving me flashbacks of school ribbing. Third, did someone actually sit down an say to themselves “This would be an awesome name for my establishment”? If so, then this might be the same dude that thought Pen Island would be a great Internet company name for an ink pen wholesaler (hint, write out the obvious URL string – I just checked, it is still accepting http requests, but now has gone dark). Lastly, from the gutter, an image popped into my head with that name that made me shudder.

If that wasn’t enough, this add caught my attention from Illinois Furniture.

This store has been going out of business for at least a year now (likely even longer than that). It has become a local running joke to the point I think the city board is now investigating this store. This was a full page add so I cut it down for easier viewing.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen this advertised both in local media and an army of people holding the standard “Going out of Business” placards on the street corners. But this is the part of the advertisement that caused me to burst out laughing.

So, I can save UP to 70%. Typically by all marketing standards I am familiar with, this is the highest amount of saving that can be assumed for the advertised store and this can have all kinds of devious interpretations depending on integrity of the company. But wait, it also says I can save “AND MORE”. What the hell does that mean? If I can save more than 70%, why did they cap my enthusiasm previously by indicating my ceiling of financial thriftiness was 70%? Now they have just confused me so I’ll head to Good’s instead.

Hit the jump to see a few more fails

Continue reading More Gems from Fail Land