A tip To All Rebel Fighters

The best time to make your escape from stormtroopers is when someone asks to take their pictures. They can't resist hamming it up for the camera. Simply bust free of their grip and sock them with a upper cross. Works every time.




More stormtroopers photos and other pics from Siggraph are on Flicker. Siggraph is the big annual conference for all things computer graphics. On Thursday night they had a special showing of the new Star Wars: Clone Wars movie.

Star Wars Exhibit

The Science Museum of Minnesota is hosting an exhibit of props and costumes from the Lucasfilm's archives. Linda and I took in the exhibit on a early Saturday morning in the hopes of avoiding the crowds. It worked. They add some displays about real robots, etc.. to rationalize the inclusion in a science museum. Whatever - its Star Wars!



My favorites were from the orginal 3 movies. Sure I have a 30 year connection to those movies, but really I thought the models were more interest. I could see a lot of the hand of the artist in the creation of the models. By the time the final 3 films came around, manufacturing processes like vacuum forming and stereolithography made creating spaceships of any shape and concept cheap and easy. In the 70s they mostly used plastic airplane and tank models in a process called kit bashing. So if you get a chance to looking really closely to the Millineum Falcon you can prehaps recognize a part from your favorite model.



It was on the Falcon that I made my favorite discovery. Right at the very front of the right side loading arm (yes, I know what it is) is a tiny Champion spark plug stick! Awesome! Who knew Han Solo used Champion.

Shibuya Panorama Revisited

I just had to go back into this panorama. So much of what makes this corner so cool are all the huge video screens. I think there are 3-4. But the pano doesn't really show them. The overexposed one on the right, called Super Lisa, was kind of unavoidable but the monster one right in the middle, the Q-Front, is barely noticeable - and its 3 stories high! It was bad timing that there wasn't a feed when I snapped the 3 shots for the panorama.

But looking through all my photos of that evening I came across a shot with a decent exposure of both screens. So I just had to go back in. The Super Lisa monitor was simple. I cropped out the screen area on the original and scaled the image to fit. A little color correction and it was done. The Q-Front was a little more tricky because of the grid running through the image and the building. But actually the grid helped me register the 2 as I scaled down the image on a separate layer. Once in place I used a little math to do the combining. I set the image layer blend mode to Add which takes the pixel value of the top layer and adds it to the pixel value layer underneath. So white (256) + black(0) = 256 (white). So what happens is that all the black of the image at a value of 0 does not get added to the original wall color. No need to do a ton of erasing. Neat huh?
One last thing I had to do was to go into the added images and try to match the noise. It's a little weird to think about adding noise but if you looked really closely you would notice the videos being smoother then the surroundings. That can tell the brain that something funny is going on.

To me this now better captures my experience of Shibuya even thou it is not a photo of a real moment in time.

Shibuya Panorama

Another panorama from Tokyo. This time in the trendy area of Shibuya. This corner is the Time Square of Japan making it probably the second most over photographed spot next to Mt Fuji. But for good reason becuase it is so cool. Never the less it's one of my favorite places and deserving of a place in my blog. This was another set of photos that I had forgotten about and had never assembled until now.

Here is a google map of the area. The blue marker is where I was standing.


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Haleakala Summit

After my epic climb up the mountain, I pulled out the camera equipment to record the strange and beautiful landscape. It's hard to believe I'm on the same island. It's more like being on the Moon.

On the extreme right edge in the far background you can begin to see the sloop of Moana Kea on the big island.

This panorama is facing north into Haleakala valley. According to the pamphlet the volcano crater has long since eroded away. What we now see is a valley dug into what used to be the top.

Biking up Haleakala

After a few days of biking around the west side of Maui I was finally ready for my ascent of the volcano, Haleakala. This was one of the reasons I rented the bike in the first place. I had read a few ride reports and decided that I would give it a try. Worst case I just turn around and coast down. The plan was for Linda to meet me at the top with the car. I wanted to spend time on top of the volcano instead of riding down. It's not the interesting.

Haleakala is the largest mountain on the island at a towering 10,000 feet above sea level. It is not uncommon to get snow up there. The neat think about climbing Haleakala is that you can do just that, go from the sea to the top. It's a total of 35 miles to the top at an average 5-6% grade with a few up to 8-10% just to keep you awake. The road has a nice shoulder most of the time up to the national park. Inside the park is a little bit more challenging.

I arrived in Paia (same town where I met Laird) at about 8am. I was running a little late so I skipped sticking my foot in the ocean as many do before going up. Besides I didn't want to deal with the sand between the toes for the next 5 hours. I had my camera along with 2 water bottles, 4 pop tarts (couldn't find any powerbars), dried mangos, cell phone, ID (to identify the body, just in case) and some money for the entry fee to the national park at the top. Like every day in Hawaii, the day was sunny and warm - with little wind, which was a bonus as it's always blowing on that side.


For the first hour I wound through pineapple groves that were being harvested. Then it was into the ranching area with lots of fields with cattle and horses. It took a while to get used to pedaling along in a very low gear and crawling along at 10mphs. But I was comfortable and I knew this was about patiences.

Along the way I saw that someone had spray painted the vertical distance on the shoulder. Soon I was starting to see 1500 ft, 2500 ft, and so on which really made me feel good. I was wearing my GPS which also measures altitude. It was only off by about 50 feet. Amazing! In hindsight I was watching the vertical more then the distance in miles. I guess that was the hurdle for me. My neighbor Jeff can testify to my no-love for climbing hills.


At around 3000 feet this is a well know market. It's a good place to take a break off the bike to fill the water bottles and maybe buy a snack. I spent about 10 minutes here.

After the market the terrain started to get more mountain like. The foliage was changing and beginning to thin out till it started to look like Ireland. At this point I was also getting into the cloud layer which added to the moores feel.


I had now been pedaling for 3 hours and was half way up the mountain at 5000 ft. Surprising to me was that my legs felt great. It was my lower back that was starting to stiffen. I was taking more 'photo breaks' all the time. I decided that the park entrance at 7000 ft would be a good place to finish as I just didn't see myself riding for another 3 hours. I called Linda on my cell to tell her my revised plan. It turned out that they were already on their way and only 3 miles behind me. Perfect. They soon passed me on the road and 15 minutes later met me at the park entrance with beer and Doritoes. I love my family. We loaded up the bike, I changed into some clothes, then we spent the rest of the afternoon at the top. It was a clear day at the summit of the volcano. We could clearly see the snowcapped tops of Moana Kea and Moana Loa on the big island of Hawaii. I took loads of photos.




I didn't reach the top, on bike anyway, but I'm still thrilled and proud. 3:40 total time, 25 miles, 7000 vertical feet. Given that I had done only a couple 3 hour rides all year and only 1 hour trainer workouts for the last 3 months, I thought I did great. There were long stretches where I was all alone along the road. The Maui countryside was so peaceful and beautiful. It's something I will always remember. I highly encourage any bike ride to give it a try when they get to Maui. Don't make it about getting to the summit, make it about the ride!

Here is the route in Google.

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Hawaii 08: Biking Kapalua

While on Maui I was able to rent a great road bike for the week from West Maui Cycles in Lahaina. I highly recommend them. I picked up the bike, strapped on my helmet and headed right out the door. There is really only one road to ride any distance on the west side of the island so I headed north. The road had a nice wide shoulder but was fairly busy with cars and trucks through the resort areas.

It didn't take long to get out into the jungle. The road followed along the ocean through fields of sugarcane and pineapples - and gorgeous golf course grounds. There were plenty of turn out to stop and take in the views. It's Hawaii - I took my time.

On the guardrail of one hairpin curve were these 4 strange furs. They caught my eye so I doubled back for a look. I couldn't decide what animal they were - possibly boars? They were still wet so since there had been no rain that day, they must have been tended to by someone.

Just past the weird furs I was faced with an impassible road. Impassible in that I didn't think I could climb the 22% grade of the road! After crossing the steam, a sharp left turn planted me smack in front of this huge long climb. I figured I would put my head down and give it a go. You can make out the road on the far side of the bay in this photo.

I was doing well until about 3/4 of the way up I looked back to check for any cars. The angle of the hill I'd already climbed scared the hell out of me. Not because of what I had yet to climb. No, I was frightened by the idea of having to go down it later on! So I stopped right there figuring I didn't want to coast/fall any farther then I had to. The road was so steep that when I put my foot down it started to slip down hill. I composed myself, let my heart rate come down from 196 (I'm not kidding. I have the data), then started to walk down the hill. Yes, I wimped out and walked. I wasn't going to risk a fall way out there while on vacation. When I got closer to the bottom I mounted up and coasted to the bottom near the truck pictured above. There, I found another biker waiting for there companion. We joked about that hill for a while then I headed back south to my condo in Kahana. A great first day ride in paradise.

Only 23 miles round trip but about 2000 feet of climbing according to my GPS. It was only a taste of the climbing to come later in the week.

Hawaii 08: Laird Hamilton

I continue to meet legends of fringe sports like my ride with Andy Hampsten last April. This one tops Andy thou and may go to the top of my met one of my heroes list. You can keep your Brett Fauvre and Dale Earnhart Jr, I met Laird.

Laird Hamilton is a legend among surfers. He is the modern king of big wave surfing - and I mean scary big. We were sitting in a coffee shop in Paia, Maui - a lazy hippy town on the north shore, - when all of a sudden Linda nudges me and says "Hey, that's Laird Hamilton!" If you've ever seen him in the American Express commercials or the cover of various sport magazines, there is no missing his 6-2 physic, or tousled blond brown hair.

Go rent 'Riding Giants' if you want to see Hamilton in action. I'll be re watching my copy when I get home. Or better yet, rent the 80's classic surf movie 'North Shore' where Laird played the arrogant bad guy, Lance Burkhart. Yes, I own that as well. I love that movie.

Hawaii 08: Musubi

Linda and I just spent the last week on the island of Maui in Hawaii with her sister and family. I will be posting various adventures in the coming weeks.

When in Hawaii I have always made a point of having spam musubi. It is a local food that I stop short of calling a delicacy. As you can probably make out it's a pad of rice with a slab of spam and finally wrapped up in nori like a sushi roll. It's served warm - as in heatlamp warmed. I can usually find them simmering next to the hot dogs at the 7-11 stores.

Musubi is also the name of a Japanese food but what makes this a uniquely Hawaiian treat is the Spam which the Hawaiians have loved every since WWII. There are lots of Japanese influences in Hawaii.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse

After looking at the elephant seals on Christmas Eve, I stopped at a nearby lighthouse. Since it was such a nice day I was hoping to get some great shots of the lighthouse. The Pigeon Point Lighthouse is no longer in use (probably due to satellites and GPS) and is in serious danger of falling down. Luck for us it looked sturdy enough. An interesting fact is that it is named after a ship and not the obvious assumption of the bird. I guess it is true of many light houses up and down the coast.

It was late afternoon when I shot this so the colors were really starting to pop. It was also neat that there was a observation deck built out on a rock on the ocean side. It offered a great spot to be able to shot back towards the builds and the coast with the sun behind me. I can't think of a better time and place to photograph this landmark. I felt luck to be there.

This is another panorama of 6 photos. The black area at the bottom is where I did not shoot photos. So the bottom curve could be considered the rotation path of the camera. The exposure of the sky across the whole pan was too difficult to match in the stitching software so I ended up masking out the sky and replacing it with a gradient based on colors in the original sky. It's very close to the original, just more even. Click on the image for the larger version.

Elephant Seals

Linda and I are in San Jose, CA for Christmas. We are staying with Linda's sister and her family. On Christmas Eve we spent the day out on the Pacific coast at Ano Nuevo State Park checking out the elephant seals. The seals are there for mating season. It was a bit of luck for us because they are only there for a short time. I guess we were also lucky in that it was unusually sunny and clear. We had reserve tickets for a guided hike out into the park reserve. I was surprised how close we were able to get to all the lounging animals. All of them were mostly just sunning themselves and not doing much. But they were still impressive to see.

Weekend; Lumberjacks

Linda and I spent the weekend in northern Minnesota near the town of Fergus Falls. We were at our friends cabin to help the take down some trees. It's an abandoned tree farm of pines. All in nice neat rows. The trees are generally unhealthy because they are overgrown. So every 3rd row has to go to save the rest.

Some of the pines will be used in the floor of a new cabin to be built. So Jon hired a guy with a portable saw mill to come and cut the trees down to planks. The whole process was fascinating to watch. The machine would take a length up to 20 fee long. Then itwould cut down four sides with a bandsaw to square it up into a beam. After that it was a matter of cutting 1 inch planks from the beam. It took a bit of time to do - about 4 logs per hour.


More Flickr Photos

Italia: The Vatican

90 of the 455 photos I took in Italy are now up on Flickr. This one is another panorama I made from 8 photographs. The original is huge!

This view is of St Peter's Square and I am standing in front of St Peter's Basilica. The wikipedia entry has a panorama looking the other way. Funny.

We spend most of our last day at the Vatican touring through the museum. And by museum they mean through the halls of the Vatican itself. The place is gigantic and each corner reveals more art, sculptures and frescos. We stood in line for 1.5 hours in enter then probably another hour snaking through the halls to the crown gem of the Vatican - Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. I was in awe of it. The room was packed with people looking straight up. I managed to take a couple photos before the guards started yelling "No Photo". I saw the signs but thought it was no flash but they weren't allowing any photography or even video. Not sure why. So I feel a little bad but never the less got to take home a memory. The room is much darker then the photos give the impression of. I lighted them quite a bit.

Italy: Siena

Our first full day in Italy was spent in the medival town of Siena in Tuscany. Siena has a famous horse race twice a year called the Palio. We were luck enough to be there for the Summer event. It's a big deal for the Sienise and a source of great pride for the winning team. I'll defer to Wikipedia for the full explanation. It's worth a read.

Unfortunately we were not able to actually see the race since it started at 7:45 in the evening and that would have made us late for the last train back to our villa. But since the race is only 3 minutes long we didn't feel like we missed all that much. The party lasted all day and in fact had been going for a few days. The town was packed with tourist but not uncomfortably so.

This photo is of one of the jockeys. Each horse was lead into a square for everyone to admire. The handlers mostly just pushed their way into the crowd and it was up to us not to be trampled by his noble steed. Ironically I have no photos of the horses themselves!

I've got more photos of Siena here on Flickr.

Italia Trip

Linda and I returned from Italy a week ago and I still haven't gotten any photos onto the web or blogged about it. I have 400+ photos. It's a real problem deciding which ones not to post. But to start with here is a panorama I took of the Tuscan town of Montepulciano. It's composed of 5 photos. (Don't forget to click on the photo for a large version)

Montepulciano might be my favorite spot we visited. Typical of most towns in Tuscany it occupied the top of a tall hill (or small mountain depending on your view). We parked near the left side of the photo and ended up walking all the way through town to the right side. Fun little shops lined the narrow main street. Linda bought a couple purses and I found a neat leather bound sketchbook that are supposedly used as props in the Harry Potter movies. It looks very medieval and sure to contain magic!

At the end the day we stopped at a cafe to have a glass of wine. We ended up staying for dinner as well. I was so busy sketching in my new sketchbook that I forgot to look at the menu. Our very friendly waiter said that he would take care of me. I was game. What I got was a pork shank that was the best thing I eat all week. Now, I rarely meet a pig I won't eat but this pig knee was truly amazing - tender and meaty. It was the only thing I ate!

San Francisco, CA

The week of June 10th I was in San Jose for 4 days. I had 2 days of work meetings. One afternoon we quit early so they could take us to Fisherman's Wharf. Most people stuck around there until our dinner reservations at 8pm, but I elected to rent a bike. My goal was to bike across the Golden Gate Bridge and take lots of photos. Mission accomplished! It was extremely windy and down right scary on the bridge. But it was a gorgeous evening and despite having an average bike with no clip-in shoes, I made it to the top of the bluff overlooking the bridge and downtown San Francisco. I started the ride somewhere on the shore close to my head.

Once I caught up to my colleagues at the restaurant, I found out that they all took a boat ride out to the Golden Gate around 7:30pm which was about the time this photo was taken. So more then likely they were on the boat under the bridge in the photo!

Sketch 03; More Jamaica

sktch_03_jamaica

Here are a couple more from Montego Bay. The first is of the two Life Guards on duty. I thought the arm slung over the back of the chair pretty much summed up these guys work attitude. They have a good job.

sktch_02_jamaica

Sketch 02; Jamaica

sktch_04_jamaica

In March 05 Linda took me on a 4 day trip to Jamaica. We didn't not stay at a resort but at a typical hotel. So we ended up being annoyed by every street hustler in Montego Bay. Friendly as all hell but relentless in trying to get you to buy some over-priced item. Although we didn't buy anthing, we ended up being suckered into follow a couple people. Luckly the beach was just across the street and once there, was free of wonder vendors. This sketch was done on that beach looking towards Montego Bay itself.

My advice about Jamaica is simple - stay on the resort grounds and enjoy the beautiful warm teal blue water, and ultra cheap Red Strips.