Alright, I have taken a bajillion photos, and still have a bunch more to upload and post. I went to California, and some great shows at The Trunkspace. Here are a few photos as a preview.
Porches
Stephen Steinbrink
Sunset From San Pedro
...and of course Sean and Ben from Andrew Jackson Jihad
Arizona really has amazing people and amazing music.
I know I don’t update this nearly as much as I should. This update though is definitely needed, if only to sort out some awesome ideas.
I will be starting a music blog unlike anything you seen hopefully. I have already purchased the domain and contacted companies I will be developing from (getting info on the API). So far the idea seems sound which is good considering this will be a music blog. There will be social aspects of the site that I haven’t decided if they should be integrated with facebook or not. If not, I surely don’t want to make my site dependent upon someone having an account offsite. The content will be pretty awesome hopefully, and I will probably contact some people who write for other music sites to do some writing on mine (even they will only do it to drive traffic to their site). I figure if I embrace the interwebs with the idea, that they will embrace me.
Site design will be started shortly after I get an email back from one of the companies a service will be provided by. If I don’t get an email that the first step will be creating a system from scratch to do what I would rather do through an API. It is still feasible regardless of what happens, which is nice. I can guarantee the site will at the very least intrigue. Being the visionary and developer has its perks, mostly when it comes to the lack of compromises that are made.
The Mountain Goats came to Minneapolis with Final Fantasy. The show was sold out which was evident even before getting inside. The line to get in seemed to be half a block long, and people were offering up to $60 for a single ticket outside the doors. I am happy to see people in love with music, especially music by John Darnielle.
This was the first time I saw Final Fantasy, which consisted a man doing amazing things with a violin. He is definitely worth listening to sometime. The Mountain Goats’ new album, The Life of the World to Come, includes Owen Pallett from Final Fantasy on the recordings. They definitely had some chemistry on stage together leading to an incredible performance.
Owen Pallett
John Darnielle
Seeing others smile while listening and likely relating to the music made me smile.
The Takumar 135mm f/2.5 Bayonet mount lens has arrived. This lens isn’t SMC coated, but so far so good with the photos. I need to take it out on a real test drive, but here are a couple photos from around the house.
Condensation
Bottle Rockets
The clarity seems good, and the real test drive will be at the Mountain goats show
Mountain Goats Tickets
I am bringing this lens to give it a test with my Pentax K20D, and if all goes well I will be able to use it on the Canon 7D that I will be upgrading to. I think I am more loyal to Pentax in their lenses than their bodies, and if I could I would keep all of my lenses, but AF completely lost. I am looking forward to the new AF system from Canon and hope it confirms my manual lenses (50mm f/1.4 along with 135mm f/2.5 and maybe the Nikkor 85mm f/1.4) properly. That Nikkor lens looks beautiful, and despite it being manual focus, well worth the price. Not sure, and the 30mm f/1.4 and wide angle are more important first, as those are the ones I know I will be using a lot of.
So The Mountain Goats released a new album (The Life of the Wold to Come) recently and so far it is great.
In eBay purchases, I picked up a sewing machine so I can make some amazing custom panniers for my bicycle and maybe start a side-project selling them. The machine should be able to go through leather and suede fine, it is supposedly commercial grade.
Singer CG-590 from eBay
I have been also thinking of my switch to Canon which I will eventually do. I can’t seem to part with a couple of my old Pentax lenses though, nor can I invest in Canon prime lenses without selling my soul. I decided that for my zoom I should probably just pick up an old Takumar (not super-multi-coated) and use that until I can afford a really nice zoom. That way I don’t invest too much on something that will get replaced down the road and I won’t have to go without a telephoto either.
Takumar 135mm f/2.5 I got for $40
So after I sell a ridiculous amount of lenses I should be able to have this lineup:
Eventually I will want to get either the 70-200mm f/4 USM IS Canon lens or the f/2.8 non-IS Canon, and of course the 135mm f/2 Canon L lens will be down the road as well to replace the Takumar. It is nervwrecking switching camera brands after so long, but I feel Canon will keep putting out more professional lineups instead of prosumer lineups like Pentax is doing.
I know these posts probably get old, but I mapped out a good route for tomorrow. It is around 18 miles, I couldn’t actually get the path to follow the bike paths, so this is just an approximation. I am hoping writing it down will make me more motivated. Also on the agenda for tomorrow is to watch the new episode of Defying Gravity and Psych which are both awesome shows. Feel free to try out the path I have mapped if you want a nice bicycle route to follow in Minneapolis and live anywhere near the greenway.
Bicycle Route for Tomorrow
UPDATE: So my planned route was diverted due to a closed Dairy Queen and a mistaken lake. I thought I was at Lake Harriet when I was only at Lake Hiawatha. Anyhow, it was still around 10 miles and I got some photos. Better a 10 mile ride than no ride, right?
The West River Parkway bicycle path is being redone, so far so good with a nice, smooth blacktop. Once it is complete I might even start riding my new route more often. The bike path was pretty bad over there, so bad that the streets had less bumps.
UPDATE: The photos are up, click on the photo below to see all of them.
click photo for more
I haven’t taken any new photos in a while but wanted to make a post so I went through a few old photographs and dug these up.
Minnehaha Falls
The one of the falls was rotated and cropped, which gave it an interesting feel with the rushing water.
A Park in Michigan
This is where I slept for one night of my bike tour through Michigan. This photo came out a lot better than I thought it would. The photo was really dark when I previewed it, but I changed the levels and got this.
Another View
This one is highly grainy and has banding, but it gives it an awesome ghost hunter feeling.
Headed down to the University with Meghan for her appointment, then down to her old job to pick up some stuff before she wasn’t feeling well, then back home. I feel I accomplished a good deal before 1pm. I also feel I am in no where near in shape compared to last summer, but 10 miles is a good start.
Ten Miles Ride
