Marching of the Ants

I’ve watched the daily march of the ants

From nest to honey pot

Tasks before them

Trudging onward

Jostling each other for position as they move along well-worn trails

Circadian rhythms feel imperfect when compared to the daily motion of these ants

Their lives bottled up, lived, and consumed in symmetrically rigid steel mounds

Each carving out a space

Each carving out a function

Thirsting for a saccharine sweet reward

But the honey earned tastes bitter in the mouths of the discontent

Flower 4/40

I can't thank Mr. Panitzke enough for being an upstanding guy and letting me keep the flower.

Flower 4/40

Card included w/ the plant

The clue that led to the find

Muir Woods

I always wanted to try out black and white HDR. I finally found an image in my library worth working on. This was taken in Muir Woods just outside of San Francisco.

Before:

After:

Austin in August

I've got news for you...it's hot in the hot tub.

I had a chance to take a few shots on the Austin skyline from my hotel window at night, and of course I had to HDR-ize the view:

I also got to see some bats...one or two...or 1.5 million. Give or take.

(Click for larger images...They are worth it):

I took also trip to my own personal mecca. 

Lance Armstrong's bike shop Mellow Johnny's: 

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In the Mix Vol. 1

This is a first for me. I have put together another playlist; however, this time I went ahead and mixed the songs together. So here for your listening enjoyment is the first installment of "In the Mix."

You can download the mix at the following link:

In The Mix Vol. 1.mp3

TRACK LISTING

Feel it all Around -- Washed Out

Coat of Arms -- Nosaj Thing

Heartbeats -- The Knife

Little Motel -- Modest Mouse

Baby's Breath -- Bill Callahan

Sim Sala Bim -- Fleet Foxes

Man of Constant Sorrow -- Bob Dylan

Whoopee, Ti Yi Yo, Get Along Little Doggies -- Woody Guthrie

Song to Woody -- Bob Dylan

Do Re Mi -- Woody Guthrie

Dead Flowers -- The Rolling Stones

Where Did you Sleep Last Night -- Nirvana

Minnesota, WI -- Bon Iver

Perfect Day -- Lou Reed

Pale Blue Eyes -- The Velvet Underground

The clouds float gently by

The thoughts of man attempt to put meaning in the motion

Science explains but fails to reason why

And the clouds float gently by

The irrelevance of time and space

Confounded by the need to belong

Still the clouds float gently by

Tilt Shift Photography

I seriously could sit here, and make these all night long. It is so much fun. The technique is called Tilt-Shift photography. It comes from the use of a fancy lens, and you can read more about it on wiki. You can also cheat, and use Photoshop to accomplish the same effect as the fancy lens, which is how I made these images. It is really fun to play around with, and as you can see some images work better than others.

Click on the image to get the larger size...it makes a huge difference!
(pun intended)

National Gallery of Art

I am no art historian nor am I an art scholar, but I know what I like when I see it. This style of Picasso's paintings is something I happen to like. The simplicity of a few strong black lines defining a the features of a person, in conjunction with the subtle use of color creates a visually striking imagine that makes you want to stare at it. The image on top is "Madame Picasso" was taken by me at the National Gallery of Art in DC. The one below, which hangs in the BMA, is "Mother and Child". The image is not my own, and comes from here.

Here are some more photos from the National Gallery.  Taking pictures of art really makes you connect and see the art on a different level. If you have never tried it, I suggest that you do. A macro lens certainly helps you to get up close and personal (they would be a lot less fuzzy, if I toted around a tripod...but who wants to)

A Touch of Jazz in the Mix

You can stream the track here, or right click and hit save as to download it. I will say, that if the start does not sound that great...it does not sound that great to me either, skip to around 6min or so...I really should just redo it, but I am a bit lazy to redo the whole thing. 

Download the Mix

Library of Congress

One place I have never been in DC was inside the Library of Congress. The main show piece is the Jefferson building, which sits neatly nestled in front of the US Capitol building. I decided it was time to see if I could find page 47 of the presidents book for myself, and took a look.

I was amazed by the sheer amount of information and meaning embedded into the walls, the floors, the celling of the building. It is a stunning space, and well worth the trek to see it.

There are a number of quotes scattered around the walls, but two stood for to me (for obvious reasons):
Books Must Follow Sciences, and not Sciences Books --Francis Bacon 

Science is Organized Knowledge --Immanuel Kant

Oh yeah, and I took some pictures...HDR style I think they turned out very nice as well...take a look for yourself (click the picture to enlarge).

First Stab at HDR

I suggest you click on the picture to see the larger version. This is my first attempt at HDR photography. 

I am still working on fully understanding the post processing, but this is the first shot where it came out decent.

This was the original shot. 

Doldrums

This blast of winter weather is most unfortunate. I am very tired of this winter...it has waxed too long.

"It shall be unlawful, illegal, and unethical to think, think of thinking, surmise, presume, reason, meditate, or speculate while in the Doldrums."

"In the Doldrums, laughter is frowned upon and smiling is permitted only on alternate Thursdays." 

Hunter S. Quote

A passage from Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angles (1966): 

But in a society with no central motivation, so far adrift and puzzled with itself that its President feels called upon to appoint a Committee on National Goals, a sense of alienation is likely to be very popular--especially among people young enough to shrug off the guilt they're suppose to feel for deviating from a goal or purpose they never understood in the first place. Let the old people wallow in the shame of having failed. The laws they made to preserve a myth are no longer pertinent; the so called American Way begins to seem like a dike made of cheap cement, with many more leaks than the law has fingers to plug. America has been breeding mass anomie since the end of World War II. It is not a political thing, but the sense of new realities, or urgency, anger and sometimes desperation in a society where even the highest authorities seem to be grasping at straws. 

I am not really sure what happened to the generation that thought this, to me it seems they did not really do anything to "fix" the American dream. However, maybe that was the point, they just checked out and let the rest of the pieces fall where they may.