Slice of life
Feb. 21st, 2006 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI'm in Mother's Tavern, downtown SLO, with the apple-notes of a Pilsner Urquell, a dish of chicken tenders and tartar sauce for my fries. The weather is not quite perfect, in a different (and sort of better way) from the way it has been not quite perfect since Friday.
I've not been online much because I had drill, and then some failed attempts to do some things in L.A. (though I did get to watch some curling. I like curling. I've liked it since I first heard/read about it some twenty years ago. I'm glad the 2002 Olympics got it public play, though the sense that everyone thinks I like it because of the olympics is annoying; but that's just the whining of someone who's underground band has made it big. I'm happy for curlers, and happy for those who've just discovered it, but it makes me feel everyone thinks I'm a johnny-come lately). I also picked upsoldiergrrrl and drove her up to SLO for a visit. This morning we put her on the train to head back to L.A. and thence (come the weekend) back to Texas, which she calls home.
At the risk of talking out of school, she's adapting to being home better than I did. She had a less quiet war, but none of the stress of leaving before her unit got to. We spent the week taking her camera bag for a spin. It happens the Army hasn't made her turn it in yet (not unsurprising, nor yet unsual) and to be sure it doesn't have anything untoward happen to it she has been keeping it close to her person.
She had a nice rig in Iraq. D2H, 17-35mm 2.8 ED, 30-70mm 2.8 ED, and a 70-200mm 2.8 ED VR. All of them Nikon glass, all of them the metal barreled lenses. Each of them is a tank. The VR (vibration reduction) is long (because it needs space to hold the elements, which are of largish diameter, so as to be fast) and I think the the VR basically compensates for the extra wobble induced by the weight.
Not much domestic food porn took place. Coffee, an omelette, some abelskivers, pasta puttanesca, and grilled cheese were the summa of my cooking for the four days and six nights she was here (we got in on Thurs. evening, and she left on Tues. morning). Dinner out a couple of nights, she was introduced to magret du canard at Bistro Fandango (though the peppercorn sauce was a little to peppered this time, and the skin not as crisp as I might call ideal) as well as some excellent cured meats and a divine blue-cheese from Spain. We brought our own wine (from Webb, the owner of the property at which the horses are boarded), a 2000 zinfandel. Buttery, with cherry notes and hint of bubbles. That bottle lived right.
The weather was cold. Cloudy days barely out of the fifties (if that) and nights to the upper-thirties. I'm afraid the couch wasn't as warm as it might have been, which can be blamed on Maia and myself. We have a loft bed and if the floor is 65F, the air where we sleep is pushing 80F, so we tend to keep the heat not much above 60F. She said the blanket (a Maia Special, heavy yarn, double crocheted) was adequate.
The clouds were the problem.soldiergrrrl and I were taking pictures, and damned if the light didn't go south on us every time we started shooting (well, not quite, but it certainly seemed that way). Sunday she and I went to a lagoon (where the three of us had gone with the dogs the afternoon before) and tried to get some backlight on the ducks, geese and coots which live there. There were no pelicans this time, nor yet any good shots of gulls. But there were some Muscovy Ducks, which are; perhaps, the ugliest ducks in the world. We then collected Maia from meeting, grabbed some breakfast at Big Sky and headed to Mt. Bishop.
We had the dogs. The east side is trees and shadow (at least at 1430) and easy walking (apart from the slick, muddy, trail. It was raining, with intermittent hail, all weekend.soldiergrrrl and I had no precipitation at the lagoon, but downtown SLO had 15 minutes of pea-hail. The BB hail we got on Friday in Grover Beach was hard, not the slushy stuff I'm used to seeing in Calif. Maia says this was much the same. The Santa Lucia Mountains were clothed in snow on Monday morning). The west side was sun (with dramatic clouds) and scrub. Both sides have lots of switchbacks (the trail was about 2 miles, with a 1,400 ft. elevation change). We saw Turkey Vultures and some Sharp Shinned Hawks.
I did a lot of shooting.soldiergrrrl got a year's worth of OJT with the camera, but has little formal training, and questions her eye. She's got talent. Right now she's fond of low f-stops, isolating the subject with shallow depth of field. Me, I tend to use longer lenses and isolate with framing. She reminded me that there I might want to pay more attention to the other tricks in the bag. I also think the, apparent extention of lenses on digital cameras has led to my not using the wider angles. Her eyes popped out of her head when I put a 17mm lens on a 35mm camera and she saw how wide the view is (on a digital SLR, the Canon 1D being an exception, a 17mm lens is the same as a 24mm lens on a 35mm camera, basically. The field of view for the former is about 115° while the latter is about 75°).
Having someone to compare visualization with is nice. Looking at a stand of daffodils and seeing how each of us shot it give more perspective on what can be done. She got a great shot of the web of a duck's foot, using my 500mm reflex lens. I'm not sure I'd have been using it that close, given that I'd've thought the light to low (the lens will let one focus at about 6 ft. Which gives a field of view (on a digital camera) in the area of 6°. As a reference, that means if you were trying to take a picture of a person at that distance, the only thing in the viewfinder would be the eye. It also has (esp. at that distance) a viciously small depth of field (it's got a fixed f8). The front and back of the ducks foot fade out of focus. It's a pretty god shot, and I think she's posted it on her photo feed.
So it was a weekend (long) of photos, and catching up, and hanging out and laughing and drinking wine (we were given a bottle of Tobin's Blue Moon Zin byredc1c4. It's very good, and I sent a bottle of Amarone del Valpollicella, '01 back with her).
Now I have to start looking at packing for three weeks in Korea, starting mid-March, and running to April.
I've let a lot of political fodder go by, and I have some more to say on the NSA nonsense, but mostly I'll let it be as it is, water under the bridge; because most of what I might say has been said elsewhere.
(oh, and for those who might care, I did all right at the range. I was shooting at the limits of the weapon's capabilities when I zeroed, greasing the targets on the qualification range when I ran out of ammo with ten targets left to shoot; I was put on another lane [which sucked] and shot a 29... I was 27 for 30 on the previous lane. Part of it was my being annoyed, part of it was the lane. Everyone I know who shot that lane was 5-10 hits below their normal. The next day I got to qualify pistol, 28 for 30 [targets from 7-31 meters] which rates Expert).
I've not been online much because I had drill, and then some failed attempts to do some things in L.A. (though I did get to watch some curling. I like curling. I've liked it since I first heard/read about it some twenty years ago. I'm glad the 2002 Olympics got it public play, though the sense that everyone thinks I like it because of the olympics is annoying; but that's just the whining of someone who's underground band has made it big. I'm happy for curlers, and happy for those who've just discovered it, but it makes me feel everyone thinks I'm a johnny-come lately). I also picked up
soldiergrrrl and drove her up to SLO for a visit. This morning we put her on the train to head back to L.A. and thence (come the weekend) back to Texas, which she calls home.At the risk of talking out of school, she's adapting to being home better than I did. She had a less quiet war, but none of the stress of leaving before her unit got to. We spent the week taking her camera bag for a spin. It happens the Army hasn't made her turn it in yet (not unsurprising, nor yet unsual) and to be sure it doesn't have anything untoward happen to it she has been keeping it close to her person.
She had a nice rig in Iraq. D2H, 17-35mm 2.8 ED, 30-70mm 2.8 ED, and a 70-200mm 2.8 ED VR. All of them Nikon glass, all of them the metal barreled lenses. Each of them is a tank. The VR (vibration reduction) is long (because it needs space to hold the elements, which are of largish diameter, so as to be fast) and I think the the VR basically compensates for the extra wobble induced by the weight.
Not much domestic food porn took place. Coffee, an omelette, some abelskivers, pasta puttanesca, and grilled cheese were the summa of my cooking for the four days and six nights she was here (we got in on Thurs. evening, and she left on Tues. morning). Dinner out a couple of nights, she was introduced to magret du canard at Bistro Fandango (though the peppercorn sauce was a little to peppered this time, and the skin not as crisp as I might call ideal) as well as some excellent cured meats and a divine blue-cheese from Spain. We brought our own wine (from Webb, the owner of the property at which the horses are boarded), a 2000 zinfandel. Buttery, with cherry notes and hint of bubbles. That bottle lived right.
The weather was cold. Cloudy days barely out of the fifties (if that) and nights to the upper-thirties. I'm afraid the couch wasn't as warm as it might have been, which can be blamed on Maia and myself. We have a loft bed and if the floor is 65F, the air where we sleep is pushing 80F, so we tend to keep the heat not much above 60F. She said the blanket (a Maia Special, heavy yarn, double crocheted) was adequate.
The clouds were the problem.
soldiergrrrl and I were taking pictures, and damned if the light didn't go south on us every time we started shooting (well, not quite, but it certainly seemed that way). Sunday she and I went to a lagoon (where the three of us had gone with the dogs the afternoon before) and tried to get some backlight on the ducks, geese and coots which live there. There were no pelicans this time, nor yet any good shots of gulls. But there were some Muscovy Ducks, which are; perhaps, the ugliest ducks in the world. We then collected Maia from meeting, grabbed some breakfast at Big Sky and headed to Mt. Bishop.We had the dogs. The east side is trees and shadow (at least at 1430) and easy walking (apart from the slick, muddy, trail. It was raining, with intermittent hail, all weekend.
soldiergrrrl and I had no precipitation at the lagoon, but downtown SLO had 15 minutes of pea-hail. The BB hail we got on Friday in Grover Beach was hard, not the slushy stuff I'm used to seeing in Calif. Maia says this was much the same. The Santa Lucia Mountains were clothed in snow on Monday morning). The west side was sun (with dramatic clouds) and scrub. Both sides have lots of switchbacks (the trail was about 2 miles, with a 1,400 ft. elevation change). We saw Turkey Vultures and some Sharp Shinned Hawks. I did a lot of shooting.
soldiergrrrl got a year's worth of OJT with the camera, but has little formal training, and questions her eye. She's got talent. Right now she's fond of low f-stops, isolating the subject with shallow depth of field. Me, I tend to use longer lenses and isolate with framing. She reminded me that there I might want to pay more attention to the other tricks in the bag. I also think the, apparent extention of lenses on digital cameras has led to my not using the wider angles. Her eyes popped out of her head when I put a 17mm lens on a 35mm camera and she saw how wide the view is (on a digital SLR, the Canon 1D being an exception, a 17mm lens is the same as a 24mm lens on a 35mm camera, basically. The field of view for the former is about 115° while the latter is about 75°).Having someone to compare visualization with is nice. Looking at a stand of daffodils and seeing how each of us shot it give more perspective on what can be done. She got a great shot of the web of a duck's foot, using my 500mm reflex lens. I'm not sure I'd have been using it that close, given that I'd've thought the light to low (the lens will let one focus at about 6 ft. Which gives a field of view (on a digital camera) in the area of 6°. As a reference, that means if you were trying to take a picture of a person at that distance, the only thing in the viewfinder would be the eye. It also has (esp. at that distance) a viciously small depth of field (it's got a fixed f8). The front and back of the ducks foot fade out of focus. It's a pretty god shot, and I think she's posted it on her photo feed.
So it was a weekend (long) of photos, and catching up, and hanging out and laughing and drinking wine (we were given a bottle of Tobin's Blue Moon Zin by
redc1c4. It's very good, and I sent a bottle of Amarone del Valpollicella, '01 back with her).Now I have to start looking at packing for three weeks in Korea, starting mid-March, and running to April.
I've let a lot of political fodder go by, and I have some more to say on the NSA nonsense, but mostly I'll let it be as it is, water under the bridge; because most of what I might say has been said elsewhere.
(oh, and for those who might care, I did all right at the range. I was shooting at the limits of the weapon's capabilities when I zeroed, greasing the targets on the qualification range when I ran out of ammo with ten targets left to shoot; I was put on another lane [which sucked] and shot a 29... I was 27 for 30 on the previous lane. Part of it was my being annoyed, part of it was the lane. Everyone I know who shot that lane was 5-10 hits below their normal. The next day I got to qualify pistol, 28 for 30 [targets from 7-31 meters] which rates Expert).
