Lost in OK

Several weeks ago my bicycle, Ms. Blu-Haul was vandalized by some creep while locked up outside my office. Thankfully, she now gets to spend the work day in a nice and cozy spot in the file room.

As a small aside, I will try to post my photo on the same day, but sometimes it just won’t be possible . . .

On a cold wet morning, especially after a bicycle ride, there is almost nothing better than a nice hot cup of coffee . . .

So, it isn’t another lake picture, but it is another zeppelin picture. But how often do you get to see a zeppelin anyway? I caught this shot as I came around Wiley Post airport on my ride into work. It is quite a spectacle though I didn’t get any pictures about which I was particularly pleased.

Last of the Lake Hefner pictures for a while, but the lake does figure a lot into my day-to-day life.  One of the best parts of my day is my cool off from the ride into work.  This is the view I get to enjoy as I get ready to get down to work . . .

The martian landscape of Lake Hefner continues to provide photographic opportunities. Today, I caught the world’s largest zeppelin, The Farmers Airship, taking a lap around the lake. The airship is on a cross-country tour with a day stop off here in the city before heading off to Texas. You can get more details here.

The scissor-tailed flycatcher ground art in the foreground is a project of the architecture firm upstairs from us, Rees Associates.

So I am so far behind on my photos it hurts, but it is a hobby I am interested in getting back into in a major way, so expect to see more soon.  In any case, below are some shots from the Walkmen/Fleet Foxes show from last night and from a trip to the grocery store today.

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So today is my 35th birthday and it’s on one’s birthday that you start seeking new projects. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with this site for quite some time. I’m still thoroughly bored with politics and I’m not really any the mood to rant about much else these days. The only thing I’ve missed lately is photography so I’ve decided to take on my own personal Project 365 and figured this site is the best place to host it. So for those looking for rants and ravings, sorry, you will instead get photos and more photos.

OK, I have to admit it, for a long time, Hipstamatic really annoyed me.  I think it was because I first learned photography several years before digital photography came into its own and as such, I learned how to do things the hard way.  The effects that Hipstamatic and similar pieces of software produce used to take hours in the darkroom and as such, I felt it was cheating.  I remember working for hours on creating and painting custom emulsions, doing large-scale negative to negative enlargements for special contact print effects and dozens of other labor intensive processes to achieve effects that can now be done in minutes.  Of course, all of that is really silly.  Art must, in the end, be judged by the final product not the process.  I know this may start an unrelated argument, but if I have to know how a piece of art was made in order to appreciate it, then the work is not complete.  In any case, I’ve been using Photoshop for years to fine tune contrast, perform burn-and-dodge processing and the like with no similar feelings of guilt even though even those changes would take several tries and a lot of darkroom time.  As I’ve seen more and more excellent photos coming out of Hipstamatic, I’m starting to get over my old fogey feelings about it.

So today was my first day back to driving.  I drove primarily just for the contrast and to mark and end to the experiment.  Boy, was the irony suddenly laid on thick. I climbed in my car, turned the key and nothing happened, just a clicking noise as the starter motor tried to turn over.  My battery had died.  I had to get a neighbor to come over and give me a jump-start.  I guess the heat combined with the lack of use had drained it dry.  I had noticed that it had a hard time starting on Tuesday for my short trip to work after my tires were punctured and apparently my short commute hadn’t been enough to top off the battery.  So the great irony of the experiment is that after all of my worry about being without a car for a month, the time when I really needed help was when I returned to driving.

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So I started the day furious and frustrated. The car free experiment for this month fell apart today and it fell apart for completely unnecessary reasons. When I left work last night, I found that both of my tires were deflated. I assumed this was some moron’s idea of a “harmless” prank. I filled the tires and successfully made my way home.  However, this morning as I prepared to head to work, I found both tires flat again which means that this pathetic excuse for a human being actually punctured both tires with something that created a slow leak, probably a thumb tack.  It was too late for me to have time to replace the tubes and make it to work on time.  After swearing and fruitlessly shaking my fist I climbed in my car and with heavy heart, drove to work.  I was sooooo close . . .  One day left and I would have done it.   Instead of a feeling of triumph and because of some small-minded imbecile with delusions of adequacy, here I am fighting with stop and go traffic and I can feel my blood pressure is rising.  “DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO MERGE????” A headache is coming on.  I can feel that throbbing starting at the back of my head.  This is just awful . . . And just like that I had an epiphany . . .