gottahavacuppamocha

It’s been quite awhile, so I updated the gallery to the latest version of ZenPhoto. It’s supposed to work well with WordPress via some plugins. At the moment, it’s only a few photos, but I’ve got a ton more photos to process and add. Plus, there will also be some 3d stuff, graphic design, and so on.

I recently got a flatbed scanner that also does film and slides, so the plan is to convert old photos, slides, and maybe negatives, into digital form. Even if they don’t end up being posted (to protect the innocent ô_o), it will be nice to get them scanned in.

Hopefully this will also give me incentive to come up with another theme to unify the look of WordPress and ZenPhoto. At the very least, the thumbnails can be pulled into WordPress like this. It’s a start.

I posted some of photos of the 2005 Concours Grand Prix here. These were probably the best of the ones I had for the prints. I still have to scan in some slides, plus I still have to finish that last roll and get it developed. I’ll probably do that this coming week. In the meantime, enjoy.

I’m going to make this fairly quick, because we are supposed to have scattered thunderstorms tonight, and I hear thunder off in the distance. Plus, I’m tired.

My Intro to Creative Writing class starts tomorrow night, and I’m looking forward to it. I checked out the syllabus online, which was kind of nice in that it had what we are supposed to do each class session. We start out doing poetry, then do a short story, and finish with a short screenplay, so it all sounds interesting. I’m not too sure about the poetry, though. I’m fond of haikus and limericks, because they are short and to the point, and in the case of limericks, they are often funny :D Anyway, I’ll give it a shot and see what comes of it.

One thing that was strongly suggested was to write two hours for every hour of class, so twelve hours of writing every week. I also saw something about a daily journal, but I’m not sure if that is an assignment, or a suggestion. The point was the teacher wants us to write every day. I wonder if writing in my blog would count for any of that.

I also got the impression that she wants us to actually write – like in a book. I have often said that word processors were made for people like me. My penmanship is awful. I work in a doctor’s office, and you know if a doctor criticizes your handwriting, there is a problem. Of course, I tell them they don’t have much room to talk ;-) Anyway, I will bring a notebook (as “required”) and my laptop. I prefer to do all my writing in the laptop or on my PC at home, and since I have one of those USB pen drives, I can transfer files from one to the other with ease (a/k/a Sneakernet 2005).

I’ll post again later this week or on the weekend about how the class went, plus I hope to have some of the photos scanned in so I can post them to the gallery.

This morning I went to the Indianapolis Concours Grand Prix on the Circle. For those who might not know, a Concours show is an auto show of (typically) older cars in orginal condition, or close to original condition. While there are more famous Concours D’Elegance shows, they aren’t within walking distance of my apartment. On Friday afternoon/evening, there was a similar show held by the Ferrari Club of America which featured mostly ferraris, with a few other sports cars as well.

The Concours and the Ferrari show were held in conjunction with the US Grand Prix being held here in Indy this weekend. A good chance for car lovers and race fans to see some beautiful cars.

The show officially started at 10:00 am, but I showed up a little early and some cars were still arriving. The featured brand was Stutz automobile, which was originally made here in Indy. They had probably a dozen or more Stutzes of various types on display, in addition to the other marquees. Chrysler was the main corpoate sponsor, and they had some nice cars on display, mainly concept cars.

I loved their Phaeton. Currently, VW makes a car called Phaeton (their top-of-the-line), but the Chrysler Phaeton definitely drew its inspiration from the original dual-cowl phaetons of old (1930’s and earlier). I would love to see this car produced, but as with most concept cars, it will remain in the realm of the unique.

The morning started nice. It was sunny (and I have the sunburn to prove it), but the clouds started moving in before long. I took about 40 – 50 pictures, and dropped off the film. I still have part of a roll to finish, but I’ll try to get the photos posted here in the next week or two. The photos were taken with a medium-format Pentax 645, which means the film has to be sent out, and will be back probably next Friday. I didn’t get all the pictures I wanted because the crowds became too much, but I grabbed what I could, so we’ll see.

It’s kind of strange. I must have a love/hate relationship with cars. I don’t own one. Don’t care to own one because everything I need is within walking distance. I think people drive too much, such as driving a block to the store to get Pepsi from the conveniece store. They scream bloody murder about rising gas prices, but the idea of walking would never occur to them, but I digress. While I might not like cars as transportation, I love them as works of art. All of the cars at this show were beautiful. Some were restored to original condition, while others had always been taken care of and were still in beautful unrestored condition. One gentleman had an old Hudson from the 1950’s with the original interior. He had some painting done on the exterior, but overall, it was unrestored, just cleaned up. Another guy had a late 50’s/early 60’s Mercury station wagon that was very clean and unrestored.

Overall, I think there were fewer cars this year than last year. It might be because I showed up early, but I left around 11:00, so I don’t know if more cars showed up later. For the cars that were there, I was very impressed. When I left, I noticed an old British Double Decker bus parking on a side-street. I don’t know if they were part of the show or not. I’m think not, but It would have made for an interesting addition. I grabbed a picture of that, too, althoug it is on the roll I still have to finish.

If you get a chance to visit a Concours vehicle show, I highly recommend it. I should have some photos posted in the next couple of weeks.

Here’s a nice image, if I do say so myself.

The network is a largely anonymous space. Blogs, however, are an interesting part of the net. Bloggers are probably part exhibitionist. Not all, though. Some blog are more about business or geared towards certain topics. But most bloggers use the websites to reveal their thoughts. Some of them are funny, some are poetic, some are angry, some are boring, but they are mostly personal.

This site is could be called a vanity site, or an everything/nothing site, or a host of different things. Mostly, I have it to show off my portfolio (which I am woefully behind in working on). I am like catchy graphics and I also like sites that have clean looks and aren’t “busy” looking, so I have tried to use those ideas in this site. It may not be as clean as Google’s main page, but then again, that isn’t a blog. As a result of my liking graphics, I like to work with Blender, the GIMP, and Sodipodi, which are graphics programs available for Linux. I also like photography, even though I don’t have a gallery for that – yet. Photography is an expensive hobby, so I can’t take it as far as I want, but I have some photos that are – IMHO – pretty good looking. One of these days, I will probably add another gallery and post some of them.

Getting back to blogs and vanity, I have noticed that some bloggers post photos of themselves to their sites. Part of me appreciates the anonymity of the net, but it almost seems a contradiction to appreciate the anonymity, yet have a blog, which is slightly exhibitionistic. I pondered these things for awhile and finally decided to post some pics of myself. If you go to the Profile page you will see two thumbnails at the bottom. Click on one of them to open a new page with a photo of yours truly.