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Posts published in September 2009

The Finger Lakes 8/27/2009

Last week, as I mentioned previously here on The Black Laser, Juli and I took a much needed vacation up to the Finger Lakes which are in the western part of New York State. We stayed at a fantastic bed and breakfast called The Fox & The Grapes in Lodi, NY, which, as it turns out, is right smack in the middle of New York’s wine country. Who knew? And being relatively close to Ithaca, there were the expected, yet utterly exceptional, gorges to experience. It was a lovely trip, one I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to a couple wanting to get the hell out of the city for a few days. Check out The Fox & The Grapes. We were easily the youngest people staying there by two generations, but don’t let that deter you. The owner, Jim, is fantastic and will give you a discount if you stay for more than three nights. Go! Now!

Anyway, while up there we hiked around a couple of state parks, Taughannock and Watkins Glen Gorge, went to a weird military museum in another, played tennis with rain threatening, kayaked, ate buffalo wings so hot that I had an endorphin reaction and got high, and then liberally sprinkled wine tasting throughout. Since only two of those outings were picture friendly and dry, my photos are quite hike-centric. Here are a few of my favorites. Thoughts on the photos afterward.

Here’s the whole gallery—Finger Lakes, NY Gallery 8/27/2009

Yeah yeah, so photos of waterfalls are cliché. Whatever. Fuck you. I like them. I think they’re nice. What’s wrong with nice? Nothing. I’ve come to grips with the fact that I am not, nor shall I ever be, one of those totally edgy photographers that makes even the most mundane things look super intense. I just don’t see the world that way. I appreciate that type of photography and sometimes think, “Man, I’m going to try and shoot some, like, really edgy, intense photos or something,” and then they just end up coming out pretty. Even when I want to shoot that way, I can’t help but just making things look nice. Oh well. Fuck it.

On the topic of the way I see, I was playing with shooting things on this trip to match my eye sight. I’ve noticed that I see at about 73mm equivalent—probably why I like the 85mm prime so much, it’s close to the way I see normally—by opening both eyes while zooming until what I see matches. Of course, not everything in this set was shot at 73mm, but it was something I was cognizant of as I composed my shots. It was an interesting exercise to crop such a limited rectangle out of my normal field of vision. For example, the first shot of the four above was one of the 73mm-same-as-Joe’s-eyeball photos. Feel free to dig through the gallery on Flickr to see if you can find more 73mm photos.

Mannahatta, 1609

m_proj

Living here in Nueva York for some years, it is easy to forget that this city was a wild place just 400 years ago. I’ve often wondered what it looked like before Europeans landed here in the 17th century. You get a sense of it when driving even a short distance from the city into a place that hasn’t been entirely paved over. Even parts of Staten Island, particularly the southern end, still feel touched by that old wildness.

With that in mind, I found this particularly interesting.

The Mannahatta Project

The Wildlife Conservation Society has attempted to recreate the island of Manhattan as it would have looked just hours prior to the landing of Henry Hudson in 1609. Especially striking is the outline of the island now versus the outline of the island 400 years ago. Landfill has been quite a dramatic force in the reshaping of the land. It’s pretty neat to learn that much of the Upper East Side was swamp land back then. And is still today, just, you know, in a different way.

Click the link to go to the site that features an interactive map of Manhattan. I hope they do Brooklyn next.

New computer time?

As long time readers will know, earlier this year I applied to graduate school at Hunter College for their MFA in Creative Writing program. I wrote what I thought was a petty solid piece of fiction, but, unfortunately, I didn’t make the cut. They only take 6 students a year and neither Juli nor I were accepted or even waitlisted. Bummer. Anyway, throughout the writing and application process, I told myself that if I didn’t get in, then I would invest in a new desktop computer for more heavy duty processing needs. In March, just after finding out I wasn’t accepted, Apple introduced the new Nehalem-based Mac Pros. Pretty awesome, and definitely something to look into once the smoke of the new release had settled a little bit and RAM prices leveled out a bit.

But, then I lost my job at the beginning of June. Oops! Not that it was my fault, of course, but the income hit was significant even earning my relatively ungenerous $430 from the government, which is really my money so I’m not really earning, sort of just “taking back”. That dashed my computer plans a little as I took the summer off from life and everything, if you didn’t notice from the sparsity of posting here on The Black Laser for the last few months.

As summer fades and autumn forces itself back into our lives, the lazy dullness of summer-brain is leaving me and that means it’s time to get back to work. I’ve got more pictures to take and a fuckload of stories to write and, even better, a short film to cut. As much as I love the laptop I’ve been using since January 2007, it’s starting to choke a little on modern life’s higher data throughput requirements, particularly the raw files from the 5D Mk II and more than one stream of high def video in Final Cut. I also feel limited by the fairly small amount of screen real estate. Add to that some strangeness that has been happening since it accidentally fell out of the back of John’s car in February, and it feels like time to upgrade.

While window shopping at Apple.com a week ago, I noticed that they had a fresh batch of refurbished Mac Pros in stock. The one I want is the bottom of the line quad-core Mac Pro which normally goes for 2499, but refurbished is 2149, a 350 dollar savings. Not bad seeing as that 350 dollars goes most of the way toward the 490 dollars I need to outfit the system with 12gb of RAM. IT IS NOT EXCESSIVE. What makes all of this so damned tempting is that Apple is offering 12 months same-as-cash financing (read: no interest as long as I pay on time). It breaks down, overall, to a much more manageable amount of money to pay over the next year. I want to build a machine that will serve me well for the next 4 to 5 years. This is how my intended system breaks down.

  • Mac Pro 2,499.00 (2149.00 if they have one refurbished)
    • One 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
    • 3GB (3x1GB)
    • 640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
    • NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
    • One 18x SuperDrive
  • EVGA GeForce GTX 285 449.95 – because the more graphics muscle the better with FCP, After Effects, Photoshop, whatever.
  • Final Cut Studio 3 999.00 – now I am using a quasi-legal version of Final Cut and that kind of sucks. I ought to properly own a real copy.
  • 12 GB RAM (3x 4 GB DIMMS) 489.99 – you can never have too much RAM

That satisfies most of my needs for the time being. Additional hard drives can be added as they are required. Besides Final Cut, I don’t need any other software either. In the future I might upgrade to the newest version of Logic, but I have a perfectly good, legal version already which gives me no real reason to rush out and upgrade.

Two issues remain, however: monitor(s) and audio.

For the monitor I’m thinking the HP2475w 24″ 16:10 display, which goes for about 550 dollars and has overwhelmingly positive reviews around the web. The other option is the Samsung 275T+ 27″ 16:10 display, which goes for about 1100 dollars. Though it is 3″ longer in the diagonal than the HP, the pixel resolution is identical, and—something that just occurred to me as I writing this—I could pick up two of the HPs for the same price as one of the Samsungs. The choice is obvious. I am excited to have more real estate for my photos. There is no need, of course, to buy BOTH HPs right now. I can always add a second later when I’m feeling less poor from the investment.

Audio is a less clear choice. I could go for a decent set of computer speakers like the Edirol MA-15Ds which can connect directly to the optical out on the back of the Mac Pro, requiring no other additional audio interface. At 150 dollars for the pair, they are also economical. Alternatively, I could purchase a Firewire audio interface and a pair of capable, though not too expensive, monitors. The current forerunner is the Focusrite Pro 24 DSP, 399, and a pair of KRK RP5g2s, 149.50 each, or a pair of Mackie MR5s, 149.99 each. To save money and because I really only NEED a way to get audio in and out of the computer—the on board DSP features of the Focusrite are nice but overkill—I might go with the Edirol FA-66, which is only 279. And if I’m going to save 120 bucks on the interface, why not shovel that savings into a pair of the more robust KRK RP6g2s, at 199.50 each?

The subtotal of things I definitely need is 4987.94, or 4637.94 if the computer is refurbished. Add the cheapest audio interface and speakers on there and the total with a new computer is 5565.94 (refurbished 5215.94). Now, I can finance 3947.95 of that over 12 months, which is a very manageable $329/month (refurbished 3597.95, and $299.83/month). The rest—a single monitor, audio interface, and speakers—come to 1617.99, a lot of money, but not a ridiculous amount for what I’m getting. Fortunately, I have all this money in the bank, but paying all of it out at once would basically empty out my savings, hence the financing.

Since I was approved yesterday for the card to finance with, I have 29 days left to make my decision. I am going to wait and see if more of the 2.66 quad-core Mac Pros come back into the refurbished line up before I pull the trigger since this is a lot of money we are talking about and every little bit I can save matters. Even better is that most of the accessories can move between computers should I need to replace it before 4 years. It’s just a large lay out at once because I’ve been using a laptop exclusively for 8 years or so and don’t already own many of the necessities.

Anyway, I’m thinking about it. Do any of you, my faithful readers, have any suggestions?