Bert: April 2008 Archives

    I realize April has not yet ended (one more day!) but I'm taking final exams this week and probably would not have been able to do this post until the end of next week.  And that simply would not be right.
    Anyway, there are a lot more links this month than last month.  Maybe warm spring weather makes people post good content online? Who knows, I hope you find something below that you enjoy.

Photos
-Alix Smith-Staged photos of the ultra-wealthy.  The hint of satire is great/disturbing.
-Trampoline-I love this shot.  Maybe it's the trees. Or the lighting.  Or the medium format film.  Who knows, it's lovely.
-Ferris Wheel-Beats the ones at the carnivals I see.
-FIGHT!-Oh the colors!

Videos
-He's Got Talent-I'm amazed by this man's dancing ability (no not the MJ look alike...the other guy).
-Go To Hell-Fantastic one take recording of a song.  Done with a looping device.
-Discovery Channel-Why don't all TV commercials feel this good?
-Leave Me Alone Box-If I ever have an office with a large desk, I want one of these to sit on it.  And then I want people to ask me what it is.
-Junior Kickstart-One of the best music videos I have ever seen.
-Rick Muppeted-Rick Astley, eat your heart out.
-Mario RC Theme-SMB 3 Overworld theme performed by an RC car and lots of partially filled bottles.

Informative
-Sea Cowboys-Where the cattle are 55,000 ton ships.
-Vertical Transporters- Everything you could have ever wanted to know about elevators.  Here's the accompanying video.
-Stock Sign Language-Sign language on the trading floor.

Fun
-2min 42sec-I tend to disagree...but a beautiful rant nonetheless.
-Breakout Clone-The best version of Breakout out there!
-Best Little League Game Ever-Improv Everywhere makes the dreams of a bunch of Little League kids come true.
-10,000 Cents-Very cool art project.

Applications
-Enkin-This is why I want Android.
-It's Our Tree-Online family tree app.

    Another beautiful (but slightly cooler) weekend meant that it was the perfect time to take another trip into downtown Cleveland for some photography.
    My original intention for the evening was to get some better dusk shots of the city skyline.  Unlike the last trip, this time I thought ahead enough to bring a tripod so I would be able to get some nice long exposure shots.
    Adam S. and I arrived at Tower City around 7:30pm and had some time to kill before the sun was scheduled to set at about 8:15pm.  We walked out of the closed Tower City mall (I have yet to encounter someone who knows why all the stores in it close at 7pm) and ventured towards the Veterans Memorial/Detroit-Superior Bridge to see if there was anything interesting there.  All we were able to discover were the sleeping bags of some homeless people.
    As it was getting closer to sun down, we walked over to where I planned to take some photos.  We arrived sooner than expected and still had some time before the sun was low enough to produce good lighting conditions.  We walked around a bridge nearby and admired some of the graffiti drawn on the foundations.
    Both of us thought it would be cool to get some portrait shots in front of the graffiti so I decided to set up some flashes and shoot a few photos.  I experimented with various gels on the lights for effect instead of color correction and I'm satisfied with the results that were produced.  The shots that ended up working were ones where I gelled the lights orange, to fake the sunset look (although the sun was setting when we were taking the photos, it was blocked by the concrete foundations so I had to fake it).
    After some impromptu portraits, it was time for the main event of long-exposures of the Cleveland skyline.  Right as the light in the sky was perfect for photography, a big ship transporting a crane got in between me and the buildings.  My shot was ruined.
    Granted, it was still pretty cool to see such a gigantic ship up close.  I did take some photos of it, but I'm still debating whether I like them or not.  If I end up do liking any of them I'll be sure to put them up on my flickr page by the end of the week.

    Last night I was invited to go to dinner and movie with some band staff.  We started off the evening by going to eat dinner at IHOP.  I'm not sure what it is, but I find breakfast foods like pancakes, waffles, and French toast to be more appropriate for eating at dinner than at breakfast.  Probably something to do with those foods being less nutritious and you typically don't need that much energy after dinner (as opposed to breakfast when you still have a whole day to get through).  Anyway, I had some delicious strawberry and banana pancakes with boysenberry sauce. 
    I felt bad for the waitress we had, she was visibly nervous and screwed a lot of things up.  She was definitely new at the job and I remember how terrifying it was when I first started waiting tables, so I cut her some slack.
    After dinner we went to the Regal 14 in Severance Town Center to see "The Countdown", created by Drum Corps. International.  This was a showcase of some of the best drum and bugle corps. preformances in recent years, intending to get people excited about this year's competition and championship.
    Besides seeing some performances of DCI groups on YouTube, I have never really experienced a DCI show.  Being able to watch these shows in good video and audio quality in a movie theater was spectacular.  Our theater wasn't that crowded (although apparently many theaters across the country sell out depending on location, especially when there is a cinecast of the finals and championship) but every once in a while you would hear a fan in the theater clap and cheer for their favorite corp.  The experience was kind of like a professional football game, except with 200 members marching and playing music ion the field instead of mercilessly trying to kill each other.
    My favorite two performances of the night were The Cavaliers' "Machine" and Carolina Crown's "Triple Crown", with Phantom Regiment's "Faust" coming in a close third.  All the performances were unique and amazing though.  I have even come to appreciate the color guard.
    Overall, it was a very enjoyable experience.  I wish this stuff was bigger in CT and the northeast because it definitely is a sight to see.  This year is out of the question, but hopefully at some point while at CWRU I'll go to check out one of these shows.

    Today my SAGES class, "Democracy?", took a bus tour around a few of Cleveland's neighborhoods.  We were fortunate enough to have Professor John Grabowski of the history department guide the tour.  I am amazed at the amount of knowledge that man has, I think he knows the history and name of every building in the area.
    We started our tour by driving down Carnegie Ave. all the way to Cleveland State where we switched over to Euclid Ave.  Apparently once long, long, ago Euclid Ave. was comparable to the Champs-Élysées in Paris.  Definitely wouldn't be able to guess that from all of today's construction. 
    Some of the things we saw in the E.30-E.50 St. area were the large machine shops, factories, and previous locations of homes of notables such as Rockefeller.  There were only 2 or 3 original mansions still standing and they seemed so out of place in the middle of the city.  However, they were extremely beautiful.
    At this time we also learned that the amount of trees in a neighborhood are a good indicator of the class, residents, and wealth of a neighborhood.  This industrial section had very few trees.
    After the industrial district we went back up Cedar Ave to E.105 St.  Along the way we passed by the new housing settlement projects being built and they looked very nice.  Hopefully that will boost the "Buckeye" neighborhood (originally Hungarian and Slavic immigrants, now mostly blacks but with this new housing revitalization some whites are moving in).
    Continuing on we eventually got to Shaker Blvd.  Once on Shaker, we passed by St. Luke's hospital, which is currently being renovated.  Apparently St. Luke's and Cleveland Clinic have long had a rivalry with each other.  When one hospital got new equipment the other made sure to get the same or better soon after.  The story goes that when St. Lukes bought its own helicopter (following suit of Cleveland Clinic), some people thought that it should be named "Yeah, we got one of those too."
    Soon we reached Shaker Square.  This area reminded me of all of the New England small-town downtown/town-green areas.  Then I found out that this is were the British immigrants mostly lived.  And built colonial style buildings.  I guess that's why I was reminded of back home.
    We then made our way through Shaker and Cleveland Heights.  I was pretty familiar with this area, having passed through it many times before.  The houses are all mansions, or at the least very sizable.  An interesting thing I learned about this area was that "For Sale" signs are not allowed to be posted in front of houses.  This prevents the public from knowing that you are moving out.  Meaning minorities can't easily get in if the sellers don't want them too. Classy.   Oh yeah, there were a countless number of trees and parks (go figure).
    We ended our tour by traveling through part of East Cleveland: The ghetto.  It used to be a nice area; lots of Victorian housing still exists but is in shambles.  All big businesses, like car manufacturing plants, have left, leaving only a few conveniences (like "Ghetto" Bell (the Taco Bell in the area), which has bullet-proof drive through windows) and the Free Clinic.
    As we ended our tour we learned about some areas that we didn't get a chance to see.  I asked about Tremont (an artsy neighborhood on the west side) and what I learned about it only makes me want to visit even more.  Originally it started out as a pretty upper class area but quickly declined.  Germans, Poles, Greeks, and almost 30 other nationalities have occupied the area during the past 150 years, leaving an eclectic mix of churches and other culture specific landmarks scattered around the area.  In the 1980's, the area became inhabited by many struggling artists due to inexpensive housing, and since then has flourished as an artistic community with excellent parks, galleries, and restaurants.
    In conclusion, I loved this excursion away from our regular class discussions.  I was astonished by the size and diversity of all the areas of the city and really want to go out and explore more.  I don't have much time left this year, but next year should now start off with a bang since I know where to visit.
   

    The long-awaited Case Gala concert weekend has finally passed and is now over.  Overall I had a good time with the concert and it was a special one for me because it marked the last time I would have to work on music staff for a Case music group!
    The weekend started off with Adam's and Molly's parents coming to visit for the concert.  The Case-Milford CWRU (haha get it!? it's a play on words!) were treated to dinner at the Cheesecake factory on Saturday.  The food was delicious of course and we even learned about why the lights get dimmer over the course of the night (rather we learned that we weren't crazy and that it was getting darker in the restaurant over the course of the meal, almost to the point that it was difficult to see.  Apparently the restaurant continues to dim the lights even after numerous patron complaints).
    Early that afternoon the four of us had met with Mrs. Shearer at Arabica.  We discussed Disney, the band, politics, and Case.  It was nice to catch up and was an enjoyable meet up.
    Finally on Sunday came the Gala concert.  The hall was the fullest I've seen for a student concert so far.  It was nice to play for a sizable audience.  I thought that all three groups did a good job and although my playing in Symphonic Winds had been better during rehearsals, overall we sounded awesome (could have been due to us performing in an amazing concert hall).
    Even more amazingly, after the concert we were able to clean everything up and bring it back to Denison in record time.  It probably helped that we didn't have to tear down video screens, projectors, and multiple keyboards, but I was still astonished at how fast we were done with everything.
    Even though this was the last Case concert I had to help out in, there are still some CYWS concerts coming up next week.  There's also the orchestra concert that I'm looking forward to attending this week because I like the pieces they are performing this semester and I don't have to help out that night (I can enjoy the performance like a regular person!).

    The past few days have been absolutely beautiful, so instead of sitting in my room the whole time I have been trying to get out to do something outside.  I've been walking around Case taking photos, and out of all the ones I've taken this week the one to the right is my favorite.
    I set out and climbed to the top of the Rainbow Babies parking garage  just as the sun was scheduled to set a little after 8pm.  After setting up my camera on a tripod, I began waiting for the perfect lighting conditions to take a photo.  Overall, it took me about 45 minutes to get something that I liked and I'm glad I ended up sticking it out that long to get the shot.  I've decided sunsets are all about that 30 second window when everything is colored perfectly.
    While I was waiting for the sky to change colors, I met another photographer who happened to be going to his car.  He told me that if I came to the same spot at around 445am I would get a fantastic shot of a huge moon.
    After waiting a day for the moon to be full, I woke up at 4am to go and try to photograph the moon.  I arrived early with the moon still fairly high in the sky, so I set up my camera and waited.
    In the end the moon did get very close to the horizon, but it did not grow to a large enough size for me to get a good photo of.  The trip wasn't a total loss though because I learned when and where the moon rises and sets.  I plan to take a morning trip to capture the moon again next year at the end of summer/early fall during the harvest moon.  Provided it doesn't rain and isn't cloudy, I can guarantee I'll be able to get a pretty awesome shot then.

    First off, the photo to the right has nothing to do with this post; it's just a random shot I snagged yesterday while going to take some photos of some other things (that update will be for this weekend).
    After tomorrow, I'll have only 1 full week of classes left and a few final exams and then I'm done with my first year of college.  Time really flew by, I feel like it's still September.
    Since the year's coming to a close, there are lots of events going on that I'm attending or being a part of.  Tonight I went to the Case in Point a cappella concert with Paul and Adam.  Afterwards I went to Starbucks with Paul, Jenny Z., John E., Bruce N., Keith L., and John's girlfriend Jackie who surprised visited him from Boston.  It was a fun night out and it was cool to meet some new people. 
    All of us later visited the diner and on our way out sang Happy Birthday to Jeff B.  The restaurant gave him some applause after our song.  It was fun.  Oh yeah, it wasn't his birthday.
    This Sunday is the annual gala concert with the Case Symphonic Winds, Orchestra, and Concert Choir.  I'm working pretty much all day, but afterwards I'll be done with my biggest obligation for the rest of the year.  I'm excited because a bunch of people from Milford are coming so it will be nice to see them.
    Finally, and most importantly, I only have two more stats classes left.  I'm considering buying a cake and celebrating the last day of class with some people.  I can't wait.

    Earlier this week I started using the online application Twitter.  For those of you unfamiliar with it, Twitter is simply a micro-blogging/current status updating application. 
    I had originally signed up for Twitter many months ago, but gave up almost immediately after not finding any use for it.  In the past weeks however, I have been reading more and more about its usefulness on other online blogs.
    I decided to reactivate my account (by simply trying to use it).  I am currently only 'following' a few people (meaning receiving other people's status updates by web/text message) and only have a few people following my feed.  I am having trouble finding more people to follow, but some of the ones I currently am following are golden (Steven Wright jokes delivered to my phone? Yes please).
    Besides getting jokes about French Toast and updates from other interesting people (Seth Godin, John Chow, Barack Obama, and John McCain just to name a few), I've also discovered how useful Twitter is in recording ideas.  Often times throughout the day I'll get an idea for a song lyric or a blog post, but end up not writing it down and then never following through with it.  With Twitter, I'm able to save ideas by sending a text message which I can read later that evening when I log onto my computer.
    Also, I installed the official Twitter application on my Facebook profile, so all my online stalkers can see what I'm currently doing when I update my Twitter page (not really though since I'm rather selective as to who sees certain parts of my profile and who doesn't).
    I still have some getting used to with Twitter, but it seems if I keep finding more people to follow then it will prove to be a very useful social application.  If you want to read my feed, feel free to follow me at my Twitter page

    After a wonderfully delicious dinner at Fribley on Friday night (properly cooked rice and pineapple teriyaki sauce make anything delicious), Paul S., Luther W., and I decided to explore some of downtown Cleveland.
    After a quick train ride to Tower City, we set out to explore the banks of the Cuyahoga.  On our way down to the river, we passed by a coal power plant.  As our luck would have it, a coal train had just arrived to deliver a fresh supply of coal to the plant.  Interested in seeing how these huge machines work, the three of us went to see if we could learn more from a train operator.
    We were fortunate enough to get a chance to talk with one of the engineers who hopped out of the engine car to flip a track switch.  After finding out some basic information (the engine car weighs 200 tons, each coal car weighs about 100 tons), Luther inquired about what the box, covered in lights and switches, around the engineers neck was.  We received the answer of "...a remote control."
    Apparently most freight trains are now operated by remote control with the engineer being able to stand outside the train.  This blew my mind; I never imagined such a huge piece of machinery being controlled by a joystick. 
    Soon the engineers (two for the whole train) had to get back to work, and we continued walking around the riverfront.  We walked around an industrial district and stumbled upon some cool factories and no longer functioning bridges.  After some walking around, we got to a bend in the river where we could see downtown Cleveland all lit up by lights.  I really wish I had brought a tripod with me becasue the dusk sky colors behind skyscrapers was really beautiful.  The best shot I could get was of the Federal Court building above. 
    Soon after I got the shot above, the sky was being lit up with lighting more and more frequently.  By that time the three of us decided it would be good to start heading back to the dorms. 
    We made it back to the E 120th street station just in time to get soaked with a sudden downpour.  Fortunately, we all were equipped with rain gear and made it back to the rooms without getting too soaked.  Having had an exciting and tiring night (lots of walking around the river), we decided to go to a party and keep ourselves entertained with bar puzzles and Rubiks' cubes.

    As I was writing a paper for my SAGES class the other evening, I came across a problem that well-organized students never face: finding the location in a text where an awesome A-worthy quote came from.  Yeah I had my notes from when I was reading the book, but I had forgotten to write down the page number for the quote I wanted to use.  I knew the general location of the quote, give or take 10 pages, but I was far too lazy to search the text by hand.  There had to be an easier way.
    After discovering that the text I wanted to reference was on Amazon.com, AND the Search Inside! feature was available for it, I knew I was in business.
    Amazon has this cool feature that allows you to view the texts of certain books to see whether they contain the information you want.  This gives you a similar experience to flipping through the pages of a book in a store before you buy it.  Not only can you browse sample pages (actually you can read the whole book online if you want...search Google for a how-to if you are that interested), but you can also search the book for specific words or strings of text.
    Fortunately, I had the quote that I wanted handy: "...power and wealth have rarely been far from one another."  A 5-second search of this string ended up showing me that the quote was on page 201, saving me precious time from searching for the exact page number by hand.
    So next time you need to find a specific line from a text, check to see if you are able to Search Inside the book on Amazon; you might end up saving yourself some time.

    This past weekend I was asked to take some photographs for an a cappella group here at Case called "Case In Point".  Although recently I have been getting more experience with taking portrait shots of individuals, this was my first real group shot assignment.
    Excited as I was, I had no real plan for how I was going to shoot.  I prepared for the worst case scenario, brining a bunch of lenses, lights, and duct tape (which proved useful since I had to tape my flashes to objects since my light stands are back in CT).
    The group was fun to work with especially since they knew how to have fun and didn't mind acting silly in front of the camera.  To their credit I was able to capture some interesting expressions, my favorite of which is on the right.
    All in all the shoot took less than an hour and produced a few photos that I am proud of.  You can view the photos in both color and black and white (converted for use in promotional flyers) on my Case in Point flickr set.  It was a fun (yet very different) experience and I hope to have the the opportunity to do more group work in the future.

    When I found out this morning that I had received a package, I could not wait to go pick it up.  But I had to get through all of my classes first before I could go get it.
    I knew what it was before opening the box (I had missed part of my SAGES class last week to snipe a mid afternoon eBay auction and had been tracking the shipment ever since then) but as any college student will tell you, getting a package is great whether you know what it is or not.
    Anyway, I took the UPS shipped box back up to my room and unpacked...a new camera lens!  It's a 50mm f/1.4 prime lens, and even though I only had the chance to use it for about 5 minutes this evening, I love it already.  The depth of field on it is so shallow (I tried showing this through the photo above...see how only the middle part of "Canon" is in focus?), it works incredibly well in the dark (I was able to take a bunch of ISO 400, f/1.4, 1/80s shots outside after 9pm no problem) and the bokeh effect with it is awesome.
    I can't wait to take some portrait photos with this.  Maybe I'll have something to post later next week.

    As a requirement for my ECON 120 class I had to attend an Etiquette reception today.  I thought the event would talk about how to become better at socially interacting with people you first meet (especially employers) or something like that.  But this was about seriously about table manners.
    For an hour and a half (actually, only a little more than an hour because someone, who's name I won't mention, took a long time finding some khaki's and let us arrive fashionably late *cough*Paul S.*cough*.  No hard feelings if you read this, I actually wish we had arrived later so I wouldn't have to sit through that) this well aged woman (Dr.?) talked about etiquette at the dinner table.
    How to set a table.  What direction to pass food around.  Where to sit.  How to sit.  How to excuse yourself from sitting.  How to drop lemon into your glass instead of eating.  How to eat European style instead of American. Everything was covered.
    And it seemed that everyone there except for me enjoyed the presentation and got a lot out of it.  I sat there the whole time thinking everything that the woman was telling us was common sense to everyone.  I guess I was wrong.  Getting brought up in a home where I always set the table (especially for a lot of guests) I guess my mother taught me all this stuff back when I was still in elementary school. 
    Anyway, the session seemed to drag on forever with way too detail-concerned questions (how many 'pumps' should a handshake have? I don't know, do whatever feels natural!) but at least that's one more requirement out of the way.

    This month's list of links is rather short due to me practically giving up my computer over spring break.  But don't worry, the websites that are shown below are definitely worth a look!

Photos
-Aerial Pan - Photo/video company that specializes in getting shots via remote control helicoptor.  Check out the 360* Quicktime VRs.

Video
-Common People - A live performance of a great song by William Shatner and Ben Folds.  I found this after enjoying this Archie comic.

Informational
-Middle East History - A brief history about the Middle East, religions, and political/religious tensions.
-UN Data - Easily searchable statistics for a wide range of categories.

-How to Speak Hip - I wasn't sure whether to put this under the 'informational' categorey or something else...but it's a vinyl conversion of a record entitled 'How To Speak Hip' and is awesome.
-Milk Gone Wild - Another awful PETA campaign.  Maybe not as horrific as past ones like their holocaust ad, but this one definitely wins in the category of 'What's going on?'

Applications
-FireFTP-An in-browser FTP client for Firefox.
-Google Drive-Like a racing game. With no objective.  On Google Maps.
-BookLamp-One of the best data gathering projects in recent times.  Similar to Pandora, but with books.  It looks for characteristics of books you enjoy (such as action, pace, tone, description level) and recommends other books you may like based on the similarities in characteristics.  Currently their collection is really small, but I hope some company like Amazon picks this up and gives them the funding necessary to create something amazing. Watch the video at least to see how it works.
-Humans vs. Zombies-A great college game to play similar to Assassins but with much better organization, interaction, and more fun.