it’s taken years to implement, but now the future of public transit is here — or so i thought.

in the bay area, there are many public transit agencies and systems, and they all have their own payment systems. translink is supposed to the solution to this. you buy a RFID translink card, put stored value (“e-cash”), put electronic transit passes on it, and then use the one card on all systems.

i purchased a translink card at my neighborhood walgreens, and after registering it online, several days later it was fully functioning. i used it on bart, on muni, and on caltrain with little problem.

then on friday, january 29th, i tried using my card at the 24th Mission BART station and the card reader said ’see station agent’. i tried multiple readers and got the same error. i eventually went to the station agent, who said my card wasn’t working and to call translink. i was running late, so i purchased a BART ticket and used it to get to my destination. later i called translink, who asked that i try holding the card to the reader for 5-6 seconds. i tried this with no luck.

i talked to translink again and determined the fastest way to get service back was to purchase a new card. i bought a card for $5 and called them back to have my card registered and the e-cash balance transferred. i then logged into my account on the translink website and didn’t see the card and couldn’t register its serial number. so i called back and they reset my account, so i could login and see the new card. i tried purchasing a fast pass on the website but that transaction failed, with a message asking me to call translink for resolution. i called in again and was asked to log out and log back in and re-try the transaction. i did so, and was able to purchase the pass and had translink verify the transaction went through while i had them on the phone. then i was told it would take up to 3 business days for the pass to go through.

i waited a few days and then tried my card again, with no success. at this point i am getting really fed up wth the whole thing. while adding value to my real bart ticket i missed my intended train and ended up being late. later i called translink and was told that there was no balance transfer yet, but that they would do that now and everything should be ok in the morning (after midnight).

today i tried my card today and again it did not work. when i came home later i called translink back. i was asked to call back in front of an add-value machine. at this point, i got on first-name basis with the support rep. i let them know how fed up i was getting, and that i just wanted them to tell me where to go and what to do, to get this resolved.

i walked quickly to 24th/mission, took bart to civic center, and called back in front of one of their machines. the girl i talked to was not available but i did not want to wait. i explained my predicament to this other person, and they only offered to mail me a new card. she said it would be quick since they were local, so i offered to drive to their office. not open to the public, great.

i asked if the new card would have my e-cache balance and my muni fast pass. the answer was yes. we’ll see about that.

so in summary, my original card stopped working with no explanation. i bought a brand new card, which has never worked, and it took translink several days beyond the normal processing time to get everything transferred and it still doesn’t work. and now i am waiting for a third card, to be sent to me in the mail.

here are some pointers i’ve learned along the way:

1. if your card stops working, call them immediately and have them send you a replacement card with everything transferred over.

2. if you talk to their support folks, do not let them end the call until you are completely satisfied. i literally called them 5 times, each time getting one specific task done, hanging up, and having to call them back.

3. have a back-up plan. a bart ticket with plenty of value on it. correct change for a muni bus.

4. if your card breaks, budget at least a week to get back into using the system.

if i receive this third card and it does not work, i vow to drive to their office in concord and insist on speaking to a customer service manager. i will also be writing up a letter to them concerning this pathetic follow-through.

Today at work, we experienced one of those puzzles you read but rarely experience in real life.

We have a relatively new row in our server room at work, where it is surrounded closely on three sides by walls. on one of the short ends, there is a plastic barrier you can walk through (think the thick plastic strips that cover the opening of a walk-in freezer).

Over time we have slowly filled the cabinets in the row with servers, generally working from the far end towards the center, then filling the other end. We ended up with a mostly full row.

Now in this row there are APC In-Row chillers, inserted between the cabinets, which pull air in front the back (the ‘hot isle’) and push cold air out the front (the ‘cold isle’). They measure the temperature coming out of the back of the cabinets and into the front of the cabinets to ensure they are cooling enough for the demand.

Something changed over the break, where the temperature in the server room actually jumped several degrees. And last week while installing some new servers in the remaining cabinet, we noticed the chillers suddenly had a hard time keeping the row cool. I’d enter either side, and the chiller fans would immediately speed up.

We couldn’t explain the increased temperature elsewhere in the server room, and the strange behavior of the fans. Furthermore, today we noticed the fans were going full-speed all day.

My coworker Chris finally figured it out this afternoon.

He opened the the door of the cabinet with the remaining cabinet, the one with the most open space. The door happens to have a temperature sensor attached to it, so when the door was open the sensor was in the surrounding cool air and the chillers slowed down. Close the door, the chillers speed up. He figured out that this cabinet was the only opening left in the row, so the hot air behind the row was coming forward through the cabinet – and directly into the temperature sensor. Of course, the chillers thought the row was super hot, they were measuring the cabinet exhaust temperature, not the intake temperature.

Chris shoved an unused ceiling tile in the cabinet, covering the large opening behind the sensor. The chillers immediately settled down.

It turned out to be a simple problem with a simple solution.

i was walking down mission street (2600 block) when i turned around to see a girl and her mother next to a UPS truck. the girl was vomiting on the street while the UPS delivery woman was unloading packages. *snap*

i love these little moments. this is why you prefocus and stop your lens all the way down.

met this canadian guy named ryan last wekeend at a picnic. he seems really nice. this morning i caught myself thinking, what am i doing? what are my intentions? it just all seems so natural.. maybe that’s not the kind of think you should question? and tonight we’re having dinner together. it sounds like a date.

from my journal, dated august 8th, 2003.

dad would be 62 today. although it is easily searchable in my blog, i like to let pass the memory of his last few days and replace it instead with the day he was born, december 9th.  people have the most potential on the day they were born. i like this entry from wikipedia:

The term birth is used metaphorically to refer to a beginning, especially of a natural phenomenon, one that is impressive in its scope or complexity, or one that is viewed favorably.

thanks, branden, for digging up, scanning, and sending me this photo.

zbigniew pik was a foreign exchange student from poland, who attended our highschool in indiana. we recently re-connected on facebook. he told me he bought a bunch of broken-and-repaired cameras and accessories in sweden. he sold a lot of it but had a few items left. he saw that i was shooting with a pentax 6×7 and had a waist level viewer for it. he sent it to me in a padded envelope — the one pictured above.

when i received it, i saw a lot of the address had been eliminated due to some sort of moisture on the sticker. it still found its way to me, thanks to human oversight in package delivery. when i opened it, i was surprised by seeing the WLF, and laughed. one of the few pentax accessories i don’t have yet. my system is one step towards being comprehensive.

i love seeing packages from foreign countries. what struck me most about this one was the stamp, which seems like nylon or some sort of fabric. it’s iridescent and very detailed — beautiful.

thanks pike, for the great gift.

a couple weeks ago, i went out shooting in embarcadero/northbeach with some flickr folks. after lunch, reese and i made our way back through chinatown where we ducked into the wok shop. it’s an old family run business where you can buy hand-hammered woks. beyond the woks, there are a ton of other kitchen gadgets, tools, and other tchotchkes. when we saw this mirror amidst all the laterns, i knew i had to take a shot of the two of us….

part of attending the folsom street fair is attending my friends ted and emery’s annual folsom house party. this year, i did things backwards and different. i attended the fair first with photographer friends, then later showed up at the party. i had two cameras and a bag full of film with me once i got to the party, so i was in a shooting mindset.

i ended up with images that are pretty different from usual party photos. when i’m at a party or out with friends, i am very rarely shooting them with a camera. so this was a unique opportunity to do so. i felt fairly disconnected from the usual goings-on since i was in this different mode. i’m not sure i’ll do it again, for a couple reasons.

so here’s a glimpse into what i experience at ted and emery’s annual folsom party. enjoy.

a week ago i went to the annual folsom street fair, an event that draws a crowd of 400,000 people to vendor exhibits, food, demonstrations, live music, and dance parties. in the past i’ve gone to a friend’s house party, since he lives at the end of the fair site. this year, i had a very different experience.

i started my day with breakfast with a group of photographer friends, wandered through the fair with them with our cameras. i rendezvoused with my friends reese and frank, and later met up the party folks.

folsom is quite an eye-opener for the uninitiated. there is a lot of public nudity, bondage and leather, and spanking going on. it’s interesting in that private fantasy and behaviors are on display. you see a lot of extreme preferences.

i was out with two cameras, both loaded with arista premium. the 24×36 frames are from a canon ae-1 program shooting at iso 400. the wide frames are from a widelux f7, shooting at iso 200. all film developed in rodinal 1+50.

arista premium 400 at iso 6400. rodinal 1+50 for 45 minutes. shot with a widelux f7.

found in north beach, san francisco.

heading back from north beach with reese we photographed some of the bikes we saw along our path. this was my last 6×7 shot of the day.

pentax 6×7, 90/2.8 lens. shot on ektar 100.

after 10 years of dating and 3 years of engagement, eillenil (my step-sister) and mark got married this month. the ceremony was at mission santa clara de asis, on the santa clara university campus. it was nice to see a formal tie between the sudarios and the dimalantas.

it was such a hot day then, i wished i was wearing a barong tagalog like the goomsmen. dealing with the heat and suit made lugging a pentax 67 not too bad.

in may of 2009, our friend jonathan decided to plan a trip to yosemite to hike up half dome. the time finally came around and six of us took a friday off and camped in the north pines campsite and eventually made our way up.

i’d never actually been to yosemite before and it had been a long time since i’d done any proper camping. it was so fun, and the park was amazingly beautiful in every way. on our first night, galen grilled up some steaks and veggie packets and corn. we had a large delicious meal before packing it up and going to bed early.

the next day we woke up at 6:30am and had another sizeable meal, and headed off on a 4-5 hour hike to the half dome site.

i won’t try to trivialize the hike. thousands of people do it every year. you start at a high elevation, and you go higher (a gain of 4800ft). you hike through the woods, up over two waterfalls, and up large rock steps for hours. then you can see the half dome site.  that means you must again climb the last very steep rock steps up to the rock face. at that point, you need to make a go-or-no-go decision to actually scale the rock face.

at the base of the rock face there is a pile of gloves. you put on a fairly well matched pair because you will be slowly ascending the rock using cables that have been installed on the rock. it’s slow, because people are taking their time, or taking a break, or panicking and turning around and descending. it can take 20-25 minutes to get up there if you decide to go up the “outside” of the cables, or over an hour if you decide to stay within the cables like most folks.

once you are up the rock face, you are at the top of yosemite national park, 8842ft elevation. you have a panoramic view of the valley, and a chance to relax with everybody else who has made it to the top. i was so exhausted and breathing such thin air, that i was wheezing at first until i relaxed a bit. at several points along the hike, i didn’t think i could make it and was formulating back-out plans in my head. i’m so glad i pushed forth and went all the way. in light of foot/hip problems i’ve been dealing with over the past couple years, i feel very accomplished having done this.

at the top of half dome, you are cooling off from the breeze and taking in one of the most amazing sights i have personally seen. the bad news is, you have another 5 hours to hike back and are racing to get back to your camp site before it gets dark. i paused along the way back, wondering how the hell did i go *up* all of this??

hiking half dome was quite awesome and i’m so glad i did it.

notes:

• 2 litres of water is not enough for this hike. filtering fresh water to replenish your store should be done
• eating a granny smith apple on the way down was AMAZING
• if i were doing it again, i would start the hike much earlier and before sunrise.
• having a good flashlight is essential for the trip back

all images were shot on arista premium 400 at iso 6400, developed in rodinal 1+50 for 45 minutes. shot with a widelux f7.

ice is forming on the tips of my wings
unheeded warnings, i thought i thought of everything
no navigator to find my way home
unladen, empty and turned to stone

a soul in tension, that’s learning to fly
condition grounded but determined to try
can’t keep my eyes from the circling skies
tongue-tied and twisted just an earthbound misfit, i…..

one of my favorite songs from david gilmour of pink floyd.

one reason is its nod to the story of icarus, in which the son of daedalus was too anxious to fly with his wings made of feathers and wax. ignoring the warning from his father, icarus approached the sun which melted the wax and destroyed his wings, so he fell into the sea (the icarian sea, off the coast of icaria near turkey).

i don’t know quite what it is about this song.. i can put on some headphones and listen to it on repeat at full volume and i won’t get tired of it or get a headache. it just works.

(image: daedalus and icarus, fredric lord leighton)

i shot both of these last month on a small excursion with gordon and cindy. gordon showed me his recently acquired horizon perfekt swing-lens camera. it had been so long since i shot sheet film, so i had my shen-hao 4×5 with me and shot a set of hp5+ sheets.

both images on hp5+ 4×5, with a nikkor 210mm lens on a shen-hao camera. rodinal 1+50 for 11min.

last week i attended vmware’s annual conference, vmworld 2009. since i am doing so much shooting this year, i decided to bring my widelux f7 camera with me to the conference. by carrying it with me, i managed to meet a lot of photographers there, including many who shoot (including one 4×5 guy!). the conference ended up being a good venue for shooting, despite the low light levels.

after registration, you walk down moscone center’s wonderful staircase down to a long line of shiny new infrastructure that is running the show.

the keynotes were large productions. giant projected video screens. the large video cameras looked quite sophisticated. i took a peak in one that was near the stage. on the screen it artificially marked all hard edges in the scene.

the camera operator and the attendee behind him both noticed my camera, and i talked to them both about my widelux. the attendee had a horizon camera (also a swing-lens panoramic) but didn’t think of bringing any film cameras to the conference. i don’t blame him. it was at this point that i realized i must be the only one of 12,800 conference attendees carrying a light meter.

the first lab session i attended was vSphere 4 – New Features, Best of, Advanced Features. there was quite a hiccup in the lab infrastructure and a lot of time was wasted. this of course started a flurry of bad things being said over twitter and blogs. vmware managed to solve most of the problems and had late-night repeat sessions for those who wanted to repeat labs that had broken. the gentleman i paired up with for the lab was a manager and didn’t seem to be interested in much hands-on experience, so i was able to drive and go pretty fast through the material.

this is dan chu, vp of emerging products and markets, from vmware. he’s about to start a panel discussion about extending information technology beyond the traditional data center (the cloud). a bit too high level for me.

the scale of vmworld was pretty immense. this is the self-paced lab room, a huge room full of thin clients with a row of supporting infrastructure up front. the conference staff was nice enough to let me in specially to take pictures.

one of the meal rooms. i estimated about 1,500 seats in this room.

these guys are david baldwin (our technical account manager) and martin klaus (my speaking session owner). they’re stationed at the lab manager kiosk in the vmware booth. in the evening, the expo area was catered as people scatter around learning about new products and getting their badges scanned to receive more information (in exchange for gifts like tshirts, stress balls, and ball-point pens adorned with logos).

by the end of the conference, there was a day/evening of relaxation. retro game stations, air hockey and shuffleboard, food and drink, and rock climbing. the conference ended with a live performance by foreigner.

i’d never imaged taking a picture at a concert with the widelux. i had a few frames left in the camera, had my light meter with me, and thought.. what the heck. meter the stage, hold the camera pretty high, and burn the rest of the roll and see what happens.

all images are taken with the widelux f7, on arista premium 400 rated at iso 6400. developed in rodinal 1+50 for 45 minutes with agitation every 3 minutes.

next week i am giving a presentation at vmware’s annual conference, vmworld 2009 (breakout session VM1461). it’s a pretty big thing for me. i’ve done presentations for user groups but not like this: audio/video crew, session owner, audio recording, wireless microphones, session feedback surveys. this conference will have about 10,000 attendees. the speaker staff is overseeing 400 speakers. there are hundreds of breakout sessions. ya..  *exhale*

one thing i’ve found that has helped me is going through my presentation out loud by myself in a conference room. the proverbial speak in front of a mirror trick. i did this once, gave my presentation to an internal group at work, revised my speaking notes, then gave the presentation to a group at vmware (which was a great opportunity). i tried to do the solitary/room thing once more, but i wasn’t feeling it. my biggest thing right now is being over my allotted time. i have rough timings for each section of my talk, so maybe if i just put those down in my notes and keep a timer….

anyways, the conference is next week. my breakout session is “full” at 70 attendees. i’m not sure how big the room is yet, i have a feeling it larger but full with walk-ins. luckily, i am attending other sessions before mine, then after mine a few others. it will be over before i know it.

image taken with a canon ae-1 program, 24/2.8 lens. arista premium 400 at iso 400, rodinal 1+50 for 13 minutes.

i’ve shot half of a twenty roll order of arista premium 400. it is said to actually be rebranded kodak tri-x, but sold at nearly half the cost. i’ve been shooting it at iso 3200 in the widelux, and just developed it in rodinal 1+50 for 33 minutes. the rolls have also been deliberately overexposed by at least a stop. so far, i am really liking what i’m seeing, despite some emulsion scratches i need to track down from the camera. i feel each set of rolls is better in quality than the previous, from a technical standpoint. testament that you really do need to get to know your camera.

the widelux is proving to be a great street shooter. the aspect ratio of the format (roughly 2.4:1) really makes the image more cinematic.

i went out on a neighborhood photowalk with armand, who does photography for missionlocal. it’s great to meet other local photographers. we got along really well, and it was fun walking around our neighborhood together talking about our favorite places and about photography.

this bike we can across embodies the colorful nature of the mission.

taken on fuji portra 400vc, with a pentax 6×7 and 90mm/2.8 lens.

i recently dusted off my lomo action sampler camera. i put a roll of fuji 100 speed film i got for free into it. i took it to a party. it’s a pretty awesome camera, even though mine appears to have a light leak now.

it’s yet another camera that reminds you that photography isn’t always about the technical aspects. sometimes it’s just about the pointing and the shooting.