my life, as far as i know.

I joined a new online community website, wondering if I could ever get more value than I do from other websites.

I currently blog about my own experiences and use instant messaging to keep in touch with some people. I am fairly quiet but active on two photography related forums.

This new site is positioning itself to unify all the “new media” together. Instant messaging, photos, blog posting, etc. The site was functional with a web browser or Windows/Mac client.

I found the functionality between the clients and website very different. I was hoping to use some features of the website, but they were only “available” in the Windows client. I installed the client, found the feature I wanted, and used it. But I never saw the results on the website, nor in the client.

I mistakenly told my client about one of my instant messaging clients, wondering what it could possibly offer by proxying my IM traffic (aside from possibly giving away my password). Not much, it turned out. I had trouble deleting my IM account information from their system. I bet if I re-installed the client today, it would automatically log me into IM, which I explicitly told it not to. Bother.

I decided I was done with the service, having been disappointed and then deceived by a client I had to install on an operating system I don’t normally use. None of the content I contributed even showed up in “latest photos” or “latest blogs” site areas. It felt like my content was just falling into the bitbucket.

I also decided that social websites don’t work unless your friends all use them in the same way.

So please delete me, I asked.

The response was, “hide your profile and delete your posts” which is not what I was asking for. Another email volley brought back, “your email will be deleted from our system shortly”. What seems deleted is my original request. Google is still indexing the content I posted. I can still login to the account.

Maybe I never had the “cool guy” bit set in my account? Were my photos not worthy to be seen on their site?

I have to login later and manually remove all my content and forever waste space on their servers with an unused account. That, and storing my IM password for someone else to discover.

my brother ranier came up for the weekend. we had a full weekend:

dinner at jeanty at jack’s. garage sale swooping. walking down mission and valencia in the mission.. cellphone-camera-shooting lots of street art. we saw nacho libre. we walked, bussed, then railcar’d to san francisco art institute’s exhibition, “open tagging“. we rounded out the weekend by visiting boman at the parade, a yearly event which brings 500,000 people to the city!

it was a lot of fun.

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this is what i got from two hours in weak soup. definitely increased contrast. increased microcontrast? this isn’t really a good neg to tell. stand development plus the creamy look of heliar.. i want more!

last night i successfully use stand development on some test sheets. rodinal 1:200 for two hours. the negs look fine. now i need more interesting subject to shoot to try again.

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i was shooting some film to test development (regular v. stand) when i decided to use the heliar. i love this lens so much. the polaroid (above) is creamy.

inspired by our occasional hot pot dinners, boman decided to celebrate the acquisition of his new outdoor collapsable dining room with a hot pot dinner for 15!

we had a long table full from edge to edge with food, five burners, and plenty of libations. many guests had never eaten hot pot style, so it was a treat for all. i’ve worked on small dinners up to 6, but nothing on this scale! leave it to boman to brings things up a notch on the entertainment scale.

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today i brought my 4×5 to work, to show a coworker. it was my first time packing it all into my mini trekker classic. i usually carry it in a lowepro side bag. everything fit fine.

i was looking around work for something interesting to photograph. there are lots of interesting cubes, but no real scenery. i decided to set the tripod up on top of my desk. i brought the camera nearly up to the ceiling for this shot. i exposed a sheet of ilford film as well - another for the growing queue of sheets to be processed.

three meats. four cheeses. white truffly honey. three-oil and fresh roastec garlic mix. sliced sour batard. a yummy austrian red. a melt-in-your-mouth chocolate and hazelnut candy for dessert.

ingredient list:

- robiola bosina
- asiago fresco
- parmigiano reggiano
- pecorino toscano fresco

- manzo alla tirolese
- coppa stagionata molinari
- coppa piccante molinari

- miele con artufo bianco

- baratti & milano cremino classico (chocolate, hazelnut)

- ruster rubin - elfenhof

- two of my favourite people to hang out with
- freshly vacuumed floor and pillows to sit on

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made a small step outside today. with an extension cord, i took the lights out on the back patio. jon came over to have some pictures taken. we shot some polaroid and i made a few exposures on portra 400nc. although.. if i’m going to be serious, shouldn’t i be using slide film? :)

this is a polaroid of my light. the light back there was so nice when i got home. everything looks good on a polaroid.

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back in april, my friend jeff and his wife jessica came out to visit. we took them to mount tamalpais, since jeff is such a lover of the outdoors. it was cool and sunny, until the fog rolled in. the image i shot above is a 6×7 on kodak portra 400vc. it’s jeff shooting up into the trees. on top of the mountain we saw some wild turkeys, animals i keep running into on the outskirts of the bay area.