August 2003 Archives

As I have mentioned many times in the last few weeks I was very excited to get a new digicam. Lately, I have been unhappy with the photos being produced by my old Olympus D400 Zoom from 1999. I think the first set of pictures I was really disappointed with were my Europe pictures from last November. Back then, I had chalked it up to the overcast conditions. When the opportunity came up to get a new camera, I jumped at the chance. I decided on the Canon S400 for several reasons: 1) It was relatively inexpensive for the level of features and quality of the images; 2) Several Digicam review sites had high opinions on the camera; 3) The Canon G5 - a higher resolution camera with a bigger body has a purple fringe defect; and 4) I was amazed by the prints that Daniel's Canon S230 (a 3.2 MP camera) produced at the kiosk at Wal Mart.

Despite all of this, I was still suspect of whether or not the camera was that much better than my old one. When I went to Monument Valley last week, I took along all both digital cameras and also my camera from my Motorola T720 cell phone. These pictures are all of the Mittens from the visitors center overlooking the valley. The following pictures have all been scaled down in Photoshop from the original sizes and thats it- no color correction or brightness adjustment:

Motorola T720 Cell Phone Camera Attachment

Olympus D-400 Zoom

Canon Powershot S400

As you can see from the evidence, the Canon wins hands down.

It's been a busy and exhausting week. This week marks the end of summer at the resort, and also something of a transition for me. The powers that be have decided that cast members should be assigned an area of the park and only work in that area. They used to run things like this in the pre-Pressler era at the park, and just to prove things go full circle it is back. My current knowledge is the Classics, Matterhorn, and Winnie the Pooh. My scheduling preference is for Pooh, so I will be placed exclusively in New Orleans/Critter Country. On the plus side, I will now be on the list to learn such desirable attractions as Pirates, Mansion, Big Boats (Mark Twain and Columbia) Splash, Canoes and Rafts to Tom Sawyer Island. The bad news is that I will be losing the Matterhorn and the Classics.

Despite my well-documented difficulties getting trained at the Matterhorn, I finally have a level of comfort at the attraction. I also am a trainer there, and I will be sad to lose that as well. I am not so sad to lose the Classics - it was my first attraction at the park so it will always hold a special place in my heart, but after Pooh and Matterhorn, It was my third favorite (out of three).

On Monday, I accidentally showed up for work a whopping hour early (You say an hour is not whopping? It is when the hour is 6am instead of 7am). I was armed with my digital camera since I knew it was my last day shift at the Matterhorn and I wandered around Fantasyland taking some pictures.

Here's hopin' that some cool attractions are around the corner!

I can't really explain why I wanted to go to Monument Valley and Four Corners. As a geographer tho, it is something you have to do. You can't deny it, it is in your blood. Like anything that you obsess about for weeks at a time, the whole experience there was surreal. Four Corners did not disappoint, and Monument Valley, tho smaller than I had imagined (I blame Circlevision, it made the area look massive - like the entire state of Utah), was still spectacular. I also had my new camera, which an hour into the trip already had me hooked. The photos that came out of the trip were just amazing - pretty darn good considering I am still learning the ins and outs of the camera.

You can see the first group of the pictures in the Gorn visits Four Corners and Monument Valley gallery. I have so many other photos from the trip, including some huge panoramas. I am a bit mixed on them - the software provided with the camera did an OK job stitching the photos together, but nothing earth shattering. I think I just need practice. I will be working on the Trip Diaries section - mainly photos, not really a journal of the trip. I hope to eek out a new design for the section and also need some good inspiration to finish the long-overdue Trip Diary for Europe 2002.

As an added bonus, I shot a few video captures from Four Corners and MV and I will post them here once I get the page done. I was just fooling around with the camera and hope to be able to get some good stuff as I learn more. One thing about the camera: I forgot to charge it the first night, so the battery ran dead in the middle of John Ford's point. Luckily, Kevin let me borrow his cig lighter to outlet adapter and I was able to recharge the battery. Thankfully, the battery only takes about 2 hours to recharge, and I was able to take the battery out and get some quick shots, then put it back on the charger so I wouldn't miss any cool shots. I need to figure out my plan of attack for next month's Walt Disney World trip. I'm thinking space will be at a premium on my laptop and on the memory card. I might have to know down the resolution on the camera in order to squeeze more pics out.

In the meantime, enjoy the Gorn photos!

I'm off for a few days to visit the family in Phoenix. I have hit them exactly right in the middle of a cooling trend. The highs are only in the upper 90's. Earlier in the week, the temps were over 110. Wee. It's my first trip out yonder in almost two years. It's hard to believe, it feels like I was just there. I am looking forward to our road trip to Four Corners and Monument Valley. I hope the weather holds and we'll be able to get some stunning photos.

One thing I am still not used to is the stack of documents that you need to have to travel these days. I had to print out a security certificate and I need like 10 forms of id's. Speaking of which...I'm LATE!!! Gotta run - I'll try and update while I'm gone, If not, I'll be back with a full report and photos on Tuesday.

I agonized over it for several days, but in the end, I decided that even if I did have $3500, I have better things to spend it on than being Governor of California. Besides, I don't think I could find 60-70 people that would sign a petition to get me on the ballot. I am all for populist voter revolts, but it seems to me this whole thing reeks of sour grapes. On the other hand, what does the Governor do by himself? He is surrounded by advisors and most of the legislation involves compromise. Will Arnold be better? Probably not. But he sure won't be worse than we have now. I don't think anything will happen unless they recall everyone in Sacramento and start from scratch. But since we are not going to have a revolution in California anytime soon, we better work with what we have. I do find it funny that the issue most Californians are all hot and bothered about is the car tax. Not the deficit, not failing schools, but a restoration of 1990's level car license fees.

Things I can get for $3500:
1758 Whoppers(tm)
74 One Day Admission tickets to Disneyland
15 Premium Annual Passes to Disneyland
74 Fantasmic premium view seats
175 Subscriptions to Travel + Leisure
7 Canon S400 Digital Cameras
11 TiVos (without service)

Add what you can get for $3500 to the comments...

It has been over a week and I still haven't hooked up the laserdisc player. Sorry, Joe, but it has been a busy week. I only have a few more days and then it is off to Four Corners. I will be taking three cameras on the trip and will try and take the same picture with all three.

Camera #1: My ol' trusty Olympus d-400 Zoom
Camera #2: My Motorola T720 Camera phone
Camera #3: My new Canon S400.

The resolutions and megapixels are widely different and I think it will be an interesting study. I am also looking forward to some awesome Gorn in Monument Valley pictures!

Since I relocated to Orange County, my only real traffic beef has been that cursed light at Westminster and Newhope that takes forever if you miss it. This week, I have gained proper perspective on how silly my traffic woes are. I have been working at my dad's work in South Central Los Angeles for a couple days this week. I notice that I am more aggravated and tired when I get home and need some good 'me' time to try and calm myself down. I keep asking myself, "How did I manage to commute from SFV to Anaheim for over a year?". I don't think I could do it anymore. It was like the shock of going from my Davis commute to the Santa Monica commute four plus years ago.

I am in the middle of two solid weeks of work. No days off until next Friday when it is off to Phoenix and Four Corners. It's going to be tough - on my schedule I have all early shifts at the park and of course early rise for my dad's work (I'm there three times next week as well) and the commute. It hurts because I am a night owl, and I find it difficult to force myself to go to sleep early. I know one day I will just come home and take a nap and then wake up at 4am. Oh, that sounds nice.

Last night, I saw the remake of "Freaky Friday" with Daniel. Both of us liked the movie. I don't remember much of the Jodie Foster version from the 60's, but I do remember liking it as well. One thing I noticed at the Downtown Disney AMC theater is that they have installed the new digital pre-movie slideshow. Sadly, they haven't taken advantage of the technology and used it to provide streaming video, but rather have turned the slide shows into glorified Power Point presentations. Another pre-show highlight was the trailer for "Brother Bear" , the new Disney animated feature coming out in the fall. It looks like a new version of the Lion King, but with Bears and sans patricide. Well, at least it looks better than Treasure Planet (which is not hard).

Oh and one more item: The Coopers paid a visit this past week. I haven't seen them since the A-V trip to Vegas back in February. A lot has happened since then, and it was good to catch up. Their relatives were also glad to have someone with a fresh set of legs chase off after Noah.