10am rolls around and Service Guy calls. Tires won’t pass. Front left bearing is dangerously … dangerous. Rear right caliper is seized. Both rear rotors are shot. Break pads, too. We run through the numbers. I could hear his grin as I made him run through every possible combination of service options. “What if… I don’t do the left rotor? ok. How about caliper, plus bearing and two tires? Bearing, pads and rotors 2 and 3? Do I get a car wash with this?” You can’t just say yes and trust that it’ll all be ok with the dealer… I want to believe that car dealership is friendly and they don’t really even want my money. The car dealership wants to be my friend. It’s as simple as that. They just want friends like everybody else, right? Sigh. I tell them to go ahead. Hang up. Think. My car is barely worth $1500 to begin with.

I guess I’ll be hunting for a new car after winter. It runs great. 154,000 miles. I wonder if I get a wax with that.

I lost a hard drive late last week. Unfortunately, it was the important one. I keep backups (for most things) and I was also able to get a damaged 750GB drive to spin for me a few more times so that I could pull off some important items. I’m glad storage is cheap these days. Unfortunately, true backup is not. As anybody that has lost a hard drive will tell you, it inspires a certain amount of fear that makes computer part retailers smile. Sunday night I bought a DROBO to scratch several itches and ensure that my important info is a bit more redundant redundant.

Sitting on the couch in the dark, Fran’s laptop in front of me, editing rescued images from the last wedding. Much too quiet in here, so I click on iTunes and browse through Fran’s library. Not much in here except a few podcast subscriptions. However, the girl has good taste. The TED talks are listed as a subscription with only a few downloaded episodes. I listened to one about humanity.

I discovered TED pretty late in the game. If you haven’t yet, you owe it to yourself. As usual, all of this preambling is a dump of ideas. For those of you waiting, the point of my post is this:
As I browsed through the list of available audio recordings from TED, I realized that my queue reflects the things on my mind lately. As this site has been running for a few years now, I imagine I’ll find it interesting to look back and read this post.

Future Scott, this is what interested you in the middle of 2008, as dictated by TED (in alphabetical order):
12 sustainable design ideas from nature - Janine Benyus (2005)
A journey to the center of your mind - Vilayanur Ramachandran (2007)
An atheist’s call to arms - Richard Dawkins (2002)
Becoming Buddha — on the Web - Bob Thurman (2006)
Can we know our own minds - Dan Dennett (2003)
Classical music with shining eyes - Benjamin Zander (2008)
Design is in the details - Paul Bennett (2005)
Do schools kill creativity - Ken Robinson (2006)
Finding happiness in body and soul - Eve Ensler (2004)
How cooperation (eventually) trumps conflict - Robert Wright (2006)
How to listen to music with your whole body - Evelyn Glennie (2003)
Letting Go of God - Julia Sweeney (2006)
Living a life of purpose - Rick Warren (2006)
Secrets of success in 8 words, 3 minutes - Richard St. John (2005)
Simple designs that could save millions of childrens’ lives - Amy Smith (2006)
Simplicity patterns - John Maeda (2007)
Sliced bread and other marketing delights - Seth Godin (2003)
Slowing down in a world built for speed - Carl Honore (2005)
Technology, faith and human shortcomings - Billy Graham (1998)
Telling stories of our shared humanity - Chris Abani (2008)
The brain in love - Helen Fisher (2008)
The story of a passionate life - Ben Dunlap (2007)
The stuff of thought - Steven Pinker (2005)
The tragedy of suburbia - James Howard Kunstler (2004)
The universe on a string - Brian Greene (2005)
The Web’s secret stories - Jonathan Harris (2007)
Treating design as art - Paola Antonelli (2007)
Way-new collaboration - Howard Rheingold (2005)
What separates us from the apes - Jane Goodall (2003)
When it comes to tech, simplicity sells - David Pogue (2006)
Where does creativity hide - Amy Tan (2008)
Why are we happy Why aren’t we happy - Dan Gilbert (2004)
Why design - Philippe Starck (2007)

It’s not so quiet in here. Man, I need a laptop. Anybody want to buy a Mac G5 Dual 2GHz?

According to technical details, this shot does not conform to my rules. It doesn’t have a shadow. It doesn’t have a clipped channel in place of a true shadow area. Oh, and it was shot at ISO 1000. Quite high for a “quality” image.

As I finished applying my normal tweaks to this shot, I realized that I’d lost the magic and feel of the image. This one isn’t supposed to conform, and it’s fine just the way it is.

Here is one of my faves from the evening. Tess on the hood of her brand-new-to-her car.

Right then.

Fact is, lots of things have been happening lately. Sitting down to write about them has been on the list, but somehow other things arise.

Buffalo has received some peculiar and interesting weather lately. I’ve had the chance to meet and photograph some really fun people. I’ve started a new job (two weeks down!). I’ve ventured into dangerous places on Thursday evenings. There has been lots of sleeping. I saw the new Pixar movie (highly recommended, as always).

We’ll begin with weather. One of the first things I liked about Buffalo is that in contrast to Rochester, the skies are much more interesting. I came home from work and saw some very neat light in the back yard:

Soon after that the skies grayed over and chunks of ice started falling out of the sky. I’d secretly hoped it’d get more interesting. Chunks of ice will have to do. Many cars in the area were dented repeatedly. I like having a garage. Proof that this happened:

Somewhere in my parents’ basement is a box full of things from grade school. My mom has been asking me to sort through it for several years now. If we were to dig through it, we’d probably find a collection of my mom’s photography - a single series that took over ten years to complete. At the start of each school year, Mom would break out the polaroid and take a picture of her son on his first day of school. New sneakers, jeans, and backpack (probably twice as large as him). Scott, on the porch, staring at his feet because he was embarrassed that his mom just had to take a picture. How uncool. Nobody else’s mom did this stuff.

This month I accepted a position at a big toy company. My first day was two weeks ago. Here you go, mom.

Oh, dangerous things on Thursday. There is this location by the side of the road by I-90 where I’m dying to put a model. I drive past it pretty often and every time I want to pull over and check it out. Not a great idea. So Thursday I gather the motivation to go scout out this spot. Park the car in a nearby neighborhood, cross the on and off-ramps and tromp on into the field with cars and semis whipping past at 80mph. Did I mention it was 11pm? Dark, uncharted territory. Tripod in tow. Is this illegal? I didn’t manage to get to the spot I’d hoped. I think it’s best for a covert operation in the day. While out there, I did take a few long exposures. My spot is right next to the road here.

I’ve always wanted to shoot these towers of power. Look closely and you can see the lightning of a storm rolling through.

and…