LonelyStreets.com
Nikon
We bought a new camera last week - a Nikon D-40, currently the cheapest D-SLR on the market. I have to say that it’s really nice, takes amazing photos. Shutter is lightning-fast responsive, and it takes nighttime photos that are bright as day (as long as you can hold it still during long exposures). The following photo was actually taken by my wife while I was driving. The flash went off, so the original was just an ugly bright reflection of the flash in the windshield, but I managed to coax this out of it in Photoshop, and I really like it. Very LonelyStreets.
This one I actually took myself, out of one of my apartment’s front windows on a Friday night:
And finally, the following is not the greatest photo in the world, but I think it does a nice job of illustrating the kind of nonsense that goes on in Des Moines’ “loop” on Friday and Saturday nights. What, exactly, are these silly-looking hip-hoppety-in-the-Iowa-hood dudes doing? Well, waiting for redneck teenagers in cars without mufflers to pull up so they can yell at them of course! This photo was also taken out the window of my apartment and depicts the sidewalk across the street. Now, try to imagine that everywhere down here is like this on the weekends, and you’ll start to get a sense of how exciting downtown Des Moines is. By the way, we normally call these folk “Loop Scoopers” (due to their habit of driving in circles around downtown), but since these poor schmoes are car-less, I think they should be called “Loop-Poopers.” What do you all think?
May 24th, 2007
Posted by Paul in Photography | 12 Comments »
Proficiency
Accompanying my acceptance letter to Carnegie Mellon was an FAQ. One of the questions was something along the lines of ‘what software do students use most often?” The answer was
“Before you join us in late August, please become proficient with:
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe AfterEffects or Flash
Adobe InDesign
Web authoring software (Dreamweaver for example)”
Dear heavens! If I didn’t have a jump-start on most of those, I think I’d be in a lot of trouble. Regardless, I’m now on a quest for proficiency and have been churning out some fun stuff using Photoshop and thought I’d share:
May 21st, 2007
Posted by Paul in Photography | 3 Comments »
Minute Men
About 2 weeks ago my wife Emily (who is the Director of the New Iowans Center here in Des Moines - a small office of folk who specialize in helping immigrants within the larger offices of Iowa Workforce Development, the State of Iowa employment agency) received an odd phone call at work:
“New Iowan Center, this is Emily”
“Do you help illegals there?”
“Um, is there something I can help you with?”
“Do you provide employment assistance, education assistance and referrals to illegals?”
“We require that everyone we assist in obtaining employment provide a social security number first.”
“Oh. Ok. So you don’t help illegals?”
“We require that everyone we assist in obtaining employment provide a social security number first. Are you new to Iowa, is there something I can help with?”
“No, that’s all. Thanks.”
Click
Then, this last Monday, upon arriving at work, Emily found an email from a coworker in another town directing her to the Minute Men’s website, which had her offices scheduled for a protest. The odd thing was that the protest was set for 4:30. Iowa Workforce Development (which takes up an entire building), is a State government agency. This means that if the building closes at 4:30, the building is empty by 4:30:03. My wife let a couple of her friends (and fellow immigration-activist-collaborator types) know about what was going on and they met her in front of the building at 4:30 to see the protesting bigots.
Unfortunately, nobody thought to photo-document things, but try to picture this scene: five old (really old) rather raggedy guys with the typical look of aging vets standing on the sidewalk. The sidewalk is on the opposite side of a large parking lot from the building, and the men are holding up signs with slogans like “Stop the Illegal Invasion” (had I been there, I think I would have been tempted to ask which illegal invasion they were talking about), and “Illegals take American Jobs.” The five men, in an apparent state of confusion and disarray are milling about from one end of the sidewalk to the other with no clear purpose or direction, and continue to do so for about 5 minutes before stopping and facing the now completely empty IWD building. These guys are not chanting or anything else so noticeable and they all walk around with pronounced limps and look vaguely uncomfortable and insecure.
So, of course, my wife and her friend Kirk decide to go talk to them. (the Minute Men, mind you, had never seen my wife before).
Emily (in a perky voice): “So, what are you guys doing out here?”
Guy #1: “We heard they help illegals in there.”
Emily: “Really? What sort of help do they give them?”
Guy #1: “I don’t know. You gotta ask Bob, he’s our leader.”
Emily: “So you don’t know what they do in there?”
Guy #1: “I don’t know. Bob told us to come down here. You gotta talk to Bob.”
(Emily walks over to Bob, who is already involved in a discussion with Kirk)
Emily: “So, what exactly are you guys protesting out here?”
Bob: “Well, there’s this place in this building called the New Iowan Center, and we heard that companies call them when they want to hire some illegals.”
At which point Kirk says: “Well, she’s the Director of the New Iowan Center. How would you respond to that?”
Emily: “I would say that we require that all people whom we help look for a job provide us with a Social Security Number”
Bob (beginning to sound plaintive and a little whiny: “Yeah, I actually called last week and..”
Emily: “Yes, I think I remember you.”
Bob: “they told me that people needed a valid social security number to get help looking for jobs.”
Bob (sounding even more uncomfortable): “I told them you guys require a valid Social Security number, I told them, but they wouldn’t listen and they told us to come out here anyway. You should talk with our director. He’s in eastern Iowa. He was supposed to be coming out here with, like, 30-40 guys..”
Another guy chimes in: “Yeah, gas is kinda expensive right now…”
May 21st, 2007
Posted by Paul in Politics, Humor | No Comments »
Something odd at a garage sale…
On Saturday my wife and I went to Ames to help her mother with a garage sale (and take advantage of the chance to get rid of some of our own junk). Digging through a box of children’s books we found the following oddity:
And it aint the balls….
May 14th, 2007
Posted by Paul in Humor | No Comments »
Downtown Des Moines on a Saturday
I wandered around downtown Des Moines on Saturday taking photos. I didn’t realize at the time that I was taking these in black and white, but I think they turned out nicely regardless. Note the near total desolation: no pedestrians, no cars on the streets. Des Moines can be a very creepy place.
May 7th, 2007
Posted by Paul in Photography | 1 Comment »
Will Farrell and Richard Gere
I watched “Stranger Than Fiction” last night; the Will Farrell comedy about a guy who hears a voice narrating his life. It was actually pretty good. Now that I think of it, I don’t think I’ve actually seen Will Farrell outside of Saturday Night Live, where he always played really stupid, slapsticky dumb-guy roles. The movie on the other hand, was actually quite witty and managed to be very funny while remaining largely gag-free. If this film is anything to go by, I may have to check out some other Will Farrell movies.Today I saw “The Hoax” with Richard Gere at Des Moines’ art theater. It was also decent, though a bit slow in parts. The film depicts the real-life story of a writer who attempts to pull off a million dollar scam, selling a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes to McGraw-Hill Publishing. To me the most striking thing about the film was the wonderful costumes (the film is set circa 1970): crazy 60’s miniskirts and hippie-wear on all of the female characters. I’m not sure I would recommend that anyone pay to see this movie in the theater, but it’s worth a rent if you’re in the mood for a relatively entertaining and almost completely unoffensive film.
May 6th, 2007
Posted by Paul in Music and Movies | 2 Comments »
Suspects, Guns and Jesusbiblegod
Think about this - who will this affect? Michigan militia types? Unlikely. Crazy Korean college students? Nope. Vice presidents with a lot of hate? no sir. This is a law that will be employed exclusively against people of middle-eastern descent. We don’t exactly have a problem in this country with gun-toting Arabs running around shooting people in the name of Allah. Crazy Christians on the other hand…
(please please oh please click through this link - I’m not even sure this site is for real but godamn it is serious funny!)
UPDATE - according to wikipedia, that site is, in fact, satire (the more I read, the more I thought so). This on the other hand, sadly is not.
May 4th, 2007
Posted by Paul in Politics | 1 Comment »
Dead Bees and Mexicans
An announcement for a party at my friend Gary’s co-op this weekend:
As you might have heard (e.g. in this article from the NYTimes), the world’s bees have gone on strike. Something like a quarter of the honeybee hives in the US have been found empty, their colonies gone. This could spell disaster, not only for the honey industry, but for all bee-pollinated crops. The lack of bee pollination could not only precipitate a global famine ( as noted in this AP article), but, more importantly, it may reduce profits in bee-dependent sectors of agriculture ( which the USDA values at over $14 billion). As business owners cry for help, it is quickly becoming obvious that these crops will need to be pollinated by hand (though a limited number of non-human bee-substitutes were recruited in a forward-thinking 2005 initiative ). Scientists in unrelated fields (such as Gary Oppenheim) predict that the USDA and INS will respond by issuing ‘very special guest worker’ permits so that underpaid migrant laborers can dress up in bee costumes and pollinate American crops for a maximum of three years before being deported ( see an artist’s conception of what this might look like ). Government agencies will need time to organize such a program, though, so the pollination task will likely fall on grad students this summer.  This is, in fact, an enviable situation for grad students, since many of us will see sunlight for the first time since beginning our programs. To celebrate this fortuitous series of events, we propose holding a “Bee Replacement” party. There will be pollination. There will be nectar drinking. And most importantly, there will be waggle dancing.
WHAT: Brooks Co-op Bee Replacement Party
WHEN: 9:30pm, Saturday, May 5th
WHERE: The co-op, of course!
WHO: You! (And of course this is not limited to grads — undergrads need summer jobs, too!)
BRING: Your own alcoholic (or n/a) consumables (Honey Weiss, Bärenjäger, and Tej are recommended) — we will provide bee-friendly snacks and non-alcoholic nectar (don’t worry, vegans, there won’t be honey in everything)
WEAR: A bee costume! (This is not strictly necessary, but think of how much cuter we’d look dancing or wildly gesturing in black-and-yellow stripes with our antennae jiggling around. At least wear antennae, though. Seriously: anyone who takes themselves too seriously to wear antennae will be barred from entering the party. Just kidding… maybe… )
May 4th, 2007
Posted by Paul in Humor | No Comments »
Skworts (Skort)
Quote from my Coworker Jay, talking to his 10 year old daughter the tomboy:
“You want to play golf? Then you’re wearing the skort!”
May 4th, 2007
Posted by Paul in Humor, ISED | No Comments »
Iowa Slogans
Submissions for the new state of Iowa slogan:
Iowa- a great place to snow.
Iowa- fat people driving with cell phones.
Iowa- I’m lovin’ it.
Iowa- it only smells like hog shit when the wind is in the east.
Iowa- not as flat as Nebraska!
Iowa- cool enough for Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore.
Iowa- fat people are jolly!
Iowa- half way between
Iowa- no longer the nation’s methamphetamine capitol!
Iowa- a subsidiary of Cargill, Inc.
Iowa- surprisingly easy to pronounce.
Iowa- pleasantly predictable.
Iowa- an aging population means more room for YOU!
May 4th, 2007
Posted by Paul in Humor | No Comments »