365/20 Team sorting

Liz cuts them out at a team sorting competition in Albany, Oregon.

365/19 Washington Park Light Rail Station

5 second exposure, f/13, ISO 100

365/18 Get in line, we're heading south

365/17 Oaks Bottom

At Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, in the city limits of Portland.

55-200 Nikkor at 175 mm, 1/60 at f/5.6, ISO 400

365/16 Urban fall color

365/15 Trick or treat

365/14 Travel day in Boston

It's October, for crying out loud.

365/13 Maine sunrise

365/12 Cape Neddick, Maine

Nubble Lighthouse, near York Beach, Maine.

365/11 New England Rain And Color

Minuteman National Historical Park.

1/25, f/4, ISO 400.

365/10 Travel day

365/9 Portland Japanese Garden

Portland Japanese Garden.

11-16 Tokina at 11 mm, HDR from three handheld exposures at 2EV increments.

365/8 East Bank Esplanade

HDR from 3 exposures at 2 EV increments

365/7 Church today

Rehearsal before Jazz Sunday service at First Congregational UCC.

11-16 Tokina at 16mm, 1/20 at f/4.5, ISO 640

365/6 Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

80-200 Nikkor at 200mm, 1/2000 sec at f/4.0, ISO 400

365/5 Fall Color at the Oregon Zoo

Horrible light, but too soon to start shooting inside. The rains will come soon enough.

18-55 mm Nikkor at 24mm, 1/160 sec at f/5.0, ISO 500.

365/4 Fall Color in the heart of Occupy Portland.

365 project - Day 3 (today)

365 Project - Day 2, October 18

365 Project

On October 17, I started my 365 project -- take and publish a photo a day for a year.
 Here is the photo for day 1, October 17.

Ten Photography Quotations

From the Digital Photography School

Today's Nook Completions

Today I finished Henning Mankell's The Troubled Man.

Mankell appears to have finished the career of Kurt Wallander, in a work which broods about aging and death. He did Wallander no favors in his "swan song".

The Intersection of Law Enforcement and Autism

In Oregon, the Washington County Sheriff's Office is holding a training for law enforcement officers in "how to recognize signs of autism, to deescalate situations and to know where to look if an autistic child wanders away."

In Florida, the Miami Beach Police Dept. encounters a 57 year old man with autism who is holding a toy rifle. When he doesn't follow their commands, they shoot and kill him.

Reading with the Nook

I got my Nook for Father's Day. Let's see if I can remember what I've read on it so far.


Musicophilia, by Oliver Sacks.

Three books by Connie Willis: Blackout, All Clear, and Remake.

A High Wind In Jamaica, by Richard Hughes.

Peshawar Lancers, by S.M. Stirling.

Gentlemen of the Road, by Michael Chabon. (The title of the NYT review of this book was "Jews with Swords.")

The Silent Man, Alex Berenson.

Three of the Harry Bosch novels by Michael Connelly: Lost Light, City of Bones, A Darkness More Than Night.

Dark Voyage, by Alan Furst.

Clans Of The Alphane Moons, Philip K. Dick

I am currently partway through Henning Mankel's The Troubled Man.


So far, so good.

Author Author

While browsing the B&N site for Nook books, I saw that they listed the author of the King James Version of the Bible as God. This made me curious about how they treated the Quran and the Torah. I was relieved to see that they are at least consistent.

What movie to see?

There is some mythology out there right now ("Thor") but the competition out there for my movie dollar is not exactly the Clash Of The Titans.

Captain Jack Sparrow is back, but this time it's a different director. Gore Verbinski had a tremendous ability to time, pace, and stage action sequences. He moved on to make the insanely great "Rango," while the director's chair for the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise was filled by Rob Marshall. The closest Marshall has come to doing an action film was "Chicago," but he didn't have to have stuff exploding on the decks of vessels heaving on artificial seas while filming choreography. The reviews have not been entirely kind.

But if not Captain Jack, then what? Hangover Part II ? If ever a film cried out to be deferred until the DVD came out, this is one. I have managed to avoid "Fast Five" but am getting backed into a corner. Maybe we should just wait a bit, with X-Men and Green Lantern around the corner. I'm just not convinced we're going to have a better choice if we wait.

Snap, Crackle, Pop

My knee has been cracking and popping all day long.

Funny to have that start out of the blue, when my knee has been getting better and better. I have been able to walk multiple miles for photo shoots in the last month or so, without being distracted by knee pain much at all.

The noise it makes is pretty loud. Ruth couldn't believe that sound came from my knee, she thought that surely it had come from the mechanism of the recliner.

That kind of loud repetitive noise comes only from a recurring mechanical problem. I think I have a hunk of cartilage rolling around loose in my knee.

Aging has been undeniable for some time before this. In the bathroom mirror, I seem to be turning into a gargoyle. I'm a little uncertain about the path to magnificent aging from this particular starting point.

Last Ship Before Dark

The view from Portland's Pittock Mansion.

Dan

I showed this image at camera club tonight. One of the few occasions where on-camera flash worked well.

Western Movie Set

“Blood, Sweat, and Chalk”: A Roger Bertholf review

“Blood, Sweat, and Chalk” by Tim Layden

A Roger Bertholf review

Football coaches are a paradoxically humble breed; they routinely deny any credit for innovations in the game that have been attributed to them. Every coach will tell you that he has copied a scheme that has been used before at the high school, college, or professional level. “It’s a copycat league,” they all say.

Over the course or two years, Tim Layden, a writer for Sports Illustrated, interviewed football coaches and players, studied film, and probed the origins of the offensive and defensive strategies that define the modern game of football. “Blood, Sweat, and Chalk” is his account of that journey into the strategies that make football such a compelling sport, and the men who have dedicated their lives to refining its nuances.

Sometime around the turn of the 20th Century, football in America broke from its European rugby roots and evolved into a different game. Popular mythology often claims that President Theodore Roosevelt was responsible for the changes in football rules that led to the modern game, and the story is partly true. Roosevelt was instrumental in changing the rules of college football to prohibit closed-formation blocking (the “wedge”) because he thought the mass momentum approach made the game too violent. At that point, American football forever diverged from the rugby scrum.

Football is a game that a casual observer views as an entertaining confrontation between men (or boys) who compete for physical dominance. Coaches view the game differently. Coaches study the game, and try to blend the talents of their players with a scheme that will give them the best opportunity to succeed.

On September 21st, 2008, the Miami Dolphins ended the New England Patriots’ 21-game winning streak with the help of an offensive formation popularly called the “Wildcat,” (named for the Kansas State University Wildcats, where the formation was used in the late 1990s by Coach Bill Snyder, although its origins can be traced to the single wing formation that was commonly used in the first half of the 20th century). The Wildcat uses an unbalanced offensive line, with two tackles on one side of center. The “quarterback” (who is usually a tailback) takes the snap in the shotgun, and the weak side flanker runs parallel to the line of scrimmage to create the third option for the quarterback, who can run off right tackle, hand the ball to the halfback, or throw. Against the Patriots, the Dolphins ran the play six times, and scored five touchdowns, using Ronnie Brown as quarterback and Ricky Williams as the flanker. The Wildcat caused a sensation in the NFL, but it was just a variation of the single wing offense Glen Scoby (Pop) Warner devised over a century earlier.

Defenses adapted, and the “Wildcat” offense vanished as quickly as is appeared, another casualty in the evolution of modern football.

“Genius” is superlative that is too loosely applied to football coaches, and they acknowledge this fact, giving credit to others for truly innovative offensive and defensive schemes. Perhaps a better way to stratify the accomplishments of football coaches is by their impact on the way the game is played.

Lombardi’s Packers dominated professional football during the 1960s with the “power sweep,” which relied on Fuzzy Thurston and Jerry Kramer to pull from their left tackle and guard positions and create a hole on the right side for Paul Horning to run through. But Jerry Kramer and Fuzzy Thurston didn’t have the critical blocks; the success of the play was mostly dependent on the tight end (Ron Kramer) blocking the left outside linebacker, and Jim Taylor leading with a block on whichever linebacker or defensive back read the play and came up to stuff the runner. When executed with the precision that Lombardi demanded, the power sweep was good for at least a five yard gain, and was nearly unstoppable. But the power sweep rarely works anymore, because defensive ends, left unblocked, are fast enough to catch the runner from behind. In Green Bay’s power sweep, Horning would retreat about a yard and a half after getting the ball before he’d choose the hole to attack. Lawrence Taylor would have buried him in that moment of hesitation.

But Vince Lombardi recognized that the play would work if it was executed perfectly, and he drilled the Packers incessantly on the sweep. There were no tricks in his playbook; Lombardi just used the strengths that he saw in his roster—two great offensive linemen, a bruising fullback, a cagy halfback, and most importantly, a tight end who could win the battle against a linebacker. Everyone knew the Packers were going to run that play, but nobody knew how to stop it.

Throughout much of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, when the NFL (under the inspired leadership of Pete Rozelle) established itself as the most popular sport in American history, football was a run-first game: establish dominance in the running game, and wear down your opponent with physical strength. But Don Coryell changed that when, as head coach of the San Diego Chargers from 1978 to 1986, he devised an offensive strategy that was based on a pass-first mentality.

Coryell sent multiple receivers on deep, intermediate, and short routes, and instructed his quarterback to read them in order from deep to short. The strategy was to threaten a deep pass on every play; the deep pass was the first read for the quarterback! He numbered the nine basic routes for the wideouts one through nine, and the tight end’s routes 10 through 90; a 538 play, therefore, had the left flanker running a 5 route, the tight end running a 30 route, and the right flanker running an 8 route. It was simple, effective, and very easy to teach. Coryell’s scheme was designed to force linebackers into situations where they had pass coverage against faster players in the open middle of the field.

“Air Coryell” changed football from a running game to a passing game. It overwhelmed defenses at first, but a new breed of linebackers (and safeties) evolved that had the speed to neutralize the threat of speedy receivers getting open in the middle, and big, physical defensive linemen became necessary to disrupt the quarterback’s rhythm. A quarterback who can quickly read the coverage, however, will often find an open receiver downfield, and the balance in the modern game of football is tilted toward teams that have a quarterback capable of making those reads and delivering the ball quickly and accurately to the first open receiver.

The wishbone, the spread, the West Coast offense (poorly named, because its NFL origin was in Cincinnati), the zone blitz, the cover two; Layden dissects each of these strategies and reveals how they came about, through the recollections of coaches who used them, and the players who made the schemes work.

Layden exposes the myth that football coaches lead an enviable life. The itinerant lifestyle of most football coaches—even the very successful ones—is almost as brutal as the game itself. It is not unusual for a coach to change jobs every two years; long term employment is the exception, not the rule. These are intelligent men, who understand the game of football at a level that observers like me will never approach. Coaches are teachers, and they do it for the same reason that any teacher does; they consider themselves privileged to teach the game they love, and wouldn’t ever consider doing anything else with their lives.

“Blood, Sweat, and Chalk” is a view of football from the coach’s perspective, and it reveals much about the history of the game, and the men who left their mark on it.

Christmas Letter 2010

Christmas Day Letter 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

Once again, we approach Christmas like a stunt driver approaching a parking place, twirling at a high rate of speed before coming to rest in the appointed spot.

Pat is really struggling to observe his rules for Christmas letters this year. The initial rules are simple: no misery, no bragging. This year seems to cry out for additional rules: no disclosures of protected health information or HIPAA violations, no soliciting for money, and the like. Here we go.

Dan got home for winter break on December 21. On December 22, he picked out the Christmas tree and directed the tree guy to put it on the top of our car. When Ruth got home from work that day she pointed to the tree and said, “What is that?” Dan replied, “It’s my tree.” He is very particular about the tree, and continues to look at it to see if the ornaments are in just the right spots.

Daniel (age 16) continues in school at Heartspring, in Wichita, Kansas. We pulled him from school to visit his grandparents in Virginia for Thanksgiving, so he missed the bowling team’s overnight trip to Kansas City, but hopes to go on a snowshoeing trip in January. Pat is a little jealous, as the best school trips when he was a kid were to Dixie Caverns and the Frito-Lay factory. Dan also knows how to live when he is home on break. During prior summer breaks he swam in Marie’s pool, which was subsequently sold to Brandon Roy. Ruth likes to tell people that Dan has swam in Brandon Roy’s pool. Dan is now taller than Ruth and Elizabeth, and Pat is starting to stand on his toes during photographs just to maintain an edge.

Elizabeth (age 17.5) is a high school senior. She continues to be one of the tech stalwarts for the Lincoln HS drama program. She will be the tech person travelling with the cast to their performance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland in August 2011. She has her instructional permit, but will not drive if her mother is in the car. After a recent expression of maternal alarm during paternal driving, she declared that it would now be at least 3 more years before she would dare to drive while the maternal unit was in the vehicle. She has now taken possession of her prized Christmas gift, a device her Uncle Clay refers to as a “Crackberry,” and is merrily seeing how fast she can burn through her data transfer allotment for the month.

Pat was amazed at how much time was made available when his rock band disbanded. Ruth was not quite as surprised. Pat put much of this time into photography, an art form that does not require collaborators. He joined the local camera club, but made the tactical blunder of missing a meeting. On his return he found that he had been elected president, with all the privileges and responsibilities appertaining thereto. This primarily involves unlocking the building for meetings. His Christmas gifts seem to be all photographic toys, for some reason.

Ruth shocked Pat this year by requesting tickets to an Amanda Palmer performance. Ruth and Pat were not sure whether anyone else in the hall was their age or not. Pat is not sure whether Ruth’s admiration for Amanda Palmer flows from scatological language that reminds her of her Boston roots, or from the fact that Amanda’s main squeeze, Neil Gaiman, has long enjoyed Ruth’s admiration. Ruth thinks Pat could also be a wealthy rock star of writing, if he would only put out the effort. It certainly isn’t for lack of encouragement.

Allie has become a dowager dog, more and more set in her ways. Star, the horse, continues to be the bane of cows across Oregon, as she and Liz head ‘em up and cut ‘em out.

Here is hoping that Christmas 2010 finds you and yours happy and well.

Ruth, Pat, Lizzie, Daniel, Allie, and Star

What could posibly go wrong?

The incoming chairman of the House Financial Services Committee says, "my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks."

Isn't that how we ended up bailing out the banks in the first place?

As Scooby would say, "Ruh-roh."

Film Cameras

I am loading up an F100 with film, real film, and stepping out into the world.

Film is such an interesting kettle of fish in a digital world. With digital, you can rescue suboptimal exposures in postprocessing. With film, you really need to get the exposure right.

You also need to get the composition right.

Digital does let you get more involved with manipulating the image, which can be kind of fun.

My favorite image of the day

Jim's Garden

Medical Staff Meeting

Just like all medical staff dinners I've ever attended, everyone dresses differently for these affairs. This is actually an image of Haida shamans, from the First People website.

Vodka Pie Crust

From Cooks Illustrated, this recipe for pie crust uses vodka. This lets you add more liquid, so that the crust is easier to roll out. The alcohol keeps excessive gluten from forming, so the crust isn't tough, and then the alcohol vaporizes in the oven:

Foolproof Pie Dough

Movie Review - Inception

Following the plot on this movie is like peering inside an intricate old watch while riding a rollercoaster. The story is well told, and it was a lot of fun.

It is a caper film, with the Leonardo DiCaprio leading the team of dream bandits, where the caper is usually to break into someone's dreams and steal their (highly valuable) secrets. The whole exercise is really like a burglary and con game all rolled into one, which takes place in a landscape limited only by the imagination.

The first Christopher Nolan film I saw was Memento. I thought the plot device for telling the story backwards through the eyes of the ultimate unreliable narrator, a man who can't make any new memories. This is a problem when the last thing he DOES remember is his wife's murder. He is obsessed with finding the killer. Any time he discovers a clue he has it tattooed on himself. It starts with the last clue, and kind of unwinds until he discovers the first.

Inception requires the same sort of mental gymnastics to follow the plot, but with a double shot of adrenalin thrown in for good measure.

Poorly behaved guests

Seems like poor form to steal and vandalize from the classroom your county political meeting is using.

And the cause of the gulf oil rig explosion

Could it be...


... Halliburton?

Link of the day

Interesting abandoned places.

Drill Baby Drill

The surface area of the gulf oil spill has tripled.

Oklahoma legalizes doctors lying to patients

Check out the latest from Oklahoma, the land that gave us Senator Dr. Tom Coburn.

Connect The Dots

The U.S.Mine Safety & Health Administration evacuates three mines, citing anonymous tips of safety violations.

The Massey Energy Co. response? Fire 8 miners.

The message is quite clear: If you call and report a safety violation, some miner will lose their job.

Tomorrow's shooting match

This is the first of six stages in tomorrow's match by the Orygun Cowboys.

A FB conversation about that song stuck in your head

Zebra

Today's shoot

Vegan Gangs of Portland

They give the term "Big Mac Attack" new meaning.

Dan Takes A Solo

Armadillo

Big Spring Falls

Scorpion

Portland's Holiday Express

Bearded Dragon

Scenic Cruise

Trains Only

From last night's shoot

This weekend's photos

The link to the photos from this weekend's team penning event is here.

RFID Chips - Broadcasting Your Data To The World

Because that's what they do.

Here is a video of a guy who can drive around, read and clone the RFID tags in U.S. Passports and the new enhanced driver's licenses.

Donald and Lydia - Lyrics

From the John Prine tune:

Small town, bright lights, Saturday night,
Pinballs and pool halls flashing their lights.
Making change behind the counter in a penny arcade
Sat the fat girl daughter of Virginia and Ray

(Spoken:)
Lydia
Lydia hid her thoughts like a cat
Behind her small eyes sunk deep in her fat.
She read romance magazines up in her room
And felt just like Sunday on Saturday afternoon.

Chorus:
But dreaming just comes natural
Like the first breath from a baby,
Like sunshine feeding daisies,
Like the love hidden deep in your heart.

Bunk beds, shaved heads, Saturday night,
A warehouse of strangers with sixty watt lights.
Staring through the ceiling, just wanting to be
Lay one of too many, a young PFC:

(Spoken:)
Donald
There were spaces between Donald and whatever he said.
Strangers had forced him to live in his head.
He envisioned the details of romantic scenes
After midnight in the stillness of the barracks latrine.

Repeat Chorus:

Hot love, cold love, no love at all.
A portrait of guilt is hung on the wall.
Nothing is wrong, nothing is right.
Donald and Lydia made love that night.

(Spoken:)
Love
The made love in the mountains, they made love in the streams,
They made love in the valleys, they made love in their dreams.
But when they were finished there was nothing to say,
'Cause mostly they made love from ten miles away.

Repeat Chorus:

My favorite story of the day

Passenger repairs airliner, flight arrives only 23 minutes late

Pascal's Pensees

I have come to this masterpiece of French prose by a strange route -- through the Jack Taylor mysteries by Ken Bruen.

Taylor is a hardbitten Irish P.I., struggling with the Irish Affliction since being cast out of the Garda. He is a literary man, whose enemies know they can wound him by destroying his book collection. He shares the Irish love for verbal jousting and gymnastics; many pages spend as much ink on words thought but not spoken as they do on the actual dialogue. His thoughts are littered with literary references, including frequent references to Pascal's Pensees. Pascal and Taylor both have strong religious sentiments, but Pascal was on much better terms with the Church than Taylor.

Danny Goes To Church

Ruth brought Dan to church for the fellowship hour after the service.

He dashed upstairs to the now mostly empty sanctuary, then walked slowly up the aisle to the front of the church. He folded his hands reverently, bowed his head, then looked up and announced:

"I know why you have come! I have every intention of granting your request!"

The intersection of Christianity and The Wizard of Oz. I'll bet that Dan was one of the few making an offer rather than a request, though.

The Intelligence of Crows

Slight Shift In Word Usage

Oregonlive.com posted this Associated Press report about the death of Michael Jackson:

Michael Jackson, the sensationally gifted child star who rose to become the "King of Pop" and the biggest celebrity in the world only to fall from his throne in a freakish series of scandals, died today. He was 50.

Before Michael Jackson, "freakish" meant unbelievably improbable, as in "freakish weather." Now it means relating to or being a freak, where freak means a strange deviation from nature.

Story of the Day

Trippy Skippy

Does Curry Fight Dementia?

The BBC ran this story.

Some Background On Heartspring

This story is making the rounds of the Wichita media outlets right now.

Cinco de Mayo

Portland's Cinco de Mayo Fiesta.

Admiration

One of my favorite photos of the day.

Mother Nature Takes Out Our G3

A big line of storms came out of nowhere, at least as far as the National Weather Service is concerned. We were in a matinee of Lincoln High School's production of Annie, and you could hear the storm hit from inside the auditorium, over the sounds of the orchestra and cast. We walked out of the theater to see that the tree next to our parked car had fallen in the other direction.

Our luck was a bit different at home. We returned home to find that a power surge had knocked out our old G3. My reaction reminded me of the reaction that Philip Roth had when he learned of his ex-wife's death, as he marveled, "She's dead and I didn't do it."

That machine had pretty much turned into an e-mail only machine, so we lose all our old e-mails and address book. It's the electronic version of no longer needing to clean house because it burned down.

One of the things I will miss will be the iCal calendar application. For anyone who follows my web calendar, you won't see any changes for a while. When we buy the new machine, I will see if the new iCal that comes with it is to my liking.

I am going to try something a bit different for the next computer. We bought a relatively small flat screen TV for Dan's use when at home, which is also designed to be used as a computer monitor. I like the idea of buying a Mac Mini, and hooking it up to the TV. Bored with the web? What's on TV?

Dead Computer

The old G-3 we put into service Christmas 2002 finally died, and our mac.com e-mail address book died with it. If any of you send us e-mail though that account, please drop us a message so we can capture your e-mail address.

Oaks Park #4 - Disk'O

Oaks Park #3 - Car 16

Oaks Park #2

Autism Awareness Walk

This photo taken yesterday at Oaks Park.

Cowboy Action Shooting

I made this video 2 years ago. I was slower then.

Danny Sings

I particularly like the big finish.