This photo was taken from W. San Fernando St, looking N/NW, under the 87, looking along the Guadalupe River. The angle of the shadows, the spot where I was standing and how the columns on the left lined up caught my attention.
The lone runner coming up the path just seemed like a great image to try and capture. All runners know what this moment can represent. The feeling as you soak up your “me time” while challenging yourself to go a wee bit farther or just an tick faster PR.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of this, but I’ve been shown something very very cool that looks like, if the tech goes mainstream, could literally change the world of photographic imagery, or at the least, image mastery and post processing.
It’s called LYTRO or the tech inside what’s called a Light Field Camera. It uses light to distill images into something much more than a regular image, beyond what photographers consider to be RAW images.
This is a new technology that could very well change the field of photography forever. This, I think, is akin to when film was invented to store images and goes beyond the tech of digital imagery that replaced film. It takes the artist out of the photo taking and puts the artist into the photo post-processor. Or it could remove the artistic experts in the industry all together when the general masses start to get a hold of this tech.
So take a moment and check out this new image technology where, no matter where you click, the image comes into focus at that point. Obviously these images have all the data necessary to refocus or zoom, no matter where you click, but I think its pretty cool.
Want to see something fun? It’s called a Rube Goldberg Machine or contraption. You have to have a slight appreciation for the plotting needed to make this kind of puzzle… and as far as I’m concerned, I don’t this this will work with my Kindle. I mean, I guess it sort of could, but I’m not about that… I can “turn” my own Kindle page… sort of.
Check this out… it’s a hoot (And thanks to John S. for showing this to me.):
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And for the record, I read more than one page of a newspaper!
On July 7th and 8th of 2012, Avon will once again hold another Walk for Breast Cancer event in San Francisco.
This walk to raise money to fight breast cancer will take the participant from downtown and into the wilds of Marin County as you will be able to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge and down to the Sausalito waterfront.
But don’t be fooled by that pretty outline. You’ll be getting your exercise to boot because you will also be getting a chance to see for yourself sites like Fisherman’s Wharf, Lombard Street and lots of those wonderfully historic Victorian homes in the city.
Yea, that’s the sales pitch, more or less. But it’s not just a walk… it’s a weekend because this will be a walk that takes you over 40 miles of territory! Last year the first day took the walk from San Francisco to Corte Madera. Then on Sunday, you walked back!
But it’s a good weekend as participants will be doing this to help fight cancer, and in this particular case, breast cancer.
But I’ve been talking up the San Francisco walk because that’s in my neck of the woods. Avon is sponsoring other walks around the country…
For those of you interested in taking part in the one of many fights against cancer, Infineon Raceway, located in Sonoma, CA., is having a charitable fundraiser where you can run or walk against cancer.
The walk will take place Saturday, January 7th, on the 2.52-mile road course and that is NOT a flat track folks. It will be good exercise and for a good cause. In this case, the cause is raising funds for the fight against gastric (stomach) cancer.
Stomach cancer is the most common cancers in the world.
I remember from many years back in an environmental science class I took… there were fascinating correlations between the kind of cancer and where folks lived.
Societies that ate smoked food had higher incidences of stomach cancer, those who lived in cities with poor air quality had higher incidences of lung cancer, etc., etc..
Twas the day of Christmas, and my wife and I took a leisurely walk through downtown Menlo Park.
The mood was not a very festive Christmas mood in Menlo Park… but that was because almost every single store or shop or restaurant was closed for the holiday.
Subway had a sign posted earlier in the week that they were going to be open on Christmas day, but alas, when we walked by, it was not. Walgreen’s was open but with nary a customer within. The BBC across El Camino Real at the end of Santa Cruz was open, but we did not investigate the interior count of patrons. We also learned that Applewood Pizza was opening at 4p.m. that day.
On this peaceful day, it was a very calming walk and in the process, I took a couple of pictures of scenes that I think no one will ever see on a normal day in Menlo Park. In the process, I whipped out my Droid and took some photos of a holiday in California, on a pretty blue day where the temps were sitting at a brisk set of 50 or so.
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Anyone ever see the parking lot behind Draeger’s this empty… ever?
Below is another one of Dave Nielsen’s photos. In this case, Dave is using this image to wish us all a wonderful holiday season with this image he has titled Rainy Pass Larches.
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I like the expansive feel we have off in the distance, while feeling like we’re on the hill with the trees in the foreground. Though, oddly, I feel the need to toss a coat on right now!
I just wanted to take this moment to say Happy Holidays to one and all. Thank you to
Everyone who comes by to check out my eclectic coverage,
Everyone who chimes in to some of the conversations,
Who retweets or likes my articles,
To everyone who supports some of the causes I extol on the sidebar.
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Now, more than ever is a good time to chime in and help those who are in need of help. Which ever cause or charitable organization best fits your focuses, whether it’s providing those new and unwrapped toys to the needy families, food for the starving, or money to research for a cause, it’s never too late or too little to pitch in.
Can you believe that the one day of all days of the year, where families gather around the fireplace, where chestnuts might be roasting over an open fire, Christmas Eve, residents of the Bay Area can’t have fires in their fireplaces? Ug. Of all the bad timing, on December 24th, we can’t light up our fireplaces.
[Updated later on 12/24/11: I just received their official notice that wood burning is also banned for Christmas day. Double boo on The Grinch Who Stole Christmas fireplace moments!]
Read on, see why we can’t have our fireplaces roaring to life on this magical family day.
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Here in the Bay Area of Ca., aka, San Francisco to San Jose and the regions in between, (The nine Bay Area counties) we have regulations in place to help with our air quality control called Spare the Air.
What the Spare the Air program does is disseminate a message by 2 p.m. from the Air District, declaring if the air the next day is forecast to be a potentially unhealthy day.
When an alert is sent out, it’s requested that citizens restrict their wood burning activities. In fact, it’s the law.
Science Daily reported back in November that a research team may have discovered a new specific protein that plays a key role in the spread of cancer throughout the body, outside the initial tumor zone.
This new target is called parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP) and they seem to feel that this protein is involved in key stages of both breast cancer initiation and progression.
The team of researchers is based out of Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and headed by Dr. Richard Kremer.
In their studies, they removed the protein in question from a tumor and then observed that there was a 80 to 90 percent reduction of growth.
Discovering this protein will help the fight against breast cancer and the metastasis to other parts of the body.
The Lone Runner and His “Path” of Resistance
