Stefan’s Stuff

Empire State Building
Originally uploaded by S.D.

Lots of fun, with an added bonus: Janny works in the building. That means that we don’t have to stand on line. Instead of taking 30 to 60 minutes to get to the top, we just go right to the head of all lines.

I think that got some people annoyed at us (we heard “Hey! There’s a Line!!!” a few times) but it was worth it.  Unfortunately, it was cloudy and hazy but we could always go back. Since the sun is setting earlier as winter approaches, I think we’ll go after work one night and get some great night shots.

Music I’m listening to now:
Nothing, I’m watching Mythbusters.

As many people know, one of my hobbies is assembling Bandai Gundam Models. Over at Ngee Khiong’s blog, he found images from someone who got it and assembled it already.

I have to say, it’s an over the top model, and I Soooooo want one!

I’m resisting on account of my having quite a queue of models to build. Currently I’m working on a a Bandai MG RX-78-2 Gundam. I’m not sure if I’ll paint it, but it should be fun in either case.

Update: Dalong.net has one already. Can’t wait for him to finish it. The images of the Instructions make it look pretty interesting.

Music I’m listening to now:
Nothing at the moment.

From Techeblog:

The world’s largest foam machine was custom-built for the shoot, and pumped out over 500,000 gallons of foam per minute. The commercial is for Sony’s cameras, and locals got Alpha DSLRs, Cyber-shots, and Handycams to shoot the experience

Looks like fun but I’m wondering how they cleaned up afterwards? I bet this is the same people who did the Bouncing Balls advertisement in San Francisco.

Music I’m listening to now:
Nothing at the moment.

Improv Everywhere gave a Little league team the “Best. Game. Ever.”

They turned a little league baseball game in Hermosa Beach, California into a major league event complete with NBC Sports, Jumbotron, Player interviews, *and* the Good Year Blimp!

The video here:

Music I’m listening to right Now:
“Chasing Cars” by “Snow Patrol” from the “Eyes Open” Album. You can see the video here.

Spring is here so It’s time to prepare my vegetable garden again. With all the tasks at work (4 Projects Due at the same time *AND* late night calls 4 to 6 days a week…) I’m really looking forward to doing work that my wife and I can enjoy.

Also, for our garden, we’ve planted new mixed color peonies. That was a little amusing as my wife got the little shovel, put on gloves, dressed in old jeans in case it got dirty and then I did all the work.

She’s ready for a career in management…

Music I’m listening to right Now:
“Beautiful Seed” by Corrinne May from her “Beautiful Seed” Album. You can see the video of her playing it live here.

As people may know, Photography is a hobby I indulge in. I like to think of doing different things such as a long exposure shot.

So, when I read “Awesome Red Alert Tesla Coil Makes Quick Work of Allied Soldiers” on Gizmodo, I had to read about it.

Peter at tesladownunder.com was nice enough to document how he did it. Basically, he replicated the scene from the game in real life with a Real Tesla Coil.

See his work here.

Music I’m listening to right Now:
Wild by Seal from his “SEAL [1991]” album.

While on a photo walk with Jerry Tuesday night, we ran into The Daily Show's Samantha Bee. She was with her child and I certainly didn't want to harass her so I just said "Excuse me, aren't you Samantha Bee from The Daily Show?"

She said yes and I mentioned I watch that show regularly. She was nice and friendly. 

"The Daily Show" is one of my favorite shows, but I think It's sad state of the News industry that the most intelligent conversations on TV are on "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central. If you have any doubt, See the recent interview of Sen. John McCain or Former Iraq Minister Ali Allawi or Andy Card just to name a few. 

Music I'm listening to right Now:
"The Taste" by Five For Fighting from the "The Battle For Everything"

Friends??

Originally uploaded by S.D..

Newmindspace organized another massive pillow fight in Union Square park. I can't begin to tell you how much fun this event was. I haven't laughed that hard for that long  in quite some time.  

I drove in and got to the Union Square early to get parking. I was able to scope out some good places to hang out and meet some people before the Pillow Fight actually started. As 2:00pm approached it got pretty crowded and when the whistle blew, the feathers started to fly. My original plan was to take shots from the edge of the crowd with my Nikon D80 and then wander in using my point and shoot camera. Since the point and shoot camera takes too long between shots, I threw caution to the wind and kept using the D80. Wading into the crowd was like walking thru a big mosh pit. Amazingly, I only got hit about a dozen times and that tended to be when someone was taking a wide back swing. Using continuous shooting on my camera, I managed to take over 700 shots. I'm sure lots of them don't show much,  but I'm using DXO Optics 4.1 to batch process the RAW NEF files. It's very good software, supports my camera and lens, and the Batch mode is what convinced me to buy it. For $149, you can't go wrong with it. I have an old PC so I started the batch late last night and it's still going. When it's done, I'll pick out the good ones and post them to Flickr.

For a crazy massive pillow fight, people were very careful not to hit the photographers cameras. Other than a couple of minor hits, the camera survived intact. I ran into Gene in the middle of the crowd, but missed the other NYC Social members that were there.

I posted my shots on Flickr. 

Newmindspace has updated the site with links to Video and Flickr Photos too. I particularly liked  Rocketboom which has a great video of the event, including footage from above. Wish all battles were Pillow Fights…

Music I'm listening to right Now:
"World" by Five for Fighting from the "Two Lights" Album.

Music I’m listening to right Now:
“Did You Get My Message?” by Jason Mraz from the “Mr. A-Z” album. [Read more →]

One of the cool things about New York: You run across interesting people all the time. We were coming home late, sat down and a man was practicing juggling 4 to 6 colored balls. He’d add one, subtract one, always keeping them in motion and putting 5 in one hand as he adjusted his Ipod.

He let me take his picture but I wish I put the camera in Movie mode. Unfortunately by that time, we arrived at his stop.

[Read more →]