Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Day 116: Joe

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/20, ISO 200)

This is Joe.  He, like many of us lives in the GTA.  He is also in my program - Business Technology Management (formally Information Technology Management).  Joe  likes to spend significant amounts of time busying himself with the video games and the like.  When he's not doing that, he's usually ranting... or angry.  

Prior to this photo, Joe was jumping between your's truly trying to snag a shot of him and the programming exam we had just written.  Eventually, he caved and posed.  See above for results.  I met Joe a while back, all the way in first semester (it seems so long ago).  Sadly, I did not get a chance to see him too often this semester, given the differences in schedules.  I suppose the only way to explain how Joe and I act around each other would be with an analogy.  If this were a TV show or movie, Joe and I would probably be the idiot comic relief; Joe and I are always bouncing some sort of joke (morbid or otherwise) off of one another.  

Though regular school is over, I doubt this will be the last appearance of Joe on this blog (he may beg to differ).  Hopefully we'll see more of him in a few months.

Two more exams left... but I will be done in a little over 36 hours.  Just in time for Summer School.  More soon.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Day 115: Big Java

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/50, ISO 640)

Keepin' it short today.  Studying for my ITM200 (Programming) exam tomorrow.  Yum.  Hopefully will have something more in a little bit.

Day 114: Working Hard and Hardly Working

Andrei and Lindsay
(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/30. ISO 640)

Past midnight, and the studying continued... until most of us felt pretty comfortable with the content.  At the early stages of the morning, most of us decided to call it a night and play a little bit of Age of Empires III. 

Andrei and Justin
(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/40, ISO 400)

By around 4 or 5 AM, most of us were pretty wiped out, so most of us headed to bed.  Matt C and myself may have inadvertently kept a few up with our recollection of old Simpson's quotes.

Working hard.
(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/40, ISO 640))

Rest of the day went off without a hitch.  Exam wasn't too bad, but plenty of us were beat after a long day.  I pretty much collapsed into bed when I got home until dinner time.

Hardly working.
(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2, 1/100, ISO 800)

Day 113: Kick-Start

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/1.8, 1/500, ISO 1600, +0.5 EV PP)

Banzai!  Started off my exams with an overnight stay at our beloved Student Lounge.  It started off rather dull though; I didn't really get much serious studying done until about 8 or 9ish.  I got there at 2 PM.  What was I doing?  Napping, urinating (in a the washrooms, rest assured) and gaming when everyone else decided to take a break.  

Our group consisted of Matt M, Andrei, Justin, Lindsay, KG, and Justin's cousin Matt C.  At some point in the night, Andrei and Matt M decided to take advantage of the presence of my camera and make faux leaping jumps at each other.  Faux in a sense that Matt didn't try to punch out Andrei's lights and Andrei wasn't aiming to prevent Matt's DNA from entering the gene pool.  

We started studying seriously at around 11:30 PM, which went on for about two and a half hours...

Friday, April 23, 2010

Day 112: Statistically Speaking

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/15, ISO 400)

A day late, and keeping it short; sorry 'bout that.  Currently posting this from Ryerson, whilst studying for my Statistics exam tomorrow morning with a couple of buddies.  More tomorrow.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Day 111: Gobble Gobble

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/50, ISO 200)

Just a quick snap for this day.  At least it's not a desk picture; heck at least you can relate to a sandwich right?  Alright, I'm no Scanwich guy, but... hey... it's a sandwich!  

Contents?  Simple stuff.  Bacon (a lot of bacon... mmmmm... bacon), some cold-cut turkey, and a few slices of Romaine lettuce.  That's it.  I'm not really a condiment guy; but I imagine some of you would enjoy something on that: mayo, mustard, ketchup even... whatever floats your boat.  The bread is toasted, but having recently woken up whilst making it, I decided to put the (pre-cooked... I know, I know) bacon on the bread before starting the oven.  I imagine that is what prevented it from fully toasting.

Other than that though, it was good.  Hm.  What more can one say about an awesome sandwich?

More later today.


Day 110: Speedy Glass

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 200mm, f/8, 1/60, ISO 200, Flash @ 1/1 Manual)

I don't really see myself as somone who would do an actual equipment 'review', but I figure I'd offer some brief thoughts on a lens that is largely found attached to my camera for walkaround purposes.  If you want to read real reviews, check out any one (perhaps all three!) real reviews below:


I picked up the Nikon AF-S 35mm f/1.8G DX in late April last year, right around the time I finished exams.  At the time, the lens had just started shipping to stores here in Toronto, and they were flying off shelves like crazy.  I got lucky and got mine on my second attempt - there was only one extra one left at the time.  I had only a D60 at the time, and so this was huge, because the other most affordable low-light solution was Nikon's AF 50mm f/1.8D.  Full frame, but no built-in focus motor and as I would discover over the course of shooting with this lens, way too tight for a walkaround.  

A few weeks back, I talked about the whole notion of 'less is more'.  This lens totally fits into that.  Small, light, and fast.  Doesn't break the bank either.  I don't miss zooms at all, granted - the only comparable zoom I have is an 18-55 VR kit lens, several stops slower than this tiny gem (unfortunately some situations do call for a telephoto).  Hell, about the only thing I'd like extra is a distance scale... but I'll live.  No zoom?  No problem.  Use your feet!  Just walk backwards and forwards to compose.  Everything else is just point, shoot, and enjoy.  Want samples?  Take a stab at any previous post; a majority of the photos from each day are taken with this very lens.

In summary: I love this lens.  It's on my camera all the time.  Fast, sharp wide-open, compact, and light.  What more could you ask for from a $275 lens?  If you've got an DX-format Nikon DSLR, go for it.  You won't regret it.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Day 109: The Bridge

(Nikon D60, 18-55 VR @ 24mm, f/4.2, 1/100, ISO 400, 5 Photo Pano)

Okay, so I'm later than usual.  That is largely because of the fact that I actually have something useful.  

Headed down to Humber Woods Park today with a couple of my old Comp Sci buddies, Matt and Dylan.  Dylan had asked me if I wanted to go a few weeks earlier if I had wanted to go, since he was looking for someone to take photos - enter me!  More after the break.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Day 108: Lift Off

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.2, 1/50, ISO 500)

Quick post today.  Pictured is about the only piece of cleaning equipment sans a microfibre cloth that I trust myself with my cameras.  Haven't had to go fiddling with my sensor yet, so I'm not in a hurry to dabble around with that.  It's a nifty little thing, simple to operate (aim and squeeze!),  easy on the wallet, and pretty decent at what it does: blowing off dust.  Everyone should have one! 

Heading out tomorrow with a couple of old Comp Sci buddies tomorrow afternoon.  Will have more tomorrow night.

Day 107: Crystal Rain

 (Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 200mm, f/2.8, 1/640, ISO 500)

Excuse the extremely corny title.  Got up a little earlier than usual this morning.  Noticed it was raining.  Or so I thought!  Looking out the kitchen window I couldn't help but notice the little white specs dotting our fence - clearly not quite rain.  Given that it was coming down pretty fast, I imagine it was hail.  Well, hail in name only.  This isn't the baseball sized stuff you see on television, no... it was just a bit of frozen rain. 

Embedded with the mindset that I can make a photo out of anything (even the most obscure and spontaneous things; hey, right mindset at least right?) I went upstairs and grabbed my telephoto; I'd have to be poking my camera through house plants and shelves since the kitchen offered the best vantage point of our fence and had the clearest window.  Adjust settings, point, click a few times until I got what I liked.  Upon further inspection, it might've been nicer if I had kept the neighbour's garden ornament in the background out of the frame... quite distracting.  Still, not too bad for a twenty minute investment.

More tomorrow.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Day 106: Hitting the Books

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/5.6, 1/30, ISO 200)

It's ironic that the one instance that I actually learned something useful in Statistics class and actually looked over my notes again was one whose title indicated that it would never see the light of day.  Granted, I only ever took notes twice in that class... and I came out okay.  Sort of.  I am still not sleeping properly, for those who are interested, alas I am trying to make the most of my time by starting to study.  My friend Jaspaul says that I've changed when he found out once I was working on an assignment ahead of time; I beg to differ - I still procrastinate quite heavily, like your typical student.

Occasionally though, I put on my time management hat. 

Friday, April 16, 2010

Day 105: Housekeeping

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/8, 4, ISO 200)

Same ol' stuff.  Taking it slow today.  Just taking care of some clothing today.  For the past several months, I've been living a bit like a pig, just letting things pile up (as indicated by yesterday's post).  So as of today, I'm living in slightly better conditions.

I know.  You're ecstatic.  Me too.  More tomorrow.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Day 104: Pile Revisted

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2, 1/50, ISO 800)

Bit of a slow day today, as are most days where I stay home.  Here lies my end of semester "stack o' stuff".  Unlike last semester, much of these contents were never really rotated; it just kept on piling.

That's it for now.  Not really much to blog about when all one has is a picture of his deteriorating desk.  Hopefully more soon.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Day 103: Out With a Whimper

 One last time up these escalators, for the 2009/2010 year at least...
(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2, 1/80, ISO 400)

Quiet would be the way to describe how my semester ended.  Not much happened.  Class, a few friends, and some naps, and the usual fatigue stemmed from a non-existant sleeping routine.  Nothing to really hit home about.  With this closure of regular class, starts an 11-day pseudo-break, as my exams are all scheduled towards the end of the month.  Minus exams, it looks like it'll be a bit of a slow month overall.  

More later today.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Day 102: Morning Riser

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/11, 1/80, ISO 200)

The last Monday.  If there a scheduling lesson to be learned from this semester, it's to not schedule early morning classes three days in a row.  Speaking from experience, one tends to be dead on or by the end of the third day.  About the only thing adjusted here was the usual presets (Clarity, Vibrance, Tone Curve to Strong) in Lightroom, though a little more Vibrance was added.  

It was a pretty decent morning, weather-wise.  A little chillier than usual, but otherwise it was nice and bright.  I had taken note of the sky, but not of a good place to shoot it.  The hill near my high school would've been a good spot to shoot this, alas construction crews are busy with work.  At street level, on one of the major roads outlining my neighbourhood were too many obstructions, that dotted the sky.  Obstructions ranged from street lamps, to trees, to Pacific Mall.  Unfortunately, none that I could pick up and relocate.  So as I was nearing the bus stop, I noticed the empty parking lot that sat adjacent to the mall... and that's when I jaywalked... or ran (I didn't feel like dying so walking across four lanes didn't seem like a good idea).

There was still the occasional obstruction like the parking lights or a taxi, but overall nowhere near as bad as when I was walking on the street.  After that, the viewfinder, eye, brain (what little of it functions at 6:20 AM) and feet did all the framing and composition.  I shuffled around in the parking lot with camera glued to my face for about fifteen minutes before the buses came.  About ten minutes after I got on the bus, I noticed that the sun had become visible, and was glad that I had chosen to make the early morning detour rather than dwell about a missed opportunity on the bus.  All in all, not a bad morning.  Good thing it wasn't spoiled by my getting hit by a bored renegade taxi driver doing doughnuts in the parking lot.  

Okay, maybe that was a bit morbid and overimaginative.  More tomorrow.

Day 101: To Far Away Times

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/100, ISO 200)

Been a while since anything Commerce Times related popped up on this blog, with today probably being the last time until next September.  Today was Member Appreciation Day - also known as 'Get Together One Last Time Before Summer' Day - but shorter and more to the point.  Good times were had by all, and despite all the bumps and rough patches along the way (at least, that seems to be what I experienced the majority of during my short time with the paper), part of me still feels cautiously optimistic that next year will be better.  Only time will tell.

Above is the scribbles made by the Photo Editor, Miguel.  It definitely caught people's attention throughout the day, with other folks tossing in their artwork at the bottom.  I abstained, citing my inability to draw basic shapes or colour inside the lines.  I stuck to my camera instead.  Notable items include chunk of the Bloor-Danforth subway line, a Pokeball, pi to six or seven decimals, a bar code, binary... the list goes on.  See if you can find everything in the image!

Keepin' it short today, last Monday of the semester is tomorrow.  Woohoo.  I absolutely cannot *wait* to get up at 5 AM... again... albeit for the last time.  Ugh.

P.S. Yours truly took home 'Most Sarcastic Member' from the Spoof Awards pile today.  Apparently I'm good for something after all!

P.P.S. Yes, that is a titular reference to a song from the Chrono Trigger soundtrack.  Bonus points if you picked it up.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Day 100: Hangin' Out

Clearly, I am a Ryerson student.  Or am I...?
(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/1.8, 1/25, ISO 800)

Yeah!  Double post on the same day! ...and it's the 100th post!

Unfortunately, there isn't much going on today.  The sun has returned, and so has my tendancy to sleep.  I wish I could say more happened today, but there wasn't.  Thus, I have turned to taking a picture of the lanyards hanging off my mirror.  A bunch of them are from way back, at the University fair that we all went to the Fall before our graduating year.  It has largely reamined a modest collection, until earlier this year, when the pile exploded a bit from the handful of photo gigs that I did in and around Ryerson.

As such, I'm proud to say I did not shell out a single penny for any of those.  There's probably $20 to $30 worth there, not that anyone would pay me anywhere near that for all of them.  

Keepin' it short today, but barring any extreme or freak circumstances tomorrow may promise to be interesting.  Until then!

Day 99: Carded

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/1.8, 1/80, ISO 400)

Went to bed early last night, hence the late post.  So, whilst there has been a similar picture on this blog before, I figure it held relevance to what happened yesterday.  So on my way home I got one of the rare individual seats on the bus, something that doesn't happen to often.  Whilst taking on more passengers, I took a look out the window making note that I had a large unobstructed (by people and window frames) view on the left side of the bus.  I had shot from this point before, albeit standing with no support whatsoever and forced to crouch in order to get a decent composition with my 35mm lens.  

Realizing the opportunity, I fished around my backpack for my camera.  As I pulled it out I took a glance at the LCD as I always do when I bring out my camera, when something caught my eye.  Like many cameras, the D90 displays the number of shots that can be taken (before the card is filled) on the LCD when turned off.  Mine happened to display a big fat "[-E-]", also known as "you forgot the put the memory card in dumbass".  Were I not on the bus and in a public space, I would've sworn to myself and done the ol' facepalm.  I wasn't freaking out because I knew where the card was - still plugged into this very laptop that I'm typing from that always sits anchored on my desk.  As if in denial, I popped open the SD card slot just to make sure nothing was there.

It was somewhat of an uneventful bus ride home, so thank goodness for that.  If I have a serious shoot or I'm in a situation where my primary purpose is to photograph things, then I usually check once or twice before I leave that I've got not on a card in the camera, but spare ones as well with me - I didn't whenever I was just hauling the camera for the sake of having a camera.  Given yesterday's incident however, I probably should from now on.  Sometimes interesting stuff happens when you're out, y'know?

In any case, lesson learned!  And hopefully you learned something from it too.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Day 98: In Due Time...

Working hard?  Or hardly working?
(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/60, ISO 400)

Slept in until 1:30 PM today... which was nice.  Given that I went to bed before 10 PM last night, that tallies up to a refreshing 15.5 hours of sleep.  Give or take a few minutes.  Woots!

With the conclusion of yesterday, there are no more assignments left.  Another woots!  Of course, the system that assigns exam times has blessed me (har har, yeah right) with an exams that take place near the end of the month, leaving me with a glorius five days before Spring/Summer classes kick in.  No woots.

That means that there's a huge empty gap of unallotted time between now and then, meaning there isn't very much on my whiteboard of things to do.  About three-quarters of it is blank; you're looking at the one quarter of it that isn't.

More tomorrow.  

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Day 97: The Row

 Left to Right: Lindsay, My Laptop, Justin, Matt, Andrei, and KG
(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/40, ISO 400)

It was a nice start to what was eventually a cloudy, soggy day.  The sun was peeking out during the early morning hours and the temperature was fairly decent.  I ran into my elementary school friend Rebecca (whilst she was on her Co-Op term) on the bus, so unlike every other morning I was catching up rather than blasting music in my ears.   Good times.

It was also the last time that our beloved row in Statistics class met, in Statistics for the semester.  There is no specific order.  We just sit according to whomever comes at whatever time.  Stats class was pretty empty in the morning, with a majority of the class showing up about ten minutes past the official start.  Nonetheless, it passed by rather quietly, without anything significant to note.

The final Communications class was the same too, and ended pretty early.  There was some LAN gaming amongst some of us us (Justin, Matt, Andrei and KG) involving some ITM laptops and Age of Empires III.  Other than that, a pretty uneventful day.

Extremely tired, having stayed up all night to finish my Communications paper - the last major assignment of the year, so I am heading to bed early tonight.  

More tomorrow.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Day 96: Budding Prospects

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/640, ISO 200)

Keke.  Winston make pun.  In any case though, it is nice to see some green outside.  The snow has melted, being replaced by rain.  With it, comes some green grass and as shown above, new leaves.  To some extent, I hate the extreme cold, and with it windchills; I don't remember how I used to be able to stand it when I was a kid and it was constantly -20C outside without wind; I start complaining when it's -5 or -10 now.  Must be the extremely warm TTC buses.

Keepin' it short.  One paper left to go!

Day 95: The Finish

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/1.8, 1/250, ISO 800)

Almost done the semester, with just a few more things to hand in and complete - almost through running the gauntlet of assignments, papers, and projects.  In fact, there lies only one major paper due tomorrow left before all is well.  Not bad.  Hard to imagine the regular year is already over.

As can be seen in the photo, shot some more basketball today.  I imagine I should probably start going for something besides a 35mm lens, given the difficulty of isolating subjects or focussing (hard to, when your subjects are so small within the frame).  Some might suggest moving my feet and not being a lazy ass, but it's kind of hard and dangerous to stroll onto an active basketball court, what with the potentially getting your face pancaked and all. 

Processed it in Adobe's recent Lightroom 3 Beta 2.  Even though it took all of a couple minutes, I like what I see already.  Perhaps in a couple weeks I'll get to trying out the tethered shooting option - great for Nikon shooters that want a simple tethering solution without having to invest in Nikon's pricey Camera Control Pro 2.  

Keepin' it short today.  There's only one Monday left in the semester! Woot!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Day 94: Mystery Door

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/4, 1/80, ISO 200)

That's as far as I ever got to going outside all weekend.  I have no idea of what life beyond thaat door is like.  Except for the fact that the house across the street from me has a white garage.  As for the photo itself, it did not come out like that in-camera.  Played around with the tone curves and recovery slider in Lightroom, although the D90's Active D-Lighting worked pretty well to start.

For what it's worth, I've been programming and sleeping irregularly all weekend.  Ugh.  Going to keep it short today, early start to the week... again.  At least it's the second last Monday ever for the semeser! Woohoo!

More tomorrow.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Day 93: Less is More

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/5.6, 1/60, ISO 400)

Bigger, isn't always better.
It dawned on me whilst I was writing code in the early-hours of Saturday morning (no pun intended).  For the first half there was just straight coding, splattering as many lines of code as was necessary to get the program to work.  Thankfully there weren't any sort of major SNAFUs or hiccups in the process, and the program now largely works as was necessary.  For the next few hours after that, I went to work trimming down code.  A line here, a line there, every line cut felt like an accomplishment.  My Computer Science teacher in High School introduced us to the concept of KISS in class (Keep It Simple, Stupid), and it's something that's stuck with me ever since. 

Not suprisingly, this concept has wormed its way into my photography as well.  I came to this realization rather late; about nine months after picking up a DSLR and right after I had shot three CCSA (Chinese Christian Softball Association) softball teams' worth of games for the season that summer in Toronto.  Several times I foudn myself burning out during post-processing; about 90 to 120 'keepers per game'.  I shot about 30 games.  Yeah.  The math ain't pretty.  
I think Scott Kelby put it best when he said something along the lines of displaying a dozen or so photos out of a batch of 100 or 200 makes you appreciate the select ones more.  In exercising greater scrutiny I come away with less, but feel I have a more desirable end result - one that I'm proud to display.  Most of the time I don't show about 75% or more of what I shoot.  A lot of the times it's because that one shot out of four was part of a four-shot burst.  Other times, there are just plain bad shots caused by the camera or the dufus behind the camera (never did like me much, har har har).  It gets to the point now that I generally don't give as much attention to online galleries or albums that are just a slew of the same photos shot over and over again.  Having already been asked to shoot for a friend's team, I look forward to the upcoming CCSA season(it's 30th!), and seeing some of the great folks I haven't seen in a few months.  In that sense, some things won't change, but I'll definitely be keeping fewer photos.  Sure, I won't have hundreds of photos capturing practically ever major and minor event during the game, but I'll definitely have a lot more fun, save a lot more time, and come away with more memories.

In concluision, shoot more (with digital, it's free anyway!), but keep less!  No one needs to see the shot where the flash didn't go off, or the one where everyone's face got smeared because the camera automatically picked a slower shutter speed.  Keep the memories, not the clutter.  After all at the end of the day it's probably that handful of shots that you're going to remember, not the other hundred.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Day 92: Lazy Friday

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/1.8, 1/100, ISO 400)

Old habits die hard.  I woke up at 3 PM today. For some, it's Easter Friday, for others, it's a day off.  For me, it's just another day.  Not much to report today folks, other than the fact that I think I underexposed on the photo.  Damnit. 

Hopefully something tomorrow.

Day 91: The Last Cut is the Deepest

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/1.8, 1/40, ISO 200)

That will be the closest picture you will ever get of me on this blog... ever!

Okay, I lie.  Does it count as April Fools even though the post was made well after 12 PM and on a different day for that matter?  Even if it was meant for April 1st?  Damnit.  Probably not.

In any case, today turned out to be my last haircut with my barber.  He's retiring and has already sold his house.  Only three people have cut my hair in my life.  My dad, my oldest brother, and the husband (whom I have only known as Mr. Szeto) of a couple who had been cutting my parents' hair for twenty years; pretty much since I was born.  I had known Mr. Szeto when I was a child - my parents used to bring me to their house when I was about 4 or 5 whenever they had their hair done.  I remember I used to stare at their fish tank and run around in the basement, which had been turned into an ad-hoc barber shop/hair salon.  He had a successful hairstyle business back in Hong Kong, and decided to continue it to some extent once he moved to Canada.  For about a decade, I never saw him again, until my brother was no longer able to cut my hair.  My dad brought me back to him.  Some things never change, minus the removal of the fish tank.  That was about five years ago, when I first started getting my hair cut with him.  My gut told me to bring my camera with me today, but I opted not to and pretty much regretted it once I heard the news.  One of those shots that got away.  Alas, in lieu of no pictures, I suppose it's story time then... about my hair.

Pretty much until I got into High School and even for a bit after that, my haircuts were the simple 'just cut it thin'.  It took about 15 years for me to make the switch to "leave a little bit of the front out".  Other than that, my hair has pretty much been the same.  Coincidentally, I imagine around the same time that I made the decision to actually do something with my hair - spend about 30 seconds with it after showering with the blow dryer blowing my hair straight up.  Yeah.  Whilst everyone else was gelling, perming, dyeing pink, and doing all sorts of other crazy shit with their hair, it took me several years to decide to blow-dry it up.  Despite all this my hairstyle has as become somewhat of a recognizable trademark (I think).

My friend Betty once remarked how the height of my hair is an indicator of my mood, with the higher it being reflecting the more content that I was.  I guess to some extent that could be true, though I would probably be first in line to suggest not relying on it as a scientific means of measurement.  Generally I like to compare the growth of my hair to that of a growing plant.  Soon after it's cut, it shoots straight up for about a week or two, at which point it splits and "opens" up, such that it can no longer stand up on its own and takes the form of a curvy 'm' instead.  Then it's off to the barber again!  The cycle occurs about every 4 - 6 weeks, although in this case, it'll be a new barber.

I'll miss Mr. Szeto.  I never really got to know him well due to a language barrier (side note: I am totally not fluent in Cantonese or Mandarin), but in spite of this he always had my hair looking the way I wanted it.  He was definitely a cut above the rest.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Day 90: Shades

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/1.8, 1/80, ISO 200)

I need to stop falling asleep so early.  

There's been nothing but nice weather this week.  Bright, sunny, and warm temperatures all about and people beginning to break out the shorts and T-shirts.  Having worn glasses since I was about seven, I have never really had much use for sunglasses (either see extreme sunlight or don't see at all), so when I first got transition lenses four years ago, it was a nice change to having to squint out towards a field of snow or on a nice summer day.  

Clip-ons never really worked out, since I had to carry them separately in the case and put them on and off as needed/  What can I say?  I'm lazy.  About the only drawback sans price is that they take time to transition.  They're sensitive to UV, so they change (albeit to a lesser degree) on cloudy days too.

Keepin' it short.  Since there will be another post today, or in the worst case scenario, tomorrow.