Some people so surprise me by their brash behavior. Yesterday, I walked over to Frock You!, looking for a vintage leather mini-backpack. My daughter asked for one as present celebrating her 23rd birthday next week. […]
Author: Joe Wilcox
Remembering My First Website
This afternoon, I looked over Archive.org’s Wayback Machine for the first time ever and was delighted to find cached copies (e.g. snapshots) of my first, personal website at editors.com, which I registered in August 1995. Foolishly, when needing some extra money, I accepted a $3K offer to sell my first domain in May 2004. I have lots more to say about that decision—in the future. For now, let’s look at the past.
At the time of the site’s snapshot, Dec. 27, 1996, my family prepared to leave my hometown of Caribou, Maine—where we had been for about 18 months—and return to the Washington, D.C. area. There I would take the editor’s position at Government Computer News responsible for the newly created State and Local section.
What Chainsaws Obliterate
I am often perplexed why someone would chop down a living tree. A decade ago, my family relocated from the Washington, D.C. suburb of Kensington to sunny San Diego. A year earlier, I told my […]
Meow! Second Sightings
Several re-sightings of felines previously featured in my “Cats of University Heights” series demand updates about the beasts. So, please, pardon yet another furry exposé. The Featured Image is a tiger that I call “Stalker“, sighted and profiled in November 2016. I shot this more recent portrait on July 17, 2017, at 7:11 p.m. PDT using Leica Q. The animal is usually on the move, and this is the first instance seeing him quietly sitting in his yard, near Campus and Monroe. He really blends in, eh? Vitals: f/1.7, ISO 100, 1/400 sec, 28mm. After deliberate consideration, I chose to keep brightness and exposure as shot in this crop.
SDCC 2017 Day Four
The greatest geekfest and pop-culture event on the planet wrapped up this afternoon in San Diego, as the original Comic-Con closed its doors on the Convention Center. Imitator shows are everywhere this Century, but none commands character and class like the original. The first, full, three-day event took place from Aug. 1-3, 1970, at the U.S. Grand Hotel, with about 300 attendees and sci-fi luminaries, including Ray Bradbury and A.E. van Vogt. This week, 140,000 people attended, but the number doesn’t include the tens of thousands descending on the Gaslamp Quarter and other areas of the city. SDCC is too big to be contained by the formality of a single glass-and-steel structure or the fire marshal’s mandates.
I had given up on participating until unexpected opportunity occurred yesterday morning to purchase a legitimate Day 4 badge with my name—not one assigned to someone else and sold for exorbitant price, despite firm policy against such scalping. I picked up the badge in the afternoon, spending several hours afterwards in the Quarter.
Like yesterday, I captured moments using Leica Q, but far fewer than my typical day. Those that follow aren’t all, or necessarily the best, but they tell a story about shooting them.
Gaslamp Lights San Diego Comic-Con
I won’t explain how, but today I snagged a legit San Diego Comic-Con 2017 badge for tomorrow. Better one than none. From 2009 through 2016, I had passes to attend all four days but failed to get in the buying queue during Early and Open registrations—in March and April, respectively—nor later get consideration as working journalist. I picked up my last-day badge at the Convention Center around 4:30 p.m. PDT, then moseyed around the Gaslamp Quarter, which is livelier with off-site activities and vendors than I recall from other years.
Fess Wishes You Happy Caturday
This is not the last time you will see Fess featured on this site. He is my favorite neighborhood feline, and he could be eldest, having been with his owners for 13 years (but he is older). We first met on July 27, 2013, as I rode my then newly-acquired Guerciotti bicycle down Cleveland Ave. In November 2016, he appeared in my Cats of University Heights series. Last night, we visited briefly during an unusually late sighting. Fess typically goes indoors when his owner comes home from work. In the next yard, Levi and Pepe hung out, too. I shot the Featured Image at 7:21 p.m. PDT, or about 30 minutes before sunset.
Fess sat in his driveway when I walked past, paying me no attention and demanding none for himself. I moved a few meters more before deciding to turn back for a quick portrait. I lay down on the sidewalk for better vantage point, which of course would rouse the cat my way—nudging against my face and looking for pats. The first capture was all auto. Vitals: f/1.7, ISO 100, 1/400 sec, 28mm.
Sunset Spectators
Adams Ave. ends at an overlook in University Heights that opens onto a canyon and expansive view of Mission Valley below. The location is where I photographed the feline nicknamed Grand for my Cats of University Heights series 13 days ago. The “End” sign to the far left in the Featured Image appears in post “My Fujifilm X100F Acros Romp“. I had walked down that way this evening hunting for an orangish-tan feline spotted weeks earlier.
The moment captured is unusual for me. I typically avoid shooting directly at—or this case into—the blaring sun. But as I approached, the woman’s silhouetted figure against the guardrail (looked to me like she stood on the other side of it) intrigued. So I flipped the aperture to f/11—other vitals are ISO 100, 1/60 sec, 28mm—crouched a little to compose, and snapped a couple quick portraits. Time was 7:38 p.m. PDT, or 15 minutes to sunset.
Hey, Spider
Six years ago in October, I photographed a stunning sunset spider using Google Nexus S smartphone. On July 17, 2017, at 7:16 p.m., another opportunity came—and I felt bad for the arachnid.The nighttime web attached to bush and parked car. If the owner(s) were to go out…
I shot several portraits with Leica Q, using dedicated Macro mode, and also iPhone 7 Plus. The digital camera delivered better than the smartphone—not that the Apple device did poorly. The Featured Image is a close crop from the original using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. I shoot in DNG (Leica’s chosen RAW format) and convert to JPEG. Vitals: f/2.8, ISO 100, 1/80 sec, 28mm.
Don’t Believe Housing Market Lies
I once again see disturbing trends rearing their ugly heads in the U.S. housing market. Twelve years ago, I warned about the housing bubble long before it burst—then living in the Washington, D.C.-metro area. Now my vantage point is San Diego, where home prices soar and sales (finally) start to stagnate.
Justification, set against measurable trends, often is a fantastic measure that something is amiss.
Metaphor: In film “The Big Short“, set during last decade, a Florida real estate agent drives around a group of Wall Street investors trying to discern whether or not there is a housing bubble. As they pass property after property for sale, she explains: “The market is in an itsy-bitsy little gully right now”. Eh, yeah. That gully later became a giant sinkhole. This morning, I received a newsletter from a local realtor that claims: “Pending home sales were sluggish in April as low supply reared its head”. Crazy thing, I see plenty of inventory for sale—and for increasingly longer times today than four or five months ago. The newsletter’s assertion rings like a justification worth concern.
A Hillcrest Homeless Story
This afternoon, I’m walking down University Ave. in San Diego’s Hillcrest district, not far from Bank of America. Before me, a clearly homeless guy carries a white trash bag full of aluminum cans, which are […]
The Cats of University Heights: Shadow
The Leica Q has one of the best autofocus systems of any digital camera that I have used (and the list’s long). But when there’s failure, the scale is grand—as was the case yesterday morning where Adams Ave. ends at the overlook adjacent to Golden Gate. I hadn’t planned to stop there, but beyond the automobile guardrail and wire fence, I saw the clear shape of a cat sitting back to me. That put him on the canyon side, which would be a treacherous place from where a human could fall. He contently watched wildlife, mainly birds, with little care about me—although he moved away some when I approached to the side for better sight to shoot. The feline could have been looking out onto the Grand Canyon, for the scale set before him.
The kitty is blurry in every one of the seven shots, even the three where I manually focused. The auto-system stopped at the fence. I did only marginally better for the last capture, before the cat sauntered off. Problem: While only 8:31 a.m. PDT, the sun seared fiercely ahead of a heat wave, compelling me to wear sunglasses that make the electronic viewfinder’s visual focus cues difficult to make out when rushed—as I was. I fumbled to safely put down the protective eyewear, as the beastie waddled off; having stepped partly over the guardrail for better vantage point, I could have carelessly let the glasses fall away.