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Woods, angels, oysters.

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

We made salmonberry jam for the first time last week and it’s delicious. Wanting another couple of jars, I decided to pick some berries along the salmon stream running through the woods near my house. The picking was good – I filled a Nalgene with fresh berries in short order. Along the way I kept an eye out for mushrooms and found some gems.

angel wings

oyster

As for the jam, the berries magically disappeared while I sat on a bench in the front-yard – I guess I need to pick some more!

Upper Dungeness Trail

Mon, 28 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

We took advantage of the three day weekend to travel into the Olympics and see the spring runoff of the Dungeness River. The weather was pleasant and wonderfully warm in the sun. We had a picnic along side the river and found numerous flowers and mushrooms along the trailside. A great start to summer.

dungeness river

trail through the woods

trillium poking through the ground

orchid

While we found no morels (we found some growing at Dungeness Spit a couple of weeks ago) we did find what I believe is Discina perlata, Pig’s Ear.

Yellow pine cone.

Sun, 20 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

My daughter and I decided on a short walk through the Grand Forest East on Sunday to look for signs of spring. Along the way we found what my daughter is calling a “yellow pine cone” growing under some ferns. I have no idea what this is and haven’t been able to find something similar in either my wildflower or mushroom guides.

yellow pine cone

Fishing, crabbing, fun.

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes a weekend works out perfectly, last weekend was that weekend for us. I had Friday off so we decided to spend some time at the beach fishing for pink salmon as they make their odd year return to Puget Sound.

fishing at point no point

The first beach we hit, Point No Point in Hansville, is one of our favorites and a popular place to shore fish. We lined up along with all the other anglers and cast our lines. We were skunked, but so was everyone but one grandpa who proudly walked along the beach holding a pink, son and grand-daughter in tow. While we missed out on the salmon we caught our share of bullheads.

Mountains, planes, sky.

Sat, 30 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Some photos from a recent trip to California. I usually fly the same route but this trip was at unusual hours for me resulting in new views of the same volcanoes.

rainbow horizon

As the sun set to the west the sky to the east grew increasingly more multicolored. Unfortunately the Mountain is out of focus but the sky is pretty amazing – you can even see the horizon bend it seems.

Friends, river, fun.

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been told many good things about Bend, Oregon – they are true.

We just got back from a relaxing and wonderful week staying with some friends from Chicago on the Deschutes River south of Bend.

There’s a lot to do in and around Bend. While we were there we fished,canoed, hiked, ate and drank but most rewardingly perhaps wesat by the River, soaked in the sun and views and watched the world float by.

Egg and I.

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Fresh eggs are wonderful. My wife has assured us this pleasure.

When we moved to Bainbridge one of the items on the The List was to raise chickens for fresh eggs. Today being Bainbridge’s Tour de Coop I feel compelled to show off my wife’s fabulous coop and beautiful birds.

First the birds. We (ok, my wife) decided on two breeds based on cold-hardiness, laying and temperament.

hen at the door

The Buff Orpington.

Rocks on a rock on the Rock.

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

After returning from my trip my daughter and I decided a day of geocaching was in order. We went to the Grand Forest to look for a couple of new caches.

My daughter loves geocaching, it’s a treasure hunt where she gets to look for real-life treasure (“geo-trash” or “geo-junk” or “geo-crap” to my wife). We didn’t find the first cache (we were definitely in the right spot!) but we did, fortunately, find the second. She is now the proud owner of a new red “gem” for which we left a marble.

Royal Basin Trail.

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Joel was right. The Olympic rain shadow is pretty amazing. It was to be sunny & dry.

gray wolf ridge

Joel and I have gone backpacking together the last two years and have had some great trips but before hand I generally whine about wanting it to be sunny and dry. The NWS forecast for Royal Basin showed a possibility of rain so I suggested we try the East side of the Cascades. Joel wanted the Olympics (I honestly did too but I craved sun) and convinced me to chance it. Damn happy we did.

Fireworks, ferry, friends.

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

We have been fortunate for the last couple of years to be invited to view the Bainbridge Island fireworks from the deck of our friends’ house overlooking Eagle Harbor. The view is stunning throughout the year but the evening of the fireworks is especially enjoyable.

streaking ferry with fireworks

fireworks over the ferry

gold

Our show before the big show.

Orange, yellow, spider.

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

A couple of days ago my daughter came to find me because she found “a cool spider eating a bee!”. It’s a crab spider, in particular a Misumena vatia, and has been hanging out on an orange poppy in our front yard ever since.

crab spider hanging out on an orange poppy

These are neat spiders. They spin no web so they spend most of the life waiting on a flower hoping to lure a bee close enough to kill it with their powerful venom. They can change colors too, switching from white to yellow and back as the need arises.

Rainier many ways.

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

We enjoyed a beautiful day in the sun shopping the Rotary Auction and paddling in Eagle Harbor. The views of the mountains in all directions were stunningly clear which reminded me (as did our recent camping trip) of some unusual photos of Mt Rainier and the neighboring ranges I took way back in November while traveling.

Camping, beach, mountain.

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

We have been camping in my backpacking tents but as a family we had outgrown them. When REI had their summer sale and the Marmot Limestone 4 family tent went on deep discount we bought it. So with sunny skies and nothing on the agenda we decided to put it to the test at no-longer-a-State-Park Fay Bainbridge.

We day-trip to the park frequently but only camped there once before and not as a family nor at the beach. Being the good Midwestern-raised rule-followers we are we chose one of the less-than-spectacular gravel sites for our tent because that’s what the signs say to do (though it was near an enormous thicket of salmonberries of which I ate my share – if this cold, wet spring is good for anything the salmonberries have been outstanding!). After our camp was set up we saw a whole city of tents appear on the lawn closer to the beach – we learned later the common sense school of camping now applies to Fay Bainbridge and though it’s not explicitly stated you can camp on the lawn. Next time!

Mount Zion.

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

In need of some time in the mountains, I made a quick trip into the Olympics a couple of weekends ago to hike to the summit of Mt Zion. I left the trail head around 10 am and summited in about an hour. The views from the top were almost entirely clouded out (not quite so on the way up) but I found some calypso orchids along the trail and glacier lily at the summit. The orchid more than made up for the missed panoramic. The snow was almost completely gone, only a couple of spotty patches remained. The trail was in quite excellent condition – and well used – I was not the only one making the trip.

Oh look, a marmot!

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A good friend of mine and I went backpacking in the North Cascades a couple of weeks ago (been busy, this post is a bit late), setting up camp on the slopes of Mt Baker – unfortunately the weather prevented us from seeing it clearly except from a distance on the hike up to camp.

The plan was to hike to Park Butte and enjoy the views but with overcast skies and limited visibility we ended up seeing fewer mountains …

Sundew.

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

sundew from a bog

We went on a nature walk through IslandWood today with an amazing naturalist. Probably the coolest thing we saw was a Drosera species, commonly known as sundews – the green swirls with the red tentacles in the photo. What makes them cool is two-fold, they grow only in bogs and they are carnivorous!

Lavender.

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

purple house

We enjoyed a marvelously sunny weekend which commenced with a trip with some friends to Sequim’s Lavender Festival. Unfortunately, from a photographic perspective, it was a bit too sunny with too many people and I had a hard time finding pictures I wanted. The photo above reminds me a bit of some scotch broom and a shed I photographed last summer.

If you do go to the festival, skip the farms near the highway because they’re really crowded. Our family favorite farm is Jardin du Soleil which we’ve been to before.

Ghost.

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

ghost plant

My daughter and I enjoyed a great hike in the woods this morning and happened upon a new wildflower for us: Monotropa uniflora, also known as Ghost Plant or Indian Pipe. Through the otherwise dark and green forest these flowers really popped out against the ground. At first I thought they were some sort of candystick or pinesap like I saw on my hike to Heather Park but closer inspection showed otherwise. The photo above used no flash – it took your eyes some adjusting to see them clearly even in the woods.

Ingalls Creek.

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I spent Saturday and Sunday with a couple of friends escaping the rain and cold in Puget Sound by traveling over the Cascades to the Eastern slopes for an overnight backpack to Ingalls Creek. We had originally planned a trip to Spider Meadows but some concern about snow caused a change in plans.

We arrived Saturday around noon to find the “creek” was raging white water (turned out to be a perfect foil to one my camping buddy’s snoring). We hiked about five miles along rather easy trails, setup camp and attempted some fishing, but seeing no rising fish gave up rather quickly. We went back to camp, had a fantastic campfire, dinner and enjoyed some well earned bourbon.

Willow.

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Bloedel mansion and willow in winter

Armour.

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

the bark of an alder

Onward.

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

alders along a path

Questionable.

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Stropharia ambigua

An immature Questionable Stropharia, Stropharia ambigua, growing in the backyard. Some say it’s edible, others say it tastes like old leaves, interesting.

Ramaria.

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Ramaria, growing on fir debris

Ramaria, another new genus (for me) I found growing under a Douglas-fir.

Soldier.

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We accompanied our friends to feed some horses the other day when I noticed the red-tipped lichen on a fence post. I’ve narrowed it down to probably being Cladonia cristatella, also referred to as British soldier lichen.

Invaders.

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

new mushrooms growing on a fallen tree

A neighbor had a tree fall and within days a new colony of mushrooms had invaded.

Earthstar.

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

earthstar mushroom, aka Geastrum saccatum

I’ve been reading Winter World by Bernd Heinrich and I’ve been encouraged to look more closely at my woods. So this weekend I took a path I don’t usually take and surprise! I’ve seen an earthstar before but this one is in better condition.

Muscaria.

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly Amanita

Amanita muscaria, one of the most recognizable and widely encountered in popular culture, especially children’s books – it’s constantly appearing in my daughter’s. I always associate this mushroom with the Smurfs. This is odd, of course, because it’s hallucinogenic – perhaps that explains the Smurfs.

Homeward.

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

coming home from the arboretum

Great skies coming home from the Arboretum last weekend.

Elvin.

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

fluted black elvin saddle

Meet my new favorite mushroom: Helvella lacunosa, or the Fluted Black Elvin Saddle. Today was a bumper day for mushrooms – my daughter and I photographed at least five or six new species for the season.

Purpleish.

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

purpleish mushroom

Another mushroom from the trip to the Arboretum, I can’t identify it though.

Fractus.

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

red leaves and green, moss covered branches

Harefoot.

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

harefoot mushroom

On Sunday we collected leaves and mushroom photos at the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle – I took a lot of photos, including this one of some Coprinopsis lagopus (Harefoot mushroom).

Rolling.

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

sunrise at marmot pass

End.

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

sunset over the farmland

End of the day on the farm.

Queue.

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

witch hazel leaves waiting in line

The witch hazels in the yard radiate orange, yellow and red in the fall.

Bronze.

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

scenic beach state park at sunset

Another photo from the trip to Scenic Beach.

BIFD.

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Bainbridge Island Fire Department's annual pancake breakfast and firetruck ride

Scenic.

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

sunset at scenic beach state park

We went to Scenic Beach again this evening, enjoying pizza and a sunset.

Parasol.

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Macrolepiota rachodes

Easily the most prolific of the edible mushrooms in our yard, Macrolepiota rachodes or the shaggy parasol.

Waves.

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

waves of color from a tropical plant

Peekaboo.

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

pumpkins and grapes

Outlines.

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

sunset on the farm

Lunar.

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

harvest moon

Through the trees appeared the massive harvest moon.

Timing.

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

orange leaves in downtown Bainbridge Island

Yesterday the lighting was perfect around this tree but I had no camera with me, today it was too bright – still, I like the lines.

Prince.

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Agaricus augustus, the Prince

I’m pretty sure this is Agaricus augustus – another classic found in the yard.

Shaggy.

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Coprinus comatus or shaggy mane

Coprinus comatus, the shaggy ink cap, lawyer’s wig, or shaggy mane, lasts barely a day.

La Vendange.

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

grapes ready for harvest

Double!

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

double winner!

The Harvest Fair isn’t all cider making and sheep wrestling, there’s also a hotly contested pie baking contest.

I’ve been pushing my wife to enter because she’s the best cook and baker I know – and she proved it. Her entry of a sour cherry pie took home not just Best Sweet but Best Crust too! It was the first double winner in the contest’s history!

Hiding.

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

morning rays through the conifers

Pins.

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

pine needles covered in spider webs

Tough.

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

an adult ram waiting to be sheared at Harvest Fair

Prior to Saturday morning I was most comfortable with wool in the form of my favorite Ibex sweater, this was still true after Saturday but I understood the origin of that sweater a little better.

You’ll notice this adult ram is staring me down and won’t come any nearer the fence. He remembered me. I had helped unload him from the back of a pickup, responsible for holding his horns and keeping him from getting up while we moved him into a pen for a shearing demonstration at the Harvest Fair.

Radicchio.

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

radicchio or Italian chicory

I’m a big fan of radicchio, especially grilled and from our garden.

Harvest Fair!

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

shed at Johnson Farm ready for Harvest Fair

Be sure to come to the Trust for Working Landscape’s Harvest Fair this Sunday at Johnson Farm!

Fibonacci.

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

yellow bee on a yellow sunflower

A description of the mathematics of a sunflower is fascinating!

Red.

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Red hangs out on a sunflower at the farm

As I was leaving to go to the farm this morning to do some maintenance, my daughter yelled at me to wait. She ran to her room and came back with Red to “keep me company” – it’s been quite a while since I’ve travelled with an animal.

Heartland.

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

window seat view of the American Heartland

Square.

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

purple and yellow flower

I’ve started reading a new blog recently and two things really strike me: the square crop and the less-is-more attitude about equipment – here’s practicing both.

Sleeping.

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

a sleeping face statue leaning against a tree

Rising.

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

an early morning trip to the beach to seattle basking in the rising sun

Dad, daughter, sunrise with the lucky find of a low tide – taken the same morning as the sea star.

Fighting.

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

a late season flower fighting for light in the woods

Up.

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

fall leaves

Dunno.

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

mushroom growing on a downed tree in my yard

Touch.

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

an ochre sea star at low tide

Splash.

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

a splash of pink color

Rollie.

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

a moth with a handlebar antenna

Frugal.

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

fruit from our orchard two ways: juice for jelly & meat for tart

Protege.

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

sunflowers with a little help from my daughter

Symbiosis.

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

two beers sharing a flower

Sweet.

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

ruby-throated hummingbird at a backyard feeder filled with sugar water

Word.

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

mums the word

Packers.

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

yellow and green beans packed in salt

Welcome.

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Sunburst.

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

sunburst

Mountains, marmot, blueberries.

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

black and white mt olympus

Last weekend I had the good fortune to backpack the High Divide and Sol Duc River trail, enjoy an overnight at Lunch Lake and summit Bogachiel Peak for unobstructed views of Mount Olympus.

blueberries and heather

Along the trail blueberries, both low bush and high, grew everywhere and they were deliciously sweet. The high grew in the forest shade and the low in the umber heather hugging the ground. We feasted continuously on the hike, often contemplating if there had been any need to bring additional food.

Beach, whale, lavender.

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Some time had passed since our last visit to Dungeness Spit so with good weather predicted we trekked out to “where people can spit?”.

lavender fields

The Spit is located in Sequim, which has the distinction of being extremely dry (relatively speaking) year-round owing to its location within the Olympic Mountains’ rain shadow. Among Sequim’s other attractions are numerous lavender farms benefiting from the dry, sunny environment. And, we were soon to learn, some pretty cool marine wildlife.

Kayak, harbor, hawk.

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve been extremely busy lately (work, beaches, travel, geocaching, work, beaches) but I found some time on Sunday morning to partake in an activity which sadly I have not enjoyed in many years, sea kayaking. I used to kayak infrequently but I always took pleasure in a long paddle in open water, be it the Apostles Islands or the St. Croix and Namekagon National Scenic Riverway. I figured moving to an island surrounded by Puget Sound would allow many possibilities to paddle. It has, I just haven’t taken advantage.

Copying geo data from one image to another.

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

In my last post I created a panorama by stitching a number of photographs together with DoubleTake. One problem with creating synthetic images is they lack the geo data I embed in the rest of the photographs from my GPS’ track log. I figured the always excellent exiftool could accomplish copying the data so it would be visible in Lightroom but I wasn’t entirely sure how. After some trial-and-error this worked:

$ exiftool -tagsfromfile Z09023676.dng -@ geotags.txt marmotpass.tiff

where geotags.txt is a list of all the tags to copy from the source image Z09023676.dng to the destination image marmotpass.tiff:

Marmot Pass, sunrise, mountains.

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

With clear weather and field reports of wildflowers in bloom, a friend and I decided to backpack up to Marmot Pass in the Olympics and spend some time shooting photos.

marmot pass

The plan was to hike to Camp Mystery, setup camp and then hike a bit further up to Marmot Pass to catch the sunset over the Olympics. So, under bright skies and in very warm weather we started up the mountain. The first couple miles of the hike hug the Big Quilcene River as the trail winds through the deep green PNW forest.

Water, farming, dandelions.

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Water access and rights inhabit more farming conversations than just about any other topic. This weekend and last the TWL installed a new irrigation system for the orchard, p-patches, horses and farms at Johnson Farm – the water is pumped from the pond and makes it way through underground pipes. Yesterday we finished laying the pipe and backfilled the majority of the trench.

flowers in the trench

My daughter added her manpower: picking up rocks, backfilling with her very own rake and sprucing up the scar while it heals.

Robin, ants, peony.

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

There’s nothing particularly interesting about a robin. It’s probably the species of animal most overlapping my childhood in the Midwest and fatherhood in the PNW – though the ones here are much fatter than their eastern counterparts with some positively huge.

robin

There’s also nothing spectacular about this photo, in fact it’s not that great at all – but I spend a lot of time with this particular robin barking at me! It’s decided to nest in my rose arbor and is making it abundantly clear when I’m near the roses it is not happy.

Barns, broom, sky.

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

There’s a farm not too far from my house where I do a lot of volunteering and we keep a small p-patch. Near the farm there are a couple of weathered structures nestled among the scotch broom. The broom is in color now, and though it’s an invasive, I can’t help but love its bright yellow against a clear blue sky.

farm in shadows

shed in shadow

I took the previous two photos on the morning deemed hot by local standards – the originals have deeply saturated yellows and blues.

Flowers, bees, owl.

Sat, 30 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Lots of yard work today: ferns to prune, blackberries and weeds to pull, naps under the midday sun. I recall making blackberry pies in Illinois and paying $15 for the primary ingredient – here the blackberry is an invasive weed.

rhody and bee

Our rhododendrons are in spectacular form with brilliant colors and buzzing with bees.

barred owl

On the way to my yard waste pile I noticed out of the corner of my eye a slight movement. At first I thought it was a plastic bottle somehow stuck in the tree – instead it was a barred owl. I was pretty excited about it because I thought I had been hearing one in the mornings but hadn’t seen one.

Red, yard work, mushrooms.

Sun, 17 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I open the window shade, lean over to my daughter and ask if she can see the mountain, “I can Daddy!” It’s the first flight she might remember and it’s just fantastic to see her enthusiasm for “flying taller than Daddy.”

shasta and engine

I don’t actually enjoy flying, I’d rather take a train, but since I need to fly on occasion I’m making the best of it. Virgin America’s engines are an awesome red – really striking against the blues and whites in the sky.

Luke, Blaze, blossoms.

Fri, 08 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

One of the special joys of living on Bainbridge is access to farms and animals. My daughter loves animals, though she saves a particular dislike for raccoons.

She’s really into a horse phase so after dinner we take her to visit some horses.

luke and blaze

Luke and Blaze are two retired mountain horses currently spending quality time enjoying the sights, smells and sounds of Johnson Farm. On arrival, mud be damned, my daughter bursts forth from the car “Luke & Blaze, Luke & Blaze, we have carrots for you!”

Color, rhododendron, spring.

Tue, 05 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We had some concerns about the health of some of the rhododendron in the yard after this winter’s heavy snows. Fear not, color have we!

rhody and sky

color down the line

pink

looking down

blooming

I'm still here.

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Today marks the one year anniversary of I’m not here! A year ago I was returning from a trip to Israel, a year later I’m returning from a trip to California.

I’ve been requesting the window seat recently to take photos out the window.

sunset, adams, helens

Mt St. Helens in the foreground and Mt Adams in the background. I love the light on the engine.

rainier

Mt Rainier peaking through the clouds in the setting sun.

Science, butterflies, colors.

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The crocus colors paint the garden but we found the butterflies in the Tropical Butterfly House at the Pacific Science Center put on an even greater show.

With the exception of the Monarch, none of the butterflies in the room are native to Washington, the rest being imported from South and Central America from butterfly farms. They live almost their entire life in a wonderfully humid room my Pacific Northwest kid found “too hot!”

Beach, garden, greens.

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been busy, extremely busy, of late so I’m seriously behind in posting some photos. Let’s play catch-up.

So what have we been up to?

woman in background

canoes and kayaks

My daughter and I went to the beach, she played with sticks in the surf, I chased after her, we built a fort and shot photos.

Big Puppy.

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is not the Big Puppy, my daughter’s absolute favorite animal, but his backup. Big Puppy recently started showing the signs any animal would if he weighed five plus pounds and was carried everywhere, usually in a stranglehold about his neck. My wife and I decided acquiring a backup would be a prudent decision, especially considering the Huge size was no longer available in the catalogs.

big puppy peeking out

I recalled having seen a Big Puppy in the window of Magic Mouse so I went over at lunch to pick one up – I didn’t recall it being so clean and soft! The clerk asked if someone had told us to get a second – just in case – but it was entirely our idea. He told me they get someone in once a week frantically looking for a replacement “it needs to be EXACTLY the same, she’ll KNOW!”.

Gold, glow, morning.

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Good morning.

skyline

golden coast

sun and rainier

I’ve been working on cropping these photos to eliminate a lot of the overcast clouds in the sky. These are all aspect ratios of 2:1, unfortunately this is the most expensive ratio to print at Smugmug.

Crocus, buds, snow.

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

When I woke up this morning I took a double-take, “Is that snow?” Indeed it had snowed again – our flowers and budding bushes and trees endured another bout of Mother Nature’s confusing spring.

crocus in the snow

The poor crocus, so exciting days ago, buried in snow.

blueberry in the snow

The recently transplanted blueberries bore the snow well – already the sunnier surroundings appear to be paying dividends.

Crocus, witch hazel, spring.

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Crocus!

We accomplished a lot of yard work today: pruning the fruit trees, transplanting blueberries, planting early season greens under a cloche. It felt great to be working in the garden and the first crocus of the year added to the excitement.

yellow crocus

purple crocus

We have mainly yellow and purple crocus in the yard, usually growing in little clusters. Growing solo out of a small rock wall, the color of this lone purple flower really popped.

Planes, clouds, mountains.

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Some time ago I read a review about Window Seat and it stuck in my head. I was on a plane this morning and decided to try my hand.

I was fortunate to get a window (I generally choose an aisle) or this would have been a bit more difficult. Of course the wing over which I sat interfered with a clear, wide shot but the wing does help with the composition. At one point, while I was getting ready to shoot, we hit some severe turbulence which made the chop shooting the eagles feel placid. The photos aren’t geocoded, bummer – it would have been cool to set the exif altitude data. The photos also required some significant post-processing to remove the over-saturated blues.

Sunset, Sound, mountains.

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

A really cool sunset shown on Baker this evening.

baker on fire

While I was shooting some photos one of the sun deck walkers felt the same.

“Pretty cool, yeah?”

“Indeed.”

rainier

I already have hundreds of Rainier photos but I’m not tired of taking them yet.

Blue skies, sun, shell.

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I spent a day traveling to the Skagit River to view the eagles when all I really had to do was go to Fay Bainbridge – the park hosts a pair overlooking the Sound from their nest.

americana

I know they’re hard to see on the tree to the far left but I wanted this shot.

eagle soaring

One of the eagles decided to stretch their wings and soared around for a minute or two before coming back to the nest.

River, mountains, eagles.

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The Skagit River is renown for the migration of Bald Eagles who flock to the shores waiting to feast on the spawning salmon. On Thursday my uncle and I floated down the river with Blue Sky Outfitters to view and photograph the eagles.

We were getting a rather late start on the season. We learned from our guide prime viewing for the 13 mile float is late December through mid-January where river runners see upwards to 300 birds with as many as 80 perched on a well-located tree – it’s also nasty cold and grey.

Dragons, parade, no.

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

On of BI’s annual events occurred this weekend: the Bainbridge Island Chinese New Year Parade. Parades aren’t really our thing, as a kid I didn’t care for them and my daughter seems to be following right along. We had some friends coming to visit however and the parade seemed like a great place to meet and catch up.

picture taking

On the way from the car to the parade grounds my daughter needed some coaxing – she loves to take photos so out came the camera. She’s perfected holding it to her eye and pressing the shutter but her hand holding needs work.

TWL, alders, timber!

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The latest edition in the TWL work party series removed a number of alders growing on the Crawford property which, in full leaf, significantly shade the grapes on Day Road Farm – on the last farm walk I noticed while elsewhere on the farm the full sun had melted the morning frost this section of the farm still remained white late in the day.

I had never participated in the felling of trees so tall so I watched and learned, fortunately most of the volunteers have years of experience. I think the combination of tree-felling and bring-your-own-chainsaw greatly increased the usual attendance – we had enough volunteers for two separate teams of ropers, pullers and fellers.

Pioneer Square, red, apple pear.

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The handing over of animals is usually a production, with the frantic dash – “wait-wait!” – through the house by my daughter finding just the right choice for the ride.

Today was different, when I got to work and opened my bags I found Red and Apple Pear staring up at me – stow aways! We had a little chat and they sat next to me until afternoon coffee. On the way back a quick detour took us to Seattle’s famous Pioneer Square so the two friends could hang out. Look Ma, blue skies!

Sun, mountains, animal.

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

So many old friends came out today, the sun, blue skies, Mt Rainier and an animal!

I made an animotion for my daughter over the weekend and it clearly re-sparked her interest in sending animals on the “big boat”. I arrived at the boat late, making only the last loading (after the cars) therefore missing the clear shot of the Cascades without the blinding sun – it didn’t matter, I was thrilled for a sunrise!

TWL, animoto, expo.

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Since the mochi festival I’ve been honing my animoto production skills. I like the service quite a bit though there are some improvements I’d love see – an API and a better image browser top the list.

The Trust for Working Landscapes has a booth at the Healthy Living Expo this weekend so I decided to work on a animotion we could loop. Behold!

I upgraded to the DVD version for the show to run the video full-screen but I’m disappointed the images are still a bit grainy. I added the images by using animoto’s fetch-from-smugmug feature so I’m not sure if it fetched the full-size images. I’m going to try again uploading the originals directly to see if there’s an improvement.

Mochi, mallets, yum.

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

When the storms hit after Christmas the Mochi Tsuki Festival at Islandwood, courtesy the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community, was one of the casualties – fortunately it was just postponed.

We’ve never been to the long-time Island affair and we were excited, the gorgeous blue skies, perfect temperatures and outdoor venue at Islandwood certainly helped!

rice cooking over an open fire

I, for one, was unclear on the mochi making process. Like so many great foods it starts over an open fire – the firebox on the bottom, hot water in the tubs and the rice steaming in boxes over the boiling water.

Bloedel, trees, waiting.

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve been doing most of our walking lately in The Grand Forest and wanted a change of pace but still close to home. Fortunately, the Bloedel Reserve’s appointments are easy to come by in the winter on late notice so off to the Reserve went we.

First order of business accomplished, my daughter’s discovery of the perfect walking stick for each of us, we embarked.

mansion by the lake

The willow isn’t dripping in green as it does in the summer, but the orange reflecting in the water still draws the eye.

Chainsaws, logs, fire.

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve had some really powerful storms blow through the area the last couple of months and they’ve wreaked havoc on my long-term wood supply. When the power goes out (and it does) we rely on a fireplace and wood-burning stove to keep warm so it’s important to have plenty of backup – plus, the wood is one wall of the dog run.

So when a good friend of mine told me he had purchased some unprocessed logs needing to be bucked, split and stacked all of which would require a couple of days of work, more manual labor than I’m used to, chain saws and a 22 ton hydraulic splitter I naturally thought it a great idea and volunteered!

Bluff, good boy, happy birthday.

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

After weeks of snow, rain and colds we needed some outside time and turned to one of our favorite and frequent destinations, Foulweather Bluff Preserve. We haven’t been there in winter nor in stormy weather so we weren’t sure what to expect.

sand canyons

When we first arrived the sun actually threatened to make an appearance across the water and the waves were really hitting the beach, much more so than we’ve seen in our previous trips.

Night, moon, clouds.

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I’m looking for help. I need some advice for taking photos of bright winter moons. Tonight’s moon, waxing gibbous, presented the usual set of problems of being far brighter than the surrounding and we had fast moving clouds added to the mix meaning long exposures blurred any details.

moon in the trees

I took maybe 30 shots and only one is even slightly usable and it’s not very well composed with the moon being almost dead center. You can make out the moving clouds so that’s kinda cool but overall I can’t even get close to capturing what I see.

Shocking, bellflower, love.

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

In the post about the Mountaineers’ photography show I referenced two photos I really enjoyed. Jason took both and is kind enough to let me post them.

Shocking!

This one is crazy and deserving winner of Humor in the Outdoors though it sounds as scary as humorous. As I wrote yesterday, her hair is standing on end because of residual electricity from a lightning strike – yikes! Look at the top of the photo and you can see one of Mt Ellinor’s famous mountain goats. I hiked this trail with my dad hoping to see the goats but didn’t – I’m determined to photograph them.

Tulips, lines, awards.

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to all the well-wishing I walked away pretty thrilled with the outcome of the Mountaineers’ photography show. Three of my photos took awards, including the Best in Show:

Awards

tulips

Best in Show & Best Plant

flower

Honorable Mention & Best Macro

sunset and water wave

Best Sunr(ise|set)

Take-aways

First, I didn’t name any of my photos, the only photographer, I think, who did not. Throughout the evening I kept hearing “D-S-C-1-2-3-4 by Brian Zimmer” – never again.

Snowdown, saws, show.

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I haven’t been at the computer or behind the camera recently because I’ve spent the last two weekends clearing the mess left behind from the storm of the century – we had some serious snowdown.

I borrowed a chain saw from a friend yesterday but I’m so in love with my Bahco hand saw (and afraid of most gasoline-powered tools) I ended up felling and bucking the trees by hand – it’s more work but certainly more rewarding and carbon free. Some trees I pushed back to standing so if the ground dries out they stand a chance otherwise I’ll continue to add to the wood pile.

Melt, limbs, bombs away.

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

And the snow melts and the winter rains return. Compare the angle of the limbs of the big trees in this photo with the first photo in the previous post (or mouse-over this photo) – these trees can shoulder a heavy load, until of course they fail and try breaking one of my benches.

When we bought our house our realtor said the sellers wished to leave a number of benches if we agreed, to which we did, visions of Smith & Hawken beauty decorating our yard. What we found instead were a random assortment of benches in various stages of decay and, oddly, some 50’s diner chairs. We then did what any good landowners would do, we hid them in the woods and forgot about them.

Snow, ski, lake.

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

snow in the yard

As a kid, I fancied myself an Olympic caliber cross-country skier – I wasn’t, but I fancied it anyway. I would sneak out of the house during snow storms to ski at the nearby golf course while pretending I was Josh Thompson, America’s biathlon hero.

For various reasons, not the least of which named “Chicago,” I haven’t skied much over the years. Since moving here I’ve been longing to get some skiing in and today longing became reality.

Farms, walk, snow.

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I returned to the Day Road farms last Sunday for my first Farm Walk.

The walk, 2.2 miles in total, covered a number of different properties under various stages of development, from actively being farmed to actively being reclaimed by the forest.

tower and vines

We started at the farm stand and made our first stop at the historic water tower recently moved from Winslow.

Python thread dumps.

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

For some time I’ve wanted the equivalent of Java’s ability to dump the stack trace of all currently running threads in Python as a means for debugging some hung processes. I finally found a solution and wired it up to the services’ http console:

import sys
import traceback
from pygments import highlight
from pygments.lexers import PythonLexer
from pygments.formatters import HtmlFormatter

def stacktraces():
    code = []
    for threadId, stack in sys._current_frames().items():
        code.append("\n# ThreadID: %s" % threadId)
        for filename, lineno, name, line in traceback.extract_stack(stack):
            code.append('File: "%s", line %d, in %s' % (filename, lineno, name))
            if line:
                code.append("  %s" % (line.strip()))

    return highlight("\n".join(code), PythonLexer(), HtmlFormatter(
      full=False,
      # style="native",
      noclasses=True))

The magic happens with sys._current_frames() which returns exactly what I wanted. The only outstanding issue is how to get the thread’s name to display in addition to the ident.

Invasives, chipper, farm work.

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Throughout high school I worked for the city in the landscape crew fixing front lawns ruined by snow plows or sewer renovations. One of the primary, and more memorable, experiences from that job was walking the streets behind a chipper and loading all the residents’ brush through rotating drums ready to suck in your arm as easily as the maple branches ripping at your legs – it was stressful and exhausting.

Snow, trees, sky.

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We finally received our promised snow.

snow, trees, sky

It was a perfect day in my book: a roaring fire all day at home, snowmen in the yard with my daughter in the morning and a farm walk with TWL in the afternoon – more to come on an active TWL weekend.

Moon, weather, winter.

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I took these photos a day early because the weather forecasts called for cloudy skies this evening and I wanted to capture the largest full moon of the year.

full moon

I had some difficulty with exposures because the moon was so bright that it blew out any of the trees or surrounding scenery.

moon streak

I thought I’d play a bit and set the camera for a ten-second exposure and then slowly panned the tripod head – I’m not sure what to make of this, perhaps we’ll call it “art”.

Sunset, bird, moon.

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We love the sunset and have been seeing plenty of really striking ones recently. Yesterday we viewed the show at Fort Ward State Park and while the sky was decent I think the next set of photos work because of the bird flying through the frame – scroll quickly to make it all movie-like.

sunset

sunset and bird

bird

sunset and bird

We have some beautiful farmland on the island and enjoy walking it off-season – today we went to Johnson Farm, home of the Harvest Fair.

Sunset, sunrise, mountains.

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve been experiencing crisp, clear days and nights coupled with stunning sunrises and sunsets – it’s been so clear Mt Baker has been visible the last couple of days.

This evening’s sunset faded through the blues, magentas and yellows finishing with a blood red mushroom cloud – unfortunately I had only the iPhone and the photo didn’t come out so your imagination will have to suffice.

sunrise

Sunrise over the Cascades.

Farm, tree, rust.

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

With Thanksgiving over we’re on to the next adventure in the holiday calendar – the Christmas tree. We cut down a tree from Bainbridge Island Farms last year and it survived until May as green as the day we brought it home! So, under heavy fog, we once again made a trip to the farm to find the perfect tree.

trees in fog

I tried convincing my daughter we needed one of these but she informed me it wouldn’t fit in the house – she’s right.

Pink, yellow, white.

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A peaceful lazy day with no agenda and, amazingly, some free-time allowed one of my favorite photographic indulgences: walking my yard hunting for mushrooms. I find the varieties of mushrooms simply amazing and love to lay stomach-to-the-ground taking their photo.

pink mushroom

They really are pink – found growing under some cedars.

lace-like

I like the lace around the cap.

Morning, noon, dusk.

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The Mountain: morning, noon, dusk. Happy Thanksgiving!

mt rainier sunrise

mt rainier midday

mt rainier evening

Sunset, orange, fire.

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We saw quite a show on the ride home tonight – even the iPhone gives a sense for the colors and what looked like a sky on fire.

sunset

Market, bird, beach.

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We always enjoy our time in Port Townsend and so we decided to spend another perfect Saturday in November in our “Madison of the Pacific Northwest”.

cabbage

radish

carrots

potatoes

We serendipitously found our way uptown to the Farmers’ Market, busy hosting their season finale, where we danced to bluegrass, ate cookies and purchased perfect vegetables from Nash’s (the cabbage!), hard cider from Eaglemount Winery and delicious whole-wheat hearth bread from Pane D’Amore.

Sunrise, ferry, crossing.

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been wondering if the actual ferry path resembled that on Google Maps so I tracked it today.

sunrise over Eagle Harbor

Answered (at least on this morning’s sailing) – I love these maps. Sunrise – Seattle on the left, sun on the right.

Maps, geo, mashup.

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I haven’t been drooling over maps as long as others I know, but I do enjoy them. Since a picture is worth a thousand words I wanted a way to put our travels on the map. I think geo-mashup is just the solution.

So from now on I’ll be geocoding our travels (and back-coding those already posted). To view a post with a map entry, follow the link to the right of the date in the post header (this post is geocoded) and/or go to the new Wandering page to see those posts already geocoded and on the map.

Scenic Beach, water, mountains.

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

On Sunday, off-island ventured the budding naturalists – with dreams of sticks, water, mountains, birds and fun – to Scenic Beach State Park.

picnic

The afternoon started with a great picnic and views of the Olympics – the clouds and fog added an early eery feel.

kayakers

We were soon greeted by some kayakers with whom my daughter engaged in a waving and “Hi!” competition while we finished eating.

Blue, green, red, yellow, pink.

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We had some fantastic weather today and I had a couple hours in the afternoon with nothing to do so I strolled around the yard making photos.

blue skies and trees

Evidence of the blue skies in Seattle in November.

moss and stone

Moss and stone.

weigela and bug

I’m really enthralled with the weigela leaves as they turn. The pale green and yellow rimmed in red coupled with the wavy forms work for me. Hello little bug.

Salumi, Tower, Pig.

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve not yet exhausted the great stuffed animal collection but we’re mixing it up today anyway. My daughter has a small collection of farm and safari Anamalz so today we decided I would indoctrinate this menagerie in the commuting-on-the-“big boat” brigade.

pig on railing

So, one and all, welcome Pig. It was a beautiful clear sky today starting with a decent sunrise.

salumi window

I found it fitting to take Pig to Salumi – he was never harmed.

Phrase, nearest book, meme.

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Via Agile Testing:

Grab the nearest book.
Open it to page 56.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Here’s mine, from Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West, discussing the Evening Primrose:

Fruits are presented as four-celled capsules.

Sentence four had a lot more to say, oh well.

Submarine, pineapple express, Polar Bear.

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Polar Bear was chosen as today’s ambassador for the great stuffed animal collection. While we’ve been experiencing some really heavy rains recently courtesy of a Pineapple Express today wasn’t so bad. I’m a bit of foul weather junkie so this weather suits me for the most part.

polar bear in seattle

I had two different people smile while I was propping up Polar Bear, one asking if I was a member of the Polar Bear Club (I’m not) and the other offered that she “won’t even ask”.

Mallards, white, blue.

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My daughter loves to toss leaves into water, ducks love to storm to thrown food, perfect.

ducks, leaves, seattle

The posse circles waiting for food.

male eating leaves

action

juvenile

Action!

I noticed not all the what-I-believed-to-be-Mallards were of identical coloring, some having white bibs and no white band around the neck. I consulted Cornell:

Sick, ships, skies.

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I, like Papa Bear, rarely get sick, but this week is the exception to the rule – I only went into the office twice and with no animals.

container ship

I’ve mentioned the giant container ships before but had no photo. This one crossed right in front of us as we waited to depart Seattle.

shipyard

The ship was bound for the shipyard alight under the dark, grey skies.

Slow, rain, broken.

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

“Gus wants to go on the ‘big boat’. He hasn’t been in a long time.” And so Gus spent a slow, rainy, start-of-winter day with me. I like Gus and I wanted him to have a good time but nothing much exciting happened. Sorry buddy.

gus in the rain

Gus waits patiently just out of the rain.

walking off the boat

About the only interesting event was the overhead walkway on the Island side failed so all the passengers (bikes, cars, motorcycles, walk-ons) departed via the car deck. Not exciting, but different.

Fall, color, leaves.

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My addition to fall color photography.

trees going up, up, up

The Grand Forest – we are the Evergreen State after all.

red

Blueberry.

red and blue

Maple.

lace leaf maple

Lace leaf maple.

bright red maple

Japanese maple.

TWL, Board, me.

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The amount of time spent volunteering has been one of the great changes in our lives since moving. For me, it’s usually either maintaining the forest trails or helping with farm work on behalf of the Trust for Working Landscapes.

For the TWL I’ve recently participated in a couple of different parties:

day road irrigation project

Day Road irrigation,

greenhouses

deconstructing the greenhouses

Summit, sunset, Pierre.

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My silence of late is attributable to having spent the better part of last week at eBay attending the Next-Generation Distributed Systems Summit. I was fortunate, in time and invitation, to attend, meet some really amazing technologists and learn a Tremendous amount (thanks Little Bear). I’m still consolidating my final notes and thoughts on the Summit so expect another post soon.

In the interim, enjoy some sunset photos from my travels with Pierre.

Halloween, pumpkins, gingerbread boy.

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Bainbridge Island loves Halloween.

happy halloween

Bainbridge Gardens’ annual Pumpkin Walk attracted its usual horde of revelers enjoying the pumpkins lit throughout the woods.

pumpkins, trees, sky

A couple of weekends ago we picked our own pumpkins at the Suyematsu Farms – an event quickly becoming one of our family’s favorite holiday traditions. I spend a lot of time on the farm volunteering in part to take in the views – grapes, trees, vegetables, mountains.

Sunset, trauma, pig.

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

When it rains, it pours – literally and figuratively. I left the house today in a pretty steady rain, managed to get about a mile from home and then stopped. My rear tire, fine on Friday and over the weekend, went flat! After a quick cyclocross run home, Pig and I made the next boat. Ugh.

pig waiting in the morning

Pig and I never made it out of the office today, sorry Pig, you get a raincheck.

Water, marsh, Foulweather Bluff Preserve.

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

In need of some sun, sky and water, we traveled to one of our favorite places off Island – Foulweather Bluff Preserve.

moon and madrone trees

The grove of Madrones hanging over the bluff are losing their summer green.

water and sky

The highlight for us is the beach, 3800 feet of prime digging-a-hole-with-a-stick public access. We’ve been twice, neither time did the weather allude to the naming, but an ID-wearing member of The Nature Conservancy told us to check back in the winter for storms and migrating birds.

Cycling, puncture, hippo.

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today was rough – I punctured – I will never forgive the hippo.

I don’t puncture; I’m the envy of my cycling friends. It’s not that I don’t ride either, in a good year I routinely put in a couple thousand miles and knock out a half-dozen centuries.

climbing alpe d'huez

I can even climb Alpe d’Huez faster than Cheryl Crow (64 minutes; I’m in yellow).

Sunrise, Mickey, Minnie, PII.

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes an animal journeys with me with whom I have less history, today was one of those days. The reason in this particular case stems from a PII incident which I can’t divulge. Nonetheless, we still ventured out.

t overlooking eagle harbor

I’ve seen this a couple times now, the low-hanging, dark clouds with the brilliant red sunrise peeking through.

Albums, predicates, SmugMug, pysmug v0.5.

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I have a lot of SmugMug albums and sometimes I have a hard time tracking down in which Category and SubCategory one resides or whether I’ve updated all the albums to use square thumbnails – thus was born smugfind.

I just released version 0.5 of pysmug which includes smugfind and some minor bug fixes. It’s available here for download or through hg (courtesy freehg):

$ hg clone -r v0.5 http://freehg.org/u/bzimmer/pysmug/

To show help:

$ smugfind -h
Usage: smugfind [options]

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -s, --sharegroups     display sharegroup
  -f FIELDS, --fields=FIELDS
                        list of fields to display for each entity
  -l, --list            available list of fields to display
  -p PREDICATE, --predicate=PREDICATE
                        predicate to evaluate

To see all the possible metadata fields:

Sunrise, house, truck, tugboat.

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

No bike, no animals.

ferry coming into dock

house on truck with tugboat

I haven’t been commuting for too long so I’ve not yet seen everything, and I surely had never seen this before: a full house on a truck on a barge pushed by a tugboat!

Boats, trains, ark, sheep.

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I look to my left at a fellow cyclist stretching along the railing as I pull the sheep from my bag and secure them for the shot.

“Ok,” he says, smiling and walking toward me, “what are you doing?”

“Everyday my daughter gives me some animals to take on the boat. I’ve been all over the city for the last couple of weeks taking photos, it’s our little game.”

“That’s cool,” he says, laughing. “How old is she?”

Mushrooms, Bloedel, fungar.

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We enjoyed our last trip to the Bloedel Reserve enough to become members and membership has its privileges – an annual mushroom walk.

wide view of the meadow

I love the meadow.

First, our guide, Andy, was outstanding – extraordinarily knowledgeable with fantastic stories of growing up on BI, hunting for mushrooms and fungar: knowing where to look for mushrooms.

Sunrise, falafel, turtle, bunny.

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The animals arrive pre-packaged now, nestled in their stuff sack, so I wasn’t exactly sure who made the trip this morning.

sunrise

Puget Sound, sunrise, skyline, ferry – I’ve yet to grow tired of the view though my fellow BIGeeks assure me I might.

waiting to depart

ferry through the sides

Say “hi” to Honey Bunny and Turtle as they await the departure of the boat; through the railing you can see a passing ferry on its way to Bremerton.

Sunrise, lounging, polar bear.

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

“There’s the polar bear. The polar bear is on the big boat. The polar bear is eating.”

Every night when I bring the photos home from the day’s adventure, my daughter, wife and I lay on our bellies while my daughter flips through the photos offering her own play-by-play.

sunrise

seattle skyline

polar bar on side of boat

Damn we have some fine sunrises.

Sun, water, old buildings, goat.

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Billy the Goat, fittingly (let’s see: the Badgers lost twice in a row with leads in the fourth quarter and the Cubs and White Sox got bounced from the playoffs (go Red Sox!)), traveled today on the big boat.

morning sun

After yesterday’s driving rain, the blazing sun this morning was quite enjoyable.

goat in eagle harbor

Billy doesn’t weigh much, so because of the wind I had to string his little arms into the railing to get the shot of the sailboats bouncing in Eagle Harbor.

Zebras, football, espresso.

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I was pretty excited today when my daughter presented both ZoZo and Amélie for a trip on the big boat. I’m pretty fond of the letter Z and zebras, less so the animal and more so the football official, my dad having officiated football throughout most of my childhood and the memories I have thereof. I knew just where I was going.

qwest field

The zebras outside Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks – notice the football pig in the background, a Rachel likeness.

Horse, flowers, colors.

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We met some friends, old and new, for breakfast at Farm Kitchen Saturday morning. After much conversation, we strolled around the farm so our daughter could run among the flowers, the nearest adult’s hand in hers.

horse with a blue eye

dying orange flowers

bee on pink flower

Flowers, their season waning, still burst with color – even the horse got into the colorful mix.

Water, books, Miriam.

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My daughter took no chances on forgetting this morning, booking down the hallway before I even opened the door to the garage. So while Gus & Balsmic, Bernard, Baby Ralph, Curious George and Pierre stayed at home I was joined by Miriam, my wife’s favorite of the animals.

grey skies

Where to go in this edition of take-your-daughter’s-animal-to-work day? Well, with the start of a new “water year” (and thick cloud cover) as harbinger of winter, my thoughts turned to books and reading. Did you know Seattle is one of the most literate cities in the US?

Morning, sun, commute.

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Sadly no animal shared the morning commute with me today. At dinner, it occurred to my daughter she had forgotten to send an animal and explained she could not provide one at that moment because she was “not wearing pajamas” – tomorrow perhaps.

I was able to take some photos on the way into work. I struggled with the bright sun blowing out the sky in some of the photos – well, and the fact my heart rate needed controlling to take anything close to steady.

Sun, play, horsey-back rides, Harvest Fair.

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

On a perfect September day under glorious blue skies – what a change from last year’s heavy rains – we enjoyed the Trust for Working Landscapes’ biggest annual event: Harvest Fair. The Fair, replete with fun & food, is many a family’s favorite Island event, perfect Americana in my book.

people milling about

pie contest

Slides, swing, fun

Slides & swings kept the kids entertained.

Bikes, pigs, Pierre.

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Of all my daughter’s animals, I’m most fond of Pierre. He’s quiet, cute and small enough to fit in my backpack, important because I opted to ride my road bike today on what might be one of the last warm, dry days of the year. Because I had limited space, this was the first time I interfered with my daughter’s wishes, choosing not to take Gus – maybe tomorrow buddy.

Espresso, mountains, skyline, monkey.

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

No animals were harmed in the making of this Art – but it was close.

Ironically, my daughter offered some advice this morning she had never before proffered: “Daddy, be safe on the big boat!”

Down the driveway and up to the road I pedaled with Curious George tucked safely away to cheers of “Bye, bye Curious George!” He spent most of the day in my bag but his opportunity for further fame arrived on my daily walk for an afternoon espresso at my favorite local coffeehouse, Zeitgeist.

Spiders, webs, help.

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My daughter and I photographed more spiders spinning their webs this morning. When the sunlight hits the yard just right concentric forms glisten and shimmer just about everywhere the eye lands.

I love my daughter’s company as we wander the yard in search of photographs. She often chooses the subject and position: “Daddy, what about this tree?” Today she wanted to “help” with the tripod – and I couldn’t convince her otherwise.

Baby, Ralph's, turn.

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Today Baby Ralph traveled on the big boat to be photographed from our office’s rooftop deck.

baby ralph

Baby Ralph is so named because of his resemblance to the other Ralph.

ralph

I find these photos amusing – if you don’t, my apologies. I’ll move on eventually.

One, more, animal.

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

“Daddy, daddy, wait!” Away runs my daughter to arrive seconds later with yet another animal, Bernard.

bernard

I haven’t been cycling with my regular camera (these have all been iPhone shots) but I’d better start. The skies this week have been incredible shades of blue, orange and pink. Sometimes Rainier and its flanks are glowing and I spend the entire ride enjoying the majesty surrounding where I live: mountains, trees, water, boats, harbors, skyline – it’s beautiful.

Animals, boats, ideas.

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My daughter greeted me twice last week as I was readying to leave on my bike with an “idea”. “Daddy, wait” she said as she ran back into the house, appearing moments later with one of her animals. She wanted them to experience the joy of the morning commute on the “big boat” – into the Ortliebs each went.

gus

balsamic

I think Gus got the better deal of the two, enjoying the sunrise over Seattle, while Balsamic suffered through watching me work at my desk.

Laptops, Time Machines, File Vaults, oh my.

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I travel with a laptop everyday: to and from work, to coffee shops or to friends’ houses. While I use new, randomly generated passwords (courtesy apg) my home directory had not the same level of security.

That’s changed. Both my sister-in-law and a colleague had their laptops stolen recently and so encountered all the usual headaches and fears about personal and corporate information in the hands of nefarious individuals.

Wanting to quell any such concerns of my own I completely re-worked my security and backup strategies.

Spiders, mushrooms, Harvest Fair, fall.

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A face-full of spider webs as I hunt for a carpet of mushrooms confirms fall’s arrival.

forest floor of mushrooms

This banded spider, weaving away on a rhododendron, was kind enough to pose for photos.

banded garden spider

running away

On Saturday I volunteered with the TWL in preparation for the Harvest Fair. Bart and I moved about five truck loads of brush from one side of the farm to another – Bart on the tractor, I loading with the pitchfork. In the process we unearthed at least half-a-dozen mice, a baby frog and a newt – the eyes of a newt must have been the influence for Gollum’s. I really found the eyes mesmerizing – it’s no wonder so many magic potions call for their inclusion, they are other-wordly.

Been there -- a distributed ExecutorService.

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I happened to run across a new open-source project today I had not previously heard about: Hazelcast.

What really piqued my interest was the implementation of a distributed ExecutorService as I wrote something of similar functionality to façade Orbitz’s Jini infrastructure. The design and implementation solved a couple primary objectives:

add timeouts to Jini which is unfortunately lacking such a feature
bound the number of concurrent requests being processed
bound the number of threads created for request processing

The design was elegant, imo, because the exact same code worked either client or service-side – it just mattered which way you twisted your head – and masked the complexities of both Jini and the ExecutorService. The timeouts were managed via the Future and the throttling of requests and threads by configuring the backing Queue and pool size. Spring wiring entirely hid the remote invocation machinery from the caller. In almost every case there were no code changes and the timeout and throttling features could be turned on and tuned entirely through a configuration change.

Plums, berries, frog, garden.

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Just a quiet day in perfect weather doing yard work: mowing the lawn, transplanting day lilies and checking on the garden.

Ripe, purple plums needed picking so out came the ladder and in the box went the plums. Last year’s harvest still needs bottling – this year’s will enjoy the same destiny.

plum

A few tayberries were ripe so I was picking and eating – some came with bugs. I wish I still had the macro lens.

Amit Singh, questions, answers, Xcoders.

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I had the good fortune to attend a talk given by Amit Singh at the Seattle Xcoders meeting held in the Google offices in Fremont.

Amit is the author of Mac OS X Internals, a book eclipsing the 1600 page mark (according to Amazon) making it one of the longest technical books I’ve ever seen. He spent some talking about his experience writing:

no editors checked on him because most technical authors give up
eight to nine chapters were cut from the already monstrous book
he claims to not be an author and has no interest in writing another book
he spent months at a time writing most of which he found all-consuming

I didn’t find much value in the technical content of the talk (not because of Amit but because I’m rarely in a position to need details at this level of the OS and I do have some Mach background from NeXT days) but the feedback on authorship was worth attending to confirm what I already suspected. I’ve been approached about book writing before but have balked because of the time commitment and lack of financial reward – I find writing technical articles and blog posts time consuming enough.

Greenhouses, up and down.

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Under perfect blue skies and warm temperatures, I volunteered a couple of hours labor on Saturday to help the Trust for Working Landscapes and a local farmer deconstruct two large greenhouses for relocation on another farm.

start

When I arrived the crew was re-attaching the frame supports in order to give the structure enough stability to be taken apart.

full rib

The basic idea was to get on the tall ladders, detach the cross beams from rib-to-rib and then pull the sides apart. Working on a ladder 15+ feet high, my known incompetence with all things construction and the general limited knowledge of how to bring the structure down safely made the first couple of minutes a bit, um, nerve-wracking (at least for me).

Please no shooting.

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

For the Labor Day weekend, some friends invited us to their cabin in Packwood and we happily accepted. We drove from BI to Rainier via the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge, our first crossing of the infamous structure (it was considerably cheaper and faster to go this route – $28 for the ferry, $4 for the bridge). We arrived around midday on Saturday, ate some lunch with the kids and drove up to Sunrise.

sunrise

On the way we passed through the town of Packwood for the first time and witnessed their biannual flea market. The flea market is a loosely structured affair whereby vendors negotiate with local businesses directly to rent space to sell their wares. It had the distinct feeling of being a hillbilly convention – we loved it.

Mushrooms, mushrooms, mushrooms.

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

While clearing the undergrowth in a small section of the woods on my property a very brightly yellow colored mushroom stem caught my eye. I didn’t recall having seen this mushroom before so I went inside, grabbed the camera and took some photos (sorry about the flash).

Since one mushroom in my yard usually means many more are hiding I started poking around the usual spots and uncovered some more including one with a very bright white cap which was visually striking against the dark, decaying wood. It’s either my first Black-eyed Parasol (Lepiota atrodisca) or a Leucocoprinus brebissonii – please don’t trust my identifications.

Blackberries, apples, garden.

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I love foodie weekends and in my book that means farmers’ markets, harvesting vegetables from the garden and most enjoyable of all foraging for free food.

As the end of summer approaches – if you can call the last three months summer – it’s blackberry picking time. I ventured out midday on the commuter to pick enough for a jar of blackberry jelly.

on the bramble

The berries need another week or more but I snagged myself long enough on the vines to fill two yoghurt containers and safely packed them away in the Ortliebs.

A bike, a ferry, a commute.

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Five or so years ago my wife said “We should move to Bainbridge Island.” I responded “there’s no way in hell I’m commuting by boat”. Well, times change and a ferry ride is now part of my daily commute to work and back.

It’s only been a short while but I love riding to and fro and enjoy my quiet time on the boat. The first couple of weeks my wife drove and picked me up, then I rode to the ferry and locked my bike up on the island side. Now I’m a full-fledged, Ortlieb toting cycling commuter and I’m enjoying every minute of it, rain and all.

Scalability Worst Practices

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My article on Scalability Worst Practices was published yesterday. Thanks to Monika and Matt for their help.

Stars, meteors and an early morning.

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Very early on Tuesday morning I quietly left the house and set up the tripod facing to the stars in hopes of viewing the Perseids.

A bit of a running joke with a friend of mine, I have historically been unable to see shooting stars for some reason unknown to me. I’m happy to report this finally changed. While I have no photos of the event I’ll forever remember the moment and the child-like excitement it created.

Fences, a yellow shore crab and a beach.

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Hours and hours of yard work have kept us close to home this weekend and last but I wanted to get in a short hike, no matter how short. At my reading group I was told about a beach access trail I hadn’t traveled so my daughter and I set out on Saturday morning to check it out.

The trail starts down Skinner Road just west of Battle Point Park. There’s no parking along the road so if you’re driving park at Battle Point. Walk along Skinner Road until you can just see the fences in the distance.

Blueberries, hydrangea and vegetables.

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A quick garden update. We have a large grove of hydrangea starting to flower but the small buds really catch my eye.

purple hydrangea

blue hydrangea

The blueberries are blue and sweet, the cabbage are green and just-about-ready for dinner and the squash are flowering and, um, green and yellow. We picked a yogurt container of Cupidon beans and snap peas this evening – dinner tomorrow.

Boats + planes = Seafair.

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve watched many a Chicago Air and Water Show and Friday enjoyed my first Seafair from a boat on Lake Washington.

Jockeying for the best position seems to be as much of the experience as the show with the likes of steamboats, cruise boats and powerboats forcing each other around – then the show begins.

steamship

boats

To the cheers of the crowd, the Blue Angels fly over in formation.

Bloedel Reserve, summer and biddies.

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Somewhat surprisingly the budding naturalists had yet to visit the Bloedel Reserve – so visiting we went.

We were greeted with a gorgeous meadow.

meadow

A walk past the bird refuge and through the woods opens to an impressive pond in front of the visitor center, originally the Bloedel residence.

weeping willow

Bloedel residence

The views from the back yard are stunning. We saw an adult Bald Eagle perched on a tree and moments later a juvenile flew from nest to perch.

Cheers.

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

After nearly six years at Orbitz, and a lifetime of memories, I have decided to move on – my last day will be this Friday July 18th. I’d like to thank everyone for a good run and will be offering a toast of beer and tayberries Friday afternoon from my backyard. Enjoy and best wishes!

Through the generosity of some great friends at Orbitz we toasted beer and bourbon – here’s to you!

Color in the garden.

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Out and about in the garden and what to my wondering eyes should appear …

I found this flower growing near the garden – I think its form and colors are striking. What is it?

thimbleberry

Another new garden find and now a solid member on my list of favorite berries: thimbleberry.

Heather Park Trail, an enchanted forest and views.

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Series: Sunset > Sunrise > Heather Park

After an early morning of shooting the sunrise I wanted to get up into the mountains and chose the Heather Park Trail as my access point because I needed something near the campsite and so I could get up, down and home for dinner.

trail through the forest

The trail starts through the typical NW forest though this one was both younger and lacking the undergrowth typical of the woods with which I’m most familiar.

Sunrise, flowers and the Olympic Mountains.

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Series: Sunset > Sunrise > Heather Park

We patiently await the arrival of the sun to summit Mt Baker.

Mt Baker with the sun minutes from cresting its flanks.

Early morning light rolling through the Olympic Mountains.

I think this is perhaps my favorite photo of the set for the lighting and the concerns of the grouse as it contemplates another day – and also because I shot this from the driver’s seat.

Sunset, flowers and the Olympic Mountains.

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Series: Sunset > Sunrise > Heather Park

This will be the first in a short series of posts displaying some of the photos I took on a recent camping and hiking overnight to Olympic National Park. I went with a loose group of Mountaineers to capture the abundant wildflowers in bloom and marvel at the sun’s dramatic visual displays on the mountains.

The first evening we headed up to Hurricane Ridge and Hurricane Hill to shoot the sunset. The sun was really bright and strong in the early evening as the first couple of photos easily demonstrate but gradually gave way to pink and orange.

A bug, a flower, a lens.

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’m renting a Nikon 105mm f/2.8 for the week and took some photos this evening as a trial run. So far I’m mixed on the lens, mainly because to own one would cost significantly more than I’m willing to spend for such a single purpose – albeit enjoyable – lens.

insect on tayberry

day lily

July, July!

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

there is a road that meets the road

that goes to my house

and how the green grows there

– Decemberists

strawberry

Our nation’s independence celebration appears to harken the arrival of strawberries and raspberries and this year was no exception. The first couple of tayberries are also showing color and the blueberries’ luxuriant green should be giving way to deep blue shortly. We love this time of year.

Color, color everywhere ...

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

courtesy the flowers of summer.

pink peonies

peonies

peony

geraniums

yellow

bee on pink flower

Sandbox, failures and success.

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My father-in-law can build a house from scratch – I cannot. I can code, photograph and grow my own food but anything resembling construction, be it from wood or Legos, pushes me into uncomfortable territory. Possessing the skill to build a house, and one that will remain standing, is just damn impressive to me. I once built a table which didn’t stand so well; Chuck and I burned it the following New Year’s lacking firewood. I have a rich history of failed woodworking attempts.

orbitz, open source and me

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Some friends at work were recently interviewed by Matt Asay on the release of our monitoring software, ERMA, as open source – an unconventional move for corporate America.

We have a long and quiet relationship with open source at Orbitz. In the article Matt O’Keefe was kind enough to throw a compliment my way:

We have a history of contributing to other open-source projects. Brian Zimmer and others on the team have been very active in open-source projects.

Locks, food and flowers.

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Sunday, another gloomy day this spring/summer, found us in Seattle checking out the Hiram M. Chittenden (Ballard) locks and the neighboring Carl S. English, Jr botanic gardens.

locks

salmon ladder

baby seal

The docks were originally built so coal and timber could be easily transported by boat but today salmon, seals and pleasure boating dominate the landscape.

Horses, guns and loud noises.

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

In a departure from our usual naturalizing, I persuaded the family to attend the Battle of Port Gamble, a Civil War reenactment in Port Gamble, an event type we had never before attended.

equestrian parade

It started innocently enough with an Equestrian Parade over the battle field.

Then the problems started. I should have realized the guns would be loud, but they were LOUD – the canons literally shook the earth when they fired, startling my daughter to tears. My wife and daughter departed for an ice cream cone while I stayed behind to shoot some photos. I was not alone; I had no idea these events attracted such a large contingent of expensive camera gear.

Dungeness Spit.

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The would-be naturalists chose Dungeness Spit as this year’s Father’s Day destination. Some research on the web unearthed The 3 Crabs as a highly recommended crab shack right on the Sound with birding on the adjacent beach. Lunch plans decided, we packed the car and drove up to Dungeness.

We arrived at The 3 Crabs a bit early, lunch not served until 11:30am, so we tried to do some birding while we waited – the Sound did not cooperate.

Google Seattle Conference on Scalability -- 2008 Edition.

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Overview

I was really looking forward to this conference based on my experience last year, with the likes of Jeff Dean and Marissa Mayer presenting. When I saw the original agenda for Saturday I was excited to see they expanded the number of talks at the expense of having to make a decision about which presentation to attend, a task at which I often feel I failed.

When I arrived, late, I was surprised to see they decided to change the format and rather than have two tracks for each session, the presentations were shorten so everyone could attend every talk. I’m not sure how much notice the presenters were given of this decision because a number had presentations well exceeding the diminished time frame. As a conference presenter myself, I know that a well re-hearsed presentation can be difficult to amend on the fly.

pysmug, tag clouds, asynch IO and the SmugMug API.

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A question was asked on a dgrin thread about whether the SmugMug API supported building a tag cloud – it doesn’t. A responder suggested it would take far too long to generate one from the API since you’d have to trawl through every photo. This is indeed true, but you don’t have to do it serially. I consider the batchable interface for pysmug to be it’s selling point and building a tag cloud is the perfect demonstration.

Theler Wetlands.

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Sunday found yet another day blanketed under clouds but the budding naturalists ventured to the Theler Wetlands despite the gloomy weather. The wetlands promised some outstanding birding, a chance for our daughter to run around and some photo opportunities for me among its 75 acres of trails and wildlife.

On the way we stopped in Poulsbo for coffee because we were out of beans. Though we’ve driven through Poulsbo numerous times we’ve never before stopped at Sluys Poulsbo Bakery – what an oversight. We eat doughnuts maybe once a year, and Sunday was that day, as the chocolate glazed drew us in. This meant our daughter experienced her first doughnut and promptly did a doughnut dance. Priceless!

Low tides, geoducks and sea anemone.

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We went back today to the beach, no rain, more people. Nonetheless, we saw more creatures and captured the geoducks spouting forth on film.

Geoducks squirting and spitting water.

Starfish and sea anemone hanging out.

A crab on his journey to the sea.

Low tides, starfish and nudibranch.

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Growing up in the Midwest my experience with big bodies of water is mainly with the Great Lakes; the continual change in the tides of Puget Sound being one of the many differences from our former environment. This week we’re fortunate enough to experience the lowest tides in 50 years according to some reports, exposing sea-life usually covered in several feet of water.

Today at lunch we went to Rockaway Beach to check out the activity in a pretty constant rain which must have kept everyone else indoors since we had the beach to ourselves save the starfish, nudibranches, gulls and a heron. With the tide out I now fully understand how the beach got it’s name.

Birds, flowers and ants.

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Birds

We accepted IslandWood’s invitation today for a bird walk, our first foray into proper birding with a guide, binoculars, book and camera. Actually arriving on-time for the 8 am start was accomplishment enough; had we not seen a bird at least the get-everyone-ready time trial resulted in victory.

Since it was pretty overcast and the Saturday walk saw few birds Mark, our guide, would instead focus on calls. As we walked through the woods he would call name after name of birds, which pretty quickly became a mess in my head. I could either remember the name of the bird or the call, but not both.

Thistles, tulips and oyster mushrooms.

Fri, 30 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Our land – one of the primary reasons we moved – slowly creeps towards summer.

I love these purple thistles.

The tulips are almost spent but still showing off.

I found this while fixing the electric fence. I’m pretty sure it’s an oyster mushroom but I’m verboten from sampling.

QCon 2007 interview.

Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The video and transcript of an interview I gave at QCon 2007 are now available.

This was my first time giving a recorded interview and I’m finding it very weird to watch myself talk.

Honey bees.

Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

There’s been a lot of talk about the demise of the honey bee, but we’re fortunate to have a swarming yard.

I wanted to give an old lens (Tamron 28-200 f/3.8-5.6) a try on the D40 and I was mostly happy with the results. It’s not an AF-S and as such doesn’t auto-focus so it took some getting used to manually focusing – bees are not forgiving.

Bald Eagle weekend.

Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We had the good fortune this weekend to see a number of birds of prey, including quite a few Bald Eagle sightings. There is something inspiring about seeing a Bald Eagle launch from its perch and soar over-head.

pysmug on Python2.6a3.

Fri, 16 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I decided tonight was the night to try Python2.6a3 on my macbook pro with a goal of getting pysmug to run on it.

After downloading and doing the typical configure && make dance I saw this:

Failed to find the necessary bits to build these modules:
bsddb185          gdbm              linuxaudiodev
ossaudiodev       readline          spwd
sunaudiodev

Apparently setup.py won’t build the readline module with the stock readline library on my mac. I already installed libreadline from MacPorts so I applied the following patch:

Seattle Conference on Scalability.

Fri, 16 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I went to the conference last year and have been anxiously awaiting the speakers and session list for this year. It’s out and my RSVP has been confirmed.

It’s a fantastic one-day conference with very little of the fluff or this-is-how-you-do-‘Hello World’ seen at some of the larger conferences. It’s worth attending if you can make it.

pysmug 0.4 released.

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I just released version 0.4 of pysmug and I’m pretty happy with the additional functionality.

The most significant additions to the ChangeLog referenced in my previous post are the migration of examples to tests and the overhauled configuration file format for pysmug.login().

tests

I’m generally a proponent of testing but since so much of pysmug is dependent on SmugMug services I added examples rather than tests. That’s changed with v0.4 – the examples have either been converted to code in SmugTool and/or migrated to a test case. I took the opportunity to learn nose and I’m not upset with the decision. When I switched from in-function preparing of SmugMug-style parameters names to using a decorator it was nice to have the tests to back me up.

Python decorators.

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I finally found a non-trivial reason to implement a Python decorator. I make extensive use of Python keyword arguments in the pysmug API and map those spellings to SmugMug keyword arguments. The algorithm for converting a Python spelling to a SmugMug spelling is pretty straight forward and easily wrapped up in a function. Originally, the first line of every function required formatting the keywords into SmugMug-style spellings by calling self._prepare_keywords(**kwargs). It occurred to me this is a perfect use case for decorators so I converted the code from a class method to a function, moved the call up a line, prefixed a @ and voilà, a far more explicit communication about how this method handles keyword arguments – love it.

Ferns.

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

When we lived in Chicago, my wife and I would spend hours in the Fern Room at the Garfield Park Conservatory during the depths of winter as a cheap way to get some heat and humidity. Now we live in the PNW, where we have ferns everywhere, and I don’t look at them the same way anymore. After two days of pruning and a number of piles of refuse, we have finally removed the old leaves on about, oh, a quarter of the ferns in the main part of the yard – a shitload of work. We also cleared some hold outs from this winter’s English Ivy removal party with my dad. The yard looks much better.

pysmug version 0.4 coming soon

Sun, 11 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

While I hammer away at erlsmug and try to figure out why it’s so much slower than pysmug and PycURL, I’m ready to release version 0.4 of pysmug.

Among the biggest changes are compatibility with new security changes required for version 1.2.2 of the SmugMug API. It’s now also possible to register function callbacks for PycURL’s verbose and progress handlers.

In testing erlsmug’s concurrency, I wrote a function to return all the details of an album as well as the details about each image, including EXIF. This requires 1 call to get the album info, 1 call to get the images for an album and one call each for simple and EXIF details per image. This function, albums_details was so useful I wanted it for pysmug.

Firmware enhancement for point-and-shoot Canons

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I just read about CHDK and I need to try this out. Since my SD500 appears to be supported and it’s been relegated to either taking movies or entertaining my daughter’s desire to be a photographer I’ve little to lose.

I love ice cream.

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My daughter loves ice cream too, having devoured an ice cream sandwich the very first time she ever saw one. Since one of the joys in my life is sharing ice cream with my family we have it quite frequently, sometimes at home and sometimes at Mora as a treat. If you find yourself at Mora, skip the vanilla (though it’s my favorite flavor theirs is nothing special) and try one of the more unusual varieties (my current choice being banana split).

Submitting expenses.

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I travel for work and so I have to submit expenses and I usually try to coax the tiny little receipts through my HP AIO scanner. I save the scans as PDF but since I don’t run any OCR software they’re basically just photos saved in the PDF document. This step of the expense report process takes a long time.

It dawned on me today to just take a photo of the receipts since it amounts to about the same thing, it’s much faster and it’s easier to add metadata to images than PDFs.

The algorithms behind java.util.concurrent.

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

From Doug Lea on the concurrency-interest mailing list, the new book The Art of Multiprocessor Programming is finally available:

This is by far the best source for explaining the ideas and algorithms underlying java.util.concurrent – the vast majority of them, plus some others, including a few that may someday appear. It also uses Java/java.util.concurrent to illustrate most concepts. I strongly recommended it.

While it’s a bit pricey, as a heavy user of the java.util.concurrent package I’m interested in reading it. We’ve greatly increased the stability and performance of our code by using both the 1.5+ and backport versions and understanding the underlying concepts a bit better might yield even better improvements.

Skagit County Tulip Festival

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

On Monday, we ventured off-island to see the tulips in bloom at the Skagit County Tulip Festival. We took the “whoa-boat” (daughter speak for ferry) to Seattle and drove up to Mt Vernon where we met my uncle. We drove together to the RoozenGaarde display garden skeptical about the weather since reports were calling for storms starting mid-morning.

The garden reminded me of the rose garden in Portland but the tulips felt much more approachable than the roses.

It's snowing!

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We ordered five yards of compost today to spread throughout the front yard and garden but we’re temporarily stalled by … snow … in April!

Toe Jam Hill Half Marathon

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

(Update: see here for a detailed course description)

Toe Jam Hill is the namesake hill of a local half marathon and the hill, at mile seven, is tough with a 30% gradient according to my Garmin 305. The run was today and while I ran and did well last year, this year I chose to sit out because I trained so little over the winter and spring. Once I saw the runners, including my good friend Dave, I immediately regretted my decision – next year.

My dumb dog.

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My dog (a pure bred Llewellin Setter) does not subscribe to the please-my-owner philosophy that apparently all other canines practice. He’s entirely self-centered and drives me nuts most of the time (two days ago he tried to squeeze himself between a rhody and the camera pressed to my face – my nose and the rhody lost) but he’s a good looking dog, I love him and when given the time to run he’s a joy to watch.

Israel

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I recently arrived back from Israel. It’s a country I knew very little about prior to going and what I did know turned out to be more a product of the media than I realized. I spent most of my time in a suburb of Tel Aviv and couldn’t tell it apart from any other area affected by the growth of the high tech sector over the last decade. I went with visions of soldiers walking around with rifles but instead found surfers, runners and a generation of Israelis abandoning their religion like their counterparts in the States.

Spring is arriving ... slowly.

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We’re finally seeing the signs of spring after a rather late delay. The rhodys are beginning to open and the hellebores are basking in the sunlight.