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.

Since you can’t have enough of a good thing we decided to try again on Saturday at Point Wilson. Last year we saw a guy fishing here in September with two beautiful salmon in his cooler so we were hopeful. Unfortunately, just more bullheads though you couldn’t find a better place to enjoy the day.

At one point a full grown bald-eagle flew about 10 feet over my head and eyed my daughter during it’s entire flight – sort of scary. I think it was about hoping to snatch some live bait the old-timers were flinging. It’s sitting on the chimney in the photo above surveying the Sound.

After a full day in the sun we had promised our daughter dinner at her favorite restaurant. After dinner, as usual, we walked down the pier to walk off some of the pizza. Along the way we saw a guy crabbing and being my mother’s son I started asking questions. He explained what he was doing and where he got some of his gear. We decided then and there Sunday we would go crabbing!

So Sunday, Danielson crap trap, lead core rope and some stinking fish in hand we headed to Point White Pier on Bainbridge. Bear in mind, we had no idea what we were doing as we walked down the pier with hopes of crab for dinner. Fortunately, we found some mentors!

The first guy we met was about to leave so he offered his corner of the pier to us. He also gave some rotting turkey legs. Apparently if it stinks and is gross crabs love it, which begs the question if they love this disgusting stuff why would I want to eat them? Oh yeah, they are delicious!

So we loaded up the pot with our homemade bait bag made from left-over hardware cloth from building the coop, tied the rope to the railing and heaved it over the side and into the Sound. Then we waited.

After 15 minutes we pulled it up with baited breath. Just as the trap broke the surface we saw our crabs … and a starfish! We had crabs! The little guys, Red rock crabs, have extremely strong pincers, I had to use a pillars to extract them from the trap. After measuring and sexing them, into the Homer bucket they went. The starfish was pretty cool, it was trying to devour the turkey legs, but after some investigation by the kids back home it went. Wow, fun!

After an hour or two we had 7 crabs to take home, not bad for never having done it before – look at all those crabs legs. The next morning I had a crab omelette with eggs from our chickens, that’s local eating!

The following are notes mainly for myself but might prove useful to someone else.

Heaving

When throwing the trap into the water hold onto the rope until you feel it hit the bottom. Since the trap we used has little doors that open in but not out it’s important to have it land top-side up. Once the trap hits the bottom pull it up a bit and then let it settle back down, this ensures it’s sitting just as you want it and the crabs don’t.

Also, the trap is pretty good but can be a bit flimsy so make sure to zip-tie it together. Fortunately I had the good mind to add some zip-ties to the tackle box and used them all – we did lose one crab on a trip up because the trap came apart a little bit.

Fifteen minutes is not a magic number but it was all the more patience I could muster.

Cleaning

We got some really good advice on cleaning the crabs from another guy on the pier. A third guy told me he throws the Red rock crabs back (but keeps the Dungeness) because he doesn’t think they offer enough meat for the amount of work to clean them. If I cleaned them as I had planned on doing, by taking them home whole and boiling them, I might have agreed but this method was fast, easy and the meat was outstanding.

Take a live crab out of the bucket being sure to grab their rear legs so they can’t break your finger off and set it on the cooler lid facing away from you. Since I’m right handed I held the left pincer down with my left hand and let the crab’s natural desire to grab something (listen to me, like I’m an expert) grab the cooler handle with the right pincer. Then reaching over the top of the crab I put my fingers under the shell on the left hand side and pulled the top off (it takes a bit of pulling) – instant death though the pincers are still grabbing about for a couple seconds.

Then crack the legs off altogether by snapping them from the main body, first left then right side. Whip the innards into the Sound and then rinse the legs in the Sound as well. Clean off any other undesirables and toss the legs into the cooler filled with just enough salt water to keep the legs covered. Repeat.

What’s really nice about this is when you bring the crabs home they are already cleaned and you don’t have to make a mess in your house. Be sure to bring some water home since you’ll need it.

Cooking

The other advice the guy provided was to use the salt water to steam the legs for 11 minutes. We did a trial run with both salt and tap water – no comparison, the salt water meat was much sweeter and firmer, it was the best crab I have ever eaten! I’m going to try grilling the legs next time in addition to steaming, can’t wait!

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.

Mount Rainier & Mount St. Helens

Mount Rainier

Mount St. Helens

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 we sat by the River, soaked in the sun and views and watched the world float by.

When we arrived it was overcast, cold and rainy — definitely not why we left Bainbridge! To stay out of the rain we decided to explore the Lava River Cave. It was an underground walk more than anything, and dark. Three of us did manage to crawl on our hands and knees to the furthest reaches of the cave but alas, to my daughter's great dismay, we found no treasure.

After the cave we went to Lava Lands Visitor Center hoping to drive up the Lave Butte (any bump on the earth around Bend is called a butte). Unfortunately we arrived a bit late and could only walk around the lava field, the drive to the top would have to wait for another day.

Back at the house my fascination with the River started. While I loved the view of Mt Bachelor (formerly Bachelor Butte of course!) I found myself constantly mesmerized by the River.

The next day we did two small hikes. The first was to a double waterfall, my first, named Paulina Creek Falls.

The waterfall was pretty; the mosquitoes were vicious. It also importantly marked the first blue skies we'd seen in Oregon.

From the falls my wife, daughter and I went to the Obsidian Flow Trail which was far more interesting than I anticipated. Obsidian is black glass formed when lava from a volcano cools rapidly.

The trail itself was fun, winding it's way through rocks with some nice views of Paulina Lake.

The next morning was still overcast and cold — oh but the River!

We decided that morning to check out the High Desert Museum which was interesting but I was grumpy because I wanted to be in the mountains.

My family obliged and we drove up to Sparks Lake from which the views are stunning and the water flowing through the meadow is ripe with butterflies, toads, fish and endless opportunities for chasing nature. I took one of my favorite photos of my daughter here, back to the camera, scooping a small toad out of the water with blue skies above and the Sisters in the background — I love this photo.

Sparks Lake is a extremely shallow and excellent for fishing so I'm told. I'd like to go back, camp along the shores and fish the day away.

Finally sun, finally sunsets.

The next day we canoed a short section of the Deschutes River. In my paddling around the Island we've seen some great wildlife but never has a flock of baby ducks, clearly agitating their mother, paddled right up alongside the canoe!

On the last day I fly-fished on the Fall River and landed two rainbow trout. Unfortunately our timing on this trip was a bit off. We met a couple on the Obsidian Flow Trail who fished the day we explored the Cave and landed fish after fish in the overcast and cool conditions. When I went it was hot and sunny and the fish, which I could see plain as day on the river bottom, wanted nothing to do with our flies. Among all the fisherman out on the River that day we were the only ones landing anything.

We had fun on the way home too, stopping at some cool national and state parks with unique natural water features and enjoying the drive through the forests and mountains so different than our own.

It was a great trip. It was really fun to hang out with another family, eat home-cooked meals together on the River, drink our share of beer, wine and vodka, watch the Tour coverage each night and enjoy time together. I'd like to go back to the area — my only regret was not seeing the Cascade Cycling Classic. Maybe next year.

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.

The Buff Orpington.

The Speckled Sussex.

When the local feed store got their spring chicks in we purchased three of each, driving them home in a cardboard box on my daughter’s lap. We hung a heat lamp over an old dog crate in the garage and waited for our birds to grow.

Overall raising the chicks wasn’t too bad but we did have one exciting moment. Bainbridge loses power – a lot. True to form, shortly after bringing the birds home we lost power. Since we’d recently lost power for 40 hours we braced for the worst. The chicks need it to be quite warm to survive so to keep them alive we had to bring them in the house and put them in a wicker basket in front of the wood stove until our power returned!

It became quickly obvious the days of living in an old dog crate in the garage under a heat lamp had to end so my wife got busy building an awesome coop in the orchard.

She’s pleased with how it came out. The coop is great, bright, clean and fortified with miles of hardware cloth to keep out the damn weasels, raccoons and other assorted local predators (aka the dog).

Finally, one day we were walking through their run, wondering when our fresh omelets would materialize, when we found a sole egg in a dusting bowl under a fern. After a “chicken egg hunt” we found ten eggs! My dad had the clever idea of leaving an egg in the nest box to attract the hens to lay there and it worked – we are now collecting 2-3 eggs a day.

I’ve just been informed we’re getting a goat or a cow next – stay tuned. Fresh chevre!

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.

Along the way from the first to the second cache we found a fantastic rock upon which were numerous cairns.

Some were cool.

One we built.

And mushrooms of course – we were in the woods after all.

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.

The trail meanders along the Royal Creek for most of the hike, if it’s not within clear sight it’s still quite audible. This time of year with the prodigious melt it was running high and loud.

Through the old growth forest we walked with the wild rhodies blooming to keep us company. We went mid-week and with the exception of one couple with a dog out for a walk we saw no one else on the way up.

One of my favorite wildflowers, the Red Columbine, was growing along the trail. We saw a number of wildflowers blooming. Even though snow was definitely sticking around for a couple more weeks the flowers are out in force..

We had read in the Park Service trail report about a couple of avalanches and came upon the first one after two hours of hiking. The power of an avalanche is simply amazing. Huge, old trees were ripped from the Earth, thrown down the mountain and buried under rock and ice. It was incredible. It also required some route finding since the trail disappeared under the carnage.

I had marked the waypoint on the GPS but had forgotten to name it – not a problem – looking at the track later you can see the back-and-forth as we figured out the best route across and back onto the trail.

The Royal Creek continued to wind through the forest. We crossed numerous little streams feeding the creek. I took photos of most of them. I will spare you many.

Finally we arrived at the Lower Meadow – all to ourselves. A creek for water, mountains for scenery and birds for background music. Awesome.

We set up camp and made a quick meal of Ramen, yum – nothing like cardboard after six miles of hiking. From the meadow we crossed the Royal Creek for the first time on the way to Royal Lake. The bridge was a bit tricky for me, not because it was narrow, high or particularly long, but because the water moving under it was going so fast. It was disorienting the first time over but I finally figured out to ignore the water and all was good.

We arrived at Royal Lake after climbing through snow and trees. I was happy to have the ice axe along, not strictly necessary but comforting.

One of the joys of backpacking is quiet time in the woods and mountains. Joel and I were chatting about my recent foray into deer hunting and he was asking about what makes a safe shot. I was explaining what I thought would be a safe shot. I said a deer coming out of the woods toward the water would be a good, safe shot.

Well what do you know. Out of the woods and walking toward the water came a doe. She eventually came quite close to us without showing any real concern. I took far too many photos of her – I’m not sure what got into me. At home we have hundreds of feet of fencing to keep them out and if they do break in we chase them out. In the back-country all animals fascinate me.

We saw more wildlife on this trip than previous jaunts into the Olympics – perhaps because of the time of year, perhaps because we had the entire region to ourselves. We saw a nice fat rabbit bouncing across the snow, the deer, a mouse, squirrels and birds of course. It was a nice change of pace from marmot after marmot.

On the way back from the lake we stopped to climb a huge boulder overlooking the meadow, it was covered with wildflowers and lichen. I was really struck by the white (milk?) quartz with the orange lichen. I love the color orange, it always draws my eye.

Back at the campsite the sun was setting, glowing on the range surrounding the meadow. We didn’t see much in the way of a sunset. We did see a number of UFOs though. Really, there were some strange things in the sky. Maybe it was the bourbon.

I was hoping to get some sunrise photos like I shot at nearby Marmot Pass but sleeping in won. I’m a little bummed about it but not entirely.

The following morning we woke, climbed a scree and snow field and sat, taking in the mountains. The meadow is seen in the lower left.

After descending we broke camp and hiked out, another great, dry, trip to the Olympics.

Can’t wait for next year!

Our show before the big show.

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.

Do be careful if you come across one, apparently the bite can do significant, though not lethal, damage to humans.

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!

After a great dinner of onions, peppers and sausages cooked over an open fire in our favorite Lodge we broke out the smores — there was much delight.

I went down to the beach near sunset and was greeted with a wonderful view of the fading light on Mt Rainier. The photos don't do justice to the way the Mountain dominates the horizon.

The tent was great. We had two adults, a kid and a dog in a crate all nicely snuggled. It goes up extremely easily and when the fly was off during the day the breeze through the tent encouraged all of us to nap (ah camping!). I'm looking forward to more family outings in our can-be-seen-from-across-the-park orange tent!

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 …

… but a ridiculous number of marmots (and I still remember when not so long ago seeing a marmot was a very unique treat)!

Fortunately we did enjoy a mountain sunset but if you look closely you can see the coming rain.

After enjoying our time watching marmots playing, running, staring, nursing, fighting, whistling and otherwise being everywhere we decided to head to a lower elevation in the hopes of avoiding some of the fog and clouds.

Better idea than execution — when we arrived at Blue Lake the fog was noticeable …

… and within a couple of minutes even more so.

Of course any adventure to the great outdoors isn't complete without some mushroom photos — among all the fog and green these yellow cup mushrooms really stood out.

Despite the less than ideal weather conditions, it was overall a great weekend with a great friend. The next time we go to Park Butte I hope not only is the weather better but that we're fortunate enough to echo our now familiar refrain "oh look, a marmot!"

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!

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.

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.

It's especially interesting to me because, as wikipedia explains, it generates it's energy not from chlorophyll but through being parasitic on fungi that are mycorrhizal with trees. And any reader of my blog knows I enjoy mushroom photography.

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.

On Sunday we got up late (oh so nice to get some sleep) and left to find the head waters of the creek. The lighting was pretty poor, with patchy sun and fog, so the photography was less than spectacular.

It was somewhat different terrain from my usual hikes through the Olympic mountains and made for some interesting finds, most notably, morels!

I found another neat little red mushroom near my tent but haven't been able to positively identify it.

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

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.

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

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.

It was an active and productive weekend of mushroom photography.

Great skies coming home from the Arboretum last weekend.

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.

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

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).

End of the day on the farm.

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

Another photo from the trip to Scenic Beach.

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

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

Through the trees appeared the massive harvest moon.

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.

I'm pretty sure this is Agaricus augustus — another classic found in the yard.

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!

I love my wife and I'm very proud of her.

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.

Underneath all that wool is really powerful animal!

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

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

A description of the mathematics of a sunflower is fascinating!

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.

Red watched while I ran the weed-eater around the garden beds and was kind enough to pose for a photo (or a couple dozen).

I've never ridden with a weed-eater spread out across the handlebars before, the bike becomes ridiculously unstable!

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.

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

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.

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.

I found the trail to be a little more strenuous than I was anticipating, probably from dehydration. Fortunately, with some breaks along the way, we made our destination.

A quick swim in the lake and we were ready for dinner and sunset.

The next morning I didn't get up as early as I had planned but I did manage to capture the morning sun. Unlike the trip to Marmot Pass, I didn't have to do any lengthy hiking from camp to take my morning photos.

I've heard the Olympic marmots calling before but had never seen one — now I have! This guy was sunning on the rocks and let us get quite close before scurrying down the side of the rock pile. In my zeal to get the photograph, we ended up taking a side trail up Bogachiel which required a bit of scrambling, lucky for us we had ditched the big packs for the short summit.

The views from Bogachiel did not disappoint. It's difficult in this photo to get the perspective of our elevation above the lakes and the expanse of the Basin. On our descent from the High Divide we took a short rest along the trail, laid on our backs and watched the mountains — it was perfect.

And what's a trip without at least one flower photo? The most picturesque flowers of the entire trip were right after Heart Lake just as we had started back down the trail and I was too lazy to take the backpack off again — next year I'm heading straight there for the colorful flowers along the little creek.

In all we hiked almost 20 miles, ate pints and pints of blueberries and enjoyed a great weekend in the mountains. I'm anxious to go back next year with a bucket just like Sal's mom.

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.

Our first activity was a picnic, followed up with some, hopefully, family fun geocaching. Until now the geocaching excursions have been solely father-daughter, but my wife went along this time, found the cache and even admitted it was fun! The view from the cache location certainly helped I'm sure.

While we were walking back to the car a couple on bikes, who had been leap-frogging us along the path to the cache, said "Did you see the whale?" What?! Whale? We stopped for a couple minutes to watch and sure enough we saw the distinctive spray of blowhole water and the back of the great beast cresting. We were told it was heading towards the Spit, and fortuitously we were as well.

We're clearly not on the "whale sighting" list because when we finally descended to the beach it was lined with photographers who's gear made mine look like I was a child. (I'm talking some serious glass — bear this in mind as you see the marine animal photos. Through the binoculars the views were great, these photos don't do the scene justice.)

The first thing I spotted at the beach was not the whale, but this seal playing in the surf and popping it's head out here-there-everywhere. It acted like a dog (or kid) hiding from its master (or parent).

And then we saw the whale, cool! My daughter didn't care, it was just a whale and there were holes to dig with must-have driftwood, but my wife and I were thrilled. People all along the beach would shout "There's the whale!" each time it came up for air.

We hung around the beach for a couple of hours, watching the whale crest but never breach. It just kept swimming back and forth surfacing every couple minutes. I pictured it mouth-wide-open slurping food up and down the coastline.

There was some debate about whether it was a gray or humpback whale. I'm going with gray but I have no idea really, this was my first non-zoo whale.

When the fog rolled in we departed. What had been a view for miles quickly degraded in a manner of minutes to a couple hundred feet until we ascended to the parking lot where we were again greeted with blue skies overhead. The Spit is a cool place to visit — the budding naturalists certainly feel so anyway — and the weather can change quickly so be prepared should you go.

On the drive back, on a whim, we stopped at the Jardin du Soleil Lavender Farm because the weather was so agreeable and we were in no rush to get home. Good move. The farm is beautiful. The lavender was past prime but standing downwind from 10 acres of lavender fields you'd never know it. The yellow sunflowers, purple lavender, green grass and blue skies with the white whisping clouds — I could have stayed all day (and would love to see the farm at sunset) — but we did eventually need to get home.

I love old barns and I love living here.

So off I went to Back of Beyond's rental facility and five minutes later I was paddling through Eagle Harbor. I left my GPS in my panniers attached to the boat deck so the first order of business was paddling to Pritchard Park so I could start recoding the tracklog (I really love tracklogs).

From the mouth of Eagle Harbor I turned around and paddled through the marina to see the area from a different vantage point — great decision! While I have no photos, I have some great memories.

Did you know Blue Herons nest in trees? I didn't until Sunday.

I saw a Kingfisher come to a complete stop mid-air flapping it's wings like it was treading air, find nothing and take off.

Even cooler was watching a Red-tailed Hawk fly overhead, find nothing, land in a tree and then launch again circling overhead. I quickly moved the boat into position and was rewarded with a court-side view of it dive bombing a small silver fish which it grabbed in its talons — all of about 30 feet from me.

But best of all was being greeted on shore by my daughter who now wants to go "kay-ak-ing" with dad!

I love living here.

$ 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:

-EXIF:DateTimeOriginal
-EXIF:CreateDate
-EXIF:ModifyDate
-EXIF:TimeZoneOffset
-XMP:DateTimeOriginal
-XMP:DateTimeDigitized
-XMP:ModifyDate
-EXIF:GPSSatellites
-EXIF:GPSLatitude
-EXIF:GPSLongitude
-EXIF:GPSLatitudeRef
-EXIF:GPSLongitudeRef
-EXIF:GPSMapDatum
-EXIF:GPSDateStamp
-EXIF:GPSTimeStamp
-EXIF:GPSAltitude
-EXIF:GPSAltitudeRef
-XMP:GPSLatitude
-XMP:GPSLongitude
-XMP:GPSDateTime
-XMP:GPSAltitude
-XMP:GPSAltitudeRef
-XMP:CountryCode
-XMP:Country
-XMP:State
-XMP:City
-XMP:Location
-IPTC:Country-PrimaryLocationCode
-IPTC:Country-PrimaryLocationName
-IPTC:Province-State
-IPTC:City

If you forgot to turn on the GPS for some portion of the shoot (hmmm) but happened to shoot from the same location at another time, remove the date and time related fields and apply the same approach.

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.

As we left the forest it was clear the trail reports weren't wrong, the wildflowers were indeed out but not quite yet in prime season.

It was hot on Saturday and about a mile short of camp we decided to rest a bit, get some water and eat. The parking lot was packed when we started out and not knowing how much room there was at the campsite I was a little anxious about getting up the mountain. We passed by a lot of hikers descending, which gave me some confidence we'd have room, but we had a lot of company going up too. My buddy is in the blue shirt, the rest of the crew we met on the trail. They were going slower than us for a couple reasons, first, I'm a naturally fast walker and love to race up a hill and secondly, they were carrying a lot of beer.

We got to camp with plenty of light, setup the tent alongside a little creek, fired up the stove and enjoyed lentil soup, almonds and cookies. The sound of rushing water was fortuitous because both Dave and I snore loudly and we'd rather listen to the water than the other.

While we were technically in a "Wilderness" it didn't necessarily translate to isolated. All around were other campers and Lulu the Pug, who could not stop running around!

After dinner we hiked up to Marmot Pass to check on the sunset. The trail winds through a big bowl and has great views almost all around.

There wasn't much in the way of a sunset but this really narrow cloud was moving quite fast over the mountains lit by the evening sun.

The plan for the next morning was to wake up early, 4 am, to hike back up to Marmot Pass for the sunrise. I set the alarm and we went to sleep.

When the alarm went off in the morning I was a little tired and for a moment thought about bagging it but when I poke my head out of the tent and saw the red sky I knew I wanted to go shoot. I departed from the tent as quietly as possible, grabbed my gear and headed off in the dark up the mountainside. Just outside of camp there's a little stream crossing and in the dark I almost started walking up the stream rather than crossing it but fortunately made the right decision.

The morning light did not disappoint.

The clouds rolling in were really cool with the silhouetted trees. I shot for a while using my trusty Gorillapod about half-way to Marmot Pass and then decided to get to the top to see if I could capture the sun coming over Buckhorn Mountain — unfortunately I could not. Next time we go we'll try to camp a bit further up, probably on top of Buckhorn which we were told was a pretty cool place to spend the night.

I knew from some previous camping trips to the Olympics about the alpenglow of the morning sun.

I'm really getting into trees and I love the cones of the noble fir and I'm still in love with wildflowers in early morning light.

After a morning of shooting I hiked back to camp, crawled in the tent and took a short nap. Dave was kind enough to get some water going so after some oatmeal we hiked back up to Marmot Pass to take in the views. If you look closely in the middle of the photo on the ridge you can see a yellow tent — that's one of the places I'd like to camp next time.

On the last trip down from Marmot Pass the clouds starting rolling in. The day before we had hiked up sweating through everything, hiking down I wore a winter hat. I love being in the mountains.

I highly recommend the hike, it's not as steep as the Mt Ellinor or Mt Townsend trails and the trail is in really fantastic condition. I think in another couple of weeks the meadows should be in full bloom — it will be spectacular I'm sure!

On a technical note, I finally figured out how to get a panorama to look decent. I've been playing with DoubleTake for a while and I've tried my hand a couple of times but I've never been able to get it to work just as I wanted — I've gotten a lot closer. One of the biggest differences is shooting in manual mode to make sure all the exposures are the same and then to post-process in Lightroom. I took about a dozen photos to make the panorama at the top of the post but ended up using only about seven or so. It still needs a little work, there's one bit with ghosting, but I like it and scaled down you can't tell at all. I finally bought the license I threatened to over a year ago.

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

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.

I was near the rose arbor because I was shooting more photos of ant and peonies. While the research shows a peony doesn't need an ant to open I doubt without serious intervention on my part I'll ever be able to confirm the findings.

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

Today was overcast with the feeling and smell of a coming storm though one has yet to materialize.

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

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.

I went back to the house, grabbed my camera and in the fading day light managed to get a couple of shots.

I love living here.

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.

The Olympics, Space Needle, Bainbridge … almost home! Some day I might do a post on the post-processing required for shooting out of plane windows. This photo is in my top ten for what-it-looks-now-compared-to-where-we-started.

I couldn't get the exposure on this photo to work out as well as I'd like but it's pretty neat nonetheless with the cityscape, Elliott Bay and Rainier all framed by the wing.

Back home in more comfortable surroundings, photographing mushrooms. One of my favorite snag trees on our property fell in the wind storm a couple of weeks ago and landed right between two cedars. I borrowed a chain-saw to clear it and noticed these little mushrooms — after dropping the snag I went back for the camera.

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

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!"

While my wife, who loves horses (they make me nervous), and my daughter pet and feed them carrots saved from dinner, I check out the apple trees. I love apple trees.

The cherry trees on the island shower us with pink and white blossoms for weeks on end in the spring, a truly magical sight.

The apple trees match them blossom for blossom.

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

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

Mt Rainier peaking through the clouds in the setting sun.

Mt Shasta all alone. Check out the shadow created by the mountain as the sun sets.

The crook of the Hood Canal and the Olympic Mountains — I wish I hadn't clipped the tip of the wing.

A unique shoreline in California, just north of San Francisco.

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!"

The butterflies, of course, are the highlight, flying freely and flashing their brilliant colors. Using the great cheat sheet provided by the center I'm able to identify some of them, alas others I'm not.

Papilio rumanzovia — Scarlet Swallowtail

Idea leuconoe — Rice Paper or Paper Kite Butterfly

Morpho peleides — Common Blue Morpho

Caligo memnon — Owl Butterfly

Heliconius hecale — Golden Helicon

And finally, this is what it looks like when you're chasing a butterfly around the room.

So what have we been up to?

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.

It's been snowing a lot here! We're kinda tired of it. In a desperate move to get some fresh greens started we decided to give row covering a shot. It's richly rewarding to see the row covered bed in the orchard and we're particularly proud that all the material (PVC pipe and plastic) is recycled!

So while seeing the bed is cool, peeking inside and seeing baby greens is even better.

The poor crocus can't decide what the hell to do with this spring's bizarre weather. They open, it snows, they stay closed, it rains.

Speaking of bizarre weather, while watching Cliff Mass give a presentation about his book, The Weather of the Pacific Northwest, at the local bookstore, the audience was treated to rain literally moving horizontally down Winslow Way!

Later, on the way to pick up dinner (we lost power twice, two hours each time), I saw a Douglas-fir limb hanging from a power line smoldering. I decided I'd take the photo on the way back — by the time I got back we'd lost power again and the limb, perhaps the cause, had stopped smoking. I'm apparently not much of a photojournalist.

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!".

I hope it never comes to it but we have BP II safely hidden in case of emergency. BTW, my advice to any other stuffed-animal-toting-cyclists, buy your kid lighter varieties, Big Puppy strained the legs a bit on the ride home.

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.

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

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

The witch hazel, even covered in snow, has the coolest new growth leaves.

By evening, we were snow free — what will tomorrow bring?

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.

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.

The same flower taken from above.

The witch hazel has the most remarkable leaves, lacy in the spring, orange and red in the fall.

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.

The Cascades have a number of volcanoes which just pop up out of the ground in isolation, unlike more contiguous mountain ranges — it's kinda cool to see from the sky — pop, pop, pop!

I'm almost positive this is Rainier, but it's from a vantage point I'm not familiar.

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

"Pretty cool, yeah?"

"Indeed."

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

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

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

The real reason for the trip to Fay Bainbridge was to see the sun, catch some mountain views (Baker was visible, Rainier was not) and collect shells — this interesting one made it into a coat pocket.

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.

The rafting itself is trivial, hook your foot into the toe strap and prepare to twist and turn for three hours. We saw fewer than 25 birds, significantly less than peak season, but the blue skies and comfortable temperatures made up for lack of quantity — fewer birds increased the demand on spotting, fortunately I brought my eagle eyes.

About halfway through the float we decided to pull over to a small beach, enjoy some hot cocoa and stretch our legs. As I jumped out of the boat I saw perched almost directly above us an eagle staring off to the river.

"Um, what are you doing here?"

"I'm outta here!"

Along the float when we weren't seeing eagles, rural Washington treated us to some stunning visuals, including this abandoned mink farm — I love barns.

The tiny house tucked away in the woods belonged to a now deceased monk. We didn't see much development along the river and further building is now forbidden in the protected Skagit Wild and Scenic River System, including one woman who cannot rebuild her waterfront house after she lost it last year to fire. The limited human population, of course, leaves the river extremely healthy which brings back the fish and birds every winter.

There are three hydroelectric dams on the river providing power for Seattle and other points on the grid. The power lines in the fore-ground were recently moved further from the water as the river is eroding away the shoreline and at a pretty impressive clip in some areas.

The eagles were the highlight and I'm looking forward to a return trip to see them in quantity but this mid-week float with perfect weather was definitely memorable. If you want to see some more photos, feel free to visit.

Along the way, both from first person account and just driving through the towns, it's clear the local economies are really suffering. It might be some time before these swings launch a local child into the water.

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.

After meeting our friends at the "big boat" and we ventured back to Winslow just in time for the big show, the dragon. It didn't go so well. No matter how much we tried to remind her about Percy and the Dragon it was to no avail — we had to bail on the parade.

While we didn't enjoy the dragon she did like the big red ball — but from a distance.

Strangely, this morning started with "Daddy, I want to see the dragon picture — and the ball." The photo of the deer in our yard has been her all time most requested photo but I have a feeling the dragon is going to be in hot pursuit.

Finally, in a departure from the regular animal-with-dad story line, Polka Dot Puppy rode on my backpack and posed for some candid portraits while we ate. I kinda like Polka Dot Puppy, he's no Pierre but something about him works for me.

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.

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!

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!

Our friend (unnamed) in a perfect sun-blocking position with Mt Rainier standing proudly. All the mountains were out today, Rainier, Baker and the Cascade and Olympic Ranges.

Seattle glowing in the background; an arm twisted in the railing "for safety".

I've received a tremendous amount of positive feedback for the TWL animotion, so, confident with past success, here's another dedicated to the animals and their adventures.

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.

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!

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.

From the fire the rice is dropped into a large granite bowl — rumor has it no one knows the age of Bainbridge's. The consistency of the rice at this point in the process doesn't look much different from a nearly done risotto.

To finish it off, out come the mallets and the pounding begins. There are a couple different methods, done in progression, for removing the moisture from the rice. First, some simple kneading with a couple of mallets, carefully orchestrated — unless of course a volunteer from the crowd is helping and keeps hitting the other guy in the head with the mallet handle. Then, in our case, three work in unison, swinging away.

Finally it's down to one mallet and one set of hands. The mallet strikes down, then up, the hands go in, folding the mochi as you'd knead dough, hands out, mallet hammers home again, mallet up, hands in, mallet, hands — all the while chants ring out.

The finished product is pinched off into balls, variously stuffed — I've read ice cream is a popular center. My daughter rolled out her own, stuffed in the center with red beans and sugar — yum! It's definitely my kind of sweet.

I've been hearing quite a bit of buzz about animoto but I hadn't tried it myself. For those who don't know, animoto sets a series of photos to music creating a very dynamic slideshow. I'm unleashing only my second full-length video on you, please be kind but feedback is welcomed! I bought the year-long All-Access Pass so be prepared!

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

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

The branches of the old tree growing next to the mansion produced some cool lines against the overcast skies (by day's end we had glorious blue!).

We don't see too many birches but I fondly recall peeling the bark off the one in my yard as a child. This small grove behind the house stands out for both the bark and the sense of space it offers after emerging from the native woods.

The path to the Japanese Garden invites even in winter.

When I spotted these berries I was excited for the small burst of color for which I'd been waiting. The rhodys are budding but the wait for their spring color continues.

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!

Raw material.

I don't own a chain saw, usually preferring to go at it by hand, but there's no way by hand was going to cut it (pun intended) on this job, so we rented a beauty of a saw from Bainbridge Rental, the Stihl Farm Boss, to supplement the one we did own — this baby chewed through the big logs but even it's 20" bar couldn't completely slice all of them.

The basic process is simple, mentally mark off sections of wood and saw as deeply as possible without hitting the ground. Once all the cuts are made on the top, the log needs to be rolled, using muscles I never developed, to expose the other side and provide access to finish the cut. Then you roll, or heave, the bucked sections all World's Strongest Man-like to the stacking grounds. To give an indication of the weight of these logs, the "stick" in Dave's hand is a sixteen pound bar of steel — it flexed, easily.

After six hours of work, five or so fuel re-fills and some soon-to-be very sore muscles, we proudly displayed the finish product, ready and waiting for the splitter. A neighbor remarked how cool she thought the display of "manliness", sitting there all proud and proper. Splitting commences this weekend.

I knew nothing about carpenter ants before we moved here but I hear stories of their destructive abilities. Now I've seen evidence first hand. Unlike termites they don't eat the wood, just burrow through, but to the structural integrity of a house it's all the same.

In addition to wood for my stove and fireplace I now have a beautiful chopping block and stool, measured and cut to exacting standards with a perfectly flat top thanks to Dave's masterful finishing skills with the chainsaw.

Some thoughts:

• a lefty and a righty should not finish each other's cut, our natural tendencies to cut on an angle (well, mine anyway) make for some ugly finishes
• chain-sawing for four and half hours with a fifteen pound chain saw is more work than programming but oddly addicting
• I have more respect for those guys on ESPN with their homemade beasts

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.

The token shot of the namesake bluff — the sun had already decided enough was enough, the wind however did not concur. It just wasn't that pleasant a day and our first taste for its naming.

The grasses around the marsh took the full force of the winds off the water.

There wasn't as much bird activity in the marsh as we had hoped but we did see an osprey soaring across the water from one tree to another — it looked like a small plane its wingspan enormous.

The beaches all around the Sound have driftwood and it doesn't take much investigating to find some cool features — I love the rusted bits on the logs. We only lasted only an hour before the wind and cold drove us back home but we still had a great time.

Today wasn't just fun at the beach. For those of you who know him can you believe Ralph is nine today?

He hasn't lost a step, he's more chaotic than ever and he's still mistaken for a puppy because of his insanity energy. Watching his complete transformation from pampered-condo-living-bed-sleeping-dog to refuse-to-come-inside-consumer-of-dead-mice-deer-chasing-won't-stop-barking-primal-canine has been a joy to watch — most of the time.

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.

I'll keep trying but my night photography shootings continue to disappoint. Fittingly, I watched Journey to Palomar while writing this post.

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.

On the same trip with my dad an old-timer watched me taking photographs and motioned for me to follow him, which I did. He leaned down and proudly displayed a cluster of Piper's Bellflowers growing nestled against some rocks. This particular flower grows only in the Olympic Mountains and we had fortunate timing to see it in bloom.

Love.

Awards

Best in Show & Best Plant

Honorable Mention & Best Macro

Best Sun[rise|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.

I was happy to get some constructive criticism from the photography chair, John Davis. One of the unique aspects of the show for me was seeing my photos projected onto a large screen. The Best in Show photo had a serious flaw in my eyes which I had never noticed until last night: there are some residual clouds at the top of the photo distracting my eye. John suggested cropping the clouds a bit tighter.

I re-cropped (mouse over to see the original) and prefer the change.

It was also suggested I horizontally flip the Honorable Mention photo, so I tried that too.

This really works for me (mouse over to see the change) because my least favorite aspect of this particular photo is the out-of-focus flower stalk in the background. With the photo's movement going from left-to-right rather than right-to-left the stalk now completes the half-circle — it feels a lot better to me.

Highlights

There were other photos I really enjoyed and I'll try to get a link for them (follow the link). One was taken on Mt Ellinor by the husband of his wife whose hair was standing on end from the residual electricity produced by a lightening strike on the summit of the mountain next to them, over the wife's head was a mountain goat — really cool, if not a little scary as stated by the photographer. This photo deservedly won Humor in the Outdoors.

The same couple produced another image I really enjoyed: they were sitting on a pier on Lake Crescent, their backs to the camera, her head resting on his shoulder looking at the perfectly calm Lake — I loved it, it's a perfect photo of a content couple.

Another really amazing photo was taken by a kid, maybe 7-9 years old, of some cups he stacked into a tower. He then, I think, laid on his back and shot up into the cups creating a really pleasing geometric shot. The photography chair commented on it being a "really mature photograph" and I agree — the kid was clearly into taking photographs and I hope he continues because some of his shots were really good.

Another great photo had three boys intently gazing at some insects held in a small pie tin by their teacher caught in a salmon stream seen in the background — as a father I really identified with the "teachable moment" aspect of the photograph.

Finally, after the show a gentlemen came up to me, introduced himself, shook my hand and wanted to "ask a favor". He would like to use the tulip and sunset photos as models for his watercolor paintings! How cool is it that?

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.

Monday evening I hope to find out the results of the Mountaineers annual photography show. I entered my allotment of ten but I'm not anticipating much in the way of results. In any event, please enjoy a couple of the images I entered which haven't appeared yet on the blog.

The Skagit County Tulip Festival offered up some amazing scenery and this was one of my favorites because of the way the flowers lead the eye right to the big puffy cloud over the farm. I found the color pleasing as well.

I had to enter at least one mushroom photo and I like the lines and colors in this one. These mushrooms were photographed on a hike with my daughter in The Grand Forest making it extra special — at least to me.

Wish me luck.

I have an extensive backup strategy which includes backing up to two different external drives. When I upgraded to 10.5.6 I had no issues with Time Machine on the first of the drives but when I got to work today I was greeted with this lovely and informative message:

You do not have appropriate access privileges to save file ".0022xxxxxxxx" in folder "Island".

It's an easy fix, open iTerm or Terminal and follow along:

$ cd /Volumes/{volume name}
$ sudo chown $USER {file name}

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.

Well, apparently the big trees hate the benches because every time they rifle off a limb it inevitably crashes into a bench.

This one came down in the fall during a big wind storm. I was outside in the garden when I saw a limb flying down elsewhere in the yard and came inside "for safety". When I walked the yard later I found the first evidence of my bench-hating trees.

Given the weight of the recent snows I'm not surprised some limbs fell but two-for-two on hitting a bench, and this time crushing it, has me wondering. I heard this one hit the bench from inside the house but I didn't know at the time the thunderous crashing sound was the bench meeting its demise.

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.

So after a morning of playing in the snow with the family, a trip to the attic and a quick waxing I set out for a short ski.

I pass by this barn a lot when I run and had never seen it in the snow. The red really stood out in the still heavy snowfall. I found it was a bit tricky to photograph in the snow, on skis, along the road. Biathlon is about pegging your heart rate and then calming yourself enough to shoot a rifle accurately — it wasn't a rifle I was shooting but it was functionally equivalent.

The apples still on the tree look like ornaments.

My destination, Gazzam Lake Park, is home to bear, owls, coyotes and a lake.

And, here's the swamp lake. Notice the ski tracks going into the lake, they are not mine. Since I hadn't skied in so long I wasn't absolutely confident in my ability to stop in time from what's a pretty decent descent from the trail to the lake so I took my skis off and hiked down — clearly someone else should have thought it through too.

After the Lake I skied over to where I know there's an owl's nest but saw no activity. I took a couple more photos, feared my camera was getting too wet, it was getting too dark and headed home.

On the way there were no cars coming so I skate skied right down the middle of the snow covered road. Just shy of home a car appeared so I went over to the side to give them room. As they passed I could see the passenger had been taking photos of me skiing down the road.

I love living here.

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.

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

The pumpkin field, tilled and covered in snow, under the watchful eye of a bald eagle (the black speck near the top of the tall tree).

Betsey Wittick, of Laughing Crow Farm, uses horses in lieu of tractors for hauling and other field work — it's a site to behold.

The group made its way past Betsey's fields toward Akio Suyematsu's raspberries growing in rows and, like us, standing tall against the winter cold and snow.

On to M & E and the site of yesterday's work party — looking much the same except for the blanket of snow.

Snow makes an evergreen more majestic.

From M & E to Perennial Vintners — the view to the South takes in the Morales property, new home of the greenhouse.

The Morales property offers hope of affordable housing for farmers and farming interns though much work, time and money will be needed to bring that future to fruition.

I really enjoyed the walk and intend to make this a seasonal event.

(Check out color photos of the same walk at the TWL website.)

import sys
import traceback
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from pygments.formatters import HtmlFormatter

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    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.

I'll probably hook this up as a signal handler as well so headless applications can have the same functionality.

Funny thing, I still like the sites, sounds and smells of a chipper and I indulged again Saturday during the TWL work party. A group of 8-10 volunteers arrived at the old M & E (I heard at least three different explanations for "M&E") tree farm to clear the invasives which included some monstrous scotch broom.

I arrived a bit late and the chipping and clearing had already started.

As we hauled pile after pile of debris over the growing field of stumps I stumbled more than once but never once went down.

Finally, after four hours of work we cleared a fraction of the property — and before the snow too — look at how good it looks!

That's some quality mulch.

We'll be back M & E — we're not done.

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.

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

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".

We did get some elevated winds today on the ride home but nothing like the blizzard of snow I keep hearing about — being from the Midwest I find it humorous when people here complain about the cold-and-snow. We'll see if the snow yet arrives.

On the hardware side, I shoot mainly with my Nikon D40 but will occasionally use my iPhone or point-and-shoot Canon. I have a Garmin 60CSx GPS — powerful enough to get a signal even in the deepest woods — for recording track logs. In addition to the 60CSx I also have a Garmin Forerunner 305 which I use on occasion, mainly for running and cycling. I write and manage the photos on a MacBook Pro.

I do all my photo editing with Adobe's awesome Lightroom. For a year or so iView (later Microsoft's Expression Media) managed my photos but Lr can handle both non-destructive editing and photo cataloging. I make heavy use of keywords and other metadata so I can find photos easily later.

To aid in geo-metadata management I use Ascent for syncing my GPS with the computer — it manages my racing and training data too. GPSPhotoLinker marries the photos downloaded in Lr with the gpx data from Ascent.

Finally, when I put together a post I use MarsEdit for the editing and my own SmugNDrag for creating the photo links.

Workflow

If you're still with me, here's a more detailed timeline of my workflow.

In the field

1. Turn on the GPS and establish a strong signal. Sync the clock on the camera with the GPS to make the linking of the tracks and photographs more accurate. I find the D40 clock runs quite fast and so I re-sync just about every time I shoot.
2. Make sure the memory card has been re-formatted. I reformat before every session.
3. Shoot. I try to carry a tripod but it doesn't always happen and I have no VR lens so I often will shoot 4-5 photographs in sequence — one or more of which is usually sharp enough.
4. Have fun. I most enjoy capturing my daughter as she grows up but I like to lay stomach-to-the-ground in the mud to photograph a mushroom too!

Archiving & Tagging

Most people seem to dislike the process of meta-tagging and editing but I enjoy it.

1. • Download the GPS tracks to the computer using Ascent and export the tracks to a gpx file. Sometimes I don't have a GPS track log so I skip this step but more and more frequently I do.
   • Download the photographs from the camera using Lr. I download all new photographs into an Incoming directory separate from the tagged and archived structure in which they will eventually be placed. Lr doesn't delete the photos from the card so I now have two copies of the photos: one on the computer, one on the card (that's why I reformat before every shoot).
2. Drag the gpx file and the files from Lr into GPSPhotoLinker, map a few photos to make sure the time and place agree and batch tag the photos.
3. Reload the metadata from the photos in Lr and continue tagging with keywords. I use the hierarchical keyword feature of Lr to tag People, Event and other keyword metadata extensively.
4. Run through the photos in Lr and remove all the rejects and duplicates. On a typical weekend outing to the beach I'll shoot about 400 photographs but keep around 150-200. I don't know if this is typical but I'm getting faster and faster at culling so this often means I'll get a few photos I really like.
5. Now the time consuming part, for all the photos I want to keep, begin making adjustments to color, exposure, crop, whatever.

   Sometimes I'll make a black-and-white or other more drastic color alterations.

   

   Some photos require more work such as this photo in the farm stand under really bizarre lighting. I also took the liberty to crop out some needless components (mouse-over to see the changes).

6. All of the keepers are moved within Lr to a directory matching their Year/Month and renamed accordingly in sequence. Since I make extensive use of metatags the actual directory structure is less important than other workflow schemes I've seen.
7. Export to SmugMug the best of the keepers, or if of my daughter everything I have — sometimes with jfriedl's plugin, other times with pysmug.
8. Backup. At this point I have a copy on the card, computer, SmugMug and external hard drive.

Blogging

After all the photographic bits are done I will occasionally blog about where we went and what we did.

Then I post, then you enjoy … I hope. Thanks for reading.

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.

The colors in this photo came out but the moon is not nearly as dramatic as in person — quite a difference in the trees from summer.

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 over the Cascades.

Mt Rainier in the morning sun — even in the photo the sun is nearly blinding.

The lighting was terrific and the sky so clear the glaciers were crisp with the naked eye.

I love the sunset — the glow around Rainier is awesome but the evening sun shining off the windows of West Seattle is really a show too.

a number of functions that all do very different things, but they all create and close a "context" [code example] I'd rather avoid the code duplication, and the danger of forgetting that try/finally block and the close().

The author's implementation was rather clever: using decorators to magically add the context, invoke the function passing the context instance as a keyword and then destroying the context after the function invocation. However, as the poster suggests, it's kinda kludgy and not explicit — thereby violating one of the tenets of The Zen of Python.

But, what's interesting, in some ways he basically invented the with statement introduced in Python 2.5 without knowing it. I really like with because it solves the often needed sequence of open-call-close rather abstractly and in quite a Pythonic way. My with solution shell:

from __future__ import with_statement # needed in 2.5, not in 2.6+

import logging
import traceback
logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO)

class Context(object):
    def __init__(self, i):
        self.i = i
        logging.info("(%d) initializing", self.i)

    def __enter__(self):
        logging.info("(%d) entering", self.i)

    def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_val, exc_tb):
        logging.error("(%d) exiting", self.i)
        if exc_type:
            s = traceback.format_exception(exc_type, exc_val, exc_tb)
            logging.error("".join(s))
            return True

def g():
    for i in range (4):
        with Context(i) as ctx:
            if i == 2:
                # for demonstration purposes let's raise
                raise ValueError(i)

g()

The two magic methods required to participant in context management are:

• __enter__: invoked when entering the context
• __exit__: invoked when leaving the context; if the exception arguments are non-None an exception was raised — return True to suppress, False to re-raise

Running the code yields:

$ python b.py 
INFO:root:(0) initializing
INFO:root:(0) entering
ERROR:root:(0) exiting
INFO:root:(1) initializing
INFO:root:(1) entering
ERROR:root:(1) exiting
INFO:root:(2) initializing
INFO:root:(2) entering
ERROR:root:(2) exiting
ERROR:root:Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "b.py", line 26, in g
    raise ValueError(i)
ValueError: 2

INFO:root:(3) initializing
INFO:root:(3) entering
ERROR:root:(3) exiting

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

Instead, we chose a beautiful six-footer from this grove.

Farms and broken down old trucks — naturally.

Given the winter rains, it's none too difficult to find rust on anything left outside — the pattern on the rusting wheel well looks fractal-like to me.

They really are pink — found growing under some cedars.

I like the lace around the cap.

I believe it's some sort of bolete.

On the mushroom walk I was told the grounds crew fought over who took home the shaggy parasols — we have hundreds growing around the yard.

I should have photographed this one a couple of days ago when it was a better specimen but I still like shape and form.

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.

After the Farmers' Market we drove to Fort Worden to play in the Sound and sun.

When we arrived at Point Wilson we saw a large contingent of birders & photographers waiting at the Point with thousands of dollars of binoculars, scopes and cameras to see, we learned, the yellow-billed loon. This particular loon is rarely spotted outside of Alaska I'm told and is obviously an elusive addition to the life list given the birding arsenal on display.

While we were playing in the surf, I saw movement among the birders and wanted to see what they saw, but my daughter decided sticks in the water were much more important — so long yellow-billed loon, next time.

We were out at midday and the sun was pretty harsh so I decided to try black & white as something different.

Most of the beaches at which we frolic are rocky but Point Wilson's sports a fine sand, a perfect medium for drawing with sticks and displaying shadows.

The lighthouse from the distance looks immaculate, with its perfect white paint and red roofs standing prominently at the Point — upon closer inspection it's far from perfect and feels abandoned. I think black & white really embodies the feeling though the color image is pretty cool too.

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

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.

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

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

The material on the park website referred to the scenic, clear-day views of the Olympics — we were not disappointed. As the sun burned off the morning clouds the views got more and more majestic.

For my daughter, the beach was everything, she got to play with sticks, oyster shells, leaves, rocks, a fish skeleton and of course wading mid-boot into the Sound.

On the state park property is the Emel House, built in 1911, and situated with million dollar views of the Hood Canal and Olympics. The house just oozes with rustic romance: a huge stone chimney, sweeping views of mountains & water, huge green lawns with wild rhodies and the feeling that not so long ago you were alone in the world here.

Railing with leaves and moss — I'm apparently into bright green moss.

Steps.

The town of Seabeck has a small general store and diner which appeared to be doing decent business — I loved the look-at-me paint job.

If you're looking for a place to go in Kitsap County I highly recommend Scenic Beach, especially for kids. I've since seen some spectacular sunset photos taken there and I'm looking forward to adding some to my own collection.

DoubleTake

Some time ago, I wrote about my issues with DoubleTake but I decided to give it a try again and this time I achieved much better results. The two biggest differences were:

• shooting in manual mode to fully control the shutter speed and aperture, more importantly ensuring they were the same for all shots
• using a tripod

I was happy enough with this photo to again consider purchasing a license.

Evidence of the blue skies in Seattle in November.

Moss and stone.

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.

We have a number of really large maples whose bright red leaves descend to cover the spent hydrangeas. This photo feels too busy but I like it nonetheless.

I removed hundreds of pounds of Herb Robert this year only for a new weed to cover the ground. The red of the fallen blueberry leaves complements the tiny green buds of our new visitor. I can't decide which photo I prefer, the original or the more processed variety.

While all the other plants are busy shedding their summer coats, the camillas burst forth with one more show of color and vitality.

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

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

The contrast of the bright sunlight illuminating Smith Tower against the threatening afternoon sky kept luring my glances.

An hour or so later the dark clouds were gone and Smith Tower was glowing orange from the setting sun.

• 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.

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".

I'm cheating a bit — I took this photo last Friday. If you squint you can see the submarine returning from duty. My familiarity with submarines is generally limited to what I know of those built in Manitowoc, WI (well and The Hunt for Red October) and I never saw those in action — it's remarkable to me to be so close to one on active duty.

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.

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

Welcome winter.

The posse circles waiting for food.

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:

The Mallard is the ancestor of nearly all domestic duck breeds (everything except the Muscovy Duck). Many of the domestic breeds look like the wild birds, but usually are larger. They are variable in plumage, often lacking the white neck ring or having white on the chest. Feral domestic ducks breed with wild Mallards and produce a variety of forms that often show up with wild ducks, especially in city parks.

These four have the traditional plumage: green heads, simple white band around the neck for males and brownish all over with mottled streaking of buff, white, and dark brown for the female, the juvenile's being lighter in color.

This guy has the green head but a large white bib with no thin white ring around the neck.

An example of a mature female, entranced with the camera, sporting the white bib.

Blue water, blue skies but far from home — Seattle is to the West.

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.

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

Blueberry.

Maple.

Lace leaf maple.

Japanese maple.

Witch hazel.

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

I enjoy being outside, giving back to the community and definitely love the food. When my wife wants work done around the yard she refers to it as a "work party" to encourage my participation.

Now I'm involved at a level I've never before experienced — last night I was elected a voting member of the TWL Board. I'm looking forward to more involvement in this organization as I really value its principles. I'm a firm believer in sustainable agriculture, fear the industrial food supply which feeds most of the US and want to promote local food & farming efforts.

Some reading if you're interested:

• Reclaiming the Commons
• Omnivore's Dilemma
• The Botany of Desire
• Fast Food Nation
• The Jungle

If you know of others please comment.

Eat locally, eat well.

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

Thank you eBay, and in particular Randy, for hosting such an outstanding event.

Pierre poses with Mt Rainier in the background.

Pierre basking in the setting sun.

I found a bit of time to stop by one of our country's more beautiful and influential universities: Stanford.

I love being out on the boat at sunset — I think it beats sunrise.

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

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.

My daughter loved the Pumpkin Walk until her sighting of Gingerbread Boy — which promptly ended our Pumpkin Walk 2008, racing, as instructed, back to the safety of our car.

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

Walking from the office to the ferry I saw two fire trucks, an ambulance and two squad cars all with their lights and sirens raging by a popular hangout for the homeless. With poles out and everyone hanging over the side looking down into the water it was pretty clear what had transpired. Shortly after I took the photo of Pig with the fire boat, the second boat arrived and confirmed what I suspected.

That's a huge cargo tanker in the distance, trust me, it's huger in person, the Sound is big.

The late boat in meant the late boat home — my first sunset as a full-time commuter.

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

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.

If it's not the beach you want, the marsh offers another naturalizing opportunity. Our daughter far prefers the water to the marsh so we've not explored it much — perhaps this winter.

A rusty hook on the old log — I found it interesting.

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.

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

But today, a block from work, I nailed a pot hole and knew instantly I was done in. I'm unable to accurately articulate the emotional stress my puncturing caused — I was distraught at work for at least an hour. It's a point of pride for me. I felt rejected: "What my precious little tube, you no longer want to ride with me?"

Since I'm so confident in my puncture-free streak I don't carry a spare tube, pump, tools, anything, so I need to bring a full complement tomorrow to fix it. When I told a friend over IM I had punctured, his response: "FINALLY!"

The hippo in happier times — stupid, happy hippo.

Leaning on the bike, waiting for the boat to dock in Seattle — moments before my fateful meeting.

Lunch today at Chuck's Hole in the Wall — it's ok, but I long for the South.

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

I had lunch with a fellow BI Geek and snapped some photos in the lobby of the of Disney offices, thanks R.

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!

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:

$ smugfind -l | sort
(u'Backprinting', None)
(u'CanRank', None)
(u'Category', (u'id', u'Name'))
…
(u'X2Larges', None)
(u'X3Larges', None)
(u'XLarges', None)
(u'id', None)

To find the titles of all the public albums without square thumbnails:

$ smugfind -f Title -p "Public and not SquareThumbs" | sort
[('Title', u"Chinese New Year's Parade 2008")]
[('Title', u'Avalanche Awareness')]
[('Title', u'Battle of Port Gamble')]
[('Title', u'Beautiful Day Ride')]

The coolest feature, imho, is the ability to create arbitrary predicates to evaluate against an album's metadata to find out which public albums do indeed need their thumbnails updated. The predicate is any valid Python expression evaluated in the context of the album's metadata making for a very simple and powerful expression language.

Read more documentation on the use of smugfind here; other changes are listed in the ChangeLog.

Enjoy!

"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?"

I answer.

"That's awesome," he says. "She's awesome. It's all her idea," I respond. We smile, hop on the bikes and load the boat.

Back home, "Hey, Daddy's bike, the sheep, big boats!"

No sunrise this morning, but this gull kept pace for quite some time daring me to get the camera out — I did.

I love trains and their stations too — fortunately the King Street Station is undergoing renovations to remedy years of neglect and abuse.

Two-by-two the animals load the ark.

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

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.

The pair went to lunch with me at Main St Gyros. Greek food in Seattle, in particular falafel, can't touch Chicago — certainly high on the list of items I miss from the Windy City — though the "fighting brothers" do make a decent one.

It started to rain on the ride home and I didn't feel like getting up to take another shot so you're looking at Turtle staring at the city skyline out the window of the quiet room. More than once now I've had other passengers give me a smile when I pull out an animal, set it up and shoot — today being no exception.

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.

The following are some of the mushrooms seen on the walk. We saw even more (lobsters, shrimps, …) but given the low light in the forest and lack of a tripod (I was the only one photographing in the group) a lot of photos were just too blurry. So, if you go, walk slowly, look down and enjoy the show!

Fly amanita.

Little brown mushroom, poisonous — don't eat!

Chantrelle.

These grow only on cones.

Check out the star shape, cool!

While we didn't sample any of the mushrooms, I did try a seed from Decaisnea fargesii (Blue Sausage Fruit, Dead Man's Fingers) which tasted a bit like lychee — most didn't care for it.

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.

Damn we have some fine sunrises.

Clearly the polar bear is some kind of lounger, chilling on the boat both to and fro and waiting while I order lunch at Cherry Street Coffee House.

Love and kindness works every day.

-- quote on the mirror at Cherry Street Coffee House

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

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.

I love the floor in the National Building, one of the hundreds of buildings in Seattle crafted from old growth fir and brick.

Lunch at Mae Phim Thai is like a scene out of Seinfeld. The cashier talks into a mic which spills out on to the street "21 spicy! 21 spicy! $6.50!" interlacing order up and order taking. The food is great, do go.

Almost every day a giant container ship crosses through the Sound bound or departing from the Port of Seattle. Raised in the Midwest, I never witnessed such enormous vessels and I'm awe something so huge can float. Unfortunately I didn't see one on the way home today — perhaps another day.

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

I missed afternoon coffee today! This horror, compounded by having enough beans at home for only a dessert shot, had to be remedied and Pegasus, a local Island roaster, became an emergency stop on the cycle home.

Low-light, intraride photos with the iPhone are a blurry mess, my apologies.

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

Back home, the tayberry leaves, once so richly green, blaze brilliant, fiery red.

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?

If you're thinking books in Seattle, Elliott Bay Book is the place to go:

Located in the heart of the historic Pioneer Square District, Seattle's original business neighborhood, The Elliott Bay Book Company is home to over 150,000 titles, set on cedar shelves in a series of inviting, exposed-brick walled rooms.

And go we did.

Miriam followed me to my genre of choice (history) and sat while I browsed a bit.

Afterward, she waited patiently as we dined on Curry Corn soup and espresso in the subterranean Cafe. It's quite dark down there — the perfect moody place when grey skies and rain play overhead.

Slides, swing, fun

Slides & swings kept the kids entertained.

Animals

What celebration of farming would be complete without animals?

Four years of growth sheared off in ten minutes. Like many aspects of farming, sheep shearing is not as idyllic once witnessed in person.

Cider

The highlight of the Fair for me (and many, many kids) is the fresh-made cider. The community is encouraged to press their own apples and turn the crank a couple of times.

Raw material.

The apples go into the hopper where they are mashed to make the pressing easier.

Turn the crank (from an old boat trailer) and out comes the juice.

Apple mash compost.

When it comes to apples, almost everyone wants to lend a hand harvesting.

Beer

Cider is good and beer is too! Ed and I imbibed courtesy TWL for our efforts volunteering both at the Fair and in its preparation. The beer garden was new this year — I suspect given the crowds it will be back.

Oh, and we ate s'mores too … yum!

On the walk home, when asked how she liked the Fair, my daughter responded: "Too much sun, too much play, too much horsey-back rides." Can you ask for anything more? Thanks TWL!

Here it is: I love, and feel blessed, to live here.

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.

Cars in queue for the ferry.

I missed the shot I really wanted. As we were riding on a cargo ship crossed through the Sound and had the sun directly overhead but unfortunately we needed to load about a minute sooner to pull it off. It was pretty wild to watch the clouds sink and leave only the small sliver of sunlight.

Sailboats enjoying the fleeting afternoon light.

Another stunning sunrise greeted the morning commuters.

While I photographed the rising sun, Pierre opted for a quick sit on the handlebars.

Not to be outdone by CG, Pierre, some guys from work and I took the bus to Pike Market for lunch — for those who care (no one I'm sure) this means I am no longer a Seattle bus virgin.

Lunch: Uli's Famous Sausages. On the way out one of the guys from work suggested Pierre sit atop Rachel, the Pike Market piggy bank — I concurred.

Thanks Pierre!

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.

Hands off the coffee George!

Back on the boat for the ride home CG decided to soak in the sun and pose with the Olympics visible on the horizon.

It was at this moment, with the wind blowing off the Sound, that CG almost got me in trouble as he toppled backwards flying toward the deck below. Fortunately for all parties, years spent honing the "no look" binkie catch paid off and I snagged CG before his escape completely materialized — troubly monkey!

One more photograph and back in the bag before he could get into any more trouble.

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

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

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.

I've been called out more than once on my closing comments, but I do love living here.

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.

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.

I use a Mac … enter File Vault and Time Machine. The web contains many complaints about their pairing but, for me, the limitations fit my workflow.

The main limitation to the marriage of File Vault and Time Machine is the latter can only run if the user of the former is logged out. Fine by me. Some of my applications, namely those using sqlite (Yojimbo comes to mind), should not be running while a Time Machine backup is occurring because the state of the backup could potentially be inconsistent.

To remedy this scenario, I had been quitting all applications prior to manually initiating Time Machine. Now I log out. It's actually safer and more robust. Perfect.

There was one issue in the migration, namely any directory in my home directory which I had excluded in Time Machine is no longer excluded since Time Machine now only sees a directory of data chunks, not a proper file system. Since this included some monster VMWare images I have no interest in backing up I moved them out of my home directory and voilà, problem solved.

In addition to the switch to File Vault I updated System Preferences to ask for a password after sleep and to disable automatic login.

The upside of all this is my backups on my external drives (one at home, one at work) are encrypted, my laptop is encrypted and I rest a bit easier. Nice.

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

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.

Unfortunately, the rain kept the camera under cover and I only managed the two weak shots.

If you're coming out to the Fair look for me driving one of the tractors or pressing cider. Enjoy!

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.

The primary flaws in the implementation were in the difficulty of passing around ThreadLocal required context but that's a pain-in-the-ass regardless and should be avoided if possible. The other concerned a slightly awkward callback mechanism for managing the timeouts. Hazelcast returns the Future directly to the caller but we choose to abstract this away so the caller coded to an interface which offered nothing about the possibility of being invoked remotely. To compensate, a callback mechanism could at runtime change any pre-configured timeout values based on the interface and/or the parameters of the invocation.

I've spoken before about the trade-off of abstracting remote invocations. On one hand it ensures discovery, error handling and invocations are accomplished consistently but on the other it invites developers to ignore the realities of a distributed system which can lead to the if-it-looks-local-it-will-be-coded-as-though-it-is-local problem. Dan Creswell offers:

I believe the best chance we have for doing distributed right is not by providing some de-facto standard toolset, rather it’s through education and mentoring to encourage the correct mindset. Such a mindset allows a developer building a distributed system to choose the most appropriate tools and use them right.

I agree that's definitely the best long-term solution but in the meantime the site needs to be up.

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.

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

I ate a couple of blueberries but their season is rapidly ending.

Mushrooms are everywhere: singles, clusters, large and small.

I almost stepped on this guy while I was taking out the compost. Fortunately he was looking for me and hopped away but he stayed still long enough to grab the camera and fire off a shot before hiding again.

I wasn't the only one tired from the day's work.

Go Badgers!

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.

He did have some gems I happened to note (these are not direct quotes but close):

• About writing:

  If not too much work then it's crap and there's no need to write crap.

• About the mystique of kernel hacking development and crashing the kernel:

  No one wants to write code that crashes. If you crash the kernel, reboot the machine and fix the bug.

• About work in general:

  No matter how cool the work is it's always boring so I'm always looking for something else to do.

  Boy did I empathize with this one. In his case, and mine, this means working on open source software.

• About releasing MacFUSE and the biggest surprise:

  I had released this very difficult software and the biggest surprise came from people complaining about the disk icon!

  An audience member offered it must have been because there were no bugs and therefore nothing else about which to complain.

Only at the end of the two hours did appear the ever-so-gentle "Google is great" mantra and it was more in the tone of "Google is very good about allowing open source development and utilizing their extensive reach to make the project successful". This can't be discredited in my opinion as marketing an open source project can be very difficult and Google's backing would certainly help.

I'm happy to have gone, I got to catch up with an old friend and tested the lights on the bike on the late ferry ride home.

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

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).

I, and the team, eventually got the hang of what we were doing and the rest of the ribs came down quickly, easily and safely.

I had to leave before the work was completed but I suspect there's more yet to do on the deconstruction front and certainly there's work to be done on the other end too.

• added the ability to paste the description
• only add the alt attribute if the description field is populated

The app now sports a new Edit menu item:

The new release is available here and through automatic updates via Sparkle. Enjoy!

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.

Arriving at Sunrise we herded the kids and started along the gravel trails meandering through the meadows under dark, gloomy skies. This didn't last long for it was damn cold. By the time I shed most of my warmer layers for the sake of the family even I was cold so the hiking around Sunrise turned into a sit-around-the-table-at-the-lodge adventure. P and I did take the kids to the Visitor Center where they touched a mountain goat skin and otherwise goofed around. Walking back to their mothers they held hands and jumped, too cute.

We went back to the cabin to warm up, ate dinner and enjoyed wine, fire and friends while the kids slept — a decidedly wonderful evening.

On Sunday morning, my daughter, an early riser, awoke pre-dawn as usual. We knew from the day before D slept in until 9am so we strapped our pajama-clad child into the car and went to Packwood for coffee so the others could catch some more sleep.

I had read the day before about a coffee shop in town who roasted their own beans, the Butter Butte Coffee Co (it's for sale!). At the coffee shop we met and struck up a conversation with a woman from Portland up for the flea market. She told us how it has changed over the years: more food, fewer antiques, more junk. I've heard this story over and over because of eBay, craigslist and other online venues for selling merchandise — it's too bad some aspects of Americana are being destroyed. That said, the market was packing them in, even charging $4 to park at convenient locations.

When we finished our coffee and the flea market was starting up again we headed back to the cabin; Sunday's destination: Paradise.

Before we go though, let's first check out this sign:

So let me get this straight, you need to tell people not to shoot guns in town for fear of a measly $250 fine? What? Anyway… We all loved this sign but none more than P.

So on we drove (lots of driving on this trip) up to Paradise. After yesterday's freezing (literally) weather we were promised sunshine, shirt-sleeves and flowers — one out of three isn't keeping much of a promise. We were greeted not only overcast skies, more freezing weather but also a mass of would-be day-hikers all up for the holiday weekend.

Onward we adventurers went, the kids holding hands again when they weren't tucked under my arms squealing with delight as a I did wind-sprints up the mountain, "More run, more run!" shouted they.

Eventually the air grew colder and the slight dry rain turned into steady freezing snow. In oft written words "the woman and children went back to the warming lodge while the men went a little further up the mountain."

The rest of the hike, though short, was enjoyable — the more the snow fell the more attractive the flowers and heather.

After finishing the short hike, we returned to the lodge to find the kids warm and eating. My daughter didn't want to say goodbye but depart we must and home we went.

Thanks P, M & D for inviting us, we had a great time!

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.

Nearby I found another cluster of brightly stemmed mushrooms but I think these are unlike the first observation and were found under different conditions.

In trying to identify my mushrooms I stumbled upon Mushroom Observer - a rather cool site to upload photos of your observations and get assistance correctly identifying them. Since I'm constantly finding new mushrooms I'm looking forward to using this site. Feel free to check out my maybe-atrodisca observation and/or my soon-to-be growing list of observations.

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.

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.

The weather being so agreeable, I rode over to Johnson Farm to check on the apples and bask in the summer sun. The trees and bee hives were heavy with activity.

When I got home, surprise, surprise, I no longer had individual berries but a berry soup of sorts. Clearly the bumpy roads of dirt, farm and wildlife preserve aren't gentle on berries. The jelly — berries, sugar, lemon, love — didn't seem to mind.

What we don't forage for we grow and our garden is producing madly with most of our evening meals' primary component the product of seeds planted months ago. The first of the tomatoes are finally ripening, the broccoli heads are robust and beautiful and there's ample cabbage void of slug damage for a couple of jars of sauerkraut.

Last year the plum harvest produced five gallons of wine but this year's crop is not as promising — apple cider anyone?

I didn't notice what appears to be a spider among the apples until after I got home. I did, however, notice all the spiders picking berries!

I love living here.

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.

I used to ride to the Metra station in Chicago and bought a 2006 Bianchi San Jose single-speed for the commute. It was perfect for Chicago and turns out to be pretty ideal for Bainbridge and Seattle too. Here's the bike setup for commuting:

I carry a laptop, portable hard drive, iPhone, clothes and assorted other sundries back and forth. The bike's made of steel so it's not light and when you factor my weight in I'm really fighting gravity up the hills.

Fortunately, the thrill of cycling (even though it's only 3-ish miles each way) and views from the boat make the experience enjoyable so far.

I've noticed a big difference between riding in Chicago and Seattle. In Chicago, anything goes, ride where you ride and look out for yourself. In Seattle, it's more orderly and there appears to be rules about which I'm still not entirely clear. The other big difference is the hills. I gain more elevation from garage to road than I could in an entire 9 mile commute in Chicago. I've climbed Alpe d'Huez — some of the steep, albeit short, hills here hurt too.

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.

Overall the viewing wasn't spectacular (I was out from about 2:30-3:30am) and the photographs aren't particularly good but it was fun nonetheless.

(I have some room for improvement in nighttime photography.)

The Big Dipper was just over the horizon and appeared far bigger than normal, though I learned later at work this is just an optical illusion.

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.

This is silly. If I lived on either side I'd probably do the same but nonetheless this walk felt weird.

The views weren't very good because of the low clouds (it rained both days this weekend). I suspect on a clear day the Olympics are pretty visible. Expect to see some sunset photos posted in the near future if this turns out to be true. The rock wall to the North stands as yet another fence — if that wasn't enough the sign was posted on both sides.

Despite the extremely narrow park we had a good time because we found this little yellow shore crab nestled under a rock my daughter upturned. It looked right up at us and then scurried away with my daughter in pursuit. We let it go — but it was another entry in the budding naturalists' log.

I encouraged my daughter to run all the way back along the mulched trail then I carried her back to Battle Point where we played on the freshly painted equipment and watched the red-tailed hawks, osprey and Canada geese fly about — another day on Beautiful Bainbridge Island.

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.

A couple of weeks ago we planted some new lavender (a T&C 3-for-$10 special, my wife's Achilles' heal) and they're looking great.

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.

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

The flybys were the highlight of the day. First high:

… then low:

That plane is barely clearing the boats and trees! As you'd expect, the sound was nearly deafening. Following the fast moving planes while standing on a boat on a lake with chop is not my normal photographic experience.

A couple more passes and the show ends.

I was curious about fuel consumption so I did some googling. A rough estimate for the weight of jet fuel is 7lbs/gallon and according to the Blue Angel web site each Boeing F/A 18 Hornet carries 11K lbs of fuel. If I'm reading this table correctly, the cost of jet fuel is about $3.76/gallon (seems low). This, I believe, works out to be almost $6K worth of fuel per plane.

We were greeted with a gorgeous 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.

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.

From the visitor center, we viewed the waterfall …

… made our way to the Japanese garden …

… and walked through the moss and reflection gardens.

During our visit we were unfortunately surrounded by loud-talking-brochure-reading biddies which spoiled the experience a bit — reflecting back the Reserve is really amazing — I'm excited for fall.

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!

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

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

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.

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.

A short way up the trail I found this slime mold whose color was quite striking among the dappled light coming through the trees.

Not too far from the slime mold I saw some candystick and pinesap poking through the forest floor. These are wildflowers but they lack chlorophyll and get their nutrients from the rich humus. I was beginning to feel like I was in some enchanted forest.

About two miles into the hike I started encountering blow-down, none of which was too difficult to traverse but presented an obstacle nonetheless.

After the forest and onto the higher slopes, you start to see a really excellent wild-flower display, including one of my favorites, red columbine.

I found one of the cool parts of the hike to be these tiny little flowers growing among the rock. The heat from the sun was really intense when fully exposed and these plants were basking in it.

I stopped here to have a light lunch because the views of Mt Baker, to my left, were phenomenal and, to my right, I could hear and see a waterfall.

After lunch I started further up the trail to Heather Park, encountering my first snow pack.

Heather Park was covered in both snow and wildflowers, including these American globeflowers, but not much heather.

If you're considering this hike be prepared for an intense workout because it's quite steep, especially coming through the woods.

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.

The deer are everywhere and not at all timid among the visitors. I like how the ears of the deer are mirrored by the trees in the background.

The photo of the tree is one of my bigger disappointments because I was too lazy to use the tripod so the shot is anything but crisp though fortunately the colors work if the image is small enough.

The wildflowers at Hurricane Hill were really incredible and I enjoyed them more in the morning than the previous evening.

Sunlight brings another beautiful clear day to the Olympics. While the rest of the Mountaineers head back for naps to rest up for the night shot I'm off to Heather Park and then home.

More photos from the morning shoot are available here. The last of the series will be from my hike to 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.

While everyone else was shooting the deer I focused on the small stuff because I had the 105mm lens along. (I really enjoy shooting with this lens but my opinion hasn't changed: it's too expensive for me right now, bummer. Oh, and another thing, if you do own this lens, turn off VR on a tripod for sharper images — it took awhile to find this out.) This grasshopper on the lupine would have been a better photograph it the sun wasn't so harsh.

I love the lines, less the light.

I'm a sucker for a thistle.

A classic photographic composition — shoot the odd man out — in this case a red indian paintbrush among the purple-blue lupine …

… and another with a tiger lily among the lupine.

We were fortunate to have the moon because there were few clouds to capture and highlight the sunlight.

Pretty.

Also pretty.

This shoot was a fantastic learning experience for me and looking back over these photographs I see lots of mistakes, some gems and tremendous room for improvement — my Trash is pretty is full ;)

I think the better set of photographs are from the early morning set so be sure to stay tuned.

There are more photos available here.

there is a road that meets the road

that goes to my house

and how the green grows there

-- Decemberists

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.

Our bounty is in spite of the fact a deer got through the electric fence (since patched) and helped itself to some greenery, fortunately leaving the fruit for us.

The vegetables are coming along as well with the peas just short of flowering, the potatoes already there and the pac choi ready for dinner.

Fruits and vegetables aren't the only vegetation we have growing in the yard.

Last year the Shaggy Parasols were out in full force a couple of months sooner — perhaps our cold and rainy spring kept them from popping earlier?

The last of the foxgloves took a beating in the thunderstorms we had last week.

And finally, what's an update without a bee photo, this one landing on some lavender.

My daughter's original sandbox is tucked away under an overgrown orchard too near the electric fence and made from pressure treated wood, the boogeyman of today's garden, so my wife and I decided it needed replacing and a new home nearer the swing-set.

First, I laid out a rough placement for the sandbox to get an idea of sizing:

The design is pretty simple: two six foot long sides and two four foot ends of 1"x12" cedar. In the prototype design, the corners are each cut to three inches long but my wife suggested cutting half to four inches and half to three so when joined in the corner they would both extend three inches, great idea. Off to the lumber yard I went, proclaiming my "unhandiness" to everyone I met (why I'm not sure), to purchase some clear cedar to build the sandbox of my daughter's dreams.

I first cut the corners to size:

I had to cut one board in half to form the ends. I was using two sawhorses to support the wood but didn't have another to catch the piece being cut. The cutting of the smaller pieces went fine but cutting the bigger piece resulted in failure number one as it hit the driveway:

Ugh. I was able to use a screw to bind it up a bit and after some pep-talking from my wife, and lunch, continued. After everything was cut I started the assembly.

I haven't mentioned it yet but it was wicked hot on Sunday and I think this affected my already suspect ability to follow directions and visualize a finished product. After completely screwing the sandbox together I looked at the corners:

Dammit, failure number two — rather than having nice 3"x3" corners I instead installed 4"x2" corners — I hate woodworking. I suppose I could have re-screwed the whole thing but I was hot and wanted to move on to the portion of the job I do like: playing in the dirt.

I excavated the ground around where the sandbox would go, leveled it with the stakes and filled in some backfill.

After installing the weed liner:

it was filled with sand and toys:

and the job was done:

My daughter did a prolonged "Sandbox Dance" — all the work was worth it — success!

Even I'm enjoying it.

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.

You can read more coverage about open-sourcing ERMA here and be sure to check out the real-time visualization software we released, Graphite, as well.

Congrats Matt!

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.

A few boats were loaded into the locks while we watched, a couple apparently doing it for the first time given the general confusion around what to do. We started to watch the water rise but having risen in locks while kayaking, we knew the proceedings and left early to check out the botanic garden …

which I found more interesting.

After we spent some time chasing squirrels and running through the lawns we went to the Ballard Market and Clover Toys, the kind of toy store we love with lots of European-imported toys and almost no plastic crap (though we did walk out with a new rubber duck named "Ben"). The owner of the store introduced us to Froebel Gifts which we had to buy because I loved them so, my daughter taking to them (Gift 1) as much as I.

I love farmers' markets. In Chicago I would shop three days a week in the summer and arrive at work loaded down with bags of currants, blueberries, bread, … whatever was seasonal. The BI market is great but the Ballard Market is really my kind of affair, reminding me a little of the markets in Paris with a full complement of products on display.

For as often as we attend a farmers' market I rarely take photos even though I feel it's a wonderful display of color and textures — I rushed these photos not wanting to look like that-guy-with-the-camera. I can't wait to go back and fortunately it doesn't conflict with our local market.

Back home in the garden we have our own peonies opening slowly.

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.

Let the battle begin.

I love this photo. I don't remember seeing the girl in the middle when I was shooting but when I was going through the photos it really jumped out at me. I love how she's standing so innocently among the battle.

The battlefield as the end of the Northern victory was secured.

The camp after the battle was lively with food over open fires and musicians playing our favorite Southern music.

I'm happy we went, but I don't think we'll be going again, not because the event wasn't well staged but rather that's enough loud noises for a while — back to the woods, mountains and birds for us.

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.

The 3 Crabs opened and we had crabcakes for lunch. While I like Dungeness crab, I generally finish wanting more, especially for the price, and this time was no exception. I'm still looking for a real crab shack — a dive.

Fortunately the Sound cleared while we ate. If you look closely dead-center on the horizon you can see the New Dungeness Lighthouse. Compare this photo to the one above, taken maybe thirty minutes earlier; the weather on the coast is volatile.

Somewhat disappointed, we left The 3 Crabs and drove to the Spit. Paying our three dollars we headed down the trail and stopped at a lookout which gave a great view of this unique formation.

A spit (courtesy Wikipedia):

A spit is a deposition landform found off coasts. At one end, spits connect to land, while at the far end they exist in open water. A spit is a type of bar or beach that develops where a re-entrant occurs, such as at cove's headlands, by the process of longshore drift.

Basically, it's a long, thin sandbar and in the case of the Dungeness Spit it protects the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge. If you look at the extreme right of the horizon in the photo below you can see the Lighthouse, 5.5 miles down sand, stones and driftwood. This is one long finger.

The Black Brant winters here and while not threatened yet it is being watched because of habitat loss.

On the way home we stopped at Nash's Organic Produce in Dungeness. My daughter loved the broccoli and almost refused to hand it over to be weighed. The produce was delicious — and cheap! I can't wait to go back. As unimpressed as I was with The 3 Crabs, I loved Nash's!

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.

Communicating Like Nemo

I'm not sure what I was supposed to get out of this presentation. I understand that working under water places significant constraints on connectivity, bandwidth and other factors but I didn't feel like I really learned much about how these are being overcome. I did get to brush up on my PADI hand signals — it's been awhile since I dove last.

maidsafe

Since I arrived to the conference a bit late I was seated towards the rear of the room for the first two talks. The presenter chose to use the whiteboard as a primary presentation medium, which as a friend said demonstrates he really has confidence and knows his shit, but for me was unfortunate since I could barely hear the presentation nor see the board. Since my mind was already deep in debugging objc's forwardInvocation: I chose to leave the room and finish my work, in which I'm happy to report success. Afterwards, I learned this talk was pretty good if you could see and hear.

Chapel

Fantastic. This was the quality and topic of talk I was looking forward to seeing. Chapel is a new programming language coming out of Cray which:

supports a multithreaded parallel programming model at a high level by supporting abstractions for data parallelism, task parallelism, and nested parallelism. It supports optimization for the locality of data and computation in the program via abstractions for data distribution and data-driven placement of subcomputations.

It supports constructs within the language to create and execute arbitrarily nested tasks via a begin keyword and join on the results of those calculations via sync. Furthermore, it can execute the same tasks in parallel by using cobegin and coforall operations without changing the underlying code. This is an improvement over the current state-of-the-art MPI programming which forces the developer to have intimate knowledge about both the high level logic of the application and the distributed runtime, creating difficult to maintain code. Chapel also supports synchronization of tasks in a similar, data-driven manner.

In addition to the task and data parallelism, Chapel supports the idea of locales which can be CPUs, cores or separate machines entirely. Through lower level constructs such as locale and on, the developer can specify where tasks should run and how resources are accessed and utilized.

This is pretty exciting. I like the approach of high-level, don't-worry-about-it language features with the ability to dig deeper if necessary. Unfortunately, I'm not sure this language will ever see a line of code from the likes of me given its intended problem domain and hardware.

Carmen

The scientific community is plagued by a number of issues regarding research such as a myriad of file formats, no central repository for data and limited data sharing and analysis. Carmen addresses some of these concerns through the implementation of a domain-specific cloud architecture. In many ways it looks and feels like EC2+AWS but it addresses the specific needs of the science community, such as the security model for collaboration and the cost structure of using the commercial clouds given the cost for data storage would be extraordinarily high.

In order to carry out experiments or analysis, data and services are uploaded to the cloud and then a workflow is created to integrate, via SOAP, the binary services (WARs, executables). During the runtime of the analysis, if additional services are required (based on numerous metrics) they are automatically created and deployed. This sounds a lot like a combination of EC2 and AppEngine.

The presenter also showed a photo of an exposed human brain from an operation — unexpected at a computer conference.

GIGA+

This was one of those talks that was, for me, better for the bits of take-away material than the actual product being presented. For example, when a node reaches storage capacity in GIGA+ it splits some of the data elsewhere. In order to achieve limited-to-no locking, each node keeps a table of where it sent data so every client doesn't have to be updated right now but instead can be lazily updated. If a client makes a request to the old node because of a stale view of the world, the request is forwarded, ala HTTP, and the client updated. I also learned about extendible hashing and bitmap management of partition locations.

This could have been a more interesting talk but a lot of assumptions about the operating environment were made making it more or less unrealistic at the moment, such as: the network is always reliable, the configuration is static, no offline disconnected mode.

Google Maps Mobile

A light, but interesting overview of the problems facing mobile development: lots of OSs, form factors, bandwidth, available storage, security, localization, …

Wikipedia on Erlang

This talk should have replaced Erlang with DHT in the title for it was really about replacing a typical large-scale MySQL cluster of databases with a DHT+transactions to implement a clone of Wikipedia. As far as I could tell, Erlang was used a pseudo-message bus with more development in Java integrated with Erlang via JInterface. In the end, this looked like a similar implementation of SimpledDB or any of the other key-value stores.

NetWorkSpaces

NetWorkSpaces is a Python-implemented (twisted and Zope) tuplespace integrated with R to provide parallel computation for the otherwise serial computational model of R. Given the almost commodity-like tuplespace environment, it seems the real advantage here is the integration with R and not the tuplespace itself (again see SimpleDB, …), though the presenter pointed out NWS would run on any platform which runs Python. The typical deployment is small, around 12-16 nodes, because that's a normal installation more than a limitation of the architecture.

Shared Transactional Memory

A good, general overview of the problems facing language and hardware (Azul, Sun Rock) developers and engineers as they attempt to address transactional memory. I thought the presenter did a nice job of demonstrating the issues through code examples but as with any [H|S]TM presentation, it was light on answers and heavy on "that needs to be figured out".

Conclusion

I was glad I went for the Chapel talk and enjoyed the Carmen, GIGA+ and STM talks.

One of the themes I took away was while cloud computing has become mainstream there's a need to add the domain-specific abstraction on top of it, not too dissimilar really to the ever-growing popularity of DSLs implemented in mainstream languages.

I liked last year's approach better: fewer talks, more time for each presentation, more polished speakers and more technical content; I also liked the move to Seattle from Bellevue.

In order to get the results for my 80+ albums and 3200+ photos I need to make one call to get the full list of albums and then one call each for every photo. If this was being done serially, then I'd give up too, but under pysmug sits pycURL+libcurl which are very fast at handling many, many simultaneous requests.

Here's the code:

def tagcloud(self, kwfunc=None):
  """
  Compute the occurrence count for all keywords for all images in all albums.
  
  @keyword kwfunc: function taking a single string and returning a list of keywords
  @return: a tuple of (number of albums, number of images, {keyword: occurences})
  """
  b = self.batch()
  albums = self.albums_get()["Albums"]
  for album in albums:
    b.images_get(AlbumID=album["id"], AlbumKey=album["Key"], Heavy=True)

  images = 0
  kwfunc = kwfunc or _kwsplit
  cloud = collections.defaultdict(lambda: 0)
  for params, response in b():
    album = response["Album"]
    images += album["ImageCount"]
    for m in (x for x in (y["Keywords"].strip() for y in album["Images"]) if x):
      for k in kwfunc(m):
        cloud[k] = cloud[k] + 1

  return (len(albums), images, cloud)

The big win here is I'm not waiting on sum(response times) but rather on max(response times) because the requests are being handled asynchronously and the responses are coming back as soon as they're ready. If I remove the use of the batchable and instead make the requests serially I wait much, much longer: batchables create the cloud in less than 30 seconds, serially it takes just under three minutes. This works out to around 110 requests/second for the batchable and 19 requests/second serially. I'd say that's an impressive performance improvement.

This new method is available on tip and will be released with v0.5 (though it's easily back-patched to v0.4). There are a number of other batchable examples in the SmugTool class.

I love asynchronous IO — concurrently handling many requests with a simple API makes me happy; using only one thread makes me happy too.

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!

The drive to Belfair was easy enough and we were soon in the parking lot for the trails. Not boding well, the maintenance guy was driving his garden tractor down the boardwalk on which we were walking. After he saw us, he immediately offered to drive far ahead and park as he said he'd just finished mowing. This was welcomed news because my daughter is in the no-loud-noise-unless-she-makes-it stage.

When we caught up to him he chatted us up for a solid ten minutes and offered a number of opinions about the trails, where to see 800+ year old tree stumps (take the left branch of the Y at the end of the trail) and what draws him to the area (not the birds because if he looked at them he'd drive the tractor off the trail). I've always loved the candid portrait shots I've seen others display from their travels but I've never been able to bring myself to ask permission to take such a photo — I should — for his would be forever memorable.

There are a couple of trails to take and since the path down the long boardwalk seemed empty, we chose that direction first. My daughter happily bounced down the walk — encouraged by promises of goldfish crackers — and climbed on the railing as we made our way out to the middle of the wetlands.

From the boardwalk you overlook the Hood Canal and Union River, as well as numerous swallows, namely Tree Swallows, eating the plentiful supply of bugs.

After spending some time trying to photograph swallows, and failing miserably, we turned around and started walking — slowly — to the pond. Despite my wife "learning" how to use the binoculars and my daughter picking up every pebble we finally neared the pond. We were still well over a mile from the 800+ year old tree stump so I knew that was out for the day as it was nearing lunch. Fortunately the numerous Red-winged Blackbirds entertained as they dive-bombed each other.

As we were getting ready to depart, this little fellow, I believe a muskrat, swam toward us. We were waiting for him to get a little closer and then he dove straight under the water and didn't return. Where did he go?

I wish the weather had been a bit more accommodating, dark skies dark photos, but I did get a chance to experiment with the different autofocus and metering modes. We had a great time and intend to return.

SmugNDrag automates the generation of image links suitable for blogging: an embedded image which when clicked navigates to the full image in the SmugMug gallery. It understands SmugMug naming convention to render the correct image size and can optionally populate the image description.

It's pretty straight forward to use, simply navigate to the desired image at SmugMug in your browser and copy the url to SmugNDrag. The resulting url is copied to the pasteboard similar to the Share functionality at SmugMug, only with a richer link.

It's available here. Feedback welcomed. If you use it, post your blog in the comments.

Geoducks squirting and spitting water.

Starfish and sea anemone hanging out.

A crab on his journey to the sea.

I don't have names for these. I have a lot to learn about the Washington coast.

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.

This arch is usually covered by water but today you could walk right through it.

Before the starfish were visible, we spotted a lone blue heron (I need more zoom).

The only other starfish I've seen this close were at the Seattle Aquarium. As much we enjoy the Aquarium, I preferred seeing them in their native environment, albeit in crappy weather.

The maybe-nudibranch hung out under the rocks and were a little difficult to photograph, the elements adding to my issues. I'm not entirely sure the following photos are indeed of nudibranches but I couldn't resist writing about them. You should check out these amazingly colorful little creatures in the previous links. If my photos aren't of nudibranches, then what did we see?

Had it not been raining so steadily I would have tried to capture a geoduck in action but it was not meant to be — and by action I mean spitting water three feet in the air. All in all a pretty phenomenal experience. The weather's been crap but it hasn't slowed down the naturalists-in-training.

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.

We strolled towards the pond where I took a photo of a mallard sleeping on the pier with only one leg down, a sleeping position of which I was unaware.

The swallows, so named apparently for the bugs they eat skimming over the water, were out in force. We also saw two great blue herons on the far side of the pond, easily seen with binoculars but not so clear to the naked eye.

From the pond we started making our way toward a pileated woodpecker nest the naturalists had previously scouted. The group split a little as we migrated, those with kids falling behind those without — providence.

As we walked through the woods yours truly spotted a barred owl flying through trees and land on a branch but given the overcast skies and deep woods it wasn't easy to make out much detail with the naked eye. While I pointed out the owl to others my wife used our single pair of binoculars to view it while I held our daughter and directed everyone to "see that triangle of dark trees with the light tree behind them, you can't miss it." (Of course, the "you can't miss it part" didn't hold for everyone. I found birding to be as much about listening and observing as it is about being able to follow someone else's directions. Unsurprisingly I was much better at giving orders than taking.) When my wife finally did decide to hand over the binoculars the owl, of course, departed.

When looking at pictures of the owl online this evening, I asked my wife "Hey, did you get to see the eyes?" to which she responded "Oh, many times." We will now own binoculars for all for us.

After the owl (and getting to brag about spotting it when we re-grouped) we made our way towards the woodpecker nest. Not only was the nest visible but the bird itself was out too. It's huge! The entrance way to the nest was so cleanly pecked out it was as though the bird had used a router. The accompanying photo is terrible I know, but I was excited to take it, forgive me. The bird is black with a red head in the center of the photo.

On the way home I put one of the calls I learned to use. One bird, I remember the call and not the name, basically makes the sound I use to call my dog. I flirted with the bird back and forth — pretty cool.

Peonies, ants and rhodys

Back in the garden, I had noticed yesterday the beginning buds on our peonies so I went to take a closer look. This is my first time growing peonies but I had always heard about ants associated with their budding so I was unsurprised when sure enough every bud had at least two ants busily eating the sap the flowers excrete.

In other budding news, I love the look of a rhody pre-bloom. The rhodys just keep coming, each more showier than the last. I could probably post a rhody photo a day for a month without repeating a color.

I'm tired — I'll have more to say after I sleep on it but given the total vendor lock-in and significantly locked-down Python interpreter I'd be surprised if I spent a lot more time on this (though I do really want the espresso tasting application).

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.

Dear Amazon,

Please stop trashing my books.

Your prices are almost unbeatable and that's why a steady stream of your boxes continue to fill my recycling bin but I've had about enough. At least Alibris let's me know ahead of time which book would arrived nearly destroyed so I can buy it elsewhere.

I have no real data backing this up, but it feels as though one in four books comes ruined and it's to the point where I open each box with trepidation waiting to see which of the precious tomes will need re-purchasing. I can travel to Israel and back by ferry, taxi and plane without so much as creasing a page in a six hundred page book but you can't seem to deliver them from a warehouse an hour and half away without folding a cover. The pain of a trashed book lives with me for days.

I've heard a rumor your prices are low because you stock the books rejected by other bookstores. If this is true, please let me know, so I can stop buying books with maladies I can't tolerate. I'll continue to buy your mp3s and cameras, but I'll need to shop elsewhere for books. I'm the guy who looks at every book on the shelf at the bookstore and chooses the best copy — sometimes choosing none if there's not one meeting my approval.

I know it's not normal to care about this, but I once purchased a brand new book to adorn my bookcase and donated the dog-eared page, bent-spine version returned by a friend to the library because I couldn't stand the sight of it. My father reads books borrowed from me in fear. To me cars can be scratched and gardens messy but books, my books, must be pristine.

Amazon, please stop trashing my books.

thanks, brian

I originally tried using the sourcecode macro at wordpress.com but it didn't work with my theme. I then turned to TextMate but didn't find an immediate solution but fortunately stumbled upon Pygments which was exactly what I wanted. Here's the highlighted source for the highlight script itself:

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

code = open(__file__).read()
print highlight(code, PythonLexer(), HtmlFormatter(
  full=False,
  style="native",
  noclasses=True))

I have not upgraded to use non-standard CSS so all the color is in-lined with the tags making for a bigger page download and an ugly entry in MarsEdit — I can live with this for now.

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

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.

I'm trying to decide between Lightroom and Aperture so this photo received more post-processing time than any other I've taken. As you can see I still have a lot of learning to do. I want to like Aperture, but I don't — I do, however, like Lightroom 2 β. I'll post when I decide.

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.

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:

diff -r c68686a4d0b2 setup.py
--- a/setup.py  Thu May 15 21:06:32 2008 -0700
+++ b/setup.py  Thu May 15 21:49:39 2008 -0700
@@ -298,6 +298,8 @@
         # Ensure that /usr/local is always used
         add_dir_to_list(self.compiler.library_dirs, '/usr/local/lib')
         add_dir_to_list(self.compiler.include_dirs, '/usr/local/include')
+        add_dir_to_list(self.compiler.library_dirs, '/opt/local/lib')
+        add_dir_to_list(self.compiler.include_dirs, '/opt/local/include')

         # Add paths specified in the environment variables LDFLAGS and
         # CPPFLAGS for header and library files.

This worked. After installing the rest of the required pysmug dependencies (simplejson, nose, setuptools, pycurl) I was able to build pysmug. Running the tests resulted in the following error:

  File "…/nose-0.10.2-py2.6.egg/nose/suite.py", line 377, in makeSuite
self.context.setdefault(suite, []).append(context)
TypeError: unhashable type: 'ContextSuite'

It turns out this issue already has a patch. After applying it and re-[compiling,installing] I tried again. Success!

performance

Out of curiosity I tried two runs each of 2.5 and 2.6, interlaced.

$ python2.6 setup.py nosetests
Ran 9 tests in 10.654s
$ python2.5 setup.py nosetests
Ran 9 tests in 12.128s
$ python2.6 setup.py nosetests
Ran 9 tests in 11.413s
$ python2.5 setup.py nosetests
Ran 9 tests in 12.207s

In this extremely unscientific test it appears 2.6 has the edge. I wouldn't read very much into this.

In version 0.4 of pysmug I refactored my code from this:

def _login(self, handler, **kwargs):
  kwargs = self._prepare_keywords(**kwargs)
  method = kwargs.get("method", None)
  …

to this:

@smugmug_keywords
def _login(self, handler, **kwargs):
  method = kwargs.get("method", None)
  …

by using this function (the function mg was originally the _prepare_keywords function):

def smugmug_keywords(fn):
  """Prepare the keywords for sending to SmugMug.

  The following operations are performed::
    1. If the key is "method", continue.
    2. If the key starts with an upper case letter, continue.
    3. If the key is in {methods.apikeys}, replace the key.
    4. If the key ends with {id}, upper case the first letter
       and {ID} and replace the key.
    5. Else, upper case the first letter only and replace the
       key.

  @param fn: the decorated function
  """
  def mg(*args, **kwargs):
    items = kwargs.items()
    for k, v, in items:
      if k == "method":
        continue
      if k[0].isupper():
        continue
      lk = k.lower()
      if lk in apikeys:
        key, func = apikeys[lk]
        del kwargs[k]
        kwargs[key] = func(v) if func else v
      else:
        del kwargs[k]
        if lk.endswith("id"):
          kwargs[lk[:-2].title() + "ID"] = v
        else:
          kwargs[lk.title()] = v
    return fn(*args, **kwargs)
  return mg

This function is an argument for Erlang-style pattern matching.

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.

configuration file format

The original configuration file format was evaled Python code. I was never perfectly happy with this approach and when I needed to add the ability to choose the class to instantiate in pysmug.login() I took the opportunity to change it. You can read more about the changes here.

[1] From Urban Dictionary:

The Shitload first became common usage during World War II. Farmers, who's sheds were previously full of shit were called upon to empty their shit-filled barns in order to allow for the making of weapons.

A Shitload refers to between 1 and 4 tons of equine or bovine excrement (that's horse and cowshit to you and me). More specifically Shitload describe the overfullness of the trailers used by farmers.

I've got a shitload of hay in my barn.

by Graham Nigel Goddard-Hill The West Country Jul 15, 2005

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.

Using batchables with pysmug, all image calls are handled in parallel and asynchronously for a pretty quick response. The implementation of the function is a great example of batchables in action. I can't get the Erlang version to perform anywhere near as quickly.

In testing the new 1.2.2 API, it seems the images_upload method doesn't require the *Key attribute though all other methods do appear to require it. I need to confirm this with SmugMug.

Changelog

The tag hasn't been applied yet but I suspect this will be more or less the Changelog.

• fully tested with the 1.2.2 API changes
• added the ability to choose the API version to use (defaults to 1.2.2)
• added albums_details which returns detailed information about an album and all containing images (include EXIF if requested)
• added verbose and progress callbacks to assist in debugging
• do not send any keywords to SmugMug with a value of None
• updated to use hashlib for md5
• examples now either use anonymous logins or require a conf file
• added and fixed documentation

The majority of tags edited post-capture are handled by IPTC but unfortunately the GPS set of tags reside solidly in EXIF. Since I can't update my geo data from within EM I can, and do, edit it with other tools, namely PictureSync or the amazing ExifTool.

So who's right? If EXIF data is meant to be static, and for the most part does contain static data, then MS has a somewhat sound argument. But if the rest of the industry eschews this notion then should MS really decide otherwise and inconvenience its user base?

Standards work best when they are.

Mora is quite expensive so 9 times out of 10 it's either Alden's or homemade at home, vanilla both. In an effort to cut back on quantities with my daughter we've taken to eating our ice cream from our espresso demitasse. This is great both because it's still wonderfully satisfying to eat ice cream regardless of portion size and it's a natural for espresso over the ice cream, which is without question the best ice cream topping known to man!

This behavior results from how the system search facility used by Yojimbo identifies words in text content. As such, there's no direct way around it, though as you indicated you could tag items and search their tags (or gather them via a tag collection).

I'm assuming the "system search" is either Spotlight or Core Data. I guess I'll have to start tagging if I want consistent queries though I still find this to be a bug.

The Yojimbo Talk mailing list has recently been flooded with many new feature requests, most pertaining to nested/smart/… folders. The Bare Bones team has made it pretty clear they are focused on a GTD approach of tag-and-search, a decision with which I whole-heartedly agree. I chose Yojimbo because it didn't have too many features.

There is however a bug with search that affects my workflow. I'm still using a holdover from my Moleskine days whereby I prefix certain words with "@" such as @talk, @todo or @followup. Unfortunately it looks like Yojimbo doesn't consistently handle "@" when embedded in the text of the note. It appears searching escapes the "@" from the query string which results in some erroneous entries being found. Text highlighting on the other hand doesn't escape the "@" so the query string isn't highlighted in the resulting note. I think the bug is with search. I suppose I could make these tags but either way the search functionality has a bug.

Search correctly finds query string.

Search incorrectly finds query string.

keyword arguments

In response to the analogous Erlang approach for Python's kwargs, ppolv suggested:

albums_create(Title) -> albums_create(Title,[]).
albums_create(Title, Opts) -> [..]
% where Opts = [Opt]
% Opt = {description, Description} | {public, Public} …

which looking through the ibrowse source does indeed seem to be the Erlang way. It was also suggested a record could be used but the Options list seems more idiomatic.

case versus pattern matching function headers

Using pattern matching in function headers is preferred to the case statement. So

init({login_with_hash, ApiKey, UserId, PasswordHash}) ->
  login([
    {"method", "smugmug.login.withHash"},
    {"APIKey", ApiKey},
    {"UserID", UserId},
    {"PasswordHash", PasswordHash}
  ]);
init({login_anonymously, ApiKey}) ->
  login([
    {"method", "smugmug.login.anonymously"},
    {"APIKey", ApiKey}
  ]).

is preferred to

init(Params) ->
  Q = case Params of
  {login_with_hash, ApiKey, UserId, PasswordHash} ->
    [
      {"method", "smugmug.login.withHash"},
      {"APIKey", ApiKey},
      {"UserID", UserId},
      {"PasswordHash", PasswordHash}
    ];
  {login_anonymously, ApiKey} ->
    [
      {"method", "smugmug.login.anonymously"},
      {"APIKey", ApiKey}
    ]
  end,
  login(Q).

One thing I've noticed is the lack of line numbers in the stack trace lends itself to writing functions as small as possible so it's easier to debug the exact origin of the error.

file naming and structure convention

Originally, I grouped both my public API and the application behaviour code in one file, erlsmug.erl. It was recommended I split the two, which made sense to me. Now there is an erlsmug_app.erl for the application behaviour callbacks and erlsmug.erl for the public client API — this was easy. What wasn't easy was trying to debug why my application would no longer start after making the change. The solution turned out to be changing the line

{mod, {erlsmug, []}}

to

{mod, {erlsmug_app, []}}

in my ebin/erlsmug.app file which I had completely forgotten about. The only indication from the Erlang runtime was something about "bad return value" which wasn't, um, obvious to me. Once I fixed the .app file I was golden again.

For example, in Python, an albums_create method call might look like this:

>>> m.albums_create(title="This is the title", categoryId=22, public=False, description="My test album")

I think this reads quite well and is, I'd argue, the most pythonic way to model the API. So what's the erlangish way?

I'm currently supporting this API for erlsmug:

albums_create(Title) ->;
  erlsmug_server:albums_create([{"Title", Title}]).

1> erlsmug:albums_create("This is the title").

I'm thinking of changing the albums_create function signature to take the list of tuples or a dictionary straight-away because I want to be able to create the album in one shot with any arbitrary set of parameters. Creating a method signature for each combination is obviously dumb — I miss keyword args.

It also seems from some perusing of source code there is a preference for a list of tuples over a dictionary. The dict API allows the easy transformation from list to dict and back so perhaps this is pretty normal for some language-specific reasons? Of course, duplicate keys are allowable in the list approach while not in the dictionary approach.

So, without further ado, I present erlsmug, an Erlang client for the SmugMug API. The project is a whopping day old but I can already log in and query my albums and images. I'm excited to see some benchmarks between my Python and Erlang clients — the Python client makes use of PycURL which is concurrent, rockstar fast and easy to use.

Some issues I've already encountered:

• The inets application seems to hang if I try an https url.
• Copying examples of OTP applications is harder than one would think because each is just a little different.
• How come the .app doesn't automatically start the applications declared as dependencies? It looks like most of the examples I looked at code.google had a start/0 helper function which started the appropriate applications. Is this best practice?
• I'm still a little confused about the State maintained for the server. I'm using it to keep the session id after logging into SmugMug but what if multiple credential could be used simultaneously? I'm sure there's something I'm just not getting.

That's it for now. I'm going to have to talk to Martin to clear up some questions and learn more about Erlware.

Update (2008-04-27): Well I went ahead and did the upgrade and as of yet, no wake-from-sleep issues, so maybe, just maybe, this is the fix I've been wanting.

I see Apple has a released a firmware update for the MacBook Pro but the notes don't say what it fixes. According to some articles it includes a fix to the 1.5.0 version (which I never even saw) that introduced some "blank screen" problems. I've been having the won't-wake-from-sleep issues numerous others have reported but the "blank screen" issue sounds even worse so I'm waiting on this update.

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.

I remember at my first job out of school, programming in Objective-C on NEXTSTEP, I wanted to use threads and I was told no by our tech lead who said we'd eventually screw it up — he was probably right — and generations of Java developers have been screwing it up ever since. Most were led to believe threads in Java were easy if synchronized markers [were] employed like pixie dust until the problem seems to go away.

It's too bad it's taken so long for the higher level abstractions to materialize in Java because so much old code now needs replacing (not to mention countless hours debugging wasted) but it's worth it. In one recent example I removed 6 synchronized statements by replacing them with a java.util.concurrent.BlockingQueue and Erlang-style message passing.

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

There were quite a few tripod carrying photographers about and the planners of the garden do a pretty good job of providing interesting photographic scenes beyond just rows of flowers. My wife decided she likes the Ile de France the most while I leaned towards the deepest purples.

As we left I took a photo of the daffodil field next to the parking lot.

From the display garden we made our way to a field active with workers cutting flowers. The storms promised by the weather service finally started to materialize and some rain did begin to fall.

In an attempt to get out of the rain we drove to Tulip Town and the display fields since some of the exhibit is indoors. The storm passed quite quickly and we went out to walk the fields of gold (ugh, I hate that song).

The clouds were amazing and really helped add to the drama of the tulips' colors.

The fields of tulips are really something to behold, your eyes actually have a hard time adjusting back to a landscape not entirely awash in color. My yard, which is primarily forest green save some rhodys just blooming, looks oddly monochromatic today. I do of course have a houseful of cut tulips though.

(More photos available here)

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 Ascent and 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.

I did manage to take a couple of photos, the highlight being the ambulance at the top of Toe Jam which received quite a running commentary from the participants.

More photos here.

DoubleTake

DoubleTake's UI is really simple, you drag a couple of images onto the lower pane and DoubleTake immediately aligns the images, crops and offers a preview. I wanted to change some of the colors but the HUD didn't seem to allow modification, perhaps this is the result of being a trial.

If you look closely, the color of the grass on the left of the image is different from the rest though the photos were taken within seconds of each other.

Calico

Calico is based on AutoStitch technology and also uses a simple drag-and-drop interface. The primary difference I found in my quick trial was it didn't crop automatically.

The color was much more uniform with Calico but if you look at the tree by the rock it looks superimposed and blurry. This is odd because the input photos didn't overlap at this point so I'm not sure why this happened.

Both did a pretty good job stitching together the images but neither was perfect. I'm leaning towards DoubleTake but haven't made a final decision either way. I'm open to suggestions for alternatives.

def mate(obj):
  import os, inspect, logging
  try:
    fn = inspect.getsourcefile(obj)
    _, line = inspect.getsourcelines(obj)
    os.system("/usr/local/bin/mate -d -a -l %d %s" % (line, fn))
  except IOError, e:
    logging.exception(e)

Now in the interpreter:

>>> import logging
>>> mate(logging.error)

will launch TextMate and put the caret at the appropriate line number. If obj has no source then an exception is logged and no source is displayed.