Checksum Arcanius

As requested I have put up some of the photos I have taken over the years with my SLR.

“Don’t Follow” by Alice in Chains should have been included on their greatest hits CD, perhaps as a bonus track if nothing else. Its an incredible song, and so different from the rest. The End played it – while I do miss Linkin Park there, I can get plenty on my own, and without their new format, I never would have heard this song again, and would have been forgotten forever.

Lakemont Blockbuster closes at 11:00, which is very nice indeed – makes for another blog entry at least.

Today, the official transcripts from BYU finally arrived in the mail. I put them in an envelope with the transcripts from BCC and drove to the UW to drop them off personally. Even though its almost two weeks after the deadline, the office accepted them with no problem � apparently the deadline, as with many other admission guidelines, is flexible. Of course, I suspected this, since last time I applied to the UW during my senior year in high school, I didn�t get everything in technically on time, and I was still accepted. Now it�s just the waiting game to see if they�ll let me in a second time. I think my chances are good, but then I�m ridiculously self-confident.

For a random diversion, check out this way to cook a salmon.

In photography, we did sepia toning. The redeveloper has a pretty terrible sulfurous smell to it. Glad we only had to deal with it for one day. We also did show and tell of our self-portraits. I chose the solarized shoes and the sprinkled-on developer prints because they were the most interesting, even if they weren�t necessarily the best technically. He didn�t have much negative to say about the prints, which I hope is a good sign for the grade on this� That�s one thing that annoys me about art classes – there is so much subjectivity. Maybe that�s what attracts others. It takes all sorts, I suppose.

Registration for Spring quarter at BCC starts March 2, and now I have to start thinking about what I�m going to take.

Using: Mozilla Lightningdragon

I�m up to about 92% better now; I still have a lingering cough, but physically I�m fine otherwise. I had fun at tennis, although I arrived a little late, then talked to the woman from Poland to help her with her English, something I do maybe twice a month. Next came math (gradients!) and then I spent the next four hours in the darkroom. I now have enough pictures, I think, to turn in tomorrow. It�s just a matter of selection and touch-up at this point. Dust is still my nemesis, but I have developed some fairly good anti-dusting techniques that seem to be working. First I take a brush and quite violently chip away any deposited dust from the negative, then I brush away the finer dust, then I spay the thing with canned air all the way back to the enlarger. It works about 75% of the time. The other 25% of the time, I scream. And then repeat the process.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. I have school, which will consist of just a Math and turning in my assignment (I don�t know if I need to stick around), then work, and then right after work I�m headed off to see Lord of the Rings at the Cinerama. After that three-and-a-half hour marathon, I will return home, then sleep, then go to tennis where hopefully I will have figured out who, besides Michael Change, served underhand in a major tournament.

100/103 on the calc test. Lots of darkroom time tomorrow for the self-portrait assignment. I have dust problems. Dust, and good calc test score make me think of counterstrike. This post will be short.

Richard invited me to go up to the pass with him and a buddy of his. I hadn’t gone yet this season, so I readily accepted — but first, I had to go to photography. So I waited around for an hour — actually, I fell asleep reading the photography book (volume 7!). Then when class rolled around, our teacher showed up to tell us how much or a moron he was because he forgot the slides he was going to show us�

…So the seven people that actually showed all got up and left. I asked the teacher about the last assignment we handed in; in turns out its been sitting in the out box in the photo lab for a few days now. I grabbed mine out, but didn’t get around to opening it until later. Since Dan hadn’t arrived yet, I gave him a call as I walked out and let him know that class had been canceled. It turns out he’s terribly sick — so get well soon Dan! He asked me to take down his dry film for him — which I did (I actually recognized which film was his this time — another time, I couldn’t figure it out, and the teacher asked me to stop looking at other people’s film because “they might have pictures of themselves having sex with their children or something.” He seriously said that. I promptly stopped looking for Dan’s film, kinda freaked out. I think maybe Carlos has spent a little too much time around photo chemicals).

Anyway, back to the story — While on the phone, I overheard a girl from the class trying to arrange a ride home. Since I had some time to blow before my class was supposed to get out, I offered her a ride home. We had a wonderfully engaging conversation all the way to her house in Sammamish – and she’s cute to boot. Yes, I have designs. Its fun to be in this position again, its been a while. Oh, Amanda also opened up my returned photography assignment for me, and I got an A-. I’m happy with the grade — good, but still with room to improve. A lot like the photographs I turned in.

So, once I dropped Amanda off and we said out good-byes, I headed back home to get my skis and then I headed down to Richard�s. A little later we took off to pick up Colin, a friend of Richard’s, and head to the pass. We got there just before 4, so we waited until 15 before then headed up and got the night passes. With a coupon, it came out to $20 a person — pretty good.

Once on the slopes, my skiing form came back to me pretty easily, but my quads aren’t what they were at the end of last season. I was feeling the burn pretty good by the end of the day. Of course I was with two snowboarders, so they wanted to do the terrain park while I was more interested in runs like triple sixty face. But I thought I’d give another shot at learning how to jump. You see, I had a bad experience when I was young. When I was 13 years old, I went off a big jump and ended up landing on my head. The ensuing black out has caused me to shy away from jumps ever since. When I did go over bumps, I tended to take it up in my legs.

Today, however, I decided it was time to face down that fear and give jumps another shot. I’m glad I did. With a few pointers from Richard and Colin and a little bit of practice, I was able to consistently land my jumps. It still doesn’t feel natural, but I didn’t wipe out on any of the landing, and by the end of the day I was catching significant air. And it’s exhilarating beyond anything I have done on skis before. I hope to extend my distance and airtime over my next few trips.

On the way back from Snoqualmie, we stopped at North Bend’s Denny’s for dinner. I had an excellent sirloin steak with applesauce and a baked potato. It hit the spot. Food is good. On the way out, I popped some money in the big machine with the claw that grabs stuffed animals � and for the first time in my life, I got one out. It’s a strange but cute green teddy bear in a black and yellow jester outfit. Hopefully I will post pictures soon.

With my recently won prize, endorphins from skiing and jumping, and a girl to top it off — life is good.

Today, I made some prints of a few select negatives. I am in love with 8×10 prints. So much detail and so beautiful if done right. I used a grain focuser (a very nifty tool) and found an enlarger that I like. It is pure magic watching your image apear on the paper as you dip it into the developer. After shcool, I finished off the Bearing block design (see left panel), then hung out with Amy and found out that there is still time to raise money for Nationals. We have both gotten a second fundraising wind. Wish me luck!

As you can see, the overhaul of my ‘blog has begun. Here in the main frame you will still be treated to Arcanius: the weBLog. However, since photography is a big part of my life, I am hacking away at PHPix, a small photo album, to provide you with an integrated picture experience. I’m working on a completely different layout and frame support, and I have already implemented picture titles and descriptions. Since PHPix is GPL’d, I suppose I will get to post the hack job that come up with, and maybe someone will find it useful.

I am still trying to figure out what to do with the upper frame. Comments are welcome!