April 2008 Archives

I couldn't let today pass without doing something to acknowledge the sloanie.com blog turning 6 years old. I wasn't the first person ever to blog, but it wasn't nearly as common back then. In March of 2002, I bought my first digital camera, the Canon Powershot S40. I was inspired by a blog that's now defunct called hunkabutta.com, which was a blog by a Canadian living in Japan with his family. This guy carried a camera with him everywhere and always had really interesting images he'd include with his blog posts, whether they were related to the content of the blog post or not. I thought it was way cool-- posting photos and having one's own domain name on the web.

So on April 27, 2002, I launched sloanie.com with this first post sharing a view from my apartment window in Provo and stating the purpose for the blog. I knew I wanted to take pictures and post them to the blog... other than that, the sky was the limit. It's been a fun six years of miscellaneous posting... some things funny, some things meaningful, some things pointless... anything I wanted.

I took a quick break from work to go grab some dinner (mix plate, mmm...) and on the way saw some aftermath of an accident on the opposite side of the road in the left turn lane. There was a jeep and behind it a red coupe with it's hood all bent upwards, and between the cars a girl talking to a guy-- it appeared to be her coupe and his jeep. I wondered how such accidents happen but continued on my way.

On the way back, when I reached the same street I could see in the distance the flashing of police lights... the cops had arrived at the scene of the accident. As I got closer, I counted at least 5 cop cars surrounding the scene with a tow truck in front loading the red coupe onto it. I wondered why on earth that many cops were necessary except maybe a couple to block off the lanes of traffic affected.

Passing the accident from the same side of the road this time, I noticed something I hadn't before... a chevy SUV of some type with it's hood looking slightly dented, and the rear end of that red coupe totally smashed in... must have hit the coupe pretty good to smash it into that Jeep like that.

Quite a different picture... the details you can miss when all you're doing is passing by.

Coming up next... my first impressions of a new Korean grill in Provo. Stay tuned...

Both Emilys made reference to Google Reader recently on their blogs (I think I mighta heard something from Cassi too-- this is how they are the first--and sometimes only-- people to comment on new blog entries). So I thought I'd check it out... and now that I'm started using it, I thought I'd give it a mention.

Yesterday I was watching / listening to a Dane Cook bit* about crying, and he describes part of it as "your face is leaking many different fluids", heh. At the time all that really came to mind was tears from the eyes, but I didn't think much about it.

While I was eating leftovers tonight of the dinner I made last night (my first attempt at a spicy chicken soup called dalktoritang / 닭토리탕-- yeah I improvised a bit but it still came out pretty tasty), this comedy bit came back to mind, as I realized my face was "leaking many different fluids", haha. (I did my best...) Tears coming from both eyes, nose running like crazy, saliva flowing. My face could only have been leaking more if spicy food made me sweat like it does some people.

How weird is crying? Your FACE is leaking! I mean have you ever stopped to think about it? When you're really sad, or sometimes just really emotional-- could be happy, could be you don't know why you're crying (I'm thinking about the story Jorg told about when you guys were signing the papers for your condo, Emily, hehehe)... your face starts leaking. It's weird, this physical manifestation of emotion. Just one of those things you usually take for granted and never really think much about.

Oh and by the way, one of my favorite strong bad e-mails is about crying. =D

* The Dane Cook bit has some inappropriate language, if you were thinking about youtubing it. That's just Dane Cook for ya.

Guess who's back? That's right. The Canon Powershot SD10. You know, that camera I bought back in March-ish 2004? Well, the SD30 I replaced it with when the SD10 died tragically just didn't cut it-- though it was similar in size, sported a 5 megapixel CCD and actually had an optical zoom, the image quality turned out to be rather disappointing. (I have the feeling that having a fixed focal length on the SD10 allows for greater image quality in a package that small). And though the Powershot SD800 IS that I replaced the SD30 with had a few more shooting modes and better image quality than the SD30 (and lots more megapixels), it still just didn't hold a candle to the SD10 for overall image quality, especially when it came to macro photos. That and it was just big enough that I couldn't keep it in my pocket all the time.

So every now and again I'd check ebay and see what used SD10's were going for, since they can no longer be found new. They would frequently go for awfully near what they retailed for back in the day (up to the $200 range), always over $100 in any case. Well I happened upon one being sold by a more casual seller with a buy it now price of about half of the lowest I'd seen any others. Checked on it, seemed like the camera was in good shape, and now it's mine :D This one is copper colored rather than black, which is fine (that beauty is skin deep anyways, right? It's what's inside that counts, hehe).

So this means more photos and especially more macro and food posts. You know, 2004 was a good year for this blog, lots of colorful photos. I hope 2008 can be similar-- I'm making a commitment to take a lot more photos this year.

Yes, the days are getting longer, but for the time being it's dark when I get up at 6am a couple days a week. Usually the sun is out by the time I'm driving to school, but today it seemed especially dim out. What was really odd was that it *looked* overcast with how dim and gray things were... but when I looked to the east, the sun was there... just veiled behind a layer of smog or something. I thought it especially depressing that even with the sun out it was still so dim.

It does remind me a bit of what the sun looked like in some places I lived in Korea, only I picture it being a more reddish orange.

Then after some snow... I do love how rays of light shine come down from clouds.