Don's Web Log

Well, I see that this is my first post here since December of 2004, and I can only conclude that I'm no blogger.   After my last post, my online focus shifted to maintaining a couple of mostly visually-oriented web sites.  I started with a photo gallery, incorporating most of the photos originally posted here in my short-lived "Photo of the Day" series (a project that was perhaps a bit too ambitious).   I've added several more photos, but nowhere near one a day.  I've also added much of the other content that originally appeared here, plus a little more.  In a sense it's like a blog, but at a slower pace.

Last July, I discovered a large cache of Kodachrome photos of trains taken by my dad, dating back to around 1951.  I was already selling Dad's collection of paper railroad collectibles on eBay, and so I decided to start posting a "Railroad Photo of the Week" for my customer base.  Since then, I've actually managed to continue to post at least one new photo each week, and that collection has grown into a site of its own.  

The bottom line is that this will no doubt be my last post here, and instead I'll continue to concentrate on expanding and reorganizing my web pages (although I expect the pace will slow down some as the weather gets nicer).  

The current home page for my personal site is:

     http://www.pangraph.com/main/   (see the Links page for additional pages)

and Dad's train photos are at:

    http://www.rrpix.pangraph.com/

After a lapse of a couple of months, I've managed to update the Photo of the Day continuously for a few weeks.  I hope to continue adding a new post every day and avoid having to change the name to Photo of the Month.  I've probably got enough photos to last every day for a few years, if I can keep up with sorting through them and getting them scanned.  

Anyway, the POTD gallery was starting to fill up, so I've moved older posts to other galleries, a practice which I'll continue from time to time.  Any photos that I post from now on will show up in the POTD sooner or later, even if they're initially posted in another gallery.  I've also created new galleries for San Francisco in general and for Cliff House, since I have tons of photos in these two categories.  Another new gallery is called "Photo Collection" which, as the name implies, will be photos that I've collected rather than taken myself.

Ever wonder who wins those direct mail prizes?

Henri Cartier-Bresson, master of "the decisive moment" died this week, just short of his 96th birthday.  There's a nice sampling of his work on this page:

On the Banks of the Marne, 1938

Back in the '80s, I wandered the streets of San Francisco, semi-consciously emulating the master (along with a few others).  The unfortunate appearance of H. C-B. in the news has inspired me to finally begin a series that I've been contemplating for a while, publishing a foto du jour  in my blog.  Here's my first entry (with apologies to Henri):

Green Valley Restaurant, North Beach

Rumor has it that our Prezhydint requested a custom-edited version of the 9/11 Commission Report, tailored to his special needs.  Click on the cover to see his "Limited Edtion."

A while back, I posted a set of panoramic photos that when put together covered a 360 degree view of Adams Ranch. These are still viewable in my gallery.  I also posted a larger set of files, around 1MB each, that were scaled to print at about 3" x 10".  Links to those are in my blog entry.

At the time, I had also intended to post even larger versions, formatted to print on Epson 8x23" panoramic sheets, or on 8" continuous rolls. However, I had numerous technical difficulties, and wasn't able to load them. Now that there's a newer version of the Jumano Blog software, it appears the problems have been fixed, and I've posted them here:

Large Panel 1      Large Panel 2

Large Panel 3      Large Panel 4

These are JPEG format, and the images are 6" high by about 20" long, except for panel 3, which is about 13" long. File sizes are about 9MB each, so depending on your connection speed, you might want to plan to pursue other activities while they're downloading.  These are intended for printing, and aren't really practical for viewing, unless you have a monitor that's 96 inches wide, or you want to inspect the ranch rock by rock.

Source:  http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/snd/waistdeep.html

Waist Deep In The Big Muddy

by Pete Seeger 1963, planned for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967 but CBS objected to the blacklisted Seeger making obvious references to the"big fool" in the White House, finally sung by Seeger on the Comedy Hour in 1968 as the finale in a medley of anti-war songs

It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Loozianna,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.
We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"
"Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."
We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."
"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie,"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on."
We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.

We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.

Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.

Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a
Tall man'll be over his head, we're
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!

Words and music by Pete Seeger (1967)
TRO (c) 1967 Melody Trails, Inc. New York, NY

Due to popular demand (thanks, Brenda!), here's another post in the "Travels With Buster" series. Since I haven't been getting out much lately, this one is more along the lines of "Daily Walks With Buster."



Buster in Shooks Run Park


This was taken in a local park as a test of a dime store camera with a plastic lens.  Although it was taken in bright sunlight, the vignetting effect of the lens makes it look like a flash photo at night.  It's also a little fuzzy, but I resisted the urge to sharpen it up in PhotoShop. Buster is a little fuzzy himself, so it's not a bad lens for him.  Will post more lens/camera tests featuring Buster as I get around to scanning  them.

why you might not want to set up a webcam in your workplace: 

< drumroll >

You might tend to forget that it's there

One of my "fine art" photos from 1986, taken at Camp Sierra near Shaver Lake, scanned from a 4x5 negative. I posted a smaller version of this file in my gallery, and you might want to preview it there before taking the time to download this very large (2.2mb) file.

Feel free to download it for your own personal noncommercial use. This will be too large to view in your browser window, but you can save it and view it in a graphics application. If you want to print it, do it as a black and white photo--don't use colored ink since there are no color channels in the image file.

Preview Manzanita in Gallery


Manzanita Large File

Well, I just finished re-creating my panorama photo of Adams Ranch taken during the 1999-2000 roundup. I've divided it into 4 sections or panels, and sized it so that each panel can be printed on an 8.5x11" sheet. Actually, you should be able to print two panels on a sheet, if you're able to print off center (I usually do this by inserting the photo into a Word doc). These are JPEG files of about 1MB each, so depending on your connection speed, you might need to plan on some download time. You can see a preview of sorts by looking at some earlier, lower resolution versions that I've posted in my "Places" image gallery.

There were 11 original frames, making it hard to divide them into an equal number of segments, so panel 3 is a little smaller in width (and in file size) than the others. Once you print these out, you can line them up together with any one of the panels starting on the left, as long as you keep them in otherwise numerical order. Here are the URLs for downloading:


Panel 1     Panel 2

Panel 3     Panel 4


I also have a set of larger files that are formatted to print on Epson 8x23" panoramic sheets, or on 8" continuous rolls. File sizes are about 9MB each. If anyone is interested in trying to print these, and storage space on the Jumano server isn't a problem, I can upload them as well.

Pensioner has worn same galoshes for 70 years

I guess everybody's aware of the eclipse, but I also wanted to post a link to a cool page, the Astronomy Picture of the Day.   I'm not sure, but I think Chris J. originally turned me on to this page.


>Astronomy Picture of the Day

...(in spite of the recent unpleasantness).

They have the best jobs there:

UC Santa Cruz

Article in eWeek
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1357496,00.asp

In a past life, I was an aspiring cartoonist, drawing cartoons when I should have been doing my job as a lab technician.  I also drew on other jobs, and when I was unemployed, but quit sometime in the early '80s.  I just rediscovered my stash of cartoons that are mostly about 20-25 years old.  As an incentive to post something to my blog every day, I'm instituting the "Cartoon of the Day." 

These drawings pretty much all fall into the category of "roughs," meaning rough drafts, although I suspect that many, if not all, of them actually represent the peak of my drawing skills at the time.  You may find some of them funny (I hope), others might just be mood pieces, some contain gags that are only funny if you worked at Cutter Laboratories in Berkeley in the late '70s (your own fault if you didn't), still others I  dont even understand, so  you're on  your own there (as would be the case anyway).  I'll be  attempting to insert the first one into this post, but future postings will be unannounced and will go directly into my gallery of Cartoons.  I'll be deleting ones older than a week or two, and will probably archive those on my personal web site.  Who knows, maybe when I start to run out, I'll be inspired to draw some new ones, but at least for the time being, I'll be posting a new (old) one daily.

COTD for October 19, 2003:




Click here to go to the Cartoon Gallery.

Well, thanks to Chris I'm up and running and expect to be posting all sorts of stuff, some of which may even be of interest to people other than my Mom. I've already posted a photo in my gallery, although it's sort of stolen from another blogger. [Tom and Elena, check your feedback for October 9th!]. Who knows, maybe I'll just steal stuff from everybody else, disguise and/or disfigure it, then repost it as my own. In addition to using this as a forum for some of my creative efforts, I expect that I'll be recording personal day- to-day trivia, just to keep track of where I am and stave off Alzheimer's for the time being. We'll see what we shall see....