new jersey - The Twilight Report

Just spent two weeks with my girlfriend лена in New Jersey and New York. It was wonderful. I met her family and friends, and she met my friends, most of whom still live in New York state. We are still trying to workout the whole future thing, although I'm confident that we can work things out. The shitty economy stateside is decidedly not helpful.

This is what a jerk I am. When I was in the Hudson Valley we went on a hike where the fall colour was in full force and my friend Brad said something like “This beautiful colour is our reward for having to live through the cold hard winter”, to which I responded reflexively “Speak for yourself, I'm going to the beach!”. Yay for Australia being awesome. Only, wait for it, then I started repeating this story over and over for people who were actually going to have to live through the winter in New York this year (which in my defense I had to do six times). The awesome thing about my friends is they still like me anyway.

It's weird now though because just a week ago the trees were all red and yellow and some of them were on the ground and walking to work today they were green again and fastened tightly to the trees. And to be honest, it isn't warm enough yet to go to the beach (karma). How can two places so far apart seem like home.

New Jersey isn't so bad after all

I’d rather vote for a gangster than a Republican

—one New Jersey voter, according to the Economist.

Things left behind by humans. And rust.

Things left behind by humans. And rust.

From the “Wet dog” series

From the “I feel better with him garding the coast” series

e and d came out for a few days. I'm sad because now that they are gone again I realize it will be a long time before I see them again. Tell me again why I can't just bring my friends to Australia with me? e said she would try to come out within a couple of years. It's going to be hard getting used to not being able to meet up with her and Jack after herding practice to go for a hike in New Jersey.

On the bright side, It was great to see them, and I was pleased that e finally got to meet my mum. The first day they were here we went skiing at Brighton. d said that he actually liked skiing so he may be back for more at some point.

That night we had Posole (prepared by myself) and invited Clare and Val over as well so we had an interesting discussion about whether or not Biology could ever be a predictive science or not. We also discussed the stupidity of large organizations, such as IBM and LANL, and how open systems are safer to closed ones.

Everyone had seconds, and some even had thirds. Right before I left New York, e told me that she likes Mexican food... all these years I thought she was just being polite and eating the food that I make for Enchilada Night. Seriously.

The second day we took a drive to Park City to see two photography galleries. We drive through the mountains and took a number of pictures and had lunch at somebodyorother's Grill. That night e and d took us to the Red Iguana, where we had more good Mexican food.

Of course, in the very next panel Prime is surrendering to Scorponok, and in New Jersey of all undesirable locations. In all fairness though, there are 4 million years between those two panels. But I always enjoyed the line "You will bind my wound with it soldier."

I am sure that I would make Richard sick with all this upbeat crap, if he were around.

Well, my little trip down to New Jersey on Sunday was great. I visited my friend, and fellow camera geek e. I showed her all the most important things about PhotoShop that I learned from the Color Digital class that I took this summer. We went pretty fast, but I think she picked up enough for it to be useful for her. At the very end, I watched her work on this photograph:

Photograph By e

She took it while she had been in Israel this year, and I think it's a very good photograph and it gives me a warm fuzzy because she did the color and contrast adjustments using the techniques that I had showed her.

I was going to make a print of this so that I could put it up somewhere, but I asked for her permission first, since I would want anyone to check with me before reproducing one of my photographs or putting them up on the web or anything like that, but she said I could do anything I wanted with it so here it is.

Ever have a whole bunch of things that you need to get done, but you get psychologically road blocked by one of them? The completion of the one does not really bar you from completing the others, but for some reason you can't wrap your mind around the others until you get it taken care of? Well, that is sort of how I felt this morning. No longer!

At lunch today I used the $8 coupon at the cafeteria that The Management gave everyone in our department as a "thanks." I got the most expensive item I could find to make sure that the total was at least $8. Total cost to me: $0.55. Feeling that I have milked The Company for as much as I possibly could: Priceless.

On the way out I snarked a slice of apple pie. They were giving them away to celebrate our strategic alliance with Apple Computers. A friend of mine worked on the resisters in the new G5 computers! This is among the many reasons that I would love to have a G5. Given my current economic realities, that is going to have to wait.

Today was Sock Khim's last day. She is headed back to Singapore which I have confirmed through Internet research is indeed both a city and a state. In broken but very understandable English she wrote us all a sweet farewell note that left me, and I think everyone else with a warm fuzzy feeling. She included a personal note for everyone. Mine was something like "Graham you always take great pictures." Such wonderful sentiment; I think all of us HVOCers are going to miss her. She also gave me some candy from back home which she said she could get more for me if I liked it.

Is That a Chicken?

I love things like this, I mean... I have no idea what it is, although I am pretty sure that is a chicken on the label. Can you imagine marketing a candy in America or Australia with the picture of a chicken? I wonder how the chicken is related to the edible substance contained within.

Sock Khim reminded me that I have this interest in photography which I have failed rather miserably to enjoy recently. So I IMed my friend e to see if we could get together and be camera geeks on Sunday. I'm going to drive down to Jersey and show her how to do color correction in Photoshop and she's going to going to show me her new scanner. I hope eventually to be able to afford a nice film scanner and I think the type she has would be a good candidate.

Meanwhile I have to start thinking about the future.