sine qua non

Upcoming Peru photos

2010-12-22T21:57:00.000-05:00

I'm finally getting around to uploading the Peru photos to flickr. If anyone reading this (people do?) is friends with Adriana on Facebook, you'd have seen some of the photos. For some awesome reason, Facebook mangles some of the photos to appear grainy... not like Facebook is a great photo sharing site anyway (it's fine for drunk or phone photos). Having said that, some of the sets are on flickr already, but I'm re-doing my Lightroom workflow and so they're going to be updated with more info and some calibration edits, so I'm not 'publishing' them here yet.

I've always taken panoramic photos on my trips, so they will be in there too. There are a couple of HDR photos too. I dabbled with some 3D photos this time since I recently purchased a Holmes viewer. You can also view such photos using a cross-eyed technique, but after a while you *will* get a headache (and then some people have trouble seeing the 3D using this technique at all). Wikipedia has a good intro to stereoscopy, and just how damn old the technique is, but I'll do a more in-depth post regarding that later.

Anyways, back to it.

I am: blue glow-stick guy

2010-08-02T19:27:00.000-04:00

Seen at the Hybrid DJ set at Revolution, downtown Ft Lauderdale.

Honeymoon photos - Venice, Bologna, Perugia

2010-08-02T01:32:00.000-04:00

This last post regarding the honeymoon covers the couple of days we spent in Venice, and the subsequent drive down to Perugia via Bologna.

We found Venice to be amazing, and loved wandering around the maze of buildings and water, not really caring when a dead-end was encountered. One of the very first things we checked off the list of things-to-do was a gondola ride:

We discovered early on that the quality of the food was inversely proportional to the view offered, so a view for lunch like the one below resulted in pretty terrible food.

Wandering around the streets, we came across some pretty amazing things, like this outdoor classical music performance.

While the first day was spent walking around getting lost in backstreets, the second was spent navigating the ferry system and hopping from island to island. We visited Murano to see the glassmakers. The following video shows how a glass horse is made.

Pink glass lamps were everywhere.

We explored Murano, visited Lido (and bumped into some friends while there, which floored me at the time), and took a night stroll around Venice where I got the opportunity for some night shots, like this one:

We then drove down to Bologna and had a fantastic lunch, spending some time admiring the medieval architecture. We spent that night in Perugia (Baci chocolate!) and the next day encountered some sort of Catholic procession moving through the town square. Notable about this was the large Jesus-figure made out of sand and rose petals:

We finally made our way back to Rome for our flight back to the US. We were exhausted at the end, but it was such a fantastic trip and have many memories from it, and again we thank everyone who contributed towards it.

There are a bunch more photos that I couldn't include here, this would have been a massive post if I tried to. The flickr link for the set is here.

Honeymoon photos - Pisa, Milan, Lake Como, Verona

2010-07-14T00:47:00.001-04:00

The hire car (a Fiat Punto) really got a work-out on this stretch of the trip. Driving from Florence we arrived in Pisa, walked to the Leaning Tower and saw this:

Now, I get enough of that sort of stuff with Wii Fit at home, so Adriana and I got a very creative photo taken, and I think you'll agree:

After Pisa we drove north to Cinqueterre, which I've already posted about. We must have driven through about thirty tunnels on the way there, and it was great how they indicated the length of each tunnel before you entered it. It gave you an idea of whether you should try holding your breath or not. Also, although the countryside may be scenic and the weather near perfect, try to avoid driving with the windows down. A small wasp could get sucked into the car, get caught in the back of your shirt, and then sting you, which can be quite fun if you're driving. Just saying.

After Cinqueterre we continued driving north to Milan, where we arrived at our really nice West Elm-like hotel, "The Hub".

In Milan we got to see 'The Last Supper', though unfortunately you aren't allowed to take photos of it. Some people did put a door through it at some stage though, so Jesus' feet are cut off, something I only learned about on the day.

A day trip was planned to the Lake Como area and this, along with Civita, turned out to be another highlight of our trip. It was simply amazing. I somehow navigated the car through narrow roads up to Menaggio where we had a scenic lunch.

Ferries transport you between the three lakeside towns of Menaggio, Bellagio and Varenna:

View Larger Map

So we left Menaggio:

visited Varenna:

and then headed to Bellagio:

before heading back to Milan. On the next day we started our drive East to Venice, and stopped off in Verona where we saw Juliet's house, a small Colosseum, and a nice view over the river:

Click here for a link to the set on Flickr.

Honeymoon photos - Cinqueterre

2010-07-10T10:02:00.000-04:00

About an hour's drive north of Pisa is Cinqueterre, or "The five lands". This national park protected area consists of five 'preserved' towns situated along the west coast: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare. All are connected by train and walking paths (you can walk between all of them in a day), and most are connected by water ferry.

We spent two nights in the area, giving us a whole day to explore the towns, starting with Monterosso al Mare:

We caught a water ferry to the next town, Manarola:

We caught a train, which turned out to be express to the town we planned on visiting last, Riomaggiore. Oh well!

We walked from Riomaggiore to Manarola, along a path known as "Via dell'Amore", or the "path of love".

The "thing" to do along this path was bring a lock and lock it into the fence or... anywhere you possibly could.

We had a pesto-filled lunch in Manarola, and Adriana made friends with a group of pensioners.

We caught a train to the last town, Corneglia, which is the only town that was not situated on the edge of the water, but rather up on a hill. While there we sampled and purchased some of the sweet dessert wine "Sciacchetrà" and I got my bottle of regional dry white wine.

After this trip, we continued to head up north to Milan. That (and photos from Pisa, by the way) are for a separate post.

You can see the whole set for Cinqueterre here.

Honeymoon photos - Civita, Florence, Siena and surrounds.

2010-07-04T14:57:00.002-04:00

The flickr link for this part of the honeymoon is here.

We spent around five days sightseeing Rome (and getting over any jetlag). After that we picked up our car rental, somehow navigated our way through Roman traffic, and headed up towards Florence. On the way, we stopped off at a small town called Civita (civita di Bagnoregio).

We ate at the restaurant just before the starting the walk up to Civita, and ate some of the best Italian food we've ever had. That, combined with the sights seen in Civita itself, made it one of the highlights of our honeymoon.

Continuing north we visited Orvieto, ate some more fantastic food and took in some of the sights.

We arrived in Florence late that night, and spent the next day visiting the Uffizi galleries and any of the obvious tourist sites (although some places we couldn't be bothered waiting in the line for, like with this first photo. At some point you just get churched-out)

We then spent a day travelling back down South to visit Siena, which we actually ended up enjoying more than Florence (fewer tourists and prettier in areas).

If you visit the flickr link given above, you'll also see a woman having a fairly heated discussion on her phone. Not the first such discussion we saw in Italy, mind you.

Ever so often while driving around we saw a field of poppies. Actually driving to a point where a photo could be taken of such a field proved to be fairly difficult. After taking a very local dirt road (thank you GPS), we came across a field, so I was able to get my photo.

Honeymoon photos - Rome

2010-06-28T00:48:00.000-04:00

Firstly, thank you to everyone who contributed to our online honeymoon registry (and thank you of course if you contributed in some other way). Adriana and I had a fantastic time in Italy. Over the next week or so I'll be uploading photos from the trip, starting today with Rome.

A link to the set on Flickr is here.

Some photos:

Ducktales (episode 3)

2010-03-22T23:23:00.003-04:00

So, Razzi and the ducklings have now left the shelter of casa Kristian y Adriana. This is the last photo I have of them at their condo abode:

I'm fairly impressed, and relieved, with how Bropey has stepped into the role of protector and is looking after Razzi and the ducklings. We've also noticed how brown he is getting, after having either black or dark green feathers only a couple of weeks ago.

Last photo for this post: where ducklings come from.

These and more photos have been added to this photo set.

By the way, if there are any ducks out there reading this in an egg-laying mood, we have three spacious and well-kept planters available, free of charge.

Ducktales (episode 2)

2010-03-20T23:45:00.001-04:00

They have arrived.

We were starting to wonder when they were going to hatch, if ever. As it turned out, we were a week off of when we thought Razzi actually started sitting on the eggs. To see the first duckling appear this morning was absolutely amazing. To see another breaking out of its shell was incredible. At the last count there were ten ducklings.

I wanted to get photos and possibly video, but without disturbing Razzi constantly. So I set up my camera on a tripod and configured it to take a photo every minute. I also set up my phone to stream video to http://qik.com/daecks so we could watch the actual video stream. At around the fifteen second mark in this video: http://qik.com/video/5594953 you can see the duckings moving about with Razzi staying guard.

Near the end of the day, Razzi had to leave to go feed (as if we didn't feed her enough already), so she 'trusted' us enough to leave the duckings alone with us looking on. I was able to grab this video (no audio since I was shooting through glass so you couldn't hear them anyway) while she was away:

To close it out, here they are looking pretty exhausted, and a link to the Flickr set follows:

Flickr set link.

Ducktales (episode 1)

2010-03-09T20:04:00.008-05:00

One of the Muscovy ducks that hangs out around our place is called "Razzi". Meet Razzi:

I noticed one day that the calla lillies in one of the planters on our patio were all flattened. I uncovered a bit of debris from the flattening and found two duck eggs. Anyone who knows farmer boy PK could guess that I was absolutely over the moon! A week or so later, the planter looked like this:

We're expecting that sometime this week the eggs will hatch. Razzi is patiently waiting for this to happen, albeit with the probably-too-often intrusion from some inquisitive humans. Eh, at the end of the day, she seems to be pretty chill about it:

A photo in Playboy magazine!

2010-03-08T20:52:00.006-05:00

Yes, but it's not the type of photo one might associate with that magazine. Yonks ago while on a road trip with a couple of other Aussies, I noticed a sign advertising a brothel called the "Shady Lady Ranch". I was able to quickly snap a photo of the sign as we flew past it (I'm still using that 200mm zoom lens, I love it), posted it up online and never thought of it again. I was contacted by Playboy magazine for permission to use the photo in an article on the ranch. I never did receive the free copy of the magazine I requested, but I was able to track down the Oct 2009 issue which had the article, shown below.

The original image is here.

Wedding Photos!

2009-12-14T22:43:00.004-05:00

I have created a Flickr collection containing photos from each of our wedding events. These are the full-size versions of the photos, much better for printing than their counterparts floating around on Facebook.

Click here to go to the collection.

Visiting Key West

2009-12-13T17:22:00.003-05:00

My parents have arrived back safely in Oz after their trip over here for the wedding (I'll post another update about that later tonight), but before they left we took them to see Key West. Although we didn't get to see the ideal sunset at Mallory Square because it was too cloudy, we did get to see some awesomely massive bubbles, and a nice gimmick where the dog would go around collecting tip money. The next night at Bahia Honda state park we watched the sun set in a completely cloudless sky. Here are some photos, the whole set is here.

I'm on a boat!

2009-11-24T17:15:00.006-05:00

Well, I *was* on a boat. A few days before the wedding we had the opportunity to go on a boat around the bay of Miami with my family, courtesy of friends of Adriana's parents. It was awesome.

The full set (including a few photos from Wet Willie's beforehand) is here.

Here are some sample photos from the ride:

Ideas and thoughts

2009-10-21T23:25:00.003-04:00

I haven't been able to be much of a couch potato lately, what with all the wedding organising going on and due dates for work deliverables shouting out "you've forgotten about me!"

I haven't, dear deliverables.

So some part of my brain, the part that likes to be a couch potato, came upon an idea at lunch time. How about creating a device that replaced your dreams with your Netflix queue, or the contents of your DVR while you slept? Then, your dreams wouldn't be dreams anymore but rather what you wanted to be watching while sitting on the couch, but of course you don't have the time to do that anymore... but you do while you sleep!

But then I decided that would be a silly idea. You'd forget what happened in the movie half an hour after you woke up.

I like watching Glee. I like watching musicals. I liked being a part of one in high school. I think I've watched "Grease" too many times to admit. I think I've admitted too much.

Have I mentioned that I really like Inca Kola? I really like it. There. Thank you to Adriana for locating the diet version today, and for buying two six-packs. The diet is really quite difficult to find. The great thing is that the diet and normal versions taste exactly the same, so I can drink a six pack of diet in one night and not have the Wii balance board scold me in the morning.

I think that's the end of my ideas and thoughts for today. I think I'll drink another Inca Kola.

Being shagged by a parrot

2009-10-13T22:04:00.003-04:00

I found this gem earlier today on my BBC youtube feed, and I just cannot stop watching it. The 'look' on the bird's face, the awesome Englishman commentary... it's just fantastic.

STS-128 launch

2009-08-29T13:53:00.005-04:00

It finally launched! Adriana and I spent the better part of a week trying to see this thing lift off (weather problems, followed by a valve problem), but it was completely worth it. This was a night launch, and while it was much 'shorter' than a day launch, it was soooo much prettier. A shuttle launch still is, by far, the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Click on the image below to go to the set.

Here is my favourite picture from the set, the solid booster separation. You could only just barely see this, and somehow I was able to get enough pixels to remember it by.

More space-rock, please.

2009-08-19T22:30:00.003-04:00

I love me some space-rock. Muse is my favourite band by bloody far, and anyone who knows me just ... knows that. I discovered today an unsigned band from New Zealand called "Battle Circus", and they sound so much like Muse that I love them too. Here is one of their videos.

They have an EP out which is quite good, and are working on an album which is scheduled to be released later this year. Check out their website for links to facebook, twitter, whatever: http://www.battlecircus.com/

The hermit crabs

2009-07-19T18:28:00.007-04:00

Here are photos of the six hermit crabs I've been looking after, along with a photo of the setup I used to take the photos.

The whole hermit crab set is here.

The active hermit crab

2009-07-17T10:34:00.007-04:00

While my friend was away on vacation, I got the opportunity to look after his hermit crabs. I had also recently purchased an intervalometer for my DSLR camera, so I could do time-lapse photography. The video below shows a rough test of that, with each frame 8 seconds apart. There are quite a few things that need to be fixed for my next attempt. I have to fix the depth of field so more of the tank is in focus, the ambient lighting could be a bit better, I have to cut down the reflections on the front of the tank (perhaps a light source from behind), fix the white balance, and not move around when the photos are being taken. That final point is what makes some frames darker than the rest.

Anyway, more about the hermit crabs. I have two tanks, three crabs in each. The crab you see moving about here has ADD, I think. It just doesn't stop moving. Every now and then I see the other crabs moving about, but I haven't seen any of them use the 'hamster' wheel like this one does.

Photos and videos from Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction

2009-05-10T09:13:00.004-04:00

The Nine Inch Nails set is here.
The Jane's Addiction set is here.

I can't really express how seriously awesome that night was. NIN were just damn amazing. It also makes quite a difference when posting these pictures to the appropriate groups on Flickr, here is the latest view-count graph of all my photos...

Quite possibly the best game ever

2009-04-16T15:17:00.002-04:00

You can't beat a game with a title "Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar". You just can't.

http://www.arcadebomb.com/play/robot_dinosaurs_that_shoot_beams_when_they_roar.html

Misseri Studio

2009-03-31T00:37:00.002-04:00

I just completely stumbled across this on Youtube. Misseri Studio were the creators of a great deal of the short 5 minute programs that were shown on ABC in Oz when I was growing up. Don't remember any of their stuff? Here is an example:

Go there. Now.
http://www.youtube.com/user/MISSERISTUDIO

Farewell, wisdom teeth.

2009-03-16T11:57:00.004-04:00

I just had all my wisdom teeth removed. Before being injected with the novocaine, I attempted to see how low I could get my pulse. I guess I did an ok job, hovering around the mid 60s, especially since I was freaking out a little.

The whole procedure took 45 mins, with three straight pulls and one impacted (soft flesh, so it hadn't come right through yet). I remember the dentist saying "now you're going to feel good", and then after that, being wheelchaired out to the car.

Here is my tribute song to the moment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nBOROExwE0

Piano song, Movement 1

2009-03-02T13:13:00.004-05:00

I posted this to my facebook profile a few days ago. Here is the info:

Originally composed on a Kawai ES3 (I love that Piano), pumped via USB-MIDI into my computer running Cubase Studio 4, re-converted to piano choones using Synthogy's Ivory Grand Piano, normalised and converted to MP3 using Audacity. Still can't think of a proper name for it. Sorry if it auto-plays, I don't know how to stop that with this app (actually, I've disabled it for now until I get a better solution).

The Snuggie

2009-01-03T20:20:00.003-05:00

Fulfill your Monk-like desires.

It's a damselfly, not a dragonfly.

2008-12-01T12:46:00.004-05:00

This post was wrong. I was surfing Wikipedia and found that a damselfly's wings run parallel to its body. A dragonfly's wings are perpendicular, like on the one I found out the front of our place a while ago:

Peru photos - part three - Cusco!

2008-11-07T13:14:00.005-05:00

Here are the photos from the Cusco region of Peru, which includes Cusco itself, surrounding ruins and towns and of course, Machu Picchu.

Link to photo set.

Machu Picchu HDR
Originally uploaded by daecks

Llama!
Originally uploaded by daecks

Peru photos - part two - Ica!

2008-10-26T21:05:00.006-04:00

Here are photos from the region of Peru called "Ica", which includes the coastal sites of Paracas and the Nazca lines.

The set is here.

Sealion
Originally uploaded by daecks

Spider deja vu
Originally uploaded by daecks

Peru photos - part one - Lima!

2008-10-25T18:38:00.010-04:00

Photos and some videos taken in and around Lima are now online in Flickr. There are more to come from Ica (Nasca lines) and Cusco (many Inca ruins).

Click here to visit the set.

Indian Market
Originally uploaded by daecks

Rainbow fountain
Originally uploaded by daecks

Berklee music project

2008-09-08T17:46:00.004-04:00

For my latest online Berklee music course, we had to create background music and effects for a movie scene out of a video game. I did mine for a scene from Aeon Flux. Here 'tis, with the music track only...

Little dragonfly

2008-09-07T22:10:00.002-04:00

Little dragonfly
Originally uploaded by daecks

This little guy was hanging off a Staghorn leaf just outside our place.

Brown Anole

2008-07-19T01:39:00.003-04:00

Brown Anole
Originally uploaded by daecks

Another example of the critters found around where I live. This one would return every night to the same spot to rest. For scale, the head would be a little under 1cm long.

Kiss me

2008-07-13T14:31:00.002-04:00

Kiss me
Originally uploaded by daecks

This was out on our terrace the other day. I have no idea what species of frog this is, somewhat due to the tail protrusion.

Australia trip photos

2008-07-13T14:29:00.004-04:00

These have been up for a while now, but for relatives who do still check this page (mum), here is the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daecks/collections/72157605414305482/

Spiny Orb-weaver

2008-05-15T08:03:00.003-04:00

Spiny Orb-weaver
Originally uploaded by daecks

Am I tempting fate by wanting to take photos of spiders?

Funeral picketing

2008-01-23T12:11:00.000-05:00

I would like to see them try... just to see their arses get kicked. Although you have to wonder if they know how far away Australia is, or even where it is, or even if they realise it will be there *rolls eyes*.

Time for an update, eh?

2008-01-04T11:51:00.001-05:00

Well I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year break. I made the mistake of attempting to work during that time, and was not as successful as I would have liked. Since this has turned into more of a photo blog rather than random musings/bitchings (stated right after a bitching post), here are some photos.

Trip to Washington, D.C.

My last birthday in the 20s.

Bitch time

2007-11-08T21:44:00.000-05:00

It's bitchy PK here. I can be in a completely good mood, and all of a sudden on comes a commercial with a song that has the most stupid lyrics ever. Take one of the new iPod Touch ads, with lyrics like these how can you go wrong?!?

"Music is my boyfriend
Music is my girlfriend
Music is my dead end
Music is my imaginary friend
Music is my brother
Music is my great-grand-daughter
Music is my sister
Music is my favorite mistress"

"Music is my beach house
Music is my hometown
Music is my kingsize bed
Music is my hot hot bath
Music is my hot hot sex
Music is my back rub
Music is where i'd like you to touch"

The actual ad splices some of those lines together for a more concentrated bad-lyric experience. Here it is:

Here is another one from Old Navy:
"If you are chilly, here take my sweater"
Hey, I get the idea! Could the rest of the song go like this?
"If you are thirsty, here have some water"
"If you are sleepy, here is a pillow"
"If you are hungry, here take my salad" and so the hell on.
Sheer poetic brilliance!

Photos around the place

2007-10-21T00:35:00.000-04:00

I've noticed some photos of mine are on certain websites around the place. I find it interesting to see which of my photos are used. Here are some links:

Fantasy-fest devil
Diesel the family cat
Kitten in Nicaragua
Major Mitchell cockatoo
Heller International building, Chicago
Little chargers
Murray river

Just so you know

2007-10-21T00:21:00.000-04:00

PK is PK right now.

I'm on Corona #5, drinking with a bunch of Peruvians, making squashed frogs for the girls, and I'm running low on Midori.

Update: Midori is finished. )-:

I heart Floridan critters

2007-10-21T00:12:00.000-04:00

I spotted this guy the other day climbing up a tree near our place. He was about a metre long, and looks like he's been around.

BTW: I heart Australian critters more, especially Red Back spiders.

Update: Another Iguana.

Iguanas were introduced to Florida from people letting their pets go once they got too big. Now they go through the canals munching on tasty plants.

Adriana's b'day party

2007-10-17T16:33:00.000-04:00

Photos from Adriana's birthday party held on the weekend are online. The star of the party (apart from Adriana)? Squashed Frogs.

The rest of the set is here.

Photos from London

2007-09-05T09:24:00.000-04:00

Wow! Finally...

Set is here.

Monaco panorama

2007-08-21T21:46:00.000-04:00

This is a 16 mega pixel stitch of Monaco, taken from a wheelchair viewing area.

Photo used in online publication

2007-08-16T09:59:00.001-04:00

I just got an e-mail from an online publication re the use of one of my pictures in their article! I'm always stoked about something like this. The picture is one I took of a kid in Nicaragua in the Granada islands area. He was one of the sons of the tour operator.

Here is a link to the article, it's in Spanish, but it talks about how a study conducted by Stanford university showed that post traumatic stress during childhood makes people more vulnerable to stress, anxiety or depression later in their lives.

Capture of article page (can't be buggered cropping it :-):

What is Ben smiling about?

2007-08-16T08:31:00.000-04:00

Can you find it? Click on image for larger version (or here for the answer, you cheat).

Die-al up

2007-08-13T11:15:00.000-04:00

Since I've been in Australia, I've been cruising on the Internet at dial-up speeds. It is so awesome. I love it. In the near future you'll see the execution of a 56k modem once I 'get back up to speed'.

From Australia

2007-08-13T04:20:00.000-04:00

I'm currently in Australia (Loxton, to be precise) after making an emergency trip from the States for my Grandpa's funeral. As far as funerals go, it was awesome. What was even more awesome is that we drank the club, where refreshments were served after the funeral, out of port. I contributed in no small way to that. Of course, my love of port comes from Grandpa himself and his influence on me when I grew up with him as a kid. Many frequent trips were made by him to the stash of flagons out by the shed, and every now and then I guess I'd try a sample of the Tawny as well (Tawnys made by Penfolds, Yalumba or Seppelts are a good start). Good times. (-:

I also have to renew my Visa on this trip, so I'm about to head to Melbourne to do that this week. If I haven't seen you yet, I wasn't able to catch up with you this trip, maybe next time.

I didn't bring my camera kit this time around, but the good ol' point-and-shoot was able to satisfy my shutter-bug needs. The two photos below were taken here in Loxton down by the Loxton Riverfront Caravan Park.

July 4 fireworks

2007-07-16T12:21:00.000-04:00

I took the opportunity to practice some firework photo shots.

Fireworks at Tamarac:

Fireworks at Hallandale Beach:

The set is here.

Photos from Prague

2007-07-14T21:13:00.000-04:00

Photos from Prague are online.

St. Vitus Cathedral:

Silhouette of Church of St. Nicholas:

Old town square:

Adriana and the guard:

The whole set is here.

Photos from Germany

2007-07-10T16:43:00.001-04:00

Berlin Cathedral:

Neuschwanstein Castle:

Old mill, where the Doecke side of my family came from:

The whole photo set is here.

France/Monaco photo update

2007-07-02T10:22:00.001-04:00

Some photos have been online for a little while now. First up, France:

Honfleur

And a partial set of Monaco:

An update

2007-06-22T15:57:00.000-04:00

Obviously I have been back from Europe for a little bit now. Let's just say I spent most of last week being exhausted and a little unwell. I spent most of this week catching up on work. Family celebrations over here have also been occupying some time.

I have been working on the 2600 or so photos I took whilst on vacation. A lot of these were experimental, some panoramas, some HDR test shots (for the record, I hate how some people are seemingly abusing the HDR concept on sites like Flickr. Some of the photos are just god-awful). One thing that I am kicking myself about is that a lot of the photos had dust marks on them. It's taking me a while to remove such spots. I tried cleaning the lens whenever I could, but sometimes in the excitement of it all I forgot about that, not that I could see such spots when reviewing photos on the small screen of my D70.

I am extremely happy with my new lens purchase, an 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX Zoom-Nikkor. Haha, enough jargon for you? It replaced three other lenses on the trip and did a pretty damn good job at it. Even better - I still have not been charged for it. There was a hold put on my card when I ordered it, I took a couple of days to release that hold, and the expected charge never went through. We'll see what happens with that though.

Photos from France should be up in a few days.

Countdown

2007-05-17T17:09:00.000-04:00

Planning for Europe

2007-05-08T16:46:00.000-04:00

Everything is almost planned for the trip to Europe that Adriana and I are going on later this month. It is certainly going to be one fast-tracked experience, with visits to Paris, Rouen, Caen, Milan, Nice, Monaco (F1 Grand Prix), Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Munich and London in the space of three weeks.

I'm trying not to get flustered about it (and some people who know me well enough could imagine what I'm like right now), but it's difficult not to. Part of me wishes that the organising part of the trip was finished a couple of months ago. Unfortunately things happen, schedules must be changed, and that is what I'm going through right now.

I've tried to take advantage of what is offered in terms of deals as much as possible, however misinterpreting some things early on has led to a bit of frustration now. I think I switched between buying the Eurail pass or buying point-to-point rail tickets two or three times. I'm flying the cheap airlines (flylc.com is great for finding which cheap airlines fly between what cities) as much as possible. At one point we were heading from Munich up to Berlin via train. We're still using the train, but now going from Berlin to Munich simply because of a cheap airline ticket (and time...) Milan wasn't even on the list, at first. Neither was Prague. They were simply "since we're in the area, we might as well check them out" thoughts. This has shortened time in other areas, and our visit to Berlin is now structured around a "Berlin in one day" guide.

Language. I'm worried and embarrassed that I won't be able to speak German properly, having sworn and cussed at people in German for what seems an eternity now. I've been revising that like crazy recently. I'm also trying to learn some basic Italian and French words just to not feel like such a dweeb. I remember for a time I was in Nicaragua, by myself, not being able to speak Spanish. It was bad, but I actually knew enough words to order some chicken and get the right seasoning (oh, and an accompanying beer, of course). In the end a lot of the people we'll meet will probably speak more English than I speak of their language. It will be interesting to see how this all turns out.

Just preparing for this trip has been an interesting experience. I know what not to do next time, and I know exactly how it should be planned out. It seems the places you visit (and when) are more dictated by how you're going to get there. For example: look up what Eurail pass you can use first, then plan what cities you're going to see around that. Better yet, give a travel agent a list of cities you want to visit and see what comes out the end. It caught me by surprise and brought out someone I haven't known for a while: da flustered PK.

After all this, there is one thing I can't wait to do: take pictures. Not just a few, not just a few hundred, but a few thousand. I have a brand spanking new lens, a photo backup device, and a happy little trigger finger. Bring it on!

Let people download

2007-04-28T16:12:00.000-04:00

Something that has piqued my interest lately is how labels are reacting to the fact that people are downloading music rather than buying CDs. Some labels are reacting to this. One of my favourites, Distinctive records (the label for "Way out West", "Hybrid", "General Midi", among others) has embraced music downloads and I've downloaded several albums from there (if only they'd tag the damn mp3s properly). Thankfully, I can play those mp3s on any device as there is no DRM (Digital Rights Management) on the files. iTunes is now offering DRM-free music from EMI, so as an aside I'm glad about that too.

At the Winter Music Conference recently there was a big discussion at how music has gone from buying albums to downloading singles. Labels need to embrace this concept, or die. The kids of these days (it seems like I'm 50 years old writing this) buying music don't really know the concept of buying a whole album from an artist. People only want to buy the songs they want to listen to. More importantly, they want to buy it and listen to it now. The internet and iTunes in particular have made that an expectation.

Some labels have not embraced this whizz-bang concept of digitally downloading music. So when I heard that a label was dying because of "illegal downloads" I was curious. Here is a quote from the filter27 website, where I first saw this posted:

According to Herwig, illegal downloads of Dependent albums outnumber legal purchase by a factor of three or even five to one. "Money was always tight," he says, "and in the future it's only going to get tighter, because even if we were to continue to produce quality CDs, the rate with which they will be purchased legally will continue to decline. Each album released would represent an ever-increasing financial risk."

Herwig also points out that an unnamed Russian warez site recently distributed over 5000 downloads of one of Dependent's releases in just one week while the label only sold about 1000 copies of the same release in physical discs.

"A popular claim often seen on Internet maintains that the P2P culture weakens the majors and bolsters the independent labels. This is, we can assure you, 100% bullshit. Even if there are listeners who download first and buy later, they are clearly in the dwindling minority," says Herwig.

My biggest question was: did they offer digital downloads of their artists' music from their website? I looked around and was not surprised when the downloads I found were samples for albums that were available on CD only. Hey, no surprise there! People obviously want their albums but are not prepared to buy, wait for delivery, only to probably rip them to mp3 anyway when they arrived. The only get-it-now method for receiving the music was to download a torrent of the album. This hurt the label AND the artists.

'Dependent' records get no sympathy from me. They were holding on to an old way of doing business in the music industry. They didn't realise that or were too stubborn to change, and thus are getting all they deserve from their lack of foresight.

Muse in concert

2007-04-23T00:03:00.000-04:00

I am in a pretty damn good mood right now, having just come back from my first Muse concert. How can I say they were fucking awesome without swearing? Even from as far back as I was sitting I could see Matt Bellamy strutting around on stage and working that guitar like nothing else. It was awe-inspiring. "Supermassive black hole", "Knights of Cydonia", "Hysteria", "Stockholm Syndrome" were just some of the songs they played and I was lapping up every damn second of it.

The only bad thing was that they were a support act. Muse should not be the support act for anyone and I have, at length, complained about this to people. I guess I should be glad they're even travelling this far south into Florida, but I cannot stop thinking about what could have been. In this case they were supporting My Chemical Romance. Whilst I know a couple of the MCR songs I am not what you would call a super-massive fan. This was just proven to me tonight when after the adrenalin rush of Muse, I sat through the glam-rock of MCR relatively unswayed. The seats were comfortable at least. Some people weren't tricked by the comfortable seats though as they left the building after Muse finished their act.

A couple of times during the MCR performance I was suddenly awoken by massive firecrackers going off. I had to give them kudos to them for that though: their stage presentation was fairly good, with lots of fire and explosions and pretty glitter to keep the kids interested and me awake. It was sort of like "Disney on Ice" meets KISS.

Eh, I wish MCR's music had the same impact on me as it did to all the teenagers at the concert. They were all going crazy and that's when it dawned on me. MCR isn't aiming to be that great musically (and I really don't think they are), they're fulfilling a certain niche that emo-teenagers are craving: simple, emphatic, easily digestible music that doesn't do anything new but is packaged nicely. I think the best way of putting this would be to say:

My Chemical Romance: "The Wiggles" for teenagers.

What's going on?

2007-04-18T12:58:00.000-04:00

Things have been especially busy lately. I've been hanging out with my girlfriend Adriana a lot. Yes Mum, I've met the family, and they're absolutely hilarious! So things are good there.

I recently helped organise a "baby shower" (I use the quotes since it had guys there too, and showers as such are normally a female-only affair) for my friends Jessie and Omar, and I took pictures at another shower party for friends Maha and Matt.

Maha and Matt's shower photos
Jessie and Omar's shower photos

Wedding in South Beach

2007-03-20T16:57:00.000-04:00

On the weekend I attended a double first: a Cuban wedding, and a wedding in South Beach. It was an incredibly short church service, but that just meant more time to party afterwards. Which they did. A lot of. I've never seen so much dancing (and good dancing at that) at a wedding. Congrats go out to Milly and Val!

Some pictures are included below, click here for the set slideshow.

Tornado in South Florida

2007-02-28T17:32:00.000-05:00

Apparently there was a developing tornado spotted in South Florida this afternoon, specifically forming over Tamarac, where I happen to live! It didn't touch down, and not much damage was caused, apparently, but I'm curious to see what damage was done on the drive home tonight.

UPDATE: Absolutely no damage whatsoever. Yay!

I have to add, and this is the craziness in me becoming more apparent, but as soon as I heard there was a tornado forming I wanted to go home, grab my camera and take some pictures. I didn't do that... perhaps next time.

UPDATE #2: It did touch down! From this site:

National Weather Service Meteorologist Dan Dixon said a tornado touched down near Tamarac and was on the ground for 2.75 miles.

Dixon said the tornado had 80 to 85 mph winds and was about 50 to 100 yards wide.

Tiesto who?

2007-02-03T16:30:00.000-05:00

Heard a funny story at a work luncheon yesterday. I'm going to paraphrase this one, I can't remember all the details due to me laughing so much while the story was being told.

One of my friends who lives down in South Beach was invited to dinner by a friend. "We're going to have dinner with Tiesto!" For anyone who listens to dance music, that would be quite a dinner to attend. Except, she hadn't really heard of him. Anyway, they're out at dinner, she asked him questions like:

"What do you do?"
"I'm a DJ."

"Where are you from?"
"Amsterdam."

I think the funniest was when they were approaching the line for a club:

"This is a cool club, except it's really hard to get into. We might have to wait a while".
"Oh, I don't think we have to worry about that :)"

MySpace

2007-01-10T17:35:00.000-05:00

I gave into this phenomenon, which is an exercise in usability frustration, a long time ago. If you got sucked in like I did, let me know at http://www.myspace.com/daecks.

Update on birthday madness

2006-12-11T10:14:00.000-05:00

Here are some pictures from the Thursday night. Looking at the first picture we have Eddie, Andrea, Jon and PK! I'm pouting/pursing my lips in some of the pictures (as are the other guys) because Andrea's ex never smiled in any of his photos, and always did that with his mouth. We are always paying her out about that. I'm particularly impressed with my effort in the second photo.

The pictures were all taken at a hispanic club called 'Spice' in downtown Hollywood (the Florida Hollywood, not the California one). We apparently went there again Friday night, but Friday was a bit of a big one for me. I can't remember anything of what happened after the first hour, and I was out for 10 hours that night. At one stage I was supposedly dancing with one of the awesome bar chicks at Spice, but I can't remember that at all. I'd give anything to get that memory back!

Happy birthday to me!

2006-12-08T09:57:00.000-05:00

Shameless plug, yes.

I am tired. Really tired. Last night I got back to my friend's house and crashed on the couch at . . . 4:30am. So I guess I really got back this morning. My project group this morning was serving up breakfast, so I had to be at work at 7:30am. That hurt a lot, especially now that I'm 28! OMFG my bones are giving up on me, I'll need a walking frame soon and where the hell did I put my falsies???

P.S. I'm talking crap above. Although I am running on a couple of hours of sleep I have never felt better. Bring this older age business ON!

Viva Las (ow my head hurts)

2006-12-03T14:00:00.000-05:00

So for the past few days I've found myself in Las Vegas, catching up with a friend who is in the US on a work assignment with some of his colleagues. This place is a LOT of fun. "I don't gamble", but I have been playing a few blackjack tables here and there and doing okay. Last night though at the Hard Rock casino my mind finally gave up on me and I could not even add together 7 and 4. No, I lie. I could add that together fine, it's just that 5 seconds later I forgot what the total was. After realising that wasn't helping me (I forgot I came to that conclusion several times) I decided to have an early night (4 am) and reboot my mind. Looking forward to doing it all over again tonight!

So I wanted to make a pavlova. . .

2006-11-21T23:57:00.000-05:00

and then I found that my flatmate does not even have half the necessary baking gear for such a task (and it *is* only pavlova). 'tis a sad, sad day for Pavlova Kristian.

You know, I could run off to a Walmart and buy all the stuff I need, but I actually feel much better bitching about it on my blog.

Yes, this was really just a post to keep my blog updated.

=~=

Something more interesting, I'm listening to Quantic's latest album "An announcement to answer". It's so freaking cool. Soul, funk, hip-hop, latin beat, electronica, all blended together to form that tasty cake mix you end up eating half of before putting it in the oven. But it gets even better after a couple of listens! (i.e., bake @ 175 degrees Celsius for 35 minutes) . . . yep, baking is definitely on the brain.

Congratulations Kynan and Debbie

2006-11-16T01:16:00.000-05:00

Recently my friends back in Australia, Kynan and Debbie, had their first child Cooper, a healthy looking baby boy. Congratulations Kynan and Debbie!

K-9, someday you'll have to teach your son to do this. None of us standing there could believe you did it:

Congratulations Javi and Glenda!

2006-11-16T00:48:00.000-05:00

Recently my friends here in Florida, Javi and Glenda, had their first baby. Her name is Veronica. Congratulations Javi and Glenda!

I took photos at their baby party recently, so now you know who I'm writing about.

How to save a wet cell phone

2006-11-16T00:37:00.000-05:00

Hah! I cracked up laughing when I saw this website. Firstly because the pictured phone is the same damn one as mine that got a 'little' wet in the clothes wash a while back. Secondly because I failed at step one:

Get it out of the water as soon as possible. The plastic covers on cell phones are fairly tight, but water can enter the phone over time. But this time may be quite short - 20 seconds or less. So grab your phone quickly!

20 seconds is a lot less than 10 or so minutes, right?

Scrubs at work

2006-11-08T22:50:00.000-05:00

Oh, this is great. A recent episode of 'Scrubs' had Colin Hay, of 'Men at work' fame, singing 'Overkill'. Outstanding!

Thanksgiving?

2006-11-08T15:12:00.000-05:00

I had many good plans for this year's thanksgiving, even backup plans. Over the last few days I've watched each plan get struck down. Now I just don't know what to do at all. I certainly don't want to go somewhere I've already been, I really hate travelling by myself, and I sure as hell don't want to stay in Florida.

(puts thinking cap on)

hmmm . . .

NO BLOODY WAY

2006-10-23T00:00:00.000-04:00

"THE United States has slapped a ban on Vegemite, outraging Australian expatriates there"

Link to news story

If I needed an excuse to leave this country, this is it.

I HAVE TWO LARGE JARS OF VEGEMITE, BITCHES!!!! COME AND GET ME!!!!

Some kewl new music

2006-10-19T19:34:00.000-04:00

I used to follow a band called Zephyr Timbre, out of Brisvegas. They had some pretty cool tunes. Relaxed, funky, soulful... those are some words I'd use to describe them. Eventually they went their separate ways, much to my dismay.

However.

For a while now I've been following a new group formed by a couple of the ex-members of Zephyr Timbre. The group is called "My Ninja Lover", and a few weeks ago now they released their first EP "Silk and Daggers". It's awesome, and I love it. Go buy their EP from any of the stores (physical and online) listed on their website: http://myninjalover.com/. Preview their music at their myspace page.

Views from a plane

2006-10-10T02:22:00.000-04:00

I've created a new set called 'views from a plane' on Flickr as I saw some interesting stuff when I last visited Australia. Here are some of the pictures (more to come). Set link is here.

Bye bye New Zealand

2006-10-03T02:21:00.000-04:00

This is a bit of a weird one. Currently I'm sitting on the upper deck (business) of a 747, awaiting takeoff to LAX, leeching the wifi signal from the Auckland international airport terminal.

An explanation.

Just under two weeks ago I got asked if I would like to fly to Australia for a work trip, helping the customer in Melbourne with testing of one of our new products. I had two days to prepare everything, and I spent a pretty hectic week in Melbourne with work related stuff. I was in Adelaide for about a day total and spent a couple of days back in rural SA catching up with family members. My brother and I staged quite a surprise for mum, thank God she's still around, we thought we'd nearly sent her to an early grave there for a while. I'll just say that she wasn't expecting either of us there when she walked into the kitchen.

I caught up with some people back in Oz, but not nearly as many as I wanted, as is always the case (really, I was only in Adelaide for a day). Some people I didn't catch up with I'll be seeing later this year anyway, and you know who you are.

There is only one bad thing about this whole trip: how the hell am I ever going to fly economy ever again after this excellent treatment? :-p

P.S. I must learn to say 'no' more often to 'would you like more wine?'

P.P.S. Also, it's not like I spent a large amount of time in NZ... all of about 2 hours I think.

Miami at night

2006-09-22T17:52:00.000-04:00

I took this HDR picture of Miami the other night. It's a few pictures taken at different exposures slapped together with photoshop. I ended up forgetting that each photo taken for a HDR really should be one-stop different from its 'neighbour', and the highest exposure photo wasn't nearly enough to bring out the reflection in the water. Also, I was in the sort of spot where I didn't feel completely safe, so I didn't hang around for too long.

Is that enough excuses yet?

Note this is a very small snippet of the Miami skyline. It's a lot larger than this and is due to get a *lot* larger than it is now. Count the number of cranes in this picture. I think there are something like ten of them.

Click on the pic to access the larger versions.

Top Gear presenter in crash

2006-09-22T17:27:00.000-04:00

I am a massive, massive fan of the BBC car show "Top Gear". The trio of presenters work just so well together and make it absolutely hilarious to watch. Frosty (who at one time maintained his blog!) used to have screenings during work back in Adelaide, something I always looked forward to.

Richard Hammond, one of the presenters, was recently in a car crash while trying to beat the British land speed record. I'm not surprised at that, I'm surprised he actually got injured (and pretty badly too). Here's hoping he recovers soon!

Story is here.

Cafe Tacuba

2006-09-21T18:29:00.000-04:00

I've really, really been getting into the Spanish/hispanic thing lately. I've started listening to a lot of the music, local bands like Minimal and now branching out to some other groups like the superstar Mexican group Cafe Tacuba. My fav song from them so far: Eres. Even if you don't know a lick of Spanish, it still sounds damn good.

Felicidades Omar y Jessie!!

2006-09-20T18:45:00.000-04:00

Wow.

One of my best friends over here in the US, Omar, and his wife, Jessie (who is also a best friend), just informed me that they are six weeks pregnant. I was informed of this via a text message today that said:

(news)We're pregnant, talk soon!"

It took me a little while to recover from falling off the floor. Awesome, awesome news. Congratulations again Omar and Jessie! I know you never read my blog but what the hell I just had to write this down anyway!

This adds to the list of friends over here and back in Oz who are pregnant or who have had kids recently:

Plugger and Kate
K9 and Debbie
Cepi and Arlene
Javi and Glenda
Todd and Heidi
Susan and Rick

Wow. Just wow. The ground is covered in babies.

Nice conversations

2006-09-19T15:22:00.000-04:00

Americans like having discussions while occupying the toilet. It's a fascinating if slightly disturbing habit. Americans also like guns. Also fascinating, also slightly disturbing. Now that I've got those major generalisations out of the way, let's combine them: talking about guns while in the toilet. Today there was a three way conversation about guns going on. One guy was talking to a fellow gun-toting dude over his phone, some other guy recognised his voice and love of guns and decided to join in. "have you bought your gun yet? ... all I need is a .45 and my collection will be filled out..."

Nice.

It's obviously too quiet in toilets around here, so people feel the need to occupy the silence with their important conversations. I say that massive speaker systems should be installed in the toilets, with fully sick subwoofers, and volume knobs that go to eleven. If they could wire those speaker systems into Radio One, that'd be pretty awesome. Problem solved!

Wassup, PK?

2006-09-13T14:17:00.000-04:00

Time has been... interesting, lately.

So I went to Nicaragua, again, "to see what I missed out on last time". The photo set I recently uploaded to Flickr is here. The set consists more of people shots than anything else. It's not complete (the sets never are, it seems. There are many pictures where I think "hmmm, that needs to be edited a bit..." or "ok, I have to turn this into a panorama"), but it's a start.

[... emotional content snipped :) ]

The Fifth

2006-09-01T16:04:00.000-04:00

I'm currently chillin' in Miami airport waiting for my flight to Managua, so thought I'd upload a video of a recent night out at "the fifth". It's a very SoBe sort of club. Very expensive too (da, that's SoBe as well). The music was a bit dodgy earlier on, but once the DJs decided to do away with the "hey, we're a club, let's play hip hop" cliche and actually play some decent dance music, then things got a little better.

Here is a pic of one of the dancers at the club:

Here is a short video clip from the club:

Thank God for ears!

2006-08-29T16:37:00.000-04:00

I'm lying here on my bed (no work today due to the storm) listening to Hybrid's latest studio album, "I choose noise", which got released today. In a word, it's fan-friggen-tastic. It's everything I hoped for in an album of this genre (think a symphony having a head-on collision with break beats). Listening to it is like diving into a massive pavlova and finding Tim Tams at the bottom. It's available for download in a "quite unlike iTunes" non-restrictive audio format, called MP3, from their label, distinct'ive records.

Not only that, but BT is also releasing his new album today, "This Binary Universe". I had to order the album the old fashioned way and wait for it to be delivered. I couldn't find a digital download (a.k.a.: torrent) to appease the consumer-whore in me that can't wait for delivery by the postman. The really cool thing about this album - apart from the fact that I know it's going to be cool because BT is the ultimate in his field - is the fact that one of the discs is recorded in full DTS surround sound! It makes me want to fly back to Oz and give it a listen on my old faithful sound system. I wonder if my subwoofer is still doing a decent job back in Adelaide... ahh yes, I can feel it now.

GO AWAY!

2006-08-27T13:36:00.000-04:00

I have some plans to go back to Nicaragua next weekend. Ernesto, don't you fcuking dare...

Ultrafest!?!?

2006-08-26T10:29:00.000-04:00

It's amazing what one can accomplish when one chooses to not sleep.

Here are some videos from Ultrafest 2006. I've been meaning to put these up for months and months. You'll just love how the little microphone on my camera has no clue what to do with all the bass that's hitting it.

I can't remember the name of this band, but the lead singer kept saying that one of their songs was on iTunes' top 100. Apart from that, he sang a lot about how weed would solve all the world's problems.

Eric Morillo, with cruise ship visible to the right. Ultrafest on a cruise ship would be pretty awesome.

Carl Cox dance tent. I didn't want to put up the actual video of Carl Cox DJing. Anyone who has "Carl Cox" spinning on the display behind them while they DJ won't get any space in my blog. Unless, of course, they have "PK" spinning on the display, then that's cool.

Drum and Bass set.

Pendulum - look out for the dude wearing the flashing glasses, it's sort of surreal as he walks past. I felt like shooting the MC with my mind bullets during the Pendulum set, he was annoying the fcuk out of me. Oh, the reason why I was so far back? My feet were hurting like hell from jumping up and down all day, so I decided to go barefoot for a while. Those of you who have seen people dancing to DnB know that your feet would not be safe even if they're protected by steelcaps! The Prodigy cover that Pendulum ends on in this video leads into...

The real Prodigy! Awesome, awesome, awesome. We couldn't get any closer though, no matter how much we tried. You might see some wafts of smoke in the foreground during this set. That's not any special effect, that's something that causes special effects. I swear I was passively getting high during this set.

Van de Graaff generator. Check out how something wrong starts to happen. I was waiting for it to explode, but you do get to see some little sparks fly off the shaft.

BT. This was such an awesome set, and was by far my favourite of Ultrafest 2006. Fan-bloody-tastic, BT!

Volcano Concepcion

2006-08-26T09:37:00.000-04:00

This is a video I took of some cloud moving over the top of Volcano Concepcion on the island of Ometepe in Nicaragua. The speed has been increased by a factor of eight.

Bad Friday

2006-08-25T14:39:00.000-04:00

Today I am just in the worst, most depressed mood ever. I don't even know what to blame it on . . . many things I guess. No, I'll blame it on distance and the fact that work is sucking right now.

But anyway, for some reason I am inspired to take pictures of bugs and maybe a Miami skyline at night. I'll see how I go with that this weekend.

UPDATE: In the last 1/2 hour of my working Friday, everything seemed to fall into place. Ummmm, yay!

Fatality in South Beach

2006-08-18T20:02:00.000-04:00

I was having dinner with friends down at Lincoln Mall in South Beach and couldn't help but notice this...

a fatality. broken. wasted. it not just any broken bottle, it's a broken bottle of Evian water. oh, so SoBe.

New blogger: cool

2006-08-16T13:16:00.000-04:00

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/08/new-blogger.html

I'm not one of the special people who can do the switch to the new version of blogger yet, but a new funky layout could just be what this site needs. Of course, 'funky' is completely in the eye of the beholder. Some people around here are still convinced that wearing brown belts with white sneakers is totally funky.

(whatever, pk).

Nicaragua: It's beautiful! I love it!

2006-08-11T09:59:00.000-04:00

My holiday in Nicaragua was quite simply the most eye-opening, amazing trip I've ever been on. I've never seen such extremes in my life. I went to the upper class club "Hipa Hipa" in Managua and then drank Toña in a bar made of sheet iron on the island of Ometepe. I've never lived in such extremes, from the very nice Holiday Inn in Managua to sleeping at a place that only had a fan and no hot water on Ometepe (when there was water at all). It was just amazing to experience the two extremes.

What was the most amazing thing about Nicaragua? Well, apart from the people, it was that damn Volcano Concepcion on the island of Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua. It's still active, and every now and then spews out some ash and rumbles. It didn't do any of that while I was on the island, though. It's an amazing sight to behold (it's only half the height of Mt Fuji, however) and you see it everywhere you travel on Ometepe. It arrogantly stands there in stark contrast to the peaceful life of the people living there.

Click on the image below to get to the Flickr set, which I'm still working on. About 1/2 the photos are online.

Nica, baby!

2006-07-27T19:31:00.000-04:00

I was going to complete what happened on the rest of the roadtrip... but screw it. One of the highlights was when a girl I was chatting to at some bar in Asheville, North Carolina, basically proposed to me. If it weren't for the 5 pints of Guinness I'd had already, I might have even considered the offer. I don't even know how that makes sense. All I'm really trying to say is that a fair chunk of the pictures from the trip are online here.

I have been extremely busy lately with a lot of stuff, most of it work, unfortunately. I've just been damn tired the last week. Not to worry though - tomorrow I head off on another road trip! But it's not going to be in the US. I'm heading off with a friend for 8 days of exploring in Nicaragua. I speak very little Spanish (very, very little). That should not be too much of a problem though, as my friend speaks Spanish quite well and he's actually from Nicaragua. Convenient, no?

Whilst there, we'll be visiting the capital Managua (which, even with a population of over a million, is the only city I know of that has no street names... queue the U2). Also we're visiting the coastal town of San Juan Del Sur, Granada, the volcanic island of Ometepe, Leon, Selva Negra... the list goes on. I'm pretty damn excited about this. My camera trigger finger is going to get RSI.

Peace out,
BK (borracho Kristian).

Lambada

2006-07-14T18:05:00.000-04:00

The forbidden dance, and Kaoma's song is one of my favourite songs from growing up in the 80's.

Check out this page and get your 80's fix today!!

Favourite news story of the year

2006-07-12T18:31:00.000-04:00

From http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13825566/?GT1=8307

"Paleontologists say they have found the fossilized remains of a fanged killer kangaroo and what they describe as a "demon duck of doom.""

The guys here at work are loving this story. Australia must seem like some magical mystery land of killer creatures.

Demon duck of doom. That's awesome.

Worst hotel/motel ever

2006-07-11T00:00:00.000-04:00

It almost seemed like we were never going to get on the road the Friday night of the road trip. I had left my camera tripod at Tobacco Road from doing photos the night before, and thinking that I might need to use it (I never did end up using it), I drove all the way to Miami to pick it up after work. Eventually my partner in crime Eddie and I left my place at 9pm ... that's a bloody late when we were intending to make it to Jacksonville that night (about a 6 hour drive, sticking to the speed limit).

Make it to Jacksonville we did, and then some. Eddie played the DS Lite (I love my DS... it kicks arse) quite a bit until he got road sick. I occupied myself by playing Muse over and over and then singing stupid songs in my head. We ended up stopping past Jacksonville at the last exit before Georgia. Here's the map.

This is where I'd like to say a big "Fsuk YOU!" to Days Inn. We were starting to get tired and were looking for some reasonable places to stop at. Someplace where we didn't feel like there was the danger of getting mugged, getting the car stolen, somewhere we could rest comfortably without fear of anything. Unfortunately this was difficult as a lot of the places were booked because of the Daytona 500. Yay for watching cars go round and round till your head falls off from boredom.

We eventually found a place, a Days Inn that was the only accommodation at that particular exit. By that stage we were tired and didn't really care about anything else. We paid $80 for the worst accommodation ever. I swear there was a frog in the room somewhere. Eddie thought it was in the air conditioner and was kicking it during the night to stop its croaking. My bed was like sleeping in a pile of moss. The room stank like ... something I can't even describe.

Thankfully we were both alive in the morning and still had our limbs and body organs. We promptly exited that abomination of a place and gave the Days Inn a big "up yours!!!". This act of affection was to be repeated throughout the road trip.

End of "day 1".

Still alive

2006-07-09T22:31:00.000-04:00

Believe it or not, I'm still alive. The last couple of weeks have been especially hectic, with me finishing up part of a music course and work being insane. Oh, and fit a supermassive road trip up through South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia in with all that on the past July 4 weekend. I've again been updating Flickr with pics from the trip so if you click on the badge to the right you'll get to them. I have some weird arse stories to share from that trip...

But aside from all that, today's surreal moment had to belong to the France vs Italy world cup final. I'm sitting there watching with a bunch of friends, Corona in hand, and then all of a sudden I see Zidane, who I always thought was cool, calm and collected, head-butt one of the Italian players. WTF?

Black Holes and Revelations

2006-06-24T15:10:00.000-04:00

So, my favourite music group just has to be Muse. I think it used to be Coldplay or Hybrid, but that sort of changed when I rediscovered them during hurricane Wilma last year.

I've got a copy of their latest album, "Black Holes and Revelations". My pre-order using iTunes doesn't come through until next month . . . I couldn't wait that long but when it is able to be downloaded I also get some bonues videos. Cool.

This album is cool. Way cool. More glam-rock than before, and one thing I can't get over is how much they remind me of ELO in some songs. Take the chorus in "Super Massive Black Hole", for example. I friggen love ELO and I just think that rocks.

Other initial favourites on the album include "City of Delusion" which has a flamenco-crossed-with-Arabic style, and "Knights of Cydonia".

UPDATE: After some more listening, other favourites include the rest of the album.

Santos Renuentes v2.0

2006-06-24T12:53:00.000-04:00

This past Wednesday I took photographs for my favourite Spanish-rock band "Santos Renuentes". I've written about this group a lot before. They underwent a change recently where the drummer, lead guitarist and singer were replaced. Yeah, that's a pretty major sort of change. It was only a practice warm-up friends-invited-only session, but what's resulted from all the changes is a band with very different group dynamics and, in my opinion, a much better sound. It was just amazing to hear and *see* the difference in the band.

GO HEAT - AGAIN!!!

2006-06-21T00:11:00.000-04:00

Woohoo!

This is insane. Miami Heat. NBA champions.

People are going insane around here. Cars everywhere honking horns.

And just announced - Dwyane Wade - MVP.

Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Gotta go now, gotta go party.

GO HEAT!

2006-06-19T00:43:00.000-04:00

Wow. What a game of basketball with a final scoreline of 101-100 in favour of Miami. This is the second time today I haven't been able to sit down to watch a sports game, the first being for the loss of the Socceroos against the Brazilians in the World Cup. I swear I need new feet from all the pacing that I've done in front of the TV. I definitely need a good strong liquor right now.

Dwyane Wade is just an amazing player. I can't believe the shots he made, he's just incredible to watch. One of my friends has likened him to Jordan, minus Jordan's attitude. Wade is just such a humble and smart basketball player, and if it's just one reason I've started to take notice of basketball more, he is it.

So now Miami play the next games of the finals series on Dallas' turf. Hopefully they can pull it off, and with a player like Wade everything and anything is possible. I can't remember a time when I was this enthusiastic about a basketball team. Freaking awesome, folks. Freaking awesome.

GO HEAT!

PS It seems there is a GO [insert sports team here] theme going on with this site recently, I've just noticed!