Magnificent, if Minute, Obsession

This is just cool. Dan Hanna has taken two pictures of himself every day for 17 years. Two photos, 180 degrees apart with his head aligned with the position of the sun. All very carefully set up.

The result is a time-lapse film of his face, head, and hair over time. The music is a nice touch.

I picked this up, by the way, via the MAKE Magazine blog, which has led me to some neat stuff lately.

Pete duPont Taken to Task

Hendrik Hertzberg, of the New Yorker, takes a few shots at former Delaware Governor Pete du Pont on his blog today. In "Pete du Pointless," Hertzberg reacts to du Pont's op-ed in the News Journal in defense of the electoral college.

The title is a slightly cheap shot, as is this bit:

You may or may not remember Pierre S. du Pont IV, the high-born former Delaware governor who briefly ran for President in 1988 under the plain vanilla—well, French vanilla—name of Pete du Pont.

The rest of the piece, however, is a fairly workmanlike deconstruction of du Pont's arguments against the idea of a National Popular Vote plan to replace the electoral college. DuPont trots out an impressive herd of statistics. Hertzberg hobbles, harnesses or stampedes them, one by one.

I don't pretend to the same level of electoral erudition as these two, but I can't help thinking that there is some merit in simply electing the president based on which candidate gets the most votes. The way we've been doing it has had decidedly mixed results lately.

Eighth Golf Game of 2008

I should probably call this "game 7.5 of 2008." I had a chance to play 9 holes yesterday afternoon after a long day of meetings at the NSGIC Conference. A group of us set out to try to get 9 holes in before the sun sank too far down past the mountains for us to see anything.

It was a lovely evening. To the south, the view was of clear skies and a few puffy clouds. To the west, there were angry clouds backed up against high mountains.

We played a scramble format, in two-person teams. My partner and I did not win. It was not his fault. But we had fun and saw some great sights.

We were on the Keystone Ranch Course, which sits in a high mountain valley (about 9,000 feet). It features some remarkable changes in altitude, including a hole towards which you seem to be hitting off the edge of the world.

By the time we reached the eighth hole, it was almost too dark to play. On the approach to an elevated green, I hit what may have been the most solid 9-iron shot of my life. I couldn't see it, but it felt and sounded perfect. And it would have been, too, except for the extra distance you get when you play at altitude. I know that I flew over the green only because of the clear "ping" of the ball hitting the cart path and ricocheting off into the wild-west brush.

The ninth hole at Keystone Ranch is a long drive across a lake. It was almost full dark, so we pulled out a set of glow-in-the-dark balls that one of the fellows had brought. On being struck, the balls light up red and look like tracer rounds flying down-range. I hit a solid three-wood but aimed it wrong; I went for the green over the wide part of the lake and not the shorter lay-up over less water. My ball almost made it, but hit the water once, bounced, and sank.

After we drove around the water, we all four walked down to the water's edge to watch my red, glowing ball light up about a foot of clear mountain water just over an iron's length off shore. It was as if the moon had sunk back down into the lake.

In Colorado

I'm in Colorado, at a place called Keystone, for the week-long annual NSGIC Conference. NSGIC -- the National States Geographic Information Council -- is a national organization of people who, like me, work to try to facilitate the use and sharing of geospatial data (the stuff behind Google Maps and Earth) in the 50 states. We have state representatives, private sector partners, and federal partners and each fall we come together for an over-stuffed week of meetings and discussion and planning. I've been blogging these meetings for several years.

I flew in on Saturday morning, landing at about noon, local time, at Denver International. That's the main terminal in the picture at right. A very cool building. We had set up a simple Google Docs spreadsheet to track who was going to have a rental car. Those of us without cars used that to try to find rides out to Keystone, an hour or so west of Denver. I met up with my ride, a gent from Georgia, and several other sets of drivers and riders and we caravanned through the mountain passes together.

The Keystone lodge itself is quite lovely, but it is at about 9,200 feet. I live about 20 feet above sea level, so I'm taking things a bit easy to try to acclimate myself. The main recommendation we hear is to drink plenty of water. I bought a liter bottle on the ride out and have dutifully emptied and refilled it several times.

I expect to get some interesting pictures here, I'll add them to my now thin Colorado set over the week. NSGIC is famous for marathon meetings (we start, in fact, with a Board meeting in a little bit), but I will need to step out and stretch my legs from time to time. I also hope to sneak-in nine holes of golf at some point. Otherwise, we start with breakfast meetings and carry through to evening committee meetings -- sometimes until 11 at night.

I've said it before: these people are nuts. But I'm glad to have been a part of this community for the past ten years and I am proud to serve on the NSGIC Board of Directors.

It's almost 9:00 a.m. Sunday. We start in an hour. I'd best get my Board agenda out and get to work.

A Labor Day Sunday

We spent the Sunday of our Labor Day weekend at North Bethany with my folks, my older sister Margaret and two of her grown kids, and my brother and his lovely wife and brood. And their large, happy, friendly, rambunctious, overgrown puppy of a black lab, Titan. (He has grown a good deal since last summer.)

Matt and his two girls are geocache enthusiasts. Their plan for the early afternoon was a walk down the beach into Bethany Beach proper to find three caches. Matt's wife Lynn, having run for what I calculate as about 20 miles that morning, was going to relax for a bit. Christina and I went along for the walk; I'm always interested in a chance to look for new things to photograph.

The beach is usually fairly generous with subject matter; on a crowded beach, though, a middle-aged man with a camera generally should keep his focus on seabirds, waves and things out to sea.

We were entertained on the walk by several pods of dolphins fishing and bouncing, apparently happily, just off shore. I tried, but failed, to get a decent photograph of them.

Once in Bethany, we were successful finding two of the three geocaches. The third was somewhere under the boardwalk, an area now off-limits to help protect new dunes that have been built. One, found by the Bethany Beach Bandstand, was what one might call a "micro-geocache."

When we got back up the beach, we found our friends Andy and Lynn had brought their girls along for some beach time. We had a pleasant few hours of surfside conversation, a chance to jump into the ocean, and a clear, sunny afternoon.

After a taco dinner that couldn't be beat, we had cake and ice cream and sang happy birthday to Margaret about six times. Her birthday is still a week away, but when you have a chance to sing to your sister you take it.

It was a find Labor Day Sunday, spent just the way a holiday should be spent; with friends and family.

Dig Me. I Voted.

I have sent in an absentee ballot for the Democratic primary election here in Delaware. I'll be away for the whole week that includes the primary. This is the first time I've ever submitted an absentee ballot.

I had only three races to vote on: Governor, Congressional Representative, and Insurance Commissioner.

I don't choose to tell you who I voted for; if you are also a Delaware voter you can make up your own mind.

Word Clouds of the DNC Speeches (Some of Them)

I've been creating word clouds of some of the major speeches from the Democratic National Convention. That's Joe Biden's speech at right.

I'm using Wordle, which I've been having a great time with this summer both here and in a newsletter (PDF) I created for work. Word clouds present the most frequently used words in any body of text. They are often sorted by frequency of use, with the most used words in the largest font.

So far, I have created the following word clouds:

• Michelle Obama's speech on 8/25/08
• Hillary Clinton's speech on 8/26/08
• Bill Clinton's speech on 8/27/08
• Joe Biden's speech on 8/27/08
• Barack Obama's speech on 8/28/08
  

I find these things kind of addictive.

Another Way to Save Gas and Reduce Air Pollution Emissions

I've been looking for ways to off-set the effects of the larger amount of gasoline I'm burning now that I have shifted from a Prius to a Scion. I think I have found it in the state van-pool system.

As of August 6, I have become a member of a van-pool that runs between Five Points, about a mile and a half from my home, and downtown Dover. I don't expect to ride it every day, but I have been keeping track and find, so far, that I ride the van a bit more than three quarters of the time. (I'm curious to see whether or not the pie chart at right will update here as I enter new data in mycrocosm; adding it as a graphic here is partly an experiment)

UPDATE: The mycrocosm site has recently added the ability to post linked dynamic versions of these charts. I have replaced the old static version with the linked version at right. Though it is bigger, and technically dynamic, I am interested to note that the ratio of Car to Vanpool is just about what it was when I first posted this.

There are (I think) 14 members of this van-pool; we've never all been on the van at the same time, at least not in my brief experience. The members share a $525 monthly rental fee that covers the van, gas, roadside assistance and a guaranteed ride home (if something odd happens). A subset of members pay a bit less but share the driving chores. My cost is about $40 a month.

I have averaged 33.3 miles per gallon in the Scion over the first 1,488 miles I've driven. My cost, not counting oil and other maintenance, has averaged eleven cents a mile. My commute is about 80 miles round-trip. That costs me about $8.80 a day. Allowing a little leeway for the few miles I drive to the van-pool pick-up site, I figure that I've saved my monthly cost to take the van after the first five days I ride the van. The rest of the month is profit.

I'm also pleased to think that when eight or ten of us ride together it means 7 or nine fewer tailpipes adding to our air quality problem.

And I can read, or listen to music, or doze, or chat with my fellow passengers,

There is some irony, though. As a result of a reduction in the percentage of my driving time in the Scion that is highway driving, I'm seeing a slight drop in fuel mileage.

Trying Something New

I'm now an ubuntu user. My old laptop was on its last legs; it was overheating and slow and ready to quit forever. I wanted a new machine and I decided to take a step in a new direction.

Ubuntu is an open-source, community developed, linux-based operating system. It is an outgrowth of the Open Source movement which suggests that the community as a whole can build itself some of the tools that we have had to buy from others in the past.

I bought a modest little compaq laptop that came with windows vista. I dutifully, and patiently, made back-up discs for that operating system. Then I downloaded ubuntu and replaced vista with ubuntu. It felt liberating.

I owe thanks, by the way, to my friend and colleague Charles Wilmire who has shared advice and experience and some hands-on tinker-time to help me take this step.

Now I am working through configuration and settings based on my preferences and my needs. I don't want anything on here that I am not going to need to do what it is that I want to do.

This should be fun.

Bragging: An Item for My Portfolio

I sold a photo to Delaware Today and they have used it as the cover of their fall Beach Guide. I am very pleased.

The picture itself was taken on Labor Day Weekend in 2005, on Sunday evening. It is a sunset view across the dunes and beach in North Bethany. This would have been after a family dinner at my parents' house.

We'd spent the day on the beach with my folks and my younger sister and her husband and kids. We showered and shared a leisurely meal, then wandered down to the beach to look at a quiet ocean and reflect on the passing of the day.

This has long been a common way to spend summer Saturdays or Sundays in our family. It is a tradition I love, but it is harder and harder to organize as all of our kids get older and more busy.

This, by the way, is my second photo in Delaware Today. I sold them a view of the Old State House in Dover for a Kent County Guide earlier this year.

I've slowed down my photography habit lately. But looking back over these shots, and the giddy pleasure of seeing them in print, makes me think I should head out with my camera again.