Monthly Archives: September 2011

A quick one

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I’m sort of running late this morning, but wanted to put a brief update in here about what I did this weekend,  which was to go to Cincinnati for the NABBA board meeting.

As expected, I’m now secretary of that august body.  Honestly not sure how I feel about that, although it gives me something to do (the meeting minutes) and possibly gives me more legitimacy when I contact non-member bands to try to cajole them to get involved.

There were a couple of things decided at the meeting with which I very much disagree.  While trying to make my argument against one of them, I was (quite literally) shouted down by the president and chastised by a 20-something girl who (I think) may find out why I’m right sooner than she thinks. Ultimately, my argument against that proposed rules change was voted down, 14-2.

At least I got one other vote….

After the meetings, I spent a few hours walking around a street festival in downtown Cincinnati and taking pictures of the board members and anything else that looked interesting, and on Sunday Betsy and I drove back to Atlanta.  On the way home, we took a side-trip to Rock City (that of “See Rock City” fame) near Chattanooga; but after seeing that the entry fee was $20 each and realizing that we could only spend an hour or so there, we just snapped a few pictures from the side of Lookout Mountain and continued to the house.  Betsy returned  to San Antonio on Monday.

After shooting a total of 4 football games so far (two high school, two college), I’ve decided that my new approach this year is working.  I ditched my super-telephoto lenses in favor of a sharp and fast 200 millimeter lens, and I’ve been really happy with the results so far (as always, you can view my efforts at theuffp.smugmug.com).  Other folks have liked the shots, too.  Furman’s SID has already used a couple of my shots for press releases and one of the team mothers for the high school team “purchased” about 20 prints of last week’s high school game.  Unfortunately, I’d set the prices on the HS shots to cost – something like 19 cents for a 4×6 print rather than the $4 that I’d normally charge – so I made nothing on those sales.

That was my plan from the start, though.  The rest of the HS game galleries will have normal pricing schedules, and the coaching staff is fine with that.  Basically, I gave them two weeks of shots for free, and now I’ll charge for the other two or three games that I shoot for them.  Hopefully, it’ll be a win-win.

Only a few sales of the college prints so far, but that usually picks up mid-season.

Must now head to the office.  Oh, yeah – I’m getting sick again.

Shit.

TWD

Gonna call this one a success

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As I mentioned, I shot my first college game of the year last Saturday night.  While my team didn’t win (lost, 23-30), they didn’t look terrible – in fact, their #1 running back was named the national back of the week after he rushed for 140+ yards and scored three touchdowns.

More importantly, I got quite a few good shots.  Not world-class or anything, but I was pretty pleased given that it was the first game.  I posted 50 (out of 800) on Facebook, and I’ll keep about 45 of them for the sales site.

Spent Saturday and Sunday night at Little Pee Dee State Park in Dillon, SC.  What a strange place.  The campground was normal enough – a mix of RV and tent sites – but there were about 50 golf carts there.  I don’t believe I’ve ever been camping and seen a single golf cart driving around in the woods, let alone 50 of the stupid things.   Maybe it’s a new trend, or maybe it’s just that park.

Much of the day yesterday was spent walking around on the nature trails or exploring the shores of Lake Norris in the park.  I took quite a few shots of dragonflies and egrets, and I really like one of the latter (posted below).  I’ve entered it in a contest on Facebook and may enter it in a few others after I’ve cleaned it up a bit.

Work up quite early today in the tent – it was still dark – and had a leisurely breakfast of coffee and oatmeal before breaking camp and making the 5.5-hour drive home.  Spent this afternoon going through my pictures and I’m currently watching a game on television.

Back to work tomorrow….and next Saturday, I’m driving BACK to the SC coast for another game.  Lots of miles on the car in the first two weeks of the season.

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Football has arrived

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As I type this, I’m listening to a college game on my computer and watching the Atlanta Falcons on the tube.  Life is good.

Life is okay, anyway.  It’d be better if I could get over this stupid cold (which has basically migrated out of my head and into my chest), but I’ll drink some Nyquill before bed tonight and maybe I’ll feel a bit better tomorrow.

I forgot to mention in my last post that it looks like I’m going to end up being the secretary of the brass band association.  Last I heard, nobody else had been nominated for the spot, and I’ve indicated that I’ll do it if the rest of the board wants me to, so I guess I’ll find out in a few weeks when we meet in Cincinnati.

Why do I want to do this?  Frustration, mainly.

I don’t expect to step in and make a huge difference, but at least – as a member of the executive committee – I’ll have some authority to actually do things rather than just complain about what isn’t being done.  And I’ll also have a dissenting vote when the executive committee wants to do stupid things without (as far as I can tell) putting much thought into them.

At the very least, I’m going to do my best to get administrative control of our official website.  That thing is an embarrassment to non-profits everywhere.

Took this at last Friday’s high school game.  It didn’t make it into the final selection because that guy in the white is  making an interception – and he’s one of the “bad guys.”

I started thinking the other day about what lies ahead in telecommunications.   Think about this: 15 years ago, cell phones were fairly rare.  Today, everybody’s got one and the phones are so far beyond “phones” it’s ridiculous.  With an average smart phone, you can make and receive calls, send instant messages, read and create email, listen to music, read books, watch movies, control your television, surf the web, create documents, check the weather, manage your stocks, tune a piano, film your kid’s recital, pay your bills, play games, keep up with your favorite teams, scan barcodes, redeem coupons, and fine-tune your car’s performance.

I didn’t make up any of those things.  And I didn’t try to list everything that a typical phone can do today or even what MY phone can do right now.  Smart phones are, simply put, amazing.  Even to me – a guy who’s been right in the middle of the technological revolution for the last 20 years.

But I can’t think of much else that can be done.  Short of actual teleportation – you buy a shirt online and *poof* it appears next to you – I can’t think of a way that the technology can be improved.  Sure, we’ll get faster speeds and better coverage, but that’s not a sea change.  That’s just build-out.

The only thing I can come up with is a sort of bio-phone, which is literally hard-wired into your brain.  Strides have been made in the area of controlling a computer with brain waves, and I could see the day where a smartphone-like device is integrated into a person’s head in such a way that the video output feeds directly into the brain’s vision areas, the audi output goes directly into the auditory areas, and the whole thing can be manipulated with thoughts or (in a pinch) speech.  If you think about it, that would allow a person who is both deaf and blind to see and hear, which is sort of cool.  It would also free up space on your belt (no need to carry the phone), and be an awesome way to cheat at trivia games.

It’d suck to give telemarketers direct access to the inside of my head, though.

TWD