We didn’t go anywhere for memorial day weekend but it was still a nice, relaxing weekend. A ton of people were out in Central Park Sunday afternoon. I love Central Park. I was telling the wife that there isn’t anything like this in Boston (the Boston Commons is no Central Park). A friend from church brought her dog. And yes, that’s me wearing a Yankees hat. Here’s my logic—I’m a Cubs fan first, so I can’t really wear a Mets hat because they’re both in the National League. And yes, I spent six years of my life in Boston but I left because Boston wasn’t the type of city I wanted to settle down in or be identified with anyways so there goes any sort of baseball allegiances I might have had.
On Monday night, we went to see a Mets game. As you can see, we were pretty high up but tickets were only $10.
A lot of you may have noticed that I’ve been blogging less lately. Some of that is due to me being pretty busy at work but on the other hand, much of the reason why I’ve blogged in the past is to say what I’ve been up to. Facebook has sorta replaced blogging for that purpose—I’ll just update my Facebook status with what I’m currently thinking or doing. So if you’re not on Facebook and not a Facebook friend, you’re missing out.
My company is shipping me off to London for a few months to work on some new projects they have starting there. It will be nice to go back to London. It’s tough because we’ve only been in New York for a year now and I feel like we’re really starting to get settled and develop closer relationships with people but now we’re getting uprooted again. A co-worker from the NY office is already out there so I’m looking forward to hanging out with him. I know I’ll be slammed with work during the short period of time I’ll be out there, but the wife and I are hoping to make some trips to Dublin and Paris on the weekends.
My dilemma lately has been on whether I should bring my digital SLR or not. I’m definitely bringing our small point and shoot digital but I’ve come to hate lugging around my DSLR. After being so into photography for a few years, lately I’ve been wanting to take a step back… As in when I have my DSLR and I’m in “photographer” mode, I feel like I’m missing out on fully experiencing the actual moment. If photography is something that you strongly value, then yes, the act of capturing those moments in the best way possible is worth the cost of having to step outside of that moment to do it. I don’t think I actually care about capturing those moments anymore. If I’m in Paris having a picturesque moment eating a croissant and having coffee at a street cafe, I just want to soak that moment all in; I won’t need a fancy DSLR-produced photograph for me to remember that it actually happened. So maybe there doesn’t have to be this huge difference in the mentality I have when photographing with my DSLR vs. with my point and shoot but for me, right now, it does. I’m probably going to end up taking my DSLR but just not using it all the time when I’m there. My plan is to get a wider prime lens before I leave so that carrying it around isn’t as much of a burden.
Look forward to seeing some photos here in the coming months from across the pond!
The best part of living car-free in New York City is that rising gas prices are largely irrelevant. Okay, I’m intelligent enough to know that even if I don’t own a car and don’t have to fill my gas tank every week, rising gas prices do affect the cost of everything I buy. However, the impact of these indirect cost increases is much less than if I was completely dependent on a car to get around.
It’s unfortunate that a large majority of American cities were designed around the assumption that the cost of transportation is extremely low. However, as gas prices are increasing, the impact of burning fossil fuels is potentially causing global climate change and mass production of “clean” technologies is still decades away, people will have to make difficult decisions. A lot of people are attached to the idea of having their own single-family home with a two car garage and a large backyard but is that ideal sustainable?
What would it look like if the US consisted of twenty densely-populated, car-free metropolises that were all linked by high-speed rail? One could argue that this is what Europe is; I think this is one reason why I’m drawn to Europe. I’m afraid that the American ideal of “bigger is better” could eventually be its downfall.
There was an article published recently in Computer World which compares the 3G data networks from Verizon, Sprint and AT&T. The author did thorough tests in the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut area and found that AT&T was by far the fastest.
I just got an AT&T data card for work and my tests seem to concur with the article’s conclusion. This thing is awesome.
I went back to my old trusty Canon 10D this morning. I feel conflicted about which camera I should use more. I like the control I have photographing with the 10D, but I’m not sure if it’s worth the hassle of lugging that beast around.
