Night snow

Taken at 5.30am, well before sunrise, with Nikon D90 hand-held at 3200 ISO.

In those two minutes it took, I witnessed three people leave their homes to go to work. At 5.30. Good grief. :-) Sure makes me appreciate my ten-meter commute.





The light is actually even more red than that.
Pictures are manipulated to enhance contrast and sharpness.

A letter

This letter came to Domai today. It's far from unique, but one of the good ones:

dear eolake,
from discovering your site about a year ago, my life has took a 180 and i've began to see women as who they really are. Me and many other young men i know are constantly being bombarded with sex and seeing women just as a possession, lust and nothing more. and for awhile, thats exactly how i thought, that women were just a object and only sex, almost unhuman. then i discovered your site, at first i had no idea what it was thinking it was just another place to look at women, but i was searching for more, i was curious, then upon looking farther into your site, and reading the articles i began to understand the face above the body, the true beauty of women and not just as a object. i thank you for what you've given me, and i hope many of my peers can find the same beauty as i found in domai.

thank you, you've changed my life,
josiah

Unexpected bonus

Big bonus paid to employees from ex-owners of a business, article.

I like giving best when it's unexpected. A child who gets twenty Christmas gifts may just get mad that he didn't get twenty-five. But if you give him a single gift unexpectedly in the middle of the year, he'll be delighted.


I was acquaintences w/a woman, years ago, that had adopted 2 little kids. She invited me and my husband over to a birthday celebration that she was going to have for them, along w/a GOB of other people. She, herself, was not entirely financially *comfortable*. We later found out (after being invited again the next year -- we weren't even working together, any longer, and...we had no kids) that she was just using people to SHOWER these kids with a GAZILLION toys!! I sat and watched as these little people stood on top of a mound of gifts for EACH of them taller than they were; unwrapping each gift in such a *feverish* pace that they were trembling. Just as quickly as they ripped the present open, they literally threw the present to the side and dove for another...like they were working their way up to the ultimate prize! They didn't stop for one minute to *take in*/*receive* the present that someone had taken the time to get them. It was quite appalling to see.

It's the human condition, isn't it? There's this hole we're trying to fill. When candy doesn't work, we try sex, when sex doesn't work, we try money, when money doesn't work, we try fame, ekcetera.

It's A Wonderful Internet

It's A Wonderful Internet, a familiar story line reminds us of the wonder of the Net.
(The sound can be turned off, though the narration is very professional. Widgets on the page can change the picture. Subtle arrows on lower right will change the page.)

Late light

Alex has been out in the late light. More pictures. (Picasa has an excellent feature: the picture will automatically fit to the size of your browser window, even as it's sitting on a page.)
Blog post about the ship.




Notice the bird.

Hey-Zeus and Harry Potter

Harry Potter is the devil's tool. Or at least they said it a lot some years ago, I'm not sure if they keep on playing that song.

It is always amazing how Jesus, who was total love and never offended by anybody or anything, is used as spokesman by people who are mortally offended by practically everybody and everything.

Enemies come from belief in enemies, whether you call them Satan, terrorists, gays, Germans, rapists, politicians, hairdressers, or whatever.

Advice for writers

Advice for writers to not sound amateurish, article.

Grosse Pointe Blank

Talking about Minnie Driver, Leviathud said...
Grosse Pointe Blank. With John Cusack, Dan Akroyd and Alan Arkin.
That's where I first saw her. One of my favorite movies of all time.

Thanks. I'm rewatching it right now, and it's even better than I remembered. John Cusack is scintillating. Very funny movie too, in a non-obvious way.

Dancing girl

Luke Tymowski kindly sent me a bigger version of yesterday's dancing girl, and a variation. With the latter I messed around a little with cropping and tones (dampening the background and putting more light on the girl), and made this version and one in BW.
I like both. The color one is richer, but the BW one has more integrity as a picture.

Moore and Eno

Alan Moore interviews Brian Eno.

School bus

If interest in funding education keeps falling in in the West, maybe this is the future?


Imagine if all the monies used waging war in the twentieth century had gone to education? Any country which had done that would be invincible on the global arena now.

Maid of Orleans

A friend of mine, Mark Ricketts, is a highly talented sculptor, and just made this Joan Of Arc figurine, only ten centimeters (four inches) high.
He casts typically in resin and sells them for very reasonable prices.
The bigger picture below he sent me especially for the blog.


He told me:
If anyone does want the piece and does not want the job of gluing together the bust onto the base I can also supply it assembled. I will simply need an email telling me to do so. No extra charge for this.