ipsoSacto

The blog-watching ipsoSacto site apparently has been offline since Thursday, and I just noticed it tonight. Shows you how closely I have been paying attention. It may be some time before I restore it.

It was only because I was on my way to this site to post today's photo that I discovered ipsoSacto.com was missing a bunch of files. Much as I would like to say the site was hacked, I'm pretty sure I deleted the files myself. This is the second time that's happened to ipsoSacto.com.

Anyway, today's photo is of the poor abused rose bud from the front yard. The Wife brought it in the house and washed the bugs off and put it in a class vase on the kitchen island.

I suppose The Wife's "Ben Tre logic" saw the rose's death in the vase preferable to being tormented by bugs. Not sure I agree. But the image does make a poignant statement.



The last rose of winter.

Day 10 of 365.

Friday Night Fright

Can't resist. It's a guy thing, I guess. Or to put it in wife-speak, I never grew-up.

It's "cool" vs. "gross," and you can guess which side I'm on.

We have several rose bushes in front of the house between the porch and the walkway to the driveway. This time of year we're lucky if we have any blooms at all. As it turns out we have just one very unlucky rose bud. It was being tormented by unwanted house guests.

So I took a photo one day with the Sigma DG 18-50mm Auto Focus lens The Wife got with the Nikon D-5000.

The real fun came when I looked at the image at its actual pixel resolution.


Ooh! Ooh! Neat! Such luscious detail!

The Wife got two lenses with the Nikon. The next day I decided to try out the macro feature of the Sigma DG 70-300 1:4-5.6.

While the macro did allow me to create a larger full bud photo, I was very disappointed when I looked at the image at its actual pixel size.

I'm sure I'll eventually find some times when a 300mm zoom will come in handy. Maybe I'll even figure out ways to compensate for the lens's apparent inability to focus. Maybe, perhaps the problem is operator error. It could happen.

But for now, when I want really neat, sharp detail of something really cool, I'll stick to the 18-50mm lens.

A gross day 9 of 365.

Modes Of Distraction

When I was in my 20s, studying photography in college, way, way back when digital images were a twinkle in some inventor's eye, I longed to work with color film and color prints. But I just couldn't afford the cost. As it was, I could hardly afford the price of black and white film photography on my GI benefits and part-time work as a fry cook.

Perhaps that lost opportunity carved a deep need in me. That might explain what has now happened.

Again.

It happened before. My first digital camera was an Olympus. It had a 1.2 megapixel sensor. I don't remember the model. But I believe I paid something like $1,200 for the camera. In 2009 dollars, that's probably more than The Wife paid for my new Nikon outfit. I bought the camera to take photos of The Kid playing soccer. At least that's what I told myself. But then I got a pirated copy of Photoshop from a friend at work. Then I convinced my employer to pay for me to take a Photoshop class.

Soon I was spending hours -- literally hours -- manipulating photos, applying filters, modifying the effect of the filters by applying separate modes. The combinations seemed limitless and the results so surprising that I just had to do more. With digital files I could finally afford to play with color photography.

I don't recall why I stopped. Probably happened about the time The Kid gave up competitive soccer. I just didn't have an excuse to pick up the camera. Then The Kid borrowed the camera. Finally, all I had left was The Wife's point-and-shoot pocket job and my cell phone.

Until now.

Now I find myself again on the verge of spending hours just playing with images in Photoshop. This is really dangerous. I just don't have the time. I'm not real good with focusing on my work already. Add this distraction and, well, it's not good.

Here are some examples of what happens when an uninteresting snapshot sparks a run through the Photoshop machinations.

The sun came out briefly this afternoon and I snapped a shot of these begonia leaves.

And this is what I did to it. (Click these to see larger* resolution)

As the sun was setting behind some clouds this afternoon, I took this photo. This artwork is nailed to the stucco on the porch wall. The wall is white; the metalwork bronze-looking.

Here's that image imagined as a foil embossed sheet of paper.

And here's that same image as a wrought-iron grill on an ancient oak door illuminated by five overhead can lights.

I'm a little uneasy about what lies ahead.

Day 8 of 365.

---

* I just realized that Blogger is downsampling my 1920 x 1080 images to 1600 x 900. That's unfortunate. I want to create a full HD slideshow at the end of the year. I guess I will have to work from the originals rather than the uploaded images.

Herding Cats

The Wife has an excellent excuse for not getting the Christmas cards out until yesterday.

Cats.

As you will note from the following images, there's just no getting around them.

Everything had to be inspected

Toy testing was rigorous

And when the cats weren't underfoot, their feet were on The Wife's stamp pad. Thankfully, the cat did not jump from here to the new couch.

The Wife says this photo reminds her that one of her New Year's Resolutions will be to take up yoga. This reminds me why I don't kiss cats.

The cat on guard

And the pièce de résistance for day 7 of 365, a frivolous cute cat photo!

One week down; 51 more to go.

River Detours

So it was an odd day.

I started early on my daily chores so that I could make time to drive The Wife to a bagel shop on her way to work. The Wife is fine with taking the bus and the train and the bus to Rancho Cordova, but it doesn't allow for detours. It certainly doesn't allow for timely detours on a commute trip that's already more than an hour. So I drove.

After dropping The Wife off, I planted myself at the Starbucks at White Rock Road and Sunrise. I worked there until noon, when I finished most of my work for the day, and set off for home.

When I left in the morning I had the foresight to put the new camera in my backpack with the computer, and I decided to take advantage of that when I saw the turnoff for the river access on South Bridge Street. The morning was overcast and the lighting gray, but I figured it was the best I was likely to get today.

I parked and walked down to the boat launching ramp with my 18-50mm lens on the camera.

I suspect the ducks are trained. As soon as I reached the end of the boat ramp they started arriving. With only the 50mm lens with me I was lucky to get this much action.

The bridge itself wasn't as interesting to me as its reflection.

The next shot I apologize for in advance. I just couldn't resist putting the bridge through the polar coordinate grinder, distorting it into a ball and floating that on top of a river shot that was run through a couple of other filters.

Click on the image to see the full size version. This is just too addictive.

Day 6 of 365

One other point: I've decided to crop everything, where possible, into HD dimensions -- 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels. I may decide to use some of these as desktop backgrounds.

The artist in residence

It's finals week and The Kid and I have been working our little artistic tails off to finish up projects. Last night, The Kid did the final drawing in a series of self-portraits.


The Kid's bedroom doubles as a studio. It's a large room that previous homeowners created out of a backyard patio. The antique mirror -- actually a real antique -- is supported by The Kid's guitar stand and positioned with a roll of packaging tape. Let's say it's a creatively improvised studio.


The assignment was to create a work reminiscent of a famous painter. Only in this case, The Kid is required to use pastels. For this work, The Kid chose Van Gogh's self-portraits.


A closeup shows The Kid's technique to simulate a heavy oil paint texture with pastels.

OK. I admit that because he's my kid, I'm a little biased. But I think this is damn good work for a freshman in college.

The quality of The Kid's work makes my final project in my Adobe Illustrator class pale in comparison. My task was to create three posters using no words. The posters were to speak to preschool children. One poster had to discuss sharing, one table manners and one reading. Here's what I end up with:




I expect to get a nice grade for my work, but I don't expect any art agencies to be knocking on my door asking my help. No, this type of work is a lot of fun, but I just don't have The Kid's talent, his artistic eye. I can try real hard, but The Kid's gift isn't something you learn.

A Drop Of Sunshine

For a brief few minutes this morning, the morning sun peaked from between the clouds and the light shown on the dew.

Day 5 of 365

Stippling

"Stippling is the creation of a pattern simulating varying degrees of solidity or shading by using small dots. Such a pattern may occur in nature and these effects are frequently emulated by artists."

The Kid took art classes throughout high school, and now he's finishing up his first semester of art classes at American River College. The Kid's got talent, and I'm not just saying that because I'm his dad.

As part of his final project for one class, The Kid created a self-portrait -- using white on black stippling. I decided to make reproducing that painting today's photography exercise. What I ended up with was completely unexpected.

I set the canvas up on a the kitchen island and used the trypod and the available light to capture a dozen images. I wasn't much worried about the florescent sheen or the distortion in the shape caused by the camera angle. I picked one and came up with this.

The photo was converted to black and white, which eliminated color problems caused by the florescent lights; the Photoshop cropping tool's "distort" feature restored the rectangular shape; and the adjustment to the "levels" reduced unwanted glare. A red background with craquelure texture completed the image.

That was cool, but when I showed it to The Wife, she suggested that I invert the painting -- make it black dots on a white background. The result was simply amazing.

Richard has done a series of self-portraits for his class this year. (Three in chalk are online here.) All are good, but this is amazing. I liked the combination of the two drawings so much that I created a combo.

I've uploaded the full-sized file to Shutterfly and ordered a couple of 8x10s for the grand parents and a 20x18 print for myself.

Day 4 of 365.

Learning how the camera works

I suppose I should not be surprised by the weather. After all, I did say my ambition would be to capture the light with my new camera.

No good intention goes unthwarted.

Clouds and rain for two days now. A blanket of gray attempting to smother everything. The lone bright spot remaining in my yard was these berries on a bush.


And when you let Photoshop find the glowing edges, there's plenty of light:

I spent some time trying the 70-300 lens macro feature but I wasn't happy with the result.

I understand that the depth of field was incredibly narrow, but none of the edges, even those supposedly in focus, are razor sharp. Low light, cheap lens, slight breeze -- adds up to disappointment.

Day 3 of 365 and the whining begins.

Third Wheels: The Movie

The Kid took a film class this year at America River College. Here's his final project:

winter fresh from shughe on Vimeo

Now you can say you knew him when.

Light and color: No. 2 of 365

Once upon a time, I would spend hours playing with Photoshop filters and applying different modes. Layer upon layer would build up until there was nothing left of the original photograph.

It was like old home week tonight as I went through the dozen photos I snapped while The Wife saw her eye doctor. I took a couple of photos of the rain. Boring. I captured an old man bent over his cane as he worked his way between cars in the parking lot. Too close to home. In the end I picked this photograph:

It reminded me of the "rejects" that consumed me back when I was learning Photoshop. I think it was Photoshop 4. I took this photo today while reading the manual in the waiting room as The Wife waited to see the doctor. The only reason I kept it was to download it and see how badly it blurred when I tried to take an indoor photo with a slow lens without the flash.

But it is its worthlessness that gives this photo value. And here's the end product of about a half-hour's work:

Yesterday, I vowed not to burden this project with over reliance on cute cat photos. Today, I promise not to resort to the use of polar coordinate filters. Just this once.

365 days of photography

I said I didn't want a camera. We really can't afford the expense. But The Wife and The Kid decided there was too much profit in co-opting me with a gift they knew I couldn't refuse. I can be bought. I admit it.

So today the UPS guys delivered a Nikon D-5000 camera body with Sigma 18-50 and 70-300 motorized lenses, tripod, filters, extra battery and on and on. The Wife picked this package out on her own. And she's justifiably proud of the results of her shopping journey. I've certainly got no complaint.

It has been a long, long time since I've used a real camera. The Wife's point-and-shoot camera is quite satisfactory for snapshots. Fits in a pocket. Always at the ready. The camera on my Blackberry has the immense advantage of being connected to the Internet. The image quality is poor at best but the immediacy is invaluable. And I like that images are geo-tagged automatically.

But there's just nothing like a real camera. I studied photography at Los Angeles Valley College and the University of Southern California back in the day. My first newspaper jobs combined photography, darkroom and reporting. I consider myself a journeyman. More than that, I enjoy it. It's something I can do. Something I think I do well.

This is my fourth digital camera. The first was a 1.2 megapixel Olympus with a fixed telephoto lens. I think I paid $1,200 for that camera. That's when I started Digital Art Desktops and learned the joys of Photoshop. Over the next several years I went through a pair of Canon Rebels. When The Kid played competitive soccer I spent hours processing shots from games and then posting them so parents could get reprints at Shutterfly. In 2004, The Kid, The Wife and I traveled to Italy for a two-week soccer vacation. I was the unofficial photographer, capturing everything and working late into the night to post the day's events on a website I created so the parents who couldn't come along could watch. A copy of the site is still online here.

And then The Kid stopped playing soccer and my reason for picking up the camera stopped too.
I couldn't see myself going back to arty photography. There just seemed no point. Suddenly snapshots on The Wife's pocket camera were good enough.

Now I wonder if it might be useful to try my hand again at photography for photography sake. I mean I've got to at least try to make this gift appear valuable enough to cover the expense. I owe it to The Wife.

I've also got some mad Photoshop and Illustrator skills that I'd like to keep exercising just to stay in shape.

Here's Day 1 photo:


One of the things you just can't do with a point-and-shoot camera is compress a scene the way you can with a telephoto lens. This is Cardiel. Over the next 364 days I'm going to try to limit the number of cat pics. It will be a test of the project: See stuff. Capture stuff. Most of all, I will be after the light.

Volunteering is all the rage -- until it's not

I go through spells of this, and then I fade, only to return with spells of that. Right now I'm into volunteering. For Thanksgiving, I watched the Feed The Hungry race. Now I'm angling for a position helping out at Sacramento County's flu clinics.

Here's what is happening:

Sacramento County Public Health is seeking volunteers for both medical and non-medical positions for its series of H1N1 flu vaccination clinics, which run through January 15th.

Public Health’s H1N1 flu immunization clinics have vaccinated more than 14,000 area residents since they began on November 16th.

“It takes about 60 people to run each flu clinic, and more than half of the positions are staffed by volunteers,” said Glennah Trochet, M.D., Sacramento County Public Health Officer. “This is a great opportunity for available nurses, administrative assistants, and anyone from the community willing to volunteer their time for a very worthwhile effort to protect the health of our residents,” said Trochet.

Non-medical volunteers assist by giving clinic attendees the vaccine consent form they need to fill out, greeting people, keeping order in lines, and providing vaccination cards after the vaccine has been administered. Licensed medical volunteers can assist with giving vaccinations, performing medical screening and triaging people attending the clinics.

Each of the H1N1 flu vaccination clinics lasts about 6 hours, with four hours dedicated to the vaccination activities. Volunteers are expected to arrive an hour and fifteen minutes before the clinic opens it doors to receive training for their position. In addition, volunteers are needed to stay up to one hour after the clinic closes to help with clean-up and repacking supplies in preparation for the next clinic.

The county's press release says to contact Bert Bettis at (916) 875-2011 or e-mail Bettisb@saccounty.net, but you can save a step by emailing your mailing address to Tammy Liu at LiuT@saccounty.net. In return, she will mail you a package of paperwork to fill out.

I asked Liu if she could send me electronic copies of the forms so that I could save another step and just pass them out, but the paperwork is paper. In particular there is the REQUEST FOR LIVE SCAN SERVICE, which must be filled out in triplicate and taken to one of several locations around the county where they can take your fingerprints and submit them for a background check.

Liu estimates the process of clearing the background check takes three days, but there are still plenty of clinics to work in. Here's the schedule as of today:

Florin High School
Friday, December 11th Time changed to: 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
7956 Cottonwood Lane
Sacramento, CA 95828

Franklin High School
Saturday, December 12th 10:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m.
6400 Whitelock Parkway
Elk Grove, CA 95757

Folsom High School
Tuesday, December 15th 3:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
1655 Iron Point Road
Folsom, CA 95630

St. Rose Parish
Wednesday, December 16th 10:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m.
5905 Franklin Blvd.
Sacramento, CA 95824

Sacramento High School
Thursday, December 17th 3:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
2315 34th Street
Sacramento, CA 95817

Encina High School
Friday, December 18th 3:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
1400 Bell Street
Sacramento, CA 95825

Rosemont High School
Monday, December 21st 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
9594 Kiefer Blvd.
Sacramento, CA 95827

Natomas High School
Tuesday, December 22nd 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
3301 Fong Ranch Road
Sacramento, CA 95834

Robertson Community Center
Monday, December 28th 10:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m.
3525 Norwood Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95838

Sears - Florin Mall “Drive-Thru”
Tuesday, December 29th 10:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m.
7000 65th Street
Sacramento, CA 95823

St. Anthony's Church
Wednesday, December 30th 10:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m.
14012 2nd Avenue
Walnut Grove, CA 95690

First Baptist Church
Monday, January 4th 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
4401 San Juan Avenue
Fair Oaks, CA 95628

Elk Grove High School
Tuesday, January 5th 4:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
9800 Elk Grove-Florin Road
Elk Grove, CA 95624

Grant Union High School
Wednesday, January 6th 3:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
1400 Grand Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95838

Sunrise Mall “Drive-Thru”
Thursday, January 7th 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
6041 Sunrise Blvd. (behind Sears)
Citrus Heights, CA 95610

Inderkum High School
Friday, January 8th 3:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
2500 New Market Drive
Sacramento, CA 95835

Valley High School
Monday, January 11th 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
6300 Ehrhardt Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95823

Sacramento Japanese United Methodist Church
Tuesday, January 12th 10:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m.
6929 Franklin Blvd.
Sacramento, CA 95823

Christ Community Church
Wednesday, January 13th 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
5025 Manzanita Avenue
Carmichael, CA 95608

Chabolla Center
Thursday, January 14th 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
610 Chabolla Ave.
Galt, CA 95632

County Administration Center
Friday, January 15th 10:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m.
700 H Street
Sacramento, CA 95814

This list of clinics and forms you need to fill out to get a shot are online here.

Tomorrow morning I'll take my forms down to the Marconi Sheriff's substation and do the live scan and then mail off everything.

Blog Blog Blog sounds like blah, blah, blah

Just finished watching Julie & Julia with The Wife. Makes me want to set a 365-day goal and see it through. Don't need the meltdowns or the marital grief that Julie experienced, but the satisfaction of achieving daily short-term goals and adding each of those daily successes into weekly success and a monthly success and finally a full circle -- that would be something.

I'm told I'm getting a new camera tomorrow. It's a birthday present that I told The Wife not to get. After the money we spent on the kitchen, an expensive camera is just not essential. I tried to distract her with a proposal that we buy a flatscreen TV. I thought I had her hooked when we went to Best Buy and explored what we could get on their three-year same-as-cash deal. But this morning, The Wife explained that she and The Kid wanted me to have a new camera.

In 2003, I created a website called Digital Art Desktops -- digitalartdesktops.com. I took photos that could be used on computer desktops. I tweaked them in Photoshop. I loved using Photoshop's filters to transform the ordinary into something imaginary.

Each photo came in three sizes -- 1024x768, 800x600 and 640x480. Back in 2003, you still had a lot of computers with 800 by 600 resolution and even 640 by 480. I suppose it's back to the future in screen sizes when you consider the size of mobile devices.

The Internet Archive -- www.archive.org -- shows that Digital Art Desktops was operating from 2003 to 2008. I expect I wasn't maintaining it after about 2006. My site's 15 seconds of fame occurred when a Brazilian newspaper wrote a story about the availability of downloadable computer desktop artwork. Hard to imagine that subject being "news," but at the time the Internet wasn't quite as crowded as is it today. Anyway, for about a week my little website saw really heavy traffic. The rest of the time it was just there. My only real fan was a woman who worked with me at The Bee. She loved changing her desktop with the seasons and using my seasonal offering. She was also the only person who cared when I eventually shutdown the site.

A camera. 365 days. It could happen.

Here's a few things I pulled out of the Way Back Machine

Kittens With Mittens

I really wish I could have run this morning. There's this strange white stuff in patches on the ground and the roofs of houses. Very odd. Like someone spilled soap flakes. It's been raining too. Maybe the Laundry Fairy had a spat with the Maytag repairman.

Anyway, my pulled calf muscle is going to keep me off the streets for at least a couple of days. So instead of running this morning, I awoke to a story about cities racing to pass laws prohibiting declawing. It seems that those horrible state lawmakers snuck a law on the books that prohibits prohibiting cat declawing. The law takes effect Jan. 1. By prohibiting cat declawing before prohibiting cat declawing is prohibited the cities get to prohibit cat declawing.

I have a La-Z-Boy recliner couch that has been shredded by cats. The Wife bought a slipcover to throw over the couch when we have company. Or at least when we have company we don't want to be reclining in the sofa.

We have three cats. All have their claws. The dog, however, doesn't have her front claws. A previous owner had gone to the expense of having the dog's claws removed. The dog doesn't scratch furniture and she doesn't prevent the cats from scratching the furniture. "Not my job," she says with those baleful eyes as she stares at me from her bed in front of the cat-shredded coach.

So I was particularly interested in the topic of cats and claws, especially since The Wife recently purchased a new couch and matching chair to go with the new living room floor that went with the new floor that came with the remodel of the kitchen. (The remodel is finished, but the blog about it still needs to be finished.)

At each corner of the couch and the chair are salad-size paper plates containing chemical soaked paper towels. The chemicals are supposed to keep the cats away from the furniture. This makes the paper plates more useful than the dog. On the down side, however, the plates make it appear as if someone had a picnic in the living room and didn't clean up the debris.

You can listen to Capital Public Radio's report here.

I laughed out loud when the report got to the line: "Opponents of cat declawing say there are alternatives, like giving a cat a scratching post, trimming its nails or making the animal wear mittens."

We have more scratching posts than furniture. And the idea of mittens? Well, that's just a laugh.

The Wife, of course, disagrees. People can put mittens on cats, she insisted.

So I went looking for a website that sells mittens for kittens.

I found mittens for very large kittens.
I don't think The Wife will let me have this kitten.

Anyway, when the first five pages of Google results produced no websites that sell mittens for kittens, I began to suspect mittens for kittens is an urban myth. Then I discovered this television ad.

Some Days You Bite The Bear And Some Days . . .

"Did you warm up before you ran?" The Wife asked as I settled in the passenger seat and buckled my seatbelt for the ride home.

"No, dear, I never warm up," I said. There was, of course, the standard spousal exasperation tone to the reply, but it was not without a strong tinge of, "Yes, yes, yes. I know I'm a dummy, don't rub it in."

I left my house at 7 a.m. with the intention of running a 10K loop that I mapped for myself. I've never run a full 10K. I've done more than 5K on several occasions, but never 10K. I had several "break" points in mind for my route where I could decide to go ahead or finish a shorter route. I had made it past the first break point -- the corner where I turn in the morning for my regular 2.5 mile jog -- and made it to the 2 mile point of my route when I first felt the twinge in my left calf.

This isn't the first time. It always starts with a small cramp, as though some knot forms in the fibers. I tried to flex the leg as I ran. I tried to run "differently" to see if I could loosen the knot.

Nothing worked. Instead the knot tightened and started to hurt. With each step the damage grew with the pain. The pain wasn't so bad that I couldn't run, but, like I said, I've been here before. I know that if I continue to run it will just lengthen the time it takes before I can run again. It took six days last time.

So I stopped and sat down on the lawn next to the sidewalk. I pulled out my cell phone and called The Wife.

"I need a ride home," I told the wife.

The problem is that The Wife can't drive. At least she has been unable to drive in the morning for several months. She sees double, obviously not good when you're in traffic. But she recently purchased new glasses that include prisms that are supposed to reduce the likelihood of a wandering eye causing double vision.

"How's the double-vision?" I asked as we started home.

The wife put a finger to one eye to hold it closed. "Not good," she said. "But it's better when there are no cars on the street."

I offered to drive but I didn't have my glasses and I need them to see distant objects clearly.

"I'll manage," The Wife said as she continued to hold one eye shut.

So we slowly made our way home, the one-eyed leading the lame. Fortunately there wasn't much traffic.

The running wear guide to the seasons

Well, it was worth a try.

Each morning I get up to run before anyone else in my household is out of bed. Weekdays it's 6:15 a.m., sometimes earlier. And it is cold.

I can mark the changing seasons by the clothing required. Summer is shorts and t-shirt. Fall is shorts and light sweatshirt. Then the light sweatpants and sweatshirt season arrives. And finally the gloves are added.

But when the temperature is hovering around freezing, even the heavy sweatsuit and gloves doesn't cut the bone-chilling cold as I start my run.

So I had this absolutely brilliant, couldn't fail idea last night. I would get up 10 minutes early and toss my sweat clothes and gloves in the dryer on high heat. (We will ignore for the moment what The Wife would say if she knew I was warming my sweat-soaked dirty clothes in her clean dryer.)

Sure enough, I was one toasty guy this morning as I put on my shoes in the garage. And I was still comfortable when I reached the outer garage door and stepped outside. But by the time I took my first step in the street seconds later to start my run, all that toasty goodness was gone.

It was that cold. And the 100 percent humidity and the fog made everything that much worse.

I suppose I could invest in some specialized runner's garment designed to provide warmth while also wicking away the sweat. But for now I'll just suck it up and run. Somewhere I read that cold was good for you. And I know running is good for me. Together it underscores a simple fact of life: The total "good for you" value is inversely proportional to the pleasure it provides. No pain, no gain.

Classical distractions

One really big problem with working from home is my penchant for wandering off task. I'll be working on something and then I'm looking at my Google Reader or I'm checking my email. It happens so quickly that I'm seldom aware that I've switched.

So it wasn't surprising that I found myself back on Gabriela Montero's website looking at her concert schedule. Why? Damned if I know. She's in Waterloo, Ontario, tonight. At 7:30 p.m. she'll be on the stage at the Mike Lazaridis Theatre of Ideas at the Perimeter Institute.

Her performance is part of the institute's Event Horizon’s Classical World Artists series, which offers this summary:

(Photo credit: Uli Webber)

Pianist Gabriela Montero's visionary interpretations and unique improvisational gifts have won her a quickly expanding audience and devoted following around the world. Recognized as a serious interpreter of the great composers of the past, Montero is one whose acclaimed performances are soulfully lyrical.

And then I find myself reading her press clippings at her site:

Boston Globe Special Inauguration Feature

''It was such a beautiful moment and such an honor to be there,'' she recalled of Inauguration Day festivities, where she played. ''But my God was it cold!''

The article is fascinating. (Read it here.) From the 10 years of disastrous lessons in Miami as a child to quitting piano and returning to Caracas and then returning to the piano and winning a full scholarship to study at London's Royal Academy of Music. I find Montero's search for an artistic sense of herself amazing.

"Montero again lost her confidence and by 2001, she was living in Montreal, raising her first daughter, and planning a new career in psychology. Then Argerich, the great Argentine pianist, passed through town. Montero paid her a visit to get some career advice. It turned out Argerich had little patience for Montero's new ideas about psychology school. Instead, she insisted that Montero play for her. Montero agreed, reluctantly, and met Argerich the next night at Montreal's Place des Arts at 1:30 in the morning. She began with some Beethoven and Schumann, and then finally summoned the courage to improvise what she called a musical portrait of Argerich. When she finished some 20 minutes later, Argerich was speechless. 'She said "Gabrielita, why doesn't anybody know about this!",' Montero recalled. 'She was delighted like a little girl.' "

It was so surprising to find out that not only does she live in Massachusetts with her two daughters and her mother, but she performed with Itzhak Perlman, Yo Yo Ma and Anthony McGill at Barack Obama's inauguration.

Enough distractions. I've got to get back to work.

Oddjob

Sometimes I really want to see how a scam would play out, but then I figure there's a real danger it will get out of hand. Bascially I'm a chicken.

Recently I answered a craigslist ad looking for a copy editor. I prefer to do web construction and maintenance work, but with more than 30 years of experience as a newspaper editor, I figure copy editing is at least something I'm qualified for.

So this is the answer I got:

Subject: Versatile Copyeditor

From: Harish Challa [chacharich@gmail.com]


Hello,

Thanks for your email and response to the Proofreader ad. I am Harish Challa, I am a social entrepreneur and I have a work with the UNICEF ASIA projects. It is a material on Child Care, Parent Obligations and similar topics. The previous editions have been published in Bahasa and Chinese Language but the need right now is for the same material to come English language. I have transcribed the book to English but I am looking for a proofreader that can edit and correct the errors in the book. This project at hand demands some vital language learnings so I need your assistance to get this done ASAP. The book contain 95 pages, words counts is 25,000 to 35,000 ..written in english. I will like to know the cost to proofread and edit this for my usage.

However, I intend offering you the sum of $1000.00 for the proofreading because of the time frame so I will like to know if this works for you. I will need the book to be ready for publishing within 2 weeks from the day you received the book. I want to make it clear that I expect it to be carried out expertly. That is, ensuring that the book does not loose its original meaning in the course of editing; in as much you will prove yourself to be a reliable, trustworthy and above all able to meet up with my deadline; I will instruct my sponsor to proceed with your payment in full once I hear from you today as I will like you to have the payment before commencing your work so as to secure your service.

Upon receipt of the payment, I will instruct the publisher to mail you a copy of the book so you can commence your work. As soon as you are done with the proofreading, you will have to send the edited copy back to the publisher so he can commence the final publishing of the work. In the meantime, Kindly get back with the following information so I can start making arrangement for your payment. moreso, I will need your phone number for a better communication.

Full Name:
Full House Address with zip code;
Phone number:
Acceptance of offer:

All I need from you is total honesty and timeliness. I will be waiting to hear from you.

Best Regard,
Harish Challa

This is really intriguing. The bait is obvious but once the fish is hooked, what then? Identity theft? Extortion? Nobody pays in full upfront. What's the game here?

How big is Big?

Can't resist commenting on an article in the China Daily entitled "Low-carbon urbanization is way forward for China." I ran across the article as part of my part-time day job maintaining a website for a national nonprofit whose focus is on sustainable communities, among other things.

So the question: Just how big is China? Try this on for size:

By 2020, there will be an estimated 300 million people (equal to the US population) in China moving to cities.

Image every man, woman and child in America packing everything and moving to a new home. Now consider doing that -- moving everyone in America -- in just 10 years.

And that rate of urbanization, according to the China Daily article, is not really very fast.

China's urbanization rate in 2008 was 46 percent, far below the 61 percent in middle-income countries and 78 percent in wealthy countries.

China, of course, has no intention of slowing what it sees as its climb from poverty into the realm of middle income. But with energy consumption of urban residents 3.5 to 4 times that of the rural population, the size of the challenge China's urbanization creates is unmistakable: Big!

Last year, the McKinsey Global Institute released a report entitled "Preparing for China's Urban Billion." Among its findings:

The policy choices that China's leaders make at national and local levels can alter the shape of urbanization significantly. [McKinsey Global Institute] finds that an urgent shift in focus from solely driving GDP growth to an agenda of boosting urban productivity—achieving the same or better economic results with fewer resources—is not only an opportunity but a necessity.

What will the world look like when my son, The Kid, is an old man of, say, 58? That's 40 years from now. What will Big! look like then?