The Greatest Show on Earth

Posted in Photography with tags on April 10, 2009 by Chris

We went to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus at the Patriot Center on April 9th.  I wasn’t sure what to expect. The last few years, I’ve seen a few Cirque du Soleil shows; and they are amazing spectacles of acrobatics and artistry. This was the old Ringling Bros. circus. I’ve seen it before. It can’t compare to Cirque du Soleil, right? Yes, it can.

The Ringling Bros. put on a wonderful show. The acrobats performed death defying acts of acrobatics and artistry. Just like Cirque du Soleil. They’ve updated their shows. The production quality, story telling and costuming doesn’t compete with Cirque; but neither does the ticket price.

What does Ringling Bros. have that Cirque doesn’t? Elephants and Tigers! I love the animals. You may not have a Beatle’s soundtrack pumping through custom seats like “Love”. But you have an elephant sitting on another elephant. They also had dogs performing tricks and mini horses.

They had a steel cage ball with motorcycles. I was impressed with 4 motorcycles; and astonished when they added 3 more bringing the total to 7. I captured a video of the feats:

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Ocean City Sunrise

Posted in Photography with tags on April 6, 2009 by Chris

With my new Manfrotto tripod, I got up at 6:00 AM to take sunrise photos in Ocean City, Maryland.  Sometimes, the sky is brilliantly lit up with colors. This time, only the horizon showed some bands of red and orange.

I used the Canon 10-22. Wider is better. I slowed down to 1/5 attempting to capture a sense of ocean motion.

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34th Marine Corps Marathon

Posted in Running with tags , on April 1, 2009 by Chris

34thcongratsheader_587x100

Time to mark another item off the bucket list. I’ve signed up for the 34th Marine Corps Marathon. I’ve always heard its difficult to get into this race. It fills quickly. Luckily, I heard about the registration date yesterday. I made the decision over night.; and clicked to register at noon on April 1st.

The longest distance I’ve ever run is 6.5 miles. I have almost 6 months to train. I’m going to set a personal goal of 4 hours. But, I’ll be happy to finish the marathon. Its is on my life todo list. I’m looking forward to the challenge. It gives me great motivation for exercise and training.

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Rails MySQL on Mac OS X 10.5.6

Posted in Programming with tags , , on March 24, 2009 by Chris

I was setting up a Rails development environment on my new MacBook Pro. The base installation includes Rails but does not include MySQL. After going through the process to upgrade and install everything, I thought my notes would be useful for others.

1. Update Rails. My Mac came with rails 1.2.6; this updated it to 2.3.2.

sudo gem update --system
sudo gem update rails

2. I installed MySQL from the official download. In addition to the server, they provide a preferences pane, “MySQL.prefPane”, to control starting and stopping the server.

Make sure to check out Sequel Pro.

3. Installing the native MySQL extension for Ruby requires the Ruby headers which are not installed by default. You will need to install the Developer Tools from your installation disk. You can verify:

$ls /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/
Headers Resources Ruby Versions

$ls /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Headers
config.h dlconfig.h intern.h regex.h st.h
defines.h dln.h missing.h ruby.h util.h
digest.h dtrace.h node.h rubyio.h version.h
dl.h env.h re.h rubysig.h

If you do not have the headers available, you will receive the following error
trying to build the native extension.

Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR: Error installing mysql:
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby extconf.rb install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config
can't find header files for ruby.

4. Install the MySQL native driver using the gem tool.

$ sudo gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config
Password:
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed mysql-2.7
1 gem installed

5. You should be good to go, build a new rails project and setup your database.yml

development:
adapter: mysql
encoding: utf8
database: test_app
pool: 5
username: root
password:
socket: /tmp/mysql.sock

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Steamboat Panoramas

Posted in Programming with tags , , , on March 13, 2009 by Chris

The beautiful scenery on the mountain at Steamboat gave me an opportunity to try out the Canon G10 photo stitch. Photo stitch mode helps you to take many photos in sequence to create a panorama. It displays the previous photo to help you line up the next photo. It maintains the exposure settings between all the shots.

Once you download the photos to your computer, you have to use software to merge the photos into one panorama. I used Photoshop CS3′s Photomerge. It couldn’t have been easier. I selected the group of photos to merge and it magically aligned them. Even with 5 photos they were pixel perfect.

The Canon G10 made taking the photos easy. Photomerge made processing them easy. This was my first attempt at a panorama. The results are so satisfying, I’m already planning my next panorama photo shoot.

5 photo stitch at the top of Storm Peak lift.

4 photo stitch at the top of Heavenly Daze

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Steamboat 2009

Posted in Travel with tags , on March 8, 2009 by Chris

We took our traditional family ski vacation to Steamboat Springs, CO.  Early March was great time to visit. The weather was warm – close to 60 degrees. The crowds were small.  We barely had to wait in line for a lift. The crowds are down 30% this year due to the recession. We did our duty by spending our vacation and money in the United States. My gallery has over 50 photos.

My brother and I ventured to runs near the top and found ourselves alone. Great snow to be enjoyed without other skiers. Steamboat is a fun mountain with long  fast trails. We were delighted to have them to ourselves.  The groomed blacks had a few skiers, the bumps had no one. The blues were crowded but still had small lift lines.

I’ve been to most of the big resorts: Vail, Steamboat, Park City, Telluride, Aspen and Jackson Hole. I always come back to Steamboat. I love the mountain and the cowboy town. The locals are friendly and helpful.  The restaurants and night life are good. Its not a big tourist resort compared to Vail. Its the right size mountain and town even without the back bowls.

Make sure you check out my SmugMug Gallery

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More Cross Canadian Ragweed Videos

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , on February 28, 2009 by Chris

Here are 3 more videos from the Cross Canadian Ragweed concert. I recorded them on 2.25.2009 at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA.  For a band I was just introduced to, I’m getting a lot of feedback from the videos. They have a strong underground following.  If they are new to you, here are three more videos:

Hammer Down:

Lighthouse Keeper:

Betty Page? This is a new song for their upcoming record. I don’t know the title. Its dedicated to the life of Betty Page.

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Cross Canadian Ragweed

Posted in Photography with tags , on February 27, 2009 by Chris

I saw Cross Canadian Ragweed play at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA on 2.25.2009.  The Birchmere is a great venue for a show. It has a great history. The atmosphere is intimate. And its conveniently located.

I’m new to Cross Canadian Ragweed. My friend invited me to the show. This was my introduction. They look country but their music rocks.  You can tell they’re from Oklahoma but the sound is unique.  Apple iTunes lists them as alternative. They aren’t easy to classify. Thats a good thing.

I recorded some video using my Canon G10. This was their closing song. The crowd favorite “Boys from Oklahoma”:

This is a long jam version of “Anywhere But Here”:

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