The Great Safari - Day 1 (From Nairobi to Maasai Mara)

Last year, I went by myself on an African safari for 2 weeks with Good Earth Tours, Inc.  I'm finally going through the video.

Here is day 1 (please watch in 1080p):

Panorama of Boston from the sky!

Okay, not quite "the sky," but I took a 24-shot panorama from Boston's Prudential Tower's Sky Walk, which is on the 50th floor.

Here is the picture at 3 different sizes:

1. Tiny (600 x 385 pixels wide):

2. Medium (6,000 x 3,853 pixels): click here for the picture (23 mbs)

3. Huge/Full-size (13,312 x 8549 pixels): click here for the picture (87 mbs)


The green area is the Boston Common (Park) and Public Garden.  My apartment is to the left of it, in the dark area (but before you see bright lights again).  You'll also notice:

• The capital at the edge of the Boston Common (green area)
• Hancock Tower (the big building in the center)
• Highway 90
• Highway 93
• The Hatch Shell (at the very left side)
• An airplane taking off

Bringing back the fruit smoothies!

For the past 3 years, every morning I make & eat two of the following:

• 2 scrambled eggs with deli meat and sprinkled cheese
• oatmeal with walnuts, cranberries, cinnamon, splenda, with applesauce mixed in
• cereal (optionally with yogurt or banana as another side item)
• 1.25 liter fruit smoothie (during Spring and Summer only)

Spring is now here!  So, once again, the produce at my local farmer's market is now better and more plentiful.

My typical smoothies fill my 1.25 liter blender (42 oz) and are comprised of ~6 of the following items, which I try to change up each time:

• ~7 strawberries
• banana
• mango
• kiwi
• blueberries
• apple
• frozen raspberries
• milk
• vanilla or strawberry protein (casein or whey)
• oats
• chobani or oikos yogurt (usually strawberry, vanilla, or blueberry)
• chopped ice

Here's a sample of one in the making:

From above:

Finished product makes 32oz - 42oz:

Each spring/summer, I try to improve over the previous year's by perfecting the combinations of fruit so that it tastes just right.  It's nothing amazing, but pretty tasty :-)

Boston Marathon 2012

A friend of a mine from UCLA (we were grad school classmates), flew to Boston this past weekend to run the Boston Marathon.

I made a video, documenting his pre- and post-race:

Even though my viewing spot at the 26 mile mark (.2 miles from the finish line), it's essentially impossible to get decent footage of the actual race unless you have a press pass -- you can only see runners pass by you.

Producing Ultra-Sharp Images

A few months ago, I bought a Zeiss 50mm f/2.0 Makro-Planar T* ZE Lens. This lens is hailed as one of the sharpest lenses in the world, and it's strictly a manual focus lens (no automatic focus).

Over the past year or so, I've taken 1,000+ pics of the jewelry that Sheley makes and sells. It's a learning experience, but clearly it's desirable to take pics that are incredibly clear and sharp.

So, with my new lens, and my side-hobby task of taking pics for Sheley, I was lead to the quest to produce what I'll call "ultra-sharp" images. I use this technique whenever I can; not just for jewelry photos.

My approach is to:

• use a really sturdy tripod (my Benro A-1690)
• use my manual focus Zeiss 50mm lens
• I replaced my camera's internal focusing screen with the Eg-s screen, which assists my vision through the viewfinder by making the in-focus area appear very crisp and everything else really blurry
• use the LCD screen at 10x magnification to view the subject, to help focus
• use a remote shutter release (or put it on a 2-second timer) so that my pressing the shutter button doesn't shake the camera at all

Basically, it's an exciting process and requires much deliberation, patience, and carefulness for each shot. It's the closest I'll ever come to performing surgery.

Sample 1 -- The Penny

click here to view the full image!

The viewfinder is so sensitive that moving the camera's focusing ring the slightest amount I possibly can is the difference between "In God We Trust" being in focus versus "2010" being in focus.

Sample 2 -- Boston Skyline 1/2 mile away

click here to view the full image!

Notice how you can see each window with at least some detail. Pretty crazy considering the windows are half a mile away.

Sample 3 -- huge panorama of Boston from .8 miles away

click here to view the full image!

Sample 4 -- Sheley's Jewelry

click here to view the full image.

Unfortunately, images displayed on the web are rarely greater than 900 pixels in length, and are compressed greatly; thus, the increase in sharpness may often not even be discernible for images posted to the web. Oh well, it's been really fun for me to discover how to push my camera and lens to their limits.

In the meantime, I've become a huge fan of Zeiss, and I can easily understand why they're considered a world leader and pioneer for producing world-class optical equipment, from medical lenses, microscopes, camera lenses, etc.

Oatmeal Butterscotch Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Sheley's made some great recipes lately, including an amazing Mexican chicken dish. Plus, she's been eating super healthy vegetable dishes. Okay, with that disclaimer aside, I can now present the less-healthy, but incredibly delicious dessert that she made, of which I have happily been the primary consumer:

Oatmeal Butterscotch Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Here are some pics I took of them:

The Longest Grocery Store Lines Ever

Instead of my normal grocery shopping at Costco, I sometimes still go to Market Basket (aka Home of Chaos) for their super good deals. Market Basket's parking lot is insane, as it can take 10 minutes to get a parking spot. Yet, it's just a warm-up/sample of the hectic crowd inside.

Today I witnessed the craziness checkout lines I've ever witnessed. All ~10 check-out lines were so long that they bent in all directions and fed all the way into the aisles!

Every single person in this pile up is actually in a check-out line:

As mentioned, some lines extended far into the nearby, incredibly healthy aisles, as shown: