We’re renting a house in San Leandro now! The move-in is November.
October 16, 2009
September 13, 2009
Borp 2009 opening day
http://jzoe.com/Borp2009OpeningDay/
A lot of photos here- I was the volunteer photographer, and I got to break in my new zoom lens.
February 26, 2008
Photos, blog's not dead yet
I haven’t given up on this blog completely- I’ve just been doing other things. I recently went through the 1500 or so photos I’ve taken since I got my canon S3 IS digital camera, and I’ve put together a photo album.
They photos were mostly taken by me, one notable exception is the photo of me on my bike. This one was taken by a professional photographer, and I’ve re-weblished it here with his permission.
The major categories I have are People, Places, Animals, and Power Soccer. Power soccer people are people too, but they’re playing a sport so it’s set apart. The gallery is just a generic one for now, but it would be nice to organize it a little better in the future. Here’s the link-
September 30, 2007
How Berkeley Can You Be?
Ok, I know I always start blogs by saying how busy I am, and how I need to update these more, but geez! It’s the truth!
This weekend Kendra and I went to the How Berkeley Can You Be parade, in Berkeley, and I snapped some photos. I need to add some commentary, and maybe figure out a way to have a convenient “next image” button, but really- this is Jzoe blog, not Flickr. Without further ado, here’s the link:
September 17, 2007
Riding my bike for BORP! Please check it out, I need donations!
Alright everyone, I know I still need to update this doggone blog, but in the meanwhile I have a big announcement for you all. I’m riding my bike in the big fund raiser for BORP, the organization that Kendra plays power soccer with. I need your donations, and even if it’s a few dollars! My goal is $750, and I’m almost halfway there. If I didn’t email you about this yet, or if I did and you forgot to donate, please check out this link:
http://www.active.com/donate/BORPRevolution2007/JCarrow
It’s a non-profit so it’s tax deductible, and any size of donation is welcome.
August 14, 2007
Another sunset
I know, I know! I still need to post some camping photos, and updates on what the heck is going on lately, and all of that- but I’ve been so very busy with moving.
In the meanwhile, there was another gorgeous sunset through our window tonight, and I just had to get a photo of it.
Really, this is pushing the limits of what my camera can make look “nice”, and I had to take the image into photoshop for some smart-blur to take some of the speckles out. A better noise reduction program might do better, and I might get even better quality if I had a RAW (uncompressed) file format available. Overall, the images were only about 400 kb, so there might be a lower compression setting that would let me squeeze just a little more out of it.
July 15, 2007
New Apartment, updates, etc
Yesterday we signed the lease on our new apartment. After paying that first+last security deposit, I am feeling POOR! Anyway, it will all be good living in Berkeley again.
In other news, we are going camping this coming weekend at Whiskeytown Lake, right near Lake Shasta. This will be the first time Kendra and I have gone camping together, and we are both adamantly claiming to each other that we are the more experienced and better camper. I’m sure that once we get out on the road everything will be OK and we’ll just have a good time. When it comes to camping, there’s no such thing as being too prepared, or too willing to deal with inconvenience and discomfort.
In other news, I’ve had my eye on electronic drum sets ever since I moved into the land of tiny apartments. There may be a time in the next several months when I can finally get one, and start playing once again. The new place is a two bedroom, and one room will be mostly for books, and office space, and my closet space. It’s definitely still up in the air, but it’s not out of the question that I could find a place to put some electronic drums.
One new electronic drum set that came to mind is this one:
It’s the Roland HD1″ The small size and footprint are attractive, but there are a few problems with it. The most annoying one that I see right now is that you don’t get different sounds when you hit the rim of the drum, compared to the middle part. Most decent electronic drum sets allow you to do this, and it lets you keep using a lot of playing styles that you use with acoustic drums. It also essentially doubles the number of sounds you can make without switching to a different sound bank. For another $200 I could get a much nicer drum set that’s just a little larger.
It’s this one-
The Roland TD-3SW. It folds up some, and it’s not huge- I guess I’ll also have to wait and see exactly how much space we will have (if any) for this kind of fun. If I can make this work, I will definitely miss living in a house that much less.
July 1, 2007
New apartment in Berkeley!
This Saturday Kendra and I found a new apartment in Berkeley. It’s right in the heart of where we want to be- right by an OK grocery store, near parks, near the BART, and within walking distance of most parts of Berkeley. There’s a bus from there to campus, and on my bike I can get to wherever I want to go in a flash.
Here’s where it is:
Google Map, Acton and University
The apartment is on the fifth floor, and has a big balcony with a beautiful view of the city across the bay. This is a photo from the rooftop, one floor up:
And here’s a closeup of the city, and it wasn’t even really a clear day-
And here’s the floorplan- I cut off the balcony because there’s not much detail on it, but it’s about four feet (ish) by about thirty feet.
Overall, it’s even more accessible than where we are now. The kitchen has a ton of counter space at a good height for Kendra, and the bathroom is huge and has a separate roll-under vanity area. The kitchen sink is roll-under too, and the building has electronic access that will let Kendra keep a button on her keychain to make it nice and easy to get inside. The building management seems like a real class act, and although the rent is a bit more than what we’re paying now, cable and internet are included in the bill, as well as garbage and water. We pay electricity, gas, and phone.
Moving is always a lot of work, but I think that the payoff here is going to be really great.
June 26, 2007
More of my life, in photos
Well, I’ve got another round of photos- these are from the last week mostly. Last night, Monday, Kendra and I went to a Giant’s game. It was a great time, although a little cold. The ball park was beautiful and surprisingly clean. The sunset over the bay is a beautiful thing to see over the ball game. I honestly can’t imagine a more beautiful backdrop.
There’s also this photo of the field that Kendra took:
I also got a movie- Ball.avi, and a really cool panorama of Kendra and the game. I have a far larger version if anyone is dying for a big poster printout.
A really freaky thing about the game was the real-time talking seal mascot, with a human mouth. The movie of the seal is kind of disturbing.
On the way out on the BART this weekend I took a few photos of pigeons. I thought that these came out nice enough to post just for the sake of looking at birds.
And a pair of them-
We were on our way to soccer practice at the time, and I took a few photos there as well. Actually, I might have the chronology mixed up.
On the one hand, I kind of like the blurred effect- if gives a lot of motion.
On the other hand, it would be nice to be able to get some nice clean shots without the blur.
Unfortunately, the closer I get to a non-blurry shot (by increasing the shutter speed), the darker the image gets:
The alternative is to increase the ISO (light sensor sensitivity), but that makes the photos so speckled and static filled that I don’t even want to post them. Here’s an example- it might not look too noisy, but it’s also not terribly bright.
That’s it, that’s why you spend the big bucks for a Digital SLR. They take better photos in low light at high speed because they have larger, higher quality sensors. Of course, if I could connect the camera to a big external flash, that might help a lot as well.
Here are the last of the photos for tonight- a photo in Berkeley of a squirrel that got a little too close:
Also a photo of the Stockton Tunnel in San Francisco:
I actually walked through that thing once, and over it on a different occasion.
June 14, 2007
Lychee Fruit
This is so weird- I was in the grocery store tonight picking up some fish, and I saw these crazy spiny things they called Litchey Nuts. I picked one up and it felt like a soft dense fruit, but it didn’t smell like much. I bought about a dollar’s worth and brought them home out of curiosity.
I think that their flesh reminds me of a cross between a grape and a coconut. It’s soft and squishy and translucent like a grape, but has a very fine and rich texture like a coconut, and almost feels like it has some oil in it. It tastes like a cross between those fruits as well, but it gives a slightly tingly feeling on my tongue that’s not like other fruit that I’ve had. I don’t know if I’ll buy them again, but if I ever see them on the menu at a restaurant, I know I’d order them to see how they prepare them.