Year: 2008

Panama City Beach Pictures

Surf's up!Mich and I spent the past weekend (we made it a long weekend) in Panama City Beach.

We stayed at a condo unit at “The Origin at Seahaven“. In the pictures you can see what the unit looked like and the view that we had. “The Origin” is actually across “Front Beach Road” from the actual beach.

While there we took the opportunity to check out the Driving Range at the Holiday Golf Club, visit Angelo’s steak pit, search for sharks (found dolphins) by helicopter, visited Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville” in “Pier Park”, checked out the “St. Andrews State Recreation area and stopped in at “The Boatyard” for a spot of supper.

Check out our pictures by clicking on the image at left.

Angelo’s Steak Pit

Cheers!Despite the somewhat corny advertising (“And that’s no bull!”) the food and service at Angelo’s Steak Pit are both excellent. It is *really* hard to get a steak cooked properly nowadays and I have to say that this Panama City Beach restaurant does it right.

There is a distinctively road-house look to this place, so this isn’t your typical fine-dining experience, but from the first person we met at the door through to the waitresses, everybody was warm and friendly. Service was timely and the food, from the salad (try their house dressing!) through to the buttered bread to the steak and potato were all excellently prepared.

Example of how not to take a flash pictureOur server, Amy, kept my drink filled and was at hand when we needed anything. Service like this is what makes people like me want to come back again and again.

I heartily recommend Angelo’s Steak Pit if you happen to be in Panama City Beach!

Nanny State still at it – “Let’s have a law for everything!”

Our politicians (all politicians) need a reality check.

Admittedly the issue is based in a lack of critical (reality based) thinking. Americans especially are teetering at the brink of a decline in science-educated and hence, rational people. But our entertainment and, indeed, our culture seem to be glorifying the stupid.

So it is, that when something outrageous, and exceedingly rare, occurs we are mollified by the posturing of our politicians that they appear to be “doing something” even when that “something” is either completely irrelevant to the issue or worse, layering yet another set of restrictions on our lives.

I was reading this article this morning that was instigated by an unfortunate incident where a man was hit by, wait for it, a helicopter while fetching his mail. The actual issue was the “danger” posed by listening to loud music what what needed to be “done about it”.

I’ll tell you what needs to be done. Nothing. People get preoccupied, people close their eyes, people look the wrong way sometimes and they get hurt. Ah well.. life’s lessons. If listening to loud music, and reducing or eliminating ambient sounds is a danger, then I suppose we’d better get all over those deaf folks walking around obviously in mortal danger every waking moment of their lives…

Brandon’s Housewarming

Good conversationBrandon hosted a pleasant gathering at his new place. As usual, you always think you take WAY more pictures than you actually do. Even more perturbing was the fact that I *completely* forgot to get a picture of the host himself!

Anyway, classy move having a barkeep. Someday, if I save up, I can have as many cars as Brandon does.

New Nikon D60 has arrived

New Nikon D60 Camera, Lenses and Flash UnitI’m pretty psyched. I’d done a fair bit of research and I think this Nikon D60 (Wikipedia link) will let me do the kind of photography that I want to do. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked with a camera that allows you to play with pretty much any aspect of the picture taking process.

This camera’s got a lens-based vibration reduction system that claims that you can gain 3 stops of aperture reduction if desired. I also picked up a great little flash unit (Nikon SB-400) that will let me do some work with bounced flashes to further minimize redeye and other head-on flash issues.

I also opted for the 55 – 200 mm lens in addition to the included 18 – 55 mm one.

I found Ken Rockwell’s site to be pretty useful for my research. So much so that I used one of his links in my purchase. Hopefully it worked, I really couldn’t tell from the URL whether or not he would be credited with the purchase. But his site offers pragmatic first hand advice on various kinds of cameras. Of course, he’d say I didn’t really listen to his advice as he was pushing to stick with the D40 and spend the difference in cost on lenses or other equipment, but when I purchase equipment, I like to get the best that I can afford with the hope that it will remain current and relevant for as long as possible.

Why Don’t News Media Web Sites indicate where they are located?

You’d like to think that the media would be.. well… media savvy. So why is it, that when I follow a link to an article on many news sites (like here for instance) it’s so obtuse where the metropolitan (or village or whatever) area served by the site is located?

Some sites are right up front about who they are and where they are (here and here for example), some you need to hop to their home page to find this info, and still others you have to check out their weather center or some of their headlines to try to divine their locales.

Just thought I’d point out that… it’s not you.. it’s them.

Jumper: A Novel by Steven Gould

JumperI chose this book because the premise sounded interesting. You can read the synopsis of the book on Amazon if you’re interested, so I won’t rehash it here. Suffice it to say that I did enjoy the fact that teleportation was almost a background aspect of the story. There was no real attempt to rationalize or explain it. The story was more about how character(s) learned to deal with this abilty.

This is not a multifaceted, complex story like “Dune” or some of my other favorites, but Steven Gould’s writing style flows so effortlessly that I couldn’t believe how quickly I raced through the book. I will be looking for more of Mr. Gould’s works in the future. I’ve already added the second Jumper book (Jumper: Griffin’s Story) to my wish list.

A satisfying, entertaining read.

Schlieren Photography

Continuing with my fascination for altered time and space perception (through mechanical means), I had not heard about Schlieren Photography until I saw this video on Slashdot Review over the weekend.

The balloon (what is it about balloons?) was one of my favorites, but the towel was cute. The shockwaves emanating from piston shots was instructive. In some cases you can actually see the bullet overtaking the shockwave from the initial firing of the weapon.

OMG – Tossing Babies off a tower for good luck

Geez! How these countries are going to claw their way out of third-world status while they continue to indulge in superstitious idiocy such as this is hard to imagine.

This gem comes from Solapur, in Maharastra, India. C’mon folks! This is the 21st century!!! We’re supposed to be flying around in little cars worried about the Mars colony. Not tossing infants off of towers to appease… whom?