Halloween Line Up

The line up of costumed employees at work. Click on the image for a larger view.


A video of co-workers dress up in their Halloween finest which included grand prize winner Andrea as a lunchwagon. The Skipper appeard to be AWOL for some reason. Click on the above image for the video.

*I just re-encoded the video using Sorenson 3 coded this time so it should now play on Windows machines*

Psssst. If you want the video iPod version click here for a ZIP file of it. Right-click and save or Mac users Option-Click.

Wassssp Uuuuuup?

Wasp?
Originally uploaded by MediaBaron.

Big sucker. Does it sting?

Free food, we're there

West Isle Properties had the grand opening for their office in Kona so Michael and I went for the free food, booze and music (okay, I didn't drink since I had another assignment after this but free Coke Classic is fine by me). We know the bouncer guarding the door so we snuck in. Sorry for the camera shake image, it's hard to work sometimes trying to balance a plate of sushi while shooting photos.

If you need to buy or sell some property contact the bouncer Glennon, he'll sneak you in and set you up.

A year late

It's only been about a year since I went to L.A. for the SportsShooter.com Luau and Workshop. I had the video clips and stills sitting around on my external hard drive and only got around to editing it in iMovie now. Better late than never I guess. I didn't really shoot much video or stills as I was too busy during the workshop taking notes, chatting with friends so I had to mix in some stills with the video.

In the video you can see how simple it is for Maxim Magazine to light their models for that shiny, slick look. They just use a flash unit that blasts into what looks like a mirrored parabolic satellite dish.

I was planning on going to a smaller workshop they're holding this year in place of the usual big luau extravaganza but decided to cancel my travel plans to catch up on things here since I was thrown for a loop last month by being sick.

Stuck up

I was playing a few podcasts and my iPod got stuck on this screen, frozen, couldn't turn it off or do anything via the controls. After quickly going online to the Apple website I found out that to reset it I had to hold the middle two buttons Menu+Play/Pause to soft reset the unit. For you click-wheel iPod owners I think it's Select+Play/Pause for the magic key (the select is the middle round button in your click wheel). So things are good again but still running out of space on the iPod.

Coffee Break

Time for a cappuccino break as I listen to the latest podcast about NaNoWriMo. Convinced another person to join in the novel writing challenge and she's already outlined 10 chapters! Yikes!

Steve Jobs! Send me and Adam Curry a new PowerBook! Right now!

I like Apple products, I own Apple products, I've even owned Apple stock which did quite well for me. And my own Apple products have always worked well. But the PowerBooks from work are cursed. The original 15" PowerBook assigned to me from work had its hard drive give up the ghost. So I was assigned another PowerBook 15" which was fine until now a few months later.

After a two days of editing photos, captioning and driving from Waimea to Kona to hardwire connect to the network and copy my finished photos over the PowerBook's hard drive has crapped out. This is a different PowerBook from the original, no indications whatsoever that there was any problem. It just wouldn't wake up from sleep and when trying to restart it it just has a black screen and I can hear the hard drive try to spin but then nothing. nada

I have never mistreated the laptop, it looks like mint condition, I keep it in the oversized padded computer case all the time and I only use it during work since I have my own laptop that is tricked-out the way I want it.

If you listen to the Daily Source Code with Adam Curry you would have known that the same thing happened to him, a dead hard drive in his PowerBook. He cried, swore then begged Steve Jobs for a new PowerBook. So I'm doing the same.

For Adam's and my company's PowerBook listen to Requiem for a PowerBook

Now I've got to get back to working on recovered image files, thanks Photo Rescue.

Taking a break

So my co-worker's kid Ruby showed up with a broken arm. A slightly more serious injury than my broken toe. Okay, okay, my toe is nothing compared to her arm. But I didn't have a stuffed animal or get to stay home from school.

Dawn the non-shussing librarian

Dawn gets an extreme close-up at the Bond Memorial Public Library. Did I get that library name right?

I once joked with Dawn that I'd get one of those little librarian statues that shows a librarian shussing the patrons. She said none of that at her library, she may be noisiest one there too.


Dawn's photo of me taking a photo of her with my cameraphone.

Passing the Bar

It's no wonder that Steve Jobs showed a little clip from Tiki Bar TV Video Podcast during a presentation last week. It's a hilarious show and you'll be ready to fill your next grocery cart with booze for some Tiki Bar mixology. They've only got eight episodes but they're number one of the iTunes Podcast chart. Now I know what to do with all that dark rum I have. I've got to go, a drink is calling.

You are an Ironman!

Our ad manager Tracey was part of the water patrol safety crew members during the Ironman swim. A beautiful day on the water. On the way out there on the Kalia, the Atlantis Submarine shuttle boat, a friend was turning green and quite seasick, she said she was ready to puke. Then I remembered that I had the Relief Band in my camera bag. I had her put it on, switch on the juice and immediately the nausea went away. She stood up, was walking around, even came up on the roof of the boat without problems. As she said, "this thing is awesome!" She was all smiles and happy. She didn't want to take anti-seasickness pills she had to work that day and didn't want to be knocked out. Another good test of the Relief Band, you can get it at Aeromedix .


Triathletes head out of the transition area onto the marathon leg of the Ironman race, click on the above image to see the video. Via my Treo 650 cellphone.


The calm before the crows at the finish line of the Ironman Triathlon. Crowds weren't as big this year for the 1st place finishers but swelled later to cheer in the non-elite triathletes. Guess people waited to just go down to the finish for their family members and friends. Plus it's later at night when they throw all kinds of freebies out into the crowd.


Delly Carr and myself at the finish. Delly is one of the HIP (Hawaiian Ironman Photographers) who makes the trip from Australia for the race.

ER Photoshop

Working on editing my sailing photos while waiting behind curtain #2 in the ER. Seems x-ray dept is backed-up a bit.

*UPDATE* Okay, the doc got the x-rays back, I've got a hairline fracture on my toe, got it buddy-taped to the 2nd toe (or is it toe #4?) and got sent off with some pain meds to be taken at night. When I walk it feels like someone is hitting my toe with a ballpeen hammer, kind of like my own built-in Whack A Mole game with my toe being the mole.

Broken Toe?

My black & blue little toe which got pile-driven into the deck of a sailboat with my full weight when it pitched. I was on assignment, this happened at the start of the assignment. A little squeeze of my toe was pretty excruciating so I'm not sure if it's just badly bruised or broken. Still spent the next five hours shooting photos on the sailboat.

Since this kind of stuff always happens on the weekend when the Kaiser Clinic is closed I had to go to the Kona ER to check it out. We'll see what is up with it as I need to be sure I'm not going to mess it up more, especially with the Ironman Triathon I have to cover next weekend.

Got some dead blood in there.


Here's my view from the boat I was on, broken toe and all as the boats jockey around for the starting horn. Nice day to sail.

Pothole Problem

Sure there are lots of potholes around the island but these two potholes between Puu Lani Ranch and Pu`uanahulu Baptist Church in the south-bound lane have got to be two of the worst on the island. Like a pair of evil twins next to each other. Sure there are deeper, bigger ones like the potholes at the Old Kona Airport that could double as a practice area for NASA lunar landings. Or some roads in Waimea where it looks like some exploded minefield, but this one is dangerous.


These two potholes have been filled (I presume by road crews) but have sunk again. It's not so much that they are deep but they are just in the right place of the turn where you feel like your steering has lost control for a split-seconds while driving over them. I drive slower than normal in this area since I know it's there but for the unsuspecting I bet it's unsettling.

Any other whoppers of potholes out there on the Big Island?

NaNoWriMo.org - National Novel Writing Month

Next month is National Novel Writing Month. The website to go to is: http://www.nanowrimo.org

But if you are an Earthlink user their DNS Servers don't have the correct IP Address propagated to them so if you're an Earthlink user you probably can't get to the correct website. This problem with Earthlink will tend to direct you to a GoDaddy.com placeholder page for domains. Here is the work-around as posted in the NaNoWriMo.org forum.

I have informed Earthlink via their support chat system so they're working on the problem and it should be resolved soon. I'm just posting the info here so it can Googled to spread the work-around solution. (Keywords: Earthlink GoDaddy problem error dns solution answer nanowrimo.org)

------------snipped from the forum------------------

Earthlink users are having trouble accessing NaNoWriMo.

This is because Earthlink's DNS servers are not giving the correct IP address for www.nanowrimo.org (actually, about 1 in 10 lookups are correct, so you will occasionally get lucky...)

I've contacted all the Earthlink emails I could find for reporting this kind of thing, but I haven't gotten any response from them.

Here is what I'm asking everyone with this problem to do:

1. Call Earthlink Customer Service and let them know what's wrong. They're obviously not listening to me. Maybe they'll listen to a couple thousand of you.

2. Set up alternate DNS servers so that you can access the NaNoWriMo site. This is pretty easy to do, but if you're not comfortable with these instructions, ask a geeky friend!

Please let me know if this doesn't work, or if you have any suggestions for improving these instructions.

Thanks!

####

Good advice on setting up DNS servers on Windows can be found here:

http://www.mediacollege.com/computer/network/dns.html

Here are some public nameservers that can be used instead of Earthlink's:

Level3 Nameservers
4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2 (fast)
4.2.2.3
4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5
4.2.2.6 (fast)

SpeakEasy Nameservers
66.93.87.2
216.231.41.2
216.254.95.2
64.81.45.2
64.81.111.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
66.92.64.2
66.92.224.2
66.92.159.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.45.2
216.27.175.2
66.92.159.2
66.93.87.2

_________________
-Russ
-NaNoWriMo

About time for updates

Okay, I'll have to explain why no updates. First off I did update a September 6th post today so scroll down if you want to see that very late posting.

I've been sick since September 4th. After work I felt like I had a horrible sunburn on my back on the left side which is believable since I was in the scorching sun all that Sunday shooting photos, schlepping around about twice as much gear as usual due to some equipment malfunctions (I'm having a like/hate relationship with the Canon 20D). Then over the next week my back and knee on my left side were killing me along with the sunburnt feel. Getting only a couple of hours of sleep a night ain't no fun when you feel like you're being stabbed by a thousand knives.

On Sept. 10th after a long day of work, late at night driving home from a football game it dawned on me...I probably had shingles. I had a small rash on my back that I assumed was from the balm I put on my back to ease my pain. And let me tell you that using aspirin, Tylenol or other OTC painkillers are like using tissue paper to protect against a shark's bite with the pain. So of course I realize this on a Saturday night and I spend another two torturous nights before I see the Doc on Monday.

Sept. 12th and I finally see a Doc who confirms what I have and the rash is spreading from my back to my stomach, a somewhat confined area to my left side. At least I get some 'real' pain meds and anti-viral meds. Also I find, after asking, about how contagious I am. Because it's limited in area, and I usually wear a shirt, spreading it is a very, very low proposition. Not unless someone wants to pop a blister and snort the contents which would be about the only way (a nasty thought). They aren't even normal blisters, more like mosquito like bumps, they ain't juicy.

So here I am four weeks after first getting it. I'm much better, the pain went from 1,000 knives stabbing me in the first week or so, to feeling like a unpracticed guru sleeping on a bed of nails, to pain now reduced to only feeling like I've been punched in the stomach or kicked in the nuts once in awhile along with some backache and the sunburn feel and some skin numbness. So pain medication is still needed, but not often at all.

Oh yeah, I've also gone for acupuncture treatments at the Traditional Chinese Medical College in Waimea. Got a great gal Beth doing Japanese acupuncture on me. The Chinese style leaves the needles in you while Japanese style has them stick you (or me), they manipulate the needle and pull it out, then do it again in another spot. Also getting moxa which involves putting a tiny pinch of herb (not the smoking kind) on the skin and lighting it afire. They also bled me of a few drops of blood on my toes *ouch!* and the usual tounge examination and pulse reading.


A chart in the treatment room. I had a person shoot a photo of me with the needles in but the photo came out blurred...amateurs. I'll have to shoot some photos myself during my next treatment.

If you really want to see what shingles look like click on this link.

Did you think it was gonna be easy to look at?