retrofocus ramblings.

A good, good friend of mine emailed me a whole long humor riff on the iPad name, although he claimed to have never seen the MadTV skit which basically goes in the same direction.

Okay, okay – I get it. The word ‘pad’ can only reference feminine products.

So Apple went with iPad anyway. Before the iPod, what did we all make of the work pod? Not sure where I’m really going with this.
However, I’m not ready to dismiss the iPad from Apple at first blush. In fact when I watched the streaming Quicktime version of the keynote my mind was racing with applications for the iPad. Reading books I still prefer to do the old fashioned way. As a photographer and a pilot a screen this size and weight has 1001 possibilities.

Anyway, just read this man’s take on the whole affair. He says some of what I was thinking and goes well beyond it. Much better than I could.

Frank Spiers on the iPad

I’ve grown up and spent the majority of my life in Massachusetts. My state has a pretty strong bond with the sea. The nautical history of the nation was in large measure written by sailors from the Commonwealth. There are even some very popular beaches and magical spots along the seashore in my home state. The ocean is a constant presence, but one that I don’t give much mind to.
I am not, as you say a seaman. I SCUBA dive, and I admire the water in it’s change of hue and interaction with the sun. All that, I really wouldn’t call myself a student if the sea. It’s just there.
Lucky I have been to have had the chance beginning when I was 5 to visit the Southern sandbar known as Florida. I’ve explored this state and know many of it’s nooks, crannies and oddities. I feel a comfort level in Florida – it is very familiar to me.
Walking along the wide stretch of sand known as Cocoa Beach I was struck by the sea. As I walked I was greeted by a number of different emotions, but most if all I felt the sea and admired it’s lure as the Sunday multitudes flocked to the sea’s very edge.
There is a tug I feel in the very fibers of me for the sea. Some is likely nostalga, yes, watching all the kids and their buckets of sandy mud it’s easy to get pulled back in time. Idle summer days spent at the waters edge. Going to the beach is always something. Today, though, I acknowledged a deeper tug that I share with all those at the beach. There is a clensing power to the crashing of the waves on the beach. A magical tempo of the tidal shifts that seems to be a hearbeat for the very earth itself. You can stand in the path of a crashing wave and ever so slightly alter it’s flow, but again and again the tide just keeps coming.
A goodly number of us humans are just drawn to the water’s edge. For all the many diverse reasons to go, there is something deep that resonates in me when I’m there.
There is a presence to the sea. It can be felt.

…and the temperature of Florida’s Atlantic surf was none to hard to take today. Amazing feeling.

On the second leg I also kept a few notes.

– KCPC
122.8 KCPC Unicom / CTAF
119.2 Myrtle Beach Approach ( clearence pickup )
127.4 Myrtle Beach
135.8 Charleston Approach
118.45 Beaufort Approach
125.3 Savanah Approach
120.4 Savanah
126.75 Jacksonville Approach
118.0 Jacksonville
118.85 Daytona Approach
127.07 Daytona
132.65 Orlando Approach
122.97 Merritt Island CTAF Unicom
– KCOI

The following are from the flight notes I made on the first leg of my IFR flight from Norwood MA to Merritt Island FL on Friday morning April 17, 2009. I may have missed a few frequency changes at the start. Wheels up at 07:14.

NOT TO BE USED FOR NAVIGATION

121.8 KOWD ground
126.0 KOWD tower
119.0 Boston Departure ( climb out to 8,000′ )
135.4 Boston
119.45 Providence Approach
118.0 New York Approach ( alt change 8,000′ to 6,000′ )
135.9 New York
124.55 New York
124.15 New Jersey – Maguire Approach
124.6 Atlantic City Approach
132.42 Dover DE Approach
127.95 Pax River Approach
126.05 Norfolk Approach
125.2 Norfolk
119.45 Norfolk
123.85 Washington Center
123.7 Seymore Approach
135.75 Wilmington Approach ( alt change 6,000′ to 4,000′ )
119.2 Myrtle Beach Approach
122.8 KCPC Unicom Frequency

Opportunity has presented me with a gift and I’ve grabbed with gusto to this one. It really feels right.
In the process right now, battered and bruised fingers to prove it, of renovating a former dog grooming shop and warehouse into my office and studio.
It’s a big project. The space was pretty trashed when I first saw it 3 weeks ago. I’ve bitten off a full mouthful to be sure, but I really feel this is a good move.

But it’s tough on the fingers!

For some reason I tend to think to post more to this nascent ‘blog when I’m on the road. As if regular life as lived is less ‘blog-worthy. That might be true.
In the last few days I’ve had a raging fistfight with various technological annoyances. First it was with Skype’s business control panel function.
I like Skype. If I actually telephone somebody 9 out of 10 times I’m seated in front of the computer and therefore use Skype. This is great for calling banks and credit card companies or any other large corporation that has linked your phone number to your account. Messes with them big time. It’s especially good for those off the wall calls you get when you run your own business from those snake-oil salespeople that want to discuss your “merchant account” – mind you I know I don’t have a merchant account with these people, but it’s always good to double check in case some moron would be dumb enough to attempt an identity theft or something. Regardless, calling these types of places via Skype always seems to give me a leg up on the conversation. They really don’t know who you are and have, on occasion, sworn up and down that they didn’t call me in the first place. It can be fun. Turning the tables usually is.
However, that doesn’t explain my issue with the service. What I was trying to do is take my existing Skype name (which is the same as my Twitter name) and fold it under a Business Control Panel thingy along with two other Skype names I have launched for my two separate photography avenues. This worked fine until I tried to buy and distribute Skype “credits” from the administrative account, which was not my original account. It would seem if you tie a Skype name to a PayPal account that’s it, the two are linked forever. So I couldn’t use my PayPal account to add credits until I figured out a trick. You CAN have more than one administrator in the Business Control Panel. Eureka! That meant I could make my old account and administrator, buy credits with PayPal and distribute the credits among my 3 accounts in the Control Panel. Okay, now written, it doesn’t sound like such a big deal, but while I was fighting with the Skype and PayPal conundrum it was annoying to no end.
That solved I began fiddling with my domain name collection on GoDaddy and my hosting on FatCow. Back in 1995-1996 all this was so much easier. Would seem now that no matter what I try to do – and I’m trying to forward various domain names to folders on my main domain – good old GoDaddy has the domains as parked. Just some of them, others are working fine. So just some are not forwarding and one doesn’t even seem to be an active domain now if I am to believe OpenDNS. Arrrgh.
That’s what I get for messing with how it was before I guess. And I have followed GoDaddy’s instructions. To forward a domain it has to be on the “parked” nameservers. I did that. Maybe I just have to wait a bit more for the DNS lookups to reset, but – it’s still wicked annoying.

Oh yeah, did I mention that I’m trying to craft a total redesign of my main website? Yes I am. A project that has been ongoing now since June of 2007. Just don’t call me a procrastinator, no, that word is not big enough for me.

Off to do what my 12-year-old Dalmatian does so very well:

A few thoughts…
People still read – books. Yup, on pretty much every transportation mode I was on in the last 4 hours somebody had a book in their hand. On one occasion the Hispanic Spanish-Speaking bow-tie wearing boy behind me on the escalator in Boston’s Terminal C seemed to be reading his book to the person on the other end of his cellular phone call. Interesting.

You can take the A train subway from Columbus Circle to JFK, but it’s not quick. Plus, as the train moves into Brooklyn it’s pretty cozy.

Here I am sitting at a terminal bar in JetBlue’s new home. ( Free Wi-Fi! ) The bartender seems ready to head home. Since I’m drinking juice I don’t blame her. She just spent the last 15 minutes dolling herself up for somebody – lipstick, eyeliner, and the whole gamut. Given the rock on her finger I’m guessing she’s heading home to Papi.

Since this is my last 20 minutes in greater New York City I have one last image to post here. I decided to really use my ‘real’ camera while out for a morning stroll around Midtown. In an effort to be somewhat creative I abandoned my Nikkors and shot only with my LensBaby. I have one of the older styles with the set screws and plastic lens. It’s fun to play with. Specially on the streets of Manhattan pushing, pulling and twisting the thing around. Photography with two hands, imagine that!

In honor of the new motion picture in the theaters “Hotel For Dogs” I now present my homage – Hotel For Cars:

Too early to sleep so I’m doing some web surfing.
Over a Daring Fireball I found this link here and it’s a good one. Probably writing this post to remind myself as much as anything. Still, it’s a good post to remember.