I had noticed that the lens was not performing well, at least not as well as I thought it should based on the reviews so I sent the lens back to Tamron for a warranty adjustment. I wasn’t sure if the drop had affected it or if I had a bad copy. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to send it in.

After mailing it to Tamron I called them up to verify they had received it and they indicated they had it and that repairs were running 3 weeks on average. I expected I would either get the lens back adjusted or get a call saying the lens was destroyed and not covered by warranty.

3 1/2 weeks later the UPS guy rings the bell and there’s a package from Tamron. It’s my lens and some paperwork that seemed to indicate that they had calibrated the lens.

After playing with it a bit this thing is even more amazing than I remember. This is a shot I took through the kitchen window. f/6.7 - 200 ISO - 1/1000
The top half is the un-modified full size image and the bottom half is a 100% crop

This is one bad ass lens. I get better results cropping the 75mm at 100% than I do with my 70- 300mm kit zoomed in to the full 300mm

This inspired me to buy the Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II LD which is also highly rated and should arrive in the mail this week! I am giddy in my anticipation.

There’s also a 1985 vintage Minolta 70-210 f/4 “Beercan” lens on it’s way that I am anxious to try out after reading all the reports of what an amazing lens this is, especially given the price which is relatively cheap for something that is apparently quite special in terms of optics.

My band, The Flying Fish Sailors, has been nominated in the category “Best Traditional Folk Band” so please take time to go vote for us. You can find the ballot online at houstonpress.com/polls/musicawards08

We’ll be playing at the Awards showcase on July 27th from 4:00-4:45 pm at Dean’s Credit Clothing located at 316 Main St. in downtown Houston if you want to come see us play live.

A lot has changed in the last 13 years and Technology Bytes has been there for the ride.

Come help us celebrate this milestone in style as we get down, get funky at Dean’s Credit Clothing on Saturday July 19th from 7:30 till ?

Dean’s is a very cool space located at 316 Main St. in Houston, TX and features a full bar and a great atmosphere. DJ Amanda Robinson will be laying down the tracks as our DJ for the evening. We’re inviting all fans and friends of Technology Bytes (past, present and future) to join us so consider coming out to help us celebrate.

Please spread the word!

Not bad, but whirly-twirly shots like this don’t stay interesting for long so I shot a few more handheld with less exposure time and got some interesting shots

There’s a few more in the Zion’s Flame gallery.

I know it sounds like that “Bill Gates Is Sharing His Fortune!” e-mail hoax many years ago that said that AOL and Microsoft were going to pay you money to forward this message, but it’s not like that at all.

I was casually shopping around on EBay to see what lenses were out for my camera. I was particularly interested in something along the lines of the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 or the Sigma 18-50 f2/.8 for a little versatility on the wide side in low light situations. As I was reading up on one auction the seller mentioned that the current promotion from Microsoft Live would enable the winner of his auction to save 25% if they were to use the Buy It Now option and pay through Paypal as part of the Microsoft Live Search Cashback Program.

This sounded interesting. I was pretty sure that I would, at some point, purchase the lens once I could justify the cost and the idea of saving 25% pushed the acquisition further into the realm of feasibility for a more immediate purchase.

I did my research and the cash back program is real, as are the discounts.

Basically, once I determined which lens I wanted (I decided upon the Tamron SP AF17-50mm F/2.8 Di II LD) and looked around on EBay to see if I could find one at a competitive price being sold by an EBay member that could be trusted.

The lens retails anywhere from $428 to $475 on average. After hunting a bit I found one for $440 which was in the right price range BEFORE the discount and about what a reasonable person would expect to pay for this hardware.

Once I located the lens I wanted I put it on my watch list in EBay and then browsed over to live.com to execute my search. I used the word Tamron and looked for the cashback option in the results. This is what that looks like:

Note that this one says 10%. When I did it the search result came back with a 25% link to EBay and when this promotion started the discounts were as high as 35%.

I clicked the link and once I was on the EBay site via that link I was basically locked in to the cashback option so I went to my watch list and clicked on the lens I had found earlier and bought it with the Buy It Now option and checked out via Paypal earning myself a $110 discount. On top of that, the auction I won included FREE shipping and a FREE UV filter so that saved me some additional moolah.

The catch is that you pay the seller the full amount and then you get a message in your EBay mailbox telling you that you’ve earned cash back. You click the link and sign up with Microsoft to receive your cash rewards. There’s a delay of about a week before the funds come available to make sure you don’t get the money and then return the item.

The limit is three item purchases per account and a maximum discount of $250 per item. That means if you had $3000 to spend on stuff you already planned on buying, Microsoft would pay you $750 to do it via their search engine. Not a bad deal. They paid me $110 to purchase a lens I was already planning to buy.

Sadly, the largest discount I have seen since I made this purchase is a paltry 10%, but you never know what tomorrow (or later this evening) might bring.

Today is the 100th anniversary of the explosion that flattened some 500,000 acres of Siberian forest near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River on June 30, 1908

Commonly referred to as the “Tunguska Event” it is widely accepted that the explosion was the result of an air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment at an altitude of 3–6 miles above Earth’s surface.

I remain unconvinced.

Trish and Darin Murphy’s current musical project “Skyrocket” performed at the Houston Continental Club on Friday night to a packed house. The group is made up of a fantastic batch of Texas musicians and the performance is nothing less than spectacular.

Of course you must like 70’s and 80’s cover tunes because that’s what they play, and they play it remarkably well. Trish Murphy sang Heart’s “Crazy On You” in the first set and it was spot on. Other songs for the evening included “Rock and Roll All Night” by Kiss and “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds just to give you an idea of the repertoire.

Their song list is available online here.

It’s an amazing show and I highly recommend checking them out if you have the chance.

Pics from the evening are here in the Skyrocket gallery.

Cynthia is well underway on her latest quilt. I am not allowed to publish pics yet, but I captured this one from the hall which has been screened and approved for release.

This is one of her coolest quilts yet. I can’t wait till it’s done so I can photograph it properly.

From day to day I am Mr. Routine. For years I used to go to Tim’s coffee shop each morning and drink a pot of coffee over a few hours of reading before going to work. This changed to Charlie’s when Tim’s closed and over the years this changed to grabbing a cup of coffee at the Stop and Go on the drive into work and more recently it has graduated to stopping at the local Starbucks on the way into the office.

For the most part I walk in, pay my $2.11, get my coffee, go to the counter and doctor it up the way I like it (1 Splenda, a dash of half and half and a sprinkle of cinnamon) and move on.

Here lately Starbucks has changed their brewing policy so that they they never serve coffee that has sat out more than 30 minutes after being brewed. This has lead to a few occasions where I am informed by the “Barista” that I’ll have to wait a few minutes for my coffee while they brew a fresh pot.

This bugs me because Mr. Routine doesn’t like to idle waiting to satisfy the coffee component of his daily grind. But I’ve been letting is slide. Mostly because my regular Starbucks near my house will usually comp my coffee for having to wait or offer me an Americano as a substitute. They are always polite and apologetic and the coffee is always “almost ready.”

Yea, I was all about changing from Mr. Routine to Mr. Flexible. Goin’ with the flow and taking it as it comes in the name of fresher than fresh java…until last night.

The one slight variation in my coffee routine is on Wednesday nights when I stop at the Starbucks on the corner of Montrose and Hawthorn before heading over to the radio station to get ready for Technology Bytes.

I gotta say, this is not the shining star of the Starbucks fleet. The store itself is shabby and rather unclean. There’s a slight odor when you walk in and the area where the cream and sugar is kept is usually in disarray with a garbage can filled to overflowing. On top of that they’re usually out of cinnamon and you have to dig into the grimy back of the little doohickies that hold the sugar, Sweet n Low and Splenda to extract a wrinkled and possibly (often) water stained packet of sweetener.

But I put up with it because it because it’s hard to screw up a cup of coffee and I like having a full cup to drink at the station while I prepare for the show.

Last night I walked in and was happy to see there was no line and I ordered my coffee. I was told it would be a few minutes while they brewed a fresh pot.

*grumble*

I took the opportunity to use the men’s room figuring that would kill part of the wait time. On a side note, the bathroom was surprisingly clean and that put me in better spirits about the wait.

Upon exiting the men’s room I do what I always do when I am waiting for the coffee to brew, I look at the timer to see how much time is left.

This time when I do I am somewhat startled to realize there is no coffee brewing. They are just now filling the filter to start a pot so they’re not only far from done, they’re rather far from starting as well.

For crying out loud, when the name of your company is predicated on the product you sell you darn well better be able to sell it when a customer orders it.

It’s a coffee shop. Is it unreasonable to expect the employees of said coffee shop who’s job it is to make coffee to be sold have coffee ready for sale to those ready to purchase coffee? You would’t think so.

It’s not like going into Bob’s Zebra and Giraffe Emporium and discovering they’re fresh out of Zebras. If that’s the case just give me your best estimate as to when the Zebra delivery man will be coming by and I will come back for my Zebra when the stock is replenished and oh, give me a giraffee to take home for the lil lady would ya? Thanks very much and have a lovely day.

It’s coffee. Hot water, coffee beans and a pot. It’s what you do and you should be REALLY good at it by now.

Here’s hoping the Dietrich’s down the road stays open for the foreseeable future because I am done with that particular Starbucks location.

A timeline of Internet Memes starting with the Trojan Room Coffee Pot and going all the way up to Rickrolling.

Relive the glory days of All Your Base, The Hamster Dance and even The Dancing Baby as you stroll down Meme-ory lane

The Tom Waits show was literally fantastic. Not only the performance, but the cast of characters in attendance. I got to see many current friends as well as people I don’t tend to run into except every so often when an event like this rolls around.

I struggled with the idea of not bringing a camera and I knew that cameras were technically verboten but I really wanted to get some shots of this once in a lifetime show.

It’s been many many years since I smuggled a camera into a concert. The last time was at a Frank Zappa concert in 1984. I pondered tucking a camera as I could not imagine the staff of Jones Hall patting people down or scanning anyone with metal detecting wands. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do that so I opted to bring my Alpha 100 with the good old 50mm lens for a low profile shoulder bag “hope they don’t make me go back to the car” casual walk through the front door and what do you know? It worked. In hindsight I should have brought the new camera and bigger lens. Ah well, live and learn.

Once the show was underway point and shoot cameras as well as pocket video lit up the audience and the staff at Jone Hall did nothing to stop any of it so I snagged a few shots of my own.

The set list from the show:

Lucinda
Down in the Hole
Falling Down
November
Dead and Lovely
Lie to Me
Day After Tomorrow
Hoist that Rag
Get Behind the Mule
Cemetary Polka
Trampled Rose
Jesus Gonna Be Here
Lucky Day
Tom Traubert’s Blues
House Where Nobody Lives
Innocent when you dream
Make it Rain
Murder in the Red Barn
Come on up to the House
Dirt in the Ground
Eyeball Kid

Goin’ Out West
All the World is Green

For a recap of the show itself you can check out the story at The Houston Chronicle

The above two photos are my favorites of the evening. The rest are here in my gallery.

Another poignant reminder of my own mortality as an icon of my youth shuffles off this mortal coil.

Comedian George Carlin dies at 71

The evening was a trip down musical memory lane as I found myself in an interesting conversation about the early Houston alternative music scene with Alian Hernandez (The Suspects), Jeff Walton (The Judy’s) and of course Mr. Lagoon himself, Tomas Escalante (The Suspects, Clouseaux).

I got to relate to Jeff the story of the time I was living on W. Pierce in the Montrose when I found myself being awakened by knock on the door of my duplex. I opened the door to find David Bean on my porch. Apparently he wanted to know if I owned the two doberman pincers he’d seen at my place. He was looking for dogs to use in his music video called “Dogs.” I explained that the dogs belonged to my neighbor.

In my conversation with Jeff Walton he did confide that there’s been an ongoing discussion with LiveNation about putting together a show at Warehouse Live or The Meridian so there’s hope we’ll all have the chance to see The Judy’s on stage one more time.

Click image to view larger size. Or even better, see a larger version on a black background.

This is my second pass at this image. I was able to clean up the chromatic aberration that was distracting in the original image as well as the HDR version. I have also (I believe) brought out more of the "menace" in the clouds. I was also FAR less aggressive in correcting the angle than I was in the first version allowing the building to have the appearance of bowing or bending in the wind that comes from shooting at a slightly up-angle with a an ultra wide angle lens like the 11-18mm

For those who have expressed and interest, the high res version is available for download here.

Especially entertaining was Tomas Escalante (Suspects/Clouseaux/El Orbits) and his son singing backup on “Sweets for My Sweet”, a song written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman and originally recorded by The Drifters in 1961.

In optics, chromatic aberration is caused by a lens having a different refractive index for different wavelengths of light (the dispersion of the lens).

In real ife what it means is that in some lighting situations my ultra-wide angle lens shows some abnormalities in the form of colored fringing on objects to the far left and the far right of my images as evidenced in my recent photo of the lightning strike over 610 in Uptown.

This is taken from the left side of the original image:

As you can see, the building has a red border along the right edge that is also noticeable along the top of the tree line. If you look at the HDR image I rendered from the original RAW file you will see that the cromatic aberration is much more pronounced.

This is pushing me to learn more about post processing software tools. I have been experimenting the Adobe Camera Raw plugin for Photoshop and the initial results are promising:

View on a black background

Rambins

Ivories

Osmonds

Cyclons

Altoids

Brunchers

Mayflowers

Elmers

Frecklers

The Casians

*EDIT* Aparently the choice is now down to “‘Nillas” or “Altoids”
You can cast your vote here.

I’ve also been reading Stuff White People Like, not only for the obvious humor, but the insightful self examination as well.

Nobody can say with any certainty what makes a picture “interesting” or how the algorithm works, exactly, but for sure Explore is a GREAT way to check out some of the better pictures uploaded to Flickr on any given day.

Even better is finding that some of your own pictures have made it to the Explore page.

1. Fake Miniature Car Show, 2. The Astrodome, 3. Minding The Store, 4. Vanishing Point

If you use Flickr to host your own images and would like to see if any of your pictures are now or ever have been on the Explore page you can use this tool at Big Huge Labs to find out.

Unusual and intriguing in a nerd/geek sort of way. I must confess a sort of “my precious” desire for such an object.

You can see similar objects at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The one time Dooley tends to get territorial is when it’s time to clean his cage. He just can’t seem to stand it when I put down fresh newspaper or wipe the cage skirt. He doesn’t mind coming close for tickles, treatums or scritchums but hates when he feels his precious filth is being violated.

And what does he do to display his displeasure? He makes what I call the “sonic peep”. It’s not whistle, not a hoot or any sound effect. It’s a high pitched, super short “peep” sound. Imagine the quick toot of a coaches whistle…in your ear.

Dooley has mastered the “sonic peep” and knows how to execute it for maximum pain. He moves to a spot in the cage that puts him as close as he can get and peeps directly into your ear when you are quiet and distracted. And boy does it hurt! And I am fairly sure Dooley knows it.

Early on I discovered that Dooley had three criteria for executing the sonic peep:

1. The distance between him and my ear had to the shortest it could be
2. It had to be quiet
3. No eye contact. It is always a surprise attack.

This has lead to the creation of the “Don’t peep in my ear” song which I sing while performing routine maintenance and cleaning on Dooley’s cage. I also eliminate the element of surprise by looking at him frequently.

Best if viewed large

Toy Boats

Best if viewed large

Cars

Best if viewed large