No Let's Yeah | irrelevantly irreverent

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The balloon was launched at 5:37pm (PST) from Oxnard, CA and reached an altitude of 125,000 feet snapping photos and recording video along the way.

The balloon burst, the parachute deployed, and the payload floated down for 35 minutes, landing near an old olive orchard Northeast of Santa Paula.

It is obscene to think of how many pictures I take of Leo, my eight-weeker. And I am saying this as a very judicious picture taker and editor. I post many photos on the Internet, but if they don’t fit a certain set of rules, they don’t make the cut. Here are some examples:

• Formal “say cheese”-type poses
• Blurriness (if used unartistically)
• Funny faces (if exhibited unintentionally)
• Take multiple pictures of a scene, use the best version

There are more, but I won’t bore you with those right now. What matters is that my tried and true ‘photo laws’ are being tested by parenthood. Even the blurriest picture sometimes makes the cut if there’s a smiling baby in the frame. Breaking another rule, I will take essentially the same picture 10 times but post all of them because Leo has a slightly different facial expression or pose in each one.

I am a conflicted man.

Maybe my cold, (amateur) photographer’s heart has softened with the arrival of my son. Editing down a batch of photos for the day used to be easy. I just applied the rules and posted the best stuff. Now I’m having a crisis when choosing between a shot of a smirking baby or a smiling baby.

Thank God for grandmas. I know I can count on them to look at every photo.

I went to see the Maldives (who were great) at the Tractor Tavern as part of their epic three-day CD release festival, featuring some of their favorite bands in town. One of those bands was SHIM, a serious 70s hard rock band that pulled no punches. For a rock and roll experience your ears won’t forget, you should see them. I snapped a few photos that nicely captured their light show on stage.

My photos from Doe Bay Fest are up on Flickr now. This is the second year of the festival, and the organizers did a great job of making this year’s festival bigger and better. Here are some of my favorite photos:

Back in September, Ellen and I went to Thailand.

Back in November, I posted pictures and words right here on this blog about our adventures in that corner of the globe.

Right now, I’m working on a book of those pictures and words using Blurb, a site that helps you become a bookmaker.

I learned about Blurb through Flickr, the photo-sharing site that I’m somewhat addicted to. I love posting photos on Flickr and sharing those photos with friends, but part of me still wants something physical that I can hold in my hands.

A survey of the box of photos I keep in storage will reveal that all those photos stop in 2005. Why? That’s when I started using Flickr. That’s why I’m making this book.

You download their software, and use templates to assemble your masterpiece. I was hesitant to use their software, given my experience with a wide range of publishing tools — MS Publisher (awful), QuarkXPress (good). My main concern is that the software would be too limiting. I decided to give it a test run.

It worked great. Their software is flexible, offers many layout options, and allows you to pull photos from third-party sites (like Flickr). I actually just finished laying out the photos for the book. All that’s left is the words.

When you are finished, you send them the files and they print it and mail it you.

The big question: will I get it before Christmas?