Korean Art

San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum has the best collection of Korean artwork outside of Korea. I particularly liked the late 조선-era stoneware.

Lions and tigers and …

… well, there were no bears, but plenty of other animals! The great Wild Animal Park was an eye-popping experience and a worthy test of the 200 mm with teleconverter. The only problem was that it was over 100℉ out. Sweaty.

Kaboom

Labor Day weekend at the Detroit Jazz Festival was a blast, literally! After watching Marcus Belgrave and the Detroit Experience play an awe inspiring set, we plunked down by the river to be rained on by fireworks ash.

Mine’s bigger than yours

Over the past year, I’ve watched my previous desk lamp sag lower and lower as the stress from the weight of the extension caused the plastic (plastic!) base fixture to bend and crack apart. No more! I built my own desk lamp from aluminum tubing and steel rods. And, hey, why not make it, oh, four feet long to reach all the way across my desk. No problem, since it’s fully counter-balanced so that there’s only downward force on the clamp. Add to that a standard E26 bulb socket with an efficient compact fluorescent bulb, and I’m no longer cooking my face and hands while reading at night.

Antique cars

Took these photos at the 2007 Concours d’Elegance in Rochester, MI. It almost rained the entire day, but luckily it stopped in the afternoon, and made it nice and cool.

Getty center

Heard all about this place way back in Freshman Year, and now I’ve finally visited it!

Close up

Got a close up lens to attach to my 200 mm, and had some fun around the home.

Mini 折リ紙

These are some of my favorite origami folds, from the various books I have. Here I have folded them out of small pieces of paper so they would fit on my bookshelf. A bit too Laura Wingfield-ish? For anyone who wants to get into some serious origami, I would highly, highly recommend the book Origami for the Connoisseur, edited by Kunihiko Kasahara and Toshie Takahama. It was out of print for a long time before the second edition came out!

I ♥ Rubik’s cubes

I received my first cube when I was in grade school. Then, thanks to the wonder of the Internet (go Meffert’s!) I found larger 4³ and 5³ ones!