Monthly Archives: August 2003

Leaving today..

We’re heading back to Chicago today. Mark – you’ll be glad to hear that I have a few snaps of the Apple Store. I didn’t take photos inside this time but it looks the same as the one in Chicago (I wasn’t about to repeat the same ‘Sir, you’re not allowed take photographs in the store’ mistake I made in Chicago!)
My cousin has a beautiful Sony Vaio desktop machine. Built-in memory stick, dvd-rw, big 100GB HD alongside the smaller 14GB one, and a very nice LCD monitor. It runs so quietly the overhead fan makes more noise! *sigh*
While burning 3 copies of my photos (667MB – 469 pics) I took a look around the ‘net.

  1. PHP Neural Networks on phppatterns.com has some interesting links. We have lots of stock market data at work. I wonder if I can apply some code to it?
  2. phpcomplete looks really good. I probably linked there before but you know how it is, if it’s not in the blo.gs favourites it’s forgotten!
  3. John Coggeshall is doing interesting work at a low level with the Zend engine, including a PHP to ASM converter!

I may post from Chicago, but it’s not likely. Otherwise, see you all on Monday or Tuesday!

Back Travelling..

Tomorrow Martina and I leave for Boston, then on to New York a few days later. We’ll be back to Chicago for 1 day before heading home to Ireland on the 29th.
I can’t believe 3 months have gone by. It seems like only last week that I landed here first.
Now, that time has come again. I’m closing my browser, shutting down gaim, xchat, kmail for the last time. My email has been rsynced home and I have a few CDs of photos to burn.
I had a great time last night – met up with Pat and Linda and their family. I just wish we had made contact sooner!

Meeting up

Well, I’m off shortly to meet up with some distant relations here in Chicago. AFAIK, several of my great-grand-uncles moved to the States in the 20’s. Some moved to Chicago. I’m looking forward to meeting Pat and Linda tonight!
I took lots of photos at the weekend – The Chicago Air and Water Show was on over the last two days. Whatever about trying to capture the flight of a baseball, trying to track a figer jet as it zoomed past 400 feet away at 650mph is practically impossible!
I’m almost 100% sure I saw cloud form on the tail of one jet as it flew at that speed. Isn’t that what happens just after they go super-sonic? The bi-planes, and Hurricanes were a lot easier to photograph, and if I have time tomorrow I’ll post some pictures here.

The Chicago Waterfront

That baseball game

After seeing some of the photos from last weekends games in the newspapers I’ve come to the conclusion it’s bloody difficult to get good shots at a game without a press-pass, and a big lense on a decent camera. That said, here’s my contribution to the sporting history of the Chicago White Sox:

Almost hit it!
almost hit it

When the ball is pitched, it travels of speeds between 80mph and 93mph! Even if they don’t have to run around as much as in other team sports, their reflexes have to be very sharp! They have stamina too. Sitting down, drinking beer, or munching on a sandwich for 2-3 hours is easy. Concentrating and running around is another matter!

Watching the game

White Sox fans will recognise these players. I haven’t a clue who they are, except for Lee, for obvious reasons! Lee went on later, and made a great catch on a high ball.

Did he make it?

See that ball in the air over his head? A low ball, delivered right into the hands of a White Sox player ensured this guy was out!

The End

September issue of Megapixel out

The latest issue of megapixel.net has some great articles. I’ve printed out the ‘Night Photography’ one for later study. I want to take some snaps of the Buckingham Fountain here in Chicago this weekend. At 9pm every night coloured lights shine through the water, and the fountain gushes up high in the air. With the backdrop of the Chicago skyline it’s a beautiful sight.

Close

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