gray (grey) card

Echo Tap

2006-05-16T18:45:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, Erika's sister Karie graduated from Medical College, and is now headed to Milwaukee for another four years of hospital shenanigans. The event was held in the Union Theatre of the UW Union, my first ever trip to the beautiful city of Madison. I captured this image of the program as we were waiting for all of the graduates to cross the stage... Karie was within the first 15, so there was a whole lotta letters after her.... E, G, H, J, K, L, N... you get the idea. I have to say it was the most interesting graduation ceremony I have ever attended, complete with a surprise pep rally at the end. I guess that is what you can buy when it is your last year as dean.

After the ceremony, Erika and I took a very brief walk through part of the UW campus (although if it had been left up to Erika, we wouldn't have done so at all). This man caught my eye - probably not just mine given that setup - and I later noticed his little dinosaur sidekick who is also playing the piccolo.

Our next destination was the Dry Bean, where a small reception was held. The evening's activities included a plastic cup stacking challenge, watching reruns of Scrubs, and attempting to eat fiery hot wings (or as least I thought they were). Later that night, my girlfriend kicked my butt at 501, and so sometime I have to give her a back rub. Hopefully she will forget. And of course, the night wouldn't be complete without letting everyone experience what I had for dinner.

Backyard BBQ

2006-05-07T19:55:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Jon and Celina hosted their 3rd annual backyard BBQ. It was a blast. Festivities included bocce ball (yours truly went 2-0); hackey-sack (a full hack is when everyone in the circle touches the bag), and tent-kickball. The food was incredible (thanks go to Jon and his friend Eric for grilling and to everyone else that brought a delicious dish). I tried to capture how great the food was with this pic (thanks Adam)! I got lots of sun, and afterward I was exhausted - the calling card of a great time. The BBQ is a reminder of when I first met Erika - I invited my fiancee to the 1st annual BBQ almost two years ago after a day-long volleyball tournament at Kenney gym. It was a shame that Erika couldn't attend this year - something about a hose and a circus clown - I thought it best not to pry into what she was doing. Or maybe she was working and the hose and circus clown were in a dream I had. Like I said, I got a lot of sun!

Today I played sand volleyball for the first time this season, and it was a blast. My toe started to act up toward the end, but I decided to ignore the pain. My teammate and I went 7-0, quite possibly the best record I have ever posted in sand volleyball - probably for the rest of my life! It helped that he is 2x as good as me, but I held my own. I of course didn't have the foresight to bring along a water bottle, so by the end I was dying of thirst. For the love of the game..

Delinquent

2006-05-03T21:58:00.000-05:00

As the title suggests, I have been terribly delinquent in updating my blog lately. So let me fill you in on details...

The largest piece of news that I have is that Erika proposed to me on April 1st 2005. OK, that's not true. I proposed to her in downtown Naperville along the riverwalk. I hired some photographers to hide behind trees and bushes to capture the moment. So what is with the toad pic? Don't worry, we'll get to that. Now that Erika and I are engaged, we have been spending a lot of time researching reception halls in Milwaukee, and at the same time looking at apartments in the northern Chicago suburbs... which brings me to my second life-changing event!

So that Erika and I can be closer together (duh), I will be moving to Chicago toward the end of the summer. I'll be transferring to the Motorola site in Libertyville. Erika took a job at a clinic in Lake Zurich, so we are trying to find someplace inbetween to reside. Neither of us know the area that well, so it is a challenge to scope the lay of the land (not to mention that I currently am still in Champaign!). Fortunately I have some friends at Motorola who are offering to help us find a suitable place to live. I'm excited to be starting a new chapter in my life (or several!) On the downside, it will be tough to leave Champaign, where I have made a lot of close friends that I will miss sorely. Hopefully my new job will give me opportunities to return often and visit!

Now we come to toad. I really wanted to post this pic a while ago, but I just haven't gotten around to it. A few weeks back, we had a large storm system roll through and I retreated to the basement in response to a tornado warning. I walked into my bedroom (my bedroom is downstairs, in case you aren't following), and lo and behold, a toad had fallen into the egress window and was begging to get in out the rain. I took the opportunity to photograph the toad up close in its futile attempts to get back to the surface. Of couse, I couldn't leave him there, so I intended to get him out the next morning after everything had dried up and the storm had passed. The toad had different plans. As I laid in bed that night, the toad (I nicknamed him Skippy) decided it would be fun to keep throwing himself against the window pane. As a result, I was forced to get out of bed, go outside, climb down into the window well, and throw him into the yard. I guess Skippy had SOME survival instinct - he annoyed the heck out of me and as a reward was freed!

Girlfriend caught cheating!

2006-03-28T07:42:00.000-06:00

You won't believe what happened this past Sunday. I treated my girlfriend to a trip to the Chicago Field Museum (wait - actually she treated me; I just paid for parking) and wouldn't you know it, she has the audacity to go kissing dinosaurs right in front of me! I mean, those dudes are so old, what does she see in then anyway? I can't imagine them being good kissers - their mouths seemed pretty dry to me. At least I am willing to bet there was no tongue action. OK, really this photo was staged, but I had you for a moment, didn't I?

My take on God

2006-03-22T21:59:00.000-06:00

This past weekend I had the opportunity to speak about God's influence in my life up until now and my involvment in the church. It was an exciting time for me to be sharing my past and how my life has changed since becoming a part of Quest. My hope is that someone else listening may get the encouragement to play a more active role in our church body.

On Saturday I was at work which of course is always a bummer. On my way home, I took a detour and shot some pictures since the sun was just starting to set and the air was clear. I found this bulldozer and decided to shoot it as a psuedo-silhouette. I also got a few pictures of some barns and other old buildings. I haven't gone out shooting in a while, so it felt great to be driving around with the windows down and stopping every once in a while to capture a scene. I've noted some other spots that I want to photograph, but I need to wait for the right time of day. I think it can wait until it is a bit warmer, too!

BLOOOOOOO-toooth!

2006-03-12T18:39:00.000-06:00

Some people say I love Bluetooth. I work on it at Motorola, and I even have my own unique way of saying it. But I say I love my girlfriend, because she got me a bluetooth mouse for my birthday! So far it has been a dream to use. It automatically reconnects when my computer wakes up, and it even has an on/off switch to save battery (take hint, Microsoft). The mouse is even silver and matches my Powerbook perfectly. I guess Erika DOES listen to me after all...

OK, now that I've given credit when credit is due, let's move on to other events. This past Friday, my roommate, Jon, Celina and I babysat for some kids in Mahomet. I have to admit, it was a blast pretending to be a kid again. I spent a majority of the night as 'Alfred the Robot'. A few of the kids wanted to robots as well, and go on robot adventures. However, one child was bent on calling me a 'Horrible Robot' pretty much the whole night. So us robots ganged up against her, and took her to the robot interrogation room. More silliness ensued, and I have lots of bruises and scratches to remember the night. Note to self: wear full-body armor when playing with kids.

It is finally warming up here, and I can't be too excited about it. My bedroom might now warm up (being that it is in the basement and is consistently 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the house). A warmer climate also makes getting up at 6 in the morning to help setup for church that much less of a grueling task. I even took the liberty to take my bike out of storage and tour around the neighborhood. This may have been an overeager reaction though, given that it stormed all weekend and there was still quite a bit of water on the roads. Let's just say I returned home with quite a bit of mud attached to both me and my bike.

Things are heating up at work as well, with lots of political turmoil and impending deadlines. This week alone I spent two late nights trying to keep up with the program's forward marching. The next few weeks should be very interesting in many respects. I'll be sure to keep you posted (to the degree that I can, ye corporate spies). As for the picture, it was taken last fall, but I thought you might want to see where I work!

Milwaukee: Been there, done that

2006-03-07T22:09:00.000-06:00

This past weekend my mother, Erika, and I ventured to Milwaukee to hang out with Erika's parents and her sister Karie. It marked the first crossing of parents and needless to say I think the weekend went well! On Saturday afternoon we visited the Milwaukee Art Museum (or MAM, as it is apparently called). It was designed to look like the bow of a ship, and I would say that it is mighty impressive to take in. I tried to capture some of its beauty here in this snapshot of the interior. There were also some colorful ducks milling about in Lake Michigan, but I had to choose only one picture! I'll try to post some of the other images when I have some spare time...

On Saturday evening we saw the play "Beau Jest" at a theatre restaurant. I thought it was a great play and the acting was excellent. On Sunday we celebrated my mom's birthday (any one venture to guess how old she is now? I'm not telling!). I toiled over the hot oven baking her a cake on Thursday night, and brought it all the way to Milwaukee from Champaign just for her. It is a recipe of my sister's, so thank-you Shannon for letting me use it! Now I am back to the daily grind, after taking Monday off to spend some extra time with my girlfriend, who is on a tough rotation right now - surgery. By chance maybe she will only have to work a 12 hour shift one of these days - nah, that's a pipe dream.

Bobsey Twins

2006-03-02T23:22:00.000-06:00

Tuesday night Jon and Celina came over to watch the Fighting Illini defeat Minnesota. When Matt came home later that evening, we found that they had apparently coordinated with each other on dress for the day. I find it wonderful that my friends live in such harmony and peace that they don't mind being a mirror image of each other. I know that when I try to dress like my girlfriend, she thinks it is a sign of dorkdom. I know what you are thinking about that last statement - don't even think of posting a comment about it!

House that strips

2006-03-01T18:25:00.000-06:00

So over the past month or so our house has slowly been undressing its north side from the tempting of strong winds. At first it was just a few pieces that fell off during a really windy weekend. But that was just the beginning. Now, as you can see, roughly 1/3 of our siding is gone, revealing the oh-so-sexy particle board underneath. It's a relief that we don't have any neighbors on this side - how embarassing would it be for us if they could see the lewdness of our dwelling. I'm not even proof positive that all of the pieces are still lying on the ground; some of them might have made their way down the block just like our trash cans do when it is windy! We've already lost both of our green recycling bins to the forces of nature. It seems that we just can't catch a break with this house - first it was the sump pump and now the siding! Oh well, I guess that is beauty of renting!

Skating with the stars

2006-02-18T10:55:00.000-06:00

Last night our church hosted a community crawl and one of the festivities including skating at the U of I Ice Arena. This wonderful photo was taken by my friend Celina just as Marsha took a dive on the ice. In case you are wondering, I am on the far right with the ridiculous-looking yellow ribbon on my jacket. I am pretty sure that I was the only one that was wearing the ribbon - other than Sharon, who put it in her hair so of course it looked OK! At this point in time my ankles had pretty much given up on me, so I was glad to be taking pictures most of the night. It was a challenge to take action pictures under low-lighting, but still give the impression of movement. You may notice that the background looks "warmer" than the subject - this is due to the difference in lighting between the flash and the flourescent lights of the arena that expose the majority of the shot. By the way, this technique is called 'slow-sync' and it is a useful trick to get both the subject and background illuminated. The only downside of the night? Going out in the cold inbetween events! Last night it was -15!

A kiss the size of Everest

2006-02-14T20:02:00.000-06:00

Well, today is Valentine's Day, and I couldn't think of a better way to spend it than with my baby. And by baby I mean this giant Hershey's kiss that I received from my girlfriend! This monster is capable of birthing normal size Hershey kisses, one of which is in the picture for comparison of size! How did we get the little kiss out of the mother? Well, that answer is left up to your imagination... My girlfriend, being so wonderous, also got me this nice black velvet backdrop that I used to take the picture of the two kisses. Would you believe that she actually listens to what I want?

This past weekend was my niece's third birthday, and fun was had at the expense of my knees, which are all scraped up from crawling in and out of tunnels and chutes at one of those huge jungle gym paradises. My camera also took a beating as I tried to get a good shot of the scrambling kids. Amen to lense caps. Amen. Another activity of the weekend was viewing the movie Curious George, which, to my suprise, was better than I expected. I had low expectations going into the movie, but as soon as I remembered that the voice of Ted was Will Ferrel, I started to laugh. He managed to add a lot of ad lib into the movie, and it was quite enjoyable. I give it two thumbs up.

I love technology...

2006-02-07T21:12:00.000-06:00

With every day that passes comes another discovery of technology to make my life easier. Here are a few examples: 1. I use GPRS on my Bluetooth-enabled phone to surf the Internet via my laptop when I'm not in a Wifi spot; 2. I use a script in iTunes to add album art to my songs; 3. I write an excel macro to display hexadecimal colors from color schemes downloaded on the Color Burn dashboard widget; 4. I can edit a photo and make it look all crazy like the one posted here; 5. I can download episodes of 24 when I've forgotten for the hundredth time to tape it on my years old VCR; 6. I can keep track of all of my expenses and see just how much I am spending on photog equipment; 7. I can import songs while chatting on IM and surfing the Internet; 8. I can access my work computers from home or anywhere in the world; 9. I can find the answer to pretty much anything online, including how to take apart cube furniture; and 10. Speeding through tollways with the I-Pass while talking on my Bluetooth headset! Oh, and one bad use of technology - solicitations for unpaid parking tickets, including the one I just got this past weekend for parking in a 'residential' area of Berwyn. I guess you have to take the good with the bad!

Houston, we have a download!

2006-01-26T22:34:00.000-06:00

Well, it is official - today marks my first download from iStockPhoto.com! For those of you unawares, I've been spending the past few weeks uploading photos that I've taken to iStockPhoto's site. About half of them get rejected, so currently there is only four pictures to choose from. Today while uploading another file for review I discovered that someone bought the picture here! Can I help but be excited? This is definitely a special day. While the fee structure of iStockPhoto certainly does not bring in lots of bucks for yours truly, it does serve as a confidence booster - knowing that others find my work at least worth a couple of greenbacks. Now if only I knew where the image was being used? Anyone care to venture?

Oh how amusing

2006-01-24T21:02:00.000-06:00

So I've spent most of this evening trying to upload some photos to Shutterfly so I can make a nice calendar for my mom as a late Christmas present... and my browser is laughing in my face. It seems to find it funny to crash right in the middle of uploading a bunch of images... how hilarious! What a lousy time for my browser to become unstable. At least one of the photos that I'm putting on the calendar seems to sum up the experience - that of my niece Talia showing us her nice, moist tongue.

Listen up!

2006-01-23T20:47:00.000-06:00

So I've been getting the same question all day since I've sent out a mass email about my blog - "Bill, is this really your blog? There is no mention of your name at all and there is a picture of a weird dude on it." Folks! Yes! This is my blog! I admit that there currently is no picture of myself, and my username of 'diesel' doesn't necessary give me away - unless you know me really well...

There are some hints though here that would give me away. First, the word diesel. It is almost always the word I use to describe myself, whether its playing video games, the greeting on my phone - you name it, it's there. Second, the name of the blog is called gray (grey) card, and if you don't know what a gray card is, it is a photography tool that probably needs to be the topic of a future posting. Another indication that this blog is mine is that I LOVE to play Warcraft III, which I've just gotten back into as a result of being able to play with my roommates over our LAN. I thought it was worthy of one of my first postings, and you'll be glad to hear that my roommate Mark and I beat the computer 2 on 2 TWICE last night. Hail to the victors!

So the jury is still out on the 50mm f1.4 lens. I took a whole slew of pictures this weekend to further evaluate the lens. The picture above was taken on Sunday morning inbetween church services. It was either a picture of the microphone (which seems much more appropriate given the title) or a picture of the lights hanging in our backyard... I think I made the right choice.

Why do we suck at Warcraft?

2006-01-22T16:06:00.000-06:00

Was the win a fluke? Could four of us take on four easy computer opponents? How about 3 on 3? Judging from the outcome of today's debacle, I would have to reason no. There is nothing that crushes your ego quite like losing to orcs, undead, or night elves. How about being out of gold and totally helpless? It is akin to a newborn baby that is completely defenseless. All you can do is sit back and watch your settlement get utterly destroyed by the enemy. I feel violated somehow. There has to be a better way. Even with all that we have learned this weekend, we still get pasted six ways toward Sunday. What is the trick? What is the secret? Can someone please tell me? And even if we do end up winning, it is usually because the computer has a handicap, that just not satisfying!

I feel like all the Warcraft playing of the past couple of weeks has been a poor investment. It seems like we get no return on our commitment - we still get slaughtered like pigs. It insites anger and frustration that leaves me banging the wall and wishing I could play just ONE MORE TIME and WIN! But alas, there is work to be done and dishes to be washed. Perhaps if I made it my dying wish, God will grant my comrades and I a victory. For now, I will sit and watch football and try not to let it get the best of me. They will pay!

Blog revived

2006-01-21T10:32:00.000-06:00

So why have I not posted to my blog in almost a YEAR? Well, there is a simple answer to that question: my life is not interesting. OK, that is not true, so I guess I will have to blame it on my laziness. However, I've recently decided that I need to work on my "creative writing", so I've revived the postings. I have made a few changes to this blog though. First, the address has changed to graycard.blogspot.com since I've gotten sick it being named after a gas station that makes people feel dirty to say. I've decided to focus on photography in this blog now, since that seems to take up most of my free time these days!

So what can you expect from this new blog? I will be definitely be updating it frequently with pictures that I'm taking so that you can pretend like you are right here with me. For example, here is a picture of my roommate Mark taken last night while trying out my new 50mm f1.4 prime from Canon that I recently acquired. Initial assessment? Kinda disappointed. I expected the sharpness to be a bit better. Maybe I just haven't taken enough test shots, so I plan on spending part of my weekend shooting everything that comes into my path! In any case, enjoy this first picture!

my beef with donald e. knuth

2005-03-21T09:25:00.000-06:00

why do things have to be so simple on th surface yet so difficult underneath? i am a fan of the formatting program latex, and in case you are wondering, donald e. knuth is the creater of latex. now, in general, latex does an excellent job of typesetting and is very easy to use. however, as soon as things start to get complicated, like using an appendix or a bibliography, the verbatim environment, a table of contents, etc., the whole system starts to fall apart. error messages are about as useful as a winter coat in the bahamas. tracking down a problem is like trekking through a thick jungle without a map. if you take just the right path, you might arrive at the solution. otherwise, you just keep going around in circles. most often, if latex doesn't do something right, it usually means you need to include some package that is more fancy than the one you are currently using. relying on latex's core packages is akin to climbing a rock cliff without a boline - very unsafe and prone to failure. in any case, often the struggle is rewarding by having a beautiful document that would win pageants if it could walk. but, there are times when i wish i could go to donald's door and when he opens it up, punch him in the face.

plant killer

2005-03-09T21:39:00.000-06:00

i want to start with a simple question. why is it so hard to keep plants alive? i try hard to make sure they have the proper amounts of sun, water, and food, but alas, they wither away despite my efforts. if you've been to my work, you know about the ficus tree that has been dead for almost 3 or 4 months now and i just recently took it to the field. the history with that plant is that first it was unhappy, so it dropped a lot of leaves. then i seemed to find a spot on the floor that it liked, so it started growing new leaves. you can imagine the joy i felt at the time that i had actually encouraged it to flourish. but then, my office moved again and it was back to being unhappy until it eventually committed plant suicide (or maybe it was murder on my part?).

it's the same with all my plants. they droop, the leaves turn brown, they shrivel up, attract spider mites - you name it. even my spider plant has issues, which, from what i've heard, are one of the easiest plants to keep alive. i even had an ivy that is supposed to be indestructible, but of course it was one of the first to go to plant heaven. and then there are the freak incidents like my small palm plant. it was doing just fine, and then all of a sudden it kealed over and croaked. i have no explanation whatsoever as to why it decided to kick the bucket. now all i'm left with are a bunch of empty plastic pots and fond memories of brighter times.

perhaps i need to start playing more classical music. or maybe it is the humidity level in my house (not much i am going to be able to do about that, sorry). it could even be sunburn from too much light. believe me, if plants could talk, i would be all ears. usually i chalk a plant death up to root rot, since i have a tendency to be too loving and overdo it on the watering. what confuses me the most is that once i manage to improve the health of one of my plants, that same management causes it to decline the next week. i wish they would make up their damn minds! my jealousy factor for those who have beautiful plants is unsurpassed at this point in the game. it is guaranteed that if you seem to have a knack for gardening, i will be asking you your secret. after all, if i can't keep my plants alive, how am i supposed to take on a pet, or even a relationship?

email addiction

2005-03-08T15:46:00.000-06:00

lately i have noticed that i have an addiction. the addiction is to checking my email. or maybe it is a disease. in any case, i figured that if i talked about my problem, perhaps it would go away.

throughout the day, there are times when i am switching from one task to another. at these times, it is my habit to cycle through my various email accounts and check if a new message has arrived. it doesn't matter if i just checked it a few minutes ago, i have to check it again. yahoo, work, gmail - all of them. now, often, nothing new shows up. in fact, i don't even think anyone knows of my gmail account, but heck, why not check it just in case? sometimes, i get something good in my yahoo account - a message from my girlfriend, a note from my mom, that sort of thing. but often, what shows up is either spam (no, i don't need any pills to make me happy - interpret this statement how you want) or a message from some online membership that i have where usually my reaction is to just press delete.

i am not sure if my habit stems from boredom, or a need for attention and love - what good am i if no one emails me? possibly it is because i have no way to tell when i get new mail, so i am constantly refreshing my mailbox to see if there is something new. surely if i got a notification when my inbox has received a new message i would not check it as often; by then, what else would i do all day?

memory failure

2005-03-05T11:07:00.000-06:00

ok, so my memory is not what it used to be. i dug through my hundreds of photos and found the one of the said gas station in the previous post. as it turns out, it was called 'kum & go', so consequently, i have changed the title of my blog along with the website address (hope you noticed)! and for your viewing pleasure, here is the photo to back me up.