Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Twitter for Dan

Hmmm... so I've decided to make a twitter account. Ill use it a lot if I can get it to work with my Blackberry from China. If I can't, then it wont see much use, as the only reason I can really think of wanting to use it is to state something on the fly. Anyway, the address for it is http://twitter.com/dandoval. Well see how it goes.

Monday, October 20, 2008

In The Trenches

Photobucket

See that view? Its the view from my window as I write this. I'm in China. I have been here for a few days, but I have been to lazy to post my initial reaction to arriving here. Its very difficult to make myself do anything when I don't have the Internet in my apartment. I mean, even writing this blog post seems semi futile, as who knows when it will actually get posted. But at least you know it has been written. At least I know it has been written. Losing productivity is not what I want to happen here. I have to keep myself busy.

Well, after being here a few days, I have come to discover what is hardest about being here: I have no one to talk to most the time. I feel as if I have taken a vow of silence at times. I find myself trying to have conversations with cab drivers that don't understand what I am saying. I find myself trying to start conversations with every foreigner I see. I know, I have only been here 4 days, and last time I was here for 5 weeks, but this time, I am alone. I have no companions to speak with. Also, I am not as central in the city, which means that there are fewer English speaking Chinese here, and less foreigners. I am pretty sure that the hardest part of this is the transition, but it does get pretty bad. Right now, music is my biggest friend.

I think once I get the internet in my room, things will become much easier. Oh, on a side note, I fried my 360 power supply when I plugged it in, as I stupidly forgot that they use 220v of power as opposed to our 110v in the states.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Check In

Well, this is my final blog post from the U.S. for a while. My plane leaves tonight at 145 am. I may not have an immediate update to my blog, as I don't know how long it will take me to set up my interweb there. I must admit,  I am anxious and excited about leaving. I am saddened to leave some of my closest friends behind. People I have known for over 10 years, and some I have known for less, but are, by no means any lesser friends. I am leaving my family behind, which I know I will feel the most around the holidays. I hope to hear from all of you. I hope that when I return, we find each other again.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Morning

(this is part of the Eastern Sierras series of images)

We camped at Tom's Place. Well, not exactly, but near it. Tom's Place is just North of Bishop along the 395. You can find it on a map fairly easily. The name of the campsite, was Aspen Grove. That place is beautiful. As we were driving there, we were making plans relating to waking up before sunrise in hopes to get me to a place where I could shoot sunrise. When we arrived at the campsite at midnight, we began to doubt that it was going to happen. When we went to bed at 3am, we knew it wasn't going to happen. Instead, we made plans to get up at 7. As we dozed off, the night got colder and colder, until the point in which I decided to bury myself in a sleeping bag like a caterpillar in a cocoon. Even the best plans fail. Luckily, we only slept in until 8am.

Soon after we got up, the sun started creeping over the nearby mountains and shining light into our campsite. Just as the sun peeked over the peaks, our campsite lit up with the glow of a million glowing aspen leaves. Its funny how warm direct light from the sun can be. As we began packing our tent, and boiling water, I picked up my camera and began shooting. Its hard to describe in a photo the beauty of that glow.  The feeling of warmth as the first rays of sun light hit you on a cold morning. Its as if the whole world woke up with the sun.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

The Eastern Sierras

As promised, here is the first of a few photos that I recently took in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains while camping with a my friend Nick. (see http://www.nickspeaks.com).

It started late, as it always does. Leaving 2 hours later than we originally thought we'd leave, we got on the 405 freeway and headed north. The ever present L.A. traffic carried us along to the 5 freeway, where traffic let up a bit, and we eventually met the 14. Leaving later, meant arriving later. Arriving later, meant changing plans.

As we cruised up the 14, and consecutively the 395, I couldn't help but feel a tinge of nostalgia as I saw somewhat familiar places. I couldn't help but remember silly memories. Memories of a friend sticking his head out a window while I was driving 80, just so he could feel the air. Stupid? Yes, but very memorable. I couldn't help but remember seeing signs for alien beef jerky out in the middle of nowhere. I remember a gas station that no longer exists. Silly memories. I also couldn't help but think that this will be the last trip I take with one of my best friends for a while.

As we reached the town of Lone Pine, plan changes began. Instead of catching sunset in the white mountains, we went to the Alabama Hills. We entered the Alabama Hills via movie road (look it up). As we pulled up, sunset began. I began to prepare my camera gear to shoot sunset, when I realized I forgot my primary CF card. Bravo. Luckily, I carry spares. Unluckily, I discovered that these spares were un-formatable, according to my camera. This led to me carrying a 20 pound camera bag for half a mile for no reason. After some slightly adventurous (read: stupid) climbing on my part, we meandered back to the car as sunset truly became dusk. When we got to the car, Nick attempted to fix my cards, but in the end, removing the batteries from my camera and trying to format again fixed it. According to Nick, "its just another computer" and a restart fixes all (unless you run windows...witch I do).

Having fixed my cards, we headed back towards the rocks we explored earlier. As we walked out, dusk became night, and we soon found ourselves depending on our flashlights on that moonless night. After a slight mix up, we arrived back at our pre-explored rock. At this point, it was too dark for any decent landscapes, so I decided to shoot some pseudo-portraits of Nick. This is one of those. The others look a lot like it.

Afterwards, we headed back towards the car, and after getting a little turned around, we gave thanks to the men who invented glossy paint and car reflectors (picture flashlights scanning the dark, and a lot of "I don't remember there being a path here"). We headed back down Movie Road, to Whitney Portal Road, to the 395 on which we continued through the night. As I drove, I knew that I had just created another one of those silly memories.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

The End is Near!

2 step process: Watch the video. Register to vote.

A Lesson in Finances

Here is a good way to help explain what's going on with the economy, with a little help from the folks in Duckberg: