More Storage
My Laboratory
April 24, 2004 - Saturday

Since we were set to make the week long cruise I desperately needed some more memory for my Canon G5 digital camera. The G5 is a 5 megapixel digital camera and since I have switched to shooting strictly in the more complex RAW format my little 512mb card simply would not do the job while we are in port.

Instead of spending another $130 or so on a second 512mb card I decided to buy a $200 Creative Labs Muvo2 MP3 player and extract the 4gig microdrive from it and use it in my camera. The procedure has been widely spread on digital camera forums all over the internet so I decided to give it a try since that would give me the most bang for my buck. Now with the 4 gig card in my camera, my LCD display lists room for about 850 high resolution RAW images. It is a great feeling to just snap pictures of anything and everything I want without fear of running out of memory. I may even put in an older 256mb card back into the MP3 player so that I can fit about 70 or so MP3s on it.


 

A Little Chinese History
Forbidden Gardens - Katy, Texas
April 23, 2004 - Friday

Forbidden Gardens is located in Katy, Texas and is a privately owned museum which was created to help teach people a little about Chinese history. The main attraction of the museum is the miniature version of the tomb in which Emperor Qin (pronounced "Chin") was laid to rest after his passing. Emperor Qin was the first Emperor of China and has responsible for uniting China and establishing an empire. China derived its name from Emperor Qin's name and is one of many things that are still around today that remind us of his reign.

The time frame of Emperor Qin's dynasty dates back to about 3,000 B.C. One of his major accomplishments is the building of the Great Wall of China. It is amazing that the Great Wall is actually visible from space. It was said that the Great Wall is also considered the longest grave yard because as workers died during the building process of the structure, they were simply placed within the walls and the building continued. It has been estimated that there were about 300,000 laborers which included peasants and prisoners of war that were forced to work on the completion of the Great Wall.



In 1974 a farmer accidently discovered one of the most remarkable archaeological finds of the century, more than 7,000 life size terra-cotta soldiers guarding the entrance to Emperor Qin's tomb. Four separate pits were discovered and cover an area approximately 3 1/2 acres.

Emperor Qin ordered that his 7,000 man army be buried alive in his tomb once he passes. Qin's advisors stated that the empire would fall if the army was buried with him so Qin decided to duplicate the entire army with statues made out of Terra-cotta clay. Each statue was unique and represented each and every soldier in his army and were placed in his tomb.



Forbidden Gardens has recreated a 1/3rd scale replica of one of the pits found in the Emperor's tomb. Many of the original areas of the tomb have yet to be unearthed because of the terra-cotta soldiers quickly deteriorate once they are in contact with oxygen. The actual tomb that the Emperor is built in is beneath a large hill (which is shown in a small scale in the first image) will more than likely never be opened. It is said that the tomb was filled with massive amounts of mercury which make the tomb extremely toxic to those who enter it.



I plan to make a return trip back to the Forbidden Gardens once the weather clears up. Today was very gloomy and cloudy. The tour was very interesting and informative. I definitely recommend locals to go check it out one day.
 

A Long Day at the Park
Minute Maid Park
April 22, 2004 - Thursday

I went to see the Astros play the Cardinals today with some coworkers. and we showed up a little early. In fact we got to watch both teams hit batting practice and skip most of the rush of trying to find a decent parking spot. This is the first game I've been to in over a year so it was a good change of pace.



This silhouette is of the Downtown Houston skyline taken from my seat. Our tickets were pretty high up in the stadium and we had to look down on the game the entire night. Once I got over my initial fear of heights, I was ok.



Did I mention the game went 12 innings and we still lost! Oh my God. Normally when I go to a game I am usually on my way home by the time they start singing "Take Me Out to The Ballgame" in the 7th inning stretch. Tonight's attendance reached a little over 33,000 fans and most were pretty much cleared out by the time the game ended.


 

My First Infrared Image
My Usual Waterfall Spot
April 21, 2004 - Wednesday

I bought a Hoya R72 Infrared filter online about a month ago or so and haven't had a chance to use it at all. I decided to stop off at my favorite waterfall location this evening and give it a try. The weather was cloudy and kind of gloomy which doesn't make for a good infrared environment but I decided to go ahead and try one anyways. The filter makes for a very pinkish hue and color corrections have to be made in Photoshop to get the image like it is shown below. Here is where I learned the technique.

The IR filter requires the camera to use a slow shutter speed in order to gather enough light through the very dark, almost opaque filter. In this shot, the camera's shutter was open for a full 15 seconds which is about twice of what is needed on a bright sunny day. I chose the waterfall area as my subject because I knew the long shutter time would make for an interesting effect on the flowing water. Once the weather clears up I will spend a lot more time experimenting with this new little IR filter of mine.


 

American Pastime
My Studio
April 20, 2004 - Tuesday

I will be attending a Houston Astros baseball game on Thursday night so I thought I would break out my trusty baseball glove and get into the Baseball mood. I figured a nice macro image of the lacing and stitching would make for a somewhat interesting image so I experimented a little with different compositions and such. I like how the macro setting allows for a shallow depth of field meaning items in the foreground and background are blurred and out of focus. The blurred effect helps draw your eye's attention to the items that are actually in focus. Check back for nice images from Minute Maid Stadium later this week.


 

Moe's Grill
Katy Mills Mall
April 19, 2004 - Monday

Lisa and I made a trip to Katy Mills mall looking for some more clothes for an upcoming vacation. It was about dinner time and we really weren't in the mood for some cheesy mall type fast food so we decided to go to Moe's Grill which was located in the food court.  I have passed by this restaurant several times but never really noticed the interior before. It has a unique New York City type feel to it that I found very interesting.