As an experiment, I have started selecting shots from my archives to display here. For our first installment, let's go back to Rush 2001, aka "Five years ago today."

Weekend photo project #1: get at least one usable image with the Polaroid image transfer process. By replacing the light bulb with a Nikon flash unit, I was able to use a regular enlarger to print my 35 mm slides directly onto a sheet of Polaroid film. I used Polaroid Type 59, because I had an expired box in my refrigerator at home. With a little exposure tweaking, I was able to get brilliantly colorful 4x5" Polaroid prints for the very first time. Nice.

The hard part, it turns out, is the image transfer. When you shoot a Polaroid, the light exposes the negative, which is then developed when the chemical packs at the bottom of each sheet are crushed by rollers. Immediately after development, the light-activated dyes begin to migrate to a white sheet of paper. In the image transfer process, you rip apart the film early and squish the negative onto a fine paper of your choice. Once the dyes have transferred, you peel it away, hopefully without tearing too much of the image (which is kind of gooey). Obviously I have some practice to do, but here's my best effort after 3 tries:

original image	Polaroid transfer

Weekend photo project #2: toy cameras. The Holga is a cheap ($20) plastic toy camera from China with a plastic lens that uses medium-format 120 film. It is so cheap, in fact, that you have to hold the back on with tape because the latches aren't good enough. There are no exposure controls and only a rudimentary focus adjustment. Its low-fidelity aesthetic has attracted a cult following among artsy-fartsy types. Given the price -- actually, I borrowed one, so it was free -- I had to give it a try. Of course I screwed it up and used the wrong frame counter for the 6x6 square format, so all my pictures overlap. If it weren't for that, I'd actually have some decent shots. Better luck next time.

Snakes on a Plane
a brief movie review
 
The New York Times got this one right: if you plan to see Snakes on a Plane at all, do it this weekend. That way you can experience the film's most redeeming moment, which is when everyone in the audience shouts along with Samuel L. Jackson: "I have had it with these mother-fuckin' snakes on this mother-fuckin' plane!" and erupts into wild, foot-stomping cheers.

There are some subtle jokes mixed into the script, if you can pick them out of the noise. In the very first shot of the airport, you can hear a female voice over loudspeakers announcing that "the white zone is for the immediate loading and unloading of passengers only."

The movie is loud and fast-paced, but the most exciting thing about it is the excitement of your fellow theater-goers. And if you have nothing else planned for the night, that energy might be worth your $10 ticket.

Boeing has ditched its effort to provide in-flight Internet access on its aircraft. I'm a little surprised. Studies have indicated that most people want the service, but apparently few have been willing to pay for it. I guess the same thing happened with the GTE (later Verizon) seat-back Airfone system, which is also being disbanded this year.

Massachusetts excavators J. Derenzo and Company have a wonderful slogan painted (yes, painted) on their trucks: "We move the earth." I like how it first sounds philosophical, or even Archimedean, when in fact it is meant to be interpreted literally.

Durst AG has ceased production of photographic enlargers.

A crazy old woman began freaking out on a flight from London to Washington this morning, causing a skirmish that led to the plane's diversion to Logan Airport.

According to the New York Times, CNN reported that "the woman was carrying matches, a screwdriver, Vaseline and two notes referring to Al Qaeda. One note was in English and the other in Arabic..."

Of course all of those claims turned out to be false.(*) The woman, from Vermont, was just having a panic attack.

Which leads me to wonder, if you were a news organization, how the fuck could you get something that wrong and put it on the air? As one of the largest newsgathering operations in the world, surely you could find ways to double-check your facts before asserting them as truths before the public. I can imagine what the crawl text on the bottom of the screen must have looked like. Terrorism this. Terrorist that. We were the first to report... The cable news networks (including the Cable News Network) have never been renowned for their credibility, but this seals the deal. I'm not even going to talk to people who get their news from cable TV.

(*) Edit: she did have matches. Those are not prohibited items, however.

I saw a strange sight on Sunday: a U-Haul-style moving truck equipped with a HiRail system, speeding backwards down the Worcester/Framingham commuter rail tracks. I guess when you don't have to worry about steering, you can back up as fast as you'd like. Still, an odd vehicle to pass.

Pictures of Jenn's wedding are now online.

I won't make any promises about quality. I scanned a record number of pictures by myself (including the color ones). Once again, they all look dramatically better on my SGI monitor than on anyone's LCD screen, but what can you do.

The UK's supposedly-foiled liquid bomb plot is obviously the big item in the news today. It sounds pretty credible. Of course, I'm more interested in the reprecussions.

The US has responded by temporarily banning the carriage of liquids on airplanes, including water and shampoo. That is pretty annoying for people like me who like to travel with only carry-on luggage, but until the threat passes it is not a big deal to place my shampoo, lotions, and my other fine skin-care products in checked baggage. Furthermore, even the domestic airlines still offer drinking water free of charge, so I don't mind checking the water bottle too.

However, the BAA ban on all carry-on baggage on flights departing Heathrow Airport is simply inexcusable. My usual airline, Virgin Atlantic, requires you to purchase insurance for any checked luggage worth more than $500, but their limitation of liability is only $2500. So putting my cameras in checked baggage is not an option. Also, laptop computers in checked baggage are exempt from liability, even if the airline loses them, so you'd have to be pretty dumb to check one of those too. If I were supposed to fly out of Heathrow today, I think I'd just ask for my money back instead.

Returning for a moment to the temporary nature of the American ban on liquids and gels in flight: the TSA claims that they're going to sort out a way to detect possible bomb components so that the ban can be ended. The problem is pretty much intractable. I wish them luck.

Fact: over 10% of all electricity generated in Russia goes to the Russian aluminum industry.

The National Park Service is building a 7-foot tall steel fence around Philadelphia's Liberty Bell to better protect it from terrorists.

How many years must pass before everyone will laugh at that kind of idiocy?

"Excuse me, would you mind moving over just a little bit? I know it's not loaded, but it's just not polite," cautioned the guy behind the counter. In the course of explaining its operation, he had been pointing an MP5A3 submachine gun at a pair of customers browsing at the far end of the display. They obligingly moved out of the way.

Saturday I went shooting in New Hampshire with Mar and Taylor. I was raised to be afraid of guns, and prior to this weekend I had handled nothing bigger than a .22 pistol. So at first I was a little nervous holding a loaded machine gun in my hands. Of course it turned out to be a lot of fun. Between the MP5 and the WWII-vintage M1A1 Tommy gun that we rented, we kicked 8 boxes of ammunition in a very short amount of time. Both guns had a full automatic setting, which surprised me. (Is that even legal?) The Tommy gun (which shoots .45 caliber ammo at about 700 rounds per minute) is just ridiculous: it's heavy, it's loud, it gets burning hot, it shoots the empty brass about 8 feet out the side, and it perforates the paper targets beyond recognition in seconds. I felt like shouting "Infidels!" at the targets but I doubted that the others on the range would appreciate my humor. Anyway, I'm sure the Good Doc would be proud.

On Sunday I went to get some ice cream. A big group of hipster messenger types eating outside hollered "nice bike man!" I talked bikes with them for a while and determined that my GTB track frame is part of their dream vehicle. (It happens that the manufacturer went out of business years ago and they are very hard to find.)

"I'm not good enough to do the brakeless skid-stop," I confessed at one point.

"Yes you are. We have faith in you!" said the strangers, who ride without brakes.

It's a nice feeling to have such street cred that people far cooler than I am will shout out from time to time.

Jenn's wedding pictures will be online by the end of the week. I'm done with the B&W. I have to do the color scans next.

Read "Superdome Stars: Everyday People Confronted Chaos" and see if it sounds like some strange adventure-novel fiction to you.

Oh, good grief. Why did I sign up for the NASA press release mailing list again?

STATION CREW TO 'KICK IT UP A NOTCH' WITH CHEF EMERIL LAGASSE
 
The crew of the International Space Station will indulge next week in the ultimate "take-out" food, a meal delivered by a NASA space shuttle and designed by chef Emeril Lagasse of the Food Network's "Emeril Live." After tasting several of Lagasse's creations, the three-person crew will talk to the chef at 12:30 p.m. CDT Aug. 10 in a special hookup carried live on NASA TV.

An excellent article from the Boston Globe:

At Camp Young Judaea, where Kornreich and his wife, Marcy, have been fixtures as campers, counselors, and now directors for 30 years, the only contact children have with their parents is through the written word -- one-way e-mails from parents to children, or old-fashioned handwritten letters. . . .

Once upon a time, that was mutually acceptable. Parents enjoyed some peace and quiet. Children got to spread their wings away from home in a safe place and build some self-reliance.

But five years ago, as cellphones became ubiquitous among kids, things started to change. And in the last couple of years, the phenomenon has gotten conspicuously worse, said Bette Bussel, executive director of the American Camp Association of New England. . . .

What 20 years ago would have been considered overbearing for parents is now perceived as cautious and pragmatic.

Richard M. Kessel, chairman of the Long Island Power Authority, on the heat wave: "This is an extraordinary event, electrically."
-- "Electrical Use Hits New Highs in Much of US," The New York Times, August 2, 2006

From the Boston Globe:

A reporter asked [Terry] Francona about comparisons [of David Ortiz] to Michael Jordan. Tito managed Jordan when His Airness tried baseball in the Arizona Fall League.

``I don't think David can dunk," said Francona. ``But I know what you're saying."