PPD 8

Just a picture of a happy dog, with the minor compositional gimmick of having him pointing out of the edge of the frame.

Edits: Cropped
Taken: Monday, July 31st

I Should Really Be More Sore

Well that was one busy weekend.

Saturday was our long-planned paintball outing. For those of you who haven't played outdoor paintball, it's an extremely athletic sport. Lots of sprinting, crouching behind cover, crawling around and possibly cringing in terror. Oh, not to mention getting smacked with 68-caliber balls of paint moving a few hundred feet/second. Doesn't sound that bad, until you realize it's not far off from getting shot by a 58-caliber musket. Of course the musket has roughly 30 times the muzzle energy, but that's probably a good thing. And you can definitely get some nasty welts from a paintball gun.

But as I said, I managed to avoid most of the welts and also most of the soreness. Which was fortunate because the following day Wendy & I were signed up the Denver Urban Assault Race. The race is less competitive than most. The organizers set out a number of checkpoints around the city which you can visit in any order using almost any route. At each one there's a challenge, such as a scavenger hunt, bigwheel race, or sack race. They also do goofy things like make you bike around with helium burrito tied to your back. At the very end are the really fun challenges - the foam pit and the inflatable waterslide. Ah, good times. We ended up 30 of 42 in our division, and 49 of 70 overall. Not too bad considering neither of us bike much, and Wendy didn't even own a bike until a month again. I didn't even have to feel guilty about eating a giant burrito, because it came at the end of a 20+ mile bike ride.

PPD 7

I just thought this was funny. What is that sign trying to tell you? "Handicapped people, engage antigravity here"? "This is where the aliens take people from (but only those in wheelchairs)"? Yeah, not real deep thoughts, but there it is.

Edits: Cropped
Taken: Monday, July 24th

Paintball Smackdown

We just returned from the much-talked-about Newsgator/Encana paintball outing. I think it's safe to say a good time was had by all, and that we all sweated out roughly half our body weight.

Quite a few good welts resulted. Check out the pictures. I'm proud to say that I was a part of some of these, in the sense that I pulled the trigger. Props to everyone for being a good sport, especially Rob & Ronnie.

PPD 6

For some reason I've been looking at the tops of buildings lately, more as geometric abstractions than actual buildings. Plus, I didn't have a camera yesterday. So this is what I've got. :)

Edits: Cropped, histogram adjust x2
Taken: Thursday, July 29th

PPD 5

This is the Holy Ghost Building on the east side of downtown. I sometimes think that my life revolves around this building in a literal, geometric sense. It's just about halfway between home and work, I walk towards it in the morning and circle around it on the way home.
The picture I like because it's just such a clean composition.

Edits: cropped, clone brushed out a tiny cloud
Taken: Wednesday July 26th, 2006

PPD 4

I don't even know why I like this one. Perhaps just the incongruity of the big stuffed monkey left in the middle of a park.

Edits: cropped
Taken: Monday, July 24th 2006

PPD 3

This is just a puddle in the alley across the street from work. I like the contrast between the clean regularity of the building reflected in the puddle and the dirty irregularity of the alley and the edge of the puddle.

Edits: Just cropped
Taken: Tuesday July 25th, 2006

Pictura - Friday, July 21st 2006

This is a picture of the office on Friday night after almost everyone was gone. It felt appropriate because this was end of a very long week, including one 18 hour day. I'm going for that "late night" kind of feel here.

Effects: Crop, histogram adjust, mild gaussian blur
That's more effects than I really wanted to do, but I think it's a better picture for it. Basically just enhanced the mood a bit.

Political Comedy

According to the Detroit News John Kerry recently made some interesting comments in reference to the Israel-Lebanon-Hezbollah conflict, to wit:

"If I was president, this wouldn't have happened," said Kerry during a noon stop at Honest John's bar and grill in Detroit's Cass Corridor.

Bush has been so concentrated on the war in Iraq that other Middle East tension arose as a result, he said.

"The president has been so absent on diplomacy when it comes to issues affecting the Middle East," Kerry said. "We're going to have a lot of ground to make up (in 2008) because of it."

...

"This is about American security and Bush has failed. He has made it so much worse because of his lack of reality in going into Iraq.…We have to destroy Hezbollah," he said.

I think this may be one of those rare moments when we can all disregard for a moment our political leanings, and personal feelings about John Kerry. A moment when we can join together in asking "What the hell is he smoking?" I mean really, every part of the article that involves Kerry reads like a joke. Let's review it in slow motion.

"If I was president, this wouldn't have happened", said Kerry during a noon stop at Honest John's bar and grill in Detroit's Cass Corridor.

So Mr. Kerry would've averted this crisis. It's pretty easy to say things like that when you'll never have to back it up. But it must be the truth because he was standing in Honest John's! I know it doesn't really pertain to his statement, but is that not the most ironic place a politician could possibly be quoted from? Like I said, the whole thing's a joke.

Bush has been so concentrated on the war in Iraq that other Middle East tension arose as a result, he said. "The president has been so absent on diplomacy when it comes to issues affecting the Middle East," Kerry said. "We're going to have a lot of ground to make up (in 2008) because of it."

So Bush was so concentrated on the Middle East that he lost site of... the Middle East? Um, right. And because of that, "tensions arose," implying that there were no tensions before, and they could've been avoided entirely with just a tiny bit more talking.

Let's remember that we're talking about the Middle East, possibly the most war-torn piece of real estate in human history, a region that practically every national leader in the last 30+ years has tried to bring peace to. But apparently, despite that long history of conflict, everyone was on the verge of a regional chorus of "Give Peace A Chance". But then Bush didn't come to the recital, so they went back to killing each other instead. Yep, that's exactly what happened, I know so because Mr Kerry said it while standing in Honest John's! Give me a break.

Hezbollah guerillas should have been targeted with other terrorist organizations, such as al-Qaida and the Taliban, which operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Kerry said. However, Bush, has focused military strength on Iraq.
"This is about American security and Bush has failed. He has made it so much worse because of his lack of reality in going into Iraq... We have to destroy Hezbollah," he said.

The first part stands on it's own, but this is really the punchline. After he says we're not being diplomatic enough, he follows up by essentially saying "Now I guess we'll just have to kill 'em all. That's what I would've done from the start, of course." Now that is what I think of when someone says diplomacy. I know politicians are a breed apart, but really how can he say this with a straight face? First there's not enough diplomacy, then the problem is that we didn't kill them fast enough? It sounds like what you'd get if you spliced Clinton and W into the same body - "We should've been more diplomatic and killed those bastards years ago."

Honestly, I don't even know why I subscribe to Dilbert anymore. I should just subscribe to this sort of thing instead.