The Distress Signal

Rants from a corporate IT drone, wannabe web designer/developer, and sometime blogger.

Because the future is NEVER now.

Droppin' knowledge bombs since 1973.

Here to chew bubblegum and kick ass.. just ran out of bubblegum.

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Rants & Sundry Prattle

09/10tags bookstags quicksilver

Quicksilver

To be a European Christian (the rest of the world might be forgiven for thinking) was to build ships and sail them to any and all coasts not already a-bristle with cannons, make landfall at river’s mouth, kiss the dirt, plant a cross for a flag, scare the hell out of any indigenes with a musketry demo’, and - having come so far, and suffered and risked so much - unpack a shallow basin and scoop up some muck from the river-bottom.

Yeah. Pretty much my favorite book. Ever.

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Rants & Sundry Prattle

09/10tags shenandoahtags on-the-trail

24 Hours in Shenandoah: Marshall Mountain

Another weekend and another chance to spend 24 hours in Shenandoah. This time I was up on Marshall Mountain in the Northern section of the park. The loop starts at the Jenkins Gap overlook around the 12 mile mark on Skyline Drive. I’ve gone both ways around on this loop and I definitely think coming back on the Appalachian Trail is the way to go. That section of the loop has the best views and there are some real choice spots for pitching a shelter up on the ridge.

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PhoneTography

09/10tags on-the-trailtags shenandoah

I managed to catch this excellent sunset the last time I was in Shenandoah. I snapped this about 5 feet in front of where I pitched my shelter for the night.

I managed to catch this excellent sunset the last time I was in Shenandoah. I snapped this about 5 feet in front of where I pitched my shelter for the night.

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Rants & Sundry Prattle

08/10tags worktags appleblog

AppleBlog Roundup 04

Well, another couple weeks have gone by and it’s time for another roundup of recent articles I’ve written over at TheAppleBlog. Maybe one of these days I’ll figure out a better way to bring all my content together but until then here’s roundup number four.

iPhone HDR: I played around with some HDR apps for the iPhone and tried out the new HDR Pro tools in photoshop CS5. In the final analysis, the iPhone camera is just a 5 megapixel cameraphone and it’s never gonna produce the kind of photos one can get with a DSLR. Never the less, constraints are good for creativity and the iPhone is still my favorite camera to have with me on a hike.

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PhoneTography

08/10tags on-the-trailtags shenandoahtags hdr

It doesn’t take much range to blow out highlights or shadows on the iPhone and scenes like this spot where I stopped for lunch on Marshall Mountain yesterday can be hard to capture. So, I resorted to some HDR which trends slightly more surreal than photorealistic but it captures the mood. At least touch to expose makes setting up for processing easy.

It doesn’t take much range to blow out highlights or shadows on the iPhone and scenes like this spot where I stopped for lunch on Marshall Mountain yesterday can be hard to capture. So, I resorted to some HDR which trends slightly more surreal than photorealistic but it captures the mood. At least touch to expose makes setting up for processing easy.