Josh's new interest

I seem to be interested in photography. I've started playing with Jae's analogue, manual 35 mm camera. I've also gotten interested in alternative photography, like Polaroid and pinhole cameras. Yesterday I read about fstops, and I have 2 books on constructing and using pinhole cameras on the way. I'm fascinated you can get pictures like this with a cardboard box with a hole in it.



http://www.pinhole.org/gallery/artist.cfm?name=Nhung_Dang

A New Year's resolution kept

Lot's of folks face bigger challenges than me in the weight control area. I don't want to come off sounding smug here, but I am proud.

I made the resolution on Jan. 18, which is both close to the New Year and the day after my birthday. The resolution was lose 10 lbs, and keep it off for the year. The AND there is key. I didn't want to lose it and gain it back, or lose it, gain it, lose it right before the end of the year. Not overly ambitious, but something that would be an achievement.

I was 185. I had a noticeable gut going, though I wasn't obese. I had gotten to this point by creep, putting on 2-5 pounds per year. Not real noticeable or worrying the first few years. But if that keeps up for 20 years, you can do the math. I wanted to maintain my health into the future, so that I could enjoy life, so that I could be there for my wife, and later in the year so that I'll be around and active for my kid.

I had lost the 10 pounds by the end of February. All diet change. I was very careful to not think of myself as "on a diet." I was changing my diet for life. Then I really wanted to hold the weight steady. Limit the big swings.

Worked pretty well. There was the occasional swing, both up and down, but pretty steady. During the summer I averaged about 173, which was slightly better than the goal of 175. When Fall set in, the average moved up to 175, and I have to admit the swings became more frequent. Just harder in colder weather. Started exercising semi-regularly during this period.

Then we hit the holidays. I heard somewhere that the average American gains 7 pounds from Thanksgiving to the New Year. I'm not sure I believe that number, but I believe its common to gain. I vowed not to. I went into Thanksgiving 175, and came out of Thanksgiving 175. Cool. I did gain a couple pounds after a Christmas potluck in mid-December. Took almost a week to get back to 175. That was the only blip.

Today it is December 27. Christmas is past and only a few days to the end of the year. Weighed in at 172 this morning.

The Polaroid Kid

More photos from Mike Brodie, AKA, The Polaroid Kid.



Mike Brodie
Self Portrait // 2005

http://www.mbfala.com/Brodie/Brodie_IG.html

The high road

Sunday I drove out to one of New Mexico's little known jewels, and went hiking. I'm not naming it, because I didn't see anyone there, and I like it that way. It's a new place for me. I went out there once before, but missed all the trail heads. I wandered around and had a good time that time, but missed the most spectacular parts.

This time around I found an amazing trail. Takes you up on this narrow ridge that runs through the wilderness area. I have tried a few times to convey what its like in these places. Most of you who read this blog have read them, and know what I'm talking about.

http://www.joshgentry.com/scribbling/guadalupe.htm
http://www.joshgentry.com/scribbling/rockcreek.html


This time I did something I have purposefully not done in the past. I took a camera. I was rusty with the all manual 35 millimeter, so not many of the pictures came out. There were a few worth sharing.

This first one is from right off the dirt road that takes you into the park.


From the road took a trail that starts up almost immediately. I had no idea where it was going. The climb up from the road crested at this point. The rest of the trail ran on along the top of that ridge you see running down the left side of the photo.


This picture is from where I turned around on the ridge and headed back towards the car.

German Camper

I took these pictures on our way back from Page, Arizona this summer. This is apparently what German's consider a camper.

They know me in Pakistan

Video version -- Experimental




Hmmm. The video I uploaded was much higher quality. After the Google Video processing, not so great.

The Internet is cool.

For awhile now I have a successful tutorial on the web, Cisco Router Configuration Tutorial
. If you google for "cisco router", typically there will be one or two links to cisco.com, and then my tutorial. I've gotten a lot of milage out of this, mostly for my ego. So today I was doing some ego building, and I was checking on sites that link to mine. One site that caught my eye was this one,
http://www.niit.edu.pk/~umarkalim/courses/2007spring/rs.html. It's a course description for a course titled Routing and Switching, at the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan. In the Lecture notes section, under Miscellaneous Pointers, is a link to
Cisco Router Configuration Tutorial.

:-)

Outsider art today

This series of photos seems to document something, but I'm not sure what. Today's hobos?

Ridin' Dirty Face

Wonderfully Weird Jenny Lewis

This post is partly to satisfy my curiosity about the weird stuff you can find on YouTube, and partly for my brother Luke, who is a Jenny Lewis fan.

The interesting editorial decisions for this post were what order to put the videos in. At first I thought I'd start with the official Jenny Lewis weirdness of one of her videos, but I decided this video from Steve Paul's Puppet Music Hall should lead off.



Now, the video for "Rise Up With Fists."


For pure bizarre, clip of Rilo Kiley, a band of which Jenny Lewis is a member, watching the Paris Hilton sex tape. What's mostly weird about this is that it exists on YouTube.




This one isn't weird. Its here for Luke because, well, she's sexy. Oh, and the moment at the end where one of the Watson Twins breaks out the harmonica. Audio isn't good, so don't expect it to be.