Last Run

11.1 mi

01:42 /09:09 pace

I'm as tired as I've ever been. Run #3 kinda blew up on me this afternoon. Legs were dead from the start. Reach the Beach was a blast, t... posted 2 days ago

Week Miles
49 mi
2013 Miles
806 mi
Total Miles
3902 mi

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My favorite Christmas post

Secret santas II
…is this one. But there are a lot of good ones. Almost time for more!

Happy birthday blog!!

I’m a few days late, but don’t want to let the passage of our photo blog’s fifth(!) birthday/anniversary roll by without noting it. Of my five nieces & nephews, the photo blog is older than three of them. Here are some favorites from the cake, birthday & related tags. Thanks to everyone who has stuck with posting their photos, year after year after year. :) From spectacular to mundane, I’m happy for them all.

The Birthday Girl Lily Bug IV Hap Birthday Brub!! Victoria and Isaboo and the King Cake

(Almost) The Whole Goof Troop II A Cake for Isaac's Party Happy Birthday to you, Victoria!

Homecoming Celebration! Lotsa Birthday!!!!! Count those candles...

The Sugar Crew Making a Wish The Big 1!!

Happy Birthday!!! Birthday Wishes Cutest Hedgehog Birthday Cake Ever!

Happy Birthday to the summer peeps! Shamrock Cake Ssssskittles

Note barnyard theme Birthday pie Happy Birthday!

And the final product. Action shot Carousel cake

Guess who's three? Guitar Cake Beware o' Birthday (254•365)

Backposting

At some point I realized I’ve done a poor job keeping my pictures of the day updated, specifically during my little Euro trip back in September. Internet access there was slow and sporadic and kept crashing, and it seemed foolish to futz with it (much) when I was on vacation. So I’ve just now gone back to fill in the gaps. The full set from the trip is here.

September 1st: A day in Paris, my first outside the airport, so quite naturally ended up at Eiffel.
September 2nd: Moving south, on to Cannes.
September 3rd: The supposed justification for the trip in the first place, Flo’s wedding.
September 4th: In Nice for the providentially-timed Harbor Festival.
September 5th: Through Italy and Austria, on a very long bus ride.
September 6th: Walking Budapest on foot, this is Anonymvs
September 7th: I’m not a citizen of the EU but they’ll still let you into Parliment.
September 8th: Spent a day in Ópusztaszer.
September 9th: Totally and complete sick, but some pictures from in and around Szeged.
September 10th: Marginally less sick, but raining. So here’s a grim but mood appropriate WWI memorial.
September 11th: Turning things around health-wise, hanging with LZ gettin’ pretty.
September 12th: Last night in Paris.
September 13th: My most spectacular birthday morning ever, climbing Montemartre.

This reminds me of something from Lost.

Wider = better

Tags

If you are a regular visitor to my small group of websites you might have noticed that hevelonian got a small facelift recently, corresponding to the release of wordpress 3.0. The most important change for my current purposes is the width of the photographs we’re now using has increased from 500px to 640px.

A primary aesthetic reason for doing this is the influence of The Big Picture – this has really set the standard for photo blogs for me, and while our photos are nowhere near as good as those, the size things are presented definitely makes a difference in how viewers reflexively assign merit to them.

So, four days ago I decided to update everything I could (within reason – we have 3300+ posts) to a width of 640. And today, magically, mercifully, flickr announced an upgrade. From now on two different “medium” sizes will be available, the prior 500px and the new wordpress standard 640. This is fantastic news. For one we won’t have to load the larger images and downsize them in browser with the width tag (for horizontal images, anyway). Also, given the changes to the way “blog this” works we may well get the 640 option direct to wordpress from within flickr, which is totally old people proof.

So cheers to the new flickr layout and size option! The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

two hundred forty-four to two hundred seventy-three

Cupcake brownies (244•365) Tide line (245•365) Iced Venti Thursday (246•365) Wait, I'm Priority AAccess?! Sweet. (247•365) East Coast Morning (248•365)
Grapes & football (249•365) (I used to have) a bush for my critter to hide under. (250•365) Logan, Terminal B (251•365) Four minutes (252•365) Pink & Pink (253•365) Beware o' Birthday (254•365) Grrrr (255•365)
Bubo cake (256•365) Last cupcake (I promise) (257•365) Left turn (258•365) How we celebrate around here. (259•365) Red (260•365) Westward windows (261•365) Licky kitty (262•365)
Everything (and everyone) sits on the floor. (263•365) End Commonwealth? (264•365) This is not my office. (265•365) Parnassus Subway (266•365) Oh hai. (267•365) A select subset of us need to use bibs. (268•365) I have copilots. (269•365)
Backside view (270•365) Grand Canyon (271•365) Tram (272*365) Self-portrait in my hotel window at Big Bend (273*365)

I’m a couple days late posting this due to connectivity issues, but month nine of my project 365. The full set is on flickr or here on quasify. Of note, this month there are more shots of VC (3) than mmmja (only 1!!)… That imbalance will get fixed in October, I promise.

two hundred thirteen to two hundred forty-three

Typical saturday buzz (213•365)
Bursting (214•365) For those of us who had forgotten, these are 'shadows', cast by 'the sun'. (215•365) I can't sleep to save the life of me. (216•365) St. Ignatius (217•365) Straw (218•365) Incorrect Friday Beverage. (219•365) Cliff of Despair #1 (220•365)
Beachwear (221•365) Shredded (222•365) Gray and dismal and no chance for meteors tonight. (223•365) Aloe Carnivorosum (224•365) 30th Ave (225•365) Too bright, too yawny. (226•365) Funston (227•365)
Pink (228•365) Tomato vine? Or unbeknownst EVIL? (229•365) Wet & Sandy (230•365) My vet is not a herbalist (231•365) My team (232•365) Palo Alto has stars (233•365) Up in the palms (234•365)
Lighthouse Beach The last few berries. (236•365) Sorry to have interrupted your dinner. (237•365) Smog v Fog: the true evil is... We are in agreement. (239•365) International Man of Mystery (240•365) Gomers (241•365)
Exit SFO (242•365) Geary (243•365)

Please note semi-intentional 13th & 31st symmetry this month. With my model gone (re: photo 239), September promises to be the most difficult of all the 365 project. Full month by month view is here, or on flickr here.

one eighty-two to two hundred and twelve

mixcorps 2009 (182•365) Lobitos marinos (183•365) Surrey Fleet (184•365) Cell block lockdown (185•365)
Sila and the Afrofunk Experience (186•365) A mighty stone lion-like leap! (187•365) Old school, new school (188•365) The iPhone introduces a certain laziness to the POTD process. (189•365) LiuLi (190•365) Feather marker (191•365) My Sunshine (192•365)
Yeah you're pretty cool. Yes We Can (Skype) (194•365) Cuauhtemoc (195•365) We are for sale. (196•365) Stevie Snack ACTION SEQUENCE (197•365) Ride Share (198•365) Safe (but not for pigeons) (199•365)
Fishermen (200•365) Three hours to mile twelve. (201•365) HSW16 (202•365) Kiwi eclipse (203•365) Security somewhat weaker here (204•365) Rehydration Nation Station (205•365) Neunundneunzig (206•365)
One and one-half trees. (207•365) Pier 48 (208•365) Over Muir (209•365) The young ones are gone so it's time to resume healthy consumption of vegetables. (210•365) Regaining the prized 'Most Favored Grandma' status (211•365) Non-longhorn Z (212•365)

I got some pretty good ideas for mixing up my project 365 last month but haven’t so much gotten around to implementing them quite yet. Eh, such is life, no harm no foul, what’s another six world’s cutest husky shots between friends? The full project is on flickr here, or in month-by-month form on quasify here.

one fifty-two to one eighty-one

Orange weeds (152•365) Today was sunny, I walked home. (153•365) Shadow Country (154•365) Root system (155•365) Medium dark (156•365) Wee climbing vines (157•365)
Caving (158•365) Tetris home repair (159•365) She wouldn't be acting so cute if she knew about the part where she's gettin' ditched tomorrow. (160•365) Giant Bear vs Convention Center (161•365) The Denver Center for the Performing Arts (162•365) I had to walk a long way for this fakey fake Zakim. (163•365) Ubiquitous Coors (164•365)
I think this medal means I came in first (165•365) Downtown swirls (166•365) Two more days (167•365) Feel the fear (168•365) Now that there's fashion (169•365) Today's little luxury (170•365) V J D N (171•365)
A seriously natty dread (172•365) I couldn't get them to go to Anabelle's. (173•365) Green lantern (174•365) Secured seating (175•365) Treebeard (176•365) TGI oh what the frick it's Friday. (177•365) Sunbeams (178•365)
Baker Beach (179•365) The world's saddest non-calzone. (180•365) Big & Little

Here we are, the end of June, almost July. We’ve made it to the midpoint of the year, and I’m halfway through my project 365. I want to use this opportunity to take a moment to think critically about where I want to go with the rest of the project. It seems like there’s a choice to be made to either finish out the year going along as I have, posting shots of convenience when they present themselves. Or, I could try to proactively seek out and apply new techniques and themes. I was reading David Hobby the other day and this turn of phrase stuck in my mind.

I can tell you from experience that there is nothing like a long-term project to expose your “camera expertise” as nothing more than a bag of tricks — and a shallow bag of tricks at that.

How shallow is my bag? Shallow. Would it be more interesting to make it deeper? Definintely. How do I do that? I have some specific thoughts on implementation but would rather share them on their successful execution. But I’m also open to suggestions from le galleria de legumes. I know that I want what comes next to further diverge from my standard POTD stream and the world’s cutest husky that lies therein. Also, I know that I want this effort to be more considered than it has been in the past.

ninety-one to one hundred and twenty

Only two of maija this month, thank you very much…

Pineapplyness (91•365) Organic Bike Rack (92•365) Temporary Dune (93•365) If you're going to own a truck... (94•365)
Pacifica pettin' (95•365) I really wanted this to be a good game, but it's not. (96•365) Hey Hey Opening Day! (97•365) Crane Operator (98•365) Fingers (99•365) STORAG (100•365) Pre-easter brunch (101•365)
A brief pause on our uphill section (102•365) Cotton Candy (103•365) 250mm (104•365) Sno Splatter (105•365) One small sunbeam (106•365) The cake is apparently a 'thing' - the Princess Cake. (107•365) Bribing Chloe (108•365)
Fan ladies (109•365) Windmill (110•365) Clouds bring cool (111•365) 21st Amendment (112•365) I'm not sure what this is. (113•365) There was an engine this morning. (114•365) Sand-sunk fence (115•365)
Throngs (116•365) Squat & Gobble (117•365) Ionosphere (over Sierra Nevadas) (118•365) Gray Potomac (119•365) Medium (120•365)

sixty to ninety

March in California, in like a lamb, out like a slightly warmer lamb enjoying a little more light each afternoon. It was getting complicated for me to keep track of the days of the year but fortunately NASA has a solution to that problem. This has been a good month for 365 – not because this batch is particularly great but because of all the friends in town gave me plenty of excuses to find new things to shoot. May April be so lucky!

Gusting (60•365) The elevator is making strange noises (61•365) Transbay (62•365) Her ears don't go any further back than this. (63•365) Reeds DOF (64•365) Yes, we've gots the copies. (65•365) Lost in San Francisco (66•365)
Poppies on rails (67•365) Hunting crabs (68•365) Not Responsible for Interior Design (69•365) Jack London Station (70•365) Meta 1: Lost on the Lost Trail (71•365) CNHB & SMHB (72•365) Over Sutro Baths (73•365)
Stick-y seahorse (74•365) The same old drizzle (75•365) The Birthday Broccoli I was gonna Buy (76•365) The trees in my neighborhood come with references (77•365) Shadows (78•365) Cell phone lot chillin (79•365) Something sad going on here. (80•365)
Massive crawly (81•365) We're losing light... (82•365) Superstar (83•365) Wobbly tower (84•365) Clifftop (85•365) Biohazard Mini (86•365) Vino Locale (87•365)
Spelunker (88•365) The bush truck is getting a little shaggy (89•365) Flycasters, surprisingly cartesian (90•365)

For those interesting in keeping track of photo equity, seven of the thirty-one rock the dog while there are only two of CNHB & one of SMHB. Sadly, there are squat zip zero of yjp.

thirty-two to fifty-nine

An utterly brilliant day here. Wet fuzz and I braved the sand sharks this morning, then later the Team Hevelone-Byler diaspora ran a total of forty-eight(!) miles, generously averaging out to a sweet sixteen each. As month number two comes to an end, project three sixty-five rolls on with photos thirty-two to fifty-nine. Thanks to everyone who left comments along the way this month – they really are motivating and do rather make me happy. Cheers!

XX (32•365) Sherron Collins (33•365) Gas station? (34•365) Saint John of San Francisco Orthodox Academy (35•365) Cold wind this morning (36•365) Squirrble of the Day (37•365) Fire Mouth (38•365)
Sand Surfing (39•365) My elusive frenemy (40•365) Victoria correctly predicts Stormy Skies (41•365) Wet spools (42•365) More cherry blossoms (43•365) XSi (44•365) Some people are a bad influence on me. (45•365)
(I want a) Vespa (46•365) Spokes (47•365) Hapag-Lloyd (48•365) Sea bird (49•365) It's a christmas shrubbery (50•365) Apprehended going out the fire escape (51•365) I wore her clean out (52•365)
But overall, stylin'. (53•365) We need some new toys (54•365) USS San Francisco (55•365) Balloon Starfish (56•365) Post (57•365) Sutter Street (58•365) Pink guy (59•365)

Quasify your love


Who amongst you is really loved? Valentine’s Day seems as good a time as any to assess our popular metric of true love, tagged photos.

Nieces/Grandbabies
Isabelle (61)
Victoria (55)
Lily-bug (55)
The Various BsIL
Steven (130)
Lee (19)
Colin (5)
Aminals
Maija (111)
Aggie (11)
Gaigan/Nori (9)
Leo (5)
Siblings
Christine (51)
Suzanne (23)
Jennifer (18)
Nathanael (17)
Old people
Nell (23) Jon (22) Bill (2) Lillian (1)

Huh. Well being at the bottom of the siblings category there is a big honking suxXor. And while it may feel egalitarian that no clear favorite among them baby nieces has broken from the pack, if we age adjusted Lily-monster would be dominating the big girls. Just for fun, here’s a quick check on the four possible combinations of baby nieces: Victoria/Isabelle (30), Isabelle/Lily (2), Lily/Victoria (1) and all three at once (12). That’s it? What the frick ya’ll? Clearly there’s room for improvement on some of those big girl+baby combinations.

Alright. My puppy valentine & I are off for a run to the ocean. Hope all ya’ll bicorporal types have fun and food and flowers and so on (ad nauseum) today.

One to thirty-one

2008 in flames The Great Escape Gulls on Lloyd Lake
At Lake Merced Us in the slammer. This guy was trying to talk to me. Furniture Jumble Waiting on the 29 Camera Obscura Baker Beach
(More than meets the eye) Spinach of the Day Kezar Tree 38th & Clement Happy Critter Riding for cheap (& thrills) We're in the drink.
I get Kung-Fu'd Lincoln Playground YWC Nose ? Tail Evil Things Happen Here Wait, maybe a bit...? Little swirls
Abortion is Murder Fulton Street from Spreckels RED Point Bonita in pastels FAMRI 32nd & Anza pseudo-pseudoephedrine

The first month of my 2009 three hundred sixty-five project. There’s some overlap here with my regular POTDs but I’m making an effort to make them distinct.

Hunger


My POTDs have been kinda sucking it up as of late as once again I find myself stuck in deadly boring cycle of work/darkness/lack of friends within a two thousand mile radius. Fortunately, the new Maija Nell Fan Club is BLOWIN’ UP. Seven members! That’s bigger than our friggin’ Jingle Blast turnout. Bigger than DOG-A-PALOOZA! BIGGER THAN SCROWYARRR!!!

Since it’s easier to blame equipment for mediocre results than my motivation or opportunity, I’ve decided throwing money at the problem is the most logical solution. I’m not sure if a half month’s rent, a full month’s, or trading in my car’s worth of irresponsibility will do the trick. Stay tuned for critical updates.

Can Nathanael Come Out and Play? i is yogah mastur
Maija 019 Hamburgler

Intersections!


Totally psyched. We’ve finally finished porting the rest of CNHB’s photos over to the hevelonian reboot and in the process have been exploring the enhanced options of our tagging system. Why does this matter? As of right now we’re rocking 1226 posts & 662 different tags, meaning if you’re interested in becoming the world’s foremost expert in a topic we specialize in (say, the Boston Marathon), you’d have to deal with an obscenely large number of posts on that topic, sorted by recency. So it can be helpful to use more complicated tagging calls to drill down to what you’re specifically interested in.

To get photos from one person, we’re use categories. Here are my mother’s, father’s, etc.

We can look at tags just within a person’s shots. For instance, CNHB’s shots of maija.

We can require two tags to present. For example, both SMHB and Maija.

How about two tags (like above) but from a specific person? Say, CNHB’s shots of SMHB in the rain?

Point being, this can quickly get pretty random (Maija in the snow at sunset in Allston?). Fun tymes.

Me and You and Everyone We Know

Who can work on a day like today? It’s already 2:30 EST, only a few more hours til the fun starts. Happy voting everyone!

¡Ya Voté!

Oh, and Jeff is doing dessert preference/exit polling.

Something is wrong with my DSLR.


My friggin camera is broken. This is emblematic of how the whole day has gone. Were I not a generally pessimistic and irritable person I could pretend the encroaching shadow across the frame was making some sort of insightful point about the early onset darkness that marks the end of daylight savings time. Instead I’m just kinda bummed about the whole of it all, resigned to sitting here enjoying my Vitamin D deficiency. Woo hypocalcemic tetany!

It’s not funny, really.


Nineteen months of photoblogging crashed spectacularly today. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, given the wildly obsolete and randomly modified teeter-totter type drupal structure we had propping it up, though, yo be transparent though, it was totally my fault. The accident broke innumerable posts on quasify and elsewhere around our corner of the internets. I hope those directly impacted (particularly wee Hondo) can embrace the misfortune for it’s upside, a new chance at a fresh start. It will probably take the rest of this month to transition as I try to port the mangled remnants of the database over to WordPress and get the old posts back up. Please email if you need instructions on how to proceed with the new site.

In the meantime (speaking of iPhone-wielding little dorks) ZENYX is up and rockin in, mobo-style.

A Denver-style delegate scramble

At long last, voting is closed and the results are in. Thanks to all those who participated in Dog-a-palooza, be it directly by submitting shots (and then voting) or in a more oblique fashion by voting for this or that unrelated thing. Also thanks for those helpful suggestions on the very real issue of POTD subject equity.

I’m going to attempt to try to sidestep the sort of controversy surrounding the math in the hevelonian anniversary post by using three different scoring methods to determine the winner. First (and most democratically) I’ll use a quasitative analysis to pull the presumed top vote from each comment. Second, I’ll give each mentioned shot a vote, regardless of it being indicated a clear favorite, as the instructions mentioned legality of multiple votes. Lastly, I’ll keep to the one comment one vote concept but split the voting power up based on the number of shots mentioned. For our purposes a three-way split is worth 0.33 points.

Top vote per person:
Winner: Puppy Kisses, 3pts
1st runner up: Moon Doggy, One more, blue eye, The Winning Shot, 1pt each

Multiple votes per person:
Winner: Puppy Kisses, 5pts,
1st runner up: One more, blue eye, The Winning Shot, Doll dog, 2pts each

Fractional voting:
Winner: Puppy Kisses, 1.58pt
1st runner up: Moon Doggy , 1pt

So, by all three measures the overall winner here is Puppy Kisses, below. Congratulations Nell! Please pick up your BFP ($25 gift certificate to Best in Show) in person at the BFP prize window (located at 510 26th Ave, San Francisco)! As a bonus prize, you’ve earned your very own menu link along the hevelonian top header menu. Thanks again everyone for playing!

puppy kisses

Stuff My Dog Hides Under

Last night’s POTD (number one million in an infinite series) suggested a theme: “Stuff My Dog Hides Under.” Ok so it’s not quite Stuff on My Cat but we have to work with what we’ve got to work with.

The covers

Amplifiers

Bushes

Koreans

Coffee Tables

Power cords (hay muchos sobre la cabeza aqui)

The water (archival dogshark)

Arial snow attacks
Snow Dog