http://www.declan.net Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:34:22 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Erin's officially a high schooler! On Wednesday, she got an award for her work in the Drama Club: Here are the happy parents! Nice work Erin! (with Mr. Sykes, the drama coach) Then on Thursday, Erin walked for her promotion ceremony: There was pretty music: which caused a lot of hugging: and smiles: and posing: http://www.declan.net/2009/06/13/erins-award-and-promotion-ceremony/ Last Sunday I attended the 2009 Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA. I've always wanted to go and Elaine and I were up in SF for the weekend, so I made it! I walked into the building above and assumed that was the whole thing. It was an enormous ... http://www.declan.net/2009/06/03/maker-faire-2009/ I've been using this interface for the last few weeks, and it's making me physically ill: It boggles the mind... http://www.declan.net/2009/05/15/ugly-web-site/ We got up, had some good Mexican food, then hit the road to AZ. We stopped at too many "trading posts" where Erin was overwhelmed with the selection: In the whole trip, the only place we ran into a little weather was outside of Flagstaff where we picked up a ... http://www.declan.net/2009/05/10/2009-spring-break-road-trip-lake-havasu-city-az/ Yep, pretty much sums the place up. http://www.declan.net/2009/05/10/2009-spring-break-road-trip-albuquerque-nm/ Man, it's taking me forever to finish writing up this trip... I gotta stop taking so many pictures... My sister Diardra and her hubby Doug live in Arvada, CO right next to Denver: Diardra gave us directions to the 16th Street Mall which is right by the capitol: Erin Yelped and found us ... http://www.declan.net/2009/05/10/2009-spring-break-road-trip-denver-co/ I think I only have one picture of her with a closed mouth. This isn't it... Bryan's learning how to count: We saw Wolverine and didn't go out for sushi. ;) http://www.declan.net/2009/05/10/megan-and-bryan-visit/ Erin's school play opened last night and I got some nice shots: Erin and her short Mom: http://www.declan.net/2009/05/09/erin-being-dramatic/ My brother Aidan and his wife Renia live in Edwards, CO: But let's be real, the real reason for the trip is JACK! Jack is our new nephew and I hadn't met him before this. He's a wonderful little dude with a great disposition. Looks like he'll have our sense ... http://www.declan.net/2009/05/03/2009-spring-break-road-trip-edwards-co/ I'd booked us into the motel just outside of Bryce. It turns out that it's a huge complex of buildings, but easy to navigate and quite close to the park. We woke the next morning to a mysterious substance coating the car: I haven't owned an ice scraper since ... http://www.declan.net/2009/04/26/2009-spring-break-road-trip-bryce-canyon-ut/ We got up the next morning, found some breakfast, then headed north on I-15 to Zion. On previous trips in this part of the country, I'd stuck to the interstate. The views were always awesome, but I wondered what getting off of the beaten path would yield. ... http://www.declan.net/2009/04/26/2009-spring-break-road-trip-zion-ut/ Erin and I took off early on Saturday morning: to get to our first stop, Las Vegas! This was Erin's first time so I wanted to make sure she saw the most important part, Barry Manilow! Ok, not really - our goal was the Blue Man Group but first we ... http://www.declan.net/2009/04/19/2009-spring-break-road-trip-las-vegas/ Erin and I took a road trip from San Diego to Denver and back. I'll post more as I get the pictures edited, but here's the initial map: View Larger Map http://www.declan.net/2009/04/13/2009-spring-break-map/ I should know better than asking my Ops guys if they have a spare ladder on April Fool's Day ;) my office: http://www.declan.net/2009/04/01/april-fools-day-ladder-in-the-office/ I turned on Instamapper as I was about to bike the Silver Strand: GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com I need to play with it more... I KNOW I went over 11 mph ;) Not sure why there are so few data points. The phone was in my saddle bag, ... http://www.declan.net/2009/03/15/playing-with-instamapper/ Just got back from one of my favorite conferences of the year, code4lib 2009, this year in Providence, RI. It was great seeing a lot of my liberry geek buddies, and it was a nice reminder of why I live in San Diego and not the God forsaken hinterlands ... http://www.declan.net/2009/03/01/code4lib-2009-in-providence-ri/ I'm SO happy with how well this shot worked: Hit this link to see a big version. And hit this link to see a huge version! :) This is actually 2 shots from the Balboa Park bridge over Rt. 163, toward downtown San Diego. I used Autostitch to put them into ... http://www.declan.net/2009/01/25/san-diego-night-time-panorama/ Wanna help me win a photo contest? go to http://tinyurl.com/8tn2f3 and vote for me! or one of the others if you like it better. thanks! http://www.declan.net/2009/01/05/help-me-win-a-photo-contest/ Happy birthday, baby! http://www.declan.net/2008/12/16/elaines-yummy-birthday/ Last night I shot some of the neat Moon Jupiter Venus convergence: I also started playing around with long exposures: This one was very long, maybe 10 minutes. In fact, by the time I went back out to close the shutter, the fog had rolled back in: I noticed later that I ... http://www.declan.net/2008/12/02/moon-jupiter-venus-convergence/ The fog was interesting in the morning as well. This was just as the sun was breaking it up: More here: http://www.declan.net/2008/12/02/foggy-ucsd-morning/ Love you E! D http://www.declan.net/2008/11/18/it-was-20-years-ago-tomorrow-actually/ I found this quite moving: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVUecPhQPqY[/youtube] http://www.declan.net/2008/11/12/msnbc-keith-olbermann-on-prop-8-marriage-and-more/ Thanks @dcrane2, @SDMike, @dwaynedomi, @dcrane's Old Man, John, Preston, and @dblackman for a great night of poker. And cute photography: Especially thanks to you guys for giving me yer moneyz!!! ;) D http://www.declan.net/2008/11/09/fun-night-of-poker/ City Beat has a twitter article today, and Gabe (@gebl) is quoted. “If you go to the standard technology meet-ups,” says Gabriel Lawrence, director of IT security at UCSD, the glow of the pool reflecting in his glasses, “it’s all a bunch of geeks standing around lecturing each other. But look ... http://www.declan.net/2008/11/05/welcome-to-the-twitosphere-san-diego-city-beat-article/ I wanted to show some support to the NO on Proposition 8 movement in California, and I couldn't find any nice icons/avatar to change my picture to on Twitter. So I played around in Photoshop and made this one: Gabe wanted something stronger: Please feel free to use them. http://www.declan.net/2008/10/31/no-on-proposition-8-icons/ Another place that Maureen suggested I visit on my down day was Watkins Glen. There is a large gorge carved out that's full of waterfalls. I got there fairly close to sunset, so I was moving as fast as I could, but I did bring the tripod to ... http://www.declan.net/2008/10/26/waterfalls-at-watkins-glen-ny/ While attending the Access 2008 conference in Hamilton, ON Canada, I got to visit the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. It was a social event where we could mingle, look at planes, and play video games on large screen projectors. There were some very neat planes: Great colors: And library geeks ... http://www.declan.net/2008/10/26/canadian-warplane-heritage-museum/ I had an extra day in Central NY, so Maureen suggested I visit the Corning Museum of Glass in nearby Corning, NY. I packed up the camera and headed over. It's a very neat space, a working art glass plant with an informative museum grafted on to the ... http://www.declan.net/2008/10/26/corning-museum-of-glass/ After attending Access 2008 in Hamilton, ON this year, I drove down to Erin, NY to visit with my old college buddy, Maureen and her daughter Ruby: They have a neat house in the woods: Which let me grab some Fall color: We hadn't seen each other in 12 years, but we talked ... http://www.declan.net/2008/10/26/maureen-and-ruby-visit/