London Open House photos
Started: 2006-10-08 21:47:35
Submitted: 2006-10-08 22:08:14
Visibility: World-readable
My loyal content vultures, starved from two weeks without substantial content, will be pleased to know that I've posted photos from Sunday, 17 September 2006. Since you read the changelog from that date, you know that Kiesa and I wandered around London looking at architecturally-interesting buildings not normally open to the public. These included the O2 and the newly-restored gleaming Art Deco lobby of the former Daily Express building.
I now know just enough about my camera to be dangerous -- I figured out what the quasi-manual settings do and how to use them. I don't empirically trust my light meter; it tends to over-expose shots, but my camera has a mode I can use to compensate, which tends to work. I ended up taking 88 shots on Monday, when we went to Cambridge. Most of the photos are duplicates while I searched for the perfect exposure; those won't make it any further than my contact sheet.
In unrelated news, Kiesa left on Tuesday last week for CODI (a conference for users of the library software she uses), leaving the house to me until Wednesday, when my project manager sent me to San Diego for my first visit to the mothership and some face-time with some of the software guys down there, who know a bit more about a project I'm going to be helping out on. At 1100 Wednesday morning, I asked the person designated to arrange travel to get me on the next plane to San Diego and headed home to pack and head to the airport. My plane left at 1500 MDT, flying from a major US airport with one of the largest footprints to a major US airport with one of the smallest footprints. Apparently by state law, San Diego's airport must tell its travelers how inadequate it is.
Despite going to San Diego, I didn't actually set foot in the mothership; I spent my day and a half in the satellite office next door where they put some of the software team when they didn't have enough space in the main office. I did get to visit one of my San Diego cousins and read a bedtime story to a five-year-old.
In other unrelated news, I managed to total Lyta (our 1992 Toyota Camry), so we're now trying to get our hands on a new vehicle. I want four-wheel-drive so I can have expanded recreational opportunities on unimproved dirt roads. Kiesa wants a mommy-mobile. (She's not pregnant; see our five-year plan if you happen to be logged in.) I want a manual transmission. Right now we're looking at the Rav4 but we're not convinced we'll be able to find a previously-loved one that meets all of our (generally mutually-exclusive) price, feature, and safety criterion.
