Things I've learned in 4 days with the Nikon D90

• I am addicted to shallow depths of field. It's the most noticeable difference in the photos I can take with the D90 versus my old camera, and I'm afraid I can't stop.
  
• The remote is the most useful accessory I think I will ever buy for this. The heft of the camera seems to exacerbate the shaking when the shutter button is pushed.
  
• Tripods are invaluable.
  
• A fantastic camera alone will not make you a fantastic photographer. The overall quality of my photos has declined, though I suspect I will more than make up for it once I've figured this thing out.
  
• I need a close-up lens. Something to consider the next time I have a spare $500 lying around.
  
• The Quantity Method is still my photographic technique of choice. The D90 will be better for this than my previous camera (which only had a 3-photo burst mode). :^)
• I like having fully manual control over zoom. It's quicker and easier than a motor.
• I should stick to auto-focus.
• It's always going to be hard to photograph falling snow.
• I need more cats. The current one is starting to turn away and hide when he sees the camera coming.
  

[Things I love] The Sigma Aldrich catalog

Despite not being in charge of a lab for 3 years now, and therefore not having placed an order with them, I am still on Sigma Aldrich's mailing list. This is, I think, a good place to be. Every year I eagerly await the Aldrich Chemistry Catalog, which features their annual artistic selection. More recently, the cover has been printed on canvas-texture stock. I adore that this catalog selling all varieties of noxious chemicals and potions gives an artistic nod to the crazies who started it all. The past three catalog covers have been paintings of alchemists. I don't know further back than that. The alchemist discovering phosphorous was repeated on several covers.

Above is "The Alchemist" by Newell Convers Wyeth, which was featured on the 2009-2010 cover.

Yes, I decorate my cube with them and am heavily considering classing up my cut-outs with some matting.

[Review] The Amazingly 3.5-starred EilliptiGO

I saw this guy riding his ElliptiGO in the Minneapolis Bike Tour last weekend. I went to their website and immediately signed up for a test ride, arranged, oddly enough, with this guy right here for the next weekend.

Physical Stuff
The ElliptiGO weighs 40 lbs and is predominantly aluminum, but the elliptical arms are carbon fiber. The handlebar post folds down so that the ElliptiGO can be transported more readily. There are a few bike racks , that can hold an ElliptiGO, but most will not because it lacks a cross bar and is pretty wide. The tires are 80-100 psi and look pretty sturdy-- probably a relatively low likelihood of flats. Because all of the components on the ElliptiGO, most bike shops will be able to do minor repairs relating to the drive train, shifters, etc. The ElliptiGO has eight gears and the stride length can be modified.

How it rode
It took a bit of getting used to. The ElliptiGO requires more active balancing than a bicycle, due to the upright position in which you ride. I found the shifting to be really smooth and had no problems ascending hills. My pedaling movements didn't feel as smooth as I would have liked, which may have been due to the stride length being set too long. It felt a little wobbly, but I think that is the nature of it. The ElliptiGO may always feel a little less steady than a bicycle. I never mustered up the courage to pass a slower cyclist because I didn't feel that I had that fine of control over the ElliptiGO. That may be something that comes in time. I was impressed at the speed that I could achieve, especially considering the upright position.

As an extra bonus, I rode in my Vibram Five Fingers, and they definitely work for shorter rides on the ElliptiGO.

The day after
The ElliptiGO is definitely a better full-body workout than a bike. All that balancing really works your core. I noticed soreness in my abs and lower back (the muscle kind of soreness, not the hunched over on a bike kind of soreness). I also felt it in my arms, again probably as a result of steadying myself. It also really works your legs, which should go without saying. Notably absent were butt pain and elbow pain, two of the most common in my repertoire.

But wait...there's more
There is now at least one stationary trainer that will hold an ElliptiGO, making the price easier to swallow if you were thinking about getting an indoor elliptical. This is the idea that intrigues me the most.

Yowch!
It costs $2200. So there's that.

Verdict?
3.5 out of 5 stars. It's definitely on my list of desired toys. Contributing factors in the non-perfect rating were: the price, the unsteadiness (which, again, may be more me than the ElliptiGO), and the lack of cargo space. It will definitely not be replacing my bicycle, but I am intrigued.

[Things I love] Honecrisp Apple Season

The perfect apple has already been made, and yet apple-breeding programs persist in trying to perfect perfection. It can't be done. Honeycrisp apples are a crispy combination of sweet and tart. They're juicy. They're good keepers (I've had them last up to 6 months in the refrigerator). They're not mushy or grainy. They don't brown too terribly quickly. They are everything an apple should be.

Most recently, Honeycrisp was bred with Zestar to make SweeTango, an apple that is actually less mushy than the name would imply. It has a decent crunch to it, but is still a touch on the grainy side. The mouthfeel isn't as crisp as Honeycrisp, and the flavor is a bit off. It's tart, but not quite as tart as Honeycrisp, the gold standard for tart/sweet balance.

Fun apple fact: Red Delicious apples were first cultivated in Iowa. *chastises IA severely*

[Review] Topeak MTX Trunk Bag and Topeak Explorer Rack

I recently decided that I require more storage on my bike, so I invested in the Topeak Explorer bike rack and MTX Trunk Bag DXP, which is Topeak's largest bag of this variety.

Installation-- It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

The internet reviewers of the Topeak Explorer rear rack made installation sound tantamount to slaying a dragon with a rubber spork. People on the internet are such exaggerators. It can't possibly be that hard. 30 minutes, tops, I think.

Well.

It turns out that installing the rack was more like slaying a herd of angry dragons with a rubber spork. The hardware that came with the rack didn't seem to make a lot of sense. I admit that I am not a hardware connoisseur, so it may very well be superbly elegant hardware far too sophisticated for my feeble mind to grasp. Whatever is was, those nuts were not fitting on those bolts. I did manage to make the bolts work with the holes in my chain stay (is that what it's called? Bikes are full of stays, so I will assume yes). And it only took me an hour!
I went to bed, leaving a pile of nuts, bolts, allen wrenches, and tattered dreams scattered about the living room floor.

The next day, I went to the hardware store to buy different nuts. This is where I learned that I am completely inept with regard to hardware. It was a humbling moment when the hardware expert showed me how to use the nuts that I already had. It turns out that they're locking nuts that are just really hard to screw on. It really does make sense-- with a bike being subject to so many vibrations, you don't want the fasteners on your rack to shake loose. He sold me a better wrench.

Armed with proper tools, I was able to install the rack in about 20 minutes. The adjustable arms that screw into the seat stay are to be bent slightly to fit your particular bike (mine is a Jamis Satellite Sport), and I was able to do that without a problem. The rack clears everything it should and appears stable.

The Trunk Bag of Holding-- more than meets the eye

The bag slides very nicely into the rack and can be removed in less than a second. I don't like that the top handle forces the zipper to bear the forces, so I use the shoulder strap when I need to carry it. The bag itself is very sturdy-seeming. The inside has a divider, so it's easy to keep my tools and spare tube in a separate area, leaving most of the compartment for whatever else I need to carry at any given point in time. The panniers are very simple to fold in and out, and they attach to the sides of the rack with a little elastic cord.

I took my first trip to Target with the bag, and I was impressed both with how the bag/rack rode and how much the bag carried when fully expanded. Here's a shot of the bag with the expandable top and panniers out.


And more awesomely, here's what I fit inside, with room to spare:

Why.

Occasionally, amid the sea of grabby hands and short attention spans, I am reminded of why I volunteer at the science museum. Today was one of those days.

About 2 hours into my shift, a couple of girls in the range of 6-8 years old appeared and I decided to try something a little different... this is the first time that I've had a kid assemble the salt water battery (4 cells, each consisting of a cup of salt water with a galvanized nail and piece of copper tubing) herself. Or, at least the wire part. I was kind enough to leave the metal bits in the salt water for them. I just wanted to see what would happen if I said "here are some leads. Make a battery." It took over 20 minutes, but she did it! And she was so proud of herself, it almost made me cry. I helped a lot, sure, but she did enough of it that she felt accomplished and she wanted to show her parents that she had lit a light bulb "without a battery." That she had the attention span for it amazed me; that's the primary reason that I've never done that large of a "figure it out" type experiment before. Watching kids "get" something is a pretty fantastic experience, whether the kids are 5 or 50. :^)

I'm getting a bit better at recognizing what type of people I'm dealing with so that I can do things that will at least teach them something at their level in the amount of time that they're willing to hang around. And for some of them, that means saying "hey, look! A puzzle!" and pulling out the pentamino puzzles. Batteries just don't captivate everybody equally. If I had to pluck one stereotype from my experience, I would say that it is that fathers at the science museum with their daughter(s) are almost universally awesome. I could hypothesize on why, but I think I've already made enough assumptive leaps as it is.

[Things I Love] The Minnesota State Fair

It's that time of year again, as everybody is fond of saying at every time of the year regarding something or other. But this time, it really is that time of year. It's time to rejoice with a million of my fellow Minnesotans and worship at the altar of cheese curds and a really big pig. There should be a song about fried cheese curds. There probably is, so let me be more specific... there should be a good song about fried cheese curds. If there were I would be singing it right now. To my cat. Tauntingly.

I dearly love the MN State Fair while also dearly hating certain parts of it. The good typically wins out over the bad. I love the feeling of camaraderie with my fellow people that the fair engenders... but do they have to be so everywhere?! Tip: find a booth that sells raw vegetables. Guaranteed to be the quietest place at the fair. Tip #2: I found one of these last year, and I'm not telling you where it is.

Things I love about the fair, an unordered list:

• The livestock. Yes, the poultry barn smells awful, but that is the smell of food on your plate! Rejoice in it. Also, cows are very sweet animals.
• Cheesecurds. Sure, they have been relieved of their squeak, but they have been blessed with meltiness and batter instead.
• The malts in the dairy building. Yum. I never waver from my vanilla. It is the best malt I have ever had, because it is made of memories. Here is the point where I should mention that dairy makes me sick. But I don't care. I fair on!
• The tractors. I actually think there might not be any tractors anymore. This makes me sad, but I still walk over to what is [I believe] still called Machinery Hill each year. I think the combines are now Priuses.
• The free pine tree seedlings at the DNR booth. Because of them, I kill a tree every year. I'm sorry. I really am. May I have another?
• The agriculture building, especially the honey section as long as there are no escape bees.
• The butter carvings. Carvings of people! Out of butter! How can that possibly be not awesome? Plus, the carvees never need to worry about having dry dinner rolls for the rest of their lives. Now that's a particular brand of nice that you just don't see too often.
• Random percussion bands. There have been grills and trash cans in the past. I adore any percussing of the musical variety. :^)
  
• Sometimes foods: mini donuts and Sweet Martha's cookies are items that I do love but must be cut from the food plan when not traveling with food sharing partners.
• Going home and taking a very long shower.

The Girl Effect

I managed to miss this until now, but Think Geek has a "heroine" series of t-shirts. The Mary Shelley one will still net donations for The Girl Effect, which looks like possibly my new favorite organization. This is one of the reasons that ThinkGeek is a company that I am proud to support with my dollars.

Anyway, this series of shirts is phenomenal, and I know which one I need. :^)

Ada Lovelace, lady of the ones and zeroes:


Marie Curie, badass scientist


Mary Shelley, mistress of SciFi:

[Review] Vibram Five Fingers

I've owned my Freaky Fuchsia Five Fingers for 6 months now, so I figured it was time to let the world know how I really feel about them beyond their propensity for being highly photogenic. I have the mary-jane-esque Five Fingers, but there are options if you want more coverage (the KSOs, which do their darnedest to Keep Stuff Out) or more freedom for your feet (the Classics do not have a velcro strap).

Before I purchased them, I had a few concerns:

1. I hate having things between my toes. Toe socks are like some sort of 1970s-era human rights violation as far as I am concerned.
   
2. Will they hurt? Am I going to die of blisters and achy arches?!
   
3. Will I feel like a complete dork walking around in pink foot gloves?
4. They're expensive! Can I really justify the cost?

Within one month of purchase, all of my fears had been allayed.

1. Fit is very important for the Five Fingers. I measured my feet several times before committing to the size. I don't notice anything annoying or irritating about the fact that my toes are separate and clearly not equal. The only discomfort is when the toes are not properly in their spaces. It can take a little work at first to make sure that everything is situated correctly. I truly find the Five Fingers to be just as comfortable as being barefoot.
2. I've found that I don't really need the support of highly cushioned shoes to be comfortable. The only thing that hurts is standing or walking on concrete, but that's a problem with concrete, not the shoes. Asphalt, grass, sand, and interior flooring are all a dream to walk upon in my FFFFs. They protect your feet from minor dangers, such as pebbles, hot surfaces, moist surfaces, etc while allowing your feet to be free the way they were intended to be! I have also yet to get a blister from the FFFFs-- there's no rubbing because they fit like a...well... glove.
   
3. No. It turns out that I have absolutely no shame when it comes to wearing fabulous shoes. I do get a lot of attention from passersby and it is almost universally good. My favorite was "Damn, girl! Look at your shoes!"
4. Absolutely worth the cost for me. I wear my FFFFs everywhere that is appropriate for non-specialized casual footwear. To date, I have used them for walking around town, hiking in the woods, walking on the beach, boating, wading in oceans and streams, and quite a bit more. They have been in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. :^) The photo above is from a trip that I took to the Redwoods shortly after acquiring the shoes. I wore them exclusively on that trip except where there was snow.

Another great thing about the Five Fingers is that they are machine washable. So far the only slight downside I've encountered is that they need to be machine washable. ::holds nose::

Overall, I give them 6 out of 5 stars. I made up the rating system, so I can do that. I can't bike in them, otherwise they would have scored the elusive 7th star.

[Things I love] Em Dashes

I don't understand why anybody ever uses en dashes. Em dashes are clearly twice as good. An en dash says "I kind of sort of have an aside, but I don't really know." An em dash, on the other hand, is bold and confident. An em dash says "I have an aside, and I am committing to it!" It will still be a part of the sentence, but will be all "whoa! An aside!"

[Things I Love] Trains

I must be one of the few people who isn't annoyed by having to wait at a railroad crossing. I love watching trains. I love looking at the graffiti on trains and wondering where the cars were when they were decorated as such. They're such a majestic form of transport (there's that word again). The train above is from the original Amtrak "Empire Builder" line, the name of which explains a lot about my love and deep respect for trains. (It's at the Jackson Street Roundhouse Museum, if you'd like to touch it yourself. :^)

We have yet to actually replace them, which impresses me, considering the shear number of transportation options available these days. If you have the time, there is no better way to see the country than via train. It feels like stepping back into an era where traveling was special.

The lake is a lie

After watching an episode of The West Wing wherein Martin Sheen gets all patriotic about the National Park System, I decided that I really need to see all of the national parks. After a quick trip to Wikipedia-- okay, who am I kidding?-- after a 2-hour wiki-walk, I decided that in order to keep this reasonable and with the assumption that there are not going to be any medical advances in the next few decades that will increase my life expectancy by 50 years, I would limit the self-imposed requirement to places that actually contain the label "National Park." Partly because there are a lot of national lakeshores, seashores, monuments, historic sites, historic reserves, recreation areas, and much, much more...but mostly because national forests are really, really boring and better lend themselves to being driven through at high linear velocities.

So I set off to plan a solo vacation. My first stop was to be Redwoods National Park. Oh, how I've always wanted to see those majestic trees! Majestic isn't a word I use often, but it definitely applies to those beasts. Upon researching the area, it became clear that I could see Crater Lake National Park on the same trip. Wonderful, I thought! I didn't have any preconceived notions about Crater Lake, having only a passing knowledge of its existence from the backside of a quarter shortly before using said quarter to buy something far fizzier and tastier than a pressed image of Crater Lake. So I did what I always do when I don't know enough-- headed out to the internet to research like a mad person. I started to get really excited about seeing Crater Lake! It was huge! A volcano collapsed and made this fantastic bit of nature! The photos I saw were breathtaking. I wasn't just doing this to meet some arbitrary goal; I was doing this to experience the beauty of our country, one crazy volcanic structure at a time!

There was some foreshadowing. A friend suggested that, based on weather predictions, I should arrange to go on a different day. First of all, everybody knows that weather prediction is some sort of crazy crystal ball voodoo. Second, I'm from Minnesota and you can't scare me off with a little "28 degrees and snowy." Third, I had my trip planned down to the hour and couldn't wouldn't change anything. On my way out of town, I stopped at a small gas station in Oregon that had one pump and a sign stating that their hours were "10-5 starting March 16." What good fortune! I had managed to catch gas season by just a few short days. The man of few teeth who sauntered out to pump my gas was a bit surprised to hear that I was planning a trip to Crater Lake. "Today?" he asked, his head askew, shaking slightly.

But I was determined. I was going to Crater Lake because I said so.

Everything was going so well at first. I zoomed along in my rented Chevy Aveo, like a little red bullet of moderate and efficient speed. As I increased in elevation, I saw the first little bits of snow on the ground. I was so excited! I was going to snowshoe around the rim of Crater Lake and it was going to be magical and awesome. It started raining, lightly at first. As the Little Aveo That Could steadily chugged along, we kept going up, higher and higher. We were on the park road now, bracketed by 12-foot banks of snow with heavy duty plow marks streaked along them. The rain turned to sleet, and then to snow. I slowed down a bit; I could feel the little Aveo starting to slip and slide as snow accumulated on the narrow, winding road. It may have been my imagination, but heavier duty vehicles seemed to being going out of their way to avoid me-- a feat on a two-lane road. It may have been the Arizona plates I was sporting.

We must almost be there. I was going 15 mph now, with a white-knuckled death grip on the steering wheel. It was snowing harder, the flakes wet and heavy. I wouldn't normally drive in conditions like this. Back in Minnesota, I would have stayed inside drinking cocoa and playing Scrabble against myself. But I was going to see Crater Lake. I came all this way, and I was not going to turn back now.

45 minutes later, I arrived at the rim gift shop/snack bar/parking lot of Crater Lake. I bought some magnetic hematite for my refrigerator, because I thought my refrigerator might like it. I went up to the second floor where you're supposed to be able to look out and see the lake. I should have gotten a clue when I couldn't figure out which of the four windowed walls I was supposed to be looking at the lake through.

Never one to give up, I went back to my car and donned my snowshoeing gear. Boots, snowshoes, jacket, gloves, scarf, hat. I was all ready for some awesome national park fun. I walked as jauntily as one can while encumbered with snowshoes out to the rim of the lake. I stood right next to the rope that they had there for our safety. I looked down, and I was forced to confront the reality that I had been avoiding at every opportunity that day: there was no lake. This is what I saw, in all of its sordid, disappointing glory.

I still don't believe there is one. Roswell, the moon landing, Crater effing Lake.

A fool and what?

It's amazing how quickly one can part with a lot of money. If this were a movie and I were electronically stealing money, it would take at least half an hour as I watched the money transfer over to my offshore account one penny at a time, just barely finishing in time for me to make it out with my floppy disc before the bad guys catch up to me (I'm the lead character, so I am obviously good). But in the real world, the computers work like computers and it takes about 5 seconds from swiping the card to signing away the money. And the only thing that's going to catch up to you is your guilt and remorse over making such an impulsive decision even though you've actually been considering it for a year.

So, I bought a new bike. It's the pictured bike, which you may or may not know because I've been trotting out that photo for several months, except that's not mine [the photo is now of my actual bike!]. Because mine is being built. Because delayed gratification builds character. It's a road bike, and will be the first time I've used drop handlebars in 17 years. They're kind of wobbly. [Turns out that having a properly sized frame does wonders to reduce wobbliness.] I'm a little scared to combine that with clipless pedals (which is a stupid name because everybody uses the phrase "clip in/out" anyway). I may actually have a very delayed first pedal-induced fall. There will probably be witnesses involved. There always are.

One of the first things I noticed was how light it is. It turns out that those people I see effortlessly lifting their bike up with two fingers don't actually have abnormal strength. Apparently there are many bikes that do not weigh 40 lbs (perhaps a bit of an exaggeration there, but not much). I look forward to not getting an upper body workout when I have to take my bike up and downstairs.

I'm vacillating between being completely in love with my beautiful shiny new toy and wondering what on earth I've done. It's pretty, though, isn't? ::nods and thinks you should nod too::

[Things I love] The Smell of Morning

Now, don't get me wrong, I won't be up at 4 AM if I have any choice in the matter, but if I have to be up, amid all the grumbling and crankiness, I'm secretly going to be enjoying it. Or maybe not so secretly-- the sniffing at the air with my eyes closed tends to be a bit of a give away.

It starts around 3 AM and lasts until a bit after 5 AM. It smells dewy, fresh, placid, and full of promise. Maybe it's the frolicking bunnies that do it; I don't know. It was my favorite part about delivering papers the summer after high school, which is when I first fell in love with the smell of the wee hours of the morning. Of course, it didn't have much competition.

Because what I really need is another place to update the internet on my state of being.

But I had a cool idea for a name.

It will probably seem less fantastically awesome at some point, but it fits me right now. I spend my working life seeking steady state and pondering whether such a state actually exists. I think it applies to non-work just as well. Some people are into randomness and chaos, but I find that I would like nothing more than to reach steady state. It's a place of contentment, whether you're a distillation column or a human being.

Yeah, distillation columns can totally be contented. If you saw a grumpy one, you'd believe me.