The Underground Man

Thieves are everywhere

I was looking at weblogs tonight for some sites I manage (including my own) and noted that there was a referrer from a scooter site. Why, I thought, would they refer to my site?

So I go check the page out and find that some turd has lifted a photo from my site and placed it in this forum. He "thinks" it was taken in Redmond and bloody well doesn't even give me credit.

That just irks me severely. How hard is it to give someone credit for their photography?

Hummingbirds!

I was a little depressed the other day (work, life, the meaning of life) and I picked up a hummingbird feeder I had bought four or five weeks ago and rather hopefully, made up some syrup and mounted it on my front porch.

For a couple of days the level seemed to stay the same.. then on Sunday afternoon, as I was sitting on the porch reading a book, I heard the buzzing of tiny wings.

A hummingbird had come to visit my feeder. I had no idea whether there were hummingbirds in Maryland. I thought surely that there would be (if they've made it as far north as Seattle) but this was a very pleasant reward for my faith.

They sucked it pretty much dry - however many there are - in about four days. So I cleaned this morning and refilled. I've got to be careful about refilling and cleaning 'cause I found a little floating mold when I cleaned it out. Not surprising given our 95 degree weather but worrisome.

Don't want the little fellows to get sick..

Tug in Baltimore Harbor

I took this a couple of weeks ago during the World Cup matches. My team and I would occasionally adjourn to the Slainte Pub in Fells Point for lunch and watch the match there.

I had just bought a Perkeo II folder. It's a wonderful little camera - fits in my jeans and carries an 80mm f3.5 four-element Color-Skopar lens. It was pretty much the pinnacle of folding camera design, and it appears to be none the worse for wear fifty plus years after it was first sold.

From this photo, it looks to me like the registration to the film plane is right on - edge to edge sharpness. This was shot using T-Max 100 - a very old roll salvaged from a dumpster (believe it or not). Friend of mine grabbed about forty rolls of 120 film that a friend of his had just thrown out because it was out of date. Looks like the film is fine.

I would think that the shot is maybe 1/2 to 1 stop underexposed but I rather like the effect and think it will likely print well. I had to spend a good hour removing dust from the scan - a new and not so good pro lab here in Baltimore - but I think that the final result is pretty decent.

The big version is at my Flickr site.

appreciating the day

Something I need to do more often..

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

Rescue Me..

Discovered this show a couple of week's ago on FX. Had been recommended to me before.. it's sort of white trashy, evening soap opera, with a dose of cinema verite (the firefighting scenes). But I find it only captivating..

Scams

Well, I've been trying to sell my 49er season tickets on craigslist of late and I got a response the same day. Chap asked the cost (already on the ad) and I didn't hear anything from him for a couple of days.

Then I got this:

Thanks for the mail response. I am okay with the price of the 49er season tickets ($1,284) A client of mine is owing me some funds in United State ($5,000), I will instruct him to issue a check for you and as soon as you cash the check.

You will deduct the cost of the 49er season tickets ($1,284) and the remaining balance will be Send to My Shipper via Western Union Money Transfer for immediate Shipping Arrangment of the 49er season tickets from your location.

Do get back to me If this is okay by you with your information (Full Name, Contact Address, Phone Number), so that i can forward it to my Client to issue the cheque for you ASAP. Hope to hear from you soonest.

God Bless

This is a very old scam which we first saw on EBay a few years ago. Generally perpetrated by someone outside the US. Some small percentage of poor, misguided types actually fall for this, send out their goods, and never receive payment.

The lure is of course that they are "trusting" you with more money than the goods are worth. Of course, their cheques aren't good, but it takes a little while for the bank to process and by then you're SOL.

I told him he was hallucinating and to never contact me again.

I do feel bad for the people who get taken in by this scam.. it happens all the time.

SALT, an American Bistro

I went out to SALT last night with some new friends who are also foodies.

This is a small bistro-style restaurant near Patterson Park in central Baltimore. It has a sterling reputation and friends of mine are doing their Web site and so it has been on my short list to visit for a while.

First, let me say that I don't think it's the place for a romantic evening with your lover. Just way too noisy - though I suspect that this may depend a bit on the clientele for the evening. The bar doesn't stock Absolut - that seems a bit of a miss to me but not enough to really lower my estimation of the place.

I had a Ketel one martini to start the evening (it's been a very tough last week or two) and the bartender made it a healthy pour. When my friends arrived we took a table in the center of the main dining area and ordered a selection of three of the appetizers: a Kobe beef empenada, an order of French fries cooked in a duck confit, and a "Napoleon" of lime-encrusted shrimp over guacamole.

I would be quibbling if I said that these dishes might have been improved. Perhaps if it was a Michelin 1-star, I would have said there was room for improvement but given that this is a tiny restaurant in an American city it was a sterling selection of appetizers. They were tastefully presented and I found the orange marmalade drizzle with the empanada a very thoughtful and tasty approach. The "duck fries" were light, hot, and tasty and accompanied by three interesting dips (white truffle, chipotle and orange mango aioli). All were good, but we polished off the chipotle first.

Main course for me was seared tuna with spicy tuna pot stickers on the side. Here might be my only substantive criticism of the evening.. It was a very big piece of tuna. To most people raised in this country, this would be a very foreign concept "Your meal was too big? Are you crazy?". It was certainly value for money - I would estimate the seared tuna (it was encrusted with salt and pepper) steak to be about 10-11 ounces. Really, really big. It took me a while to finish it. But it was perfectly done - we had said "chef's recommendation" which generally means quite rare for this dish. No complaints at all about the quality of the fish or the presentation.

I would have wished for a Gewurtz or maybe a dry Semillion Blanc on the menu but we settled for a decent Riesling. Dessert was a molten chocolate cake topped with a bit of whipped cream and dressed with a little strawberry sauce. Quite nice, quite rich, quite large.

All in all, the best meal I've had since I moved to Baltimore. I had not, to this point, really explored the culinary scene here because I was expecting to do so with friends (it's not much fun dining alone). Well, I finally have a couple of friends who want to do this sort of thing and I'm hoping that the next few months will be a journey through Baltimore's best restaurants.

If there are a few more like this, I could definitely be encouraged to stay here and make a life.

Helen's Garden Cafe

I might as well write up my explorations of Baltimore. It might prove to be of interest to someone moving here as I just have and it might save some grief in restaurant choices.

This morning, my experiment was to hie myself down to Canton and try a new place for brunch, recommended as one of Baltimore's Top 25 in a recent issue of the Baltimore magazine.

What a disappointment. The host Mark seemed nice enough when he told me that he had to reserve the restaurant two-tops for incoming folks and "Would I mind sitting at the bar?" "As long as it is non-smoking," I replied. I was assured that the entire restaurant was non-smoking and I thought that this was a very good start. Their wine list looked quite good, with a heavy representation of Franciscan wines (Magnificat and Estancia) so I thought things are looking up.

Until, of course, I had to wait a good ten minutes for the bartender to ask me if I wanted anything to drink and then another five for her to take my order. It's not as if the place was busy, she just seemed overwhelmed filling drink orders and actually having to serve patrons seemed beyond her. Twenty stools at the bar and only three occupied.

The food had sounded promising, a Tilghman omelette which had lump crab meat and asparagus with a side of thinly-sliced potatoes. What appeared was pretty unappetizing.. the omelette was slightly overcooked and the ingredients seemed to be very indifferently spiced if at all. Toast not buttered, potatoes limp and a bit cold.

A completely unmemorable brunch for $17 (included in that tab was a coffee and a $3 V-8 juice). I haven't entirely given up because the host was nice and the wine list looked interesting but unless my next experience is far more positive this one has to get struck off the list.

I'm beginning to fear that Baltimore is very far behind the curve in good restaurants.

Next up, Petit Louis (in my neighborhood) I think.

I am in talented company..

I had a little time on my hands and so I went to day to Flickr. It is there that I learned about HDRlast night. So today I went and typed "Rolleiflex" in the search box.

Perhaps because I love the square format, perhaps because I believe that people evolve to the 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 as they look to better their photography. I think that Flickr suggests that this might be true. Go to Flickr and type in 'rolleiflex'. Then visit another group chosen at random and compare the quality of the photographs.

Doesn't the work of the rolleiflex people look good?

I've got to despair

I really had thought that England would breeze by Portugal. For 52 minutes, it looked like I was right. Then the ref sent off Wayne Rooney, England's key striker, for what I thought was at worst a yellow card.

Now, before the match, I was somewhat concerned about this ref as he had sent off David Beckham in '98 for a similar low-level offense. Did he, I wondered, have a thing against Britain?

Well, I've got to say that I think he does. While the asinine American commentators go on about Wayne Rooney allegedly stamping on Carvalho's groin, the real press coverage seems to suggest that it was accidental and that Carvalho simulated injury in order to get Rooney carded. Now Rooney might still have escaped without even being booked, but his regular-season teammate Christiano Ronaldo came over to taunt him. He reacted by shoving Ronaldo away and at that point the ref gave him a red card.

No blows were swung, nobody fell-down pole-axed. I felt that this was a total overreaction by the referee and it changed the game. England still played very well, even in some sense better. But they no longer dominated for long spells and it was a much more even contest.

I can say nothing about the penalty kicks except their goalkeeping coach is better than ours. Ricardo seemed to know where the kicks were going to go and I can only credit that to superior coaching (a la the Germans).

But I still think the game would have ended very differently had it been played 11 on 11.

SmokingStopsHere.com

Well, it's been a long few weeks but my group and I have finally completed the design, production and launch of SmokingStopsHere.com.

We had to put out a huge last minute effort as our subs didn't get everything done in time, but the end product looks pretty good. Thanks has to go out to our client at the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene as they had the wisdom to allow us to do what I think is a very fresh and original design.

It's not often in advertising that one gets a chance to do work with real social value. This is really a cause I can believe in and I think it helped inspire my whole team.