There are always many current photos and videos of Alex on Alex's page.
June 12, 2010
Alex at Quintana Beach County Park
May 17, 2010
I have posted three videos of Alex reading on Alex's page.
April 24, 2010
A family photo I took. It only took 50 or so shots to get something decent where all of us were smiling, Alex was looking at the camera, and a ray of sunshine wasn't finding its way through the trees onto someone's face or head.
Detail: Remote trigger via my laptop and Canon EOS Utility (4 groups of 10 frames w/ 5 sec delay between each shot), Canon 30D, 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 @ f/4, 1/50 sec, exp. bias +1/3, ISO 100, on-camera fill flash, RAW. Processed over-, under-, and correctly exposed shots in Canon Digital Photo Professional and then generated a high-dynamic range image in Photomatix 3.2. Tone-mapped the HDR and used this image for most of the background and a small bit of the three of us. Put this layer on top of the correctly-exposed jpg-from-RAW. Used some selection/masking to selectively brighten the three of us (except the dark pants), as the three of us were too dark and the background was already too bright. Final layering, masking, touch-up, etc, performed with Paint Shop Pro XI.
I realized that the background was going to be close to blowing out while setting up the shot, so I looked for a different area close by our house. Unfortunately, I didn't find a better place where I could keep the background sufficiently far away (to keep it blurred) and have the backgound be the same brightness as the (necessarily) shaded subject matter. So I turned on the flash and took the photos in RAW and hoped I could fix us (being underexposed) and reclaim the background from the RAW headroom. I didn't completely succeed, and a bit more work in post might have yielded a better result, but hey, this isn't my day job. I probably also should have used my external flash for more power and waited until later in the day when the sun wasn't so bright (creating such a dynamic range). Of course, I didn't realize I would need the flash until Alex was already ready to go, so I just used the on-board flash. And when your three year old is ready for family photos, you start taking photos...
April 6, 2010
Future Astronaut? Engineer? Scientist?
March 27, 2010
February 11, 2010
A mock-up of a space shuttle flight deck at the Houston Space Center.
A space shuttle main engine at the Houston Space Center.
The actual Apollo 17 command module that orbited the moon on the last human flight to the moon.
January 10, 2010
I ran the USA Fit Sugar Land Half-Marathon today in a time of 1:42:36 (7:50/mi pace). I placed 27th out of 806 overall and 9 out of 64 in my age bracket of 30-39. It was 20 degrees with very little wind. Some of my water cups at the water stations had ice in them. There were also a couple of icy spots (from the sprinklers going off at 6am!) that everyone had to be careful of. It was a fast, flat course. But very wide open--it would be difficult if there was any wind at all. Eric Stotzer (fellow TIer and multiple-Boston-qualifier) joined me for the final four miles. Thanks Eric!
January 1, 2010
A hawk above our neighborhood.
December 24, 2009
December 12, 2009
December 4, 2009
Sugar Land got about 2" of snow -- although it looked like less because it kept melting.
October 18, 2009
Alex trick-or-treating at the Houston Zoo
Alex had enough of "To Infinity! And Beyond!"
October 17, 2009
An Okinawan traditional drumming dance, called Eisa, was perfomed by Ryukyukoku Matsuri Daiko - Texas, at the Houston Dragon Races at Fluor on Saturday, October 17th in Sugar Land. "Ryukyukoko Matsuri Daiko's choreography is a dynamic blend of traditional Eisa and Karate forms with contemporary influences incorporating both traditional folk music and modern music."
October 3, 2009
An A-10 Thunderbolt II (aka "Warthog") at the Sugar Land Regional Airport
This is a closeup of the A-10's 30mm gun. A10's are used in Iraq and Afghanistan. The A-10 entered service in the late 70s, and will likely be operational until at least 2028.
Alex is giving the thumbs-up in a WWII-era AT-6A, a trainer aircraft used to train military pilots during the time period. This particular plane still flies. The engine has 9 cylinders and displaces 1,344 cubic inches (22 L).
July 28, 2009
The ISS and the Space Shuttle Endeavour. View to the northwest.
They went almost directly overhead. Stack of two images. The Space Shuttle is the fainter streak and had undocked from the ISS a few hours earlier in the day.
The ISS and the Space Shuttle Endeavour. View to the southeast.
Stack of three images.
July 17, 2009
May 23, 2009
May 22, 2009
Wildflowers in our backyard.
May 16, 2009
A wildflower in our backyard.
May 2, 2009
An Okinawan traditional drumming dance, called Eisa, was perfomed by Ryukyukoku Matsuri Daiko - Texas, at the Houston Dragon Races at Fluor on Saturday in Sugar Land. "Ryukyukoko Matsuri Daiko's choreography is a dynamic blend of traditional Eisa and Karate forms with contemporary influences incorporating both traditional folk music and modern music."
Alex really liked the performance.
Here is a short video I took
April 5, 2009
March 23, 2009
A little animation using Processing and "Perlin noise".
March 8, 2009
February 14, 2008
November 27, 2008
November 10, 2008
November 1, 2008
