A little known treat in Haymarket is the Burnside Farm Tulip Farm. There are tens of thousands of tulips planted in neat rows on this half-acre (-ish) farm. the rules are simple: $1 per stem and don’t trample the flowers. Keep up with them on facebook to find out when the peak time is for these tulips and plan a trip – the peak time is really short, so don’t wait!

They have so many varieties of tulips I didn’t know existed.

Here are some favorites:

The Neutral Density (ND) filter was something I’d always heard about but didn’t really understand why I would need one considering software can apply filters in post-processing. It wasn’t until a recent trip to Hawaii which I really put the ND filter to use. I did some research and realized if I wanted those soft water fall pictures I’d seen in magazines, I would need to get an ND filter or hope for a somewhat cloudy, dark day. So before my trip, I picked up an B+W ND8 filter and did some practice runs on the street with moving cars.

The photo above was taken at f/22, 0.5″, 46mm, ISO 50. It was a super sunny day and I had to play around with the settings to get it to expose right.

This one was shot about the same: f/22, 0.3″, 30mm, ISO 50 – it had about the same lighting conditions as the waterfall. It was interested to see how dark an ND8 filter made the available light. I didn’t have any problems with stacking a circular polarizer on top of the ND8 in the above and below pictures – although I’m sure some people are going to scream about image quality or whatever. I also put the circular polarizer and ND8 combo on top of my UV/Haze filter too (gasp!).

It took a while to get used to composing landscapes – very different than the candid and portraiture I’m more used to. I really like the results and want to try some other neutral density techniques, like making people “disappear”. let me know what you think or how else I could improve landscape photography, it is definitely something I need to work on!

if you haven’t been yet, there’s still time to see the Zoolights at the National Zoo. it is another one of the awesome free things to do in DC that comes around every holiday season. you can read more about it here. it is over at the end of the month, so find a nice night and get out there!

if you haven’t heard about it at all, the national zoo opens its gates at night and have lit up trees and animal “pictures” in lights. it is definitely geared towards kids with a carousel of hand-carved zoo animals, kiddie arcade, and even a long slide. there are animated lights like a fish jumping out of the water, throughout the main drag between the rock creek parkway entrance and the connecticut ave entrance. you can also walk into the small mammal house and reptile house to see the sleeping creatures.

it is a great way to get out this winter. if you get too cold, they sell hot cider (which you can get liquor added) and beer, as well as snacks and other park-type food. it takes about an hour to walk through and see just about everything. don’t miss the dancing panda by the panda exhibit!

my initial review of the spider holster was very promising for the recent wedding season. The current setup is a 5D3 with a 24-70mm f/2.8 L and a 5D2 with a 70-200mm IS f/2.8 L, this is coupled with a 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye and a 100mm f/2.8 Macro and a pair of speedlights to match. I put a spider pin on the ring adapter of the 70-200mm lens to keep it balanced on the holster. It is a pretty heavy setup, but the big advantage of the spider holster is it keeps the weight on my hips and not on my shoulders and neck.

bottom line: I could not have been happier having the spider holster.

unlocked holster: by default I wear the spider holster in the unlocked position. I used to keep the holster in the locked position, but found I couldn’t “draw” fast enough or change cameras fast enough. when I’m moving longer distances, I do click the switch to the locked position just to be safe. I have never had the feeling the locking mechanism would fail on me. it took me a little while to get used to putting the camera in the holster smoothly, but now I drop it into place like it’s second nature.

comfort: I attached a lens case and a pouch for cleaning supplies to the belt, making it super useful. I wore the belt for a solid 10 hours and it felt good at the end of the night. granted, my body felt like I had been standing for 10 hours, but the belt wasn’t contributing that much extra pain.

fixed position: the spider holsters are in set positions on my belt. it took a few tries to get them placed exactly where I wanted them at my side, but I like this because no matter where I’m moving, I know where the lenses stick out. I prefer this as opposed to a black rapid strap or sunsniper where the camera has some room to swing around. the big disadvantage is that when I move through crowds, I have to be careful not to hit small children in the head or get “stuck” as I move through. now I have a method of putting my hands on the attached camera bodies and twisting them to create the smallest profile possible.

three-button buckle: I haven’t seen anything like this on the market yet, but the spider belt has what looks like a standard buckle, except there is a third tab in the center which acts as a “safety” to prevent your belt from ending up on the floor. this upgrade seems so simple and small, but there have been times where one tab of the buckle would come unclipped – I’d highly recommend this type of buckle, especially when you have thousands of dollars riding on two pieces of plastic.

customer service: the customer service I’ve received from the spider holster people has been great, too. they were very helpful when I upgraded my single holster to a dual-holster system and when I needed some replacement allen wrenches. they also had an upgraded pin slot that they sent for free to any customers – it’s nice to see they are taking user reviews into account and constantly improving on their product.

to get your own Spider Holster system for your heavy duty SLR kit, or even for your smaller SLR or compact camera, visit their website.

I present you with the most ridiculous email I’ve received at work, and some quick tips on how not present yourself as an ass to your entire department.

the staff at work received the following email (names have been replaced to maintain anonymity) written by one of our Clinical Specialist pharmacists. this is the email verbatim, ridiculous ampersands, poor grammar, and incomplete sentences:

Good day!

With all due respect to you [Department Chief], I believe this e-mail is another “Slap in the Face” to Pharmacist in general & especially to Pharmacist Supervisors in particular [Associate Chief 1] & [Associate Chief 2] who are here & you go over them & ask us to contact a non Pharmacist in your absence for Pharmacy related matters. Let’s not forget [Clinical Specialist] is still in the house & she does have management experience.

I will use this Afrikan proverb to illustrate my position on this issue “it will be a savage contest to engage a Dog & a Lion & then present the Dog with a Laureate”.

I have said this many time in private conversations & I’m putting it out in public because I always felt very strongly about the matter. I believe Pharmacy Department should be run by Pharmacist & not Admistrative staff member as it’s in this department [Administrative Officer with over 40 yrs experience] was the Field Marshall during her tenure; it wasn’t the right thing.

I have nothing against her successor but I will hope a Pharmacist run all Pharmacy Department issues & that will include Procurement because a lot of time important life saving Meds are out, not because of back order but somebody forgot or don’t know the importance of having Dopamine, Phenylephine, IV Multivitamin just yesterday to name a few. I needed Multivitamin IV for a Banana Bag I was told we don’t have any. If a pharmacist is in charge with all the modern Technology that will tell him or her the inventories of what’s low the Pharmacist will then direct the Tech’s to those low inventories for confirmation. This is all about Patients care & safety.

I felt a Pharmacy Chief or Director & his or her assiociates should be hands on day to day pharmacy issues. Yes we need admistrative staffs but they should not be in control to justify ridiculous higher salary.

I obviously have several incidents of professional issue that has been addressed by admistrative officer.

Where to begin?
so to give you some background, those who aren’t in the pharmacy field, Clinical Pharmacy Specialists are pharmacists who have completed some type of specialized training (residency, usually) in a specific area like oncology, nutrition, intensive care, emergency department, surgery, etc. Schools regard ‘Clin Specs” as the top position a non-management pharmacist can earn. It is surprising, then, that this Clin Spec would send such a poorly shaped email to the ENTIRE STAFF, when it should have been addressed to his supervisor and the chief only (maybe the AO).

What’s with the “proverb”?
did he just compare the AO to a DOG? and Clin Specs (or pharmacists by proxy) as Lions? if you’re going to use a crappy proverb, at least explain it so people can at least try to understand what you’re saying.

“with all due respect”
I think people use this pre-emptive statement to insult someone. like the “I don’t mean this to be rude….” or “don’t take this the wrong way….”. if I ever receive an email like this, I’m going to think one thing: that you’re a coward and need to learn how adults deal with issues in the real world.

the AO apparently was a “field marshall”?
I never got along super well with the AO he’s referring to (and haven’t really met the new one), but I also never clashed with the AO. I didn’t have a problem with her despite some tense situations. my overall feeling of her is that she got the job done. she got in the face of who she needed to, contacted people when she needed to hit a deadline. as far as I know she was aggressive with her way of dealing with problems and deadlines – he probably butt heads with her on issues like having drug unavailable and everything, considering she’s looking at a hard budget ceiling and there has been a national drug shortage for an extremely wide variety of medications (think supply/demand, fewer available drug = price vulturing and gouging). if the AO was a field marshall, she was the kind I’d want in pharmacy – keeping us on time, on budget, and not willing to take crap she didn’t deserve.

I have issues with this guy’s take on procurement and how it is structured. his fundamental understanding of procurement is flawed. our procurement department is actually not under the pharmacy umbrella – they’re credit card holders and are under another department. so we could have a pharmacist supervise, but they would have no teeth because they can’t do any disciplining as they have to work within the bounds of the other department. if you’re going to criticize an area of pharmacy, at least have some cursory knowledge of it.

As part of my regular podcast routine, I got to the Freakonomics podcast and it was on one of my favorite topics: mass transit/public transportation. I’ve always thought intuitively that mass transit/public transportation is better for the environment. I never really thought about it aside from a cost standpoint (where the DC area subway system is not cheaper than driving for my schedule).

Dubner’s article doesn’t completely buy into the benefits of mass transit, basically saying it can help the environment or it can actually harm. this other article criticizes the validity of the article, which is compelling, but I’m not sure.

this is where it is important to note that the only measure they are looking at is environmental impact as a direct cause of using mass transit or other alternates. I’ll get into why this is important later.

so the biggest factor as far as whether or not mass transit is better environmentally is ridership. the energy consumption for a subway train to move 50 people or 160 people is a small difference, making it more efficient to move more people. this means (using the 1.6 passengers per car stat) there are 100 fewer cars on the road for each subway train. after doing the math, Dubner finds the more people you can get using public transportation, the more positive environmental impact you get.

what’s surprising is that if the ridership is on average too low, then it actually is less environmentally friendly to run the public transit. the bus example is the best at showing this – Dubner has numbers that the average passengers per bus is 10 (super crowded rush hours and super not-crowded nights). this means one bus can offset 6.25 cars (10 passengers per bus/1.6 passengers per car) – but if the environmental impact of a bus is greater than the environmental impact of 6.25 cars, then it will be better for people to drive.

these numbers are particularly important for cities who are looking to expand mass transit services (like the DC subway), or build brand new infrastructure for surface rail, bus lines, or subways. for some areas, they won’t have the ridership to offset the envinromental impact – making the public transit worse for the environment.

Now onto the other measure besides environmental impact. there is a laundry list of things this article avoids – with good reason. Yes, ridership is the primary determinant of the efficiency of the system to be environmentally friendly. but there are so many other factors involved in selecting public transportation. I think about new york city as the model of efficiency in US – it is a system that, although it is bleeding revenue, is one of the best in the world.

pro public transportation
- storage of a car in an urban environment is cost-prohibitive
- allows for more walkable city streets as you don’t have to expand streets to accomodate as many cars
- fewer parking lots in urban areas
- fewer cars on the road = fewer car accidents (maybe?)
- creates better access to areas across the city for people without cars, wider access to job opportunities
- cost of ownership of a car/maintenance

against public transportation
- scheduled times does not allow for flexibility, especially during off-peak hours
- some systems close, which does not allow third-shift workers to utilize,
- mass transit systems that are poorly designed cannot service the community
- depending on security measures, public transportation puts you at more prolonged risk of petty theft

so what’s the best thing people can do?
Dubner says “if we can persuade more people to leave cars and move onto the existing transit system that we already have, that’s a complete win for the environment”. some of the things lawmakers can do to help encourage mass transit use is increase highway tolls, increase parking taxes, and increase gas prices. — with the big caveat that hopefully these lawmakers are looking at the environmental efficiency these systems have.

and to finish off, the onion reports “98 percent of US commuters favor public transportation for others”.

the original plan was to make a whole body that would kind of just be suspended in air but as I got going on the build, it got harder to make a design that wouldn’t restrict my movement so I just went for a head.

The outer shell is the same as teddy: hexagonal chicken wire and paper mache. the internal frame is a bicycle helmet with some PVC pipe, with zip ties to link it to the chicken wire. I used a cardboard box to help hold the chicken wire in place as I linked the shell to the internal frame.

Then begins the paper mache:

I cut out the holes for the eyes, and put a layer of brown spray paint to hide the newspaper and create a base for the spray adhesive I’d use for the fuzzy layer

After taking my kitchen knife to three skeins of brown yarn, I had tiny pieces of yarn to stick to the outer layer. this took a long time to get it to stick. I used hot glue to put the red reflectors on (one of those sticks you put at the end of your driveway to mark the entrance) and to mount the red LED bicycle indicator lights behind the holes I cut out.

The eyes could remain on consistently, or blinking rapidly.

and when you add a brown snuggie, it works out pretty well. what do you think? do they look alike?

Hurricane Sandy is bearing down on the east coast and wouldn’t you know it? work wants me to come in still. this isn’t the first time work has asked me to come in during inclement weather. the last time, I wore my snowboarding pants to work and had to hoof it to the subway station to get (mostly) home.

for this storm, I have packed the following:

Extra clothes – packed in a watertight pack with a purge valve to remove the air to save space. this is just in case I can’t make it home and have to stay at a friend’s place. I have a pair of gore-tex over-socks and a wool midlayer as well.

first aid kit, flashlight, multi-tool, waterproof matches, and emergency radio – you never know

nalgene bottle and steripen – 1 liter of water to start, and a steripen to sterilize and questionable water in case of emergency. if the power goes out for too long, the water pumps (for city water) don’t generate the gravity pressure for water to reach homes. sometimes the treatment plants lose power and they have people boil water until they can confirm it’s ok to drink. a steripen solves the problem of bacteria and viruses in water, but unfortunately won’t do anything for the taste.

recharger cable and battery pack – my cell phone eats up batter power so it helps to bring along a backup

This is a situation where I’ll be driving to work, as opposed to taking the subway (which happens to be closed on 10/29, btw). I’m keeping some dehydrated camp food, my camp stove and can of gas in the car in case I really can’t get home and don’t want to burden my friend’s hurricane supplies.

so the idea behind a “get home bag” is to get home from work or other place. most people just leave them in their car, but because I commute, I mostly keep a few basic things on me because I don’t trust the subway to do their job well when an emergency occurs.

there is a lot of good reading out for get-home bags, but the absolute basic pack this one, where the guy assumes the worst – that you have to hoof it all the way home or to safety. This one is a bit more extensive and has more survivalist stuff in it, but basically you pack what you can to get you home, to a friend’s place, or to safety. this hurricane gives us the advantage in that it was predictable in that we know this disaster will involve a lot of rain and high winds so there might be downed trees blocking streets and high flood waters.

if you haven’t already, try to put together a basic get home bag to keep in your car. ideally we should all have an emergency preparedness kit (or “bug-out bag”) at home. I’ve been meaning to update my previous emergency readiness post, so I think I’ll get that up soon.

and as I considered options for this upcoming halloween, I can’t get over wanting to make another giant dome piece. I considered a few options but finally settled in on an old favorite.

I’m going to be work on a Domo head. I’ll keep you posted on how things are turning out, but so far it’s looking great!

So I missed my transfer at metro center today, and while waiting on the platform and backtracking, I thought of a little metro song. I don’t know why, but Willie Nelson’s On the Road Again popped into my head. for those of you who don’t know it, here it is for your listening pleasure:

but here are my lyrics:

I missed my transfer, man
went all the way to the smith-so-ni-an
I wish other regulars would nudge me to get up
now I have to board the right train again

I missed my transfer, man
finished the express and I am bored again
I fall asleep leaving head grease on the glass
now I have board a train the other way.

I’m not a Metro fan
the rising fares and bad service on the weekends
its a rip off, man
no transparency and management doesn’t care
but we care

I pity tourists here
they try to squeeze into the closing doors
I’d like to help but the annoucer says “stay clear”
I can’t help but pity tourists here

some love the subway here
they’ve never ridden in new york, london or taipei
it costs more for what?
carpet, cushy seats don’t belong on subway trains
do they care?

I missed my transfer, man
I didn’t wake at metro center, man
I needed red line but rode orange way to far
now I have to board the right train again