GG

Posted on April 1, 2024 by edit4

I received a few messages on my Etsy store about the t-shirt with the propeller and VFR@pou lettering. Here is the genesis of that shirt.

I was out for my morning walk when GG popped up in my head. Gary was a Mac client of mine for over 22 years. He died in August of 2023 at age 88 with very little note of his passing. Gary was a unique and fascinating person.

We shared the same sense of humor, very dark of course, and talked endlessly about Curb Your Enthusiasm and old comedians like Buddy Hackett, Jonathan Winters, Joan Rivers, Don Rickles and Rodney Dangerfield to name a few. Whenever Gary had a computer problem I would wait a day before calling him back. I did that because I knew he would figure out the issue and resolve it. As he aged his calls came more and more as he could no longer remember how the machine worked. In fairness, when Gary started working with Macs the OS was at System 7 and a different animal entirely than the current Mac Sonoma operating system of today. He also had a desktop machine, laptop, iPod touch and iPhone all of which needed to be in sync just in case he needed the one closest to him to retrieve some valuable info.

He was an airplane pilot, writer and photographer. He turned corporate photography into beautiful photographs whether on location or portraits. Two of my favorite photo books he wrote about his travels across the US photographing and interviewing people in the small towns of America. Here are the links to those books.

Passing Gas and other Towns along the American Highway and Reaching Climax and More Towns Along the American Highway

He asked me once if I knew what VFR@pou meant, I did not. Gary explained that VFR stood for visual flight rules and @pou stood for the Hudson Valley Regional Airport that he used to fly into and out of. Life is a great trip when those you come in contact with leave a lasting impression that you carry on as part of you.

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Rockhead Sez:

Posted on March 3, 2024 by edit4

I’m officially old but don’t think old and that’s the problem. My first job, which I loved, was delivering papers in Elmira, NY. Along with my best friend Paul Giffune we had separate routes but we picked up and folded the Star Gazette together and then rode off to our separate routes. While in high school I delivered Fuller Brush products.

Before leaving for College I worked in the Ann Page food processing plant. My duties there included unloading palates of frozen strawberries from box cars, making Carmel swirls and finally cake icing. While in college I drove taxi for Totem Taxi mostly to buy records and pot.

My first job after graduating from Ithaca College with a Television/Radio degree was working for WSYE TV 18 in Elmira for the summer. I covered the great flood of ’72 and had footage on NBC national news and then at the end of the summer I was out of work. I was married and had my first daughter, Jami ( I now have 5 daughters and 4 grand kids) but no job. Luckily my parents knew the Curator of the Corning Museum of Glass and the museum was looking for people to help clean up and assist repairing of glass objects that had just been flood when the Chemung river in Corning had overflowed that summer of ’72. What was great about that job, which lasted about 4 months was working with a glass restorer from the Metropolitan Museum of Art from NYC. We spent those 4 months cleaning merticusly stain glass windows from George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon, VA. They were on loan to the museum. I was taught how to lift up the lead holding the colored pieces of glass in place and digging out the flood mud residue.

After 4 months I was out of work again and wanted to get back into television. My Dad knew the general manager of WENY TV-36, Elmira’s other TV station, and got me an interview. I was hired and spent the next 7 years working at the station as a studio and field cameraman and editor.

Moved to New York City in 1979 and until 1997 I was an editor and director of programs and commercials. My awards include an Emmy for an ABC after school special for Harpo Productions and a CMA music video of the year award for Reba McEntire. In addition I worked on Bill Clintons first presidential campaign and edited countless music programs for MTV and VH-1.

After almost 25 years in Televison it was time to move on. The internet was just beginning to be widespread and the possibilities of what that offered were exciting. Along with 2 other people, we started an Intranet development company, Cognitive Communications, employing 40 people and building intranets for Coca Cola, Xerox, IBM, Seagrams, Peoples Bank, Intel and Apple. How that ended is a story and a half…maybe told in a post someday.

I then started an Apple Computer consulting company supporting business, schools and individual users which I continue to do. All this is to say, now that I’m going to be 74, my mind needs to be working creatively. So….I’ve started an Etsy store to sell apparel and other items reflecting back on my above career and life experiences.  Peruse all the back posts to get into my head…good luck 😉 All designs are my own and available for order now at the RockheadSez

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Those that know, know

Posted on November 22, 2023 by edit4

Beasties and Elvis

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A Jump Start

Posted on November 21, 2023 by edit4

My last post was 6 years ago and I’m going to start posting again. Will I have anything worthwhile to say? Who knows? Here’s a picture to start things off from Salvo, N.C.

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Just Because…..Ziggy

Posted on January 11, 2016 by edit4

David Bowie RIP

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Bamboo

Posted on February 4, 2015 by edit4

A Jack, a Bowl, a Song and Bamboo Bam!

So I’ve been putting together an all file based audio system. I’ve been searching the internet for interesting tweaks and stuff and came across this post and thought WHAT! So while I await my Ikea cutting boards, I stuck a bamboo cutting board from Bed, Bath and Beyond that I’ve had for years under my external g-technology HD that my digital audio files are streaming from. It’s attached to my MacBook Pro (running OSX 10.10.3, circa 2008) with an Audioquest Forest Firewire 800 cable) and holy crap it changed the sound of the system! Everything seemed more focused with more space between instruments. One of my favorite reference songs is “Sleepy Time Time” from Cream’s Royal Albert Hall concert. It was ripped using the excellent XLD. For the first time I could distincly hear Ginger Baker clearly hitting the bass drum on his kit and Clapton’s higher overtones on his guitar solo. Do yourself a favor and stop by Ikea and for $14 pick up this cutting board and go crazy gypsy….Your ears will be very happy you did.

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Heads Up!

Posted on August 25, 2012 by edit4

Too many metaphors and too little time ;)! Those of you who have taken classes with Rick Sammon know that he’s a font of photographic knowledge and a great resource for tips and tricks. One of my favorite is “ see the light”, it’s so fundamental and key to making great pictures, but I’d like to add to it with a “heads up”. My daughter grabs me and say’s “have you seen the sky?” I go outside on my porch and look up and there’s a storm a brewing….took this quick shot of the church tower across the street with the stormy sky.

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Shot with my iPhone at ISO 100 at f/2.4 and 1/120th of a second.

I then hopped in the car and went down to the Hudson river for a much wider view. The light was cool and the scene very much stormy which was perfect.

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Shot with my iPhone at ISO 50 at f/2.4 and 1/6944 of a second.

But the next interesting photo opportunity to incorporate Rick’s “see the light” and my “heads up” occurred at a Demi Lovato concert I took my daughter and her friend to the concert in Philly, Pa. I dreaded it! But it turned out much better then I thought, Demi was quite good. 20,000 screaming teenage girls stood the whole 2 hours Demi was on stage. So…..from my seat when sitting down I noticed how great the lights were and then loved how the girls in front of me were being silhouetted by the stage lights.

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I just knew if I waited and watched both the lights and the girls I would get the perfect shot I was looking for. Sure enough with enough patience and a watchful eye, I got it! I just love seeing the girls face, her two friends being both lighted and backlighted at the same time.

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Went to a New York Mets game this week and tried out a really cool app called Frameographer that allows you to easily shoot both stop motion and time lapse on your iPhone. It’s made by Studio Neat which also sells a great holder for your iPhone for almost any tripod called the Glif. The Glif works great on either a full scale tripod or on the little Joby tripods. See the time lapse video of the grounds crew getting the infield ready before the game at Citi Field. Again I used my iPhone using Frameographer and just resting the iPhone against the railing in front of our seats. Next, I’m waiting for a wedding at the church across the street and try the time lapse again….should be fun.

Just Because: Pete Townshed and Jack White doing the classic Who song, “the Seeker” in 2006.

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It’s Always a Matter of Perspective, Isn’t it!

Posted on July 25, 2012 by edit4

Mountain Lion rocks the house! If you haven’t already and your machine meets the minimum requirements, Mountain Lion is a must have upgrade. I’ve included a bunch of links to reference material to help you get the most out of the OSX upgrade. Remember to back up first! Backing up is easy and cheap. Do it. Right now.

David Pogue’s OSX Mountain Lion Missing Manual
Take Control of Upgrading to Mountain Lion eBooks
Hello Tips, Tricks & Secrets
Vimeo Video Sharing in OS X Mountain Lion

Went to see the Allman Brothers and Santana up in Saratoga Springs at SPAC last weekend with my fellows. Fantastic shows. The performing arts center seats 25,000 concert goers both in the indoor open air stage and on the lawn. We sat on the lawn and I shot the below video from my beach chair on my iPhone and used the new Mountain Lion “share to Vimeo” function to upload to show you guys. ABB from the cheap seats!

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Shot with Pano and my iPhone.

On my daily walks I pass by this bush that at this point in the summer is over growing the sidewalk and I need to duck it to walk by. Grabbed a shot this morning at my eye level before ducking. Whatever your perspective, there’s always a shot to be had!

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And finally check out Dan Chung’s iPhone Photo Blog from the London Olympics……pretty cool.

Just Because: CSNY and Tom Jones! What? Enjoy and see you next time…..dl

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Aperture Priority

Posted on June 30, 2012 by edit4

Is printing dead? I thought so until this week. Two things changed my mind:

  1. As is my teenager’s way, she left two graduation presents to the day before her friends high school graduation party. Now teenagers rarely print anything anymore, heck they rarely post to Facebook either. For both my 14 and 18 year old girls and their friends (boys and girls) it’s Instagram all the way! So imagine my surprise when my daughter asked me to print out a bunch of 5×7’s of her and her friends over the last 7 years. She was going to make a collage in a frame to give them to take to college. So I fired up my Aperture (Rick’s the Photoshop Lightroom expert!), found every possible combination of my daughter and her two friends, made an album and called her to pick the ones she wanted. Once identified by her I dusted off my favorite Canon Pro 9000 Mark ll and printed out the requested photos after some cropping and adjustments (all within Aperture of course). My daughter put the presents together in a 13”x19” picture frame, wrapped them up and went off to the party. Her friends were so happy to have for their new dorm rooms an “old school” photo frame full of memories……go figure in the age of iPhone and Instagram!
  2. So my dad has Alzheimer’s and is in a facility that has 10 other Alzheimer patients on his floor. I went to see him a few days ago (up in Elmira, NY) and while walking the hallway on his wing I noticed that every room that someone lived in had a bulletin board outside their door. Some were packed with photos some not so much. What was a common thread was how those photos defined who these people and their lives were before they started to fade away with Alzheimer’s. There were old faded b/w photographs from when they were young, work photos and photographs with family and friends throughout their lives. While quite sad to see it was very powerful in helping define the person inside. Of course outside my Dad’s room are photographs I printed over the years using camera’s from a Nikon F2 to my Canon 7D to my iPhone.

I’m working with Final Cut Pro X in the coming weeks putting together a video of one of our “International” dinners that I do with eight other families every two months. It’s like a cook club of sorts but it’s a good excuse to get to get together for really good eats and drink. This time we roasted a pig. There’s a great farm nearby in Yorktown that raises all the animals. As fresh as fresh can be. I hauled out my trusty Canon 7D with my Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM lens and shot some stills and of course all the video. I’ll post some video snip-its soon. In the meantime here’s a sneak peek. That’s Pedro guarding the pig ;).

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Just Because: Couldn’t let the Rolling Stones 50th anniversary slide by without a little video. Check out this performance with Muddy Waters at Buddy Guy’s blues club in Chicago in 1981.

Also, having seen the ravishes of Alzheimer’s with my dad it saddens me to hear that Glen Campbell is not able to finish his last tour. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease last year. Here’s a wonderful video for the song “ Better Place”. Filled with photographs.

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Old School

Posted on June 18, 2012 by edit4

For the past 4 years I have run a golf outing for the Croton-Harmon Booster Club. It’s one of our best fundraisers we do all year. All monies raised go towards scholarships and sport camps for our High School athletes. To both run and market the event there are a few old school apps that I continue to use on my desktop setup.

Filemaker Pro/Filemaker Go: In order to keep track of the entry forms for the outing, to track golfers, create foursomes, on course prizes and gather email addresses I use the venerable Filemaker Pro. Simple, direct, syncs to Filemaker Go on my iPad and generates a great paper sign-in form for the volunteers.

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Pixelmator, Illustrator and Photoshop: The posters that publicize the event from the 13”x19” in store posters to the 4’x6’ banners were created and changed in these programs.

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Freeway: Create the simple website for the outing

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Pages: Create and generate the sign-up and sponsorship forms.

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Mac OSX: With it’s built-in .pdf generator. Hit the print command like your going to create a document and instead of printing, hit the save as pdf drop down menu. Viola! You’ve created a .pdf document.

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Dropbox: I store all the files in my Dropbox account so that whether on my iPhone, iPad or laptop I have access to the         most up-to-date files.

That’s it…..the one thing that technology nor software can help me to is improve my golf game! ;-). Well not entirely true, Rick and I have an iPhone and iPad Golf Lesson app. Check it out and you can learn the famous “Skip Chip”!

Just Because: Happy Birthday Paul McCartney! by Fiona Apple and the Roots and Paul Weller

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