We were raised with the constant reminder that we needed to care for our parents when they got old. They spent countless hours and money to raise us - it’s the least we could do. We always said, “Yes” or “Of Course”. It’s funny, I always thought I appreciated what my parents had done for us. For most of my childhood my parents had very little. It wasn’t until around the time I was in high school that they were solidly into the middle class. Yet they made sure we did sports (which are very expensive) and had a computer and nice clothing. And I truly appreciated all of that; I appreciated it more and more each year as I matured and and realized what these things cost. But until I became a father I didn’t truly understand the time and emotional investments that kids are. I now truly realize how much they gave me. The only situation I could see for having to have my parents not live with me when they get uber-old would be if they required some kind of medical equipment that couldn’t be installed in my home or care that a live-in nurse couldn’t take care of. (Well, other than if they decided to live with one of their other six kids rather than me - for whatever reason) But, you know, that’s supposed to be way out in the future.

My stats say there have already been 43 visits today, so some of you may have seen the header while in its state of flux. After talking it over with the wife (who also thinks the new theme looks more pro! yay!) and sleeping on it, I got the header to about 1.0 stage. I have a couple ideas on how I want to punch it up a bit more, but I want to give myself some time to mull it over.

In fact, according to mathematician Marc van Leeuwen, an “oldest person in the world” will die roughly every 0.65 years.

- Boing-Boing

Just got the new header image up. At least the first draft of it. I’m CLOSE to where I want to be with the header, but it’s going to take some thinking about it to see exactly what I want to change. Slowly, but surely, the website is moving towards what I want it to look like.

[caption id=“attachment_4400” align=“aligncenter” width=“604”] Laptops might be seized at the UK border[/caption]

Orgzine has an article complaining that in the UK when crossing the border you don’t get the same protections as you do within the borders. This does not surprise me since we have the same issue over here and we tend to have more robust civil liberties than our cousins across the pond. (Hence why libel suits are so often filed in England - their definition of libel is slanted in favor of the company or star while ours is the other way around) Basically, if you’re going to England you better take a burner phone and burner laptop because:

If Audio Embeds Aren’t Working For You, check out this support thread in which I figured out what was going on.

I’m not somewhere between halfway and three-quarters done with fixing the site to align with my new theme. I moved all but the ads to the footer. (No one’s going to pay to not be seen) I actually like the new design philosophy. Why constantly distract the viewer’s eye form your content with links to other posts or other sites. That can be saved for the end. I’m done with this post - now what? Well, what about these links here at the bottom. I might still need to move some of those around.

Go check out the awesome video explaining the new features in Wordpress 3.6.

Finally switched over to Twenty Thirteen now that Wordpress 3.6 is out. It’s going to take some time for me to get things looking the way I want them. Anyway, I LOVE the new fonts - much better readability than the previous theme.

Back in 2009 I went to Manhattan at night with my Rebel XTi and my 50mm f/1.8 to do some night time photography at Times Square. The 50mm was key because its wide aperture allowed me to keep the ISO low and get nice, clear photos. (Although there’s something to be said for the aesthetics of grainy night shots of busy cities) Of course, it also helped that Times Square is quite well lit. Cities like Toykyo and New York City are well-served by color photography when you’re trying to document the crazy, colored buildings, but I think when doing street photography, it helps to have the output be black and white so that to focus is on the people rather than the colors. Here are my best shots from that night: