Tourist Photos from San Francisco

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Or fun with a camera.

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I was in San Francisco last week for Macworld Expo. In the old days, I used to spend every day at the show. Nowadays, I’m more interested in seeing things outside the exhibit hall. With a half day to spend on my own, I took the cable car from Market and Powell to Fisherman’s Wharf. Here are some of the photos I took that morning.

I started my day just after sunrise at the corner of Powell and Market, five or six blocks from Moscone Hall, where Macworld Expo is held each year. This is the terminus for two of San Francisco’s three cable car lines. The photo here shows one of the cable car drivers turning the car around for the trip back to Fisherman’s Wharf. Although the photo is distorted (because of that darn fisheye lens I like so much), the ground here is relatively level. They manually push the car onto the turntable and turn it, then push it back onto the main track. After paying off a homeless person for telling me that I could buy my ticket on the cable car — it was either that or buy a newspaper I didn’t want to carry — and assuring another homeless person that I didn’t need him to take a photo of me and the cable car with my camera, I climbed on board.

The cable car took off up Powell a while later with a surprising number of people on board. The corner of Market and Powell isn’t far from the BART station and apparently the cable car is a valid mode of transportation for commuters. There certainly weren’t many tourists on board at 7:30 AM. We climbed up Powell, dropping off passengers here and there. I took this photo when the car was nearly empty. Again, there’s some distortion from the fisheye lens, but I think it’s a cool shot of the cable car and its driver.

The car deposited me at Bay Street about two blocks from Fisherman’s Wharf. From there, I wandered around, taking photos of the area. The sun was too low to get the shots I wanted, so went in search of breakfast. Boudin’s Bakery was there and I stepped inside. I love freshly baked bread, but I was on a diet and trying hard to avoid excess carbs. But I did get a good photo op when I saw this “Bread Line” sign. It was just too ironic for me to pass up.

Back outside at the Wharf with the sun still too low for shadow-free photos, I asked one of the fish guys where I could get a good breakfast in a place the tourists didn’t go. He pointed up the street to a “hole in the wall” called Darren’s Cafe. While waiting for my meal, I snapped this weird self-portrait with that fisheye lense. I don’t look happy here, probably because I knew the camera was shooting a picture up my nose.

After breakfast, I strolled north along the wharf area, stopping a few times to take photos of the fishing boats. Unlike most tourists, I didn’t stick to the well-trodden places. I poked around on all the piers, taking my time and seeing as many different things from as many different angles as I could. It was a beautiful day with clear blue skies and light wind. Not very cold, either. Here are a few of my more interesting shots in that area.

After a while, I found myself in Aquatic Park, which is part of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. There are a number of old, art deco buildings there and the light was just right to get creative with some shapes and shadows on a round building that used to house a public restroom. A flight of stairs curved up the side of the building to an observation deck on top. But the views from up there didn’t interest me as much as the stairs, shown here.

From the park, there were sweeping views of San Francisco Bay. But the best views were obviously from the curving arm of the Municipal Pier. So I took off on foot along the long, crumbling concrete and steel pier. The only people on the pier were a handful of Asian fisherman, although when I reached the remains of the building at the far end, another tourist pedaled up on a bicycle. We had a short chat before I walked back. Here are the photos I took along the way. They show, in order, the rust of steel embedded in the concrete, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz.

It was nearly 10 AM by the time I got off the pier. I had to check out of my hotel by 1:30 PM, but I had a few errands to take care of on the way back. So I walked up to the cable car terminus at Hyde, which is just a few blocks away. By this time, the tourists were coming out and there was about a dozen people waiting. I snapped a series of photos of the cable car being turned. If I look at them quickly in sequence, they look like a movie. Here are five of the six shots in miniature:

Cable Car Turning at Hyde

On the way back to the Union Square area, I had a nice conversation with a woman who lives in San Francisco and uses the cable car to commute back and forth to work across the city. I couldn’t help but be envious. How wonderful it would be to ride in an open seat through such a beautiful city every day.

Over Quartzsite

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An interesting photo gig.

I got the call about a month ago. From France. A photographer with a name I couldn’t easily pronounce wanted to photograph Quartzsite, AZ from the air during its busiest time of year. This year, that’s January 19 through 27.

About Quartzsite

Quartzsite, in case you’re not familiar with the place, is a small desert community about 20 miles east of the Colorado River, right on Interstate-10. During the summer, it’s a glorified truck stop, with gas stations, a handful of fast food joints, and a few of the necessities of everyday life for the 1,000 or so people who live there year-round. But in the winter, it’s home to numerous events, including gem and mineral shows, a huge RV show, and flea markets. That’s when the snowbirds flock to the place, filling in the otherwise empty campgrounds and spilling over to the millions of acres of BLM land around the town. The population swells to an estimated 100,000 people, most of whom are living in extravagant RVs and motorhomes.

From the air, this is simply amazing. Quartzsite is nestled in a valley between two small mountain ranges. I-10 cuts through it east/west while route 95 between Parker and Yuma cuts through it north/south. The town is a concentrated sea of white rooftops. Scattered all around, in every direction, grouped in the BLM-approved camping areas, are more white rooftops, sometimes arranged in circles or rows.

Sadly, I don’t have a single photo of the place that shows it off.

Back to France

I gave the Frenchman a quote. He’d have to pay for me to fly to Quartzsite, fly around there for his photos, and fly back. We estimated that at about 3 hours: 1 hour ferry, 1 hour photo shoot, and then 1 hour ferry. At $495/hour, which is my current going rate, it wasn’t going to be cheap. He didn’t book, but that didn’t surprise me. About 90% of the calls I get are from folks who are “fishing.”

Two weeks went by. I got CCed on a message to a Frenchman from Robinson Helicopter, Inc. They told him that the closest Robinson helicopter operator to Quartzsite was Flying M Air. In other words, me.

Another week went by. I got an e-mail message from the Frenchman. He wanted to know about dates and weather. I told him that the weather in Arizona this time of year is usually perfect. He tentatively scheduled a flight for January 25. But since he wouldn’t provide a credit card number, I wouldn’t guarantee it. If someone else put up a card for the same date and time, he’d be out of luck.

The Gig Happens — Suddenly

On Saturday morning, I got a call from Etienne. He was in Arizona. He wanted to do the flight that afternoon because the weather forecast for midweek wasn’t very good. Was I available?

Oddly enough, Mike and I had planned to go camping in Quartzsite that weekend but had decided, just the night before, to skip the overnight trip and just drive out there for the day on Sunday. So I was available after another flight booked for 10 AM.

Etienne picked up an RV from a rental place in Mesa, AZ and drove it up to Wickenburg. He parked it in the airport parking lot. We had a pow-wow to go over details on timing. Then he went into town to book a hotel room — don’t ask me why; I don’t understand either. At 3:15 PM, he was back.

We took off to the west with coats on and his door off.

Fuel Concerns

I’d filled the helicopter’s fuel tanks to capacity. That’s close to 50 gallons of fuel. At my normal rate of consumption, that would last close to three hours. Unfortunately, we were expecting to be out for a full three hours. There’s no fuel between Wickenburg and Quartzsite. The closest fuel is Blythe, which is 20 minutes farther west. If we went there for fuel, it would add 40 minutes to his flight time. It would also have us crossing through very dark desert — and over several mountain ranges — long after sunset.

So I filled an approved fuel container with another 5+ gallons of fuel and tucked it into the back passenger area. There were two paved runways between Wickenburg and Quartzsite, as well as numerous other landing zones. If fuel got low on the way back, we could land, shut down, add 5 gallons, start up, and get back. Of course, if we spent a lot more time in Quartzsite than we expected to, we’d have to detour to Blythe anyway. Five gallons was only about 15-20 minutes of fuel.

The Gig

The flight out to Quartzsite was as boring as I remembered it. Etienne had asked me to show him Arizona. I warned him that the ferry flight didn’t have much of interest, but he assured me it would be interesting to him. I think that by the time we were on our way back, he agreed with me. The landscape is mostly flat, empty desert, with the exception of a few small communities, some of which have farms. We cruised over all of this about 700 feet off the ground, doing exactly 100 knots. Why 100? Because with a door off, that’s my maximum airspeed.

We crossed over two tiny mountain ranges: one just west of Salome and the other just west of the intersection of Route 60 (which we’d followed) and I-10. After the second one, Quartzsite came into view. We’d been in the air less than 50 minutes.

Etienne had envisioned a shot that included mountains in the foreground, Quartzsite in the middle, and the low-lying sun in the background. Problem: the mountains to the east that he was thinking of for his foreground were simply too far away to make the shot work. So we headed into town to see what he could do.

Thus began at least 90 minutes of aerial photography over Quartzsite.

At Etienne’s request, I started by climbing up to about 3,000 feet over the town. I circled the town several times while he shot down at it with two different cameras, each sporting a monster zoom lens. I spiraled down to get closer to the town while he snapped away. Then we flew up and down along the freeway and the BLM camping areas. Then out to the west, to get a shot of the town behind a sunlit mountain. Then lower over the camping areas, with me flying sideways at about 10-20 knots groundspeed so he could shoot right down at the campers.

By this time, most folks had returned from their day at the markets and were gathered around within their “circled wagon” compounds. It was impossible for them not to see and hear us, so there were a lot of people waving up at us. I think each group was competing to be included in the photos.

We broke off from that and started following campers on the Interstate or side roads as they moved to their campsites. We must have followed five different rigs, following above and behind them. I’m sure none of them realized they were being followed. (It reminded me of that scene in Goodfellas where Ray Liotta’s character is followed by a helicopter as he drives around the city.) Etienne was especially interested in rigs that included motorhomes pulling cars. We hit the jackpot when we found a motorhome pulling a pickup that had an ATV in the back of it. There must have been $400,000 worth of equipment down there, driving out into the dusty desert to dry camp.

We did some more shots all over town as the sun started sinking to the west. Etienne got some really interesting shots at the dry camping campground southeast of the I-10/95 intersection.

The sun finally disappeared, but Etienne still snapped photos.

My fuel situation was interesting: I was showing 1/3 tanks of fuel. If we broke off soon, we might still make it to Wickenburg without stopping.

I think Etienne read my mind. He announced that we were finished. I swung out to my right, added power, and headed back. I’d already programmed the GPS for Wickenburg and I made a beeline for it.

Flying Back

The flight back was almost as boring as the flight out had been. The only difference was the moon and the fuel situation.

The moon was nearly full, out in front of us to the east. Each time I passed over a body of water — the Central Arizona Project canal, a cattle tank, etc. — I’d see a quick flash of light as it caught the moon’s reflection. Beautiful.

The fuel situation kept me on edge, wondering if we’d make it all the way back. We were still excellent shape as we flew over the first paved strip at Salome. About 20 minutes later, we were still in reasonably good shape as we passed over the second paved strip at Aguila. And when we landed at Wickenburg in the darkness, we still had fuel and no low fuel light.

When I finally shut down, I was amazed to note that we’d flown 3.3 hours on the full tanks of fuel. Based on what we had left in the tanks — at least 5 gallons because of what the gauges said and there was no low fuel indicator — I figure we burned only about 13-14 gallons per hour. My normal burn rate is closer to 17 gallons per hour. But one look in the Pilot Operating Manual confirmed what I vaguely remembered: maximum range speed is 100 knots. So the fact that my speed was limited by the door being off helped us save fuel.

Since the airport was dark and the FBO office was closed, Etienne and I finished up the paperwork in his rented camper. He was shivering; sitting beside that open door all the way back had chilled him to the bone. I went back to the helicopter, put the door back on, and closed it up for the night.

Some Thoughts on the MacBook Air

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Not exactly what I was hoping for.

After sweating out the morning, waiting to hear detailed news about Apple’s new products, I finally got my hands on the specs for the product I’ve been waiting for: MacBook Air. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s the product I’ve been waiting for after all.

Wait. Let’s start again. The above is what I wrote on Tuesday, before I laid hands on the MacBook Air. Now that I’ve fondled its sleek aluminum body and hefted its airy lightness, this article may have a different ending.

It’s Friday morning and I’ve been to Macworld Expo and back. And, at the show, I got a chance to look at Apple’s new entry into the sub-notebook field: the MacBook Air.

First, let’s talk specs.

Yes, it’s [currently] the world’s thinnest notebook, at about 3/4 inch tall. That’s thin. It’s about half the thickness of my obese 12″ PowerBook. (How did I carry that fat thing around for so many years?)

MacBook Air

Other dimensions — for those of you who like all the numbers:
Width: 12.8 inches
Depth: 8.94 inches

Since my old 12″ PowerBook is sitting on my desk, let’s measure it up for comparison:
Width: 10.8 inches (estimated; I don’t have high tech measuring tools here)
Depth: 8.5 inches

The screen is a generous 13.3 inches measured diagonally. The PowerBook’s (for comparison) is about 12.25 inches.

It certainly is light, weighing in at only 3 pounds. That fat little 12″ PowerBook weighs a whopping 4 pounds and 11 ounces.

These are the numbers. And they are what disappointed me when I first went through them. Although thinner and lighter, the MacBook Air’s dimensions are also considerably larger than the computer I was hoping to replace with it. Because although “thin is in” and all that jazz, it’s overall size that can determine how truly portable a computer is.

Look at it this way: would the Moleskin people be selling so many of those little black books if they were the same size as the composition book you used in elementary school?

But I got to see the Air in person and touch it and hold it in my hands. And you know something? In real life it looks smaller than I expected it to. And the lightness feels lighter.

My overall impression was very positive. I felt myself wanting one of them, for reasons I couldn’t quite understand.

How does Apple do that? With smoke and mirrors? Hypnosis? Or it it simply the lighting in their Macworld Expo booth?

Now let’s look at what’s crammed in there.

There’s a lot packed into that slim case:

  • 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
  • 2 GB RAM
  • 80 GB ATA hard disk
  • AirPort Extreme (IEEE 802.11a/b/g compatible)
  • Bluetooth 2.1
  • iSight Camera
  • one speaker
  • Audio Out port
  • USB 2.0 port
  • Micro-DVI port
  • 13.3″ (diagonally measured) monitor
  • full-sized keyboard

There are some options — processor and hard disk come to mind — but that’s basically it.

Isn’t something missing?

Yes. It’s the optical drive. Just as Apple led the pack in the phasing out of the “floppy” drive when it released the original iMac all those years ago, it’s removed the optical drive from the MacBook Air.

This is a tough nut to swallow. Apple has built a $99 external SuperDrive that will only work with the MacBook Air, that I believe most people will buy. But Apple has also created “new technology” that enables you to access the CD/DVD mounted on another computer to install software, etc. (This is something I already do in a limited way, since the optical drives on both my 12″ PowerMac and 15″ MacBook Pro are dead; the MacBook is covered under warranty and is making its way back to Apple as I type this.) But what do you do if your Air is the only computer around and you didn’t bring along an external disc drive? Like when you’re on a plane for four hours and the movie is something you can’t bear to watch?

You’re SOOL.

Personally, I think the exclusion of this vital piece of hardware is a big mistake. And it’s what may prevent me from investing in a MacBook Air to replace my 12″ PowerBook.

What was I expecting?

Well, since I don’t read much on rumor sites, I wasn’t expecting anything in particular. I was expecting a “sub-notebook.” To me, that means something smaller than the usual notebook. It doesn’t necessarily mean thinner.

What I wanted, however, was a real replacement for my 12″ PowerBook: a modern version of the same machine that had modern processing power, a decent sized hard disk, wireless, and the all-important optical drive. And I know I’m not alone in that wish.

You see, I believe that the 12″ PowerBook is the best notebook computer Apple has ever made. Perfectly sized for travel, able to display at 1024×768 resolution, all necessary ports, wireless access, optical drive. What else could you ask for? I wish Apple would have brought that up to date by thinning it up a little — hell, it’s only an inch and a half tall! — and lightening it up a bit.

This is what I wanted. This is what a lot of people wanted. But this isn’t what Apple delivered in the MacBook Air.

But Don’t Listen to Me

If you’re in the market for a laptop computer, do check out the MacBook Air. For you, it might be a dream come true.

One thing’s for certain: It certainly will generate a lot of computer envy among your friends.

Flying in the Phoenix Area During the Super Bowl?

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Not likely.

Here’s the TFR graphic for the Super Bowl. As you can see, Wickenburg (E25 in the northwest) is one of the few airports outside the forbidden circle that marks a 30-mile radius from the stadium in Glendale.

Super Bowl TFR

I just spoke to my FAA guy in Scottsdale and received confirmation that the only flights allowed within the circle after noon on game day will be police and security aircraft. Glendale Airport will be closed to all traffic. And they’ll definitely be writing up violations for the folks who bust that circle.

What does this mean? Well, it means that although I can fly all day out of Wickenburg if I stay to the north and west, I’m certainly not going to be ferrying folks around Phoenix. This is a good thing — I was really starting to get worried about dealing with security anyway.

It’ll be interesting to see how many F-16s get scrambled to chase down Cessnas that day.

I have a great gig lined up the day before in Parker, AZ. Maybe I’ll just spend an extra day there.

At Macworld Expo

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Are you there? I’ll be there soon.

As this is appearing online, I’m boarding a plane for Macworld Expo in San Francisco. This is yet another one of my quick in and out trips — I really can’t afford to be away from my office for more than two days. I’ll arrive in SF around 9:30 this morning and depart around 3:30 on Thursday afternoon. In between, I’m staying at the Nikko.

I have a lot to squeeze into this trip:

  • Wednesday, 12:00 PM – meeting with two editors, one publisher, and a representative from an online publishing group regarding ebooks and ebook piracy issues. I’m tired of seeing little ebook revenue while copies of my ebooks are floating around on file sharing sites. Armed with some excellent feedback from an ebook reader, I’m going to propose some changes to the way my work appears in ebooks. I also hope to spend some time talking to one of my editors about a book we hope to start next week.
  • Wednesday, 2:00 PM – appearing at the Peachpit Press booth on the show floor. I’m doing a 45-minute presentation and hope to cover some productivity tips and tricks for Leopard users. Peachpit will be videoing the presentation for eventual distribution online.
  • Wednesday, after 3 PM – seeing the show floor. I’ll be walking around armed with my cameras: Treo for instant Web publishing of images, Nikon D80 with fisheye lens for a very different look at the show floor, and video camera for content I hope to put together as a short Macworld Expo movie.
  • Wednesday, after 6 PM – attending one or two parties (depending on how tired I am).
  • Thursday, before 1 PM – see Wedneday, after 3 PM. More of the same.

If you’d like to see photos from Macworld as they are taken, visit my TumbleLog. I expect to start sending photos as soon as I arrive in SF. I’ll try to make them interesting.

Product ImageI’ll also be giving away two copies of my Leopard book during my Peachpit booth presentation. One of them will go to the first presentation attendee who tells me he/she read about the giveaway here.

If you’re at Macworld Expo and want to say hello, drop by the Peachpit Press booth. I usually pop in now and then during my time on the show floor. I’d to meet you!