Tag Archives: California

Aerial Photos from Our Las Vegas Flight

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Better late than never.

Back in the beginning of March, while my mother-in-law was visiting us from New York, I flew the three of us from Wickenburg to Las Vegas by helicopter.

I chose my favorite route for that flight: straight to Lake Havasu City and up the Colorado River all the way to Lake Mead, then west to McCarran Airport. The flight went well, but strong headwinds turned what should have been a 1.8 hour flight into a 2.5 hour flight. (It also made the flight a bit rough in some places.) Mike, sitting in the back, had my old PowerShot camera. Here are a few of the photos he took along the way. I chose the ones where you can see details within the cockpit to put the scenes in perspective. It’s also kind of cool (at least to me) to see the instruments and gauges in the panel.

Here’s Lake Havasu City. That’s London Bridge below us — the real thing, brought over from England in the 1970s. I always start my upriver flights with an overflight of the bridge.

Much farther up the river, we reached Hoover Dam and the bypass bridge, which is still under construction. Hoover Dam, in case you don’t know, holds in Lake Mead. The white line right above water level is about 60 feet tall and marks the high water line. (The water level is way down.) We would have gotten some better photos of the dam and bridge if the area weren’t so darn congested. There was a tour helicopter high over the dam and a pair of military helicopters that would be cutting right between us, less than 500 feet over my head. I didn’t waste much time there.

After crossing the southwest corner of Lake Mead, I headed west toward the city. Here’s a shot as we were getting ready to cross Lake Las Vegas. If you’ve got sharp eyes (or the full-sized photo) you can see the Las Vegas skyline on the horizon on the right side of the photo.

Air Traffic Control at McCarran instructed me to fly toward the Stratosphere when I was still 15 miles out. I wound up flying just south of it — my altitude was below the glassed-in restaurant/ amusement level of the tower. (At the time, I recall wondering what people looking out at us must have been thinking.) I’m particularly fond of this shot because it’s so damn surreal.

We made our approach to McCarran flying down I-15, then descending between Luxor and Mandalay Bay to land on the ramp. I have video of it from my POV.1, but I don’t think it’s all that good. I’ll have to do it again one of these days with the camera mounted in its new position. (More on that another time.)

Tourist Photos from San Francisco

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Or fun with a camera.

Note to feed subscribers: You may not see the photos in this article in your RSS reader. That’s because of the way they’re embedded. If you like photography, I do hope you’ll take a moment to visit the site and see the photos. If you don’t, just skip it. I understand.

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.

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!

Treo Internet Connection Problems Resolved

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But not very satisfactorily.

palm Treo 700p Smartphone (Verizon Wireless)A few days ago, I reported “The Trouble with Treos.” In short, I’d bought a Treo 700p so I could access the Internet from my off-the-grid camping shed on Howard Mesa. Although I’d been told that the Treo would “tether” with my Macintosh for an Internet connection, I later learned that feature wasn’t supported by Palm (maker of the Treo) and Verizon (my wireless provider).

Motorola Q Phone (Verizon Wireless)Today, while running an errand in the Phoenix area, I stopped by the Verizon Wireless store where I bought the phone (Happy Valley, north of Phoenix) and spoke to the woman who sold it to me. I believe her when she says she thought it would work. But I also don’t know why she didn’t tell me about the Motorola Q phone, which definitely would work. Could it be because it cost $150 less?

Could I Love My Phone?

Now, after spending the past week sending photos to my TumbleLog and text messages to Twitter while on a business/vacation trip to California, I’m rather attached to the darn phone. Just the other afternoon, while Mike was driving from the LA area to Santa Barbara, I was stuck in the back seat of the convertible he’d rented. With no chance of participating in the conversation between Mike and his cousin due to wind noise, I amused myself by exchanging a series of photos with my brother in New Jersey who was lounging by his friend’s pool with his friend’s family, his wife, and his dog. I sent him photos I’d taken earlier in the day, as well as a few scenes from the Mustang’s cramped back seat as we made our way up the coast.

That’s something I couldn’t do with my old phone.

I know that other people have been doing stuff like that for years, but I was never into the cell phone thing. Now it’s almost an addiction. And I just don’t want to give up my new phone, even though it doesn’t do everything I want.

But I’m a logical, reasoning person — at least at times — and it makes no sense to be emotionally attracted to a smart phone that doesn’t do what it’s supposed to. So what was I to do?

Make it do what I needed it to.

Doing the “Impossible” — Poorly

So I got on the Web and I tracked down a software package called USB Modem. Available in Mac OS, Windows, and Linux flavors, this package includes software for the Treo as well as drivers for my Mac. I installed a few things, configured a few things, plugged in my tether, and connected to the Internet. In other words, I was able to do what Verizon had belatedly told me I couldn’t do: connect to the Internet using the USB tether cable.

But the connection seemed painfully slow. I fired up the Speakeasy Speed Test and tested it out. Sure enough, I had download speeds of only 120Kbps and upload speeds of only 20Kbps. Sheesh! This is broadband?

To be fair, I ran the same test on the Bluetooth DUN connection. I got 135 down and 85 up. Not much better.

Then I ran it on my house connection just for comparison. 524 down and 516 up.

(All these tests were done with the same computer.)

At Least I Have a Reason to Keep the Phone

The only good that comes out of this is that now I have a reason to keep the phone. True, it’ll cost me another $25 to buy the software to do the tethered connection — I was using a demo version to make sure it would work before I coughed up any more hard earned money — but at least it does work.

It just doesn’t work as well as I’d hoped. Or as well as the salesperson at the Verizon Wireless store said it would. Very disappointing.

I still have three weeks to decide.

Anyone out there use a Q phone with a Mac? Please do use the Comments link or form to share your experiences, good and bad.

The Trouble with Treos

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Why my expensive new communications tool is going back to the Verizon store.

If you’ve been following this blog, you may know that I’m hoping to write my next two books at our off-the-grid “camp” on top of Howard Mesa. The place has solar panels that should generate enough electricity to power my computer equipment. But to work, I need an Internet connection — the one thing our place doesn’t have.

I explored my options. Satellite was too expensive. Wireless Internet available by pointing a specialized antenna at the top of Bill Williams Mountain wasn’t going to work because I was out of range. (The Internet guy drove up with test equipment last week to check.) That left the last option: a connection via a cell phone provider.

I’m a Verizon subscriber. I’ve been one for about six years now. Verizon has the best coverage in my area, with a nice strong signal in most places I go. I’m not a phone nut; I buy a new phone every 3 or so years. I’ve been using a Motorola flip phone for 3-1/2 years. No camera, no PDA, no Internet access, no fancy ring tones. It’s a phone, plain and simple. And it works well.

I went down to the Verizon store in the mall at Happy Valley Road in North Phoenix last Friday. (It’s a 41-mile drive from Wickenburg.) I walked in, got myself a sales person, and proceeded to tell her my needs: I need to be able to get any computer on the Internet from my cell phone. Somewhere along the line, I might have mentioned that I was thinking about a PDA. But I definitely told her I’d be connecting to a Macintosh.

Palm Treo 700pShe said the only PDA phone that would work with a Mac for syncing and Internet connection would be a Palm Treo 700p. She assured me that it would sync with my Mac using the included USB “tether.” I’d also be able to connect that tether to any computer with a USB port and, using that, get on the Internet. We talked plans and pricing and although it was going to cost me about $100/month to use the darn thing, Internet was unlimited. And the Treo has all kinds of cool features that would help make me more productive while on the road, including a keyboard for messaging, e-mail, Web browsing, and a camera. (Check out my TumbleLog for some photos I posted online from my phone on Thursday.)

So I bought it. And I bought the case, the Bluetooth headset, and the car charger to go with it.

I was incredibly busy on Friday night, all day Saturday, and on Sunday morning. But I still found time to set up tether and Bluetooth syncing. I didn’t find time to set up the Internet connection stuff for my PowerBook. But I just bundled all the hardware and software and manuals into my luggage and took it with me on my trip to California, figuring I’d have time to figure it out while there.

I didn’t have time until Thursday morning. And that’s when I realized that I didn’t have everything I needed to make it work. I needed software and it wasn’t on the Verizon Welcome disc.

So I used the Palm OS version of GoogleMaps on my phone (highly recommended) to find the Verizon store closest to Torrance Airport. And since we had about an hour and a half to kill, we drove over there. I brought my phone and the cables and the computer. And after some awkward confusion and two trips to the back room to consult with a hidden expert, the service person gave me the bad news: tethering did not work with Macs.

Of course, this is exactly the opposite of what I’d been told by the person who sold me the device. So who was I to believe?

Later on, I was able to get on the Internet and view the Web page with information about tethering. And it confirmed what the Torrance Verizon person had said.

Of course, I could still set up the computer to use dial up networking (DUN) with the cell phone. I was able to get the instructions to set up that from the Palm Web site, which I was able to view with the phone itself. I set it up and it worked. Then I realized that it might be using up my minutes — I only get 450 anytime minutes on my plan because I really don’t use my phone that much for chatting. So I called Verizon and asked. I was assured that the connection time to Verizon’s DUN system was included in my plan.

But DUN is about 1/3 to 1/2 the speed of the broadband connection I thought I was buying. And it can’t seem to hold a connection for more than 5 or 10 minutes at a time. And this phone cost a small fortune. So I’m not a happy camper.

And I still haven’t confirmed that it will work at Howard Mesa.

At this point, it’s likely that I’ll be taking advantage of that 30-day trial period Verizon offers to return the phone. With luck, they’ll have something that works correctly with my Mac. Otherwise, I’ll just have them reactivate my old phone and forget about Internet access via cell phone, at least for a while.

[composed in a hotel room while on the road with ecto]