Tag Archives: night

Night Vision

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Some night photography.

When I was in college, I dated a guy who was studying photography. Back in those days, we used film cameras and processed our own black and white film, then used enlargers in darkrooms to create prints. (I still have a black and white enlarger from a darkroom I had in my New Jersey home years ago.) It was a pain in the butt, but the resulting images were interesting and artistic.

Anyway, my photographer boyfriend had an assignment called “Lights at Night.” He went out at night with his camera and photographed various lighted objects. My favorite was an ice storage building. The image remains in my mind all these years later.

I’ve always wanted to do some night photography, but until recently, I didn’t have a decent camera to experiment with. Sure, I’ve had SLRs in the past, but I had no desire to process my own film and it seemed too costly to experiment with film anyway. But I recently got a digital SLR — a Nikon D80 — and with some time on my hands during my current trip and a tripod handy, I decided to give it a whirl.

Here are a few images. I’m not saying they’re any good, but I do think some of them are interesting. I’d love to get your comments on them; use the Comments link or form at the bottom of this post to share your thoughts. Go easy on me, though.

Bright Angel Lodge Back Patio

Bright Angel Lodge at NightThis photo is of the patio between the Bright Angel Lodge’s main building and the Grand Canyon’s South Rim at the Grand Canyon.

What I like most about this photo is the loneliness of it all. During the day, this patio is jam-packed with tourists. But last night, on the way back to my room from dinner, it was completely deserted. The gift shop was still open, but no one was around. I liked the way the light made the area glow.

Bright Angel Lodge Cabin

Bright Angel Cabin at NightThis is the entrance to two of the cabin rooms at Bright Angel Lodge at the Grand Canyon. The cabins are small buildings, each of which house two or four guest rooms. They’re located right on the rim and some of them even have views into the Grand Canyon.

This building looked particularly cosy and inviting on a cool autumn evening. I could imagine guests inside, cosy in bed with a book or magazine. (More likely, they were watching television.) The photo reminds me of Christmas.

Lookout Studio

Lookout Studio at NightLookout Studio is perched on the rim of the Grand Canyon. I’m not quite sure of its original purpose at the canyon, but it now houses a gift shop that seems to specialize in t-shirts, rocks, and postcards. It has a wonderful balcony and a series of lower terraces.

I love the look of this building during the day, but it also looks special at night. The blue door and window frames are especially appealing.

Wahweap Marina

Wahweap Marina at NightI took this photo from the balcony of my room at the Lake Powell Resort. The marina is in the foreground; the Navajo Power Plant is in the background, almost floating in the blackness of the empty desert around it.

The marina is filled with privately owned houseboats and other pleasure boats. It’s a huge marina and most slips are currently filled.

Navajo Power Plant

Navajo Power Plant at NightHere’s a close-up of the power plant. I used a 210 mm lens to get a this shot of the plant, which is about four to five miles from here.

What’s neat about the power plant in both photos is that you can see the emissions from two of its smokestacks. Before sunset, those emissions were clearly visible in the otherwise clear sky as a horizontal line of brownish haze. Ick.

Fuel Station at Wahweap Marina

Boat Fueling Station at NightThis is a boat dock with a fueling station at the Wahweap Marina. It looked cool from my room and even better in the photo.

Unfortunately, the focus is not as sharp as I’d like to see in this shot. I think it’s because it’s a floating fuel dock and the exposure was pretty long — at least 10 seconds. But it could have been a bad focusing job on the part of my camera or me, too.

Heli Camping

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How to make camping more fun.

It was spring 2006 when my friend Ryan suggested I go with him to the Big Sandy Shoot and give helicopter rides. I didn’t know much about it, but I had nothing else do to that weekend. So I loaded my tent, sleeping bag, and air mattress into my helicopter and followed Ryan’s friend’s Sikorsky S-55 helicopter to the tiny town of Wikieup, about 40 minutes north of Wickenburg on highway 93.

I detail the events of the weekend here.

Helicopter and TentAlthough I did fly into this spot and I did sleep in this tent the night before, I didn’t sleep in this tent where it’s shown in the photo. I moved the tent to take the photo. With a dome tent like this, it’s easy. Just empty it out, pick it up, and put it where you want it. The helicopter was in such a pretty spot and the early morning sunlight make it look really beautiful. Why not take advantage of the light?

I cooked up the photo for possible advertising use. Flying M Air (my helicopter charter company) can do overnight excursions. There’s no reason why we can’t offer heli camping.

But, so far, we just haven’t had any calls for it.

Oh, and for the record, I’ll be back at Wickieup for their autumn (forgive me, Miraz) shoot in October. Anyone want to come along for the ride?

Copy Editing – Part I: What Is Copy Editing?

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Copy editing — an important part of the publishing process.

Prepare yourself for the usual author rant — but with a difference. This one is coming from an author who just completed her 69th book. An author who has worked with about eight different publishers and dozens of copy editors over the course of 15 years.

So no, this isn’t a newbie writer griping about a heavy-handed editor on her first or second book. It’s coming from someone who has been doing this for a long time and feels as if she’s “seen it all.”

I’ve taken this topic and split it into three parts. In this part, I’ll start off with an introduction to the topic of copy editing and tell you what I believe it should be.

Stet!What is Copy Editing?

The purpose of copy editing should be to ensure that the original text is:

  • Free of spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Note the use of the word “error” here; that’ll be important later in this discussion.
  • Consistent with a publisher style guide. A style guide, in the world of publishing, is a document that sets forth usage in those gray areas. I’m talking about capitalization issues such as web vs. Web, hyphenation issues such as email vs. e-mail, and design issues such as boldfacing figure references.
  • Clear and easy to understand. This usually involves breaking up long or complex sentences or possibly rearranging sentence components.
  • Unlikely to be misinterpreted. For example, when you say the “Color in pop-up menu,” do you mean a pop-up menu named “Color in” or are you talking about color in a pop-up menu?
  • Consistent with the writing style of the established book or series. This only comes into play when you’re writing for a series that has a predefined format and style. For example, Visual QuickStart Guides (VQSes) tend to be short and to the point, so I don’t have room for personal stories, as I do in other books. VQSes also have level 2 headings that begin with the word “To” and are followed by numbered steps, each of which presents a single task. (I could list about a dozen style issues specific to a VQS, but you get the idea.)

Flowers for AlgernonOf course, what you’re writing should determine how much of the above is required. If you’re writing a novel much of this may not apply at all. Consider the book, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. The book’s first person narrator is a retarded man. The book is in journal format and the first few chapters are so full of spelling and punctuation errors (or omissions) that the book is difficult to read. But that’s because of the author’s choices and the method he uses to communicate. Would you expect a retarded man to have perfect spelling, grammar, and punctuation? Of course not. The author is using the character’s shortcomings as a writer to make his character more real — as well a to drive home the changes in the character as the story progresses. This technique was used again more recently in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which featured an autistic first-person narrator. If a copy editor had done a thorough job on the grammar or punctuation in either of these two books, he would have altered the characters. The same can be said for dialog in most novels, since few people speak using perfect grammar.

So copy editing of fiction is a different subject — one I’m not addressing here. I’m discussing copy editing of non-fiction, primarily technical or how-to books, since that’s where my experience is.

More to Come…

This is the first part of my discussion of copy editing. There are at least two more parts to go. In the next part, I’ll rant a bit about my experiences with one particular book over the ten-year course of its life (so far). You’d think that after 10 years, the process would be trouble-free…

Why not take a moment to tell us what you think copy editing should be. How do you expect it to change or improve your writing? Use the comments link or form to share your thoughts.

I Don’t Like Being Seriously Dugg

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The activity finally winds down — I think.

In yesterday’s post, “Getting Seriously Dugg,” I reported the history of a blog post that rose quickly to stardom in the world of Digg users. But that report was done early in the day, before the shit hit the fan (so to speak).

The Heat is On

The Digg count continued to rise throughout the day. And the hits kept coming. All morning long, there were at least 100 visitors online at my site at once. This is not normal here. And it was rather frightening. I kept expecting something to break.

But it wasn’t just the popular Digg post that was getting hits. It was the post about getting Dugg, too. Soon, it had more hits than the dugg post — even though it wasn’t dug by anyone at all. I’m still trying to figure that one out.

Things came to a head at 11:15 AM when I got an e-mail message from my ISP:

Our Hosting Operations Admins have alerted us to an issue with your hosting account. The account has overutilized resources within the shared environment. As a result, the account has been moved to an isolated server for Terms of Service violators. You have 30 days to research and resolve this issue. After this time, the account will be evaluated again. If the issue is resolved, the account will be migrated back to the shared environment. If it persists, you will need to move to a full Dedicated server.

I got on the phone immediately and called my ISP. To my knowledge, I hadn’t violated any terms of service by getting hits. My plan allows 2,000 GB of bandwidth per month. The billing month starts on the third — that day. So far, in all the years I’ve hosted there, I’ve never exceeded 6% of my monthly allowance. Just because I was getting 30 times the usual number of hits I get in a day, it was still not much more than I’d get in a total month. So there was no way I’d even come close to 10% of the monthly allowance — let alone exceed it.

The guy who answered the phone was extremely polite but equally clueless. He had to talk to Advanced Hosting. He couldn’t let me talk to them. They gave him a song and dance about too many domain names pointing to the same site. He attempted to hand the same thing to me. I told him that that shouldn’t matter since none of those domain names were advertised anywhere. Besides, there were only about a dozen of them pointing to one site and maybe 15 pointing to another. I wasn’t aware of any limitation.

“I’ve been dugg,” I told him. When I got no answer, I asked, “Do you know what that means?”

“No,” he said.

I explained that it meant that one of my blog’s posts had become very popular and that people were flocking to my site to read it. I told him this was a temporary thing and that it should be back to normal by the end of the day. I hoped.

He told me that if I continued to get so many hits to my site, I’d have to get a dedicated server. I told him I’d evaluate after I’d seen my stats for the day. (My account is updated daily in the middle of the night.)

We hung up.

A Brief Intermission

I went flying. I took a couple from Virginia on an hour-long helicopter tour in the Wickenburg area. I showed them mine sites and canyons from the air. We saw a lot of cows, too. Afterward, I goofed off at the airport, chatting with two jet pilots who’d come in and were waiting for passengers. Then I went shopping for dinner. I got home and had a snack. Then I looked at Digg. It was 4 PM.

What Happened in Five Hours

The post that had started it all now had more than 1,200 diggs. It had been viewed almost 30,000 times. The post about that post, which hadn’t been dugg at all, had been viewed more than 40,000 times.

But thankfully, there were only 33 people online. So the flood had begun to subside.

On the Digg Technology page, my dugg post was listed near the bottom, under newly popular. (Ironically, on the same page, near the top, was a post about how Digg was losing popularity. That had more than 1,200 diggs, too.)

The Morning After

It’s the next day. I can now look back objectively on my blog’s day with a Digg Top 10 Tech post by studying some of the stats for the day and how the differ from other days.

My ISP reports that for the first day of my billing period — yesterday — I used up .55% (that’s just over half a percent, folks) of my monthly bandwidth. That means that if every day was like yesterday, I’d still come in at less than 20% allowable bandwidth. So I don’t know what “terms of service violation” they were whining about.

W3Counter, which I use to track page hits and visits, says I got just over 27,000 page hits yesterday. Look at the chart below; it makes my site look flat-line dead before yesterday. Honestly — it wasn’t that dead.

Hits

Today’s hits are about 3 times a normal day. Nice, but I’m willing to bet it drops down to normal within the next few days.

W3Counter also sent me an e-mail message warning me that their free service doesn’t cover sites that get more than 5,000 hits a day.They say I need to upgrade to a pro account for $4.95/month. We’ll see how long before they disable my current account — I’m not paying them to tell me how many hits I get when I can easily set up some stat software with a free WordPress plugin. (ShortStats, which we wrote about in our WordPress book, comes to mind.)

(I have not been able to reconcile page hits as reported by W3Counter with article reads as reported by a WordPress plugin. I have a sneaking suspicion that the WordPress plugin counts bots.)

Digg, as a source of hits, kicked Google out of the top spot on my site. Google used to account for 54% of my visitors. Now, for the 14-day period tracked by W3Counter, Digg is the big source. Google doesn’t even make the list any more, with all the different Digg URLs people used to find my site. So my sources stat is completely skewed and pretty much useless for the next 13 days. And 93% of the hits in the past 14 days have been to the 18-year-old mouse story.

Meanwhile, WP-UserOnline reports that yesterday saw the most users online at once on this site: 375. I don’t think this site will ever see that many concurrent users again.

My RSS feed subscriptions have more than doubled. That’s great. (If you’re a new subscriber, thanks for tuning in. And don’t worry — I don’t write about Digg every day.) It’ll be interesting to see if that number continues to climb or if I manage to scare all the new folks off by failing to provide more Diggable content on a daily basis.

My Google AdSense revenue for yesterday was right in line with an average high day. When you consider that I got about 20 times my normal number of page hits yesterday, you might think that I’d get 20 times the revenue. I didn’t. Obviously, Digg users don’t click Google ads.

The last I checked, the 18-year-old mouse story got just over 1,357 Diggs. I think that I actually encouraged the extra Diggs by placing the Digg icon at the top of the post. I’ve since taken it away from all posts.

I’ve realized that I don’t want to be seriously Dugg. Other than the surge in new RSS subscribers, there really isn’t any benefit to it.

What do you think?

Have you been slammed by being dugg? How did it affect your hosting account or other services? Use the Comments link or form to let the rest of us know.

Yeah, I’m Still Here

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Just really busy.

Those of you who read this blog regularly might think I’ve fallen off the face of the earth. I haven’t. I’m still here.

Last week, I was very busy working on The-Book-That-Must-Not-Be-Named, which, as usual, has an extremely tight deadline. This year, it’s even tighter given that I need to get back to work on my Leopard book to make that extremely tight deadline. So I haven’t been putting much time into the blog.

This weekend, we drove up to our place at Howard Mesa, just to escape the monotony of home. There, we were treated two two thunderstorms in the same day and nice, cool weather. Since we only planned to be there overnight, we left Alex the Bird at home to fend for himself in a cage full of food, water, and toys.

Sunset at Howard MesaSitting on our hilltop, we were treated to a beautiful sunset, just before the second storm rolled in.

LightningI played a bit with my new camera and managed to get some outstanding lightning shots by placing my camera on a snack table with its lens propped up, setting it to shutter speed priority, and setting the shutter speed to 30 seconds. I pushed the shutter release by hand and waited. 15 of the 20 shots I took included lightning. I think this one is the best.

I got to finish reading a book I’d started on Friday evening, The Lighthouse, by PD James. More about that in another post (I hope).

View from Sycamore PointOn our way home, we had a bit of an off-pavement adventure, driving out to Sycamore Point, which overlooks Sycamore Canyon, west of Sedona. The road is usually passable by any vehicle, but it was pretty muddy yesterday and a storm passed though while we where there. There was a great view of the canyon, which is a wilderness area and off-limits to motor vehicles. The light wasn’t favorable for photography, but I took a few shots anyway.

I realized that the spot was very close to a cliff dwelling I’d spotted from the air the last time I flew a direct course from Howard Mesa to Scottsdale and have become determined to track it down and see it again from the air.

We met our friend Tristan for dinner. He’s between jobs, between homes, and between girlfriends right now but not having a bad time. His helicopter will be back from its annual inspection on Friday and we’re hoping he lets Mike fly with him for a few hours at a good rate so Mike can get his R44 sign-off soon. He’s looking for a job as a pilot, but isn’t really in tune with the job market so I’m not sure if he’s going to be able to get the kind of job he wants.

At home, Alex was waiting for us and happy to see us.

There’s more, of course, but I need to get done with The-Book-That-Must-Not-Be-Named, so I have to get back to work. A more pressing problem is that I threw out my back this morning — for the first time ever! — while shoveling horse poop and I’m in incredible pain just sitting in my chair. Let’s hope I can get work done.