Train Tracks

Posted by dkrashb on May 25, 2013

My boys and Twiggy hanging out on the tracks Hipstomatic style

Chattanooga became a household name in 1941 when the Chattanooga Choo Choo song topped the record charts. The first train to be called the Chattanooga Choo Choo went from Cincinnati to Chattanooga in 1880. It strikes me as vaguely appropriate that both the Choo Choo and I came from Ohio, although I started my journey 2 hours further North.

What surprises me, however, is that the train that made Chattanooga so famous is no longer in operation. I guess it’s not too much of a surprise–after all, most passenger trains have gone by the wayside in the US. In fact, I looked into what were the options for taking a train to Portland, Oregon from Chattanooga. The closest train starts in Atlanta, goes up the East coast, across the Northern US through Chicago, up to Glacier National Park in Montana, and over to the West coast, going through Spokane, Washington and heading down to Portland via Seattle.

Looking down the tracks using HDR Pro, the brilliance of the azaleas just barely show up in the distance

Pat and I took the train from Portland to Glacier a couple years ago. It took about 14 hours. To get all the way from Atlanta to Portland takes about 8 days. As fun as traveling across the country by train sounds, 8 days of travel pretty much eats up an entire vacation.

It’s a bummer that we don’t have better public transportation here–the trains are one of the things that makes traveling around Europe so easy. But, our penchant for driving seems to have made a passenger railway unsustainable.

The azaleas up close are so bright I had to pull down the saturation to keep it from hurting my eyes (HDR Pro app)

As for the Chattanooga Choo Choo, the last train left the terminal in 1970. The Chattanooga Choo Choo ran for 90 years from 1880 to 1970. 61 years after its first run, it was made famous by a WWII era song that was so famous, even I know the song in spite of the fact that I was born 26 years after the song hit the charts. Even today, 72 years after the song made the train famous, I meet people from halfway around the world who are 20 years younger than me who have also heard the song. The song was apparently easier to sustain than the train.

In spite of the demise of the Chattanooga Choo Choo, the former train station remains an attraction for visitors to the area. I’ve stopped in there once, but some day I’ll get over there with my DSLR and do a blog post on the resort and museum that’s been erected there.

Twiggy and Tisen just spotted a cat up on the walkway by the building

In the meantime, the best I have to offer are some iPhone shots of some of the vestigial tracks in the neighborhood. There are still many active tracks in the area–the trains still serve industry–but in the downtown area, the tracks are left only as reminders of the past.

Tisen and Twiggy enjoyed their walk around the tracks–especially when they discovered a cat hiding out under the shrubs. The building is an office building now–I don’t know the history of it, but I appreciated the azaleas.

One last look down the tracks in Hipstomatic’s tintype effect

Warehouse Row

Posted by dkrashb on May 24, 2013

The Warehouse Row sign makes a great subject for the tintype effect of Hipstamatic

Warehouse Row is one of those really cool concepts that, as a fan of a given city, you really want to see succeed. They took a bunch of warehouses (which apparently grew out of a military fort some time in the past) and turned them into a collection of shops and restaurants inside the original architecture.

This area was originally reinvented in the 1980’s and renovated again in 2006. I really hope it takes off, but people are fickle. People flock to anything new and cool. But, new and cool wears off quickly and it’s hard to keep reinventing oneself fast enough to keep pace if “new and cool” is all you have to offer.

A brighter, more modern look at the Public House side of Warehouse Row

There are some other things going on in the area that may help Warehouse Row gain some more momentum in lieu of another facelift. First of all, the city’s South side is starting to become a residential area. It’s re-development from a manufacturing area to a mixed-use residential area was slowed (like all development) by the economic crisis, but as we continue to recover, more and more of the neighborhood transitions to a desirable place to live. This combined with the growing number of shops and restaurants in other historical buildings just a couple of blocks from Warehouse Row should help keep a steady stream of customers in the vicinity.

Views around Warehouse Row

Restaurants like Public House bring people in the doors. It’s an extremely popular place that people have told us about on more than one occasion. When we decided to give it a try for the first time last weekend, we went early enough to check out a couple of shops as well.

The pedestrian walkway connecting two of the warehouses

The home decor shop we stopped in was extremely high end. I spotted a floor lamp I liked, but it was $850. Not what I was expecting to spend on a floor lamp. They did have some nice things, however. Although many of their items were oversized for our tiny condo. It made me wonder if perhaps the reason the shops are not crowded with patrons is because of the price range they’re targeting. That said, we didn’t make it in the doors of any other shops before getting so hungry we had to go get food. The shops were all closed by the time we left, which was only 5PM on a Saturday. I wondered a second time if the hours of the shops would be a limiting factor to their success. Of course, I have no idea how successful they are or aren’t with their current price range and hours.

The entrance to the warehouse at the Public House end

When we left, we had the dogs in the car so we took them for a little stroll before heading home. This gave me the opportunity to take some photos of the area with my iPhone. As I was shooting, it struck me that if I were looking at photos of this neighborhood, I would not guess it was in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

From the parking lot at Warehouse Row

Lessons Learned

Posted by dkrashb on May 23, 2013

Notice the bar top in this shot where the LED flash on the iPhone fired

News flash: Pat and I changed our eating routine!

Mellow Mushroom pizza had become our regular thing on Friday nights. The problem was that we could only count on the pizza being cooked properly about 50% of the time. Sometimes it was burned. Sometimes it was under cooked. Often it was cold after I stood waiting for a long time to get waited on.

The final straw was when we invited Twiggy’s dad to join us for pizza the previous Friday and when we got home with the pizza, it was still raw in the middle. I don’t mean undercooked, I mean raw.

So, we decided it was time to find a new Friday night gig. We failed miserably and ended up grabbing a really awful take-and-bake pizza from Whole Foods. We decided to try to find a Saturday gig instead (we’ve never had a Saturday gig).

Notice that while the bar top is darker and the beer taps less bright, not much else has changed

Saturday mid-afternoon, we got so hungry we decided we would have a late lunch/early dinner at our new Saturday night place. We headed out to get barbecue at the “Q with the View”–Sugar’s on Missionary Ridge. However, when we arrived, they had a tour bus out front and a line of about 20 people outside the door. We drove around for a while and, getting slightly lost, ended up at Public House in Warehouse Row–an area near the famous Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel that has been recently reinvented as a shopping/dining area in the original warehouse structures. Public House is a restaurant we’d heard good things about, so we figured, what the heck.

We ended up eating at the bar because the restaurant wasn’t serving food at the time we arrived. Thinking I needed to take some pictures for my blog, I played tourist and took out my iPhone. The first shot I took, my flash went off unexpectedly, suddenly making us the center of attention at the bar! Not exactly stealth!

By choosing the floor as the exposure setting, everything is visible (although maybe that’s not a good thing here)

Let that be the first lesson about taking pictures with an iPhone in a public place with low light. If you don’t want everyone to know you’re taking pictures, make sure you check the flash setting before you take the shot.

But, it affords an opportunity to make a few points about back-lit indoor photography with an iPhone when you don’t want to use flash. First, notice the difference between the first two photos. This first one was with flash the second without. The only thing that’s brighter is the bar top. The flash doesn’t fall far from the iPhone.

By choosing a lighted inset for the exposure setting, the people fade into silhouette and the floor disappears

Now, look at the next two photos. The first, using the Camera! app, I chose the floor behind the bar for the exposure setting, which allows us to see the floor (not very appealing). In the last photo, I chose the lighted insets under the bar for the exposure setting. It makes for more dramatic lighting and keeps everyone at the bar anonymous–not always a good thing, but works here.

Beer Over Dirt

Posted by dkrashb on May 22, 2013

My how the scene has changed

Beer Over Dirt is a funny name for a festival. If you happened to know that every spring the Wine Over Water event is held on the Walnut Street Bridge and if you happened to know that Beer Over Dirt is held in Renaissance Park on the ground, you might find it ha-ha-funny instead of strange-funny.

After all, we usually think of beer as being the humbler drink of the two. Plus, some people seem to think drinking beer is a more manly activity than drinking wine. So, if you’re going to start an annual beer tasting festival, it’s probably a good idea to give it a name that is both humorous and manly sounding so as not to alienate any possible participants.

Smells that make the dogs want to stay for the beer tasting

I was busy getting ready to leave for a conference the next day, so we didn’t get to go to the event. But, we did walk through the park while the organizers were getting set up.

It’s interesting to watch the transformation of the park as they set up for an event. Encountering the sudden invasion of the sidewalk under the ramp over the wetland by a row of plastic port-a-potties was our first tip-off that something was going down that night.

Booths begin to dot the landscape in Renaissance Park

Next, the grass circle had orange plastic fencing all the way around it. We later learned it was roped off because they set up an agility course for dogs. Had we known that sooner, I might have made time to go down to the event–I would have loved to see what Twiggy and Tisen would do in an agility course! Twiggy probably would have pounced on the tunnel and tried to eat it while Tisen tried to play tug-o-war with it. In any case, it could have been fun.

A drive-in stage appears on the sidewalk

The next clue was the appearance of canopies for vendors’ booths along the sidewalk and in the picnic area of the park. One vendor walked back and forth with a dog following faithfully at her heels with no leash. The law says dogs have to be leashed in the park, but I’ve seen dogs on leashes who were far more out of control than this dog. That dog clearly thought following his owner back and forth was the most interesting and important thing in the world–he didn’t even look at Tisen or Twiggy.

Twiggy looking her cool and regal self

Finally, the giant semi with a stage and sound system pulled up on the sidewalk removed any doubt we might have had at that point that there was going to be some kind of party along the river. For $25 you could taste beer for 4 hours, enjoy a live band, and take your dog through an agility course. It was all to raise money for a conservancy project for a local creek that feeds into the Tennessee River, but I wasn’t willing to spend $50 for us to run down for ½ an hour with the dogs.

Back home, Tisen prioritizes a scratch from Daddy over posing for Mommy

The Etiquette of Dog Days

Posted by dkrashb on May 21, 2013

Twiggy keeping cool but not still

When I was a child, I preferred to wear dresses. My mother was constantly trying to get me to wear pants, but I was insistent on my own sense of fashion. I have no recollection as to why I would have wanted to wear dresses or even that I did, but I know that all the photos of me up until I was in about the first grade prove my mother’s story.

In most of these photos, I have skinned knees or knees marked with the white residue of a white-painted fence we used to climb. I my memory, I spent most of my time outdoors running around, frequently falling or managing to bang myself up in other ways.

Tisen enjoying a rub

This was not, however, the concern my mother had with me wearing dresses. Rather, it was the constant battle she had going on in her head between wanting to preserve my childhood innocence and wanting to help me learn to conform to some social norms. While I’m sure someone somewhere has written a book that tells parents when girls should stop being allowed to run around climbing on things when they’re wearing a dress, my mother hadn’t read it. Even if she had, she might not have agreed on the cutoff point.

In any case, eventually my mother did convert me to wearing pants. Had I been born a generation or so earlier, she might have made me stop climbing trees and fences and kept me in dresses. I feel pretty fortunate that pants afforded me freedoms that might otherwise have been denied to me.

Twiggy does not wear dresses or pants. She goes out in fur every day of the year, although her parents were kind enough to have her coat trimmed for her as the temperature rose, she otherwise dresses the same every day. As a dog, we humans don’t expect her to have adopted our own hang ups about sitting primly with ankles crossed. Yet, Twiggy frequently does sit that way. She assumes a sphinx pose, crosses her front pays, and holds her head in a pose that makes you think she might be Cleopatra reincarnated. She truly is regal.

Tisen takes Duck to the other side of the room

But the other day, when our inside temperature was pushing 80 (yes, I am trying to make it to June with no A/C), she had no qualms or self-consciousness about flopping down on the floor in as unladylike a pose as imaginable. And I found it so amusing that I had no qualms about taking a few photos (using the Camera! app on the iPhone) to share with you.

Tisen, who was happy to opt for a belly rub when Daddy was available, didn’t seem quite as comfortable with the whole belly-twist pose Twiggy assumed. Although, I don’t know how much of his shyness came from my with the camera vs Twiggy sprawling across the floor. All I know is Tisen took Duck and moved to the other side of the room.

Tisen decides to hang out with Duck. Photography note: backlight seems to create a very hazy effect with the iPhone

The Face of the BDC

Posted by dkrashb on May 20, 2013

It must be odd to be face-to-face with yourself

My husband is an expert in vintage guitars. He’s been buying and selling them for about 20 years or so. But he was always passionate about building replicas. While it’s really cool to play a collectible vintage instrument, they’re rare and irreplaceable. They’re also really expensive. So, if you can’t afford the real thing or don’t want to risk damaging it, you might choose a replica instead. Replicas are usually force-aged to look like they’ve been through years of use like a favorite pair of jeans.

My husband is one of those genius people who can figure out how to make or build anything. He invented a 3-dimensional routing machine about 18 years ago and had been collecting parts to build it since before we moved in together in 1997.

A big grin for my iPhone Camera! app

He would periodically pull our cars out of the garage and set up shop, turning our over-sized 2-car garage into a woodworking studio.

He built custom guitars when he got this itch. Usually he did it as a favor to a friend. But he periodically would come to me and start talking through a plan to build guitars to sell. I felt he needed to either be a vintage guitar dealer or a guitar maker, not both.

Ultimately, he agreed with me and he kept guitar building at the hobby level until one fateful day. That was the day he googled guitars shortly after we’d moved to Chattanooga, looking for potential places where he might find collectible guitars to buy.

A very special custom guitar project incorporating wood from a very special tree

He discovered there was a guitar shop in the large, mysterious building across the street from our apartment call the “BDC.” One evening, we went in the building to look for the guitar shop. What we learned was that this was a Business Development Center and the guitar “shop” was actually a guitar builder. They made original-design electric guitars.

As Pat learned more about the BDC and the support they provided to new businesses, he decided maybe it was time to make the shift from being a guitar dealer to being a guitar builder. So, he launched Coop Guitars in January of 2012.

He recently was asked to be one of the people included in a collage used for a banner advertising the BDC. He gets teased about this now. His fellow BDC residents like to tell him they just saw a group of beautiful young women standing around giggling over his picture. Or that a bunch of people were there earlier waiting for autographs. One of them told him he’s “the face of the BDC.”

An S-style body with curves to die for (photo by Pat)

He is taking it in stride. After all, it’s just a banner in the lobby of a building. I have to say he is looking mighty fine on that banner, though. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they were having trouble keeping girls from lurking in the lobby hoping to run into him. That’s probably what I would do if I were single. 🙂

A collection of coop guitars (photo by Pat)

Backup Plan

Posted by dkrashb on May 19, 2013

Book ends

Tisen is a one-human kind of guy. Or, at least, he has trouble showing affection for more than one person at a time.

Twiggy, on the other hand, seems to treat everyone as her new best friend. Her dad commented that she didn’t even seem to care when they went out of town,–she didn’t miss them. I laughed and said, “It’s not that she doesn’t miss you, it’s just that she always has a backup plan.”

As I watched Tisen stress over whether he was losing out on any portion of affection that he felt was his while Twiggy lied contentedly on the floor, I suddenly wondered if Tisen was living whole-heartedly while Twiggy lived with one foot out.

Book ends looking the other way

Let’s face it–Tisen is all-in. He’s put everything he’s got into me. I am the the center of his universe and if I’m gone, or even if I’m there but paying attention to something else, he feels anxious. While this seems extreme and dysfunctional, at the same time, when I leave and come home again, Tisen goes nuts. He experiences a euphoria of joy that his wagging tail cannot keep up with. He throws his body against the couch and runs along it, thumping his tail down the length of it. He grabs a toy and is so joyous, he cannot stand still. Eventually, having burnt off the burst of energy that comes with me returning home, he climbs into my lap and has trouble deciding if giving me kisses or flopping over for a belly rub is his first priority.

Twiggy’s demonstration of how interesting she finds me

Twiggy, on the other hand, looks up when I come home and wags her tail a few times. When I sit on the sofa, she stands, stretches, and then climbs next to me and demands to be petted. She occasionally looks curiously at Tisen, as if she’s trying to make sense of his antics. I am just a friend that passes in and out of her life periodically. But, her reaction is not far from her reaction to her parents coming home from a trip.

This seems to be the core difference between having a backup plan vs being all-in. If you have a back-up plan, you don’t have to worry about what happens if the current situation changes. If you don’t, when you’re all-in, when things go your way, it’s a huge celebration. But when things don’t, it’s conversely depressing.

I remember playing Canasta with my family once when I had an incredible hand. I was ready to lay down my entire hand and win the game except for one card. I just needed a good draw on my next hand to be able to go out and win. I started sweating waiting for me next turn–if someone else went out first I was done. I had no backup plan.

And boy, when I won, I felt like I’d just won the lottery!

Dogs and Pillows

Posted by dkrashb on May 12, 2013

Tisen looking ridiculously comfy

I thought today’s collection of iPhone images (shot using the Camera! app) made for a good comparison–perhaps even providing an explanation between shooting action and shooting a still subject.

For anyone who has been keeping up with this blog long enough to know that I often post photos of Tisen (my dog) sleeping and far less frequently post photos of him doing something more exciting, perhaps the comparison of what iPhone photos of an excited Tisen running around with Big Dog vs. a sleepy Tisen enjoying the comfort of pillows will make my preference for Lazy Tisen photos understandable.

Yes, that is a custom-made American Leather throw-pillow my dog is propping up his butt with

There are several things that make the iPhone as a camera challenging when shooting Excited Tisen. First, the iPhone is slow. One thing to remember is that it will start taking the picture at the point when you let go of the volume-up button or lift your finger from the screen–not when you start. This is important when you’re trying to take a picture quickly. When Tisen is prancing around with Big Dog in his mouth and I’m trying to get an adorable image of Tisen carrying a toy that’s almost as big as he is, getting the camera to take the image at the moment I want it to is important. Otherwise, I end up with images like this one, where Tisen is not caught carrying Big Dog, but rather the moment after he dropped Big Dog and started sliding to to the floor relatively gracefully.

Tisen sliding into the down position

This is called missing the shot.

I do this a lot with the iPhone. It’s hard for me to retrain my brain to release the volume-up button after spending so much time learning to depress a button to take a picture. Some day I will be able to switch back and forth

Another way to increase the odds of catching something like an Excited Tisen with the iPhone is to use the Fast Burst setting in the Camera! app. While this reduces the resolution of the images, it allows for the camera to shoot multiple images in rapid succession. While it’s still a lot slower than, say, rapid fire with a DSLR shooting JPEGs, it’s still a big improvement over the normal amount of time between shots, when you use this feature, you push the button and hold and it will shoot until you stop or the memory fills. It does not, however, help freeze the motion of Excited Tisen–that is dependent on shutter speed, which is a different issue.

An almost sharp shot of Tisen carrying Big Dog

Shooting Sleepy Tisen is a much easier option in many respects. He holds still, I get to try different angles. It’s easier. However, one of the short comings in this scenario is how the iPhone over exposes his white fur. There’s not much that can be done about this other than using the flashlight feature to try to brighten up his dark spots. This has the disadvantage that once the flash starts, Tisen quickly turns into Excited Tisen.

Tisen licking the fur fuzz off his lips after dropping Big Dog

Dinner Date

Posted by dkrashb on May 11, 2013

Tisen giddy with excitement

Tisen is experiencing the emotion of conflict of interest. He loves Twiggy and he loves his mommy. He just isn’t sure how to love both of us at the same time.

If Tisen and I were two humans with the same relationship, we would be in therapy.

I have never understood possessive, jealous people. Any guy I ever dated back when I was a single person (E-gads! It’s been decades ago!) who had issues with me having friends, having a career, and having interests separate from his didn’t last long. (Well, excepting my first “adult” boyfriend, but that’s another story.) I guess because I identify with Tisen in more of a mother-son sort of way, his possessiveness and jealousy seem simultaneously more strange and more tolerable.

Twiggy giving “the Look” that probably results in her getting what she wants 100% of the time

Perhaps more tolerable because I don’t actually have to argue with Tisen and convince him that he’s nuts for being upset that I’m petting Twiggy. I just pet Twiggy and let him deal with it.

It’s also more tolerable because it’s amusing to watch Tisen flip back and forth between wanting to play with Twiggy and wanting to remain between her and me. When Twiggy moves away from me, he grabs and toy and follows her, trying to get her to play tug-o-war or keep away. When Twiggy comes back my way, Tisen drops his toys, dives head-first onto the sofa, often landing completely across my lap.

Twiggy decides to take advantage of the fact that there are 3 humans present who are capable of rubbing her belly

Of course, Tisen eventually wears himself out and decides he really can share me. Then Twiggy happily sits next to me and raises a paw so I will rub her armpit.

I got out my iPhone and attempted to capture a few images of our favorite dogs (in Tennessee–no offense to Paris and Bonnie who are, of course, our favorite dogs in Ohio).

Twiggy extends her neck to place her head directly under her daddy’s hand

Low light and motion are not ideal conditions for shooting with the iPhone. One thing that might have been helpful would have been to turn on the flash. I’ve found using the feature in Camera! that turns the LED light on like a flashlight works better than using the LED like a flash. It helps the phone find focus for one thing. But, I think I end up with a faster shutter speed this way. I’ll have to test this theory.

In any case, with so much excitement going on, catching either dog in a moment of “paws” (sorry for the pun) was a bit challenging. Without the LED light on, the iPhone takes a very long time to find focus and fire, which makes getting decent images of moving dogs even more challenging.

Our guests and Tisen (Big Dog is also on the floor, partially cut out of the frame)

This is the kind of situation where, if you want an image to capture a memory and you’re not really after a specific look, the iPhone is just fine. But if you really want a stop-action kind of shot, a DSLR would be a much better choice. Or even just a point-and-shoot with fully manual control and higher ISO settings.

None-the-less, I enjoy any pictures of the dogs.

A Walk in the Park

Posted by dkrashb on May 10, 2013

The native lens in the iPhone does not make for a great way to capture Great Blue Heron

Today when Tisen and I made our morning round of the park and I spotted a Great Blue Heron hanging out on the railing of the bridge, I promptly reached into my pocket and pulled out the only camera I had with me, my iPhone.

Now, I use my iPhone for work even though it’s my personal phone. This is an example of what corporations now call “work-life integration.” I remember when it used to be called, “work-life balance.” I have the advantage that I need only have one phone number and one device. The company has the advantage that they don’t have to pay for my service. I suppose it’s win-win.

I’m sneaking up on the heron. Can you seem him yet?

I mention this because one of the really horrific disadvantages to using my personal iPhone for work is my company requires special security before they’ll allow corporate email on a mobile device. That security prevents the camera from starting without unlocking the phone. It also forces me to use a long password with special characters that, on average, take me 3 attempts to type in correctly.

So, back to our Blue Heron, here I am, walking in the park. I spot a Great Blue Heron on the railing up ahead. I tell Tisen “Wait” as I pull my phone out of my back pocket. While holding the leash and trying to see the screen in bright sunlight and with sunglasses on, I use my thumbs to key in my password.

Can you see him now? (Hint: he flew to the left)

Cultural note: the phrase “All Thumbs,” as in, “She tried to enter her password, but she was all thumbs,” should have been a really strong indicator to the inventors of smart phones that a keyboard requiring you to type using only your thumbs might not be the best answer.

I get an error message. I look up. Heron hasn’t moved. I enter my password again. I get another error. I curse under my breath and check the bird again. Still there. I try a third time and just as I am about to hit the return key, Tisen moves, pulling the leash, which moves my left hand, which jerks the phone and causes me to hit an extra key as I hit the return key. 3rd strike. My phone is now counting down until the self-destruct sequence begins. I frantically enter my password one more time. The planets align! I get my phone unlocked, my camera app open, and the heron is still sitting there!

Now you can at least see a silhouette!

However, as you can see from the photos, perhaps there are times when it truly is better not to have a camera at all. The Camera! app was not set in rapid fire mode. It took far too long to shoot to capture the heron taking off from the railing. Of course, with no optical zoom (my mini-telephoto lenses back at home), I’m not sure it’s possible to actually tell where the heron is in most of the images in any case.

Tisen giving me the “Oh mom, you’re so crazy” look

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Combining living on the road with a mainstream lifestyle

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