Commitment. Dedication. What causes individuals to come to a user group meeting month after month for years? What drives two people to commit to each other for the long haul of marriage? And, what forces drive them apart from their vows of matrimony?

Swimming in my head were such thoughts during the final meeting of the Stanford Newton User Group for 2002. January will feature our ninth anniversary, and a couple of us, like Flash and me, have practically been there from the start. Kevin mentioned that in the Silicon Valley, it’s hard enough for people to dedicate themselves to their jobs and family lives to expect them to come regularly to a user group meeting. He makes a good point, though I see the issue from the a different point of view. As the organizer of SNUG and COBA, I’ve got to be there, rain or shine, sick or healthy. Looks like I need to learn how to delegate!

Since I graduated, there have been a number of organizations and causes to which I was fiercely dedicated for a few months or a couple of years that I now look back with quizzical puzzlement or embarassment. I’m sure that the economy, my social circle, mindset and goals were very different back then. Still, I sometimes wonder how things might have turned out if I went left instead of right, right instead of left.

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Ouch.

I’m watching the 49ers and Eagles game on Monday Night Football, I see Koy Detmer apparently dislocate his left elbow on a passing play. It seems to be occuring more frequently these days in the NFL. Several weeks ago, Shannon Sharpe of the Denver Broncos “partially” dislocated his elbow, and he hasn’t played since. Seeing Detmer’s legs flopping up and down in obvious pain brought back memories of my own ultimate dislocation in February of 2001. He’s in the locker room now, no doubt getting his elbow stabilized and reduced. I wonder if he’s asking for anything for the pain. If the elbow was dislocated in an awkward position, I can assure you that the pain is quite unpleasant.

Like I said, “Ouch.”

I see on my referrer logs that a number of football fans are learning more about dislocations from my Ultimate Dislocation page. Kudos to Yahoo and Google for indexing the page!

Looks like he’ll be out for at least 6-8 weeks. It takes a long time for the ligaments to heal and the swelling to subside. Given that it was is his non-throwing elbow, however, he might be able to take the field sooner. Feely did a nice job in his place, however.

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This weekend, we celebrated Dardy’s birthday with a dinner at Chevy’s, followed by a movie at the Shoreline Theaters in Mountain View. Rae, Eric, Mike, Carol, Jack, Amy, Alan, Ting, Peter, and Jay rounded out the crowd at dinner.

We sat at a long, horizontal tables, which made it difficult to talk to the people on the other end. Dardy frequently discusses the lack of intermingling among his his various social circles. On Saturday night, we had the online bloggers/journalists on one end and his Stanford friends on the other. I knew many from the latter group when we all worked at the Teahouse at Stanford, but as the years drifted by, I lost touch with them until reconnecting with Dardy last year.

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I walked alongside a blue and gold clad crowd on Shattuck and Telegraph. They did not suspect that cardinal red burned beneath my green fleece jacket. The buses rolled on through, depositing foot soldiers from across the Bay right into the bear’s den. Hibernation was over. The Big Game festivites have begun. Fuck Stanfurd! Beat Cal!

Whatever. Both teams suck anyhow.

Did Stanford ever hold rallies like they do at football crazy colleges like Notre Dame? I don’t recall there being anything of the sort, short of The Band playing their brand of music from dorm to dorm.

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Snowflakes dance slowly up and down my face, hair rustling in the wintry wind like frost covered wheat stalks. Eyes closed, ears open, the melody reveals a white Paris in 1996. Dreams and aspirations lie unwritten on the freshly fallen snow. St. Sulpice. Les Invalides. Alive, but afraid to act, afraid to open. A decision left untaken. It’s all coming back to me now, as the piano wafts its melody through the auditorium.

The St. Lawrence String Quartet with Guest Artist Anton Kuerti on piano performed this evening at Stanford’s Dinkelspiel Auditorium, site of many live performances, including Stanford Taiko’s Spring Concert X in May. I attended the concert courtesy of Livia and the SLSQ with Eric and Vienna. They were awesome in performing Brahms Quintet in F minor, Opus 34, with pianist Anton Kuerti. Kuerti began the evening with two Beethoven sonatas, No. 13 in E(b) Major, Op. 27, No. 1 and No. 31 in A(b) Major, Op. 110. It was the latter which released those memories from Paris in Winter.

There’s still time. Time to act, time to decide. Thank you, kb.

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Eric and I spent the afternoon editing our footage from Vienna’s performance at the San Francisco Public Library earlier this month. With Jim’s massaged audio tracks, we sliced, rippled, and edited our way through 6 of Vienna’s 14 songs from the performance. Learning the nuances of Final Cut Pro has been slow, but I’m making good progress. One thing will remain constant, though; editing is involved and time-consuming!

In other news, I’ve begun converting the pages of this web site into XHTML 1.0 Transitional compliant pages. Like FCP, it’s a slow process, but the workflow is certainly much simpler and more straightforward. Eventually, I’d like to have the site delivering XHTML 1.x compliant pages, but for now the transitional documents will work quite nicely.

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Friday featured a whirlwind tour of the Bay Area Peninsula. In the morning, Rae and I headed up to Berkeley, where she practiced with her dance troupe, and I had ramen noodles at Ryowa with Edna and Erik. Following lunch, Edna and I walked over to Hearst Gym where we met up with Rae. We were standing in front of the Jamba Juice, when who comes strolling down the street in a Stanford t-shirt? None other than Troy Clardy! During our college days, Troy and I had mailboxes right next to each other at the Stanford Post Office.

A rabid Denver Broncos fan, Troy not only had to suffer through season after disappointing season, but also constant ripping from me on how pitiful the Broncos were. Troy to his credit kept the faith, and in 1997 and 1998, he got the last laugh when the Orange Crush won two consecutive Super Bowls. I ended up rooting for the Broncos while they battled the Packers and the Falcons and deemed them worthy champions! Troy, I bow down to you and John Elway in awe of his rise from Super Bowl goat to Super Bowl hero!

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The ninth and final meeting of the year for the Camera Owners of the Bay Area user group met on Wednesday night at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. There were two presentations focusing on the Earth’s celestial neighbors, the Sun and the Moon.

There were only a handful of people at the meeting. I attributed the low attendance to a couple of factors. Probably the biggest reason was the fact that I didn’t advertise the meeting through my typical channels (i.e. online forums). I had guessed, incorrectly it now seems, that the COBA mailing list and calendar (which I had forgotten to update) would be reminder enough for most people. Thus, it look like I’ll be posting my meeting announcements onto the usual staple of forums — DP Review, Fred Miranda, and Rob Galbraith — for the next meeting.

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Backpacking poses a unique set of challenges for today’s digital photographer. How much photo gear can you carry before you begin compromising on the essentials like your tent, sleeping bag, food, clothing? Also, how many batteries do you have to carry to ensure continuous power for your digital camera, flashlights, flashes, and other electrical equipment? For the former, I simply grin and bear the extra 15-20 pounds. The latter problem forces a limit of about six days out in the wilderness before running out of energy.

The solution to the energy problem comes from our celestial neighbor, the Sun! Click here to read the full article.

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The ripples are growing larger, encircling the lake from within. Soon, the ripples will reach the river and from there the ocean. When that happens, watch out, world!

Vienna Teng performed at the San Francisco Public Library this afternoon. The crowd ranged from the homeless to friends and family to passerbys who had been spending the day at the library. Everyone was treated to another lovely performance by Vienna. Eric and I videotaped and photographed the concert, which may be aired in a future KQED broadcast. We used our dual camera setup, which will produce a better end product than if we used a single camera (as was done the other day at the Hotel Utah Saloon).

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