Doug’s World

Fish and comment amnesty

October 6th, 2008 9:18 pm Comments Off

Lots of other new pictures on the Flick photostream too.

Oh, and by the way … I’ve fallen so far behind in clearing out my moderation queue on this blog that I’m going to have to play comment amnesty and nuke them all. You see, once you get more than a couple thousand comments in moderation, the Wordpress interface becomes unusable and your only recourse is to use a PHP-based MySql admin program to zap the table. Here it comes, hubbutta hubbutta. Sorry.

I won’t bore everyone with the details. If you know what F1.4 means, you’ll recognize its characteristic depth of field (lack thereof, rather) in my latest Flickr photos, all of which were taken with a new 50mm F1.4 Nikkor lens.

For the real Nikon geeks, no this is not the new AF-S model announced two weeks ago. It’s the plain old 50mm F1.4 that Nikon has had for the last 30 years. I owned one before, actually, from 1998 to 2004, when I sold it because I was moving to digital DX and wouldn’t be needing those old FX lenses any more. Yeah, right.

heavy surf at night

September 28th, 2008 5:50 am 2 comments

This was a fun picture to take. The surf has been growing heavier and heavier for hours, and it’s high tide now too. The wind’s blowing, the roar of the crashing waves is really loud, and I was all alone down by the rocky waterfront.

If the waves keep getting bigger, I’m going to start feeling bad for wishing for a typhoon this morning. Actually, there is a big typhoon going on right now 1000 miles south of here, and it’s headed this way. But it won’t get here until after I leave on Thursday, if ever.

Seoul, Korea

September 26th, 2008 3:49 pm 2 comments

But if I die, the stewardess can handle it

September 20th, 2008 10:51 pm Leave a comment

Speaking of only in America.

Seattle Aquarium

September 20th, 2008 2:24 pm 10 comments

Orcmid and I went on a photo safari this morning, but the weather didn’t cooperate with Plan A, so Plan B was the aquarium.

It was a fun place to take pictures. Thanks to Nic for his recent photos reminding me that I needed to check it out.

Too Much Rush

September 18th, 2008 9:58 am 5 comments

I guess I pushed it a bit on the talk radio selections this morning. I dropped Megan at her building half an hour ago, and now this showed up in my email …

From: Megan Bradley
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2008 9:50 AM
To: Doug Mahugh
Subject: new policy re: right-wing hate radio on shared commutes

You can listen all you want, but for every ride to or from work I have to spend listening to one of these guys, I will donate an additional $25 to Obama’s campaign. Fair? Hey, must be nice for Rush et al to know they make a difference.

… and then this arrived while I was writing this post …

Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:43:04 -0400
To: megan@…
From: info@barackobama.com
Subject: Thank you for your donation

Dear Megan,

Thank you for your generous donation of $25.00 …

Yes, Dear, sounds like a fine policy. I look forward to listening to Michael Savage with you on the way home this evening.

A Conservative for Obama

September 17th, 2008 2:41 pm 3 comments

Remember the 1972 presidential election? OK, so maybe some of you weren’t born yet then. But I remember it well: it was the first election that I actually followed, as an 8th-grader in south Seattle. I vaguely remember my Dad carrying on about Goldwater in the 60s, but that was just boring adult talk to me then.

By ‘72, however, I had an opinion. And like most political and religious views that most people have, it was an opinion deeply influenced by my parents. Mom didn’t talk much about politics, but Dad sure did, and from him I learned that big government is bad, taxes are bad, and people just want to do the right thing if government will only get off their backs and let them.

So I considered myself a conservative. We had a mock presidential debate in my social science class in the fall of ‘72, and I was the leader of the Nixon team. We soundly beat the McGovern team in the debate, anticipating the real-world election results of a few weeks later.

I maintained that conservative self-image until the 1980 election, when Reagan was the fresh voice of conservatism and I found him very hard to take seriously. I started drifting to the left, and these days I consider myself a liberal. I guess this is one of many things I’ve gotten backward in life. As Winston Churchill once said, paraphrasing Voltaire, “If you’re not a liberal at 20, you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative at 40, you have no head.” I have neither, apparently …

Anyway, this little reminiscence was brought on by a column today from ultra-conservative Wick Allison. He’s 10 years older than me, and in the 60s he organized the Dallas County Youth for Goldwater. Unlike me, he’s still a conservative, but we agree on one thing: Barak Obama is the kind of pragmatic realist this country needs right now. Thanks for just saying it, Wick.

Wild & crazy guys

September 15th, 2008 9:34 pm 4 comments

When I was six years old, I had a shiny new skateboard and lived on top of Queen Anne Hill. I thought it would be cool to ride my skateboard down Queen Anne Avenue right into downtown Seattle, but I knew it wouldn’t actually be possible to ride down a hill that steep on a skateboard.

These guys have less common sense than a six year-old Seattleite. But it’s fun to watch.