ARCHIVE 7: August 2009

DAVID'S PERSONAL NEWS PAGE
and JOURNAL

Jan/Feb 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009

In this Archive:

Believing blogs
Budget cuts
Max Lyons
Pain for City/Budgets
Zoomify, 1st test

8/30/2009:  San Diego, Sunrise Hiway, Pine Creek Road

I needed to charge the batteries in the little motorhome I borrowed from a friend, so I tossed a camera in the back and took a drive headed, "out there" that is anywhere away from town.  I truly had no destination in mind and wandered, more by habit than anything through Ramona and decided to have lunch at the Apple Country Restaurant in Santa Ysabel, one of my favorite stops.

I knew the batteries were well charged but I was not quite ready to head home so took the short drive to Julian.  To my surprise it was really quite through the little town.  I turned down CA79 to just head back to I-8 and then back into town.  But as I neared Lake Cuyamaca I decided on a whim to take the Sunrise Highway.  That, I thought, would allow me to check out the Forest Service campgrounds and see if any might be a reasonable place to go for a weekend sometime.  I came up on a road that I thought would lead to a campground since it had a sign talking about how overnighters needed a Forest Service Pass.

It never did lead to a normal campground although there were lots of places to pull a camper or small motor home off the road.  But it soon became obvious this was not a campground road but rather a narrow, one lane road that was actually going somewhere over the mountains headed west.  It was a wonderful road.  Although narrow and running a precipitous ledge in a couple of places it was paved the entire way.  At some point this was a real road. 

The most amazing thing was that there was NO ONE one it.  I saw one car parked in one of the turnouts and that was it.  This was definitely my kind of back road and something I would never have expected anywhere in Southern California. 

The afternoon sun was warm in temp and warm in color as the road wound through some areas I think would have been from the devastating "Cedar" fire of several years ago.  In one meadow I had to pull over to shoot the now dry flowers against a green meadow, some great rocks, and burned trees.  It was such an unusual mix of elements it definitely caught my eye.  Here is one of the shots I took.

I'm still not sure what this road is called but it finally emptied out onto the Pine Creek Road and into Pine Valley.  It passed several trail heads into a place called "Noble Canyon" but I've not had a chance to look at a Topo map to figure out for sure where it was.

What I do know, however, is that I will be back.  It would not be a bad place to go with a small group of students on a field trip since there is all kinds of varied terrain to see and photograph.  If anyone knows anything about this road do please email me and let me know.

8/28/2009: San Diego - Fall Semester Gets Off to a Rough Start

Despite all of the warnings about the effects of the budget cuts, students still thought it would be business as usual regarding class crashing and add codes.  But we had already been told that class caps were to be followed as closely as possible.  The reason given was that the school does not get paid for FTES over the cap and therefore it costs them money which they desperately need for other things.  Setting aside that the reasoning is flawed -- the faculty and building costs are already paid for if the class is allowed to run at all so what is "lost" is additional potential revenue but not out-of-pocket dollars --  since the State has been deferring payments to the school for several semesters it is no more costly to run overflow.  However it does take an unfortunate toll on students and instructors handling the crowded situations and I've long wished the policy was clearer on it.

So it was a good excuse to limit students.  I did let in a few over cap but nothing like I normally would and there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Had there been no warning I would have been far more sympathetic.  And as it was I let in too many.  I fell prey to an obvious trap: once you let in one how do you say "No" to others in the same boat.  I only let in those on the wait list and a few that had tried to register properly but run into a glitch that delayed things past the opening roster.  But true crashers I generally let in only in the classes where there were available seats.

All of my new classes are now running as "web enhanced" classes through Blackboard and I expect that to make a huge difference in handling the load.  Plus I took orientations in a piece of software called "TaskStream" which will make it easier to track our mandated 'Student Learning Outcomes' (SLOs) for the upcoming accreditation panic.

But, the first chaotic week is done and now we can settle in to the fun part: teaching and watching students getting better at their work.

CTC Update. Dave and I have been in endless meetings and email discussions as the new building completion starts to accelerate.  The combination of estimates indicates the construction will be complete in February or March of 2010 then the interior finish will begin.  At the latest we should be open for business it in starting a year from now in Fall of 2010.  We can hardly wait!

Here is a shot of it taken August 28 from the existing SE corner of the campus at 16th and C streets (looking south east).

They are hanging dry wall on the 1st floor so if you have been seeing this progress or checked into the CTC/VTC page on this site you can see they have come a long way this summer since the "Topping off Ceremony" last Spring.

8/17/2009: San Diego - Fall Semester is about to start

Wow, next week we start Fall 2009 semester.  Where did the summer go?  This week we have a bucket full of pre-semester meetings, most mandatory, to lead off the new academic calendar year.  and for the past few so-called "break" weeks we've had meetings relative to the new building that just from the standpoint of keeping up and on top of the process have been mandatory.  It pretty much eliminated my intended photo trip to be taken during the break!  Oh well, they turned out to be important since the architects and construction folks hade made some assumptions on their own that turned out to not be what we wanted or needed.

And it has given me a chance to really get more materials for the classes brought up to date and put on either this site, on Blackboard's site, or both.  I've also scripted some video tutorials to be put online but have not had the chance to actually shoot or assemble them yet but though I wish I had them now they are not really that critical time-wise since I have printed datasheets for most of them.

So, I actually have a day to relax... after I get all of this stuff uploaded in a few minutes. 

8/8/2009: San Diego - Semester End! and Web Enhanced Classes

I just finished turning in all of my grades for the Summer Semester for, for me, it is officially over.  It has been an interesting semester learning to use the online tool, "Blackboard/Vista" to conduct the Photo 143 classes as web enhanced versions.  From my perspective it was a roaring success and several students said they really enjoyed it, especially being able to constantly track their progress.  For me the ease and speed of grading was a revelation and something I will continue.  My plan now is to keep adding elements to the course shells until it will be able to, should I choose to do so, be run as a complete online class.  What would be neat about that is that I could conduct the class from anywhere I had internet access.

It was so successful for me that in preparation for Fall semester I am now creating the course shells that will allow me to run ALL of my classes (143, 243, 220, and 204) as "web-enhanced" and take advantage of that resource.

I was planning on a shooting field trip next week but I just got word of an important meeting on the studio configurations of the new building that needs to be on Thursday afternoon.  Perhaps I could take off Sunday and be back Wednesday... we shall see.  I'll keep plans posted here.  

8/7/2009: San Diego - Bristle Cone Pines Trip

Last weekend (July 30-Aug 1) I joined The Bristlecone Pines workshop given by Donna Cosentino/Photographic Explorations.  I was asked to come up to the Crooked Creek Research Station to give a talk on HDR.  in the process we had a really good discussion on that and a number of other issues in digital shooting.  Several of the film shooters were surprised at the quality of the large photos I showed, as assume because they were used to seeing less than sterling digital prints even in some exhibitions that ought to know better such as the so-called "Best of Nature" show at the Natural History  Museum.  Since this is finals week at school I've only had a chance to work on a handful of the "travelogue" images I took on the trip.  As I have time I'll work on the rest and put them in the proper galleries.

I had actually joined the group in Alabama Hills at Dawn on Friday.  I noticed immediately that the quality of light is very different this time of year than it normally is when I bring my landscape students here in the Spring.  The dawn light on the peaks is less intense since the sky itself is brighter, but the golden light on the rock forms themselves is, in places much enhanced.

We spent the morning there, which I always enjoy, and then continued north to Big Pine and followed Big Pine Creek up to the trailhead to Palisades Glacier.  I took a couple of shots along the creek then had lunch.  This shot is looking up the valley to the Sierra Peaks and the glacier roughly in the middle of the shot.

By then everyone was back and we headed back into town for lunch at the normally good "Country Kitchen" diner.  This time the service was, at best, surly and obligatory and did not leave a good impression on anyone in the group.

The road up to the Ancient Bristlecone Forest starts out like a typical two lane backcountry state highway.  But it climbs steadily and, in some places, quite steeply up from the valley floor into the white mountains.  The first part of the road goes through a Pinon forest that is a near match for those in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico.  The shot below shows some of the group at a view point on the road.  Maps and viewing tube let the visitor orient themselves looking across the Owens Valley to the Sierras.  But a storm was coming on fast and begininng to obscure the Sierra Peaks.

The Crooked Creek Station, at 10,150 feet of elevation, is a wonderful place for a workshop or field trip and they are open to educational groups (though not just private individuals).  The Station itself is the gorgeous log compound with dorm rooms, a class room, dining hall, and incredible food provided by "Tim the Cook."  Tim is far more than just a cook but that is how he prefers to be titled.

In the photo the main dorms are the two story part on the left, the dining hall and upstairs classrooms are in the middle and the groups of cabins start on the right of the shot.  When I arrived a storm had just passed over the area so the sky was quite overcast.

The workshop was going to visit the Patriarch Grove of Ancient  Bristlecones on Sunday because that day there was also an open house at the Barcroft High Altitude Research station.  But since I had to drive back on Sunday to be home in time to prep for finals week,  I went up alone to photograph at the grove on Saturday. 

There are sporadic groves of Bristlecone Pines all over the place as well as some lone sentinels.  This scraggy old sentinel sat on top of this rocky hill.  If you look close, at the base (to the left of the stump), you can see where it is still putting out green shoots.  Life will find a way -- even in the most inhospitable of environments.  Although I was not able to photograph it, a chubby marmot was whistling away at me from a rocky outcrop behind where I was shooting.  In Colorado the locals called marmots "whistle pigs" since the early settlers thought they were the familiar ground hogs from the midwest and east (and in fact they are closely related).  Marmots, however, seem to have no expertise in predicting weathere since they emerge from their high altitude dens much to late and by then we have figured it all out.

In fact, Bristlecone Pines themselves generally seem to thrive only in places where nothing else will.  Extreme altitude, constant winds, deep snow, minimal oxygen, and desperately cold climates in the winter are the elements it seems to most like.  Something is certainly working since they are the oldest living things on the planet. 

The fantastic patterns of their grain, carved and polished by untold years of fine wind driven dust and ice particles are endless in their patterns and, for me, visual attraction.

Up at Patriarch's grove are several iconic trees that have been photographed by some of the great photographers.  There is one, along the northerly sweep of the loop trail, that I called the "Wizard" because from some angles it looks to me like a wizard with staff and arms outstretch, tall cap in place, ready to perform some feat of magic... as if being here at all was not magical enough!  I was not happy with my shot of it from last year (although I did come back with a photo I think is one of my favorites).  So I wanted to spend some quality time with it.  Here are three of the shots from the wizard taken this trip: two details of the weathered and gnarled wood (in color) and a B&W version looking up from its base.

I am still trying to figure out how to bring a field trip from City to this magical place which, unfortunately is still under snow and closed when we are doing the Landscape Class in the Spring.