Shuttercal - andytuba's Calendar

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andytuba

<p>Having finished a Project 365, I'm shooting for even more fun and the occasional theme week when things are less fun. Also, I swear that this year I'll program some functional apps to use with ShutterCal!</p><p>Find me on Twitter at <a href='http://twitter.com/andytuba'>@andytuba</a></p>

Name:

Andy Tuba

Location:

Ratna Ling, Cazadero, CA

Gear:

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28
Nikon CoolPix S210

Started On:

1/1/09 (Day 405)

About Me:

Having finished a Project 365, I'm shooting for even more fun and the occasional theme week when things are less fun. Also, I swear that this year I'll program some functional apps to use with ShutterCal!

Find me on Twitter at @andytuba

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Sat

I haven't much for today, so I'll share with you a nice texture from last Thursday. Somebody was wearing a Guy Fawkes mask they found in anticipation of their Halloween to costume during morning meeting, so I tried to be subtle while getting my morning tea and get a shot of it through the window. My camera decided to focus on the screen, instead. One of these days I'll buck up the money for a Rebel DSLR. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

1

Lee is our IT guy. He's pretty cool and came here from England. He also wears lots of cable-knit sweaters. Unfortunately, he's been having trouble getting my work computer to work well, so today we're just gonna go ahead and <s>'smack the tower'</s> reinstall Windows. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

2

We've had the contractors wandering around for the past couple of weeks, building new things and fixing up the place. Today they went straight up! (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

3

I'd just like to point out that the teacup that's out of focus on top of the fence by the entrance has been sitting for about a month and a half, since before <a href='http://shuttercal.com/calendar/andytuba/2009/9/22'>September 22</a>.

4

Man, what's with all the bugs? We've had a pretty rough time this week with fruit flies buzzing all around the bathroom, my shipping room, and the upstairs office; and I've caught two locusts in my office; and now I've got this cricket! He was pretty docile, which I think means he was cold. (That's probably why he came in in the first place.) After capturing this little six-legged friend in a 50 CD-case, our typical cricket-catcher, I took him back outside. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

5

Oh man, it's been a busy week! Everyone at Dharma Publishing has been working towards tomorrow's grand opening of our bookstore in Berkeley, while trying to keep the boat afloat with everything else, too. We're doing last-minute preps for the store (which is at 2210 Harold Way, around the corner from the Y and the USPS Post Office) right. I helped! (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

6

It's the store! All of the Dharma Publishing staff came down in Berkeley today to ensure the store's good grand opening. A whole bunch of Yeshe De people came down as well, to see the store and to attend the free seminars by Arnaud in the lecture hall deeper inside the building. Ain't it pretty? All of our products on display in town! (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

7

I stayed in Berkeley all weekend, Friday night through Sunday afternoon, and took advantage of that time to drop in some of our sister organizations in the city. In addition to Dharma Mangalam, which is housed in the same block as the store, I had the opportunity to visit the Nyingma Institute, which is two houses just below the Lawrence Berkeley Lab up on Cyclotron Rd. They have a great view of the bay from the deck, where there's prayer flags mounted. Yes, that is in fact the Golden Gate Bridge you can barely see stretching across the horizon. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

8

Going down to Berkeley was one of the most exciting things to happen to me in about two months, so we're gonna celebrate it for a few more days here. Since I wasn't really needed at the store on Saturday during the daytime, I wandered around town a bit and made my way down Telegraph Ave to Dwight Ave to visit Industrial Tattoo. A coupla friends, including Jasmine, who cooks for Dharma Mangalam in town here, suggested it as a good place to put holes in my head. Guess who I ran into getting a tattoo while I got a piercing? Anyway, I met Lysa, who's an excellent piercer and will actually be working as a guest piercer (and tattoo artist?) at a studio in Philly sooner. (I forget which, but it's off of South St. and a good place. I'll ask when I go back down to swap out the jewelry.) After doing a superb job of putting a new pair of holes in my (not visible) ear, she even offered me a <strike>sucker</strike> lollipop! P.S. It really was that yellow in there, I set the white balance right. Those walls were a suffusion of yellow. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

9

While in Berkeley, instead of sleeping over at the Institute, I slept on my friend Elise's couch. (I met her back in August when I stayed with Claire the night before coming up to Ratna Ling. She's super-groovy and we went to the bar and talked a lot about sign language! I hope to do it again ... like, in a month when I go back down to Berkeley for ear piercing maintenance.) She lives in a house with some folks over between MLK Jr and Sacramento and has the grooviest decorations inside the house and the cutest backyard outside! (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

10

Saturday night, this past weekend, after closing out the store and going to a little celebratory banquet at a Chinese restaurant around the corner from the store (Great China, good food and service), the kids went out on the town. My friend Dorothy from Delaware (we go way back - like, our mothers were in Junior League of Wilmington when they were both pregnant with us) is now living down in San Jose, so she came into Berkeley to meet up with me. Turns out another Delawarean was in the crew with us that night, too: this girl Kelly, who's a work-study volunteer at the Nyingma Institute, went to University of Delaware for a year and half and was in the art school at the same time as Dorothy. Crazy world. Anyway, we ended up getting drinks at this Japanese/Korean place on Durant and then doing karaoke next door. Super-fun and slightly ridiculous. The next morning, Dorothy and I had brunch at Cafe Durant, which is across the street from the karaoke place and on the second floor with a super deck and good Mexican breakfast. Life is good. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

11

One last Berkeley photo before I come back to the Ling. (I'm so glad I went down for the weekend; living up in the hills was driving me a bit crazy. It may have put a dent in my wallet but so totally worth it.) Sunday, we all met up back at Nyingma Institute on Cyclotron Rd to drive back up to the Ling. We meant to leave at 3pm, but Greg's keys got locked in his car, so we had to call a guy. (Fortunately, Greg's mom was in town and has AAA-style insurance through Allstate, so it was free.) The guy eventually showed up and while he popped the car open (by wedging the door open with a chuck and a bladder, then pulling the handle with a super-thick clothes hanger thing) and educated us for about half an hour on gun laws in California. Our lock-popper guy used to be in the military (or police? can't remember) and has also worked in private protection services too! Pretty nice guy to boot. While we waited for him, though, I got a few more shots of the Institute. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

12

How cool is this? Tara, one of the newer volunteers here, does all sorts of groovy Asian things like the Gesar dance and belly dancing and she even does henna! The hands belong to Anna, who's another cool volunteer here from Germany. She was working out on the factory floor and wanted me to take a photo or two before all the henna got washed off. (ETA: a week later, it's still there.) (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

13

Nothing much is going on today, so let's go for a retrospective shot. Here's what I used to do every Saturday night for a year, freshman and sophomore year in college with <a href='http://www.formaldressoptional.org/'>Formal Dress Optional</a> back in Delaware. I've been thinking of trying out for a Rocky Horror cast when I get back to civilization in the spring, it'd be fun and new friends. It may or may not be a sign that a new copy of Rocky on DVD showed up in the commons' movie collection this week. (Kodak DX4530, according to the EXIF data)

14

Okay, one last picture from last weekend and then I'll stop obsessing over Berkeley. Here's the view out the back door of Elise's kitchen. It has pretty shadows! And that rectilinear design ethic just feels so homey. (I grew up in a ranch-style house in the 'burbs.) And... I'm done. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

15

Yup, they're still working on the skylights! The construction guys seem to be pretty much done with migrating around inside the bindery, but I still hear them clanking around on the roof at times. Looks like they're coming down for lunch break right now. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

16

It's getting on into the NoCal winter, which means rain and slight chills. However, the sun comes out now and then. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

17

Here's my new industrial, the one I got <a href='http://shuttercal.com/calendar/andytuba/2009/11/9/?showthread'>pierced in Berkeley</a>. It's been healing up really well and I can even sleep on it fine. It plays so nicely with the other three piercings in there, too! P.S. My Rasputin beard is coming in decently, although I'll be shaving it once I come back to civilization since it is rather silly. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

18

It's fun what <a href='http://shuttercal.com/calendar/andytuba/2009/10/12/'>old photos</a>, scrap supplies, and an hour or two can get you -- and by you, I mean <a href='http://www.shuttercal.com/calendar/jeanneschaser'>jeanneschaser</a>. That's what I do after hours at work: arts & crafts. And people think I work so hard and late around here! Well.. some of the time I do. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

19

Yup, more rain. It's pretty epic to see the wet prayer flags flapping around in the rain. If I can get something safe to wrap my camera in, I'll try and get it live. For now, I wait till the sun comes out again to bring it out. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

20

I <strike>ditched work early today</strike> didn't take my lunch hour till 3:45pm and my afternoon break until 4:45, so when I was walking back from the kitchen (where I was discussing becoming a part-time dishwasher and busboy for the kitchen in January), I noticed this lovely sunset over the Ling! Pinks and blues everywhere, it was quite pretty -- even reflecting off the otherwise lacking reservoir. This six-day work week doesn't hold a light to a pretty sunset. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

21

It's programming time, baby! I've been meaning to work on this for the past six months and it's finally happening, starting with a <strike>AppleScript</strike> bash script to upload photos to ShutterCal. Once I get that going, I'll spiff it up a bit for the Linux users and release that, then port it to a proper AppleScript or Cocoa app or something as an intermediate step before I figure out how to build an actual iPhoto plugin. (Mac OS X screencapture)

22

Look who I met this morning! It looks like he'd made his way into a cup of hot chocolate that had been left out and got cold, but then he couldn't climb back out after he drank his fill. It seemed I've built a better mousetrap. When I let him out, he scurried off, leaving a telltale trail of tail-prints and chocolate footsteps on the concrete. After all that chocolate, he needed a sip of cold water to clear his throat. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

23

Last night, I stayed late to finish up a bunch of big orders. Today, I find myself with only a few small orders. What do I do with myself? Clean off some spare furniture and migrate my notebook covers from horizontal storage (boxes) to vertical (shelves). Voilà: a pretty pretty notebook production station! (This silver thingie in the foreground is the notebook machine: it punches holes and crimps wire bindings.)
<br><br>I'm trying to stretch myself as a photographer, both to stay ennui and maybe sell some to iStockPhoto, by reading photography articles/tutorials and experimenting. Whatcha think?<br><br>(Lumix DMC-FZ28)

24

Getting up close and personal with SIXTEEN PUNKIN PIES. Oh god tomorrow is gonna be so tasty. P.S. I'm sorry I didn't give you punkin pies stretching out to the horizon, like my thumbnail promised. Also I'd have taken more foodporn photos but people have been cooking for a week and I got shit to do with my life, like cook my own dish for dinner tomorrow. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

25

While not technically the best photo of the batch, this is the awesomest. A whole bunch of the Lingers went down to Stump Beach to put on a football game. They were serious about it, too, with orange cones for end zone markers and MEN and WOMEN. ROUGH MEN and ROUGH WOMEN. And then there were a couple of us chilling on <s>the grandstands</a> a big log on the side cheering. Pretty funny shit. And here's Tara, who does some fancy belly-dancing and cheerleading routines for <s>the footballers</s> her own entertainment ... with kelp. P.S. That bamf with the blue skullcap thingie? That's my roommate Gerardo. Cool guy, except he's leaving next week. Sadface- nobody to turn on the light and the space heater at night! (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

26

They <s>broke</s> broke out the good china for today's dinner! The dining hall was turned into a festival hall with enough food for sixty people ... for probably three days. And everyone helped! If they weren't cooking (like I did, by making sliced candied yams and baked yams), they FOUND CRUNCHY LEAVES FOR DECORATION or helped set the tables and buffet or waited till the end of the evening (7pm, really) to clean up everything. Community for the win! Also, PUNKIN PIE. and tiramisu too. A good way to round out some tofurkey! (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

27

Here's the last of Thanksgiving, when we were on dessert. On the right is Bill Farthing, who's this very nice guy that lives at Odiyan and works night shift a lot at Ratna Ling. He also is a great cook and wrote one of our books, the <i>Odiyan Country Cookbook</i>. He also praised the sliced candied sweet potatoes while unknowingly sitting across from the cook - me! I'da taken a picture of those, too, but they weren't that visually appealing - especially after I tore into them all hungry-like. P.S. His head isn't really that funny-shaped, I blame a bad camera angle. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

28

Superfly, primed and ready for launch! Donno, I've got a fly or two wandering around my office today. (Yeah, I'm in the office on a Sunday; I wanted to do some fancy layout work, so I came down to plug my laptop into the 19' flat-screen monitor from my office computer.) I think this fly blew in with the breeze when I left the door open, since it's been a lovely day. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

29

These little stickers have been popping up all over <s>campus</s><s>town</s> the Ling with big suggestions on how to improve your life and get a little creative. Mine says 'Record an overheard conversation,' which certainly gave me a giggle: my office shares a wall with the bindery bathroom, so I can hear <em>everything</em> that happens in there -- including people chatting, loudly. (Lumix DMC-FZ28)

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