My parents have spent the past few years restoring and maintaining the gardens at the San Antonio Mission on the Fort Hunter Liggett military base. So, I end up visiting it from time to time whenever I go home. Of course, every time I visit, I take my camera with me. When perusing the Library of Congress Digital Collection I found some photos of the mission from 1890 – 1910, a few of which were taken from the same location as my photos. I blended the two together to give a then-and-now feel. Here is the result.

I love math. I love it so much that I do things like this with it when I have nothing better to do.

If you follow the link to the delicious:suite blog you can read this post visualizing a unit circle and all the trigonometric data points that you can calculate from it.

Really, who hasn’t had the urge to play with a unit circle every once and a while?

I posted a new gallery today. This will be an ever-evolving collection of my best photographs taken during sunset and sunrise.

Enjoy!

If any of you have tried to convert over XML handling code from ActionScript 2 to ActionScript 3 you have no doubt butted-heads with the new E4X standard that Adobe introduced. While, in the end, this method is much better for my needs it was (and still can be) a pain to learn. If you want to avoid the headaches just visit these two links:

• ActionScript 3 E4X Rundown
• E4X XML Namespaces

They are the Advil of E4X. These articles will save you sooooo much time when trying to figure out how to target a namespace, or when figuring out the difference between a .. and a . and a :: as in this statement myXhtmlDocument..xhtml::a.(@class=="red");

Tags: ActionScript, xml

I want to share with everyone some fun videos of my friend and x-roomate Rich Ferguson. He is a magician and mentalist that does some of the most amazing street magic you will ever see. Check out these videos to see for yourself.







To see more check out Rich’s videos on YouTube.

Tags: friend, magic, fun

talent |ˈtalənt|
noun
1 natural aptitude or skill : he possesses more talent than any other player | she displayed a talent for garden design.
• people possessing such aptitude or skill : I signed all the talent in Rome | Simon is a talent to watch.

I just read a great article about the nature of talent from http://freelanceswitch.com/. I like his thoughts on the difference between inborn abilities (talent) and the skills we learn as we progress through life. As a photographer & computer programmer I can attest that neither skill is easy. Both require a great deal of work to maintain and grow. However they are both also based upon a foundation of talent that I was born with.

Steve’s argument is right on:

“Those who’ve never truly indulged a creative urge (much less made it their course of study and their profession) tend to assume that what comes out of a designer (or musician, author, filmmaker) comes out naturally, and with ease. I don’t agree.”

I like to think of creativity as a talent. The skills that are nurtured and grown through life allowing creativity to be expressed in a certain medium stem from hard work and a persistent endeavor to grow.