olivermoss | Entries tagged with spg

Are here on my personal site. I am done with uploading for today :)

My poor camera was so confused by the shiny facepaint. Concert lighting is terrible enough before adding in reflective faces. The two girls have mostly matte paints on their faces, but the boys all have lots of actually reflective paint. I could not get metering modes to work right. I had to do so much work on some of those pictures ... and actually on some I should really do more edits to darken background stuff. I should also clone out the reflection on the bald head of the dude in front of me in more pictures. For now I am calling it done, tho.

I am glad to have a few decent SPG pictures of my own, though I didn't get a good picture of my favorite bot: Hatchworth. (He's the one with the copper beard. Between the beard, the bronze paint and the glasses my camera kept trying to focus on his shirt because it looked more like a human face than all that texture and glare. Note to self: face detection is not always your friend.)

I am glad to be home. I took a shower and rinsed out a week's worth of shampoo. The water down in Escondido was really, really hard. I might've been better just rinsing my hair and not trying to clean it.

Driving down there was fun. The way to my motel from pretty much the rest of civilization involved a U Turn against 5 or 6 lanes of opposing traffic, following by an immediate hard right. There was a left arrow signal, but at night it was hard to parse an intersection that big with no street lights or reflectors, just 10 pairs of headlines pointed at me. (10 pairs counting cross traffic) And I had to keep an eye out for people making a right on red.

The way I took back to San Diego involved having to merge across 5 lanes of highway traffic in less than a quarter mile or being exit-only'd back North towards LA.

Onto the pictures:

Wild bunny! I had 6-8 blurry pictures on my disc and nearly erased them because I though they were a mistake or something. I realized what they were just in time. I'd taken a bunch of tight focus shots trying to snag pictures of a bunny down the trail.

The trail was steep at times. This is why I wanted to allow time for a slow descent with lots of breaks. I can scramble up this pretty easily, down is another matter.

( Few more hiking pics. I am still re-editing SPG images. It's been a project. )

Day 4:

I am still here. Every place I wanted to hike is closed due to fire danger. Also, I think I am fighting off a cold. I flew and went to a concert, so yeah, I likely have something equivalent to Con Crud. I had to do some work anyway so I've mostly just been at the hotel.

But hey my Snowshoeing Article went up. Some of those pictures will be familiar to most of you, but hey different words? I need to find some ways to promote that article when I get back to Oregon.

Day 5:

I did some work in the morning, but then the fire situation was revised and I was able to go hiking! I was going to feel real lame if I was just in my hotel room working for most of the trip. Not much to do in Escondido and the area around my hotel is not super safe to explore.

This sign on my door isn't kidding around:

I actually had to call hotel front desk over someone trying to into my room the other night.

Anyway, hiking!

Here is a cell phone shot of where I was hiking:

Once I am home I will make another trip post with my show and hiking pictures. I didn't do as much of Elfin Forest as I'd hoped. When I got there I was told that they lock the gates at 5:30 and I'd be stranded, unable to drive out, after that time. I was told the same at another park that I'd stopped to stretch my legs at when I was driving back from the mine. I don't know if they are really that hardline and strand stragglers, but I didn't want to roll those dice. Since I got a late start I got about halfway up the ridge to a viewpoint for lunch. A little over a mile and about 900 feet elevation change. I wanted to go further up to where there is a lake and the trail system opens up more, but I was worried about making it down in time. So, I went back down. As you can see, the trail is steep. At points it's just bare rock face. Some sections I went up easily, but I was worried about how to get back down. I took the long way back and did some additional trails along the base of the ridge. Maybe 3 miles total?

I really felt bad having to turn back halfway, but I didn't even make it to the park until 1:00 or so. It was still closed in the morning. I went partway to the cool thing and had to turn around because I knew I'd need to descent slowly.

At the Interpretive Center at the bottom the lady was all "Oh, a beginning hiker. You should do this quarter mile path." I didn't correct her, but wtf? I am not a beginner, at all. How was I giving off beginner vibes? Was it a weight thing? Did my giant floppy hat make me look like a dorky tourist? (I mean, I am a dorky tourist, but still.)

I never got out to Hellhole Canyon. If I ever have to go back to San Diego maybe I can try again to make it out or properly do Elfin.

Tomorrow I am pretty much getting up and going back to San Diego. It'll be great to get home. This motel has very hard water and the sunscreen I am using on my scalp isn't washing out. My hair feels like a cheap wig.

I went to a mine \o/

Yeah, I am a dork. I drove out to an old mine that does tours. The tour was short and they really do not like people wandering around, lagging behind to take pictures or even loitering near the entrance. The website talks about visiting 24 acres of 'Old Prospect Land', so I thought I could solo explore outside at least a bit? I just checked and reviews and I am seeing the tour being either 90 minutes or two hours. My tour was about 30 minutes. I wonder if there has been a recent change? Still, I've had the experience of actually going in a multi-level mine. Eagle Mine has nine levels and the tour goes trough levels 5 and 6.

I am glad I went. I really like knowing first hand what being in a mine is like. We saw what it was like in full dark and by candle light at one of the stops. But I may need to recover my long-dormant Trip Advisor account and post a heads up that something happened.

Afterward I sat there for a bit and wrote down notes on being in there.

That was pretty much my day. I stopped at a cider house even though it sort of looked like a terrifying tourist trap. It turned out to be a total tourist trap, so I fled.

Then I came back to the hotel to nap for a while. This place is noisy and I am a bit behind on sleep. Speaking of which, I should try to get some shut eye.

I am down in Escondido, California because I impulse bought a ticket for Steam Powered Giraffe's 10th Anniversary Show. I was worried they'd sell out fast (I was right about that) so I grabbed a ticket as soon as I saw the announcement. Then I had to plan the trip, figure out how to get to Escondido, etc. I was also worried because I'm recovering from an injury that made me so sensitive to light and sound, that about this time last year a trip to the mall nearly did me in.

I did fine at the show. I'd put Day 3 aside to recover, but I am ... fine. I had to close my eyes and put my head down during a few songs, but I actually stayed for the whole thing.

I don't know if any of you care about, or even know, what SPG is, so I will cover the show briefly.

They had everyone who had been in the band since when they started as Balboa Park buskers back in the day. My ticket came with access to the sound check. They are such a polished act on stage and do things like move in sync out of nowhere. After seeing the sound check, I wonder how much is practice and how much is them having a god-tier sound engineer. Steve Negrete started trying to help them for fun back when they were buskers. It was an unusually complicated show, with so many performers but it was funny how it seemed like they'd be totally lost without Steve. The show went amazing. It was a lot of fun and very geared for long term fans.

Performers wearing shiny metallic paint totally messed with my camera. (They are a steampunk band.) The one main singer who has white on the main part of her face? Clear, amazing images. Every other steambot? Dozens of blurry pictures in a row. My goal was one good picture of my favorite 'bot, who is a former member back for this show. I don't think I have a single salvageable picture of him.

I need to stop trying to edit photos while down here on just my tablet. I have a weighted gaming mouse at home and words cannot describe who much better a gaming mouse is than even a regular mouse when developing/sorting images.

I will post some pictures once I am home. I have a few pictures up on Instagram, @Dorkvania I am going to re-work everything at home to see if I can find a few more pictures that aren't hot messes. I thought about renting a lens for this trip, but decided against it. Ah, well. I was there for the show not a photoshoot. I stopped trying for most of the show because it wasn't working.

I had a good time chatting with fans before the show. Plans for a meetup after fell apart as the band stayed to do free autographs for everyone. The line took hours and we all got through at different times. It was still a good time and it was nice to be at such a chill fan event.

Oh, I will post one picture, me in the T shirt I wore in place of my custom. I got a lot of compliments on it, including from the band.

( Read more... )

It's been awesome, but I kinda want to just go home tomorrow. I have a lot of irons in the fire and I've been putting off a lot of things until after this trip. Staying here a few extra days feels weird.

Anyway, Day 1:

I ditched bringing a costume to wear to the Steam Powered Giraffe concert last minute. I am very glad. When stuff and things are going on in the world, the TSA can get intense. I got grief over bringing food because they are counting peanut butter towards the liquid limit again. When an agent decided to lecture me on TSA rules while still holding my bag. I cut her off, saying that I fly with peanut butter packets often and they haven't cared in a decade. I bring a lot of food because of my medical diet. Saying 'medical diet' was a mistake. Now she had to get her manager to try to approve the dumb packets. I called after her "It's okay, I surrender them!" but that wasn't an option. Ten minutes later she approved the damn things.

I bring peanut butter packets often, and if they object they just get trashed. No big. This turned in a 25 minute ordeal. I'd had plans to have a real, sit down meal at the airport before heading out. That did not happen. Also my bag got thoroughly tossed, twice.

I am glad I wasn't also trying to bring homemade electronics (which my costume top has). If I ever wear my steampunk outfit out of the PNW I am going to mail it to myself or something.

Landing in San Diego was exciting. We had to pull out of our landing due to a runway problem. San Diego's airspace is a bit wacky so we had to be in a holding pattern for a while with lots of deeply banked turns.

Our first approach versus when we were finally landing: