Ah, Bach

Posted on February 25, 2012 by djnpub

As Bob was out of town, I joined Blanca at a performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley. It was performed by the American Bach Soloists, a group emphasizing traditional instruments and interpretation of early baroque and classical music, and it was sung in German. The acoustics of the church were great. There was an orchestra and choir. It is a long piece, but it was very nice.

Prior to going to the church, we had dinner on College Ave at a nice Italian restaurant called Filippo’s. All in all, a very enjoyable evening.

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Nikon School

Posted on February 11, 2012 by djnpub

When I bought my first good (manual) SLR camera back in college, it came with admission to Nikon School. At that time, I learned a lot of basic knowledge about photography that I continue to use till this day, and I was hugely inspired and motivated to go out and try to take lots of good pictures. Lo these many years later, and having been shooting my digital SLR for a few years now, I thought it would be worth while to go again and see what they have to say. The weekend classes were held at the Berkeley marina.

Today I took the first “basics” class. For the most part I didn’t learn a lot new, but it was good to reinforce some of my knowledge. It also confirmed that I wasn’t missing anything major with respect to operating my digital camera. Similarly to the last time I took this, they showed some very interesting photographs, and it again inspired me to go out and try to take some good pictures again. The course was taught by Reed Hoffman and Nick Didlick. Both were good photographers, but Didlick had some particularly great pictures. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s class.

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January 1

Posted on January 1, 2012 by djnpub

Wow, it’s hard to believe it’s been 6 months since I left DC. I’ve been so busy at work it’s been a whirlwind … and I’ve only been on a plane once. Probably time to finish cleaning up the post-travel mess in the front room.

While I’m not much for new year’s resolutions, I definitely need to get things under control, and start having a little more fun.

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Sick Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2011 by djnpub

I hope I’m not starting a new personal tradition. Like last year, I got nice and sick before Christmas. This year, I scheduled two weeks off from work — the first break I’d had since returning, and the first vacation time I’d had in a couple of years. The first day of the break started fine with my birthday, then the next day I started getting sick. I was in bed for five days before it started getting better. I was improving by Christmas, but not fully recovered. Any thoughts of traveling for the holidays were shot as I was pretty non-functional for a week. Bah-humbug. Hopefully next year will go better.

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Sycamore Grove Park

Posted on December 11, 2011 by djnpub

After finally discovering the repositioned entrance that I’d lost, I took a little trip to Sycamore Grove Park. Unfortunately, I think I missed the full fall colors by about a month, and recent wind storms had taken away a lot of the leaves.

It gave me a nice chance to stretch my legs. Now that I know the layout, I’ll probably try to do the 5 mile loop at some point. Also, I did get a chance to play with some of the bracketing features of my camera that I haven’t fully explored, which may help in post-editing of some challenging exposure shots.

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Del Valle

Posted on October 23, 2011 by djnpub

It’s been a hectic few weeks at work, and as last week wound up a lot of things, I needed a little break. Today was a beautiful sunny warm fall day, so I decided to go up to Del Valle and take some pictures. It was nice to get away and get a little fresh air. There weren’t many people there despite the nice weather. I tried out some aspects of my camera that I hadn’t previously explored much, including panoramas and bracketed shots to try out blending for HDR images. If the weather holds, it’s probably worth trying for a picnic up there, just to get away and enjoy some restful peace.

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Wonderfully Taming the Shrew

Posted on September 29, 2011 by djnpub

Tonight I saw my last play of the CalShakes season (perhaps my last Shakespeare play of the year), The Taming of the Shrew. Always one of my favorites, this was a fantastic production. It was somewhat contemporized, but it came across very well. For example the nicer daughter Bianca was introduced as a leggy swim suited beauty contestant in high heels, and was pretty much played like an air-headed Barbie. The role of Petruchio, the wild husband, was played amazingly well. This finally relieved a bit of my Shakespeare withdrawal after leaving DC.

Jeff once again joined Bill, Andy and myself, but I think we’ve failed to convert him to higher culture. Rita never made it, which is too bad as this was a very enjoyable play. It’s the first time in a while I’m tempted to think about going back and seeing a production again.

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Candida

Posted on August 18, 2011 by djnpub

Tonight I saw my first play in a while (going through withdrawal after leaving DC). It was CalShakes production of George Bernard Shaw’s Candida. I enjoyed it very much. It took me a little while to get into it, but I liked how the story turned out. The entire play took place in one setting, a richly furnished study with colorful rugs and nice leather furniture. The play consisted of three relatively short acts with brief intermissions in between. The cast was small (and mostly new to me). The acting was great; particularly enjoyable were two of the broadly drawn characters of the father-in-law and the secretary. The evening felt like a bit of a palate cleanser after the last one. It didn’t completely blow me away, but it was very enjoyable. Sadly, my entourage was missing, as there was a dive trip to Fiji, so I had the row to myself except for two seats that I donated back that got used.

Based on my recent rate of journal entries I need to step up the fun quotient if I want to keep up with my DC style.

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Washington Adventures

Posted on August 6, 2011 by djnpub

For a catalog of many of my Washington adventures click here.

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The Verona Project

Posted on July 14, 2011 by djnpub

I got together with the old crew for a California Shakespeare outing for the first time in quite a while. They even convinced Jeff to come along. This was CalShakes production of a new play, The Verona Project. This was a play inspired by The Two Gentlemen of Verona, but it was quite different. It began with a band, and the songs began telling the story, then the members of the band became players in the play. I’ll give it a little credit for some ambitious inventiveness, but in the end it seemed to me a muddle. From a musical perspective, it was just OK. There were some decent songs, but some of the main singers were just marginal. From the perspective of a play, it was very preachy trying to bring all sorts of sexual orientation issues in that seemed more forced and exploitational than natural and story enhancing. At the end of the day, this was the least enjoyable play I can recall seeing in a very long time. Not a great way to restart the California theater experience.

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