Back from our great vacation

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I am back at work at the help desk. If you want to know more about our vacation, here is more!

On Vacation

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I am on vacation. To follow the progress of our vacation click here. I will be returning on July 6, 2010.

Back in the USA

We've arrived back in the USA. I have been posting on our trip from my iPod touch. Here are the posts related to our 2009 trip to Europe.

Heading away for awhile

From Steve:
I am headed out of the area. I will not have my iPhone when I am gone because AT&T wants to charge me an extra $200 a month for an international data plan. So, no phone or text messaging!

I will have my iPod Touch and so will have e-mail and I will be trying to stay on top of the furlough situation and will continue posting union stuff mostly on my union Twitter Feed.

Please follow that here:

http://twitter.com/my_union

For other (more fun) stuff, I will be posting mostly on my personal Twitter Feed.

Please follow that here:

http://twitter.com/ssloansjca

Back from Portland

Back from Portland

Early last night we returned from Portland. Alex and Lindsay's wedding was lovely and we had a nice stay in Portland. We spent some great time together and with family.

Great day at Powell's

The Best Book Store We Have EVER Been To!

Sue and I are in Portland. We spent all day today at Powell's Books. It is an amazing bookstore. About a half dozen people recommended the Powell's to us and we had a great time. One day there was not enough, not even close. It is said to be the largest new and used bookstore in the world. (With the possible exception of Strand's in New York.)

We are shipping over a dozen books home.

We had a very good meal and some fantastic local beer at Henry's Tavern!

Technorati Tags: Portland, Powell's Books, ssloansjca

Going on vacation

I am headed out of the area. I will be posting mostly on my Twitter Feed.

Please follow me here:

http://twitter.com/ssloansjca

Photos from our vacation

The flight home; June 8, 2008

June 8 was the last day of our vacation. We left our hotel at an amazingly early time in the morning. After we cleared security and everything we were waiting to board our flight, Sue said, "hey isn't that Ray?" Yes it was! Our bike club friend Ray and his girlfriend Judy were on the same flight! They very nicely gave us a ride back from SFO to our home in San Jose.

This means the collection of photos from this vacation are complete and now posted to Flickr. You can now see the whole vacation on Flickr. There are folders for each day of our trip.

[Click here to see our vacation photo collection on Flickr]

Biggest things in NYC today

We are in vacation in New York right now.

• The trip in pictures on Flickr
• My Twitter Feed
• My Family Blog

Last post on this topic?

More Family and Trip Information

This is the last I intend to post about the family and our trip on this blog. Since this is off topic for this blog I am covering this topic on my family blog here.

[Click here to see more photos]

New Grandson

More photos of Solomon's First Day

Today was quite a day and I am tired. Today was the birth of grandchild number six, Soloman Sloan. I have covered the day in several ways:

• The day in pictures on Flickr
• The trip in pictures on Flickr
• My Twitter Feed
• My Family Blog

I am too tired to do or say more. Wow, what a day!

[Click here to see more photos]

I am up in Washington

I am up in Washington and we have a grandchild coming today. This is grandchild number 6!

I will be posting updates on the trip and birth on my family blog and on my twitter stream.

~Steve

Rick Steves

We saw Rick Steves
On Saturday travel writer Rick Steves spoke at a talk hosted by the Commonwealth Club. It was a great presentation. We were in the second row. He spoke about the politics of travel. We really enjoyed the talk. He is a very articulate speaker. After his talk, the local PBS channel had a Rick Steves marathon. Part of the marathon showed Cinque Terra, Italy. I took this picture in Vernazza, Italy when Sue and I went there in 1999. We celebrated our fifth anniversary there, Ciao!

Technorati Tags: Rick Steves, Cinque Terra, Vernazza, Landscape Photography, Italy, ssloansjca

Vacation Break

I have been taking a break from geek posting here. Most of my blogging action has been happening on my family blog.

Europe trip reunion

Cruise reunion
This afternoon we are getting together with the cruise group to share memories, photos and perhaps to plan for our next trip. We have not seen them since our parting in Rome. This should be a lot of fun. I burned DVD's for folks of the trip pictures.

[More Vacation Photos Here on Flickr]

European Vacation Photos

Europe photos are on line here
I am done. I developed the last three (of 12) rolls of black and white film, scanned them, edited them, mixed them in with the many digital camera photos and have posted them. It has been a long and slow process but I have several hundred photos on line now that chronicle the cruise trip. I hope you like them!

[Photos on Flickr Here]

Feeling Analog

Feeling kinda Analog
I did something radical on our vacation to Europe. I took a 35mm film camera. Then, I did something even more radical, I only brought black and white film. Of course, as well as shooting analog film I also took a digital camera. I shot a lot more digital than analog. I am very concerned about the ability of digital images to keep for many decades without a lot of work and careful stewardship of the image files. Conventional black and white photos, I have seen, can be neglected for decades, maybe even centuries and still survive long after disk drives have failed and even color analog photos have faded away.

What I discovered though was something else. Black and white film gives you a very different interpretation to a moment than does a digital photo. How the film reacts to light is much different to how a digital sensor does. Yes, you can do things with a digital photo and Photoshop that you cannot with film. But, and heres a mind blower, you can do things with film and under an enlarger that are hard to do in digital. It is all in how it reacts to light. One is not better or worse than the other. They are just different palettes, like comparing oil paint to water based paint. They are different mediums. Another side benefit was after my battery died in my digital camera, I could still make pictures. I even bought a roll of color film in Rome and shot that as my digital was dead after the battery died. (Note: If you are going to shoot only digital, bring backup batteries!)

Once in the airplane on the way to Europe a flight attendant got angry with me. She had asked me to turn off my film camera when we landed. I said I could not. She thought I was being smartellic. I tried to explain to her the camera neither turned on nor off, that my camera was powered by springs. She just could not comprehend of such a thing. It was totally off her radar.

In Europe I saw only one or two other film cameras that were real cameras. I only saw one empty film box on the ground the entire trip. When we went there eight years ago they were everywhere on the ground. But, for now I can still get film and I will continue shooting it. I do not think I will be sorry. But, I think I could be very sorry if I didn't.

Technorati Tags: ssloansjca, Analog Photography, Photography, Digital Photography, Web 2.0, Sloan Family

Trip and baby photos here!

I am on vacation, but I have found ways to post to my family blog here! There is information about our trip there and some baby pictures. More baby pictures and video of our new grandson Jacob can be found on my son Jeff's blog.

Mobile blogging on vacation

I am in Amalfi at an Internet cafe. I am mobblogging from my phone and posting in cafes. You can follow our vacation here on my family blog.

Spirit of Washington Dinner Train

Part 3 of 3
I am a die hard train buff. This is the last of my three part coverage of the Spirit of Washington on June 8, 2007. This is the train on its former route between Renton and Woodinville, Washington. This provides an overview of all three short videos with special coverage of the return of the day's lunch charter and the dinner train on the spectacular trestle near Bellevue. This also features the Oriskany Strings song, The Train Don't Run Here Anymore.

[This video also available here on YouTube]