kahunaburger

Man did I miss Santa Fe! The last three days I spent in THE city (San Francisco). I was looking forward to it and I really had a good time the first day-and-a-half. But as day two was over, I was longing for some quietness, open spaces, fewer people and especially fewer cars. The moment I was driving down the hill on I-25 into the Santa Fe valley I heard myself sighing and having a deep, loving feeling for the place I call home. I picked up the dogs at the “Dusty Dog Ranch” where they had been since Sunday afternoon. Talking to the sister-in-law of the owner of the doggie shelter made me realize again how different the values of people around here are. I love it and I missed it. I’m so glad to be back home (although I did like the moisture and the increased oxygen levels in San Francisco).

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I have about 20000 photos from the last few years. Nature, Pia, Candice, Dogs, etc. Can you believe it that there is actually only a handful of photos where I’m in the picture? I decided to change that and use the 10-sec timer on the camera to shoot myself. Must have looked funny how the camera was sitting there on the tripod all by itself, when I press the shutter and rush back to bring myself into position. It’s also rare that you take a self-portrait that you actually like.

self portrait

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My brother Marcus and his wife Elke had their first baby boy back in Munich in the early morning hours of 06/22. Congratulations to the three of you! This is very exciting and I’m a bit sad that it will take some time before I will see him. Guess, what they named him: Tobias! What a cute name
Here’s a (small) photo I received just a few mins ago:

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At 7:00pm yesterday evening Pia decided that she wanted to do some water colors. I gave her her paper, some water and the water colors. She dragged all the stuff across the house and picked one spot on the living room carpet to do her painting. I was impressed with the choice of location, because it was the only spot that was highlighted by the setting sun. I ran and grabbed the camera from my office …

Artist in the evening

Look at that face - there is so much going on, she really is an old soul. I’m so happy that she did not give me her usual camera face.

Artist in the evening

Most of the paint actually ended up on her toes, feet and carpet.

Artist in the evening

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One could write a whole encyclopedia about the driving habits in New Mexico (”Officer, I swear I only drank a six-pack”, “Red? That doesn’t look like red to me!”, …), but there’s one thing that bugs the hell out of me.

The situation: Image a road with 2 or 3 lanes. The left-most lane is a turning lane. An intersection with lights on all four sides. Most of those intersections here have a “green arrow” which signals that it’s safe to make a left turn. Once the green arrow turns off and the general green light goes on, the oncoming traffic has right of way. Here’s where stupidity enters the stage. General green comes on and in about 50-60% of the cases I see people stopping right at the beginning of the intersection in front of the traffic light. So in the (crude) diagram below, the red and blue car (I’m in the blue one) want to make a left turn. There’s oncoming traffic pictured by green cars.

You can imagine what happens next. Person in the red car waits patiently for the oncoming traffic to stop. The lights turn yellow, red. In about 10% of the cases I observed, the red car will make a run for it and will cross the intersection while the light is red, but most of the time the driver in the red car will wait for the next “green arrow” phase.

Now, why would you want to do that? Did you learn that in driving school? Are there regulations that stop you from entering the intersection while you have a green light? The answers to the last two questions are: No and No. If you did something similar in Europe you would find yourself exposed to a lot of angry honking, raised middle-fingers and perhaps even ended up tied to a tree (with the rope around your neck).

You can squeeze at least two, sometimes even three cars into the intersection and safely make a left turn, before the side traffic gets a green light, as pictured below:

Makes sense, doesn’t it? Quite often I caught myself backing up behind the red car, passing them on the right and putting myself into the spot where they should be. Wild honking and flashing head lights are usually the result. However, I make the left turn while they are still sitting at the light.

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Despite my wife’s numerous claims, I’m sorry to inform the Santa Fe Gay/Bi-Sexual community, that I’m certainly not drawn to the same sex. At least not at the moment - should things change in the future, I will update the site immediately.

There’s something about the way European men behave that is very foreign to a lot of Americans: we are less homophopic and we don’t think that being gay/bi-sexual is a disease that can be contracted by just touching one of them.

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I just blogged about this on my Adobe-blog, but here it is again for those of you who read kahunaburger. The Santa Fe Workshops offer every year a series of free presentations and talks. You can find this year’s schedule here. The first one is going to be on Monday the 19th of June in the evening. See you there.

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Oh how I missed them. The first year after we moved to Santa Fe we had thunderstorms quite frequently during the summer months. On a regular basis the sky would turn dark at noon for an hour or two. Some thunder, some lightning and a bit of rain. For whatever reason, this did not happen the last two years.

Today is the first day with a noon-thunderstorm. Not a lot of rain yet, but I keep my fingers crossed that the lunch-coolers will be regular guests this summer.

a lunch cooler

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Hear, hear - now Sony is also on board of the fast-paced digital SLR market: Sony Alpha Digital SLR. We’ve seen many attempts from other manufacturers to enter the market that seems to be dominated by Canon and Nikon. Let’s see how long Sony will last. Granted they have some big marketing muscle, but only time will tell if that’s enough. The specs for the Alpha certainly don’t blow me away. Anybody remember Foveon and Sigma? Where are they today? Been awfully quiet around those two for a while …

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The grandparents in Germany sent a little surprise package for Pia. I picked it up at the mailbox yesterday and Pia opened it this morning. A memory game, some molding clay and a new dress for Pia. The girl insisted on wearing it to school today. Here she is Oma and Opa:

New dress from Germany

This was taken in the backyard at 8:00am just before we left for school. Had to take tons of pictures to get one where she does not show her usual camera-face. Thanks!!!

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