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I've been chewing on this for a long time, and I think
I have finally decided to move Sushicam to a CMS. At
the moment WordPress looks to be the best solution for
me. It has a very robust devloper community and is very
customizable.
I am working on a test site over at Sushicam.net.
Once I get it working and looking how I want I will
then transfer it over to the ".com". (It is
purely a development and testing site so it will not
make a whole lot of sense, but feel free to poke around
and kick the tires.)
I plan on recreating as closely as possible (with a
few improvements along the way) the current Sushicam
design. I realize that over time a Sushicam has developed
a certain feel and I would hate to lose that.
The hardest part looks to be integrating a small gallery
of photos in each update. There are solutions out there,
I just need to select the best plugins to start building
with and then take it from there.
I am really looking forward
to how much easier this is going to make it for me to
post updates. The time I save in doing the behind the
scenes work can now be spent on more worthy endeavors,
such as posting more freqent updates. I just hope I
don't end up getting a lot of spam comments.
---
Spring has finally decided to show it's face here in
Japan and today for the furst time this year the temps
got up into the mid to high 60's. It sure feels good,
especially after the snowstorm we got towards the end
of last week. Not too much longer and the bite of winter
will once again be a thing of the past (at least for
the next 8 or so months anyway).
As most of you know, Pachipro recently took a trip
to Japan, and I was lucky enough to spend an evening
with him up in Shinjuku. After meeting under the big
TV screen next to Shinjuku station we set off to find
an Izakaya. We first checked a couple of the more popular
chain places (Wara Wara, and some other one) but they
were already packed with people and we would have had
to wait to get a seat. Undaunted we decided to dig a
little deeper and see what we could find. (every difficulty
is nothing more than an opportunity in disguise, something
that would come to prove itself later...)
Not 4 minutes later we happened upon a small izakaya.
This was not one of the chain types. rather it was the
kind of place that you would expect to find a lot of
regulars. When we arrived the place was about 3/4 empty
so we took a place towards the end of the counter and
started ordering a steady stream of all the things that
Pachipro had missed since his last trip to Japan.
Even before the nama biru (regular draft beer)
arrived we were already chatting up a storm like old
friends. I asked Pachipro how his Japanese language
skills were and he told me he was a littel rusty (Little
did he know, all the lubrication he needed was about
to arrive with the first round of drinks) He is such
a sand bagger. Not too long after that I learned that
he is very fluent in kanji as well.
We talked, drank, ate, and laughed up a storm for a
good 2 hours and by that time the place had filled up
nicely. There was a steady hum of groups engrossed in
their own conversations, punctuated by the periodic
humorous outburst as people let off steam after a long
work week.
After a while I noticed a young couple sitting next
to Pachipro. The guy was sucking down beers one after
another, while stealing furtive glances in our direction.
After a while I realized that he was not really thirsty,
but rather he was building up the gumption to start
talking to us. Ater his third beer he finally felt comfortable
enough to strike up a conversation.
For the life of me I cannot rememnber his name (In
my own defense I was a few beers into the evening as
well) but him and his girlfriend (Aki) turned out to
be quite an amusing couple. He was 26 years old and
she was 23. For some odd reason he insisted on asking
us for relationship advice. He felt like she was taking
advantage of him. (He could only be so lucky) He workes
for Electronic Arts in their games development and tetsing
division. He had grew up in Kyushu and had moves to
Tokyo to pursue his career and after arriving he had
net Aki, a streetwise Shinjuku native.
They seemed like a good match for each other, and even
if she were "using' him, oh well, some lessons
in life have to be learned the hard way.
Ahh..., young love...how sweet it is....
To make a long story short, fun was had by all and
by the end of the night Aki had to shovel her boyfriend
up off of the floor and oput the door. I hope the guy
didn't have a hangover the next morning, but I suspect
he did.
--
I can tell that my photographing style (Note I said
photographing and not photograpy) is changing. Used
to be that I would load myself down with as much gear
as I could carry fit into my equipment bag (usually
a lowepro micro trekkar 200, or Lowepro mini trekker).
I always was worried that I would not be able to cover
the focal range I would need, but often just ended up
carrying too much stuff around with me. (Good exercise,
but it kind of gets in the way of taking pictures) Recently
I have started to simplify my arsenel. I am trying to
not let the gear get in the way of capturing my subjects.
An old medium format TLR camera is great for this.
One lens, minimal controls. This makes me focus on the
important variables that go into making a good photo.
I use the word make and not take since
cameras take photos, but photographers make
photos.
Comment 45
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