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12/13/02: Friday the 13th...and a startling discovery. I fine incredibly asinine right now.
It turns out fotki.com NEVER prohibited anyone from seeing my pictures full size. Somehow, my options were changed, which said that only myself could see photos full size. I know I never changed that, so I'm wondering if it was reset some time ago by fotki.com. Well, anyway, now everyone should be able to see all the photos full size again. Now isn't that nice?
Oh, and by the way, I've disabled all photo comments for the time being. I'm seriously tired of being heckled by all the extraneous questions. People expect me to know the exact availablity of an apartment complex in Minneapolis? I'm supposed to be the official P.R. agent who can give you a list of places to rent for weddings? I'm expected to know the world history of cereal? It's getting ridiculous. I never once claimed to have this omniscience about the Twin Cities...and every time I asked people to E-mail me...of course, it never happens. I've given monitory several times, and now, the final straw has snapped. I'm just exhausted with all of the inept inquistions.
I'm not trying to be brusque about this, but seriously, what is the stigma with avoiding E-mail? No one E-mails me questions at all...they just leave them on fotki.com in the photo comments. That's it, the choice has offically been made simple. E-mail me, or forever withhold your peace. Thanks...
12/4/02: Pathetic how I get all mirthful over work about two months ago, and go on like this with nothing to show for it. Don't lose faith however. I am only about 3 weeks from the end of the semester. I can finally finish up and post my field studies for Saint Paul and Minneapolis, for anyone who preferred literal descriptions of the landscapes, including areas that elluded my camera. I couldn't take pictures of everything since I only have limited space and the weather was uncooperative. Plus I had a bum hectoring me for cigarettes and insisting I not take pictures in "his" neighborhood. No, I actually wasn't taking pictures, the camera had its lens cap on and was dangling from my neck; its appearance was enough to perturb him. When people see me with a camera, I seem to attract a lot more attention. That's why I asked for an inconspicuous little case to set it in. That way, it would be much easier to get photographs and keep my camera protected at times when it need not be utilized. We'll see; it's the season for giving!
10/12/02 (SECOND ENTRY): Yes, I did work today for the site! I spent about an hour updating the Saint Paul downtown map, making modifications and adding a couple of things. Here is a list of changes made since 1.1:
UPDATE: I released version 1.2 of the Minneapolis map. It REALLY needed to be updated! Here's a list of differences made.
Version 1.3 has to come out for downtown Minneapolis. The skyway system actually extends further south than what's shown in the map! I will have to make the diagram even bigger so it can show another 2-3 blocks south, to include the rest of the system. Before I go, I did fix a mistake on the About Iggy page and a few more on the Intro/FAQ page (mostly updating). Lastly, I took my little history on the photo page and made paragraphs out of it so it will be easier to read, also updating it to cover present day, when I expanded my lease on fotki.com to October 2004 (another 2 years!). This site hasn't died yet!
ANOTHER UPDATE: I don't know what got into me. All of a sudden, I'm working on the site. I finished a huge labeled skyline diagram for Minneapolis, one far more detailed then the one for Saint Paul (it provides three distinct views so you can see the different towers). Check it out in the Twin Cities Information section!
10/12/02: Where have I been?! I know, I know, it's been over two months and this site hasn't seen anything new to show for it. I have been updating the Photos of the Day and I just paid for another 2 years of service of fotki.com so it will be at least that long until the photos are gone. I do have something that I will be sharing with the site. That will be the paper I wrote for the Saint Paul field trip, for my Twin Cities Geography class. I'm not doing it to give future students an edge, but it includes a lot of information and personal observances (and double spaced, in 12 font, it is 38 pages!). That would definitely be advantageous to the site after it's returned and a modify it a bit. It took about 10 hours to write, so believe me, it is quite a commitment. One for Minneapolis would come a little bit later, both released by the end of the year.
I'm visiting downtown Saint Paul to get my new state ID so I'll get to check things out on Monday. Other than that, I've been really busy, especially since I was promoted to lead consultant, and being in charge of scheduling is quite a time-consuming task. This site is not dead, no forgotten; things are just slow for this hobby ever since the new school year has begun and different interests have taken over my summer. Don't lost faith, things will happen.
8/9/02: Just a tiny little update of something today. A person known only as "Jima" contacted me and gave me the correct height to the Malcolm Moos Tower in Minneapolis, on the U of M campus. I want to thank this person for supplying that tidbit of information and I added it to the height list, although, I still need to get a picture link assembled. That's it for today...miniscule, I know.
7/26/02: For the last 2-3 days, I've been doing some work on the photo archive, including a new introduction, some more deletions from the archive and some labeling, although that's really not as important since they are generally generic, uninformative ones like "house"...well, what else could I put? Regardless, I haven't forgetted about the site. In fact, after this, I'm going over there to update the Photos of the Day, which is the main thing I've been keeping on. The pictures in my private inbox are building up very steadily. I have well over 600 pictures lined up to go up, ranging from a couple weeks to over a year old. I have a plethora of pictures dating from this summer that I have yet to get up. In fact, I may take a few pictures today because I have to do a little walking to a local joint later on. Well, until later. I know this site seems dreadfully quiet; it won't be dead forever. One of the biggest factors is that I sometimes used this as my own personal journal of sorts, but ever since I got an on-line journal on another site, I really haven't felt the need to type much here since I do my venting there now. Anyway, back to the pictures.
Just a reminder. Unless you are a paying member of fotki.com, you will not be able to see my pictures at full size. Believe me, I'm not particularly elated at the policy.
6/10/02: Crap, I lost this update when trying to paste here. The big news of the day here was that I updated with Rochester and Milwaukee commentaries by adding links to the pictures, especially newer, full size ones because fotki.com doesn't allow non-paying members to do so. I want to do more of that in the future, but we'll see what happens.
6/21/02: Now that fotki.com has eliminated the opportunity to see photos full size (except for me), I had to go back through my photo collection and delete somewhere around 100. Now, I'm back, just under 4,000 photos again, and I may face further reductions. The biggest cuts are in both the skyline albums, especially with the older digital camera, because it counted on seeing pictures full size. Now that people can't, the buildings looked like specks, which doesn't help me any. Anyway, I'm also looking through other albums too, because besides having to delete pictures that don't look good at their reduced size, I want to get down my account space a bit. I'm taking up somewhere in the realm of a whole Gigabyte of space. The newer photos with the C-3020 is the major culprit. In their current size, the photos take up anywhere from 300-600k each. Now, with somewhere around 800 photos with the newer camera on my site, that easily contributes almost half the entire space that my photo archive takes up. Be comparison, my old camera usually turned out pictures of 100k more or less. Now, increased clarity and resolution pays heavy in file size. Because people are not able to see pictures full size anymore, that means that I'll have to make more use of links to the full size pictures, which I have the ability to do, so I might fool around with that over the next couple of weeks. Somehow or another, I'll work with it. At least I can say I did some work for the site. With the new limitation on photos, that seriously delivers a crushing blow to my site and its concepts. Anyway, I'll be around. Have a good day!
6/16/02: In the middle of a slow period where my interest in this site has waned temporarily, I did get off my butt and do a new update to my detailed downtown Saint Paul diagram. This was meant to reflect the current status of downtown, now that Wabasha Court has been demolished and two downtown buildings have been renamed. So, rejoice; I did something! I will probally do something of an update to the Minneapolis map soon as well.
6/6/02: How embarrassing, not stopping by or anything. I have to admit, I've hit a slow period, after spending all this time hyping up for summer and all the work for the site I could do. Here I am, not doing anything for the site since I'm caught up in other interests. Of course, I will go no farther here. Tomorrow, amid my lack of notices, I'm leaving for my brother's home down in Pewaukee. I'll be there from Friday afternoon to Wednesday morning, with a stop in Madison on the way back, so I'll have some pictures to boot. Anyway, that's about it for now. I'll try and get some things going, but right now, it's a little dip in activity. Sorry for the disappointment, but I still update Photos of the Day on a semi-regular basis.
5/24/02: A little cleaning up on the About Iggy page, including have to modify the top graphic and I little bit of the wording because I forgot to change URLs there. I'm moving into the new domain name pretty easily. However, it'll take a while before I can change everything. For example, I have to try and get in contact with A Minnesota Webring so they can change my link. Other than that, I've been notifying other sites carrying links to me and I'm still doing so survey work here as well.
5/22/02: I got the new graphics up for the site to reflect the URL change and the site is officially open, though I will be doing more work on the site as the day progresses. After all, I still got 8 hours and 47 minutes before work ends. Speaking of work, I got a raise of $1.36 an hour! Wow, huh?! As of right now, this is what I've done.
SUPPLEMENTAL: I'm currently working on a name update. In my last trip to downtown Saint Paul, it appears that Firstar has become U.S. Bank at last. The Firstar sign was gone and replaced with a new, blue U.S. Bank sign. While the photo is still in private albums, it can be seen here. Currently, I'm working on all the mentions I have of it, but I might miss something here and there. Also, I'm changing the name of the former Wells Fargo Building in Saint Paul. It is now Fifth Street Center until it can attract a big name client.
5/20/02: I was told my domain name is expiring in 24 hours, about 4 days earlier than expected! What's going on. Needless to say, I'm on my way to purchase the new domain name right now!
SUPPLEMENTAL: I have just purchased a two-year lease on www.twincitiespage.com as a domain name. It will continue in the same way my current domain name does, forwarding to this page. It takes 24-72 hours for the order to go through, so it may not happen in time before my lease on twincitypage.com ends. I put the message above. Use an alternative URL address until twincitiespage.com is working again. It will take me a couple days to get the site up and running with the change, but only AFTER the URL purchase goes through and the domain name works. I hope everything works out alright. What I do like is that this service, while not the same one, is $10 cheaper. However, they did require that I sign a two-year lease, and couldn't get just one year alone. That's not really a problem though. It was still very cheap ($15 a year), compared to $25 a year as it previously was. Until later!
5/16/02: Non-important note. As I finish up the third out of four finals (technically, one was a presentation), my friend Maia, who also led me to fotki.com, has helped me get a journal at livejournal.com, which is kind of neat because I can mindlessly ramble on, mwa ha ha ha! The URL to my journal is http://www.livejournal.com/users/mrmn/, but I warn you. While this site is G-rated, my journal is PG. Click at your own discretion. Don't worry; there is no filthy secrets, no real trash talk, or anything like that. Have fun!
5/13/02: The website is going to move to www.twincitiespage.com within the next two weeks. The graphics will change to update the change and the General Information part of the site has been reorganized to make it much more user friendly. I will also do some work on other pages, including new commentary and new backgrounds, but who knows what will happen. I will also do work on my photo albums, to delete many old and poor-quality photos as they are being replaced with newer C-3020 ones.
4/26/02: What the?! It's been half a month and I haven't done anything here! Well, while I have updated Photos of the Day and prepared new graphics for the move to www.twincitiespage.com (like I said above, May 24th), I've been so busy with the U that I haven't even come here. I'm sorry I'm neglecting the site. I have been told I will have plenty of work shifts this summer, so that means I will have plenty of time to do a lot of work on this site. May 18th is my final day for everything. Summer work shifts begin May 20th. Right now, I'm far too swamped with assignments and finals to think of updating this part of the site. I'm holding on for summer; I promise that this site will start waking up again. Until then, stop by Photos of the Day, where I'm still updating. I've even done some work on the photo collection (not much) when I had time.
4/8/02: Yes, it's been a while, but I did do some work today, even if I had more important homework to do. As you may have known, I've been absolutely disgusted with the poor job I've done on categorizing the Minneapolis photos that I have. Today, I've taken a major step towards a much improved organization process. I have finally established more neighborhood albums for Minneapolis, established the new Minneapolis Sculpture Garden album, and I've placed almost every picture of Minneapolis into these albums and existing ones. In my "Anything Minneapolis" album, I had about 120 pictures in all, of various things in many different areas. Some where supposed to be in existing albums, yet I never moved them. Today, that same album is down to 9 photos! Yes, only 9. I've finally got things largely organized and I've very pleased with the results. It's also helped me to evaluate what my future goals will be in the representation of Minneapolis. I've also done a little of the same scaled work on Saint Paul, but it did not involve the relocation of photos because I've been organizing those much more carefully then I have Minneapolis. Go ahead and take a look at how I reorganized the albums when you get the chance. Now each city has its general albums, special features (Examples: Lowertown and the Warehouse District), specific buildings, and then neighborhood albums. That's about it for today (besides new Photos of the Day). Enjoy!
3/27/02: Sorry about the long wait to hear from me (unless you check Photos of the Day often, I'm there every other day). Today I've been making lots of calls and getting things straightened out. I told you that Olympus had sent back my camera, the original unlike what they said they would (they claimed it would be a new one). I don't know why, but I'm having problems with this one too. It appears the right side is beginning to blur, only not as seriously, and the blurriness is about 90% fixed when I shrink and sharpen the picture. I got a reply from Olympus, dealing through the same representative. I will ship my camera to Olympus and they will ship me a new camera when I supply them with the UPS tracking number. I will ship it early next week (I hope), since I need it this Friday for school related stuff. This means I will be visiting the U of M Saint Paul campus and maybe a bit more the St. Anthony neighborhood if I have time. I need pictures from that area. I sincerely hope that's it and for now on, it's just paranoia. I also called to check up on my 5-year warranty plan because I never received confirmation, and that's settled. Also, financial aid is really being tough on me this year, so I'm still struggling with that, not to mention my own mother added to the problem by making a mistake on her tax return...ugh, will it ever end?
That's the news; maybe more than you'd care to hear. I'm very disgusted with my poor organizing job with my pictures on fotki.com. This summer, I'm planning major re-arranging and further scaling back on my pictures. I'm adopting stricter expectations for the quality of my pictures, especially since the pictures on my new camera take up a LOT more space. 60 pictures can equal upwards to 15MB now, so I have to be careful on how big I let my collection get in memory. There is 7 weeks of class left (well, 6 1/2 technically), then finals. I'm in the home stretch now, but any major work on the site will have to occur this summer, not now. I promise that this summer, you'll see some more updating on the site as a whole. Well, I got to go pack up...it's time to go to the U! Later!
3/21/02: Back in Minnesota. Yes, I've been bad; I didn't update when I got home, but that's because I went straight to working on the Milwaukee pictures. Yesterday, this feeling hit me. I felt bored, back into the regular Minnesota life. It was as if I had never left. Since the sun was shining and the weather seemed decent, I took a bus downtown Saint Paul and took some pictures. Now this brings me to the unfortunate discovery of a potential second issue with my new camera. While the left side doesn't blur anymore, I have suspicions about the lower right side of the pictures. In many times, it gets a little blurry, but not nearly as serious as my first problem. When I get my picture shrunk down and sharpened for the site, you can't really even notice it anymore. In some pictures, it's not even visible (to me). My brother says I'm bring ridiculous and it's just because the bottom right side isn't usually in my focus area, and maybe he's right, but still, I'm very suspicious. My last picture of Saint Paul yesterday was the skyline and the whole right side was blurry. Again, not as serious as before, but still clearly visible. I tested the camera last night indoors and couldn't find any problems, so I don't know. It maybe my imagination or my brother's claim of focus area, but still, it worries me a bit. It doesn't prevent the emergence of good pictures though, so if it becomes more serious, I'll report it, but just leave it be for the time being, until I can understand it better.
Heading back to the trip, I think the Greyhound ride home was 10 times better than the one going out there. This one was only at half-capacity at most, and I had plenty of room (and peace) and relax. No one bugged me, I didn't have to sit next to an ex-convict (yes, on the way down I did!), and I found it really relaxing at times. Still, I'm glad it's done. Being home feels like I never left; everything was the way I left it. Still, the trip was so much fun that I hated to see it end. Now that I'm at my computer (which I missed since my brother's has its problems), the reminders of homework, tax returns, financial aid, and my impending Spanish presenation are dancing around me, snickering with malevolent intentions. In fact, after this, I have to go write a paper, whoopie. Well, my stay in Wisconsin left me with one new habit. I seem to wake up at 8AM every morning now, instead of 10 or 11 like I would if I didn't go. I guess all those nights waking up early really starts up your biological clock.
Oh, and on a side note, I noticed downtown Saint Paul that Galtier Plaza has been really getting the makeover. It even had its skyway redone a little bit. New signs, color schemes, and new office spaces opening up. Really starting to look good, though the retail situation has not improved at all. It is quickly becoming an office building. Oh, now I remembered a couple other things. Wabasha Court is all boarded up, ready to be demolished. In the windows, blinds fail to show all the rubble in the rooms. Looks like someone destroyed all the walls and ceilings inside. I don't know when it will be demolished, but a hotel is likely to come up on that site. It is definitely a good spot for whatever goes up. I just hope it doesn't become a parking lot. That would really destroy the feeling of continuity on this stretch of Wabasha Street. Across the street, Marshall Fields is also undergoing some work. For agreeing to remain downtown amid rather poor sales, Target Corp. (owner of Marshall Fields, HQed in Minneapolis..you know) has decided to shrink down the floor space to lower costs. The city is pitching in a few million dollars to help with it. Now, the third floor is completely closed off. Call me crazy, but I wished Marshall Fields would demolish the building and start again. It is an ugly, 60's concrete box...literally. It really hurts the street's appeal and damages the downtown atmosphere. It doesn't belong there in its current form. Oh well, since Marshall Fields is downtown's only life support for retail, they wouldn't dare chase them away for the sake of aesthetics. Wishful thinking.
Ok, I'm stalling now because I don't want to write my paper. Hmmm...that is so weird...never mind. I got to go now, so enjoy the day if you're free. I'm not.
3/18/02: Well, I finished my day long tour of Milwauke. It was actually 10 hours. I got there at 7AM and got picked up at 5PM. Believe me, my feet are very worn out. Now, the picture quantity is what is most surprising. Ironically, I only took about 250 pictures, only filling up the 128MB card, never even using the 32 or the 16MB cards! However, upon initial inspection, these pictures exceed the quality of any of my former pictures. The weather was pretty good; we had overcast and sunny periods, but no precipitation. I went to the Historic Third Ward south of downtown, and then adjacent northern neighborhoods to see the condominium towers up close (which I never had done before). I done many miles of walking, that's a guarantee. My feet were so worn that I spent the last hour around the new Milwaukee Art Museum, which is really something (to bad it was closed). Just a few things I observed. A saw a new parking ramp under construction and a cheap office building is currently being demolished, which surprised me since it seemed to have been justified for a longer life span. However, the biggest change to this tour was that with my expanded sphere of explored territory, I found a lot of blight and gritty areas. Abandoned warehouses, weedy lots, elevated messes of highways, and decaying lines of old buildings and factories. Don't get me wrong then. This doesn't not lower my high opinion of Milwaukee, but I actually think it adds to its charm in a way. It's a sign of the past, and many of these buildings can have viable futures ahead of them if they are saved. I saw a couple cases of that happening, especially along the Milwaukee River. I have the pictures, which over the course of the vacation add up to about 300. I'm very pleased with the results.
In 24 hours from this moment, I will be arriving at the Greyhound station back in Saint Paul. Unfortunately, I doubt I will end up visiting either city this week. Why? Because the weather shows that it's going to get frigid, and that is not good for the camera. Olympus warns against using the camera in conditions under 32 degrees (freezing point). Today in Milwaukee, the weather ranged from 30-40 degrees, with wind snaps feeling like 10s and 20s. That was risky for the camera, and I certainly won't subject it to 20 degree temps with windchills nearing single digits. Saturday is when 30's even return, and that is questionable. I haven't done any homework down here, even though I brought it (just can't concentrate). However, on the 8-hour bus ride tomorrow (ugh...), that is yet unknown if I'll be able to concentrate there either, much less get anything done on a moving bus.
The sad part of this update is it will be my last one before returning to Minnesota. No, it is not my last time in Milwaukee (in fact, I'll probally spend two weeks down here during the summer), but I still feel kind of sad that I have to leave. I really enjoyed this past weekend, and even though I miss Minnesota, there are so many pleasant memories from this trip that I'd almost wish I could rewind and start again...yet, since I have my Milwaukee fix cured, I couldn't bear another 10 hours downtown so soon. I'm actually glad I have the ability to give sizable updates. Anyway, time does pass unfortunately, and now I'll be back to assignments and papers in no time. Well, bah to that, I'll take what time I got left and enjoy it. I'll put up some Milwaukee pictures by the end of the week, but until tomorrow night, I say good-bye. Later!
3/17/02: I've been down here in the Milwaukee area for two full days as of now. I have seen downtown on three seperate occasions so far, and tomorrow is my huge, day-long exploration. The other three times was a lot of driving through, but I did end up with a few good photos so far, my best yet of Milwaukee. The first time was my failure for the most part. I tried to take a couple night photos of the skyline, but the high winds (cold ones!) made it impossible to keep the camera still, even on the tripod. As a result, they didn't turn out. That was right after arriving at the bus station. The next day (yesterday), we went driving around and came up, heading right towards downtown from the south. I took some pictures, and am very exciting with the fact they turned out. Today, a few hours ago, we had to go to a shop near downtown and I got a few more good pictures, especially approaching downtown from I-94. Now, these photos have been taken out of a car, so the colors are a little washed out, but they are still very good. I even got an aerial view of Waukesha from the roof from their hospital, on top of this high hill! I bought the 128MB card for my camera, so I will be able to obtain about 300 photos tomorrow altogether. I have a 128, 64, 32, and a 16MB card. I will have to set the camera to a lower setting to get that many pictures, but the quality of those pictures will be equal to what you may have saw for my brand new Minneapolis ones that were in my Photos of the Day. Other than that, my batteries are charged, my watch is set, and I'm ready to go. I am set to return to Saint Paul Tuesday night, so by the end of the week, I promise a sneak peek at what I have photographed. I am forced to be a little choosey on what I do take pictures of. After all, I only have room for 300 photos. That's a lot, but considering I easily can take 40 in 20 minutes, I could be done within 1/3 of the time, so I will take it slow, and frame my pictures accordingly.
Besides that, fotki.com is down for maintaince, so I can't update the Photos of the Day at the time of this writing. If it doesn't get too late (I have to wake up early tomorrow), I'll update tonight.
Back to tomorrow, I forgot to mention. The forecast is 47 degrees (warm compared to MN) and partly/mostly cloudy. No more rain forecasted! We had flurries today and rain is set for Tuesday, but Monday, I should be spared! It's really weird. There is absolutely NO snow down here, where the Twin Cities are currently buried. The transition through Wisconsin happened so quick, I never saw it coming. Riding the Greyhound is not fun, and I can tell you that from experience, so I dread the almost unbearable 8-hour bus ride back up to MN Tuesday, yet there are people who ride for a week straight, so I can't really complain.
On Milwaukee, I really didn't notice anything much different about the city. There are new homes in dumpy, suburban Pewaukee, and it appears the new Art Museum is really stunning (I already have a picture of it). I will definitely go beyond the range I have explored in the past. I would like to head to the southern industrial area, hopefully the Allen-Bradley Clock Tower. Plus, there is the northern area, full of high rises and some mansions of yesteryear. If I have time, I may head along the coast...well, actually, time isn't the limiting factor as much as it is my legs, yet I've been able to do long walks without tiring, and besides, there is so much to see in Milwaukee that I really doubt I'd pay attention to my level of strength. Anyway, that's about it for the update. I really look forward to getting all the pictures ready for display. If yesterday and today were any indications of what there is to come, then I definitely have a good feeling about tomorrow. Thanks for reading; talk (type) to you all later!
3/15/02: Today is the big day. My Spanish test has been done as of about 4-5 hours ago and in only 14 hours, I'll be on a bus headed for Milwaukee. The Twin Cities has been brutalized by over a foot of snow today...like a blizzard. Good thing I went to Minneapolis yesterday! That's right; I tried out the camera. What a stunning collection of pictures...I'm really falling in love with this camera. I can't wait to try it out on Milwaukee now! Four photos have been submitted for your viewing pleasure, now available on my Photos of the Day album on fotki.com. Man, this site just keeps getting better. Do you realize this is the fourth photo revolution? From scanner to film to digital to an even better digital! Oh well, I don't think I'll get too wrapped up in it, but I may be test driving it a bit unnecessarily around the area, like taking a picture of a suburban junk pile of the highway. There is an incredibly high probability I'll have pictures of Milwaukee, yet Monday still looks kind of blah in the weather department. However, my brother has given me hope that we could spend a little time on the weekend getting a good few skyline shots of Milwaukee. With him, it's always a surprise, but that's what I like about staying with them. Plus, it may be slightly easier to mobilize since I'm the only visitor this time. Like I said before, I'm staying until Tuesday. Upon my return, I plan trips to both downtowns for more photos; neighborhoods to come soon after. So, like I said, I will say hi when I get down to my brother's home. Until tonight!
Oh, one more thing. I was incorrectly labeling my last few updates as being in February. I fixed them now.
SUPPLEMENTAL: Hello again. Yes, one interesting seve-hour long bus ride later, here I am a few minutes from going to sleep, but down in the Milwaukee area. My brother showed me a few night time views of the city and I tried to take pictures of them, yet I have to take a look to see if they turned out. Initial looks did not fare well for the photos; only a few turned out altogether. A few are salvagable, but it will be the daytime photos that really will make my trip worthwhile. Until later, I got to go, so I'll stop in periodically. Later!
3/11/02: That 90% of going to Milwaukee has now become 100%. This Friday at 2:25PM, I leave for Milwaukee, where I will stay for three days and four nights. At least one of those days will be spent in downtown Milwaukee so I can have some actual UNREGULATED time to look around. In fact, I will have 9 hours total! From all my previous trips to downtown, they equal about 3.5 hours total. Now, at about three times the...well, time, I can definitely get a little further out of downtown and maybe to the coastline. Granted, the weather is forecasted as rainy, but overcast days do not stop me from taking pictures. Sun is possible anyway, and the forecast is always changing, so who knows? I will make sure to stop in here, maybe even show a couple pictures before I return to MN on Tuesday. Later in the same week, weather permitting, I will take my first venture downtown Minneapolis with my new camera, and give Saint Paul another try. I would also like to walk around different areas throughout Minneapolis, such as the Sculpture Garden (this time not at dusk) and to the Mpls Institute of Art so I can get pictures of downtown from the area. Foshay Tower, if open (I doubt it), will become a major must-do if weather allows clear views. Spring Break will be a busy time for my camera, and plenty to do, so I anticipate a great productive week for photos and to finally get my camera exercising. One more thing. Olympus did NOT send me a new camera, but actually my old one with replaced lens and circuit boards. Why they do it now after two months of insisting they didn't have the parts still boggles me, but it works fine, and that's what's important here.
Secondly, I found some great news on Galtier Plaza. While the closed movie theater remains shut down to the public, it is actually being operated as sort of a small convention center for corporations. Now called "The Venue", it has been running quietly since June, allowing film festivals, social gatherings, and powerpoint presentations and meetings for corporations, big and small, from around the Twin Cities. So far, it seems to be successful too, since the company that is running The Venue wants to expand their space by 60% the following year. Apparently, the plug and play feature the companies like for their presentations is turning several on to the idea of having their meetings here. The Venue claims over 20 bookings over the next few months. Apparently, the nearby hotels and retail stores also add to the attractibility of this operation as well. It definitely sounds good for Galtier Plaza, which is making itself into a business center after its retail flopped. Currently, at least 4 new tenants have moved into Galtier Plaza since the reformatting of its retail space. The building has also had a hi-tech upgrade to the internet, so companies can take advantage of Lowertown's image of a cyber village. World Trade Center is also pushing some similar reforms to its former retail space, but has not had the luck Galtier has had in getting new clients, other than Wells Fargo, which lowered the vacancy rate to the 40-60% range. The information about The Venue was featured in today's Pioneer Press. The link to the article is here. Enjoy!
3/9/02: I'm re-writing this update to shorten it. Basically, I announced the intention and high probability of going to Milwaukee next weekend to visit my brother and see the city. After returning, for the rest of my Spring Break, I will be taking local trips for more photography. Hopefully, weather will cooperate on all fronts.
3/7/02: My test has been performed, and I'm very pleased to say I see no sign of any blurriness on the left side anymore. The weather was pretty rotten, but I got some gloomy Minneapolis shots that I like. Of course, I'll show them soon. Too bad the weather is rotten this weekend. We have freezing rain right now, and it was extremely slippery outside...you have no traction on our sidewalk whatsoever. Very long day overall, and tiring, but oh well, such is life. I'm thinking of replacing the Photo page title picture (which is an old crappy Minneapolis skyline picture) with one from today, so we'll see how that goes. Later!
SUPPLEMENTAL: Yeah, I replaced it. I think it looks better than the old one, which was blurry and ugly. Alright then!
3/6/02: Remind me never to have faith in UPS again. Well, their tracking feature said it is in the Twin Cities and has been placed on one of their many vehicles as of 5:31 AM, ready to be sent out to me...but it didn't come. It just basically sat in a cold truck all day and never was dropped off, the bums. Olympus sent the camera 2nd day air (almost first class), and stupid UPS can't find it in themselves to meet the requirement they were paid for! 2nd day means in my hands on the 2nd day, not sitting in a half frozen vehicle while the drivers scratches his behind, eating at McDonalds. Well, regardless to say, I'm ready to complain, so if it doesn't arrive tomorrow (just great, the day of two mid-terms), I'm calling them up to complain. My original camera was delivered by UPS...they placed it in the shed in the backyard, where it was discovered days later by my uncle. Right smart...idiots. There is still a tiny, slim, microscopic chance it could still arrive today, but as of 4:50PM, it has not. I'm at work now, a half and hour away from class. I'll return home about 8:00 or so, having a definite result by then. I guess UPS never could take a hint and realize that there are people out there that were waiting for this day...oh, for about 2 months (or even longer). I have reaffirmed my lack of confidence in their abilities; remember that next time you want UPS to deliver a package.
SUPPLEMENTAL: Guess what? It...CAME! UPS was late to give it over, but they came at about 4:53PM, three minutes after I called. However, I'm curious to the camera I received. I seriously wonder if Olympus gave me my old camera back because it was just the camera in plastic wrap. The only difference was that the strip holding the lens cover was on the opposite side. However, I can't prove it. Plus, a report for the camera stated that they replaced circuit boards inside. Hmmm...well, regardless, initial tests that I performed (inside, I remind you) failed to turn up a difference from right to left side, so thus far, it seems to be working properly, but, I have to do more extensive testing outside (like on Minneapolis) before I can decide. Friday is the test date, since I must return to the U for another drawing assignment (or somewhere else). I would like to take a few pictures on the go, so that's when I'll have conclusive results. We'll see what happens. Later...
3/5/02: Olympus has officially shipped my camera yesterday, and on 2nd day air via UPS. I should get it tomorrow! According to UPS, it IS in the Twin Cities area now! I can't wait, finally, my whole ordeal ends tomorrow...granted the camera works alright. Now I'm sort of nervous. I'm the type that once I had a bad experience, I'm afraid all the future similar ones will be bad too. I'm testing out the camera A.S.A.P., so hope for me that this comes to an end and I can get on with the picture taking. Hopefully it will stop snowing and raining so I can get some new photos.
3/2/02: I forgot to put up on the site that I am doing spring cleaning. That's right, I'm currently evaluating pictures in my albums and deleting them at my discretion. I put a whole bunch of them in an album to give people a chance to see them, but since no one was, I deleted them, about 90 photos in all. Currently, I'm preparing dump load #2, and so far has about 40 or so photos in there. In fact, if you observe it carefully enough, there is a possibility you will catch photos in there that have never been released to the public...that's right, I'm also cleaning out some of my photos from my inboxes, where the next several months supplies of pictures are being stored. As of this moment, there is 668 photos in my inboxes, but not all of them are unique (nearly 90 of them are the original Madison pictures before my modifications). I'd say a number closer to 500 is the amount of photos waiting for release, but, I have more on my computer that have not been uploaded, at least 200 or so. At this rate, I'll run out in about half a year, more or less. What's really funny is I never showed the Chicago pictures I took back last August (yeah, about 7 months ago). Well, regardless, it's cleaning time as my standards for photo quality continues to go up. I've noticed that over time, I've actually improved in my photography. Photos taken from my digital camera now...not the C-3020, but the C-860L, actually are higher-quality and much clearer. Old photos with the digital are generally blurry and poorly done. You want to see a comparison while I'm at it. Take these two Lowertown street scenes into comparison. Notice in the older picture that it is a little blurry and seems over-exposed. That had to also do a lot with the program I was using, Photodeluxe, which I no longer use (now, it's the highly superior Imagefolio). Now take a look at the newer photo and see how much clearer things are, with more vibrant colors. Not only is Imagefolio better but I've personally learned to judge a little better (though I'm far from perfect) what will and will not work as a picture. It's not that I'm specifically choosing what a photo is going to show, but actually the conditions around me. I don't shoot into bright sunlight anymore, and I try to avoid any scenes with high contrast that digital cameras have a hard time with (generally, digital cameras try to take the brightest part of a picture and make that pure white). O.K., I've got off subject here, sorry. Have a good weekend; I got to stop real soon since I got midterms I should be studying for. I miss summer so much...yes, I still do.
2/24/02: Added the new Rochester, MN commentary today. I hope you like it, since it is a long and detailed writing. It may not be the most riveting read you've ever had, but it's full of info and opinions, so if you can stomach my writing, take a look!
2/20/02: Behind the scenes, I'm working on a long and detailed commentary on Rochester, MN. I wanted to add something to the section and I would like to think some people will read what I thought of the place, then look at the pictures to get further exposure. I'm stil waiting for the camera, but I got hundreds of pictures in reserve, so there is no threat of running out, unless I start releasing like 50 a day or something like that (sorry, but it won't be happening).
2/15/02: I called Olympus today, since I sent my camera in on January 2nd and it's only been...oh about 40-50 days since I've seen it! Anyway, the news, while giving me some relief through confirmation, is brief. It seems that Olympus has found my camera does have a problem and is replacing a part in the camera, however, the part's arrival has been delayed...over a month. For now, my camera sits awaiting its new...well, I don't even know the part that's being replaced, though I'm about 90% it's the lens. I really hope this will be the end of my camera's problems and I can start to enjoy it without the defective left side that has been haunting my photos. So far, the overwhelming concensus find the new camera turns out absolutely stupendous pictures, and it has become popular. I especially look forward to getting it back since I have yet to take pictures of Minneapolis with it (except for a couple around the U of M). This summer, I can use it on Madison (this summer an entire day is dedicated to Madison, not just 2-3 hours), Milwaukee, and Chicago (the now common group of cities I'm visiting thanks to my brother). In fact, I'm going to try really hard to visit Duluth and Stillwater this summer...maybe even a possible return trip to Rochester, who knows. I DON'T plan to return to Eau Claire this summer since my friend will not be there; he's finally realized that a summer job in Chemistry (my least favorite subject in the world) doesn't make for a memorable summer. Quite possibly, I will be visiting him during the school year though, just for a day or so (not much time for pictures, but I already have a decent gathering of Eau Claire photos since it's practically non-existant on the net). Enough rambling, that's the news!
Oh, and I did a little work on the Links Page. Nothing major, just some text changes and changing the picture for the Minnesota webring, so it actually works.
2/8/02: Decided to update the FAQ/Intro part of the site with new questions and moving the Terms of Use (for the photos) to that page, clearing up some of the text on the Photos page.
2/6/02: I have to say something that's really important since this needs to be addressed. I do not use the E-mail address MNCapital@mail.com anymore! I missed out on two very special offers for the usage of my photos because they were sent to the mail.com E-mail address. My current address is robe0418@tc.umn.edu, which is my U of M E-mail, so please send any questions or comments there. IF YOU SEND E-MAIL TO MNCAPITAL@MAIL.COM, I MAY NEVER GET THEM! Keep that in mind, please. Thanks.
Because of my stupidity, the navigation bar on the bottom of the different sections of my site was set up to send it to my old E-mail address. I fixed that now, and put a reminder on the bottom of this page.
1/30/02: I decided to do something I haven't done since the new design for this site about 6 months ago...a new background! If you haven't noticed, you can see the capitol as the new background, in the sunset, which really turned out nice. I also updated the little history of my photos on the Photos page to reflect very recent events.
Olympus contacted me...my camera's repair (they said repair, a good sign!) will be delayed. Such is life...I just hope they get it fixed and back to me safe and sound. I miss the camera...it's been gone for well over 3 weeks now. Anyway, time to go to the U. I have very late Spanish textbooks that have just arrived for me and after that, I got my Architecture drawing class. Later!
1/28/02: Another couple of weeks and I've already ended my vacation about a week ago, sadly enough. My new semester is without the haunting math of Physics, but I'm stuck with a much harder Spanish class. Gladly, with Fridays off, my school week expectedly shrinks while my weekend grows, the perfect tradeoff. Today, slightly bored at work, I did a little bit of work on my site, basically in the photo collection. I created the new Prospect Park neighborhood album in Minneapolis and got pictures moved into there. I'm imagining that I will begin to establish a few neighborhood albums for Minneapolis, but don't expect all of them to be represented. While Saint Paul has about 17 neighborhoods, Minneapolis has nearly 90! Besides Prospect Park, I could create the Steven's Square and St. Anthony Park albums, which I believe I will do pretty soon. It's all an attempt to get better organized. I did another countup of my photos, and currently got over 4,500 in my public and private albums combined! That's quite a collection I'd say! Anyway, take it easy, I'll be around.
1/16/02: Just a little organizational tidbit. I thought it was incredibly stupid of me to have the Height Lists for the Twin Cities under Facts and Figures when they should more easily be noticed with the Downtown section, so I moved them. Other than that, nothing really.
1/1/02: Hello, and welcome to the new year! I just stopped in, in the midst of all the family gatherings and being a sloth (and loving it!) to put up the typical happy new year greeting. My camera goes off tomorrow. It's all packed up and ready. Just in case you don't get what I'm saying, let me give you the quick rundown: bought Olympus C-3020ZOOM camera, has a problem, needs to be fixed. There...now that we are all caught up, I only got one other little insignificent announcement. I finally bought the North Star Statehouse book by Thomas O'Sullivan. It's a great book. Well, until later!
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