Archive for September, 2008
Sunday, September 28th, 2008
Last time I checked, this is the year 2008. It is quite amazing to me to think that in the year 2008, the City of Charlotte has had a shortage of gasoline for going on three weeks after Hurricane Ike has hit the Gulf Coast forcing the shutdown of significant percentage of refineries. In the year that oil companies like Exxon Mobile are announcing record profits in consecutive quarters, you are telling me that it is taking these giant companies almost three weeks to be operating at 100% efficiency as prior to the hurricane? That is quite unbelievable.
Allow me to continue my sarcastic tone; operating refineries in the hurricane prone Gulf Coast isn’t like finding the cure for cancer or finding the Holy Grail, is it? A refinery that is shutdown due to a Hurricane isn’t a mysterious puzzle, it should be an expected technical problem that any decent company should be able to resolve with the only question being how many man hours it would take to get it done. In stark contrast, it would be a completely different thing if the monster from Cloverfield popped up out of the Gulf of Mexico and destroyed all the refineries there. That would be considered, say it with me those that are responsible for managing these refineries, un-ex-pect-ed because no one in there right mind would have ever imagined that scenario.
So my rant on refinery operators is done. Of course, I’m not trying to shift the blame away from consumer panic caused by what seems to be a rumor but coming up on the third week of the gas shortage in Charlotte, I can’t help but think that there is some flaw in how the gasoline is distributed in the Southeast.
Less than two years away from 2010, where are the flying cars? Better yet, where is Mr. Fusion?
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Sunday, September 14th, 2008
To the right is one of my first attempts at High-Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. It was easier than I expected so I would highly encourage other photography enthusiasts to give it a go. I set my alarm for 6:50AM because sunrise was supposed to be at around 6:57am. I woke up either by accident or because I received an email and my phone beeped. Either way, I just grabbed my camera and tripod and grabbed a couple dozen shots on this wooden walkway.
After the three exposures were HDRified, I made some minor edits using Photoshop like darkening the sky and upping the contrast and sharpness overall to give it a more dramatic look. I kind of wish there were more clouds in the sky, I think that would have looked spectacular. 
Posted in Hobbies, Photography | No Comments »
Saturday, September 6th, 2008
Wow, what a game! The stories of the game were all about defense for both teams. Tech’s defense was giving up yards left, right, and up the middle in the first half. In the second half, it was a different story because they forced multiple turnovers and even got a safety. The cream on the top was the athleticism of Josh Nesbitt making amazing plays… turning possible sacks on third downs into huge yard gains for the first. I would have to say that Georgia Tech won because of our defense getting in gear and stopping Crane (was he hurt mid-3rd quarter?).
GT is now 2-0 and 1-0 in the ACC conference. I realize that beating Jacksonville State and BC (in such an ugly way as Paul put it agreeably) doesn’t really match up to some of the ranked teams in the nation. Yet still, considering that earlier this year and probably up until the final play clock ticked down in Chestnut Hill today, there were plenty of sketics questioning Tech’s chances of being successful; I think our offense did okay.
A win is a win regardless of how ugly of a win it was but obviously with three fumbles, two of which I attribute to the poor execution of the offense, we still have a long road of improvement ahead.
GO TECH! THWG!
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