7 Top Tips For Photographing Monument Valley

Above, West and East Mittens and Merrick Butte at sunrise. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

For those who plan to travel to Monument Valley Tribal Park that is located at the Arizona-Utah border, photographing it is a must.

Monument Valley is famous for being the location of such movies as Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, The Searchers and Forrest Gump, just to name a few.

For photographing Monument Valley, Digital Camera World has seven tips that will come in handy.

They begin with:

For many, Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park is the American West. It’s been the backdrop to countless movies and the subject of some spectacular landscape photography over many decades, Monument Valley on the Arizona Utah border is a destination that requires some research if you are to get the most out of it. 

The classic view in Monument Valley is of three Navajo Sandstone buttes called West Mitten Butte, East Mitten Butte and Merrick Butte. There are many other compositions to try your hand at, but the view of these three buttes – as captured while standing next to the visitor center, of course – is the image most photographers want to capture. The joy is to get that image on your own terms, both at sunrise and sunset, and possibly at night, too, without ignoring the rest of the richly photogenic area. 

To read more, go here. 

Travel Photography Tips

Above, the West Mitten at Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Since the age of 8, I have been a "shutterbug". My first camera was an Imperial Lark. I still have it and it is on display in my great-grandfather's bookcase.

Travel photography has been an enjoyable pastime for me. Digital photography makes things a lot easier as one doesn't have to buy rolls of film anymore. My current "go-to" camera is a Canon Rebel t5 digital SLR. I've had it since 2015 and am still learning the different settings. The camera in my cell phone is sufficient if I don't have the SLR with me.

Do It Yourself RV has posted an article on travel photo tips.

They begin it with:

If you want to take pictures and capture the memories of your RV trips, you will need to become somewhat of an amateur photographer. If you already have some natural skills, you have a leg up. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn a few skills that will help you take better photos of your RV travels.

First, you don’t need to travel with all kinds of photography equipment (unless you are thinking of photography on a more professional level). Extra equipment takes up extra space, and that can be a problem with available RV storage. You can take excellent photos with most cell phones these days.

To read more, go here. 

Will Economic Freedom End In July?

Above, Admiral Kirk and cashless society in the 23rd Century. Paramount Pictures.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) touched on being a cashless society in a scene between Dr. Gillian Taylor, the marine biologist, and Admiral James T. Kirk in the 20th Century pizza restaurant. 

Dr. Gillian Taylor: Don't tell me you don't use money in the 23rd Century.

Kirk: Well, we don't.

It would be nice if things today would be nice and benign as the 23rd Century (where the adventures of the starship Enterprise take place) where governments can be trusted in a cashless society. But, given the power-hungry politicians and Deep State bureaucrats who are now in charge of the federal government, it would take away our privacy, not to mention one's freedom.  

This is the topic in an article today in the American Thinker.

They begin it with:

The scene is as old as history.  An individual fleeing persecution wants to cross a border. His or her life depends on being able to bribe a border guard, with some fungible valuable item: whether gold, cash, silver, diamonds, etc. Life depends on it.

If the trade is prevented, then all hope is lost.

From the dawn of time, currency was the one thing that governments had difficulty tracking.  I am not considering checks, bills of credit, something written. Those are easy to trace. I am  talking about real currency. Currency in one’s hand, cash pressed in the flesh.

Bribery was always the province of the dishonest, but it often became the last resort of the honest: a war refugee wanted to cross a border before an invading army swoops in, a Jew wanted to evade a Nazi patrol, an Irishman wanted to get out of Ireland one step ahead of the Crown’s authorities.

Cash became the vehicle of freedom.

So what happens when that option is removed… by digital currency? What happens when fungible cash is made null and void?

Long-awaited Fed digital payment system to launch in July -- CNBC

The government is already trying to track gun store purchases through credit card business classification coding. (When this plan came to light, the backlash started. Others advocated using only cash to buy guns.) This hasn't been implemented due to the outcry. If this plan is fully implemented, gun purchases can be traced and the government could use that data to confiscate those guns. 

To read more, go here.

Japan's War On The Floppy Disk

Floppy disk. That is a name I haven't heard or thought of in ages. I disposed of mine long ago and use CDs instead.

It is the digital equivalent of 8-track tapes these days.

Apparently in Japan, floppies are still used in some government areas. Their digital minister (is that really an official job or ministry?) has declared "war" on them. 

According to The Japan Times:

Japan’s digital minister, who’s vowed to rid the bureaucracy of outdated tools from the hanko stamp to the fax machine, has now declared “war” on a technology many haven’t seen for decades — the floppy disk.

The hand-sized, square-shaped data storage item, along with similar devices including the CD or even lesser-known mini disk, are still required for some 1,900 government procedures and must go, digital minister Taro Kono wrote in a Twitter post Wednesday.

“We will be reviewing these practices swiftly,” Kono said in a news conference Tuesday, adding that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has offered his full support. “Where does one even buy a floppy disk these days?”

Who in the U.S. even uses them anymore?

To read more, go here.

CDs In Decline, Vinyl Records On The Rise

Above, an original Thunderball soundtrack album from 1965. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

There is one trend in the music industry that I am pleased to see.

And that is the growth of vinyl records. The old analog records have been making a comeback for several years while CDs have been declining and music streaming has been growing.

Above, James Bond soundtrack 45 rpm singles. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Even in Japan, the growth of vinyl has prompted Tower Records in Tokyo's Shinjuku section to dedicate a floor to vinyl records.

News On Japan reported:

Tower Records opened Tower Vinyl on the 10th floor of its Shinjuku store on March 21. The space, once reserved for pop-up events, now houses 70,000 records, according to the company, with more than half being secondhand.

In the U.S., vinyl pressing companies are starting up (along with older pressing companies) and are struggling to meet the rising demand.

According to Arizona Public Media:

Last year, digital music hit a milestone. For the first time ever, it accounted for more than half of global music sales. Music streaming revenues rose more than 40 percent, while sales of physical recordings continued to sink. 

Yet a company in Northern Virginia has just started pressing vinyl records. 

Tucked away in an industrial park in Alexandria, Furnace Record Pressing is the country’s newest record manufacturing facility — and a seemingly batty business idea, if you haven’t paid attention to deeper trends in the music industry lately. 

Despite the overall downturn in physical recordings like CDs, vinyl sales have been on the rise for a decade now, as younger people have begun to discover the richer sound and collectable nature of old-fashioned records. But as the vinyl frenzy caught on, soaring demand quickly created a problem, says Furnace’s owner, Eric Astor. The world’s remaining pressing facilities couldn’t keep up with the crush of new business.

 To read more, go here.

A Revelation

Above, the Crosley and the CD player. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

A few years ago, I bought a little Crosley "suitcase" turntable so I can play my vinyl LPs and 45s. I like it except that the volume at maximum is a bit too low.

I have a Fisher stereo system that has a turntable and cassette deck, but the turntable belt needs replacing. I was about to get a new belt when my former apartment in Tarzana had two (at the same time) pipe breaks and the water that gushed out ruined the speakers to the Fisher set. So, now the set sits in the garage.

I bought a CD player for the den/guest room. Last week, I was going through a moving box and found some plug/wires for stereo systems. I decided to see if the Crosley turntable can be played through the CD player's auxiliary port. Sure enough, it worked and the sound from the Crosley now blares out of the the CD player's speakers. I can enjoy my vinyl records again!

For the past several days, I have been playing my old albums (Jethro Tull, Waylon Jennings, Buffalo Springfield, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Poco, movie soundtracks and others) that I haven't played in years.

Having the sound come through new speakers was a revelation. I missed the rich, warm sound of vinyl. I have to agree with Neil Young, analog vinyl sounds much better than digital CDs.

Thankfully, vinyl has made a comeback in recent years, so there's plenty out there to buy.

Currently, I am debating on either getting the belt replaced on the Fisher and get new speakers for it or just buy a whole new set that includes a cassette deck (I have a lot of cassette tapes).

In the meantime, I'll just enjoy my old records with what I have.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon Digital Park Passes

Above, the General Grant tree at Sequoia National Park. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

In these days of Internet and cellular technology, new means of ordering tickets, passes and other goods and services are making life easier.

The latest is purchasing national park digital visitor passes.

Yahoo! Finance reported:

OLATHE, Kan.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- 

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks have partnered with digital government services provider NIC Inc. (EGOV) to offer digital park passes to visitors through “YourPassNow.” YourPassNow provides an option where visitors can now purchase their park entrance pass online. 

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, which lie side-by-side in the southern Sierra Nevada in Central California, serve as a prime example of nature’s size, beauty, and diversity. Over 1.8 million visitors from across the U.S. and the world visit these parks for the world’s largest trees (by volume), grand mountains, rugged foothills, deep canyons, vast caverns, the highest point in the lower 48 states, and more. Sequoia and Kings Canyon join several other National Parks to launch YourPassNow, a digital solution that provides an alternative to the traditional paper-based purchase method. 

Visitors can now use their personal computer or mobile device to purchase an entrance pass online, at no additional cost. Once purchased, the pass can be used immediately, stored on a mobile device or printed for later use.

To read more, go here. 

Kodak About To Emerge From Bankruptcy

It is a sad thing to see a great company to have to file bankruptcy because they were slow to adapt to new innovations and trends.

Such was the case of the Eastman Kodak Company.

According to an article posted by The Japan Times:

Many of its products and services are gone, including the camera-making business that made it famous more than a century ago. Also gone are scores of workers, manufacturing facilities, supply contracts and millions of dollars in investments.

The article begins with the statement that the company doesn't look a whole lot like it did when it entered into bankruptcy. In order to get its financial house in order, Kodak had to slim down and close down a lot of its product divisions.

The company hopes to emerge from bankruptcy as early as September 3.

The advent of digital cameras have made emulsion film nearly obsolete. Kodak was slow to get in on the digital bandwagon, with disastrous results. I remember the news of the day was the constant competition between Kodak and Fuji Film of Japan and who made the better film.

As the article pointed out:

Founded by George Eastman in 1880, Eastman Kodak Co. is credited with popularizing photography at the start of the 20th century and was known all over the world for its Brownie and Instamatic cameras and its yellow-and-red film boxes. It was first brought down by Japanese competition and then an inability to keep pace with the shift from film to digital technology.

I personally owned two Kodak camera. One was a Kodak Instamatic 104 in the mid-1960s (it was stolen from my high school photography classroom) and the other was a Kodak Pocket Instamatic 20 in the 1970s. I gave that one to my parents when I switched to 35mm.

Above, a Kodak Instamatic 104 camera set.  

The new Kodak will concentrate on the "commercial imaging industry, providing professional services such as commercial printing, packaging and film for motion pictures."  (It'll be interesting to see how the motion picture film division will fare since digital technology has been replacing motion picture film.)

Checking Voice Mail Pays Off (Sometimes)

Sometimes it's worth it to immediately listen to one's voice mail messages.

I received a voice mail message this morning and it turned out to be potential business for the insurance claims adjusting company I work for, Crittenen Claim Services. I immediately responded and passed the information to the boss.

She negotiated getting some business out of them. I was originally going to handle the initial assignment (getting statements from four drivers involved in an accident). The only fly in the ointment was that the company (based in Dallas, Texas) requires digital recordings.

Thinking I should have this minor "problem" licked, I went to the local Radio Shack for digital telephonic recording equipment (I currently have analog telephonic recording equipment). $80 later, I found the equipment was not compatible with my phone set-up. I returned the stuff to Radio Shack. Oh, well.

Fortunately, the boss has digital recording equipment and is able to handle the work.

At least I got some business for the boss and received a new claim assignment today. Saturday morning, I head out to Acton to handle it.

The Great Digital TV Switchover

Well, we've finally made the "great switchover" to digital television. It seems to have gone off pretty well.

This was supposed to have taken place months ago, but due to the usual ineptness of the government (they ran out of discount vouchers) and a lot of knuckleheaded people, the switchover was delayed to June 12.

For me, since I really don't watch that much television, I don't bother subscribing to either cable or satellite television (if I had do, I'd go with satellite). My television set is a little older, so I needed to get a converter box. As I got my voucher in early December, before the government ran out of them, I got my converter box in early January and it just sat on a shelf until yesterday.

While having my usual Saturday brunch at my local Crazy Tokyo Sushi restaurant, I overheard another patron talking about the problems with his converter box. He had trouble scanning for channels and the coaxial cable broke on the end that plugs into the box and he couldn't get it off to return the converter to the dealer. I thought, "I hope I don't have the same problems as he did."

Well, I hooked everything up (one must follow the directions to avoid problems) and everything went quite well. The converter scanned as it was supposed to and all the channels came through crystal-clear (I did notice the usual pixelations here and there that's inherent to digital broadcasts). And, the converter box came with batteries for the remote! (Great. Now I have another friggin' remote to deal with as I already have one for my home theater system, one for my TV, one for my VCR and one for my DVD player.)

While flipping through the stations to see what new ones are now available, I came across one called "This" (I'm surprised there's not another channel called "That"). It was in the middle of an old 1950s sci-fi flick, "The Monster That Challenged The World" featuring Hans Conried (of "Fractured Flickers" fame of the 1960s). It seems to specialize in horror and sci-fi movies from what I can tell (I saw no listings for "This" anywhere) as I later took another look and another horror movie was on (don't know what it was). The other stations seemed to be a slew of ethnic-oriented stations: Latin, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, etc. (Welcome to the great melting pot!) There was also added a weather channel for local weather reports. At least that's useful!

Ah, well. Welcome to the 21st Century of digital television.

UPDATE: It was pointed out to me (correctly) that the converter box does not provide HD to analog televisions, but instead allows analog television sets to receive and show digital broadcasts. There is a lot of confusion over this, and since I really didn't pay too much attention to it, I also had the terms wrong. Also, the converter box and its instruction manual also says "Digital To Analog TV Signal Converter" and, also, it says "Access HD." I made the changes above accordingly.