Extend Your Geek Life

I attended the wonderful "She's Geeky" unconference last Sunday. It's so much fun that I can hardly wait for next year. My best friend Chinchih led a session on ergonomic, a popular topic since a lot of engineers have neck and shoulder pains due to seating in front of computers for too long. There are many useful info so I post our notes here.

Topic: Ergonomic - Extend your geek life
Hosts: Chinchih & Wendy

. Pain, pain, pain
  o work on computer all the time, got neck or shoulder pain, how to alleviate pain?
  o shoulder pain and neck pain is a common theme


. Tools Used
  o special input device (Goldtouch split keyboard, RollerMouse, etc)
  o special seat (or standing)
  o little program to remind yourself to take a break (RSIGuard)

. Things Mentioned
  o seating too long is a problem, cannot be reversed by exercise
  o Great book on posture - "8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back" by Esther Gokhale.
    - Book link on Amazon :
      http://www.amazon.com/Steps-Pain-Free-Back-Solutions-Shoulder/dp/0979303605/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327893970&sr=8-1
    - The author offers "posture classes", and her 's website (http://egwellness.com/) offers some free lessons.
    - The main idea is to build "extending the spine" into daily activities like sitting & sleeping.
    - "Shoulder roll" is more helpful than "holding shoulder back" in opening up the shoulder
  o Alexander technique (teaches how to get out of chair correctly)
  o Bare foot movement
    - May not be very practical
    - Spend some time walking on surfaces with different textures (e.g. pebbles)
    - Get shoes that provide room for feet
  o What has been tried to alleviate neck/shoulder pain?
    - Acupuncture
    - Physical Therapy
    - Chiropractic
    - Massage (Trigger Point massage was helpful)
    - Cervical Traction device (may need physical medicine specialist's prescription)
  o Sitting meditation for a long time (30 minutes) helps
    o how to do meditation?
      o breathing practice
      o iphone apps
      o counting in a foreign language
  o Need to identify and engage core muscle
  o Crunch gym in SF has a combination of yoga, ballad exercise, but be careful of the yoga injury though, use the props

Last Batch of Photos from Germany

Cat Behaving Badly

Every time I left home for more than a few days, Mitty required a lot of attention when I was back. In her mind (or in my imagination), she became the little kitty who got abandoned. She also developed some strange behavior (which went away after 1 day). She would wake up in the middle of the night and put her paw on my face, as if to make sure I was still around. (Can be creepy when you are sound asleep.) Last night, she woke up, made some "ka-ka" sound, then turned her body. She forgot she was sleeping on the edge of the bed and immediately fell down to the floor. I could hardly believe a cat would made such a mistake and bursted out laughing. Of course she pretended nothing had happened (cats have high self-esteems) and went immediately back to sleep.

Dispatches from Germany

Church Window

Some unknown church. The facade looks really impressive.

Dispatches from Germany

Finally, seeing the sun at Regensburg. View from the Hotel Lobby.

The Danube is now golden.

The building on the left hand side is the lovely Sorat hotel where I was staying.

The only moment it was sunny in Regensburg during my 3-day stay.

Dispatches from Germany (Inside Dom Cathedral)

I was the only person in the cathedral for a wonderful 30 minutes.

This would make a good bookmark.

"Who's that figure doing acrobat on the top?" This is my friend Chinchih's first reaction on seeing this photo.

Love the pipe organ.

Some Pope statue. Current Pope Benedict XVI is actually from the Regensburg area and had taught at the university here.

A kiss, locked for eternity.

Cathedral entrance

Dispatches from Germany

Facade of St Peter's Cathedral. Started in middle ages, this cathedral took hundreds of years to build.

Main entrance. I love the granite steps. 

The stores around the cathedral. 

The saints are watching you. 

I guess this is St Peter, who's guarding the entrance to heaven.

The German Eagle

I only had very little time to take photos outside the St. Peter's Cathedral this morning. Tomorrow I will have more free time and may be able to venture in.

Dispatches from Germany

View from my hotel window. This river is the Danube River.

Another peek of the Dom Cathedral from my hotel room. Both the bridge and the Cathedral were about 800 years old.

A Room with a view. I am ready to head out to downtown Regensburg.

Cross the bridge to downtown Regensburg. Instead of blue, the Danube actually looks brown.

Thanks to the jetlag I woke up early and decided to go out and take photos. To my surprise I found my hotel room had such a good view of the downtown Regensburg that I hardly needed to venture out. It was snowing too (quite a surprise since last night it was not cold at all). I am glad I borrowed some warm clothes from Chinchih.

Bramwell Is My New Hero

After start watching Bramwell last night I was so hooked. Now I wish I could stay home and watch it instead of preparing my trip to Germany.

Fun Drawings

Book Inc. celebrates the year of dragon.

Moment of Clarity

The showering was on and off all morning. I grabbed my morning coffee as usual, then crossed the street to Book Inc. While I was waiting for the traffic light, the sun suddenly appeared, and there was such a magic in the air. I took a snap, knowing it wouldn't be caught by my cell phone. Like all moments of clarity, it was gone soon.

Getting Ready for Business Trip

Have a business trip and will be in Germany next week (somewhere near Munich). Will take my X100 with me. Don't know if I will have much time for sightseeing, but will post photos when possible.

Early at Work

The most painful part of my current job is the early morning meetings. (To a night person like me, it's torture.) I got a 7am one this morning. Since I had to leave home to get my morning coffee, I decided to drive to work directly. The dawn was beautiful. I took this photo in the company parking lot and wish I were somewhere else.

P.S. if the trend continues, you will probably see more and more morning photos from me. I may even be able to cover both sunrise and sunset.

Fun Drawing at Dana Street Roasting Company

Fun drawing at my favorite independent coffee shop. Is the mermaid Starbucks?

Cute Doggie

A beautiful doggie. Like cats, dogs also avoid looking into the camera. I guess this is animal instinct.

Morning with X100 at Santa Cruz

Almost dawn when I left home. In terms of photography this is late.

Lovely morning light.

The fake lighthouse is in fact Santa Cruz Surfing Museum.

A lot of surfers already in water. You can see my shadow on the left hand side.

A perfect surfing day.

The light is getting too harsh for my eyes, but perfect for black and white.

Got up really early. After mindlessly surfing the web for a while I decided to do something I had never done before: driving to Santa Cruz to take photos. (I didn't have any plan in mind, just want to see how the lighting condition looked in the morning.) I found there were already many surfers in the water when I arrived at the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum. When I left (about 9am), there was hardly any parking space available. Wow, I never knew surfing was so popular in North Cal.

Saying Goodbye to My 14-24mm

I am doing consolidation of my camera equipments, selling lenses I rarely use. After some consideration, I decided to part with my 14-24mm. It's an excellent lens, but way too heavy. Its not being able to take a normal filter also limits its usage. (Now I am a firm believer that the best camera/lens is the one you actually use.) Today I sold it to my friend KT (he does a lot of landscape photography so the lens suits him well). Farewell, my lovely 14-24mm.

Is 2012 the Year Fuji Makes a Comeback?

Fuji just announced their X-Pro1. Looking at it on dpreview, my first reaction was "wow". Like X100, it's incredibly beautiful. Its body reminds me the XPan and the Fuji617, two classic film panorama cameras Fuji used to make. It seems, after years of struggling in the DSLR business, Fuji has finally found its niche.

Some readers on dpreview claim the camera is "style over function". Maybe.  But will it sell? I think so, simply because I know I want one. My X100 is deeply flawed, but I am willing to tolerate all its flaws simply because it's such a beautiful camera. It also produces the most beautiful colors (especially blue and purple, signature of the Velvia film). I use it more often, learning to cope with all its limitations. It's so much fun. I can hardly wait to see what an X-Pro1 can do.

P.S. Fuji X-Pro1 preview in CES:

To the Lighthouse (Pigeon Point Light Station)

Took my X100 out to do some serious shooting today. This time, I remembered to take the tripod plate from my D5100 and put it on X100 so I could use my tripod. Turned out it was pretty hard to keep the horizon straight in a panorama, even with a tripod's help. When I focused too much on the "straight horizon" I often forgot about the composition and the result was a very bad photo. I was very frustrated.

According to the book "Mastering Fuji X100", the X100 has become an instant classic and reached a "cult" status. Now I cannot stop thinking of myself as some kind of cult member whenever I use my X100. Such a bizarre feeling for such a quirky camera.