Sushicam

Todays Photos

Sometimes life is just too funny.

We’ve all had “one of those days” when nothing goes your way. When it would have been much more productive to just stay in bed with a 14 pound bag of Oreo’s, a haunch of beef jerky, and a couple of quarts of eggnog and spend the day increasing your body fat index while watching back to back re-runs of “Threes Company”.

Luckily these types of days, when the entire deck seems to be stacked against us, do not happen to often. But the next time it does I want you to think about the next few examples of irony, and maybe it will help you get through your rough time.

-A Japanese fire department recently held its annual fire prevention awareness barbeque and ended up burning down their own fire station in the process.(Those poor guys are NEVER going to live that one down)

-This years Akita Snow Festival has been cancelled, …. because of too much snow. The city has had to dump all the extra snow in the area where the festival is normally held, thus are now unable to have a festival on what has turned into a man-made glacier.

-A few years ago the government of Japan established a new agency charged with finding new ways for Japanese workers to enjoy more free time and stop putting in such long hours at work. The project was quickly cancelled when it was discovered that the workers in this new agency were putting in 15 hour days in an effort to come up with solutions to the overtime epidemic.

The irony is blinding.

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The standup of Sushicam Version 1.2 is taking a little bit longer than I initially thought it would.

It seems there is no “out of the box” solution to the blogging model here at Sushicam. Most photo blogging software packages only allow you to post one image per day, (like the pixel post application I am using for the Photo of the Day section) which does me absolutely no good since i like to post at least 10 new photos with each update. They are also kind of lacking in the text/plugin support area.

Likewise, most regular blogging applications are great for posting text, but they fall apart when you try to incorporate the posting of multiple photos in an update. A lot of them have the capability to post photos, but I really don’t like the way they work. Thumbnails don’t have any captions, and they don’t open thumbnails into easily browsable galleries.

If at all possible I’d much rather keep the same image navigation flow that I already have here at Sushicam. It’s just turning out to be quite a project to make it happen within a Content Management System.

If you are interested you can take a peek at theWordPress 2.0 version of Sushicam I have been working on.

It still needs a lot of work, (formatting, and link/menu development) but it should give you an idea of where things are headed.

Seth has been providing a lot of help in getting the kinks worked out, and we all owe him a big “Domo Arigatou Gozaimasu” for his continue behind the scenes suport here at Sushicam.

So if anyone out there has any ideas for how I can more easily get WordPress 2.0 to look and operate more like the traditional Sushicam, please, feel free to drop me a line.

Go ahead…. Pimp my blog.

In the meantime I’ll keep working on it, and as soon as the image management issue is worked out the new site will be up and running. Then we can get the Sushicam Contributors material flowing for all of us to enjoy.

Click HERE for Todays Photos

Despite waking up yesterday with what felt like the beginnings of a cold, I went to Enoshima anyway to see the Annual Mikoshi Festival that takes place each January. I provided all the gory details in my previous writeup on this subject, so Ifll not go into too many of the specifics here.

The waves were a lot larger this year, so they did not carry the Mikoshi too far into the ocean. But, I was able to grab some video of the event this time. Check out the clip here:

High Quality 4:06 (13.4 mb) .wmv file

Low Quality 4:06 (6.9 mb) .wmv file

Warning, I will not be held responsible if you get motion sickness from watching the jittery clips. I was getting jostled around pretty good and it was impossible to hold the camera steady.

It was really crowded around the event, and the only things that helped by get as many keepers as I did are the facts that I was taller than most of the other photographers, and I was wearing waterproof boots so I could walk out into the surf a little ways to get a better angle.

I did have one wave go over my boots and I walked around for the rest of the day a little soggy, but I did get a few shots I am pleased with so it was worth it.

One thing that makes photographing an event like such a challenge is all the other photographers with the same bright idea as me. It is not uncommon for photographers to sometimes outnumber participants at an event like this, and this day was just about that bad.

I know it will always take a certain amount of jostling to get into position at a festival, but one thing I canft stand is when people barge through the crowd with a large shoulder bag on one arm, and a heavy tripod slung around the other. They manage to bang into everyone around them without so much as a gsumimasenh. (Which is exactly the reason I go for a small backpack and if at all possible I leave my tripod at home. If I have to carry a tripod I opt for a small one that fits strapped snuggly below my backpack. This allows me to weave through crowds with ease, and without bumping into anyone. I wish the 2,716 other photographers on the beach yesterday had the same idea as me. I canft remember how many time I was setting up for a shot when some dolt would pass by me and his/her tripod of shoulder bag would catch me, ruining the framing I was setting up. Japanese combat photography at its best.

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After the fun and games wrapped up in Enoshima I hopped the Odakyu line for Shinjuku and after a quick lunch of Ramen and Gyoza I made my way over to Odaiba to get some shots of the Rainbow Bridge.

It sure felt good to get out and take some picture again. Itfs been far two long (3-4 weeks I think) since I last went out and spent an entire day on the weekend capturing some light.

Instead of taking pictures, Ifve been spending my weekends either doing family things for the holidays, or working on this second version of Sushicam that will very soon be ready for prime time. Ifve tested out a few of the more popular and well supported Content Management Systems, (Drupal, Mamboserver, and WordPress) checking out the available plug ins for each.
I had almost settled on Drupal, but since the current version is really weak in image handling I had to pass on it. Supposedly the next version of Drupal will be much better at image management, but Ifm ready to make the leap now, so I had to look elsewhere.

Seth and associates has worked up some magic again, and I am now firmly convinced that WordPress 2.0 is the CMS of choice for me to use for the new version of Sushicam.

I’m working on formatting the template now, and as soon as I have something ready I will post a link here so everyone can see what the new Sushcam will look like.

It will take some refinement before it looks and acts the way I would like it to, but overall WordPress 2.0 seems to be very close to perfect, right out of the box.

I’m thinking it will be ready to go by next weekend. (Maybe even sooner)