8:30 p.m Sat. June 29 THE JACK SHELDON CALIFORNIA COOL QUARTET - $5.00 COVER Trumpeter/vocalist Jack Sheldon ("I'm Just A Bill" Sheldon) returns to Steamers Cafe this Saturday. Sheldon, an important contributor to the entertainment industry from the 1940’s to the present, has proven that jazz and show-biz can, and do, mix. He was an active participant in the West Coast Jazz scene of the 50’s, playing a major role in developing that era’s be-bop inspired sound. He has performed with such giants as Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Shelly Manne, Art Pepper, Frank Sinatra, Stan Kenton, Mel Torme, Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, and many more, and has been nominated five times for the Playboy International “Artist of the Year” Award. FYI: Reservations are recommended (especially for Jack) Call 714-871-8800. Steamer's is at 138 W Commonwealth Ave. Fullerton, CA 92832, 91- Exit Harbor North to Commonwealth. Turn Left. Steamer's is on the left side of the street about 2 blocks down. There is ample street parking.
And no Terrance Love isn't paying me or bribing me to do this plug. I wish!
Today we had a ton of errands to run and get done during Doug's only two days off this week. Murphy was in the planning, because unexpectedly we spent the morning dragging Doug's folks Sony WEGA TV (read heavy and big) from their home to the Sony Repair Center in Irvine to get repaired. Ah they joys of SUV ownership. We also had meetings with the family law-sharks (God Bless em') and a "To-Do List" that read like a random note. My job was to keep Doug and everyone else on schedule and drive the freeways like a NASCAR pro-driver. By the end of the day, we got everything done, including getting his glasses adjusted and his watch battery changed.
Finally after the last "To-Do" was done, I was walking back to the truck and decided to go into Claremont Camera. I have been looking jealously at the great pictures Susan Kitchens took on her trip to the Cape for the Shuttle Launch and have lusted after a 3X teleconverter for my Nikon 990. (Even Doug was impressed with the pictures!) So after emailing Susan a couple times and going to some research great sites she pointed me to-- I had decided to drag the 990 into the shop and see if I wanted the lens. I really wasn't sure I could afford it. But after playing with it for about 15 minutes. (God love John and the guys-- who always let me run around and try things out in the store.) Doug looks at me and says... I know it's expensive. But I didn't buy you a b-day gift last year. So I'm buying it and a good filter for you! Thud! And I didn't think he'd noticed the drool marks I was making on the lens. That will teach me. However he nearly had a brick when he got the total bill. That will teach him to buy me the most freakin expensive filter in the world for the lens!
So home we went with one of the lens. I couldn't wait to use it. Finally he went to bed, I spread out the material and read... here's what I think...
The Nikon TC-E3 (ED) Teleconverteris that it is not the most graceful lens to balance on the Nikon 990. I suspect it's easier to use on a fixed, non-swivel body. But it works well if you are careful to lock the camera into one of the normal positions, as the half-way positions are not solid enough to hold it in place. Use of a solid tripod and the remote camera control or shutter timer are my recommendations. The lens is several pieces of very heavy high quality glass. The book explains the 3X all-glass tele-converter give the photographer an optical 345mm telephoto equiv. lens. (very cool) Also the lens uses Nikon's ED (Extra Low Dispersion) optical element, which creates superior optical performance with very limited distortion & aberations. The outcome is wonderful pictures. Tonight I took my first shots of the moon (upper right) using my tripod and the shutter timer.
My personal thanks goes to Susan for all her help and encouragement. I owe you lunch when you get home!
Whatta ya think of the moon pics? I reduced it to 50 of part of the frame. I'll be putting up the whole picture once I move the blog to the website shortly. I'm psyched to go out and do some shooting.
If I had hammer. Gary Wilke didn’t set out to become a symbol of people’s frustrations when he used a sledgehammer to vent rage over his daughter’s dysfunctional computer. [The Peanut Gallery]
Wonder how Ted and Olympia the Cow are going to react to this one?
Cardcops.com A wonderful new website that allows you to see if someone's nabbed your credit card. It's so good the CIA & FBI are using it. However a they hit a wall today when they got a little too much press and their server hit overload when they got a little TOO MUCH NEWS COVERAGE. OOPS. ;-)
CHECK YOUR CREDIT CARD HERE.....FREE SERVICE
"We sincerely apologize for having to take the Data Base offline...we did not expect consumers to embrace this service in such vast numbers. (our server has melted!) We are moving the Data Base to another server late today. Please check back then. Regards, CardCops"
Doc just mentioned Scott Heiferman's new project called Meetup. Looks like this may be one step closer to the face to face meetings that Jeneane's been dreaming about and asking for the past couple months. I've gone over and check out around the site.
Here's my first read: Meetup is a simple meeting site to bring people of common interest together. Good idea-- but 20 years of experience in online communities tells me, it is very difficult to get people off their butts and GO somewhere. Especially with people they don't know. I used to organize a events like this for CompuServe's Forums. The good thing about site is the groups appear to agree to meet at a public places. This allows people to do a little selective "checking out" a group before they might want to join. Sometime I should repost my original paper (1988) on meeting people from online somewhere around here. Personally I think a dinner group of Webloggers in the San Gabriel Valley/Inland Empire would be a fun group. Nothing expensive-- but good food and a good time.
Another wildfire started burning in Cajon Pass today. This is the second one in less than 2 weeks. It was started when a car caught on fire as it pulled over to the roadside. At present it has spread to at least 55-hundred acres and was moving West toward Wrightwood and Phelan along Rt 183. Also if it keeps going it will endanger the JPL NASA Observatory near Wrightwood. Three homes have burned and I-15 the main highway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas has been shut down again. They don't expect it to open until after 4 AM, just in time for the morning traffic rush.
This afternoon the fire causes power problems which caused us and over 450,000 homes in the area to lose power for about 4 hours. Thankfully we had had an late lunch and it was relatively cool, so we just ended up opening up the house.
Had the power stayed off, we were ready to fire up the generator and plug in for a couple hours. Hate to admit it, but the generator we bought a couple years ago when OSH closed one of the local stores was the best money we've ever spent. For what it's worth, this summer is going to be a real PITA fire season. Last winter had the lowest snowfall on record according to NOAA-- and we haven't had the Santa Anna winds kick up yet.
Trumpeter/vocalist Jack Sheldon ("I'm Just A Bill" Sheldon) returns to 
My Surprize
The Nikon TC-E3 (ED) Teleconverter is that it is not the most graceful lens to balance on the Nikon 990. I suspect it's easier to use on a fixed, non-swivel body. But it works well if you are careful to lock the camera into one of the normal positions, as the half-way positions are not solid enough to hold it in place. Use of a solid tripod and the remote camera control or shutter timer are my recommendations. The lens is several pieces of very heavy high quality glass. The book explains the 3X all-glass tele-converter give the photographer an optical 345mm telephoto equiv. lens. (very cool) Also the lens uses Nikon's ED (Extra Low Dispersion) optical element, which creates superior optical performance with very limited distortion & aberations. The outcome is wonderful pictures. Tonight I took my first shots of the moon (upper right) using my tripod and the shutter timer. 
Community: Meeting F2F