Sunday, 15 January 2006
A Few More Snow Pictures
It snowed again today, so I decided to take my new lens out for a spin. I got some pretty good shots, and I also managed to change lenses a few times in the freezing cold with numb fingers. My idea was that if I could do it in the middle of a New England winter without being able to feel my fingers, then switching lenses under pressure in Africa would be no problem. Now that I'm thinking about it, it's a pretty stupid idea but what can I say? It was really cold out there, and it's tough to think straight when your eyelids are freezing shut.
(click for more snowy goodness)
Posted by flow Frazao on January 15, 2006 at 05:32 PM in America, Photos | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Tuesday, 03 January 2006
First Snow of the Year
This was my view out the window this morning. Beautiful, but holy smokes that's some heavy snow. Each shovelful weighed about 20 pounds, and I was stupid enough to go outside in sneakers. They should be dry by the time we get back from Africa.
Hopefully the snow will stop falling before it gets dark out and I'll be able to get outside with my brand new zoom lens and give it a good workout.
Posted by flow Frazao on January 3, 2006 at 02:23 PM in Photos | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Monday, 02 January 2006
New Year's Resolution
OK, so around this time of year everybody's always on about "I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that." Mine is more posting. Not necessarily about anything in particular, but just a bit more of the old linguistic and photographic diarrhea, if you will.
I'll do my best to ease my way into regular updates by starting off the New Year with a few shots of the recent snowfall. We may not have had a white Christmas, but we definitely had a blizzard on New Year's Eve. This was the view down the street from just outside the Cheese Shop where I've been working.
Posted by flow Frazao on January 2, 2006 at 01:05 AM in Photos | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Thursday, 09 June 2005
Angkor Wat Photos
A few photos from the past three days at Angkor Wat and around Siem Riep (that's Cambodia). Enjoy!
Posted by flow Frazao on June 9, 2005 at 07:49 AM in Photos, Southeast Asia | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Sunday, 05 June 2005
Siem Riep
Getting to Siem Riep (home of Angkor Wat) from Bangkok is no small feat. Obviously, if you're a pussy you can fly in a girly she-plane, but Fiona and I have true grit. We travel overland.
We caught a 6AM bus from Bangkok to the border, where we arrived at about 1PM. After going through the requisite Thai exit stamping process, we stepped up to the Cambodian immigration window. A 30 day visa for Cambodia costs $20, but the Poipet border is apparently the only place in the country that does not accept US Dollars. They would only take 1000 baht (Thai currency). This works out decidedly well for the Cambodian border guards because 1000 baht = $25 USD. So I guess every person that crosses the border contributes directly to the Support Cambodian Border Guards Fund.
After walking through the big archway to Kampuchea, we met up with a German guy and decided to share a taxi from Poipet to Siem Riep. The four of us (me, Fiona, Olaf, and the driver) loaded our crap into the trunk (with the help of about 10 other tip-hungry Cambodians) and headed out of town.
Last time I came to Cambodia I remembered this drive being one of the worst in a succession of long and arduous roads. It has not been improved. It took about three and a half hours to go less than 150km. The potholes defy description. There are actually stretches of road where you wind up driving in the ditches along the sides of the street because they're in better condition than the actual road. It's almost as bad as M St. in Washington DC.
We made it to Siem Riep at around 5PM, and I was/am amazed at the amount of change this town has undergone over three years. Last time I was here there were loads of guesthouses charging between $1 and $40 per night. I remember two or three big hotels, but even they weren't that big. Now there are more than 10 MASSIVE hotels here, some of which charge $2000 per night for the most expensive room.
To me, that is an absolutely retarded amount of money to spend on a hotel room. I'm fairly sure it sounds pretty outrageous to you as well. Now try to imagine how it sounds to a Cambodian who makes $15 dollars per month. "Retarded" does not begin to describe it. A girl who works at our guesthouse told us last night that $2000 is the price of tuition for four years of university at the best school in Cambodia.
We've spent the last two days reading up on Angkor Wat and the history of Cambodia. Last time I came I went into the temple not knowing anything about it, and I didn't really know what I was looking at. I'm lucky enough to get a second chance at seeing the largest religious complex in the world, and I don't want to blow it. I may not get a third time around.
Tomorrow morning we're going to go to Ta Prohm at sunrise. If you're a connoisseur of bad movies and beautiful women, you'd know this temple as the setting of the first Tomb Raider movie. It's the only temple at the Angkor Wat complex that's been left alone without any reconstruction at all. The jungle is slowly reclaiming it, and it's some of the most magnificent destruction I've ever seen. I'm looking forward to seeing it at sunrise.
Finally, I've posted some pictures of our first few days in Cambodia. This is a double rainbow I was lucky enough to see from the rooftop bar of our guesthouse:
Posted by flow Frazao on June 5, 2005 at 10:27 AM in Photos, Southeast Asia | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Thursday, 10 March 2005
This Is So Insane I Can't Even Think Of A Caption
Carey McWilliams, right, who is legally blind, and his wife, Tori, are photographed at their home in Fargo, N.D., Friday, Feb. 25, 2005, in front of the target he used to pass his weapons test. (AP Photo/Alyssa Hurst).
Posted by flow Frazao on March 10, 2005 at 01:50 AM in Photos | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wednesday, 09 March 2005
And Now A Picture of Mike Tyson Eating
thanks to matt for the tip
Posted by flow Frazao on March 9, 2005 at 03:03 PM in Photos | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sunday, 05 December 2004
California
So, I just checked the weather in Fiji and almost had a heart attack when I saw that it's currently 32 degrees. I was like "Oh NO!!!" But then I realized that temperature was in Celsius. It's actually 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
Anyway, we're taking off tonight! Ten days sitting on the beach in Fiji is just what the doctor ordered.
As a parting gift, I give you these photos we took in California. I'm not sure how it happened, but we didn't get as many shots as I would have liked of people - I always seem to do that. I take pictures of scenes and weird stuff I see, but I always forget about the people and then kick myself later.
Posted by flow Frazao on December 5, 2004 at 08:56 PM in America, Photos | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Wednesday, 17 November 2004
Halloween
I finally got around to pushing up some pictures from Halloween. Better late than never, right?
It was a splendid night of drunken debauchery, and it was painful sorting through the pictures. Some of them were downright unpublishable. Well, they're certainly publishable on some sites, but not this one.
For those of you who use Typepad to host your blogs, I came across a great script called iPhoto2Typepad. It allows you to build an album in iPhoto, add titles and comments to each photo, and then push up the entire album to a photo album in Typepad. It's cool as hell, and it's especially great because it allows you to circumvent the Typepad "feature" of not being able to explicitly dictate the order of your photos. You just arrange them in iPhoto according to your pleasure, click "Export", and WHAMMO! There it is up on the internets.
Posted by flow Frazao on November 17, 2004 at 11:43 PM in Photos | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack