What are your jeans doing today?

[ethandesu]

Andy tells me they aren't far away, Freak.

Thanks Paul! Not really concerned, just aware of the extreme noob status I am currently rocking. The boots are Wesco Jobmasters - an awesome boot that doesn't get the love it deserves. I'll post some pics on shoes that age sometime soon.

desu

[ThinFinn]

wow...free worldwide shipping and they deduct the taxes if you're outside of Australia. But no Samurai online ATM

good news eh ...

[-five-]

been enjoying your post as always Paul! wish i could +rep

@desu really nice boots! i wonder how much does Andy charge for Hillside items, is it cheaper to get them here in Aus?

[ranonranonarat]

ethandesu: great now that i can avoid the hefty shipping charges coming in from the US to asia. can just get stuff shipped from australia to singapore. definitely something to look out for. probably check them out the next time i visit sydney in 2 months or so!

paul t: you always have such fucking good posts with lots of stories to tell. its almost like you know the history behind every monument and nook and cranny. damn. interesting as hell i must say. what do you do for a living? copywriter?

Lando: love that post, wished i was there. looked like quite a party you had, denim shorts and all. fuck must visit SF, of course NY too.

all these damn good posts, pity i cant rep any of you cos i have to spread. but still ace nonetheless.

[-Z-]

finally.

I was in my local camera hangout when i noticed something i've been looking for. a canon 20mm f2.8! well my glass problems are over. what more could I want then a fast almost 35mm equivalent on my 1.6x sensor for street photography??? nothing. today is a good day.

this thing is in prime condition, and i practically walked out of the store without spending any $$ at all. PICS TO FOLLOW (when i get a chance to go shooting..)

[holleman]

Today, I had to take a 900km trip to Prague.

So saw a lot of this:

and this

and this

Nearly there

and end up somewhere on this street

[ranonranonarat]

-z- thats a good find. i've tried one before and its pretty fast and quiet lens. one of the better options to get other than a red ring. the thing is a little on the heavy side though, im happy with my 24mm f2.8. : ) how much did you pay for that?

[-Z-]

Yea it is really heavy. But it feels like a tank. It dwarfs my little T1I. It is gonna be my street lens, gonna add a 50mm 1.4 later this year for indoor low light etc. I only paid $224 USD. It is mint, figured it was quite a steal! Whoo! Can't wait to shoot!

[ranonranonarat]

damn it is a steal!

[jdmcnary]

my jeans spent the last two days stripping a canoe with my dad.

Step 1: Build a form on a strongback

Step 2: Staple/glue the strips to each other and the form.

(I got some help from my son Beckam)

Step 3: Once you get to the top (which is the bottom of the canoe) cut the overlap off

Step 4: Drink a beer (while dad works) and get ready for the other 75% of the work

[ThinFinn]

^please document the rest of this work here...it's pretty interesting imo!

+rep

[Guest mattes]

^^^ i second that-great post jdmcnary-

[ranonranonarat]

today was a nice day, i followed the gf cos she wanted to get a cut and dye job (hair, not denim). these suckers came along as well and they were smacking clean cos they came out of the wash yesterday and finally dried. i miss wearing denim for 1 day.

so this was the place we came to. people working here were mostly malaysians and we had to converse in chinese, which was a little hard to communicate what i wanted but it was good. gave me a chance to speak chinese after a long time. (read: i speak bad chinese)

didn't do a dkatz/-z-/almostnice cut but it was good. i wouldn't pull it off as well as them if i wanted to. i have an egg shaped head, so it would be a really bad idea. (read: joke)

while waiting for her to be done (which took around an hour) we contemplated on playing connect 4 pocket set which she bought when she was in bangkok on a shopping trip a few days back. but eventually decided not to cos it was gonna be too messy and i always win anyway. haha. thats not true.

after that i got hungry and decided to have my first meal of the day at 4pm. went to some place in the city area called ippudo. not exactly fantastic-must-try kinda food but it was good. anybody on holiday should come here once. tried this weird snack called lotus root chips. pretty weird considering how we usually use this to make chinese soups but the restaurant served it fried with squeezed lemons. tasted like normal chips though, so kinda gimicky.

had the shrimp bun as well which was an appetiser. apparently its a recommended dish but i didnt really enjoy it although the shrimp was nice and fat. it didnt exactly go well with the bun. i've tried the pork buns they serve and those are definitely much better, although its not a chef recommendation. loved those.

then came the pork miso ramen which i enjoyed since i was wolfing down my food like a hungry dog. hot noodles and an empty stomach always clicks.

went to the japanese bookstore nearby and checked out denim buyers guide and the lightning denim book and contemplated on buying but didnt know if it was worth it. i always flip through it but dont end up buying it. but it all looks good though the pictures and shit. just that it gets to me when i cant read the text. i feel like i only know half of what is going on. so i didnt get that. went around the mall for a bit before deciding it was time to go home. but stopped to grab some dessert on the way home.

strawberry tart was lovely, nice and refreshing. i love things like these. which reminds me that i need to lose some weight cos i went up one belt hole these couple of months. ha.

shared these as well. cant remember the name though. the mousse was good shiat. the middle was sponge and the bottom had a lovely brownie which the gf went crazy over. it was real good though albeit a little too sweet

fucking shizz. good good good.

it was a good day. normal-ish in a good way. goodnight sufu fam!

[haploid]

jdmcnary that is so awesome! Can't wait to see the finished product.

[dkatz]

Ooookay, finally finishing the survey-oversight-field-work catchup!

Sooo back South from Arua I trudged.

Upon arriving in Kampala I decided to swing by the (new!) office to check in and have a couple meetings. My boss was entertained by my attire and state of haggardness, so insisted on a photo:

*note the super-rad drum I bought outside of a church in Arua town, made of a little old formerly-painted-green and well rusted oil drum, and cow hide. The guy I bought it from was borderline offended that I didn't also buy the two accompanying larger drums, because... how can you play music with only one drum?? After lengthy discussion and pleading, I finally convinced him that 1 drum is still superior to 0 drum.

After a day or two in Kampala, I headed over to Mukono - only about an hour's matatu-ride from the office. The Mukono teams were some of our strongest, and the team leaders in particular are notably awesome, so there really was not too much for me to do as I hung out with them for a few days, other than idle survey review. Mostly I wound up traveling with them to clubs and setting up camp somewhere to do other work, and just remain on hand to put out the occasional fire.

It would have been nice, except for the room I was staying in. Suffice to say I don't think I really slept for three nights straight. My inability to sleep was doubtlessly somewhat psychosomatic... potentially in some part due to the combined psychological effect of the mattress being covered in rubber and this sign being posted in the room (note point F):

Aaaanyway. How about some pictures?

Tea plantation, being harvested:

By the way, I learned something: chewing tea leaves fresh off the bush is not as delicious as tea. Unfortunately I couldn't get myself to chew long enough to find out if I'd get a caffeine buzz.

This is a cow.

These are more cows.

I want to dip this into a big steaming mug of what those will become:

Nice path for a wander

My neighbors for a spell while I worked

Red, green, blue, white

[dkatz]

Lunch cooking

beans and rice

fried pork with strips of chapatti

Ugh, I hate when the neighbors disturb me in my office

Not a bad spot to work for a few

After a few days of seeing that Mukono was proceeding swimmingly (or, at least, was no better off by my presence), I retired to Kampala.

At this point I was, in three words, massively burned out. I became aware of this the next day when our field manager informed me that I needed to stay home for a few days because she could tell that I was too exhausted to be useful... just by my tone via text message. Impressive.

I had planned to head West to Mbarara for a few days, but I let the field manager talk me into staying in Kampala and letting her head over.

And when I got back home, I discovered my flatmate had brought me back this rad wool Earth, Wind & Rider sweater/shirt from the States, which I'd been wanting for years. I had ordered it and had it delivered to her place in the States, but I'd totally forgotten about it. Yay!

Superhaggard

Aaaaand off to the field I'll be going again, starting this weekend, to oversee the implementation of the intervention. Wooo....

[ThinFinn]

^makes any of us so jealous i think...these pics as well as all the rest are so freaking awesome dude...congrats!

You have given out too much Reputation...

[-Z-]

WAYJDT work edition (sort of)

at a sammich for lunch.

read up on my favorite sufu thread. great post d

WAYWT lazy edition.

and when I got off today, didn't really get to take the new lens through its paces. (Thats on the plate for tomorrow) but I shot these out the window of my car driving back home through my neighborhood.

I was extremely impressed (thus my jubilation to show you guys) how sharp this new lens is. great detail shot from a moving car at 15mph or so. I can live with that!

[PandaXS]

@ dkatz

what are those jeans you are wearing in your last pic? super beat up. also didnt you cut your hair............... these pictures confuse cause you got hair in them.

@-z-

try the ef outta that lens i wanna see some results with it. in your first industrial pic i would have liked to see a lower iso with it. but the second pic is spot on

[dkatz]

read up on my favorite sufu thread. great post d

Hah! Look! That's me!

Also, tried to rep you on the lens- damn sweet! I'm excited to see the photos you produce with that.

@ dkatz

what are those jeans you are wearing in your last pic? super beat up. also didnt you cut your hair............... these pictures confuse cause you got hair in them.

They're my SExDBxS09 jeans. See them at the end of the contest (only worn them a few times since because I don't want them to get totally destroyed by Kampala) here and here

Yeah, I cut my hair. All those photos are a couple weeks old - catching up from when I was in the field.

[beatle]

r9UR6uDVvLQ

[redX]

i'm amazed you can still wear those in this heat and humidity

[fardin]

true my jeans are killig me too, but one has too. nice video beatle, but you have to work on your technique, haha

[morse9443]

beatle knows a lot more about denim than she does about tennis

[ranonranonarat]

today was a rainy day hence plans had to be cancelled. however it wasn't that bad.

these had to come off for a while.

did a bit of accounts management. did my expenses, felt good to get some bills out of the way.

watched videos which are reruns of what we have on free to air tv. this is one of the only shows i watch. its called "the noose" and they make fun of a lot of things which are of concern to most singaporeans. could be international issues as well or political stuff. pretty funny shit, don't know how people would react to it here though.

heres a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuYU6JwvQ5k

http://video.xin.msn.com/watch/video/the-noose-3-episode-4/1gq202ges

laughing my ass off as i make this post. enjoy.

[Grim Ryan]

I typed this whole thing up and my ffox crashed so bear with me for any spelling or formatting errors.

Just arrived back in Boston after my month long west coast trip. The whole adventure was blast. I enjoyed every city I spent time in thoroughly. I got to meet a bunch of really cool people, I ate a ton of delicious food, and I I got to drink amazing beer the whole time.

When I left off in my last post I was staying in San Diego at a friends house after traveling through Portland and San Francisco. I spend another week in SD and got to get some pretty cool stuff into my time there.

My friends and I headed over to Balboa park to enjoy the outdoors and some of the free museums they have to offer. I really wish Boston had a real park, sure there is the Boston Common, but I can practically throw a baseball over the entire park. I am glad that I live a little ways from downtown and have access to a wonderful arboretum.

After that we headed over to Little Italy to get some food. Being from Boston I wasn't expecting there to be much, and I was pretty much right. Although the little they did was have was pretty cool. We also got a pretty good meal in on a good budget.

Being at the end of my trip and low on cash we decided to spend the last few nights bbq'ing and partying at my friends place. Luckily his place has a pretty cool deck and he had a lot of friends who live near by.

I stuck to drinking mickey's, which are a huge pain to get on the east coast, and enjoyed them out of a Dr. Dre 40' coozie.

One of my friends, who had spent the day hanging out at the house while we explored, painted this while we were gone.

I really wanted to get one last adventure out of my time on the west coast, decided we should take a trip into the desert during the middle of summer and see how horrible it really is. So we packed into my buddies work truck and set off into desert. We drove to Borrego springs, a tiny town that is completely surrounded by national park, and by park they mean desert.

When we got in it was about 3:00 and 105 degrees out so we stopped into the only bar in town to get some drinks and food.

We stocked up on provision for the next couple days, 2 gal of water a day per person, plus a ton of Gatorade, and enough hot dogs, buns, and pb and j materials to last a month.

We decided to camp in Culp valley which was back up in the mountains overlooking the desert, this would not only give us an amazing view but would be about 15 degrees cooler than the desert floor. But first we had to drive out into the middle of the badlands to see what its all about. We drove out a 5 mile sand trail to Font's Point for a what was said to be an "ok" scenic view. When we got out there the truck read 109 degrees.

After that we headed back up to our campsite which had an equally breathtaking view, I don't have any pictures though because I had to turn my phone off to save battery in case of emergency calls.

The next morning we headed to the Salton Sea. The sea is actually a lake that was created from flooding of the Colorado river. Because its on salt flats the lake is saltier than the pacific ocean. In the 50's it was a popular destination for boaters and fisherman and was supposed to be the new it spot in the winter, but due to pollution it is now surrounded by what are almost ghost towns. A Google image search will give you a good idea of how strange and dead this place is.

We pulled into Bombay beach where flood waters destroyed a large portion of the town in the 70's and a levy was built to protect what remained.

We drank some beers at the only bar in town, 2$ drafts all the time and bought a little souvenir.

Yes that is a can of fish assholes.

[Denton]

"a nutritional and wholesome product" haha

"standard packaging practices have been strickly adhered to"

[ProfessorOak]

This is from last Sunday since I never got the chance to post these pics. Went to my uncle's graduation from the University of Phoenix at HP Pavilion in San Jose, CA. Then we headed over to BJ's to grab some food, but more specifically Pizookies!!!

Didn't get to take a picture of the pizookie because as soon as it came out we basically devoured it. haha.

My cousin's Flat Head F310 on the left and my Strike Gold SG1105 on the right

Then just yesterday was the last day of the jazz camp I was tutoring at/attending. Took a few quick shots.

[almostnice]

really enjoyed the last pages,high quality contributions-well done,folks!

[k4727]

really really great pictures, if i can sober up for a little while ill through some pics up, but man it will be hard to compete