Frank Caico's Blog

Congratulations to Alex and Sarah!  I hope you guys are enjoying your honeymoon!  Don't eat too much chocolate.

I've created a flickr group for pictures and discussion.  Here is the URL: http://www.flickr.com/groups/401416@N25/

The group is invite only - I did this to prevent people with no business posting there from doing so.  The downside of this is that you need a flickr account to post.  If I didn't already send you an invite, its because I don't know your flickr account.  Drop me a flickr mail (or a regular email) and I will invite you too.

Well, Alex's "Nerdfest" bachelor party was a big success this weekend.  The goal was to provide Alex with a weekend's worth of wholesome geek fun.

Among the nerdy and geekful milestones acheived this weekend:

• WizardWorld convention tickets purchased over the internet while at a Thruway rest stop
• Successfully got a Nintendo Wii working and playable in an automobile with no previous multimedia capabilities
• Attended WizardWorld's Philadelphia comic book convention
• Got Multiple autographs from and photographs with Heroes' Hayden Panettiere
• Used a wireless router in our hotel room in order to bypass the "two computers per hotel room" limitation imposed by our hotel
• Had a 4 node Duke Nukem 3D deathmatch in our network enabled hotel room while at the same time running a Wii AND watching a bootleg DVD of deleted scenes from the Star Wars movies
• Overclocked all manner of devices including, but not limited to the window of our hotel room

Pictures will be posted soon.

Okay you guys.  Time is running out for entries into the next JPEG magazine.   If you guys haven't voted for me yet then what are you waiting for?

Seriously, the registration for JPEG magazine is like 4 lines of entry!  You can't even take 30 seconds to help a brutha out?

Some dance studio by the name of Viva Dance Studio decided to use one of my best photos from the Rochester Steven & Virginie '05 workshop to promote their upcoming S & V workshop.   They didn't bother to ask me for permission, they didn't even link back to the web page where they found my picture.  And on top of it, they reproduced the image in print to use on their flyers!  (not to mention the fact that they made it look awful to boot).  You can see what their lousy reproduction of my picture turned out like Here.

This is the first time I've found someone blatantly ripping off my stuff and it bothers me a little bit.  Especially since I probably would have granted them permission if they had just asked.  It also makes me mad that this isn't some not-for-profit dance group - its a commercial dance studio.

I sent them this letter:

I think I'm being more than generous here.  Lets see if these guys honor my wishes.

Well everyone, here it is. Much later than I promised, but what can I say? I was very busy the last few weeks.

Of the three shots I took, this was the best. Everyone looks pretty natural (yes, that IS what Jerome really looks like) so this is the one you get!

Cheers, and look forward to seeing you all again soon!

This was indeed a great weekend of unseasonably warm weather for Rochester.  I spent a good deal of time in my workshop working on my latest project:  A krenov style Wooden Hand Plane.  Its coming along real well and I suspect I will finish the woodworking this week (if the weather report is correct).  Its a real cool project that has forced me to learn some new techniques.  The book I am using as a guide (Making and Mastering Wood Planes) is pretty amazing.  It goes into great detail on each and every step and really keeps your confidence up as it documents the possible pitfalls involved.

Mike had his annual X-Mas party this weekend. Good fun was had by all!  We even got to experience some actual Myrrh!  For those of you interested;

Myrrh is currently used in some liniments, healing salves that may be applied to abrasions and other minor skin ailments. It is also used in the production of Fernet Branca.

Look for the holiday group shot pictures to be posted within the next day or two.

Fred (My boss) has been judged a finalist in a national photography contest sponsored by Canon Inc.   Here's the image he got in for:

 

 

If he wins, he gets a Canon Rebel XTI!   You can find a link to the competition where you can vote for his photo here.  Regardless of whether he wins or not, if you vote you could win!  Please don't try and vote multiple times as cheating could get him disqualified, but please do vote!  It would be great to see Fred take this thing.

I thank you, and Fred thanks you!

I order things on-line alot, so I tend to get a good share of packages delivered through Fed Ex, UPS and DHL.  I have noticed the disturbing trend of having my packages more and more carelessly delivered. 

Today I had a package delivered by Fed Ex.  They left it on my porch in a *very* visible position.  In plain sight from the sidewalk only about 10-15 feet away.  The annoying thing is that someone was home to sign for the package, but its obvious that the delivery guy didn't even bother ringing!

This is the third or fourth time recently that a package was left in this obvious location.   One of the times, it was a very large package which had the contents plainly displayed on the outside!  That time the package was stolen (big surprise!).  I didn't have a problem getting Amazon to ship me a new package (at their cost), but I find it aggravating that these delivery people can't tage another few seconds to at least tuck the package in behind the porch railing (where it wouldn't be seen from the street).  They could at least ring the doorbell and wait a minute to see if someone is actually home instead of assuming no one is.

Had a nice relaxing weekend (all too short, as usual).  I finally got around to doing some much needed chores.  I also managed to do a little bit of woodworking.  Last week I put the final coats of polyeurethane on my Mitre Saw station, and on Saturday I took some photos of it.

Mitre Saw Station

I even got to use it on Saturday to make some picture frame moulding out of spalted cherry.  Its going to make a great addition to my shop.

Saw a few movies this weekend:
Friday I saw For Your Consideration.  I didn't think it was very good.  There were some funny moments, but all-in-all its kind of the same schtick that Christopher Guest and his gang have been doing reformed and revised yet again.  I think I could probably miss their next movie if its going to be more of the same. 

On Saturday we saw Borat, which unless you've been living under a rock you have already seen it or heard much about it.  I think this has to be the funniest movie I've seen in a very long time.  The hotel room scene had me howling. I can only imagine what kind of law suits this movie is generating for.  Purportedly, the police were called on Sacha Baron Cohen 91 times during the production of this film.

Sunday I saw Babel. This is the latest movie directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga.  Their previous works include 21 grams and Amores Perros.  The acting was quite good, and the characters were well-developed and sympathetic but the narrative didn't feel satisfying in the end.  It certainly seemed like it could have been edited down to much less than the current running 2 hours 26 minutes.  I'd say I liked it more than 21 grams, but less than Amores Perros.

Saturday, Angela, John and I went to The Black Pearl Cafe (used to be Dickies) to see what their food was like.  Pretty underwhelming.  I don't think I'm going to try their food again until business picks up (if it ever does).   We had originally tried to eat at Red Robin, a new gourmet burger chain that has come to Rochester. The 40 minute wait time scared us off.  Let me know if you have a burger there - I am curious to see if their burgers are worth the $10-$12 they are asking.

Hiking Home

More Colorado photography here.  That's good ol' John Dyer in the photo.  JD, Annette, Angela and I went for a hike in Boulder.  It was a really grey day and I thought this pic looked much better in B&W. 

The weather has been GREAT the past few days.  I actually went to work wearing short sleeves and no jacket today.  Of course its going to hurt that much more when the snow arrives on Saturday. :-/ 

At least the warmer weather gave me an oppurtunity to put a few coats of polyurethane on my latest woodworking project. 

I spoke to my doctor yesterday about my arm(s) again.  We've decided to hold off on any surgery for a while and will try some Physical Therapy.  I think he suggested Ultrasound treatment.  My right arm does feel stronger than it did a month ago, so I'm hoping that with some P.T. it will heal and not require any invasive surgery. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

This weekend started off well.  Friday Jon and Mary invited me over for dinner and a game of scrabble.  it was a nice relaxing evening with friends.  Saturday wasn't bad either.  I got all kinds of errands done; including getting a haircut, working on my mitre-saw station and getting the remaining pieces for a framing job I'm doing.  Saturday evening Angela and I took John out to dinner celebrating his birthday (waaaaay belated). We were joined by Jon and Mary.  After that we all got together at my house and hung out.

Sunday was less smooth - and not just for me.  Angela and I both had one of those frustrating days where nothing seemed to want to go right.  Angela just wanted to veg in front of the computer for a while with a video game, but was thwarted by an overheating PC.  What I thought would be an hour at best with my picture-framing project turned out to take most of the day because of lots of little hassles.  

Ah well, at least things ended well;  last night we saw the new James Bond Movie; Casino Royale.  I have to say that this was probably the best Bond movie in decades.  I've commented in the past how I wasn't happy with the direction the 007 movies have taken.  Each one had to be bigger, flashier, and more ridiculous than the last.  They just got to be cartoonish.  Well, with Casino Royale Bond goes back to basics.  This movie was all about the small. Mano e mano action; No super villians in huge volcano hideouts.  No orbiting laser death rays poised to demolish the world.  No Amazonian super agent trying to kill Bond one minute and then succumbing to his charms the next.   That might actually sound boring to alot of James Bond fans, but let me say that this movie is still grand in its own way.  Even though the plot is essentailly about 007 stopping a banker, it still feels like the fate of the world is in the balance.  And because of the smaller scope, each fight scene, and each new bit of information seemed that much more exciting, intriguing and engaging than all the flying mutant anacondas with head-mounted lasers from all the Bond movies of the last 20 years. Kudos to the makers of Casino Royale for making a Bond movie thats all about the story and the acting and not so much about the explosions and the half-nude women. 

Well, I can't do the Steven & Virginie workshop, or dance so  I figured this was a good oppurtunity to finally see some of the High Falls Film Festival (as its always scheduled for the same weekend).  So I went with a friend to see Renaissance at The Little yesterday.  The damn thing was sold out. 

And today is turning out quite gloomy too.  I was hoping to enjoy a little sunshine out there, but its all grey.  

Current mood: bummed

Tell me there isn't a startling similarity!  Angela found this tea and showed it to me, she didn't even have to tell me who she thought it looked like before I noticed the remarkable likeness. 

I don't think I've told everyone, but I've been having elbow pain in my right arm for a couple months now.

I had an MRI last week and the Orthopedic specialist said that I have a tear in my bicep. In his estimation, there's a 50% chance it may heal on its own, but otherwise my only option is surgery. Yuck.

If I have surgery, it will mean a 4-5 month rehabilitation period. That will pretty much limit (if not eliminate) all of my hobbies. Good thing I have that TiVo!

I know most of you are out of town tonight, but for those of you that are staying; Tonight is the reception for the Photography show I am part of.

Please join me!

Does anyone have any idea where I can get decent quality *completely customisable* business cards at a low price. I would prefer to do all the type/image settings myself as I have a couple of designs completely made up already. I've looked at vistaprint, but they dont seem to let me do a borderless design easily (or at least you cant proof it properly on-line).

Gallery Showing Announcement

To everyone who doesn't know already, I am going to be contributing (about 11 pieces or so) to a gallery show at the Image City Photography Gallery. The reception is on April 28, from 5:00 - 8:30 PM. There will be wine and hors de eouvres. There is no cost.

Please join me and see some of my work!

Yes, I know I've been gone a long time.  I am really pissed at my hosting company right now - they keep changing their server configuration and it keeps breaking my blog. 

Anyhow, I've had them move me to a different server, so hopefully there won't be any more significant problems.

In other news, I think I'm going to change the format of this blog over a bit.  I've been essentially using it as a photoblog anyhow, I think I want to make the pictures a little larger and appear better - rather than always being so small.   Hopefully that will work out.

I doubt anyone is reading this anymore, but if you are - thanks.

Frank

Steven & Virginie

The Weekend before last was the annual Steven and Virginie Lindy-Hop workshop weekend. As always, it was lots of fun and brought people from all over for a frantic weekend of dancing, music and merriment. This year, however, I mixed two of my hobbies together and took lots of photographs at the event (one of which you can see above). Since then, i've spent most of my free time getting all my pictures from the event processed and uploaded to my flickr account. Pictures from the workshop's official events (the classes, and the two RSDN dances) may be found here. As usual, my memory is awful and I didn't get all the names of people whos picture I posted. If you know any of these people (or if you are in fact one of them), please feel free to let me know and I will attribute the picture in question properly.

Other than that, not alot is new. Angela is still working hard on her school work. I've seen a few movies - including a really interesting one called "Anya (in and out of focus)". This movie was done by Polish-American filmmaker Marian Marzynski. It basically uses "found footage" of his daughter's life to show us her growing up from childhood to adulthood to having her own child. Its a fascinating look at his relationship with his daughter. Its not often you can see a person age 30 years in the matter of an evening. Also saw the new Harry Potter movie (not bad, but not as good as the last one, I thought) and a pretty lackluster movie called "derailed". I wouldn't recommend this latter movie to anyone - it is predictable and carries with it very little in the way of redeeming qualities.

Until next time, I remain...

For those of you that know them, Pete and Jen got married this weekend. They had a nice ceremony at the UofR Interfaith Chapel, with a reception following at the Broadway Inn.

Pete, Jen, Congrats to the both of you!

The Grand Canyon (with Squirrell)

Its been a long time since I posted and much has happened, so since I had a few minutes to do so this morning I thought now would be a fine time to do so.

At the beginning of October, Angela and I went to Las Vegas for a week for Andorra's wedding. Andorra and James' closest family members came for it. We all stayed at the Venetian Hotel. Its very nice. They deck it out to look like venice inside. The first floor of the hotel is made to seem like it is outside - complete with St. Mark's Square, canals and gondola rides. They got the lighting down so well that you really do feel like you are outside too.

The wedding was really nice. It was a perfect balance between casual and formal. I always love to see a bride who has no illusions about the day needing to be 'perfect'!. Andorra looked beautiful, James looked nervous. Everything was as it should be. They had a professional photographer (from the Bellagio hotel where they had the ceremony) but I took pictures at the welcome dinner, the reception and the after-reception party. If you are interested, you can see the pictures I took here.

So we hung around Vegas for a few more days, did some gambling (I discovered that I enjoy shooting Craps), ate good food and had a nice time.

Our last full day in Vegas we took a bus tour to the Grand Canyon. We had to get up at like 5:00am (and when you are used to being up late this is hard) but figured we could sleep on the bus. WRONG. Our tour bus driver, Johnny (The guy on the right) decided it was important for him to talk LOUDLY for the first few hours of the tour. Finally, he decided to put on a movie (Forrest Gump) and shut up, but by this time it was bright out and a little harder to sleep (plus that movie is too good for me to ignore). The bus tour allowed for a depressingly small amount of time at the Canyon itself (about 1.5 hours total), Anyhow it was great to finally see the Grand Canyon in person. The odd thing about the Grand Canyon is its so long and so big and so far away that the effect is almost 2-dimensional. Since your eyes dont get enough perspective to feel the dimension of the far canyon wall it seems more like a huge photo than the other side of a canyon.

Our bus tour also made stops at the Hoover Dam on the way up, and then later (at night) on the way back. We didnt spend much time there, but enough to get a handle on what an amazing engineering feat the dam is. I have to give Johnny kudos though - at least he does know alot about the sites they drive through. His information was definitely interesting.

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que

Flickr and photography have really been eating up most of my spare time. The plust side is that I've got lots of eye candy to put up on my home page.

This weekend, Dave came to visit and stayed with us. You can read about his shenanigans on his own page (Now if only he would spend time updating it, as opposed to whining about how noone else is updating their blogs). Anyhow, on Saturday night Angela, Dave and I went to the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que for some good food and fun. I took lots of pictures.

Sunday was Mooncake Day. You'll have to ask Angela about it, but essentially its a Chinese harvest-time holiday. It was nice - we had some good food and played Tien Gow with her family.

So I hear we're going to spend $104 billion on going back to the moon. WHY?!?!? If we spent that time and effort on developing alternative fuels we could remove our dependence on foreign oil, generate tons of jobs and economic growth, lower our trade deficit, and propel the USA's technical dominance on for a long time to come. But instead, we are going to spend that money collecting rocks. All the advancements made by the first moon mission are great. I love my digital watch and velcro. Really. But I don't see us getting as much out of it this time, and the potential downsides are huge. Not to mention we really don't have $100 billion to spend right now. ARG. this really steams me.

Thats about it for me for now. Frank out.

personal

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que

Flickr and photography have really been eating up most of my spare time. The plust side is that I've got lots of eye candy to put up on my home page.

This weekend, Dave came to visit and stayed with us. You can read about his shenanigans on his own page (Now if only he would spend time updating it, as opposed to whining about how noone else is updating their blogs). Anyhow, on Saturday night Angela, Dave and I went to the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que for some good food and fun. I took lots of pictures.

Sunday was Mooncake Day. You'll have to ask Angela about it, but essentially its a Chinese harvest-time holiday. It was nice - we had some good food and played Tien Gow with her family.

So I hear we're going to spend $104 billion on going back to the moon. WHY?!?!? If we spent that time and effort on developing alternative fuels we could remove our dependence on foreign oil, generate tons of jobs and economic growth, lower our trade deficit, and propel the USA's technical dominance on for a long time to come. But instead, we are going to spend that money collecting rocks. All the advancements made by the first moon mission are great. I love my digital watch and velcro. Really. But I don't see us getting as much out of it this time, and the potential downsides are huge. Not to mention we really don't have $100 billion to spend right now. ARG. this really steams me.

Thats about it for me for now. Frank out.

For those of you that care and are still checking, I am still here. I've just been pretty busy getting things back to normal here at the Caico homestead. The home rennovations are finally slowing down. The painting is mostly done and all the furniture I have been expecting is finally here.

I have also been spending alot of time getting acquainted with my new camera. I'm having a blast! Its so nice to be able to shoot with an SLR and still have the convenience of digital. Hopefully you will see an improvment in my own pictures-of-the-day.

Beavis....er... I mean Ryan

A group of us went to SeaBreeze this weekend to celebrate Ryan's birthday. In general, it was fun, but standing in the blazing sun waiting 20 minutes for a 2 minute ride that's lame is not something I will do often. Here you can see Ryan's way of avoiding cranial sunburn (along with being a great Cornholio immitation).

So my roof got its first real weather test. The first heavy, then constant rain since last night was a good test of the integrity of the new roof. There was actually a small amount of water let in around the chimney which occurred during the first half-hour or so of downpour. I think it was a flashing problem though, as after that things dried up and stayed dry as of this posting.

Well, I called the roofer last night and he said he would send someone down - they just came and re-tarred the flashing -- in the rain! Now thats service. I don't think you can ask for better response time.

For anyone who needs a new roof, I would so far not hesitate to recommend these guys:

So the house remodelling summer madness continues!

I decided to keep the color I chose in the first place. Once a whole side of the house was painted I decided that it was nice. The neighbors seem to like it too - I've already gotten several compliments and the house isnt even half done yet.

Here is a look at the house so far:

I'm also having the guest bedroom's ceiling redone now too. There was some water damage and the plaster got ruined in one corner, so now I have a guy drywalling a new ceiling for me. Which means after thats done I will be doing more indoor painting. Oh joy.

Karen LOVES Fla-vor-ice

This saturday Art & Jess threw a going away barbeque for Dave & Karen as they ready to depart for Pittsburgh. Along with all the bar-b-que and side dishes everyone came armed with, Karen brought with another one of her famous deserts (sadly, perhaps our last of these for some time) and we all had a nice time eating, chatting, and playing Pictionary. There weren't even any of the usual fisticuffs due to Pictionary related arguments! If you want to see some lame pictures of the event, you can find them here.

Well, Construction is underway again as my house is now being painted. The first coat is going on and (as it seems like it shall always be) I am having second thoughts about the color.

Jimmy says I have until the first coat is done to change my mind (as long as its just a little) so I am going to keep an open mind and wait and see.

So I had my 20 year high school reunion this last weekend. I only went to one of the events (they went all weekend) and that was actually plenty for me. I was never popular in high school, and I knew that my closest friends wouldn't show up (they disliked high school even more than I did). But I was curious, so I went.

The thing that impressed me most is how old everyone seemed. I didn't feel like I was around a group of my peers, they all looked at least 10 years older than me! Most of them gained weight, lost hair and went gray. Most people I talked to had kids (maybe that explains the early aging ), and there were a lot of people who had been divorced at least once (so I'm not alone there). Angela made the same comment to me. She was surprised that all these kids were the same age as me.

There were a couple of bright spots though. Joerg, a German exchange student that I knew in my senior year flew back for the event. It was really fun to catch up with him. He's lead quite an interesting life. Its funny to see someone who looks so different, but acts so similar. I also got to catch up with some people that I did miss. People in general were quite positive. No one seemed to recollect any bad events, they only seemed interested in reminiscing about nice things. I'm sad about some of the absentees - I hope those people are having such a good life that they didn't have time to take a day out just to relive past memories.

I don't know yet if I will attend any future reunions. I felt an almost awkward sensation of being an intruder. It didn't feel altogether right being there. I guess we'll see when the next reunion comes around.

Raising the Roof

Well, The roofers assure me that they will be finishing up the job today. Thats great because it means that tomorrow they will be picking up their dumpster and I get my garage back! I was a little worried about these guys when I hired them, but they seem to have done a real good job (knock on wood - I won't really know how good a roof it is until the dead of winter I suppose).

In other news, I also successfully moved the electrical outlet in my bedroom. It was a much easier job than I first predicted! Now when my dresser arrives, I have a wall to put it against.

This weekend went by in a flash!

Friday night Angela and I finished painting the master bedroom of my house. I had a new bedroom set scheduled to arrive the next day and needed to get the room done. It was a now or never situation as the furniture stuff is nice, but heavy. The color turned out good (after we switched paint once - d'oh!) and the carpet I bought (a faux persian rug) looks great in the room. After we finished, we were hungry and tired and needed some recharging. A quick visit to Dinosaur-Bar-B-Que satiated our hungry stomachs, and a few dances rejuvenated our ailing spirits. Happy and spent we went home and slept our last night in the guest bedroom.

Saturday, the furniture (or most of it anyhow) arrived. The delivery guys made short work of moving the peices (even the largest - which we weren't 100% sure would fit up the stairwell) and were pretty nice guys. They even commented about how good the rug looked with the firniture! (It better, I bought it specifically to do just that!). After the furniture got delivered Angela and I went off to go hunting for new window treatments. We didn't end up buying anything because we ran out steam, but we did get some ideas.

Sunday, Angela John, his mother and I went to Niagara-on-the-lake for the Shaw Festival. We saw "You Never Can Tell" and "Gypsy". Both were quite good. We didnt get home until about 1:30am Monday morning. Time for work!

Anyhow it was a tiring weekend, but it was at least as much fun as it was work, so I enjoyed it. But I'm still looking forward to not having to deal with the car shuffle (due to the roofers taking up my garage, driveway and most of the open parking spots around the house), and the early morning wakeup hammering from the roofers. Hopefully the weather will cooperate this week and they can get it done quickly.

Okay, maybe I'm a wimp, but I'm feeling a wee bit overwhelmed right now.

This week, my whole house is being overrun by home improvements. I have a completely new roof being installed on my house, which means I have half a dozen guys or more along with all their tools and all the materials they need to do their job running rampant about my yard. I can't use my garage because there's a huge dumpster (for roofing tile) blocking the drive to it.

Of course, being forced to park on a city street is just the precise moment my car's power windows decide to randomly decide to open and stay open. So I've got that going for me! (edit: Unfortunately I just found out the repair is going to cost me $350! Ouch!)

In the meantime I have a bedroom full of furniture coming on Saturday, so I decided now would be my last chance for a while to do a little decorating there. This includes painting and buying a new rug. So I am also in the middle of that.

Yes, its been a hectic week at the Caico ranch. I hope things come back to normal (or better than normal) real soon!

Caico, OUT!

Why does it seem that lately I have more bad work days than good work days? Now that I am committed to stay at this job for 3 more years, it feels like I have a prison sentence...

I don't understand it either, because more often than not, I like this job.