37°20’2.52″N 122°12’30.60″W
Riding through Coal Creek Preserve, you pass this barn on Crazy Pete’s Road (really, that’s the name of the road).

I just finished this yesterday. Based on an original design that I built in college, this is an LED lightshow that plugs into any audio source. (I have it on top of our home entertainment system, so it shows whatever we’re listening to or watching.)

The display is divided vertically into left and right channels. It displays the top half of the waveform of each channel with their zero levels in the center. The two knobs control the amplitude and the sweep speed.

When set to the right speed, a strong bass note will show up as a floating red bubble. A note an octave up will be two bubbles. Notes inbetween will be a series of bubbles floating up or down the display. Of course, all the other frequencies are in there, too, so you get a much more complicated display, but the bass tends to be the most prominent. Dynamics from drums, etc. cause the width to pulse. It all ends up being quite hypnotic.

The box… well, it’s just a black box I built with a plexiglass front. Suggestions for a sexier box are welcome!

Update 10/12: I posted a video of it in action here.

37°25’57.12″N 122°10’15.72″W
A corner of the Cantor art museum at Stanford. I love the architecture.

This is one of the first pictures I’ve made with a technique called HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. It is done by taking three pictures – one exposed normally, one under exposed and one over exposed. The images are then combined to get the extra dynamic range.

37°34’47.46″N 122°20’42.32″W
This came out way different that I had originally planned, and I love it. The original photo recedes into darkness with each arch, and I was planning to go for a mysterious look to the piece. As I played around in Lightroom I found a much more interesting painterly look when I brought the shadowed areas way up into the light.

The geometry describes the space, but the colors don’t. The farthest wall is perpendicular to the other walls, which is only given away by the orientation of the window.

37°22’25.76″N 122°13’26.14″W
I went hiking today at Windy Hill, and it was a good day for pictures. This one is of cattails around Sausal Pond going to seed.

At my local Petco. Great expression on his face.

I spent much of the day working in the garage, where these lights are. A stark contrast to the rest of the week’s outdoor themes.

37°17’48.77″N 122° 8’30.26″W
I mountain biked around a big loop off Skyline Boulevard this morning. About three miles of the trial was along Stevens Creek, which even in October has some water running in it. This picture was at the bottom of Grizzly Flat Trail.

Shane and his well-chewed tennis balls.

37°18’54.35″N 122°11’17.22″W
On Russian Ridge in the morning sun.