It finally happened: today I thought to myself, “A fisheye lens would be really useful right now.”

Oh well.

Snow. Lots of snow. It was good to play in it again.

I spent this past weekend snowboarding in the mountains near Lake Tahoe, and nature came through with plenty of snow.

After a 230-mile drive that took over 8 hours due to traffic and weather, I was ready for relaxation. The beautiful condo my group stayed at helped things, but the blue skies, perfect temperatures, and lots of fresh powder the next morning really set the mood.

We spent the day at Alpine Meadows, where I did my first snowboarding in a year or two. When it comes to snowboarding, I don’t claim to be skilled, but I always enjoy it. The view from many of the slopes featured beautiful Lake Tahoe. The whole experience reminded me of my first snowboarding in the Rockies, when I went to Steamboat in 2003: good fun with great snow.

The second day found us at Squaw Valley, which is just up the road from Alpine Meadows. A storm brought a fresh dumping of snow overnight, and it continued dumping throughout the day. Unfortunately, the storm also brought high winds. In fact, the winds were so fierce that Squaw closed the upper half of mountain. The one good thing about the storm, besides the new snow, was that many people stayed home, so the runs and lifts were nearly empty.

Around mid afternoon, we decided to head out before the storm caused transportation problems. I drove the Outback out there, which seemed to love its return to the snow, but the best car in the world is no match for traffic congestion. After a very, very slow crawl west from Truckee along a snowy, chain-controlled I-80, we made good time back home (only 6 hours driving time). It could have been far worse: CalTrans closed the freeway a couple hours after our departure.

Good times. I think that south Lake Tahoe will be in the plans next year.

We are what we eat, and that is corn.

Two of the creators of King Corn were on campus this evening for a screening of their film. It was an interesting look at modern American agriculture, specifically the journey of corn from bare ground all the way to your stomach. The take-aways: corn is in pretty much everything these days, and a lot of technology goes into getting it there.

Despite less-than-definitive science justifying my actions, I’ve spent the last couple of years trying to avoid foods with processed corn as an ingredient. It’s difficult to avoid things like corn syrup, but it’s nearly impossible to avoid corn in domestically produced animal products such as meat, eggs, and dairy. Even if overconsumption of corn derivatives isn’t harmful, I figure I’m doing no worse by avoiding it.

Sorry House.

In recent days, I’ve begun paying more attention to photos in the media: who shot them, how the scenes were lit, the composition, and so on. Oh yeah, one more thing: when they were taken.

This would seem to be a non-starter. Photos published in daily and weekly newspapers about current events are taken within the previous few days, right? Not necessarily.

The first time I noticed this was in an article about Betty’s Pies that was published in the Star Tribune last summer (sorry, can’t find the link) . It was the typical fawning piece of prose, singing the praises of pie on the North Shore. OK, whatever — Betty’s Pies makes decent pie. The thing that got my attention wasn’t the article, it was the photo that went with it. A large, color view of… the Betty’s Pies building that was torn down in 2002. The new building is nothing like the old one; it isn’t even in the same spot. Way to go, guys.

I noticed the same sort of thing this evening while searching for images of the basketball game to compare to my own. A local paper ran an article about the game, so I took a closer look. Look at the photo, read the caption, and then compare the photos to the AP gallery. That’s right: the jerseys are different! Either the team quickly switched uniforms for that one shot or the photo is quite old.

I don’t have a problem with newspapers using file photos, but perhaps they should at least be certain that the photos match present reality.

Courtside tickets? Free! Just one catch: there was work to be done.

Saturday marked my first time at a Stanford basketball game. It also marked my first acquisition of a significant media credential. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

There I was, sitting at the baseline, with a photographer from the San Jose Mercury News at my left and a photographer for the AP at my right, taking photos of the game. In all, there were about seven of us shooting.

Things started off badly for me. My timing was off, and my frustration was leading to AF misses. After a half-hour or so, I got into the groove, and my images showed significant improvement.

Two fun highlights from the game:  First, I got to kick away a basketball as it was flying towards me.  Second, I took three photos during the game that were blown out by the house strobes, which were controlled by the AP photog.  That means that my shutter was open at the exact moment that the strobes were triggered, which is unlikely when you consider my 1/400 second shutter speed.

I haven’t decided exactly which photos I’m going to submit to the paper. I’ve narrowed it down to about seven options, but I’d like to limit my submission to the best four or five. Even then, there are no guarantees that any of them will run.

Even if none of my photos see print, I’m glad I had the opportunity to be at the game: I had fun.

The options are currently on Flickr with the basketball tag.