Crunched

There’s a [Crunch Fitness][crunch soma] next to Wikipedia that has got to be the unhappiest Crunch fitness in the world.

On most days, there are trainers standing outside it trying to convince you to join. But mostly they looked pissed off because the masses queuing up for Sushiritto are blocking their entrance. Sweaty overpriced gym vs. sushi in a giant flour tortilla? It’s simple math really.

I started wondering how that Crunch was still in business. Then it started to wonder why I wondered.

Finally, I came to the conclusion is that you can’t see anyone one of the treadmills from New Montgomery street. I think 90% of the reason people go to gyms is because they want to be seen. Even my local YMCA (which looks like it was built to double as a fallout shelter) situations the treadmills next to street side windows.

This [introvert][] then realized a gym membership is not for him.

It would be interesting to give a personality test to gym rats and home workout DVD people.

[crunch soma]: http://www.yelp.com/biz/crunch-san-francisco-27 “Crunch – Soma – San Francisco, CA — Yelp”
[sushirrito]: http://www.sushirrito.com/ “Shushirrito San Francisco: A Fresh Way To Roll”
[introvert]: http://terrychay.com/article/my-personality.shtml “My personality”

The neighboring McDonald's

My co-workers are constantly amazed and appalled about my obsession with [McDonald’s trivia][stuff i should know]. Most common comment once I get started: “How are you **not** writing the Wikipedia article about this?”

One of the weird talents is the knowledge of every McDonald’s in San Francisco (I’ve been FourSquare mayor of most of them). There aren’t that many.

Because of this, one of the strangest pairs are the two McDonald’s on Market Street which are less than a half block from each other. You can actually see the one from the other.

I thought about this while I stopped by one as I picked up [breakfast][mcmusings] at one and walked passed the other on my way to work. Are people so lazy that they need to put two McDonald’s right next to each other? In fact, there are four McDonald’s within a few blocks of each other here, but there are none north of Golden Gate Park where I live. Is McDonald’s too high brow for the Avenues that it can only be services by a Jack In The Box and Taco Bell?

Then it occurs to me that the clientele is notably different between the two. It’s mostly because one has nearly no seating and therefore doesn’t smell like a bathroom got backed up, which is doubly odd because the smelly one doesn’t actually have a bathroom.

I’m thinking of calling one the “[high class Market McDonalds][]” and the other “[low class Market McDonalds][].” (I’m adding the term “Market” because the one on Front Street is actually nicer than both.)

My faith in the world of business was restored.

If you’re ever in the Financial District stop by all four sometime and you’ll know what I mean.

[stuff i should know]: http://terrychay.com/article/stuff-i-should-know.shtml “Stuff I should know”
[mcmusings]: http://terrychay.com/article/mcmuffins.shtml “McMusings”
[high class McDonald’s]: http://www.yelp.com/biz/mcdonalds-san-francisco-10 “McDonald’s SOMA San Francisco—Yelp”
[low class McDonald’s]: http://www.yelp.com/biz/mcdonalds-san-francisco-27 “McDonald’s SOMA San Francisco—Yelp”

The Washington Monument (and me)

From my Uncle Francis:

Hello Terry,

Your birthday is coming soon (6/9/12). Happy birthday to you, Terry.

We hope for your & Marie’s continued success & happyness.

I am sorry for not communicating with you. I am still OK but have to do many medical checkup and others.

I have been looking at old photos in an album was sent by my + your mom’s mom after we lost our home by fire in 1991.
I found a photo of you, Ken, & your mom at the Washington Monument, all in smile. What a happy time that was! I often
wish that your mom is still here. She would have be mighty happy and proud of you and Kenny becoming so successful.

Uncle Francis & Auntie Clara

PS: I am a novice at Photoshop to retouch, hence, sorry for the photo being a kind of old faint yellowish look. A higher resolution (but without retouch) picture is attached.

Terry, Mom, and Ken at Washington D.C. (1973)

Me, Mom, and Ken at Washington D.C. (1973)
National Mall, Washington D.C.

Pentax K

(Of course, I retouched it in Aperture.)

Here are two stories inspired by the photo, I’ll share with you on my birthday.Continue reading Washington Monument stories after the jump

Emma (and DxO Optics Pro 7/FilmPack 3)

It’s time to stop [recharging my batteries][recharging batteries] and start blogging and photographing again.

The first long slog will be starting to bring my Aperture Library up-to-date, but when I started, I got distracted that [DxO Optics Pro][dxo optics pro] was upgraded to version 7. I decided to spring for an update for it and the [FilmPack][dxo filmpack].

I dug up an unprocessed photo of [Kara’s][kara] daughter, Emma and took tested my two new toys ([via Catapult][catapult workflow]):

Emma

Emma
The Richmond, San Francisco, California

Olympus E-PL3, Lumix G 20/F1.7
1/60sec @ ƒ1.7, ISO200, 20mm (40mm)

You can mouseover to see the original image. Even at thumbnail size you can see the distortion fixes an that DxO recovered actually recovered some extra data. The color and saturation improvements are mostly due to picking the right film stock to emulate.

It’ll nice to get back out into the world again. 🙂

[recharging batteries]: http://terrychay.com/article/recharging-personality-batteries.shtml “Your personality recharges your batteries”
[dxo optics pro]: http://dxo.com/us/photo/dxo_optics_pro “DxO Optics Pro: Introduction—DxO”
[dxo filmpack]: http://dxo.com/us/photo/dxo_optics_pro “DxO Filmpack—DxO”
[kara]: http://www.karaemurphy.me/ “karaemurphy.me”
[catapult workflow]: http://terrychay.com/article/unsupported-raw-apple-aperture.shtml “Unsupported RAW workflow in Apple Aperture”