Houston.BloggersPub

Previous trips have benefited from online resources like Tripadvisor to get insight into which hotels to reserve and sites like Expedia and Travelocity to secure plane tickets. We’ve even used city/state/country sponsored tourism sites to gather valuable information about our destinations.

This will be the first trip for us to use social networking as a means to enhance our vacation.

It’s been less than one day since I started my social networking experiment and I have already made 3 contacts.

Via Twitter I have met Iwan, a Dutchman living in Spain for the last several years working as an IT architect, and John who is a transplant to Spain from the UK. John has been living in a suburb of Valencia for the last 20 years working as a professional translator, translating Spanish to English.

I love John’s e-mail signature which includes a clickable link to his geographic location (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.637,-0.6195).

Via Flickr I have met Manel. Manel does not speak very good English, but he’s an avid photographer and is an active Flickr user. His photo-stream includes pictures of a photowalk in Valencia. He and his friends look like the Spanish equivalent of any handful of Assignment Houston photogs.

They’ve all been very kind and receptive to my social networking experiment, each offering to answer questions and even meet up when Cynthia and I arrive in Spain for the festival.

We’re off to a good start.

Face it, they are usually scripted and boring, but sometimes we get something interesting.  Uncle Barky lays down the top 10 televised political convention moments.  As he says "Some are odd, others eventful. All made their marks."

SEE THE LIST

Will Al Gore show up at this year's Democratic National Convention and do a number from MTV's America's Best Dance Crew (Season 2)?

Cynthia and I are going to Valencia, Spain next year for Las Fallas. As an experiment I am reaching out via Twitter and other social networking sites to see if I can make contact with technically and socially like-minded individuals in Valencia with the idea that I can glean more information about our destination from a person or persons who actually live there, and possibly have one or more contacts when we arrive.

Right now I am using the search feature of Twitter to see who lists Valencia as their home.

Right off the bat I have encountered some stumbling blocks.

1. Must weed through erroneous search results for Valencia, Venezuela and Valencia, California
2. Natives of Valencia, Spain tend to twitter in Spanish or Valencian (Catalan).
3. Erroneous results due to the recent Formula One Grand Prix held in Valencia

I have reached out to a few I have encountered that list Valencia, Spain as their home and that have twittered in English. One in particular appears to work in the IT field so I am hopeful.

Next up I am going to search around on Flickr which I actually think might be more promising. Socially networking photogs tend to be a friendly bunch as evidenced by the recent Assignment Houston gathering at the Houston Museum of Natural Science

I’m not sure how this will turn out but it should be interesting.

Houstonist's Katharine Shilcutt Gleave has a nice write up about all of the restaurants on Houston's Washington Avenue. This place is hopping.

According to the littlelostrobot blog, KIAH Channel 39 has a new news director and it's the wife of the blog's author. Here is more:

The reason for drafting such a compelling resignation letter - perfectly formatted, in a classy Palatino font - is that my wife and I are relocating to Houston, Texas. That’s right, we’re heading off to “Space City” - which I really need to quit saying as a response to “Where are you moving?” because people think I’m being cagey and giving a seemingly fantastical answer.

KyAnn is excited be the news director at KIAH (the Tribune CW affiliate).

JL Watkins, who writes the blog, says his wife KyAnn is the new head of the Houston CW news department. JL lives in Greenville, South Carolina. Good luck to JL and KyAnn on the big move to Houston and I will follow the littlelostrobot blog!

Christian Lander, the media darling behind the blog and book Stuff White People Like, is interviewed by The Onion's AV Club.  Here is more on his new book.

METALLICA's New Single Is Here!
METALLICA's new single, "The Day That Never Comes", is available for streaming right now.
- Soundboard-Quality Audio Of 'Cyanide' From Arras Available
- 'The Day That Never Comes' Video Preview Available
- Performance Footage Of Two New Songs From LEEDS Available
- ULRICH On 'Death Magnetic': 'We Could Not Have Made A Better Album'
- Pro-Shot Footage Of 'The Day That Never Comes' From LEEDS Available

Coldplay Plan Album In 2009
Coldplay are planning to release a fifth album in 2009, just a year after their last chart-topping offering, "Viva La Vida".

BRET MICHAELS: New 'Rock Of Love' Season To Include Footage From ROCK THE BAYOU Festival
POISON singer Bret Michaels will be filming footage for the third season of his hit reality series "Rock Of Love" at the Rock The Bayou music bash, set to take place August 29 – September 1 on the Rock The Bayou Grounds (located between Kirby Drive and Fannin Avenue, directly south of Loop 610) in Houston, Texas.

VELVET REVOLVER's MCKAGAN Comments On LENNY KRAVITZ Rumors
Duff: Yeah, I mean, we kind of knew back in even last August when ALICE (IN CHAINS) came out and was opening for us on that tour. That's when we first started to really know this isn't going to work out with [now-former VELVET REVOLVER singer] Scott [Weiland].

Fred Durst, family film director? Seems a longshot
Fred Durst has gone from rocker to family film director. 'The Longshots,' starring Ice Cube, is helmed by the Limp Bizkit frontman, who wants to go beyond music.

The Doors Owe $5 Million to Densmore, Morrison Estate
The Doors’ Ray Manzarek and Robby Kreiger will have to pay $5 million to drummer John Densmore and the parents of Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson, Morrison’s widow, as the legal battle between the former band members finally reached its conclusion.

I just plum forgot to post this one.

I told you about isthisyour.name a few months ago. Now in the latest race to make money of text ads, here comes HowManyofMe.com.

Same idea as isthisyour.name, new url.

According to the site:

There are 1 or fewer people in the U.S. named Mike McGuff.
There are 6 people in the U.S. named Michael McGuff.

One thing HowManyofMe.com does is let you put a badge on your blog or facebook with name results.

(Thanks Nick)
[Image courtesy of Flickr user vaXzine]

This should be the last of the hummingbird photos I post this season. Unless I manage to get something that trumps all of the previous shots but I don’t see that happening right now.

On Saturday I experimented with shooting the birds in flight. To do this I put some distance between myself and the feeder to put the birds at ease. While I got some great shots, I ended up having to crop-zoom to get something that would fill the frame.

That means as good as that shot above is, that’s also it in terms of resolution and file size. It’s not printable but makes good web copy.

Same for these

Hummingbird Close

Hummingbird Close

But today I moved in closer to the feeder. The birds were quite a bit more wary and were reluctant to come in close. They did come and I imagine they will become braver if I keep it up.

What a difference a few feet make, though.

The above image is resized for the web, but the full res version is 2148×1432. That’s quite a difference for just a few feet, some serious sweat equity and a lot of patience.

I’ve learned quite a bit via this exercise about focal length and shooting fast moving targets, not to mention the capabilities and the limitations of my gear. And best of all, I had a ton of fun doing it!

Hopefully my handful of readers are not sick to death of seeing hummingbirds and haven’t abandoned all hope and moved on to less feathery region of the Internet.