Deve’s Blog

promotion NOUN

1 a move to a higher level in a company, institution, or sport
We try to fill our executive positions by promotion from within.
get/win/gain promotion: His number one objective is to get a promotion.
promotion to: his promotion to a position of leadership
2 the activity of encouraging or supporting something
A key element of his economic program is the promotion of free trade and investment.
The campaign is concerned with the promotion of health.
3 the process of attracting people’s attention to a product or event, for example by advertising
a ban on the promotion of tobacco products
the budget for advertising and promotions

See definition number 1…

Nosing around on the Flickr Blog I ran into a particular story… Matt Green decided to walk the USA, coast to coast (reminiscence of Forrest Gump?), telling about his journey on this blog. On foot, from Rockaway Beach (New York) to Rockaway Beach (Oregon), carrying what he needs in a cart, camping in farms, or in the woods if needed.
In this page he tells about the reason he decided to do it… a reason which actually isn’t there…

The nice thing is that his blog posts are not a travel diary; they’re impressions, flashes, observations about little or weird things you can only see if you slow down, at the speed of your feet. Most of the times his posts are only made up of a picture (which is uploaded on Flickr, of course) and a line of text (or even just a word). They’re nice to browse through… I started from the beginning and got as far as the beginning of May. It seems Matt has actually walked quite a lot, judging by the map on his blog homepage… I’m curious to keep reading.

In the meantime, I’ll link down here my favourite posts so far:

Day 14: “hibernated” signs
Day 15: conspiracies…
Day 21: tracks
Day 23: doesn’t look that comfy to me…
Day 25: interesting
Day 27: Randy and Curt
Day 28: fragment of a letter
Day 32: what a story…
Day 34: genius…
Day 39: hot!
Day 39: nice

(last pictures!)

After leaving Banff, we had a whole day of travel ahead of us, with not a lot of things to see after the “indigestion” of the previous days… The destination for the day was Vernon, a pleasant city in British Columbia, renowned for… well, not much I think… for us, it was merely a night stop, no point in lying. But we had to get back to Vernon somehow, right?

Along the way we stopped first to visit some anonymous waterfalls (I honestly can’t remember the name), then at the observation point for Big Hill Spiral Tunnels, two tunnels in an 8-shape that allow trains to climb a remarkable height without an excessively steep slope… nice, but unfortunately if there’s no train going through there’s not much to see… The main highlights of the following two stops were a nice squirrel, peeking from a hole in the asphalt of the stop area, and a nice ice-cream in a local farm / ice-cream shop. Then we got to Vernon and the day was over!

Ok, not quite, in Vernon we had an included Chinese dinner, not so great honestly (and please tell me: if I’m visiting Canada, why are the included dinners spaghetti, pizza, Chinese… which have nothing to do with Canada?!). Then we set up our own party in one of the hotel rooms, high-school trip style, with a bit of booze from the supermarket in front of the hotel, as we didn’t have many other options… fun things were Franck with an open umbrella, neck massage lessons and a few laughs together…

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I’ve never been a big fan of black and white. After all, the world is in color… I like colors. Indeed, when I’m touching up my pictures I usually push on saturation and contrast, sometimes even a bit too much, so that the blues, oranges and reds pop out…
Still, I have to admit that some pictures can look good even in black and white; furthermore, I’ve always been intrigued by the technique that leaves some colored elements on black and white pictures or movies (as in Schindler’s List or Sin City).
So, even if I’m still a fan of color pictures, I decided to make some attempts of black and white conversions, mostly to practice a bit with the various techniques. Here’s the small (so far) photo set.

First of all, when using digital cameras you’re better off shooting in color rather than using the dedicated “black and white” settings. That’s because when using those settings, the camera is simply doing what you’d be doing later on Photoshop, but without giving us any kind of control on it (or at least, with a much reduced control and without the chance to “undo” and try a different setting).
The two methods I used in Photoshop, which offer a different kind of control but good results in both cases, are the Channel Mixer and the Image Calculations, following the tips found in this article.

As regards the touches of color on black and white, this post shows the two main methods; a third way I’d like to point out is the simple use of the Quick Selection Tool or the Magic Wand, if the object you want to keep colored is good for that kind of selections. You can also use the History Brush, which is more immediate to use but IMHO harder to correct in case of mistakes; anyway, conceptually it’s the same thing as the standard brush usage described in the first post.
In any case, the basic concept is simple: once you have the black and white image, put it in a layer on top of the color one, and with the chosen method (brush, color range, selection) create a mask to “filter” the color so it gets visible. That’s it!

UPDATE: looking around a bit more, I found this post which lists 12 different ways to go black and white… the most interesting are the first one (probably the most complete but also the most time-consuming) and the dedicated Black and White Adjustment in Photoshop CS3.

(photo set here)

After getting to Banff in the afternoon, we went on to take possession of our rooms, some very nice 4-people chalets; but Mike and I got like and had one all for us… They’re just out of town, but in a few minutes by taxi or 20 minutes on foot you can get there easily.

After a shower we headed to the Bow River Falls, for the traditional group photo… with a little accident… good ol’ Bear, next to me in the pic, lost his balance and fell from the little wall we were standing on… trying to keep up, he hanged on to me, literally ripping off a part of my polo shirt, under the right arm! We had no time to get back to the hotel, but fortunately the temperature was quite cool, so I could cover up the problem by wearing a cardigan…

The dinner was included, honestly I can’t remember the place… maybe it was Melissa’s Restaurant? Could be… dinner was not bad, even if there wasn’t any really nifty food; we stayed in the bar are for a while, playing pool and foosball, before Ron led us to Wild Bill’s Saloon (dedicated to the Bill Peyto whose name was given to the omonimous lake…) for a cocktail and some country music, before getting a taxi back to the hotel.

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Here’s the photo set…

So far, western Canada had almost only given us rain… and rain… and more rain… Well, we were repayed on July 25th with the clearest and sunniest day since we had landed in Vancouver… just when we had to travel along the scenic route called “Icefields Parkway“! Priceless!

We left at 8 o’ clock sharp, and Ron had told us he woudln’t have any qualm leaving behind anyone who was late, as the day was packed with things to see… I tried to get there way before 8, so I could get the front row seats, but I was beaten by Kylie by a few minutes, so I had to make do with the second row…

The Icefields Parkway runs between Jasper and Banff, parallel to the Continental Divide of north-western America (the so-called “Great Divide”), that is the mountain range separating the rivers flowing into the Pacific Ocean from the rivers flowing into the Arctic or Atlantic Ocean. What is peculiar of this highway is the beautiful sight on the many glaciers of the Greati Divide, with waterfalls, lakes and rivers nearby.

And indeed, just travelling along the road is a show in itself, and on that day we really saw lots of “rocks and trees”!

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Last Sunday, during the morning, I went outside for a walk to the “usual” landmarks of Milan, to test my new Nikkor 10-24 lens…
But I think I need to take a step back, as I haven’t yet dedicated a post on the blog to my Nikon D90 reflex, which I bought around a year ago…

Before digital cameras came around, I didn’t use cameras much… and come on, with films and their limited shots, and the time it took to develop the film and realize which photos came out nice and which didn’t (when it was too late already), they weren’t very friendly…
Moving to the digital era, I became a user of Casio’s Exilm cameras, from the simple zoomless S3 (but it was very small and thin for those times), to the excellent Z-750, on to the curious EX-V7 (7x internal zoom, at the expense of image quality, which was a bit lower than the 750). What I always loved about Exilims, which for other aspects were actually worse than their competitors, was the possibility to use them in full manual mode. After taking a few shots I was indeed getting intrigued about techniques like long exposures for night shots, or playing around with depth of field, so manual control was needed.

Still, what those little cameras could do was still limited, and after seeing some travel companions with their DSLRs (in Canada, Peru, Cuba…), after some careful researching, as I desired a greater control on pictures and a better quality especially for night shots, I went for the buy, in time for a field test in China.
At first I was interested in the Canon 500D, but I ended up going on the Nikon D90, which I preferred mainly because of the better quality in high ISO pictures (ironically, that’s due to the fact that the 500D has more megapixels than the D90, which is probably too much for the size of the sensor…), and because the D90 is a little step up in terms of functionalities.

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After… way, way too much time… still following my good intentions, I’ll get back to the travel diary of my trip to Canada, 2007… maybe my memories will be a bit blurred by now, but let’s try, also with the help of the usual pics.
So where were we? Kamloops, a stop between Whistler and Jasper.
As I woke up I felt a bit of fever… just on the day we where supposed to go rafting… And, for a change, it’s still raining…
We left, and travelled the whole morning, going from British Columbia to Alberta (on the notes of “Alberta Bound” by Gordon Lightfoot). The bad weather even spoils the view of the tallest mount of the Canadian Rockies, Mount Robson, of which otherwise we could have had a great view from the rest stop where we had lunch.

That’s where the rafting guys came to pick us up and take us to the Fraser River, the same river that flows into the sea by Vancouver, but that to the north-east is good enough for some medium-levle rafting.
Getting “dressed” in the rafting wetsuit and boots was curious… they made us change under the rain (a light rain, fortunately) withouth ceremonies… and the inside of the wetsuit was not dry at all…
Oh well; I still didn’t feel very well, but we got a paddle and split on several rafts, starting the navigtaion… I must say the experience wasn’t so great for me, maybe also because of the rain and cold… but still, there weren’t many exciting rapids, and a good part of the navigation was a bit boring. We even had to walk around the toughest rapids, because they were considered too dangerous… Near the end we also had the chance to jump in the river for an icy bath, but considering my conditions I decided to avoid that…

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Damn it… I didn’t like Venezia much as a city (see this post)… but now it’s official, I also hate Mestre and its fucking storms that come out of nowhere in an hour…
At least not everything was a disaster for this Heineken Jammin’ Festival of mine…

Saturday, July 3rd, we entered the park around 2.30 pm, relaxing under a little tree, then walking through the (useless) water atomizers, then Stereophonics (I didn’t know them but they were not bad at all), then we get closer to the stage for the Cranberries. Dolores was in great shape, excellent concert, and having heard Zombie live is a nice “kill notch on my rifle”, so to speak…
And then Aerosmith… we were all worried about how Steven Tyler would sing, as it seemed he was going to leave the band just a few months ago… then he went to a clinic to “clean up”… 62 years old…
So I think everyone shat their pants when, at the end of the second songs, he screams a high note… and begins coughing heavily… … “oh fuck”… but he waves to us to hold on… catches his breath… AND BURPS LOUDLY IN THE MICROPHONE!!
He was having fun with us all… and from then one he pulled off a brilliant performance to say the least, with the highlights being, for me, “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” and obviously “Dream On”; he sang them perfectly, as if they were recorded… shivers and goose bumps… The setlist was almost complete, maybe it missed “Dude” and “Crazy”, but almost everthing else was in there.
Awesome concert.

Sunday, July 4th, same routine, resting in the shadow of another little tree… Rise Against played a decent music, then Editors, sounding like Depeche Mode clones (and I don’t like Depeche much), then the horrible 30 Seconds to Mars, really awful. Unfortunately, during their concert a huge black cloud got closer and closer… the wind was crazy continuously, changing directions, and for a while it seems like the cloud would avoid us and head straight for Venice… but then it goes back and the first raindrops come down. The 30 Seconds must stop the concert, and so we ran for cover, just in time, under one of the food stand tents.
One and a half hour of downpour, with a moment of real violence (they said 80mm of water came down in half an hour). At 9.30 pm we finally left the tent, but there were 10cm of water in front of the stage, and the concert was cancelled… we walked through water and mud, got a bus to Mestre, walked to the hotel, had a kebab, a shower and went to bad… huge disappointement…
For the time being, Green Day will keep playing only in my iPod… but we’ll try again…

Good intentions. Again. To write more on the blog. Work is not an excuse anymore; it seems unreal, but after May 15th if I’m not just fooling around at the office, I’m quite close to that.
And so I’m writing.
I’m writing about Ligabue’s new record, “Arrivederci, mostro!” (”Goodbye, monster!”). I must confess I wasn’t expecting it with a lot of impatience, maybe because I felt it was going be a certain kind of record that wasn’t going to amaze or elate me.

A little introduction: my love for Liga dates back to secondary school (1995) and, as many others I think, to the timeless “Buon Compleanno, Elvis!” and its “Certe Notti”, which was for many the initiation to Ligabue. From there I began discovering the older records (which ended up being my studying companions, together with Litfiba), then the wait for the double live “Tra Palco e Realtà”, then the subscription to the Fan Club… and finally the first concert. My first Liga’s concert, my first concert overal, maybe a bit late: 2002, San Siro. First we endured the rain shower, then we enjoyed being right under the stage… and from there I started following Liga in a string of concerts… Palaignis in Varese, Palamalaguti in Bologna, Teatro Medica in Bologna, two fan club meetings in Modena, one at the Festa dell’Unità in Reggio, the humongous Campovolo, then the Alcatraz, San Siro again, the Arcimboldi, Assago Forum and the marvellous frame of Verona Arena…
Sure, some are waaaaaaay crazier than me, but I can say I hold my own.

Lately, though, I must say my passion for Ligabue has decreased a bit… who knows, maybe I had too much of it… but I can say that I didn’t find “Miss Mondo” as good as the previous records… “Fuori Come Va?” was better again, I liked it a lot… but “Nome e Cognome” didn’t capture me much. Yes I have to say it, musically speaking Liga doesn’t convince me as much as in the past… less rock, more melodic/pop… less new stuff, more similarities to old stuff…

That’s why I didn’t expect much more from “Arrivederci, mostro!”. And indeed it isn’t more. After the first listen I didn’t notice anything especially new, with the exception of the marvellous and at the same time terrifying “Quando Mi Vieni a Prendere”, which tells about the tragedy of Dendermonde nursery in Belgium, from the viewpoint of a child. A very unusual track for Liga, but it really turned out perfect.

And still… and still, Liga is Liga. Just in the same way as I rediscovered “Nome e Cognome” after a few years, also this record, after listening to it more carefully, can pull out that special something…

It can’t be helped, Liga can always catch me, and I realized why.
Because when he wants, even if sometimes it’s only in parts of a record, he can write that kind of music that gets inside you and can touch the right strings… a solo, a chorus, a verse…
Because, even if he isn’t creating many new things, he always pulls off those catchy songs you end up singing in the street or under the shower…
Because even if his music hasn’t always convinced me recently, his lyrics always strike… sometimes they might seem trivial, but it’s rare when Liga doesn’t sing little big truths…
Because his tracks have that feature that I think is fundamental to make you fall in love for a song: they can be universal. They had a meaning to the one who wrote them, and it shows… but at the same time they’re indefinite enough to allow everyone to “wear them”… to make them his own… to live them in a way, and relive them in another way after years…
And exactly because of this, because Liga is always there when you need him… when you think too much and you want to keep hurting yourself (metaphorically speaking)… when you don’t want to think, but to smile… when you want to scream towards the sky…

Oh yes, Liga is Liga.

Objective vote: 6/7
Vote for Liga: 8 e 1/2