My event was meant to just be a day of photography where photographers could get together and just be photographers; to show everyone that photographers care about our rights, and to show Ian how many people support him.

I initially called this a workshop, not a protest, as that is the vision I had - and BTW still have. So, even if in your mind this may be a protest, please keep in mind that the event itself is NOT a protest. I’m just encouraging people to go and take some pictures.

That having been said, I feel a need out of fear to be very clear about the vision for this event. We will not be getting in the faces of other people there; be they event participants, police, security, tourists, or any other group for that matter. There will be no rally, there will be no speakers, there will just be a bunch of people taking pictures and discussing the issue at hand amongst themselves as they meet.

If you’re not a photographer and were planning on coming down, feel free to do so. Just remember that your vision of a protest may likely not match my vision for this event. (if it can even be truly called an event.)

It has also come to my attention that the entire Seattle area media has been alerted. I never created a press release because I never really thought this would grow to the size it has. Kudos to the blogosphere on that one I suppose!

A quick message for the media (and everyone else for that matter…): You are welcome to come, and I hope that you choose to so that the government and public can see that there are a large many people who care about photographers rights. Just read above the initial paragraphs where I make the distinction between this event and a regular protest. Please keep the normal operations of the locks in mind. We don’t want to overwhelm them; we just want to take pictures.

If you care about this message - and it sounds from your posts like you do - than help me define the event a bit further so that its intended message persists after it is over.

Several initial thoughts are:

If you’d like to help be a “marshall” than please let me know. We can get a small group together and talk it out before the event. I was advised by an activist that this might be helpful and couldn’t agree more. These people would mainly just help make sure that nothing bad happens. If tensions get high for whatever reason, we’d talk to people. If you’re a good communicator, please let me know. We can discuss everything in more depth in a few days.

I don’t envision problems or issues, but I just feel that better safe than sorry is a good credo to live by.

Julie Leung of Seedlings and Sprouts is planning a Seattle area blogger picnic on Bainbridge Island for this Saturday.

We just went to Bainbridge last weekend and had a great time in the little downtown area near the ferry. Enough so that I’ll be returning for this event.

I’ll likely take the 8:45 or 9:35 so I won’t be rushed by the timing of the 10:40, but will take that one if I’m too sleepy… I’ll be riding bike down to the ferry terminal and onto the boat, and will grab some coffee at Blackbird Bakery and hang for a bit before going up to the market to meet.

If you’re taking an early boat, stop by and say hi and we can trot up the hill to the market together.

I feel recently a sincere need to speak out and use my voice to help change the world. To that effect, find here another cause I take deeply to heart.

The American Lung Association of WA is planning climbs of Rainier in July to benefit their fight for clean air and eradication of diseases like lung cacner. My family has been crushed by cancer. It has left many a death in its trails (my dad, my grandpa, my grandma) and has hit others with it who have fought it off due to the more recent advances in medical technology (my other grandpa and my cousin). My daughter, although cancer free has regular appointments for other issues at the Children’s Hospital Hematology/Oncology Clinic and I see the affected families on every visit.

My sister is coming to Seattle to climb Rainier in late July. She didn’t know about the ALAW climbs, but is doing her part to contribute to the cause regardless. If you care about cancer and it’s eradication, please take a moment to read the below. If it moves you, shes has details on how to donate to the American Cancer Society for her climb.

As most of you know, I have been preparing to climb Mt. Rainier at the end of July. In addition to my physical conditioning and all of the logistical preparations, I have recently decided to add an extra meaningful element to the event.

I have contacted the local chapter of the American Cancer Society about using my climb to raise money to donate to the ACS (a walk-a-thon of sorts ñ only vertical in orientation!). A portion of the monies I raise will be donated in the name of my father who passed away from skin cancer in 1983 and a portion of the monies I raise will be donated in dedication to my grandfather who is recovering from breast cancer.

This adds an indescribable dimension and meaning to this summit attempt. My love of long distance hiking and mountaineering can now also simultaneously honor two people I love deeply and will raise monies to help fund research for the detection, treatment, and eventually a cure for various cancers.

As this is not an official ACS event, there are two ways you can donate if you elect to do so. You can either send cash or checks payable to me directly to me at: __Her personal address removed pending permission to post it__. All of these monies will be added together and sent by me in one check to the American Cancer Society. For those of you who feel more comfortable sending money directly to the American Cancer Society, checks (which should have both Cynthia M. OíLeary and in memory of Jerome Lee OíLeary written on the memo
line) made payable to the American Cancer Society can be sent to:

American Cancer Society
Attn: David
4940 Van Nuys Blvd.
#301
Sherman Oaks, California 91403

The ACS will contact me about a month after the climb to let me know who donated, so I can personally thank everyone.

Please do not feel any obligation to donate money, but please do send me your positive energy and thoughts on July 29th and 30th. Please also feel free to pass this email along to friends, family, and colleagues.

Thanks in advance and Iíll give you all the details of my climb at the beginning of August.

Cindy

Please post a comment if you donate to the ACS so she can match up contact information with your name. I’m not sure how much info besides names the ACS will send her, and we both feel it important to personally thank you for your generosity.

How you may ask, does this relate to photography? Well, I have yet to broach the subject with my sister, so I will post in a day or two after I have confirmed she is on board with my idea. I am fairly confident she will agree, but out of respect refuse to speak for her without first speaking to her.

I dug this tip out of the latest issue of the Building Brands e-newsletter. It shows the drastic importance of punctuation in all your materials, be they a web-site, an e-newsletter, a press release, etc…

See how punctuation impacts the following words:

A woman, without her man, is nothing.

A woman: without her, man is nothing.

Make sure you take the time to proof-read your site, or if you are not able, hire someone to do so for you. Bad spelling and grammar won’t get you clients.

Jay Leno made the most intelligent arguement against this that I’ve heard to date.

Ever since 9/11, the administration has been saying, “we won’t cancel the Superbowl, if we do, the terrorists have won,” “We can’t stop flying, becasue if we do, the terrorists have won,” “We can’t live our lives in fear, because then the terrorists have won.”

But, go ahead and take away our Constitutional right to vote as a democracy. The ONE thing that made the US the US. Go ahead and take away our freedom, that’s A-OK.

I think not.

Bush, by even suggesting this, you are almost as big a terrorist, because you’re eroding our country’s structural freedoms.

I refuse to allow out country to continue to be ruled by an administration that is starting to make us live our lives in fear. If we can have the Superbowl and fly, then we damn well can take the day to vote.

Thank goodness it’ll take not only a Constitutional ammendment, but also an Ammendment to each state’s constitution. A hurdle I hope is large enough to never overcomce, because if it happens, then the terrorists have won, they will have taken away our system of Democracy.

The next step is jail for people like me for making posts like this…

I think my mind is starting to be made up for which way I’ll vote in November (that is, if I get the chance…)

I just discovered a damn nasty trick spammers are starting to use to get past Outlook 2003’s ability to block image download for potentially unsafe images.

For those unaware, Outlook 2003 specifically stops HTML email images from being downloaded unless you specifically allow them. There are severl aways to do this: a per message basis; and a safe sender list.

My personal account is on a domain where several users send HTML emails here and there. I got tired of downloading them individually and just marked the domain on my safe senders list. I also have my settings so those on my safe senders list allow image donwloads automatically.

What are spammers doing now? They are forging the from address to appear to come from a random user at MY domain! Easy enough for me to fix since there are only several users (I’ll add them specifically as safe senders and remove the domain as safe,) but let’s say you’re at a company of 50, or 100, or heaven forbid, 50,000! Will you really mark each individual person’s email as safe? NO, you’ll mark the domain as safe.

Given that, if you want to avoid spammer’s from using graphical web bugs, you can either choose to shut down auto download of images for safe domains, not add your own domain to the safe domains list (and have to download them EACH time,) or deal with the fact that you are no longer afforded any protection.

Time for the PMs at Microsoft to take a second look. The functionality was an EXCELLENT idea, but it looks like the bad guys finally found a way around it. Let’s go back to the drawing board please…

Please see the update

Results to be seen here

Ian, at Brown = Terrorist relates a recent and rather disgusting trampling of his constitutional rights.

I then saw a Seattle Police patrol vehicle driving on a nearby path, one that was inaccessible to the public, and parking in the hilltop parking lot. At that point, I knew what was coming. A few minutes later, I watched in dismay as eight men descended from the parking lot, down the hill, making a bee-line for me and my tripod.

One of the Seattle policemen, using his strongest, most authoritative voice, gripping his holstered sidearm, was now demanding to see my ID. I asked what this was about and why I had to show him my ID. ìLook, we can do this one of two ways. You show me your ID right now! I’m not kidding!î the cop yelled.

Let me be the first to admit to my total loss of composure. Eight grown men, five of which were in uniform and wearing sidearms, now surrounded me. I just had a camera, a tripod, and a bad flashback to Rodney King. You bet I was emotional. How composed would you be?

I read this at Eclecticism. I must admit, my first reaction was disgust. My second reaction after reading the first hand account was sadness. A sadness so deep I actually stopped and cried for a few minutes.

In response, I will be trying to organize a photo shoot at the Locks as a means of protest. Anyone else who cares about our rights as Americans to photograph interseting PUBLIC subjects are welcome to join me. If you are a photographer in Seattle, please consider coming.

If you are hesitant (and this is fair given what already happened) at least pass this on to others you know who may want to come along. Feel free to post the link to any and all boards that may have folks who would come (I’ll be posting to dpchallenge in just a few minutes after this post goes live.)

DETAILS:
Sunday August 1st, 2004
1PM - 4PM
We’ll meet at the front gates at just before 1PM, if you’re late, just look for the gaggle of tripods inside the property by the locks.

Besides being a protest of sorts, this location is a wonderful spot to just photograph in general. The locks themselves, the boats, the spill-over, the salmon ladder, the statues, the scenery, the railroad bridge; all offer a plethora of subjects.

Please leave a comment if you plan on showing up so we can try to get an idea of how many will be showing up. If you don’t want your name being publicly accessible, then sign with a pseudonym.

Please see the update

Results to be seen here

This post on FreelanceWriting.com talks about the most checked out eBooks.

When I read that, I wondered almost aloud, “checked out!??!”

Yep. It seems that a company called Overdrive offers eBooks and eBook checkout systems to library systems. You can check their site to see if they support the library near you.

It turns out that the King County Library System is one of the supported libraries and has an eBook site. You can search for, check out, and place holds on eBooks! I just donwloaded two eBooks with checkout periods of 28 days each. This is a GREAT advancement!!

Looks like Acrobat Reader 6.0 or MobiPocket Reader is required. That’s a bit of a bummer considering that there is no free PocketPC option yet. I wrote to their support alias, so we’ll see what happens.

With Microsoft being an OverDrive supporter, I find it hard to believe that DRM enabled .lit access is not offered…

I got turned onto a great web site for both Seattle companies, as well as freelance workers in Seattle.

Freelance Seattle offers both a discussion list for freelancers to discuss any and all freelance related topics, but also gives a place for Seattle area business to hook up with Seattle based freelancers.

They say:

Welcome to the Pacific Northwest’s ultimate Rolodex of freelance and contract talent. Whatever your requirements, the right person is just waiting for your e-mail.

This site is a must visit for both local companies AND local freelancers. Check it out!