The Plane Ride to Detroit

Here's Chiang Kai Shek Airport near Taipei. A typhoon was fast approaching from the south, and was supposedly due to wreak some kind of havoc on our island on the morning of my flight; apparently, the Philipines took it on the chin a couple of days previous. At home, there was nonstop drizzling for a few days before my departure.

When I got to the airport the evening before my morning flight, I would stick my head outside every couple of hours to see how things were progressing; at about 10pm, I noticed that the wind picked up, and the rain was coming down in sheets. But the "Big Board" kept insisting that NW70 would depart "On Time;" and it did. In the morning, all was calm, if not exactly bright.

I have to admit something; due to sleep deprivation and general fatigue, I failed to note where I saw this collection of classic paintings. So I won't insult anyone by saying they were in the wrong airport. This isn't the first time I'd seen fine art like this in an airport. It is a little weird to think of folks rushing past this stuff to catch a plane, but...there you have it.

Sorry about the lighting on these images. I thought of trying to "fix" this digitally, but gave up; maybe I'll revisit that later. I did, however, adjust the hi-res images for the fisheye effect, followed by tweaks for perspective, prior to reducing them by 50%.

Well! Here's something I'd never done before; take arial photos! I didn't have the best seat in the house for this job—I had to tilt the camera to avoid getting bits of the wing in the shots, then digitally rotate the images on my laptop.

I just liked this cloudscape.

I think this shot (on the right) is somewhere in Canada.

I just liked the contrast and balance between the sky above and the chiselled texture of the land below.

I wanted to capture something that would convey a sense of "The Frozen North," as we say in the U.S., and I think this picture does it. Note the snow on the frozen water.

And, finally, I wanted to catch a shot of an outlying area of Detroit.

Here's my father. As can be expected, he's touring me around his house, showing off all his handiwork. And there's no getting around it; after all these years, he's still a very handy guy.

Witness this fascinating drawer arrangement. He nestled one drawer under another; you have to pull out that larger one before you can get at the smaller, hidden just behind it. Is this useful? Good "design thinking"? I suppose there could be arguments either way, but it's still very cool, in my book!

Note: He paid a little extra and got extra-nice sliders for this cabinetry; these drawers slide in and out like Holiday on Ice!