I read this article about the USPS some time ago, back when it was ungated, and considered never publishing this post, but upon rereading these two blurbs I had copied from the article, I figure I may as well share:

Americans receive 55 percent of the world’s total mail volume

After all, almost every piece of paper mail delivered today started out as an electronic file that was converted to paper, delivered through an energy-intensive and polluting process, and in some cases even reconverted to an electronic document once it arrived at a place of business. Why go from digital to paper only to go back to digital? Why not skip the paper stage altogether?

i’m still looking for the perfect place to catch the space needle in the evening with the olympics behind it. basically you can see the view i want from my apartment, except there are some things in the way. trees, powerlines, etc. i went to volunteer park briefly to take some pictures before having some friends over for yam tacos (delicious! thanks eirin!) and olympics viewing.

the other day i got my red rocket blaster in the mail. it’s a pretty powerful air blower that i was hoping to use to get some dust off my camera’s sensor. i think i at least moved one smudge to a different part of the sensor, but it didn’t quite live up to my expectations… so i’ll be continuing to take pictures with a wide aperture, which seems to work just fine.

I ventured out to a couple parks this month to take some pictures that turned out a bit better than expected. First Kerry Park:

Hanging out in Kerry Park was lots of fun. I got there early and chatted with some other amateur photographers. One of them had a fancy lens and new Canon he had me look through, recommended a website, and exchanged flickr information. The other gave me some tips on my tripod technique (keep the neck part of the tripod as close to the body as possible to minimize vibrations). Both had Minnesota connections.

Second, Rizal Park:

Rizal Park didn’t have nearly as many people but was equally pretty. I’m still little frustrated by all the dust that’s sitting on the sensor of my camera, so I bought a ‘rocket blaster’ blower (seriously) to try to get rid of it. Hopefully that does the trick for the next time around.