Man, I absolutely love this Sony 24-105mm lens. It absolutely rocks. It only goes down to F/4, and you would think, “Hmmm, that’s not too impressive!” But, hey, look at that bokeh! That out-of-focus zone in the front and back is perfect… I could not ask for anything more. Well done, you crazy-smart optics engineers at Sony! 🙂
The FedEx website for Passport Renewal is incredibly deceptive. It APPEARS Fedex does everything for the prices in the photo below BUT:
1) All FedEx does is forward you to a third party where you fill out forms
2) I have to print out everything myself (I would expect my packet to be ready and waiting at FedEx)
3) That $349 does not include the actual cost of the renewal, which is about another $200. I saw that after filling out all the forms on a third party site and was wondering, correctly, “hmmm, well is that included in the $249 I already paid?
4) This third-party site has not gotten back to me in 2 days… either via email (immediately after filling out the forms) or phone. I’ve sent one email and left two phone messages.
5) All FedEx provides is an ENVELOPE. Oh, and Passport photos, which you have to pay extra for.
It’s this kind of stuff that makes me not trust big US businesses. Super shady, FedEx. Now that I have been able to unravel everything and figure out what is going on, it’s too late for me to renew my passport before I go back to New Zealand.
As a customer, when I go to FedEx to use their Passport Renewal service, I expect:
1) FedEx to prepare the entire package for me, including:
2) To pay once. They can sort out splitting that into a cashier’s check for the government.
3) To fill out everything online without signing into a third party website (they use GovWorks).
4) After I fill everything out, they print it out at branch where I will show up with my Passport for renewal.
5) I walk in, hand them my Passport (and if I need Passport photos, they were included in the price), and they pop it in an envelope and say thank you.
I mean, right?
Last, it’s totally unclear who I ask for a refund. FedEx apparently forwarded most of my money to this third party, and they kept the money for the envelopes. Oh man…
I called up and I ended up talking to a lady at “Passport Center.” I said, “Wait, is this FedEx?”
She said, “No, this is Passport Center.”
I said, “What is that? Is this the government?”
She said, “No, is there a problem with your passport sir?”
I was very confused and said, “Wait, you say this is ‘Passport Center’, but I started at the FedEx website, which forwarded me to a website called ‘GovWorks.com’, and then I got an email receipt from ‘RushMyPassport’ – what the heck is going on over there?”
She said, “It’s all very simple. We’re a sister company with FedEx.”
I said, somewhat exasperated, “Are you all sister companies? Oh never mind, I don’t actually care. Anyway, it’s taken you, or one of your sister companies, over 2 days to get back to me. I don’t think I can make my flight anymore, so I need a refund.”
She asked, “Where are you going?”
I said, dumbfounded, “Why does THAT matter? Let’s say the MOON via North Korea.”
Finally, I rushed through this pedantic conversation and she said she would send me another form to fill out for a refund. I was like, omg. I said, maybe you should tell one of your four sister companies to change its name to KindaRushMyPassport.com.
Also, look at how there is a timer up there on the top right to pressure you to buy, as if they are really limited on reservations like a hotel that is running out of rooms. Sketchy, Fedex, really sketchy.
This was my last day in New York, so I was trying to be the absolute last person to leave The Vessel. It was such an amazing structure that I tried to squeeze every last photo out of that place, I tried a bunch of different lenses, but a place like this is really screaming for a super wide-angle lens. I almost wish I had my fish-eye with me… oh well… I’ll have to go back! 🙂
This might be the best guy I’ve ever seen!
This guy has serious talent one of my favorite videos of all time from videos
Rene is definitely a climber and a jumper. In Africa, if a baboon could climb it, then he was pretty sure he could too. It made me quite nervous, actually… I’m not personally scared of heights, but I mostly don’t want to watch other people do that stuff… especially when they are your friends!
I’ve always thought that the word “funicular” was a strange one. I looked it up to see the origin, hoping to find something really interesting, but it’s not. It comes from the Latin word for rope. Anyway, I guess none of that matters, because if you use the funicular in Pittsburg, you get this incredible view. There’s not a great viewing area up there because most of the hill is used up by private homes and restaurants. We sort of sneaked into an apartment lobby and went out to the balcony to get this particular view.
Here is an excellent podcast from Naval. It’s a bit business-oriented, but there is also great life advice in here too. One cool thing about the podcasts is that each one is only about 2 minutes long. That Naval gets to the point!
On the way here, we had this strange female pilot. It was a little Cessna plane and I was sitting up where the co-pilot sits. She was getting up into the plane (it’s a long way up) and I offered her my hand to give her a boost up. She kind of snapped at me and said, “I’m not THAT old!” I was thinking… jeez lady, just being nice. But, she was at least cool enough to tilt the plane right and left as we went over the falls so we could get this God’s eye view.
Wooo! Luminar 4 is officially out! That team over at Skylum has added some incredible features to this go-around. Be sure to get it! I use it every day!
I took this with my Pixel 3 phone. Incredible, right? At some point, I’m going to stop being amazed at all the cool photos I get with this incredible phone. I’m about to get the Pixel 4, which is supposed to be even better. Another interesting thing is that this girl wasn’t even posing. That’s how she was sitting when my friend Mark and I walked into the store together. I thought she was really beautiful and asked to take her photo… she was so cool and said, “Sure, why not?”
I took over 5,100 photos this year, but that’s not really the point. Well, it’s part of the point, at least for me. I really enjoy being off by myself with my camera and enjoy random connections with art and people. This is year #10 in a row for me and I’m slowly figuring more and more and more about the event and about myself! I went again with my two roommates (Jonatas from Brazil and Rene from New Zealand), and this year I brought my virgin friend: Hugh Howey! We call people virgins who have never been to Burning Man before, and you’ll see a photo of him below. You may know him from his Wool series of books… we got to be close friends recently when we hiked the Camino de Santiago together. Anyway, if you can’t tell, he really enjoyed himself!
I spend about 8 hours a day sleeping, 8 hours a day taking photos, and 8 hours a day involved with molecular compounds to expand my mind and consciousness. Of that, my roomies and I do a 50% mix of “fun” molecules and 50% “spiritual, personal deep-dive” molecules. The latter creates perhaps the most interesting journeys, as we now have a lot of experience in understanding the nature of reality, love, and fearlessness. I could talk forever about this… don’t get me started! But I do have a whole chapter about it in my new book towards the end.
To another end, I’ve been working with a group of friends in Silicon Valley and beyond to help bring this kind of consciousness to the world. If you want to read more about the latest successful experiments and upcoming FDA approval (to treat depression, PTSD, and others) at Johns Hopkins Medicine, read this article entitled “First Major Center for Psychedelic Research Opening in the U.S.”. It features my friend Matt Mullenweg (founder of WordPress and fellow Camino to Santiago pilgrim), Tim Ferriss, and others. If you find this intriguing, there is a deeper dive you can do with Michael Pollan’s new book, “How to Change Your Mind,” which is on my recommended book list!
Anyway, enough with that, let’s look at some photos and hear some stories! 🙂
There are now 20 episodes kicking about on your favourite podcasting platforms. You’ll find all sorts on there from cryptocurrency to photography, from tips on hiking in Japan to expert advice on startups… from fossil hunting to interior design. Yes. Interior design.
Check out the other episodes on your favourite streaming services (iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify or in some regions Google Play).
Of course, these were all recorded in 360 so you can also watch them on YouTube and spin the camera all around to your heart’s content. Here is the full playlist.
We took a boat over to Center Island (not the best name, Toronto) to get a view of the city at sunset. The island has had a lot of flooding lately, and getting over to the prime photo spots required getting ankle-deep in mud and muck. Toronto has the Adirondack chairs all over the place. I guess it’s one of the “things” about that city. Anyway, a lot of them were stuck out in the flooding zone. This island is also popular for Asian wedding photos (we saw about a dozen couples out there). This groom-to-be was getting in position for one of their photos…
I’m currently working on a new video tutorial and there are many scenes from this particular festival. To make sure you find out about it first, sign up for my newsletter.
Look how cool all these kids are! I spent the day at a special village festival in a remote part of Zimbabwe. Wow these kids were absolutely amazing. They were some of the happiest kids I’ve ever met. They are all very poor (by any standard), they have no tech, they have no healthcare, they have no YouTube… despite all that, they were the most joyous kids I’ve ever seen. It’s kind of hard to tell in this particular photo because there was a rather “serious” part of the festival so the mood was complex.
I’ve been looking at software for a new art project and I stumbled across this video. It gets RATHER TRIPPY beyond the 2 minute mark.
How beautiful is this area? After I dropped off Ethan in Picton, I took some time to drive around and explore that area. If you look at the MAP of that area, then you can see there are countless little bays and coves. Each one is just as beautiful as the next. You can also see that most of that area has no roads at all… so I would often drive to the end of the road and then fly the drone from there.
