Recent content in Posts on David Calhoun's blog
Chilly snowy winter scene seen from Mono Lake Vista Point (California, February 2025) 2025 was a crazy year for the world, but since we already know that, I’m not going to focus on that here. The thing I have most control over is my own life and living it the best and fullest way I can.
Is it possible that our upbringing could lock us into a path that will strongly influence all future choices, beliefs, and desires? Is it possible that our early education makes us in a way incorrigible to any future correction? Case study: appetite and ideological baggage A long time ago I lived thousands of miles away from home in Japan, and several times I had a craving for comfort foods that I…
Another year over… I wasn’t very active with my photography this year so this one’s quite sparse. I am of course thankful for the trips I was able to take. Keeping it minimalist this year which has been really exhausting for me. I’ll just write some brief thoughts to accompany each photo. 2024 total solar eclipse seen from Vermilion River Reservation: Bacon Woods, Ohio…
2023 has been a stressful and hard year, and I have a sneaking suspicion this is a preview of even harder years on my path ahead. I am finding myself more tired and having really poor sleep quality, and I’m not sure I see things improving but I am cautiously optimisitic. I’ve been trying to keep positive by remembering my blessings as best I can, and this year came with a lot of…
Another year, another year in photos ! I’m thankful for things almost returning to normal now after the pandemic. I was able to travel to Ireland with my buddy Mark, and I was also able to get in a few domestic trips as well! I didn’t get my camera out and about as much as I wanted, but I still have a few picks. Seems I’m getting more interested in bird and butterfly…
Just expanding on a little silly idea I had. What if I reversed a bunch of falling people from Hitchcock films and turned them into awkwardly flying superheroes? Definitely works better in some than others. Judge for yourself! Possible spoiler alert for these movies: To Catch A Thief (1955) Vertigo (1958) Jamaica Inn (1939) The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) Foreign Correspondent (1940) The Man Who…
Intro Despite the continuing COVID-19 pandemic this year, I am grateful I was able to travel a bit. Two separate flights to California and a few road trips. While trying to keep as safe as possible, and being lucky so far not to have symptoms of COVID over this two year period (at the moment anyway…). One of my favorite hiking spots this year was the Williamson Preserve, which is a long…
We all have times in life when we were forced to learn lessons the hard way, often in situations where we were absolutely humbled. A lot of these happen early on in childhood, but even so, I find that there are some lessons I am still learning to this day. I am trying to improve, trying to get better constantly. One of these childhood lessons for me was a year when my family was tight on money and…
Intro 2020 is a year that had a nice ring to it, conjuring up images of “20/20 vision” and whatnot, but it turned out to be a bit misleading… And for some of us it has been much harder. Much has been said and much will continue to be written about this year, but despite circumstances we have tried to pull through. For me, this year was a year of finally moving the last of my…
Huge stone German Swastika at the top of the Tribune building at Zeppelinfeld in Nurnberg, Germany, just seconds before demolition charges blew it up. This footage used in the movie's opening titles was filmed on April 25, 1945. It’s been a while! I have been REALLY slowly working my way through a list I compiled a few years ago of the Top 100 films. Making some incremental progress with…
Dead tired, but not dead yet: resting my feet at Peter's Mountain Shelter in Pennsylvania. Why such a serious topic? Cheerful subject, right? This post has been a long time coming; I decided I wanted to write about this topic while I was still out hiking last year. More than a few things made me think of it:
HAL 9000 computer interface from Stanley Kubrick's 2001 Summary Partial application and currying often get muddled; they are related but not the same. They’re both techniques that transform functions that accept multiple arguments, but the difference is in the transformation.
Original entry Misty trees along the Appalachian Trail near Biglerville, Pennsylvania Yesterday was a little bit rainy and very muddy all through the day. After the marathon 19+ miles from the previous day, my feet were surprisingly ok, but my back started to give me a little pain through the day. Seemed to have been helped by simply shifting the weight of my pack. I think I have muscles back…
Original entry: Are you afraid of the dark? Amazing tunnel staircase. This must've taken quite some time to build... This turned out to be the longest day so far - a distance of 19.6 miles between shelters (Tumbling Run to Birch Run shelters). I originally planned for the day to end 7.4 miles back at Quarry Gap shelters, but there was a huge boy scout troop there that had taken over the area. When…
Original entry Appalachian Trail sign along a road near Waynesboro, Pennslyvania (written the morning of 4/13 inside the Tumbling Run shelter)
Original entry. Zero day in Waynesboro Map of Foursquare checkins from the start of my hike in Harper's Ferry, all the way to Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. You can really see the outline of the Appalachian Trail here! Yesterday (April 10) turned out to be the longest trek so far, and much of that was just getting from the AT to my distant hotel. I haphazardly researched the distance from the trail and…
(Bear with me! I plan to recap day-by-day for the first 7 days of my hike. After that I will be writing highlights and also some short essays on subjects I thought of while hiking.) Original Entry from April 10, 2019 Spectacular view from High Rock Overlook (marred by graffiti...). Really nothing like this again till I hit New Hampshire and Maine. The fourth day - today - saw an even earlier start…
Original entry from April 9, 2019 A pedestrian walkway taking hikers safely over I-70 (the same I-70 which will take you west all the way to Utah) I can see how folks end up injured when they push themselves to go harder than they should. The third day out on the trail I was trying to get in enough miles which would make it possible for me to get into town the following day. Ensign Cowell shelter…
My original entry Second night Dahlgren backpacker’s campsite was amazing! Flush toilets, free showers with hot and cold water. Luxury. There is a nice restaurant nearby that I was looking forward to, but it was closed on Monday unfortunately. Tempted to stay here and rest, but I want to keep moving on. The first here are amazing. Saw some deep red bird, almost tropical looking. Woodpeckers heard…
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) takes photos of all hikers passing through Harper's Ferry, including folks like me who just started. Introduction One year ago today I began a big journey which I have yet to finish: hiking the Appalachian Trail. I kept a diary along the way, mostly to remind myself of my thoughts and observations about each day, and also to give long-forgotten context to…
Black and white view of a bog boardwalk leading into a misty forest, along the Mahoosec Trail in New Hampshire. My former coworker had hiked the Camino de Santiago , a long pilgrimage trail in Spain, and I told her I wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail and was looking for all the insight I could get. One thing she told me was that hiking was such a raw and real experience, something so different…
Line chart showing Disneyland one-day ticket price vs annual passport price (1981-2019, adjusted for inflation), showing linear growth for one-day ticket prices and exponential growth for annual passport prices. (see notes below for data sources and more info) The Gool Old Days My sister and I were lucky enough to have Disneyland annual passports growing up (thank you, mom and dad!). I remember…
Your browser does not support the HTML5 video tag. --> A while back I posted an old video I made of Spring in Kyoto , but the audio track was removed by YouTube. So I’m self-hosting it here now, and reposting to revisit the memories! I really enjoy the atmosphere in this video, and I wish I made more videos like them. I used my Canon 7D for a lot of the video, but I wish it was shot in RAW…
The roof of the main shrine (拝殿) at Kitano Tenmangu. Almost a year ago now I was lucky to be able to go back to my old stomping grounds in Kyoto, where I once studied Japanese in the hopes of maybe learning enough of the language to enroll in a university there to continue my studies in philosophy, perhaps being able to one day be another “professional” philosopher to walk along the…
The time has finally come for me to ditch Disqus for comments. I’ll let this gif do the talking: Disqus unleashed: making almost 100 HTTP requests to its own servers and random ad servers. The downside of a free service As the addage goes: if you are not paying for the product, you are the product. And the ad companies are the customers, vying for the ability to track you and your interests…
In many ways this has been a strange and wonderful year, probably my most favorite year of my life to date. I traveled to Japan on a great flight deal, I hiked more than 1100 miles of the Appalachian Trail, and I drove across the USA on two (!) cross-country road trips, the latter a wonderful solo trip where I took my time photographing and visiting wonderful parks and museums.
The problem: accented characters versus user input I’ve really been enjoying (wait for it, unpaid endorsement) The Criterion Channel since it launched earlier this year. The app and the website are nascent and therefore have had their share of problems, but to their credit they have been hard at work making things smoother day by day. But one big annoying thing in general is searchability of…
Mt Katahdin at the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail in Maine (note: all photos shot on my older iPhone 7) Thank you! Thanks to everyone who helped me on my AT journey! Special thanks: to my mom for helping mail me resupply packages to my sister and her family for their support, small snacks, kids’ drawings for support, and for liking some of my best picture uploads to my friends…
The Godfather opening logo Intro It’s been a while, but I’m still at it! I’m on a journey to watch and review all of the top 100 films , using a list I worked out a while back. I recommend checking out that original post Today’s film is one that is undeniably near the top of many “top 100” lists: The Godfather. Opening shot: 'I believe in America' The Story…
When the year’s days shorten and their number dwindles, I have liked to sometimes take the initiative to sort through all the photos I’ve taken (with my “big” camera). The eventual goal: to put together a sampling of the photos that stand out, sometimes for technical reasons, and sometimes for other reasons. This year I sadly didn’t get out with the camera as much as…
Perhaps you’ve been programming for a while, and you’re pretty comfortable using for loops to traverse Arrays. However, you know how untidy and complicated for loops can get, and you are interested in better approaches to keep the code clean. Enter map and reduce ! First steps with for loops Most folks find for loops powerful enough to achieve all they need when they need to process…
From Soren Kierkegaard’s “Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits” (this excerpt is from Provocations, excerpts from Kierkegaard, Plough) Once upon a time there was a wood dove. It had its nest in the fearsome forest, where wonder and apprehension dwelt together, among the erect, lonely trees. But nearby, where the smoke rises up from the farmer”s house, lived some tame doves.…
New Cultures The first days of traveling usually involves laughing at the quaint and unusual customs of another culture. That sounds close-minded, because in many cases it probably is. But it’s something we all do, of course including yours truly. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism - laughing at things in the face of difficulties and differences. To be fair, we’re thinking creatures,…
Hello friends! It’s been a while without an update. I’ve been working more and more on my photography endeavors, which includes building up a YouTube channel to document my travels and also my learnings. I’m hoping it’s interesting and useful enough, especially for other aspiring photographers. This year is definitely shaping up to be a year of travelling, and I’d…
The idea of a trip across the United States has become somewhat of an American institution. Something like a New American Dream, this one maybe a bit more accessible than that house, happy life, and nuclear family with 2.5 kids. It’s something that is undertaken by both the young and the old, with the former perhaps hitchhiking or sleeping in their cars while the latter leapfrog between…
A few years back I put together my favorite photos of the year (see it: part one and part two ). I decided to resurrect the tradition, and I hope to keep it going in the coming years! Onto the pics! February I visited Yosemite twice, first by myself and later with my friend Kevin. Night sky from Yosemite For this shot I drove to the empty Bridalveil Falls parking lot and placed an LED lantern in…
A few years back I had the opportunity to visit New Orleans in the spring with my friend. Now I’ve returned with my parents to visit in the fall! My mom had recently expressed a desire to do more travelling while still physically able, which kicked off creating a list of places to visit, and ultimately booking this first trip. Hopefully the first of many to come. She asked if I wanted to tag…
Many folks, including yours truly, have had an unpleasant night, and this morning a bitter awakening at the announcement that our new President will be Trump. For most folks this comes as a shock, as we have all thought the chances of this happening were slim. Comedians chided him on and dared him to run. Even President Obama who continually roasted him at the White House Correspondents’…
Earlier this year I had the opportunity to attend my first philosophy class in about a decade. The class was on the infamous philosopher Martin Heidegger, and the course was taught at Stanford University by Forrest Hartman (PHI 98: An Introduction to Martin Heidegger (Spring 2016)). Heidegger is famous for being obscure and notoriously difficult to read, but I believe I made some headway in what…
We Americans believe we have a right to be the way we want to be, which includes being lazy physically and intellectually. Junk is more shiny and more entertaining than non-junk, after all, and we can’t be bothered to be bored with non-junk. We now have many forms of poison that we unwittingly ingest in various ways. We have created in many ways our own version of the gladiator games that…
Maple leaves at Tofukuji Temple, Kyoto It’s autumn again. The temperatures are dropping up here in the mountains of Big Bear, especially at night, when it’s now approaching freezing or below. A surprising number of trees are changing colors. I say surprising because this is California, after all, and we don’t usually see fall colors unless we know where to look. The aspens are of…
This is a movie in the same spirit as the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup: essentially a string of crazy anarchic skits held together weakly by some central theme. The story isn’t strong, but it doesn’t pretend to be and it really doesn’t need to be. It’s just there as a sort of skeleton to hang all the skits on. As a movie, this feels to me to be strangely out of place in the top…
Before setting off on my current trip, I wanted to give myself at least one “photo assignment”: some goal I could aim to accomplish by pretending like I’d been given an assignment by some employer. This is the first of what I hope will be many. The assignment here is to try to capture the atmosphere of eastern Kyoto’s traditional streets at night. A couple of things I had…
The biggest culture shock of Indonesia had to be the bathroom facilities, but that’s best saved for another post. The second biggest culture shock had to be the roads, and the drivers on them. I’ve never been to any third world Asian country before, so the idea of seeing roads dominated by scooters and motorcycles was really a foreign concept to me. This also meant that the style of…
Rinku town and Kansai Airport at night (I wrote this one a few weeks back but didn’t post the pics until now, so here it is in its complete form!). I’ve been here in Japan for a month and in true form haven’t provided much in the way of updates since then. Doh. Here’s a catch-up post, with plenty of pictures and videos to keep things interesting.
From April 25, 2016. Monju or Manjusri is a bodhisattva of wisdom. In this ceremony children’s healthy growth and academic success are prayed for. 14:30~ A procession of children in traditional costumes. Starts from Jyokyoji Temple on Sanjyo St. towards Kofukuji Temple. 15:00~ Ritual ceremony at Tokondo Hall in Kofukuji Temple 文殊会 (興福寺)…
I’ve been in Japan for the past few weeks, and have been lazy about updating my blog, which I promised to do! I’ve been busy sorting through pictures! Here’s a video update from where I’ll be staying long term at a place called the Banana House:
GPS track log See the interactive GPS track log here . I really needed to get out of Silicon Valley again and go experience nature, so on Sunday I drove over to my favorite hiking spot, Big Basin. There’s a $10 fee to get in and park, but it’s worth it considering it’s about the price of a movie and much more rewarding. I arrived right after the park opened and started my hike to…