It's a photoblog...

January

samauger — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:36:31 +0000

Xbox Repair

samauger — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:14:09 +0000

Aaron’s Xbox 360 had seen better days. Already sent in to Microsoft twice to get rid of the infamous “Red Ring of Death”, it was out of warranty and sitting in a box in the corner. Instead of paying $80 (or having a useless Xbox sitting around) I thought it was worth trying to fix. I bought ">this kit from ifixit and gave it a whirl.

Taking apart the box was easy enough and after cleaning it up and applying the kit, it worked again! We had breathed new life into a machine long dead. Until it stopped working again. I did some more research and discovered that the problems generally stems from cracks and other imperfections in the solder balls under the processors that sometimes flex over time. There is a technique called reflowing which involves heating up the old solder to the point where it melts in place which effectively fills the cracks that were causing the problem. Easy enough! I bought a heat gun and had at it. It turned on and has stayed on for a couple hours now. Hopefully this time it’ll last!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

samauger — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:18:15 +0000

Here are a few of the few pictures I’ve taken lately. I should be taking more pictures….maybe tomorrow.

To the suburbs and beyond

samauger — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 03:02:57 +0000

Fall break at North Park University is a magical time. The weather turns into what it should have been the last few weeks, mid terms end, students run home to their families to relax and enjoy ONE WHOLE DAY OFF. Seriously, a 3 day weekend was the norm in Buenos Aires and here it’s called a “break”. Please. Enough griping.

A few days before the break I was looking at a picture of someone sitting on a moss-covered rock in the woods and thought to myself, “That’s what I’m going to do this weekend” so I called Fede and Brian and we decided to bike to Chain of Lakes park in almost-Wisconsin.

The plan was to bike the 55 miles to the park, camp for two nights then head back on Sunday. Instead, we biked 50-some miles to some village 10 miles away from the park after getting lost and doubling back countless times, illegally camped in a savanna, froze, biked the remaining miles the next day, got invited to a party that didn’t exist, camped, got attacked by raccoons and biked home on Sunday in record time, mostly on the highway.

It was a blast.

High dynamics

samauger — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 01:48:34 +0000

I spent a solid 24 hours considering learning more about editing photos (inspired pretty much entirely by Trey Ratcliff) and his tasteful application of HDR that almost always doesn’t look like clown vomit. Here’s one that I made. The process was fun and I think I managed to find a decent balance between the overly stylized mess of most HDR shots and a scene that was impossible to capture with a traditional camera. It’s still a little too fake for my taste but whatever, it looks nice. I can’t say I’ll be spending a ton of time doing this but it’s a good trick to have.

Adventures in canning!

samauger — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:29:30 +0000

Considering the sheer volume of PB&J sandwiches consumed in our apartment, it only made sense to start making our own jam. I like to think that it brings our jam cost down considerably but we really just put jam on more things now. Here are some pictures from our first few jamming efforts. It’s pretty straightforward. Berries + pectin + a TON of sugar + time, stirring and heat = jam. Go try it. Don’t get botulism. (The whiskey bottle is for mashing fruit, it’s important).

Stop 6: Iguazu (and to a lesser extent San Ignacio)

samauger — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:48:04 +0000

I would like to take a moment to point out the rather impressive feat of combing through nearly 5000 photos and getting them all up on and then on here before I go home tomorrow. Now that I’m done patting myself on the back, I’ll tell you about Iguazú. The falls, I’m fairly certain, are on some 7 natural wonders of the world list and they deserve it just for the rainbows. Seriously, I was so sick of looking at rainbows after looking through these shots. would have loved it.

We got to the MEGAhostel and bought a superpromopack that included an “adventura nautica” (getting soaked under the falls in a boat), a massage, and plenty of food. Nadine got lucky with the nationality draw and got a voucher to check out the Brasilero side. On the first day I wrapped my camera in a plastic bag and set off for the cataratas. We walked all but one of the trails, saw waterfalls and rainbows and stared down the throat of the devil. On the second day Nadine went to Brasil while Michelle and I returned to the park to hike the “difficult” trail and leads to an isolated waterfall with a small pool at the bottom. We swam in the pool and realized that trying to stand under a 60 foot waterfall hurts. We then ventured off the path a bit and found ourselves at the top of a much larger, un-guardrailed waterfall with a view of the lower portion of the Iguazu river. I grabbed a branch for support and got speared by some thorns. Look before you leap. That night there was an asado (read:bbq) and a samba show in which a large Brazilian woman shook her sparkle-covered body in very close proximity to my face. It was an experience. We played some ping pong with our new german roommate Arno and in the morning set off for San Ignacio to see the ruins of a Jesuit mission.

The relatively short (5 hours) bus ride was easily the worst of many. The sweltering hot bus stopped every 15 minutes, it was packed to bursting with people, someone stole my thermos and our bag of food from the overhead rack and they almost left with our bags in the trunk (all this while fighting some not so minor gastrointestinal maladies)! We didn’t get to see the ruins in day light (they close at 6, not 7…thanks Lonely Planet) but we did get to see a very well-done light and sound show about the story of the mission. The group of us were led through the dark ruins and Jesuit missionaries and Guaraní people were projected onto curtains of mist and really old walls while our indigenous (and also projected) narrator told us of all the joyous times and subsequent trials that the mission faced. We were all very impressed.

Our night bus back to Buenos Aires was one of our better bussing experiences and now we’re back in the city, staying at Charlie’s for a couple night. It’s a strange feeling to be off the road and a mere 48 hours away from home. Thankfully I’m already packed so I can enjoy my last day by going to the Exposición Rural and look at cows and stuff.

Stop 5: (Jujuy and) Salta

samauger — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 02:23:11 +0000

In this chapter of our tale four become three as we leave Charlie and he returns to Buenos Aires to teach. It was a quick goodbye. We were woken up at Jujuy where we were supposed to meet up with Virginia and see what the city had to offer while Charlie continued on to Salta then Buenos Aires. We awkwardly exchanged hugs in the narrow aisle while holding our bags and thumping everyone in the head. Jujuy, as it turns out, doesn’t have much to offer in the way of quick touristy things. There are plenty of neat landscape-y things (colorful hills, salt plains, etc) but as far as the city itself is concerned, there is a church and a plaza. We did take one trip out to Purmamarca and saw the colorful hills and llamas. I tasted llama meat.

Salta was much more interesting and we saw some neat things. We ate amazing empanadas (2 pesos a piece!), rode the teleferico, we saw the changing of the guard, visited some very well preserved mummy children and looked at some cool churches.

Stop 4: San Pedro de Atacama

samauger — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 00:35:43 +0000

Why we booked a bus to Antofagasta I’ll never know. I think it was because it was one of the four cities that showed up on the map. Regardless, we managed to change our destination to San Pedro and pay the difference with minimal effort and 1600 km later we arrived in the driest place in the world. It was about 11pm when we pulled up to the terminal (essentially a parking lot with a long bench with a tin roof over it) and were given a ride to our hostel by a man who worked at another hostel. For whatever reason we had only booked Hostel Candelario for one night (the consequences of which became very obvious when the owner asked us in the morning when our bus was leaving and if we needed a ride to the aforementioned terminal…) and we luckily found an open room in Hostel del Monte a block away for a mere 6000 pesos a night! We also learned that the pass through the Andes back into Argentina was closed because of snowfall and had been closed for about 3 weeks. There was a line of trucks 100 long waiting at customs. Somehow we managed to time it just so that they opened the pass and we got through after three nights (at three different hostels) and two days of desert adventures. We rode bikes through the valley of the moon and saw a colorful sunset and floated in very cold, very salty water. Some French guy took an incredible picture of me diving into this 50m deep sink hole filled weird-smelling water and promised he’d email it to me. I’m still waiting.

Stop 3: Valparíso y Viña del Mar

samauger — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 02:12:35 +0000

After a few days in the Chilean capital we decided it was high time to head to the coast. Valparaíso was once the port city on the western coast of the continent until the Panama Canal made it more or less unnecessary. Now it’s known for its colorful building and one of Pablo Neruda’s houses “la Sebastiana”. We stayed at an excellent hostel filled with older French couples and ate some sea food. I had “locos” which I was expecting to be scallops but were some other mollusk and Charlie ordered a “jardín de mariscos” which included a pile of orange and black stuff which tasted “like licking a rock in the ocean”. I concur.

Viña del Mar is a terrifyingly reckless 15-minute bus ride away and known for a clock made out of flowers and a casino. We weren’t really sure what we were there to see so we got in the first horse and buggy we saw and accepted our role as ridiculous tourists. Charlie and Nadine touched the Pacific for the first time and we found some cool graffiti under an overpass. There was also a pretty cool amphitheater.