Mario Tapia

In 1991 I lived in Cupertino, 3 blocks from Apple HQ. I was doing a summer internship at NASA Ames Research Center working on an Army stealth project for helicopters. I was 19 at the time and didn’t quite realize the Valley was about to go through lots of changes. All I was concerned about was making some cash to get a good car and to also get my first cell phone. Imagine, being 19 in 1991 and having a cell phone, it was cool, and freaken expensive. I remember, GTE was the operator and their coverage was weak, which meant I roamed all the time between the Silicon Valley and the Central Valley.

Take a look at the Technophone Mobile Telephone, model MC915A, made in 1990. She was piece of work, for a bag phone, it was top of the line, small, light, and sturdy. I used it for a couple years until the Motorola Microtac came out, which then followed by the famous Startac, but thats another story…

–and so it went

I got the Canon 20D last month and since I’m new to the SLR world, I’ve been doing lots of experimentation. The 18-55mm lense that comes with the package works well for many of those wide angle shots and even those up and close shots. I also spoiled myself and picked up the 70-200mm 4LU from Canon as well.

Since being a newbie in the SLR arena this 200mm canon is a cannon, this lense is Ginormous!
In hindsite I think spending the extra $1k for the IS image stablization version would have really made me look like a pro, but since my lense doesn’t have IS, it will force me to build my technique. I feel that although technology can help make our life better or make us look like superstars, its important to learn the basic skills that technology is replacing, i.e. navigation by GPS rather than using charts etc.

We are innundated with technology that saves us time or makes certain skills unneccessary. The next time you buy a cool new gadget or toy ask yourself how life would be if you couldn’t rely on it and what skills you had to overcome the dependence.

This shows the city of Seattle from Queen Anne Hill using the 18-55mm lense, full automatic.

This photo shows the Space Needle at 200mm using the 70-200mm 4LU, I’m a good mile away and I can see visitors on the vista deck.

Here’s an interesting and cool product for Holy (Ipod) Rollers. Appropriately named website “devoted1″ is where you can find this cool add on to enlighten your shuffle.

–and so it goes