Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie

SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.

Sport images are all 1000FPS, and final shot 2500FPS!
Watch it in HD. You must.

One day, I will need to fly out to Australia, hop on a board, and try to catch something maybe a little smaller than this. Doesn’t it look amazing though? When it comes to motion pictures, I love 3D, stop motion, and slow motion. I’m amazed with this video.

I love this song. The quality of this video is great. Make sure to watch in HD and in full screen.

I got a new phone called the Palm Pre recently, and this may come as a shocker to a lot of my friends who are aware of my technological inclinations, but this is the first cell phone I’ve ever owned that has a camera, and is actually only my 2nd ever smart phone. It’s a great little phone and aside from the battery life, I’m definitely enjoying it.

Now that I have a camera phone though I’m definitely enjoying the ability to freely take photos of any and everything I see or find interesting or unique (Some of my twitter followers may have noticed in increase in twitpics)

In honor of my new camera phone I’d like to share one of my favorite pics I’ve taken thus far. I hope you like it.

Ok, here’s another one. A freebie.

This is the intersection where I had my accident back in February and lost my car, Venom.

It was a less than a year since I had finished paying Venom off so it was a major bummer, to say the least, and was probably the worst traffic accident I had ever been involved in.

Even though the other driver violated the traffic control device on the street which indicated that the lane he was in, he was to turn right only, the police officer ended up giving me a ticket for the accident.

The ticket said that I violated state statute 316.125, which states a Vehicle entering highway from private road or driveway or emerging from alley, driveway or building.

(1)  The driver of a vehicle about to enter or cross a highway from an alley, building, private road or driveway shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles approaching on the highway to be entered which are so close thereto as to constitute an immediate hazard.
(2)  The driver of a vehicle emerging from an alley, building, private road or driveway within a business or residence district shall stop the vehicle immediately prior to driving onto a sidewalk or onto the sidewalk area extending across the alley, building entrance, road or driveway, or in the event there is no sidewalk area, shall stop at the point nearest the street to be entered where the driver has a view of approaching traffic thereon and shall yield to all vehicles and pedestrians which are so close thereto as to constitute an immediate hazard.
(3)  A violation of this section is a noncriminal traffic infraction, punishable as a moving violation as provided in chapter 318.

I chose to fight it in court and this past Wednesday I was there with notes in hand as ready as I could be to defend myself.

That didn’t seem right, but it didn’t really matter because the police report stated that the statute I broke was State Statute 316.122 which states:

316.122  Vehicle turning left.–The driver of a vehicle intending to turn to the left within an intersection or into an alley, private road, or driveway shall yield the right-of-way to any vehicle approaching from the opposite direction, or vehicles lawfully passing on the left of the turning vehicle, which is within the intersection or so close thereto as to constitute an immediate hazard. A violation of this section is a noncriminal traffic infraction, punishable as a moving violation as provided in chapter 318.

It was arguable to me that this applied as well, but that didn’t really seem to matter to much, because on my arraignment for court it stated I ran a stop sign. WHAT?! I looked that one up to to be prepared. I believe that would be state statute 316.123,

316.123  Vehicle entering stop or yield intersection.–
(1)  The right-of-way at an intersection may be indicated by stop signs or yield signs as authorized in s. 316.006.
(2)(a)  Except when directed to proceed by a police officer or traffic control signal, every driver of a vehicle approaching a stop intersection indicated by a stop sign shall stop at a clearly marked stop line, but if none, before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection or, if none, then at the point nearest the intersecting roadway where the driver has a view of approaching traffic on the intersecting roadway before entering the intersection. After having stopped, the driver shall yield the right-of-way to any vehicle which has entered the intersection from another highway or which is approaching so closely on said highway as to constitute an immediate hazard during the time when the driver is moving across or within the intersection.
(b)  At a four-way stop intersection, the driver of the first vehicle to stop at the intersection shall be the first to proceed. If two or more vehicles reach the four-way stop intersection at the same time, the driver of the vehicle on the left shall yield the right-of-way to the vehicle on the right.
(3)  The driver of a vehicle approaching a yield sign shall, in obedience to such sign, slow down to a speed reasonable for the existing conditions and, if required for safety to stop, shall stop before entering the crosswalk on the near side of the intersection, or, if none, then at the point nearest the intersecting roadway where the driver has a view of approaching traffic on the intersecting roadway. After slowing or stopping, the driver shall yield the right-of-way to any vehicle in the intersection or approaching on another highway so closely as to constitute an immediate hazard during the time the driver is moving across or within the intersection. If such a driver is involved in a collision with a pedestrian in a crosswalk or a vehicle in the intersection, after driving past a yield sign without stopping, the collision shall be deemed prima facie evidence of the driver’s failure to yield the right-of-way.
(4)  A violation of this section is a noncriminal traffic infraction, punishable as a moving violation as provided in chapter 318.

My defense for all of these was the same. I came to a complete stop as indicated. There was no approaching traffic coming on the INTERSECTING ROADWAY. There was a vehicle to my left in a Right Turn Only. As I began moving forward to enter the roadway, the vehicle in the Right Turn Only lane, violated Florida State Statute 316.074. This violation of State Statute 316.074 is the cause for the accident.

State Statute 316.074 states:
316.074  Obedience to and required traffic control devices.–
(1)  The driver of any vehicle shall obey the instructions of any official traffic control device applicable thereto, placed in accordance with the provisions of this chapter, unless otherwise directed by a police officer, subject to the exceptions granted the driver of an authorized emergency vehicle in this chapter.
(2)  No person shall drive any vehicle from a roadway to another roadway to avoid obeying the indicated traffic control indicated by such traffic control device.
(3)  No provision of this chapter for which official traffic control devices are required shall be enforced against an alleged violator if at the time and place of the alleged violation an official device is not in proper position and sufficiently legible to be seen by an ordinarily observant person. Whenever a particular section does not state that official traffic control devices are required, such section shall be effective even though no devices are erected or in place.
(4)  Whenever official traffic control devices are placed in position approximately conforming to the requirements of this chapter, such devices shall be presumed to have been so placed by the official act or direction of lawful authority unless the contrary shall be established by competent evidence.
(5)  Any official traffic control device placed pursuant to the provisions of this chapter and purporting to conform to the lawful requirements pertaining to such devices shall be presumed to comply with the requirements of this chapter unless the contrary shall be established by competent evidence.
(6)  A violation of this section is a noncriminal traffic infraction, punishable as a moving violation as provided in chapter 318.

Well, court day came, and I showed up. My officer was in the court room with me as well. When my name was finally called by the judge I approached and indicated that I requested a hearing. He verified 3 times that that was what I wanted to do. I said yes. He called up the police officer. The officer approached next to me.

The judge then called up the witnesses, which was the other driver, and another witness who was there when the accident happened and assisted at the time.

Neither were present. The police officer stated that he was motioning to dismiss since none of his witnesses were present.

The judge dismissed the case. Open and shut case. Praise Jesus for that working out the way that it did, but I certain felt ready to go at it that day.

Fat City Reprise – Long Gone from Cesar Kuriyama on Vimeo.

I shared this on twitter yesterday, but I thought I’ve give it a little post up here on ol’ blog. I stopped into a Starbucks in the morning to pick up a medium (grande? whatever) Mocha frap before heading into work yesterday.

The barista and I had a brief conversation and it went like this:

Barista: May I please have your name sir?

Me: uh, Sam. (the uh comes into play in processing what the barista was asking me.)

Barista: uh, Sam. Ok, thank you.

That was it. I patiently waited for my drink to be prepared and once it was ready, I picked up my cup and saw the following on it:

Special.

and for that, I would like to thank them, and wish them a Happy Anniversary.

Mom and Dad, I love you guys. Congratulations on making it another year. You guys are both a pain in the butt to me and to each other sometimes, but I love you none the less, and I know you both love each other as well. GOD bless you guys.

So, yeah, Memorial Day. Had a great relaxing day cooking out with some friends and just chilling in the slightly wet Florida weather. Out in front of me from nowhere I see an object flying in the air.

At first I thought it was an acorn or something. The thought, which amazes me how fast it actually ran through my mind in such a short amount of time, was that a squirrel was throwing an acorn at me. Those of you reading this who may have laughed at that last sentence, you have yet to see the squirrels that roam the campus of Florida State University.

Photo of Squirrels most likely taken at Florida State University

Anyway, despite my quick thoughts, I found out very fast that this was not the attack of a squirrel but that of a bird. Apparently they were out to get me according to my brother in law Blake. Something about airsoft guns and being mean. Their method of attack was a bit of feces on my shirt and shorts.

So far my sister was the only one in the family to have the honor of getting pooped on by a bird. I had hoped to keep away from such an honor, but it was obviously not meant to be. If there’s anything to be thankful for in such a circumstance though, I will say I’m thankful this bird managed to fire when it did and not a second later. That really might have ruined my day.

Wanting to get into recording, songwriting, and having more power and flexibility for what and how I record lead me to purchase Logic Express 8 a few months ago.

Opening up the program you can see that it’s incredibly powerful and even overwhelming with all the amount of stuff available to do. As much as I like to tweak around and figure things out on my own, I thought it in my best interest to actually get a how-to book for Logic, especially if I want to have an understanding of what I’m doing, how it does it and why.

I decided to go with the Apple Pro Training Series: Logic Pro 8 and Logic Express 8 by David Nahmani.

I completed lesson one last night, which is titled Make Music with Logic Now!

The objective of the chapter is getting you used to the Logic interface and navigating around the program. I learned some really great keyboard short cuts that are going to come in extremely handy and I can already see that this book is going to be extremely beneficial in getting me up to speed not on just how to do things, but how to do them efficiently.

By the end of the first chapter, you create a finished track made entirely of the included royalty free Apple Loops and export it as an mp3 file.

Even though I was just learning to navigate through program, I had a fun time learning how to do things and tweaking things around. I’m looking forward to working on Chapter 2: Recording Audio.

In the meantime, I would like to share my final work of art from chapter 1. A little trip hop piece called New Day.

Also, if you’re interested in recording or learning Logic, this book seems like a great place to start. If you click on the link below and purchase it, you’d be hooking me up with a little kick back.