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Beneath the Eiffel Tower.

Well, this is the final post of Summer 2009! Have been quiet in here, mostly updating Facebook which seems to be rendering the blog activity redundant, though I have updated the images in the EUROPE/ASIA 09 category for En Route, Belgium (Fall), France, and Northern Ireland, which comes to several hundred photographs shot with my friend Rob Pappas’ Nikon D200, which he sent me to use for this trip. He’s a member here as well.

Some thoughts on the D200. Great camera, real solid feel, everything looks terrific. Disappointed in that it still let a ton of work for me to do in post production. Tried to have fun with that as this image of the Eiffel Tower suggests, but still extremely time-consuming. the camera also weighed about 4x the P80 I was using, which is now supplanted by the 24x P90! Also was no pleasure lugging around multiple lenses. The fact is, this kind of camera means you are dedicated to going out to shoot pix for the day, period. This is no tourist treasure but a dominant companion on your arm.
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Just a quick note, halfway thru my Swiss workshop, my presentation is early tomorrow afternoon here in Basel, so need to get all my ducks in a row by then, looking good. Enjoying myself as much as possible, there is a Van Gogh exhibition of around 40 works here that I hope to take in tomorrow night. I really should as the Magritte exhibit I saw in Montreal was memorable for life, as the Maxfield Parrish 3x in San Diego, this would surely be. Then I have a late night Friday train to Brussels where I meet up with Bart on Saturday morning/afternoon. Will stay with him till Tuesday/Wednesday when I leave for Belfast. It’s going fast!!! Peace, out.

View Europe Fall 09 in a larger map

Well, the time has come for me to return to Europe. As mentioned in a previous post I had applied to a workshop in Switzerland, and my abstract was accepted for presentation. Very exciting, a week-long summer school at the University of Basel in my specialty area of media research: ICONS!!! The program looks fantastic and the university is being very generous, so this is a Godsend.

And, while I was slightly distressed at the Society for Terrorist Research holding their conference after my classes started this year, rendering me incapable of joining them for a third year in a row, their timing actually fit in beautifully with the Swiss workshop, following just a few days after but in Northern Ireland. And they also accepted my research for presentation which is just terrific, as I met with these psychologists last year in Zakopane Poland and the year before in Madrid. It’s a great network.

So my two personal academic development opportunities are back to back international events instead of domestic this year, though I do have a weekend in late October set aside for a conference in DC. Actually I’m a slow starter early on in a semester, like to gradually ‘set the stage’ for my students with discussion and critical thinking exercises, so they aren’t going to miss much, but still, they are in good hands with a course lecturer while I’m away.

Looking forward to seeing Tilman again in Zurich, he is in a post or two on this blog, his pic is up. And hoping to see my friend Bart in Brussels for the weekend before I need to be in Belfast. Expect some pix from Rob Pappas’ Nikon D200 posted here under the countries on the left for Europe/Asia 09 once I build those pages and take some pix .

Peace, out. S