The Java Jive

Near Clearwater Beach, Florida

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The back of a Florida State Trooper’s police car doesn’t smell like I thought it would. I figured bad aftershave, stale coffee, and tired sweat would be the eau de jour. This one just had that pungent new car smell wafting through the steel divider.

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What would have been an average, long, and boring 11 hour trip from Tennessee down I-75 to Florida turned into what my mother likes to call, “an ordeal”.

Somewhere around Macon, Georgia, we stopped to buy some of the state’s renowned peaches and pecans. My father’s (borrowed) Jeep Grand Cherokee evidently wasn’t enjoying the states other renowned feature – 96 degrees with 96% humidity. A sickly sweet, and all too familiar scent of antifreeze was steaming up from the engine block. I checked the overflow tank – check. The water pump – check. The radiator – check. Considering we still had 7 hours of driving, I wasn’t keen to have engine trouble. This was, after all, not far from the filming location of Deliverance, and we all know how that story ended.

By the time we hit southern Georgia, I needed a refuel and realized something was seriously wrong. The water pump was squealing in agony with every churn of the big V-8, and the temperature was hovering somewhere around 215 degrees. However, it appeared that the coolant was only leaking when the engine was stopped – which meant, of course, just don’t stop. A responsible man would have pulled over for the night and found a mechanic in the morning. I’m still relatively young, and thoroughly irresponsible at times, so of course I figured we could make it another 250 miles.

Wrong.

South of Gainsville, Florida, the worries really set in when the squealing water pump was causing pondering stares from other motorists. The other pondering stare came from Novita, who, sitting next to me, couldn’t figure out why chanting, “c’mon baby, you can do it!” would give any sense of aid to the situation.

I had her monitoring the temperature gauge like a hawk; daring it to waiver past 215. Suddenly, and without a hint of warning, it rocketed to 240 degrees and I frantically pulled over to avoid destroying the engine. Luckily or unluckily, I had been watching an unmarked state police trooper behind me for the past mile, so I waived him to pull over as I was pulling over. I immediately shut the engine off and lifted the hood. Sure enough, somehow all of the coolant had suddenly leaked out and the radiator was bone dry.

I haven’t watched enough episodes of Cops to know how to approach the police car, or, wait, do you wait for him to approach you, or, uh, do you stay in your steaming vehicle, or….? It turns out, I gave up and walked up to his passenger side window. The big dude wasn’t smiling.

“Hi there, thanks for stopping. My car overheated – what do you recommend I do?”

“May I see your license sir?”

“Sure, so, is there a town nearby or a way I can reach my mother?”

A long, dramatic pause with no response.

“Sir, do you live in Michigan?”

“No, the Philippines.”

“The what…? Where are you heading?”

“Indian Rocks Beach, Florida – near Clearwater”

“Why?”

“To visit my mother.”

“Does she live there?”

“Well they have a place there, but they spend most of the year in Tennessee.”

“But you have a Michigan license, driving a Jeep registered in Michigan, to visit your mother who kind of lives there, and Tennessee, and you live in the Philippines?”

“Uh huh.”

He gives me a skeptical look and five more minutes roll by – as if to check out my story or my non-existant criminal record. He then gets his Blackberry out and lets me dial my mother’s handphone. How nice of him, I thought.

“Sir, there’s no town for at least 7 more miles. But you could walk to the gas station back a half-mile.”

“Any chance you can give us a ride?”

“I can’t do that sir.”

Somehow he sensed some desperation and gave in, finally offering us a ride. Great, so I went to grab my most valuable items – camera gear and passports in two backpacks.

“Sir, I will not take your bags.”, he sternly says in his best movie cop voice.

“It’s ok, I’ll hold them on my lap. I don’t want to leave the gear here and it’s not much stuff.”

“Sir!”, shouting now, “This car is not equipped to handle you and your gear. You will not bring those items into this car!”

I glance at the rather large, new, and capacious sedan with a surely cavernous trunk, but figure I have to play by his rules, so I put my camera gear back, only taking a very small bag with my wallet and passports.

It almost appeared as if he rested his hand on his gun, but that could be my imagination. “Sir! I will not tell you again. Get in the car immediately without any bags!”

Total douchebagness had set in apparently.

—

We pulled up to the gas station, and he let us out of the car, finally handing me back my license.

“Sir, you may walk back to the Jeep to retrieve your gear if you don’t feel safe leaving it. This isn’t the best of areas; lots of crime around here. Stay safe.”

Umm… yeah….

—

I didn’t mind the sweltering half-hour walk back to the Jeep. I minded having only two options – walk in marshy ditches for half a mile loaded with cigarette butts, condom wrappers, and McDonalds straws, or straddle the line of life and death with semi trailers brushing past me at 80 miles per hour.

Per the trooper’s advice, I quickly grabbed my most important valuables and started making my way back to Novita at the gas station.

Remember Rambo: First Blood when Stallone was walking down the road minding his own business and the sheriff pulled over to give him crap? Yeah, so do I.

Halfway back to the gas station, another police car pulls over; the cop motioning for me to stop. Awesome.

In a rather sarcastic tone, “Sir, what are you doing?”

“Walking back from my broken-down Jeep.”

In his best RoboCop impersonation, “Sir, this is an interstate highway, it is illegal to walk here!”

“I’m sorry, but, as I said, my Jeep broke down. How should I get to a phone?”

Obviously hard of hearing, he skipped that inquiry and proceeded to, “Sir, may I see some I.D.?”.

Deja vu?

“Sir, please get into the back of the car.”

“But another cop told me I could walk back to the Jeep.” – he obviously didn’t buy that,

“Sir, I already told you, it’s illegal to be out here. Another police officer wouldn’t have said that. Get into the car. And sir, confirm that your bags do not contain any weapons or explosive materials.”

Uh. WTF?

Another ten minutes go by, he pulled up to the Jeep, ran the plates, ran my license and I had to go all through the explanation of living overseas.

“Sir, I’m going to give you a ride back to the gas station, but I usually would have to ticket and fine you for this offense.”

Yeah, I’ll remember that next time I choose to break down and walk a half-mile in the blistering sun.

—

Novita was waiting for me at a diner next to the gas station. She wasn’t expecting me to pull up in a cop car, and by this time, we had made a bit of a scene having arrived not once, but twice in an hour from the back of police cars, escorted by large cops. I was ready to put a black bandana around my head and give in to the expectation.

After contemplating the choices I decided a last-ditch effort was required. My mother drove all the way up to get us – 140 miles one way, but I wan’t about to leave the Jeep in B.F.E.

I grabbed 4 gallons of antifreeze and a bundle of Bars Leak tablets as a desperate last hope solution to hobble down to Clearwater Beach. Luckily it worked. Limping and moaning, I got the Jeep to agree to 140 miles; finally arriving 16 hours after we left Tennessee. Turns out the water pump was totally shot, and the mechanic couldn’t believe I had made it that far. If he only knew.

—

Fortunately, that was the horrible beginning to a great week in Indian Rocks Beach.

There would be no sequel to Deliverance after all.

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After our massive tour of New England and Michigan, we’ve settled in Tennessee at my mother’s home for a while.

Her home is on a beautiful lake at the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, about half an hour south of Knoxville. We really love being here – in most ways, it’s the complete opposite of Jakarta or Manila, and is just what’s needed after those mega-metropolitan cities. It’s exceptionally peaceful and relaxing, with the only noises coming from boats cruising up and down the lake or the hum of lawnmowers in neighboring yards which I find comforting in a weird American childhood way.

There’s all kinds of wildlife around – just this morning we were out on the boat and saw a Bald Eagle soaring above searching for prey.

We have a few plans to get into the local attractions – the Smoky Mountains, Chattanooga, Knoxville, etc. And if all goes well, we may spend a week or so at their home in Indian Rocks, Florida as well – which will be another 11 hour road trip.

I’ll post more frequently now that we’re settled with (fast!) internet. I have photos that I’ll share from our tour around New England, Bar Harbor, Niagara Falls, and upper Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes.

For now, it’s back to reading Shantaram in the sun. Hasta.

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We’re on American soil, after having arrived in New York City on Tuesday at noon. Total travel time of 36 hours wasn’t nearly as bad as it was in 2008, but we had some interesting experiences along the way. More on that later.

My father met us at JFK and we’re currently traveling New England. Tuesday we powered out of NYC, and stayed the night south of Boston. Wednesday, we followed the coastline up through Maine. Today (Thursday) we’re in Belfast, Maine, just south of Bar Harbor. I think we’ll spend the day visiting Bar Harbor and then head to Mount Katahdin – the tallest mountain in Maine.

It’s great to travel this part of the U.S. for the first time with Novita – it’s all new for us all. It’s beautiful but cold! The daytime high has been less than 70 degrees and at night you can see your breath. So far I’m highly impressed with this state; the towns are stunningly quaint – I loved Portland (will have to come back another time to explore).

After today we may start to head back to Michigan following the Canadian border, eventually reaching Niagara Falls, and finally heading back through Cleveland, etc.

I love being a tourist in my own country.

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Due to many requests, I’ll share some tips for photographing lightning. Please note there is no ‘one way’ to do it; this is just a jumping point from which you may want to start. This particular photo I took reached the front page of Flickr’s Explore.

So what camera and settings did I use?

Canon 5D Mark II| Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L | at f/4 for 7 seconds | ISO 100

• Stay safe: Ok, this is obvious but still, if you can take the pics from indoors as I did, that’s more ideal than standing outdoors with a huge metal tripod screaming, “C’mon you can do better than that!”.
• Use a tripod (or a stable surface): This is critical because you’ll be keeping the shutter open longer than usual.
• Consider the foreground but include more of the sky: If this is a night shot, you’ll want to strive for longer shutter speeds in order to expose a bit of the foreground.
• If possible, use a cable release or similar: I use this: Canon Remote Switch that enables you to open the shutter without touching the camera. It eliminates camera shake that occurs when you press the shutter. It also allows you to use the “Bulb” setting if your camera has that feature.
• Use manual focus: If you’re shooting in darkness, you don’t want your camera hunting for focus points. You can likely set it to manual and infinity since the lightning will be far off in the distance.
• I personally use Manual Mode: I prefer to have full control over the exposure when taking photos like this. You could also try Shutter Priority (Tv).
• Try different shutter speeds: 30 seconds is about as long as I went. Any longer and I started picking up too much light in the foreground. If you’re using the remote switch, you can use “Bulb” and keep it open as long or short as you like.
• Use a smaller aperture: If you can set your aperture to something like f/8, you’ll have a higher chance of getting everything in focus.
• Keep trying: I sat at my window taking no less than 30 long exposure photos. This was the ONLY one that came out well. All of the rest were cloud to cloud lightning or I missed the timing, or just as I thought the storm was done I packed up and left the room only to be pounded by the thunder from yet another bolt I missed.
• Combine images if you wish: I didn’t do this – this is one exposure only. However, many lightning photos you’ll see online will be multiple exposures combined afterwards.

Please share your shots with the rest of us. We’d love to see the results of your photos! If you enjoy these type of tips and how-to’s, I’ll post more.

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Canon 5D Mark II | Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L| @ f/4.0 | 7 sec | ISO100

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In two weeks from today, we’ll be arriving in the States. I can’t wait.

There’s a ton of work to be done between now and then, including wrapping up a lot of work and this little detail of moving condos. We’re probably completely insane, but we’ll be moving to a new condo only three days before flying out for the summer. Needless to say, I’ve been quite busy lately.

While considering our flight halfway around the world and all of the packing involved, I’m striving to stay well under weight with baggage. One of the items I really need but am not sure I can bring is my Manfrotto Tripod and Manfrotto Joystick Head. It’s a fantastic tripod and very necessary for our travels in the States, but I chose weight and stability over portability when I purchased it. I’m pondering the idea of just purchasing a stable yet cheap tripod that I can just leave in the States full time so I don’t have to deal with this anymore.

This also brings me to the point of increased restrictions on carry-on luggage. With my photo equipment and my Apple 17″ MacBook Pro, I’m well above Singapore Airlines’ carry on allowance. The only thing that saves me is letting them know there’s a laptop in my backpack. How do traveling photographers deal with this dilemma on a regular basis? Sure I can leave a bunch of lenses behind, but in 8 weeks of holiday, I DO actually use them all.

This trip we’ve cut the travel time from an absurd 46 hours in 2008 (multiple layovers including a very lengthy Singapore stop), to a much more lean 25 hours. In 2008 I literally slept about 3 hours in those 46 hours. After running myself down like that I immediately got a nasty cold upon arrival in the States. This should be cake in comparison.

Also, I’m so much more pleased flying Singapore Air than many of the U.S. run airlines. I find the entire experience to be far superior, even in cattle class.

We’re going to try something new this trip – flying direct into NYC instead of Michigan. My father will drive to NYC to pick us up and we’re tentatively planning to tour New England for a week or so. I’ve never been in that part of the U.S. (Odd that I’ve been across 4 continents but not much of my own country). I hope to find some interesting photos as a stranger in my own country.

After that we’ll head to Michigan for a week or so, followed by some time spent in Tennessee on the lake, and possibly a trip to Florida. It’s looking like the trip out West we had initially planned will have to wait.

It’s been a great year professionally in Manila with lots of great experiences and a fantastic group of coworkers, but man oh man, is it time for a break.

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Yet another photo from the Aliwan Fiesta in Manila, Philippines.

Canon 5D Mk II | 70-200 f/4 @5.6 | 1/250 sec | ISO 200

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