{"id":49,"date":"2017-06-25T12:38:14","date_gmt":"2017-06-25T12:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blog.jdhthai.com\/?p=49"},"modified":"2017-12-09T23:13:18","modified_gmt":"2017-12-09T23:13:18","slug":"curiosity-is-infectious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jdhthai.com\/?p=49","title":{"rendered":"Curiosity is Infectious"},"content":{"rendered":"
Dad & Tech<\/h6>\n

My dad has always had a keen interest in the latest consumer electronics. Often, he would go out and purchase something he’d seen someone at church using, or caught a glimpse of in an ad. One of the immediate consequences of my dad’s tech fondness was that any time it manifested itself into a purchase, my mom would instantly throw a fit. My dad ended having to hide his “toys” (as my mom put it) all over the house. His secret purchases were so prevalent that growing up, one of my favorite past-time activities was to go “treasure hunting” around the house. \u00a0The late 1990s and early 2000s were my Gold Rush years.<\/p>\n

I’ve always considered my dad’s closet a gold vein for small to medium sized electronic nuggets. I’d reach into a pile of neatly folded clothes and sometimes feel the outline of a zip drive, headphones, or a Sony mini disc player. I’d pull out whatever I found, inspect it, mess around with it, and then carefully put it back like nothing happen. However, my dad somehow always knew I had messed with his stuff.<\/p>\n

Things got a little more serious when I’d find something like a laptop. It was actually pretty shocking because I knew my mom would totally ream my dad if she ever found out, so I’d just pretend I never found anything. Finding that much gold could get you killed.<\/p>\n

I remember one time I pulled out a video camera in front of my mom. What followed was her yelling the equivalent of “the f***?!” in Vietnamese while she eagerly waited for my dad to come home from work; rolling pin in hand. I’m positive the anger was a blend of finding out my dad purchased something expensive and the embarrassment of her realizing that she was oblivious to such a massive object. That incident put a swift end to the announcement of my discoveries.<\/p>\n

The Camera<\/h6>\n

Around 2002, one of the manifestations of my dad’s curiosity took the form of an Olympus C-50Z<\/strong>. If my memory serves me correctly, this thing was a beast. Not only was it a digital camera, it had a cool XD memory card (later turned out to be a pain), and took very poor video (really, it was so bad that the Amazon product description<\/a>\u00a0used phrases like “not meant to replace a true camcorder” and “offers limited resolution”). My dad actually revealed the C-50Z purchase and to my surprise, my mom wasn’t very upset about it.<\/p>\n

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Olympus Camedia C-50Z<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How did I come to use it? I was persistently annoying. I hogged the camera and bothered him to use it all the time. The thing is, as much as my dad liked technology, he didn’t really have a good initial<\/em> understanding of how to use a lot of it. Most of the time, he’d hand something over to me to look at and figure out how to use. I got used to flipping through boring user manuals pretty quickly.<\/p>\n

Use<\/h6>\n

Figuring out how to use the camera was incredibly delightful. I’m sure my mom saw the leaks of flash light coming out from underneath my bedroom door. I played around with all the modes and settings the camera had. Most of the adjustments only showed up as minor incremental changes. However, after I found out how to use the built in black-and-white and sepia effects, I declared myself an artist.<\/p>\n

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My first selfie., taken around 2002.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reflecting on my time using the C-50Z, I treated it very casually. I took it with me to family gatherings, events, school, etc. just to have something to do in addition to the primary reason why I was wherever I was. I liked playing with the different settings, but ended up using auto or one of the program modes most of the time.<\/p>\n

Even though my use was casual, the C-50Z woke at a powerful interest in me which persists to this day. It led up to some of the gear you see below.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Here are a few other pictures from the C-50Z:<\/h6>\n

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Funky plasma orb in my room (7.8mm @ f\/5.6 1\/100 ISO 80). December 30, 2004.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n
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Egg drop at Fremont High School (7.8mm @ f\/5.6 1\/100 ISO 80). March 23, 2005.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n
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FHS Spirit Day? (7.8mm @ f\/5.6 1\/100 ISO 80). October 1, 2004.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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Mr. Clarke’s Lucky Mismatched Socks (7.8mm @ f\/2.8 1\/30 ISO 80). August 23, 2004.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n
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Uncle Ed’s birthday (7.8mm @ f\/2.8 1\/30 ISO 80). July 13, 2002 (?).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n
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Mom in backyard (7.8mm @ f\/5.6 1\/160 ISO 80). July 13, 2002 (?).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Example of the horrible, horrible video:<\/p>\n