Video recap: #vend4yourselves
December 16, 2011 Leave a comment
Video speaks for itself … thank you Ian Cohen for your creative (and bastardly) genius with the video, editing, and entire concept …
Vend 4 Yourself from Patrick Chaupham on Vimeo.
Vending machine – 1; Patrick – 0
December 13, 2011 1 Comment
It was an epic day … I think I might have missed one or two on my Posterous but the end result was I lost. I didn’t give up, but I did indeed lose to the epic vending machine.
25 items (out of the 40). A little north of 5600 calories. 9-bottles of water. $350 end result. A 6-hour headache. And completely no desire to ever eat any of those items ever again.
The beginning of the day started with a lot of carbs – stacked back to back to back to back. Everything was dry. My tongue felt like it was made of sandpaper. My mouth and throat could not handle swallowing. And my stomach just expanded and became … confused.
What did I learn? All of those products in the vending machine are disgusting. I knew they we chocked full of artificial ingredients, 6-syllable chemicals, sugar, sodium and partially hydrogenated oils. What I didn’t realize was how quickly all of those things consumed in such a short period of time and in large volume became detrimental to my body. I started getting a headache around noon, and as I write this around 7:24PM, it still lingers. My body temperature rose trying to process all these calories. I drank 9-bottles of water (and 1-can of ginger ale) … but didn’t use the rest room often enough. Everything was packed so full of sodium, I seemed to magically dehydrate myself just sitting at my desk working – and eating.
There will be awesome video and commentary from this. I shall post it later this week.
Thanks for staying tuned and following today!
Here’s the machine that kicked my ass … (notice the shirt is tight now)
My last word on this is, I am sure all of these items in the vending machine are fine, in small doses or moderation individually. I do not recommend anyone else attempting this challenge and consuming the amalgamation of all of these items in a single day, it’s not healthy.
Are 4/3 micro format cameras long lasting?
September 28, 2011 Leave a comment
So last week, Nikon, first of the big two, announced the introduction of the J1/V1 mirrorless bodies that will (eventually) support Nikkor interchangeable lenses. At first I thought to myself … “THIS IS AWESOME” … and then I realized why I hadn’t bought one of the many that are currently available (Sony, Samsung, Olympus) … they’re sort of pointless.
The latter models I just mentioned have available Nikkor mount adapters, that means I can literally take any of my Nikkor lenses and attach them to a 4/3 format small-body camera. At first I thought this was brilliant – and then I realized, it’s not practical at all.
- If I’m shooting real photos, I’m going to use my full-body D700 or D300
- I’m already shooting full-frame on the D700, I really don’t gain anything from the mirrorless
- It’s impractical form factor, imagine my f/2.8 24-70 or 70-200 mounted to a small body? I’d be holding the lens, not the actual camera body
- If I want some on-the-go quick and dirty photos … I’m going to use my iPhone
That being said, what’s the role? Consumers who don’t want the complete control of a DSLR with the ability to change lenses – will they use them properly and effectively anyhow? The menu systems won’t be as powerful or easy to access as a DSLR. Consumers who want to spend more money for show (and no more go) and don’t want to buy a solid point & shoot?
I’ve had the Nikon P7000 for about 6-months now. I’ve taken about 300 photos on it, the majority of my photos are on my iPhone. With the proliferation of apps like Instagram and instant content-sharing available right on a cell phone (iPhone or Android) – why wouldn’t consumers just naturally make the switch and slowly phase out the stand-alone camera … the next-gen iPhone-5 is rumored to have an 8MP camera built in … so quality is only getting better. I’m not entirely sold on higher-end expensive point & shoots as well as these mirror-less cameras, but maybe that’s me.
Life unrehearsed …
August 14, 2011 1 Comment
As most people who are close to me know, my life has been insanely busy the past seven-months and 14 days. The year started in Las Vegas at CES and has thus brought me countless RFPs and pitches, a crazy SxSW, new friends and cronies, old friends and cronies, a move, disgruntledness, and last Thursday I de-planed from my 75th flight since January 1st, 2011.
In all the time on airplanes and airports, I’ve gotten a chance to reflect on where I’ve been, where I am, and where I’m going. Everything up to this point has been unscripted and at times, absurdly unscripted. That’s just how my life has been … a bit insane, a bit ridiculous but I think that’s just the norm, versus just having a crazy year. I’ve always run thin – covered as much ground as possible, and gotten my fingers into everything and anything. I think I finally understand (and accept?) that … that I for the most part – I fly by the seat of my pants and I’m good at it.
Late last year, I got myself a tattoo for Christmas, it was my first and I knew it wasn’t going to be my last. It was on my left wrist and I knew in time I would want something on my right wrist to balance it out. I went and got that second tattoo last weekend. I was actually set for a while on what I was going to get, but at the last minute (not as in at the parlor) I realized what I really wanted. A word that was symbolic of my life … unrehearsed. Nerd … unrehearsed.
2010 travel recap …
January 23, 2011 Leave a comment
First flight of 2010 was on the 5th of January, westbound to Los Angeles. Little did I realize, that would set the tone for 2010. I didn’t realize that the first flight of the year would cause a ripple effect for the rest of the year, traveling almost every week, and multiple times a week. I circled the US and hit almost all of our major Weber Shandwick hubs. LA. Chicago. Dallas. Seattle. Washington DC. Minneapolis. Baltimore. And countless trips to NY. This didn’t even include trips to clients in other cities. I became a permanent employee of Delta Airlines…
Most who know me, asked if I was able to catch Up In The Air w/George Clooney. I actually didn’t catch this movie until very late in 2010, and I understood why. It’s not glamorous, far from it. It was tiring. Airline employees begin to recognize you. You see the same people week in and week out at the airport. You go into auto-pilot week after week.
Stats? A lot of them, I like looking at the stats involved with my travel …
- Over 248,000 frequent flyer miles awarded on Delta Airlines
- Over 125,00 actual flight miles on Delta Airlines
- Over 65,000 miles flown on American Airlines
- Over 100 flight segments
- A 4-inch thick stack of hotel room cards sitting in my desk drawer
- A love for Hilton and Starwood hotels only
- Zero, yes, zero missed flights, even with the fly-by-the-seat timing
I went to Evansville, IN a few times, I slept at Detroit International Airport, I saw a woman eat corn on the cob at the gate area, I went to Coca Cola world in Atlanta, and the nice hotel manager at the DoubleTree Metropolitan Hotel in NY gave me a large tin of cookies for me to enjoy at my second home.
I was exhausted. I’ve learned to fall asleep as soon as I hit my seat on the airplane and stay asleep until the 10,000 foot bell; yes there’s a 10,000 foot bell that signifies A-OK electronics use on every flight.
It’s important – it’s imperative – that my colleagues and cronies learn how to work the frequent-flyer programs. Pick one, maybe two airlines only. Same for hotels, and use them religiously. I know everyone knows this, but it’s astonishing how many of my colleagues don’t follow this rule. Complain. Once you’ve got status on anything, airline, hotel, car rental agency – complain when things aren’t right. These loyalty programs thrive on business travelers and they will do anything to make sure you’re happy, so make sure you’re happy! You’re paying large sums of money, they should be up to making sure the service is perfect.
Lastly, I only went to Southern Utah for vacation. Going to need to change that ratio in 2011. But take a guess, 2011 started with a flight on January 4th.
So if anyone is looking for me, find me on 4sq, or just call the Delta hotline. 
n.e.r.d. …
December 19, 2010 2 Comments
So I’ve been contemplating getting a tattoo for a while now, finally had the time to search Yelp and read up on reviews for parlors around the area and made the time today to go get my first tattoo.
It’s simple enough, embodies who I am, and for me, isn’t obnoxiously conspicuous. Decided to go to Inkjam in Arlington MA to get it done, took about 15mins and I was ready go to. You’ll have to guess what it stands for, if anything.
Follow up post to my lack of faith in Apple …
July 5, 2010 Leave a comment
This is a follow up post to the previous post regarding Apple products, I can’t say I’m entirely thrilled – because I’m far from it.
1> iPhone-nonsensory. I’m back to square-one. I thought I had a backup of my phone, but somehow iTunes backup management didn’t have it, as in my last backup – was the backup that was run right after the iOS4 update. I tried a factory reset, but then I would lose all of my data, something I wasn’t willing to deal with. So I did a factory reset + restore from backup. My phone is still running iOS4, it’s still crap. I’m not a happy camper. At all. It’s still slow and apps do not run smoothly or as quickly. Did I mention, I am not happy at all.
2> Again … Apple you’ve failed me miserably. For once, a Windows product had no issues over an Apple product, how could that be? It could be. Bootcamp installation of Windows7 failed, as far as I’m concerned. the OS installed, but there were no drivers on the Apple Macbook Pro CD that came with it … which meant no proper drivers for the trackpad, sound, network, and all that nonsense. Solution? DELETE the bootcamp partition, install Oracle VirtualBox, and then install Windows7 on that (identical to my iMac setup). It’s working fine for now … for now.
Dammit Apple, get with the technology program. [Patrick against anti-blinging-Apple]
wordpress for the iphone …
June 10, 2010 Leave a comment
So I’ve had my iPhone for well over a year now (Blackberry prior to that) and my blog for a longer while. When I got my iPhone, like everyone else, I spent 1400 hours the first two days – yes that’s possible – on the Apple iTunes store downloading every single app that looked remotely interesting or even not interesting. Some downright stupid – how many times have you ever really used the light-saber app, I mean really? One of those apps I installed back in the day was WordPress for the iPhone. Never ever used it, didn’t even configure and sign into my blog from my mobile device, because quite honestly, I couldn’t fathom conceiving to write a blog post from my phone.
(Tangent rewind – couldn’t use mobile WP because I was on blogger)
Well low and behold a few weeks ago, I looked at my phone, realized I needed to clean up all the nonsensical apps, and stumbled back upon WordPress mobile. Clicked on it to configure my blog, and it’s actually quite useful. All the posting features are built I , it’s great for quick/short posts (i.e. when i got more than a tweet) has all the tagging mechanisms one could want on the go, and now I have no real excuse not to post. Typing relatively short blog posts are a breeze, no need to completely whip out the laptop. And you can still write drafts without an internet connection.
Of course, this post was written on an iPad, but that’s another post – though the review is the same, except bigger keyboard possibilities.
ps – I’ve had to give up on the all lowercase type, these mobile devices auto-correct too much and it’s not a battle I want to tackle anymore with going back and correcting i’s. Thanks Apple for being such punctuation-nazi’s! 
