shotSpeak | photography and words collide

Official Blog of Corey Kepler: Sharing my photography, creative stuff, interesting people and things I encounter, and more. Member of Generation X. Free Thinker, World Traveler, Tech-Guru, Amateur Shutterbug, Web and Database Programmer, Web Application Developer, Business Consultant, Poet, Blogger. Got a problem? I've got a solution. Hablo Español.

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SURFERS AT OB PIER IN SAN DIEGO

I took some shots at the OB Pier today of the surfers. The waves were okay, but the surfers never disappoint at the pier. Enjoy!

More photos on my Flickr, click here.

Photos taken: 11/16/2014 (C) 2014, Corey Kepler

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Open Letter to San Diego Airport Authority

[Background:  My building was one of the recipients of replacement windows, doors, and a clean air system via the Quieter Home Program. The replacement of the windows, doors, and installation of the clean air system took approximately ten days. During the construction process a $20 clock was damaged by the workers. I was told the clock would be replaced. After asking several times on the last day the construction foreman delivered a cheaper plastic clock which was defective on arrival. Months have passed and the contractor hasn't made good on their promise. It's only a $20 clock, but people need to do what they say. This construction company is taking millions of dollars from us (through fees charged by the airport) and cannot be bothered. It's not right.]

-- **Below is my open letter to the Airport Authority with my personal contact information truncated. **

November 14, 2014

Sjohnna Knack, Manager Quieter Home Program San Diego County Regional Airport Authority Airport Noise Mitigation Department 2320 Stillwater Road San Diego, CA 92101

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing this letter in regards to the clock which was damaged by one of the construction workers performing the modifications in our building. I was told by the contractor’s foreman when it was broken that they would replace the clock.

I asked several times about my clock replacement while the workers were finishing my unit, at the final inspection, and after the finished my unit. I was told they were trying to find a similar clock. The contractor continued to work in our building and on the last day of work in my building they brought a much cheaper clock. The replacement clock did not work from the moment a battery was installed and did not come with a box or receipt.

I notified the Quieter Home Program about the replacement clock being defective. The contractor relayed (though the Quieter Home Program) that the clock had been purchased at Target. I went to Target and they didn’t have any clocks for sale which were similar. Furthermore, I was told by their customer service that I would require the original packaging and a receipt if I wanted to exchange the clock.

I notified the Quieter Home Program of what I was told at Target and was told they would contact the contractor. I hadn’t heard anything in almost a month and called your office today. Apparently, the contractor was supposed to contact me and never did.

I have not had any visits, notes left, and our building manager has not heard anything from the contactor in regards to this broken clock and/or replacement clock which was defective on arrival.

The clock which was broken only cost about $20, but I have relied on the integrity of the contactor to fulfill their promise and replace the clock. Months have passed and we have waited to purchase a replacement. If they had no intention of doing the right thing they should have just said so.

I would appreciate you looking into this matter. Please email at (***) or call me at 619-***-****. I will be purchasing a replacement clock over the weekend, because I don’t want to wait anymore.

  Sincerely, Corey Kepler

- UPDATE:  A program coordinator for the Quieter Homes Program contacted me. Consequently, they covered the cost of the clock that was damaged by their contractor.

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43 Students were taken by the police in Iguala, Mexico. The disappeared and are believed to have been burned alive. The world needs to pay attention to this!

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CAPTAIN #HORNBLASTER ON LIVE TV!

Too funny! #VideoOfTheDay #Hornblaster

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I JUST GOT BACK FROM VOTING.

Go and make a difference in our democracy and fulfill your civil duty.

Go on! You know you want to....

GO VOTE. GO VOTE. GO VOTE. GO VOTE. GO VOTE. GO VOTE.

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NEW ‘LED’ LIGHTING AT OCEAN BEACH PIER

Blinding visitors and ruining over fifty years of historical aesthetics

New LED Lighting at OB Pier in San Diego - Photo by: Corey Kepler

A little over a week ago I could see the moon was going to be low on the horizon from my pad in Point Loma. What an opportunity to get some great shots! I grabbed my camera, hopped in the car, and raced over to Ocean Beach. Coming down Narragansett Avenue toward Sunset Cliffs Boulevard I saw a weird glow in the incoming fog around the pier.

Astounded by weird glow I immediately went to check it out. To my surprise there were bright white lights running the span of the pier. I didn’t get it. I thought maybe there was something weird in the fog or maybe I caught a contact buzz from the reef the hippies were smoking by the seawall. Upon closer inspection I discovered the eye-sore the City of San Diego had created. They had replaced the soft yellow lights with these ultra-bright white LED lights.

The new lights completely ruin the aesthetics of the pier at night. The pier looks weird and out of place when you look at it from afar and even weirder when you are up close. The bright lights over-illuminate the pier walkway from beginning to end.  Walking from Niagara Avenue in the dimly lit street you are blinded when you walk on the pier by the bright light. You have to see it to truly see how profoundly it changed.

Foggy OB Pier in San Diego - Photo by: Corey Kepler

The lights ruin the soft reflection on the water created by the old yellow lights. On foggy nights, the bright white lights function like putting the high beams on in your car when you’re driving in fog. Putting these LEDs on this historical pier is like putting racing tires on a Ford Model T.

Who’s bright idea (pardon the pun) was it in the City of San Diego to do something so stupid? I haven’t seen anything in the news about this eye-sore and surprisingly haven’t seen any protests yet. In my youth, I saw protests when a Starbucks announced it was opening in Ocean Beach. The protectors of OB who mean to keep our sleepy community the same seem to be asleep at the wheel.

Young Girl Fishing OB Pier in San Diego - Photo by: Corey Kepler

So for now—No more dim lit romantic walks on the pier at night with your significant other. No more relaxed night fishing in dim light. No discreetly holding hands and making out at 2 a.m. on one of the fishy smelling benches at the end of the pier. No more walking through yellowy thick fog with your dog getting lost. No more avoiding the bums; the new lights let them see you from miles away. Get your spare change ready.

Fifty years of historical aesthetics will be ruined forever if we don’t tell the City of San Diego to change the lights back. Call The Ocean Beach Planning Department at [phone], email them at [email protected], and raise some hell.

by Corey Kepler Twitter: genxceo 11/4/2014

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CARL DeMAIO: Vote NO on NOV 4TH

On my way home I saw this sign in a neighbor’s yard. Looks like I have "like-minded" neighbors--at least the ones with post-it notes. Get the vote out for Scott Peters. DeMaio is bad for #SanDiego.

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SUNSETS AND HISTORY:  CABRILLO NATIONAL PARK

At the southern tip of Point Loma here in San Diego you can find out where it all started. Spanish Explorer Cabrillo discovered the San Diego area while looking for alternative routes to the Atlantic Ocean and the Orient. The lighthouse, museum, exhibits, and some killer views of San Diego are there. Bike or drive. It’s $5 per car to get in, $3 per bike, and free for active duty military and their dependents!

Check out more pics on my Flickr.

Photos taken: 11/2/2014 (C) 2014, Corey Kepler

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SUNSET CLIFFS: PLACE FOR AWESOME SUNSETS

If you're from San Diego you should know about Sunset Cliffs in Ocean Beach. Some of the best sunsets are there year round. Most people think of La Jolla, Pacific Beach, Mission Beach, and Coronado--though the best is the least visited! Take the I-8 West until it ends, go left, take the right side of the fork, and keep going. You won't be disappointed and bring your camera!

Check out more pics on my Flickr. Photos taken: 11/1/2014 (C) 2014, Corey Kepler

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NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY OF SAN DIEGO DOWNTOWN

Took some awesome shots of San Diego downtown from Coronado Island tonight. Turned out pretty awesome!

More pics on my Flickr.

Photos taken: 11/01/2014 (C) 2014, Corey Kepler

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SURFING OB PIER

I took some shots of the surfers in Ocean Beach today at the pier. Not the best light due to massive cloud cover, but nonetheless I got some great shots. More fun in the water though!!

More pics on my Flickr.

Photos taken: 10/31/2014 (C) 2014, Corey Kepler

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Mexico. Our neighbor’s house is on Fire!

Many think the problems in Mexico are limited to drug traffickers, undocumented immigrants, and the corruption and bribery of Mexican officials. Unfortunately, many here in the United States only hear about how undocumented immigrants are ruining our country, the murders and the war on drugs, or the ubiquitousstory about American soldier Andrew Tahmooressi’s arrest at the border for [ inadvertently ] crossing the border with weapons.

The truth is sadly much worse than we hear in the media. South of our border the government is silencing, murdering, imprisoning, and denying basic human rights to many of its youth and journalists. The monopolized and controlled national and local media routinely cover up, misreport, and blame the victims of these egregious acts of the state. The owners of these monopolies are entrenched in the national political parties. Keeping the status quo is more important than the truth.

Journalists are routinely fired from their jobs if they report the truth. They find it nearly impossible to find other work in their profession after speaking out. Due to the monolithic control of the nationalfree media anyone reporting the real truth faces career suicide. Aside from the risks with their career some still report the truth. Of those who are brave and speak out; they risk being kidnapped, maimed, or murdered by the drug cartels or corrupt police. Some just disappear and the government does nothing.

Due to the fact that most mainstream Mexicans get their news from national television or print they are commonly misinformed on what is really going on in their own country. For example, coverage of protests in Mexico by students, teachers, and other citizens are many times characterized as violent. Reports are given of accused violent protesters, but never of police brutality, false arrests, or letting the protesters speak their case to the media. Media coverage is normally people complaining of traffic delays, the violent protesters, or inaccurate reporting of the number of people protesting. Many times these national media outlets report hundreds or thousands of protesters marching when in reality it’s tens of thousands or more.

Many of the youth have woken up and are starting to fight back. They are smart enough to see that the national media is bought and controlled. They rely on social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other sites for the real scoop.

In 2012, I was living in Mexico City during the last presidential election. There were countless demonstrations against the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the proposed reforms the PRI had planned upon winning. Many protested all over Mexico against the reforms and Enrique Peña Nieto. I saw with my own eyes how the national media would purposely misreport the protests and to the size of the demonstrations.

I saw how the police would beat and arrest peacefully protesting students. These young people, kids who were old enough to be my son or daughter, were taken by the Mexico City or Federal Police and charged with crimes they did not commit. I heard stories at UNAM, the largest and most well-known university in Latin America about how these students would be stripped naked and left in jail cells for days without food or water. Some would simply disappear. At an assembly I heard a professor speak of how the students needed to go and fight for their classmates and fellow Mexicans.

The students organized and formed the ‘Yo Soy 132’ movement against Enrique Peña Nieto, the government and its corruption, and the biased coverage of the presidential election by the national media. This movement was the first modern organization of students and used social media to organize themselves. The movement was successful at getting some attention, but one of the key founders was bought off and offered a job by a large media outlet.

Enrique Peña Nieto and his political party (PRI), who many claim stole the election through gerrymandering and the purchasing of votes, pushed hard and bought off political adversaries in the other parties to gain their support for these reforms.

These reforms pushed for major changes to the Energy Policies, Telecommunications, and Education. Many economists, professors, civil rights and business leaders, free thinkers, and respected minds outside of Mexico view these so-called reforms as self-serving. They are a giveaways to business, benefit the few very rich in Mexico, are meant to control and manipulate the public, and are done at the expense of the Mexican people as a whole.

The “Reforma de Telecomunicaciones” championed and made law by Enrique Peña Nieto strengthens the monopoly control on the media and enacts monitoring of social media and other mediums. Many interpret this as a way control the news to the mass public and to spy and violate the privacy of the youth who no longer are rely on the traditional media.

The “Reforma de Educación” which guts public education, changes the requirements and standards for college degrees, and much more has be hotly fought against.

Recently, in Iguala, Guerrero, south of Mexico City there were 43 students protesting against these disastrous reforms to education. These young adults were taken by local police in cohesion with a local drug cartel and haven’t been seen in months. A local, respected, and well known religious leader claims to have spoken to a victim and another with direct knowledge of what happened. The victim says his classmates were burned alive, some while still alive, and buried in a mass grave.

In search for these bodies several sites containing mass graves have been discovered nearby, but DNA tests have confirmed that these aren’t the students. Then who are these people? Are the charred corpses other missing protestors? Political dissidents? Journalists? We may never know.

Luckily and thanks to social media the Enrique Peña Nieto government cannot cover this up like his predecessors in the PRI party did in 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre. At that time and shortly before the World Olympics the Mexican military murdered hundreds of protesting students and were responsible for thousands of causalities. The PRI government and the president Gustavo Diaz Ordaz covered it like it never happened.

This latest atrocity has woken up a lot of people up. The youth, some of which had previously chosen to remain silent are speaking out. Something so egregious cannot be swept under the rug and ignored. Universities all over Mexico are protesting and some even closing down temporarily to fight for the missing student protestors and for justice.

The culmination of anger, frustration, and disgust is all coming to a head. The government in Mexico can no longer control the news and perpetuate their lies through their media. People are like a sleeping giant in a democracy or republic. The people of Mexico have been and are being woken up by their own government murdering, kidnapping, and raping its own people and resources.

Thomas Jefferson once said: “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government;… whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.” –[Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789. ME 7:253.]

Jefferson’s words are as true now as they were back then. The people down south have noticed things go so far wrong. As Americans, we have the choice to support freedom, democracy, and the people of Mexico. Alternatively, we can be complacent and not care.

Complacency has a price. An unstable Mexico threatens all of North America and especially the United States. Our economic security and our image as the only remaining world superpower are threatened.

According to the US Census in 2013, Mexico is responsible for 13.2% of US Total Trade and ranks 3rd in Total Trade. They are the second largest importer of American goods in the world. An unstable Mexico threatens our economic stability. Would an unstable Mexico be buying American goods?

Can we maintain our credibility as a world leader if we ignore the transgressions of the Mexican government against its people?  Can we convince the world that certain terrorists or countries must be stopped if we ignore the government of our southern neighbor murder and kidnap its own people or be ignorant while their cohorts do?

Our neighbor’s house is on fire. It’s time to do the right thing.

Support justice for the 43 students who are missing in Iguala, Guerrero and for all the innocent people who are murdered or disappear for speaking the truth.

by Corey Kepler San Diego, California USA

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TIME LAPSE OF FAST MOVING CLOUDS IN SAN DIEGO MOUNTAINS

I took some shots this past weekend of the fog and clouds coming in over the mountains at the high elevations. This is only 45 Seconds compressed into 16 seconds to give you an idea how fast the clouds were actually moving!

More pics on my Flickr.

(C) 2014, Corey Kepler

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CREEPY OCTOBER NIGHT IN OCEAN BEACH

Driving by the corner of Orchard and Sunset Cliffs I saw this creepy sight with this tree, street light, and off light from a faint crescent moon. I tried to capture it the best I could, but it was so creepy.

More pics on my Flickr.

Photo Taken: 10/26/2014 (C) 2014, Corey Kepler

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FOGGY, CLOUDY, AND BREATHTAKING SUNSET IN SAN DIEGO

Taken in East San Diego on CA Route 79 as the fog rolled in fast and furious blocking the sun and overtaking the road! Incredible!

More pics on my Flickr.

Photos Taken: 10/26/2014 (C) 2014, Corey Kepler

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Privatization of America: Consequences

I read an article (linked below) about three horrible and unnecessary deaths in the Alabama State Prison System. This system is privatized like many conservatives on the right want to do to roads, education, and much more. Capitalism at work, eh? Not so fast. This article is a clear example of why the state should maintain control of core services. Regardless of the fact that the deaths were prisoners (or innocent civilians accused of a crime awaiting trial) there is no excuse for this type of inhumane treatment.

You do not ignore people and let them die to save a buck. The corporate prison administrators should be criminally charged for manslaughter and doctors/nurses in the medical area should lose their license to treat patients.

I'm a capitalist. I believe in capitalism and entrepreneurship. I grew up with the lessons of taking care of yourself, building your future, and not relying on others. However profits should never be a motivating factor when it involves treatment of prisoners.Somethings the state does do better and right. This is one of them. 

That's my two cents. Corey Kepler

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Source: Lawsuits: Alabama prisoners died of gangrene, constipation (CNN)

One prisoner died of alcohol withdrawal. Constipation killed another. A third succumbed to gangrene.

The deaths sound like they come from the logs of a Civil War POW encampment, but all three are alleged to have befallen detainees at the Madison County Jail in Huntsville, Alabama, while they were awaiting trial.  Read More

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FALL 2014 IN JULIAN, CA (San Diego County)

Fall has come to the East San Diego County. Beautiful colors, hot pie, hot apple cider, hot cocoa, and the leaves falling off the trees. About an hour from San Diego it's definitely worth a trip out there!

More pics on my Flickr.

Photos Taken: 10/27/2014 (C) 2014, Corey Kepler