Author Archives: Justin

About Justin

Justin is a fine art photographer, new media marketing consultant and gadget obsessed technophile. He writes about the events surrounding his life and travels, and the gadgets that enhance and enchant his existence.

Some New Work on the Horizon

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I haven’t really posted much photography work here in the last long while. Heck, I haven’t really been posting here with anything lately. Life has just gotten that busy I guess. I’ve taken hundreds, maybe even thousands, of photos in the last few weeks for work and for fun. It’s about time I start sharing them with you

Big Ass Fans

This one is actually one from a work shoot I just came from. These fans run at incredibly slow speeds. However, because they have such a massive blade span, they move some serious air, keeping a giant warehouse at a stable cool temperature. Also they are called Big Ass Fans, a name has never been more appropriate.

J Vineyards Makes it Right

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A few weeks ago I wrote about a negative experience my friends and I had at  J Vineyards & Winery in Healdsburg. The short story is that we were part of a Wine Club special event tasting where employees were uneducated about the wines and food pairings, they lacked attention to detail and their guests and the “sparkling only” wine shipment was overpriced and handed to me not with pride but apologetically.

A few days after sharing that experience I was contacted over Twitter and the phone by Carolyne, a representative of the winery. We talked at length about what happened, what should have happened and what will happen in the future. Carolyne was kind to listen, apologize and provide me with the confidence that myself and others will not be dealt the same poor service ever again at their tasting room. Continue reading →

Leaving PowWeb Over Malware Attack

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Malware is evilApparently my site, as well as 30,000 other WordPress sites, became a victim of some type or malware or virus. For around 24 hours this site, and every other site I hosted on this PowWeb account, was totally shut down.

How this attack happened, I’m not really sure. My host insists it was an FTP attack which would also mean it wasn’t a WordPress vulnerability, so take me off that list of 30,000 sites.

However, my host refuses to tell me how it happened, when it happened, all files/directories affected and how they plan to prevent this from happening in the future. My username and password for my FTP server are secure, I almost never log into my FTP server and have not used any of the notorious leaky FTP clients.

So it’s after several months of downtime induced by high traffic to my site, and this latest hack, that I have decided to once and for all, leave PowWeb for greener pastures. I am currently looking at Media Temple and LiquidWeb as replacement hosts. They both seem to be far superior, if not at least far more expensive.

I am also planning to write an article on how I secure my WordPress sites. Even though this one was apparently hacked, it wasn’t because of the numerous WordPress security holes, it seems it was the holes in my host’s security. Somehow I managed to not be one of the thousands of WordPress blogs hacked this week! So there is an upside huh?

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J Vineyards and Winery, a Bitter Taste

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J Vineyards and WineryI tweeted earlier in the week that Kayla, Marris and I had a dreadful wine tasting at J Vineyards in Healdsburg. J Vineyards responded on Twitter requesting I direct message them my story so they could make it right. I told them I’d put it together here and so I have. A direct message, while definitely tidier for J, would never allow me to fully explain my disappointment. Here goes:

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you probably know about the never-ending renovation I’ve been doing on my house in wine country. I find myself going up north to meet with a contractor or furniture delivery person at least once a month. While this might be annoying to some, and it is to me, the best part of these trips is getting to see Kayla.

It’s a rare event that Kayla and I are in the same zip code and don’t do some sort of wine tasting. So on this trip to Sonoma County, she and I decided to hit up J Vineyards for a quick tasting and pick up my wine club shipment. Marris was in town and joined in on the adventure. But before we go there, let’s learn a bit about the winery and my history visiting them. Continue reading →

The Gay Rights Movement

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I just stumbled upon this video through a friend’s Facebook update and immediately felt compelled to share here. It’s a trailer for a documentary titled “Second Class Citizens” which you can sponsor via Kickstarter.

This documentary is something that is very near and dear to me; someone who is considered by my state and country a second class citizen. By extension, I am a second class citizen to all my friends and family members who continue to vote for people who fight against equality, donate money to organizations and churches who cast aspersions on who I am and look the other way all the while.

Explaining what it is like to be gay isn’t easy. I kept it a secret until I was 18 years old because I feared that I might be made a victim of harassment beyond what I was already experiencing in junior high and high school. I was so stressed out about being gay that I became physically ill; acid reflux, debilitating migraines, panic attacks & major depression.

If it wasn’t for the friends I made in college, I don’t know that I would have survived to be where I am today. Far too many people like me don’t make it through the bullying. They are commit suicide or are murdered because they or someone else was unable to accept the person they were born to be.

I can’t tell you the number of times I was verbally or physically harassed, my property vandalized and my life threatened. My first semester in college a neighbor in the dorms threaten to hang me in the stairwell because I was gay. Try explaining to your parents why you have to switch dorms when that is your reason. I never did because I never had the courage to do so.

Ryan James Yezak is hoping to produce a documentary titled “Second Class Citizens” and has created a Kickstarter campaign to help fund it. I implore you to check it out and if you find it worthy, to invest in his film. I am going to do that right now.

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