Long white door hangar with a hole in the top and blue writing.

woman in white skirt is sitting on a stairs with a man

girl, smiling wearing a white shirt and black top on

25 Things Written About Me I ll let the writer of this remain anonymous for the time being but per 10 on the list I d sure love to see more of these pop up BEWARE LADIES 25 Things You Should Know About Kevin Patrick Ludlow 1 He cackles when he thinks something is particularly funny and if you point out his cackle he will cackle even louder 2 He once had a comic strip in college titled Super Sperm It was a Superman esque comic about a superhero sperm 3 He loves having his toes popped shudder and will try to persuade you to pop them for him If you are unsuccessful he will complain 4 He twirls his hair and or plays with his hands when he is thinking or talking about something serious 5 He considers being submersed in any type of water as his shower for the day Pools rivers etc it all counts 6 He is generally impatient 7 He is however amazingly patient with children 8 He has a sweet tooth 9 He has a particular fondness for Krispy Kreme raspberry filled donuts 10 He likes being the center of attention 11 He doesn t like being like everyone else and will go out of his way to be different i e wearing black dress socks with shorts or one gray sock and one white sock 12 He is determined and hates to fail As evidence he works far more hours than the average person 13 He prefers floss sword sticks over regular floss 14 Speaking of swords he has a knack for fusing the little swords that spear olives etc into eye glasses Check out the link for evidence http www kevinludlow com index php module Photos amp op view amp albumID 330 amp photoID 16277 15 He often brushes his teeth in the shower 16 He is good at making animal sounds I think I stumped him once with giraffe though 17 He doesn t drink coffee but likes Earl Grey tea 18 He is allergic to almost everything 19 He likes to argue his views and doesn t like to be wrong 20 He often pays with 2 bills 21 Due to his natural coat of hair he prefers the colder climates 22 He has a hole in his nasal cavity 23 He doesn t enjoy singing in front of others unless he is drunk and the radio is turned up 24 He enjoys opera music 25 He has been known to do aerobatic tricks at high altitudes He doesn t frighten easily but is terrified of spiders 26 It s complicated

Howard Ludlow Sr Slide Collection As some of you already know or have possibly noticed popping up on Facebook over the months I have finally taken on the arduous task of digitizing and restoring all of my grandparent s Momma and Poppa old slides In truth I actually started this project a few years ago but was not satisfied with the quality of output that I getting and ultimately shelved the idea A dear friend of mine Mark Holzbach a href http www austinforum org speakers holzbach html http www austinforum org speakers holzbach html a was kind enough to provide me with his Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 and SF 210 Slide Feeder finally making the process both bearable and of exceptional quality I am very pleased with the final result The complete collection is a little more than 6 50 GB The file prefixes were consistent with how my grandfather Poppa had the boxes originally labeled and the slides were all scanned in the order that they appeared in the original carousels There was no post editing done to the scans aside from the built in Nikon VueScan filtering and so some are upside down inverted etc strong About the Slide Set strong In total there were 1 869 slides that were part of the collection The date range of these slides appears to be from about 1973 1988 The locations are vast and span the North Atlantic Canada parts of New York and New Jersey Eastern and Western Europe Scandinavia Russia and Northern Africa namely Egypt and Morocco I would say that most of them take place on various cruises and other water transports though certainly not exclusively It s also worth noting that Poppa was very interested in shooting photos of locations and scenery as opposed to people As it happens he was actually very good at composition in my opinion but the downside is that probably less than 15 of the photos are actually of people or at least people that are recognized by my family strong Digitization and Restoration strong photo 36255 740 0 right Poppa on a boat 7 26 1975 BEFORE infrared processing and and chrome color correction photo photo 36257 740 0 right Poppa on a boat 7 26 1975 AFTER infrared processing and and chrome color correction photo The Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 allowed me to capture very high quality image data I initially intended to scan all of the photos in RAW format but ultimately decided against this calculating that the 500 GB or so of data that would be required would be very difficult to mobilize and would not justify the benefits given the otherwise VERY high quality of scanning Instead I wound up scanning each slide at 4000 DPI and stored them in 100 uncompressed JPEG format The lack of compression makes this more or less equivalent to TIFF data there is no or should not be adjusting of the color pallet The complete dataset wound up being 6 50 GB of JPEG data or about 3 477 MB per photo essentially the same as any high resolution photography these days The scanner also utilizes a technology known as digital ICE which incidentally was invented by a friend of Marks Essentially after each slide was scanned it would be rescanned using an infrared light Unlike traditional white light used for scanning infrared is capable of detecting depth This is used to automatically detect dust and similar particulates as well as scratches on the physical film Once the process finished a proprietary software program I purchased called VueScan compared the infrared layer of data to the color layer and automatically eliminated the granular imperfections The final step was to apply industry standard color corrections to the various types of slide film Kodachrome Ektochrome etc photo 36254 740 0 right London Wellington Arch 4 17 76 BEFORE color correcting photo photo 36256 740 0 right London Wellington Arch 4 17 76 AFTER color correcting photo The blended result of these technologies is a wonderful restoration of the entire photo set Aside from physically improving the slides under a microscope I m not sure they could be restored or preserved any better I should also note that I did not use any sort of cropping on the slides The reason for this is that I occasionally find the algorithms to detect the edges of slides not to be very good I wanted to preserve the entirety of the slides and so you ll note that almost all of them have the slide frame scanned around them If you zoom in and look very closely you ll even see the frayed edges of the film against the slide frames In the few occasional instances where no slide frame is visible these were slides that simply had no lip Also if you are interested in printing any of these photos just open the photo in a graphic editor of your choosing and crop as desired The quality is FAR great enough to produce very nice prints Even 16x20 prints of these slides should print without any pixilation strong Storing strong photo 26043 644 0 right Some of Poppa s original notes photo Several years ago I carefully moved all of the slides from their carousel trays to specialized air tight acrylic slide containers The slides have been placed back into these with all of the notes that Poppa kept on them I will be getting these notes typed up sometime soon The slide containers only hold up to 50 slides each so there are quite a few of them Each of these slide containers was then placed into air tight photo boxes available at craft stores such as Michael s Upon the completion of my company warehouse hopefully to be open in early summer 2012 I will be storing these slide boxes in a fireproof safe in my hidden room There will be some irony should they burn I realize this but that s about as safe as I can think to make them strong Additional Photos strong photo 26079 644 0 right One of the air tight acrylic slide boxes photo I am still hoping to get any remaining family photos slides or the like from old boxes or books in order to have them digitized and add them to my collections I would also like to note to anyone reading this that if you DO have photos in those old sticky magnetic photo books please note that the glues are only accelerating the destruction of the photos You may want to consider removing them from those books as I did for my parents 2 years ago and storing them in proper photo containers until they can be digitally preserved This is especially the case given the pervasiveness of modern scanning technologies and methodologies

The Duval Car Chase One day I came down the staircase and into my condo s parking garage over at 32nd and Duval just north of UT Austin s campus It was late probably between 2am and 3am I only took a couple of steps into the garage when I noticed two guys near the corner trying to break into one of my neighbors cars I looked in their general direction and one of them made eye contact with me He was like a deer in headlights He signaled to his buddy and they very slowly and casually started walking away from the car they were attempting to rob I started walking faster towards my truck and they did the same towards the exit I finally ran to my truck and they ran out of the parking garage A small white car was waiting for them and they jumped into it I started up my F 150 in record time and hauled out of the garage in pursuit of them Since my car was still equipped with an external sound system I thought it was far time that I use my siren for a good purpose and proceeded to chase them towards campus My lights were flashing and my police siren was at full volume I pursued them south down Duval street all the way to 26th street They ran the light and turned west on 26th I followed We hit upwards of 60mph as we traveled westerly through campus They took a hard right onto Guadalupe and I was still in close pursuit Finally as we neared 29th street they did a 180 through traffic I couldn t safely make the same turn especially in my truck By the time I did turn around probably just a few seconds later they had gotten far enough away from me that I lost them If only cell phones had been available I typed up an indecent report and posted it in the elevator at my condo complex in case anybody had been burglarized Fortunately I was able to run them out before they actually did any damage It sure would have been nice to catch them

The Fifth Ward Sign photo 258011 740 0 right A map of the area detailing the various streets involved in this excursion photo When I was in high school one of the more interesting and regular gifts that I would get for people were street signs bearing their name It s not a practice that I encourage but it had its time in my youth Over the summer of 1998 I had started dating Sarah Wagner and wanted to get her one of these signs as well Since this was still really before the time of internet mapping I took to my local Target and looked up Sarah s name in one of the key map books When I ve told this story in the past occasionally someone is not familiar with a key map So just in case a key map is a bound book that has a map of every single street within a certain area usually a city A key map for the city of Houston probably has about three hundred pages to it The map showed that there was a tiny road called Sarah Street in northern central Houston smack dad in the center of the Fifth Ward It was late at night probably after 1am and I called up my dear friend Victor and asked him if he d join me He agreed and even drove We headed out into Houston from Katy turned up on 59 and drove into the Fifth Ward The scenery immediately changed Even though it was probably near 2am at this point there were people walking around everywhere Cars were parked three and four deep onto lawns at almost every home and there was definitely a sense of discomfort about the whole thing Victor and I couldn t find the street immediately and had different ideas on how to resolve this I thought we should just continue driving around looking for it but being one to trust anyone and everyone Victor decided that we would ask for directions Incidentally Victor is now a real life ordained Catholic priest He pulled up next to some guy standing in the middle of the road and asked him if he knew where Sarah Street was The guy said he would tell us for a dollar Victor paid him and he proceeded to give us directions He told us to go up the block turn left on Collingsworth and then turn left again at Carr Street That would take us where we wanted to go I did not have a very good feeling about this but we gave it a go Victor followed the guy s instructions We drove to the end of the street when two things occurred to me Number one was that we had just crossed into a train yard Number two was that the road we were on dead ended at said train yard I have no idea if the guy was sending us to get robbed or perhaps there was a drug house over there he assumed we were trying to buy from or if he was just sending us away But I do know that two white kids in a shiny Ford Ranger do NOT want to be at the dead end of a train yard in the Fifth Ward of Houston at 2am on bad information That is almost as bad as the string of prepositional phrases needed to describe the aforementioned problem I didn t really think much beyond that point other than to tell Victor to put it in reverse and to back out quickly He did It was the only sign I never successfully got

A Personal FAQ About Me strong 1 What is your name strong For the purposes of this FAQ Kevin will do just fine but I ll give you a hint go to a href http www kevinludlow com this a URL strong 2 Where are you from strong Originally I m from the little town of Manalpan New Jersey My family moved to Texas when I was eight or so and I spent the next 10 years living in Houston Texas After I graduated from high school I moved to Austin Texas strong 3 Where do you live now strong In an apartment in Austin Texas strong 4 How tall are you strong Ummm I d like to say 5 10 but I m told that might be generous by an inch or so strong 5 What color eyes do you have strong Blue strong 6 What is your favorite color strong Green strong 7 Are you married strong No strong 8 Are you single strong Would a non single guy have a website with multiple FAQ s about himself on it strong 9 Are you rich strong Most certainly strong 10 Can I call you sometime strong Hmmm why don t you email me your picture first strong 11 Are you the type of guy that enjoys dates strong Actually I prefer plums though dates and more importantly the act of dating has appealed to me a time or two strong 12 Do you have any favorite authors or books strong I have to be honest I m not much for reading Not that I don t like books I just prefer having them read to me via audiobooks or CDs I generally prefer mystery books random fact books history books and generally anything scientific in nature strong 13 What about your favorite TV shows strong I don t watch that much TV I like the FOX block of The Simpsons Seinfeld King of the Hill and sometimes That 70 s Show Other than that I tend to stick to the Discovery Channel the History Channel and movie channels such as HBO namely b c I hate commercials strong 14 And for the trifecta how about movies strong I think my favorite movie is The Shawshank Redemption As for clever movies I like Guy Ritchie s Snatch I ve enjoyed all 30 or so Hitchcock movies that I ve seen and also like a number of old silent pictures with Charlie Chaplin and or Buster Keaton A local Austin band Guy Forsyth has put on a fabulous show a few times by playing an original score to Buster Keatons The General strong 15 What kind of music do you listen to strong I listen to most everything except for rap and country Tho even some rap has grown on me thanks to the Tony Hawk and Grand Theft Auto video game series I ve recently really gotten into listening to more worldly music and of course being the narcacist that I am I enjoy listening to some of my own homemade music strong 16 What kind of a car do you drive strong A black 2004 Saturn Ion2 Quad Coupe strong 17 What other cars have you owned in the past strong My first car was a white 1993 Mitsibushi Mighty Max small pickup truck This was followed by a cherry red mocca Ford F150 Eddie Bauer pickup truck After that came a cherry red mocca 2000 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer This is about when I moved to New Zealand First I purchased a 1989 Honda Beat 50cc Scooter then a 1981 Subaru Leone After returning stateside I purchased my 2004 Saturn Ion2 Quad Coupe strong 18 Do you like to travel strong Indeed strong 19 Have you visited much of the United States strong Most all of it I still have yet to visit Alaska Hawaii and a few states of the central north such as the Dakotas and Montana strong 20 Have you traveled outside of the United States strong Yup I ve traveled to some of the Virgin Islands Mexico dozens of times New Zealand Australia Fiji and Puerto Rico technically not part of the US strong 21 Where would you like to go next strong I would really like to visit Canada Cuba Japan Thailand Russia and then Europe more or less in that order strong 22 Do you have any pets strong No sadly I ve seemed to develop certain allergies to some pets strong 23 What pets have you had in the past strong My family has had and I grew up with cats of the following names Henry Fluffy Tabitha and Sam Dog names were Barney a sheltie Freckles a k a Senor Taco a long haired chihuahua and Sampson a mutt We also had a horse for many years named Tara Personally I have had dozens of fish including a few large mouth bass I had a pet crawfish named Bob and my personal favorite was my pet mouse named Mario Van Peebles Mouseman III a k a Mousie strong 24 Was it really necessary to type all of these questions strong You re the one that read them strong 25 Is there anything that really annoys you strong Yes people that would have typed the former answer as Your the one that read them

The Monte Montgomery Guitar When Tisa and I had only been dating for about 2 or 3 months I wanted to get her a cool present for her upcoming birthday on the 16th of April She and I were frequently going to see a href http www montemontgomery com Monte Montgomery a play at the local bars in Austin and she had made some mention to me that she would like to learn to play the guitar My idea was then to buy her a relatively inexpensive acoustic guitar and have Monte sign it for her strong Getting the Guitar strong About a week earlier to this particular trip I went onto eBay and found a red Johnson 6 string acoustic for about 150 00 or so There was an available Buy it Now option and since I didn t have much time I went ahead and did it For whatever reason my eBay account was giving me trouble so I actually had a href http www guezuraga org Dave Guezuraga a my roommate at the time purchase the guitar for me I quickly reimbursed him for it and he got the star on his eBay account strong Contacting Monte strong I went on to a href http www montemontgomery com Monte s website a and found an email address that I figured I could use to contact his people regarding having the guitar signed A day or two went by and I still had not heard back from them Getting slightly anxious about this I decided that if I did not hear back from them I would just have to go to one of Monte s concerts and have him sign it I figured he couldn t turn me down The only problem was that his only upcoming concert was in Dallas on the 5th of April 2002 and that was going to be a bit of a drive on my part strong My Letter to Monte Montgomery strong div style border 1px solid c0c0c0 margin bottom 20px background color fafafa padding 20px From Kevin Ludlow lt ludlow mail utexas edu gt To lt monteray satx rr com gt Sent Monday April 01 2002 2 53 PM Subject upcoming show with a question Dear Sir or Madam I am hoping that this letter can find its way to Monte Montgomery as this was the only email address that I could find on the website So Monte My name is Kevin Ludlow and I live in Austin where I do get to see your shows from time to time I try to go whenever possible because while I m sure you can do without more flattering from people your music is incredible and your guitar method is something I ve never seen before To the point I have a small favor that I would like to ask of you I have been playing guitar for quite some time and my girlfriend has been wanting me to teach her For her upcoming birthday this April 16 I have bought her a pretty inexpensive but nice practice guitar so she has something to learn on Unfortuantly I couldnt afford anything too grand My favor to ask is if you could sign personalize the guitar I m sure that you have lots of number one fans but I would say that she is definately one of them and I think she would cherish the very thought of you signing it Also I would hope it would inspire her to learn to play as she admires your guitar playing a great deal If this is at all possible I would happily pay you for the trouble or do whatever necessary to make it possible I might not normally go through such a length do to something but she is definately worth that and much more to me anyways I understand that you have a show coming up in Dallas on the 5th and I happily would drive up to Dallas I d love to see the show and perhaps I could see you afterwards I am just hoping that the guitar gets here before then as I ordered it online So it would mean a great deal to me and I guarantee her too if you could do this I hope to hear from you and email is great but my cell is 512 xxx xxxx Thank you so much for your time Kevin Ludlow div strong style clear both Getting the Signature strong photo 1155 48 0 right The signed guitar sitting in my living room photo I asked my good friend Preston Graham if he would like to join me in going to a concert in Dallas and of course explained why I needed to go up there Being the great guy that he is he happily agreed to go with me So around 4pm on the 5th I picked him up in my truck and we drove the 3 or so hours up North to Dallas I guess we got there a bit too early for nightlife but it allowed me to get a spot directly in front of the club where Monte was playing that night The Gypsy Tea Room With some time to kill Preston and I walked across the street from the club and had a beer or two at another bar Afterwards we proceeded to walk back over to the club and wait in line We were there for about 10 minutes or so when Tisa called me on my cell There was clearly a loud ruckus from the people standing around and I had to make up some story about me being out with some friends or the like I didn t want her to know that I was in Dallas going to a concert I think it was a fair white lie When we finally got inside of the Gypsy Tea Room the opening band was just about to go on Preston and I had a few more beers and were just sitting around talking when I happened to notice Monte up at the bar I quickly ran up to him and explained to him that I had just bought my girlfriend an acoustic guitar and would appreciate it if he could sign it He told me no problem and that he would do it after the show This was a relief though now we had to sit through the entire show Not that I didn t want to see Monte play or anything like that but he wasn t going on until around 11pm or so and we still had to drive back to Austin Needless to say we watched the entire show drank some beers and all in all had a great time As soon as the show was over I asked Monte once more just to confirm and he told me to go and get the guitar from my car I brought it back to him and he was more than happy to sign it personally to Tisa He asked me what I wanted it to read and I told him just to write whatever he wanted so long as it was addressed to Tisa He didn t argue and signed it To Tisa Peace and Love Monte Montgomery Preston and I left the Tea Room sometime around 2 30 3 00am and of course still had a 3 hour drive ahead of us It was more than exhausting and I think Preston tried to stay awake with me as long as possible but eventually fell asleep in the car We got home some time around 6am strong style clear both My Response from Monte Montgomery strong Even though I managed to get the guitar signed it took awhile for that email that I originally wrote to get back to me The return letter actually came from Monte s manager Ray Rodriguez but apparently he actually spoke with Monte regarding the guitar Thankfully it wasn t of much concern by this time Here is the email that was sent back to me regarding the guitar being signed div style border 1px solid c0c0c0 margin bottom 20px background color fafafa padding 20px From Sun Apr 14 11 45 59 2002 From RayRod lt monteray satx rr com gt To Kevin Ludlow lt ludlow mail utexas edu gt Subject Re upcoming show with a question Date Sun 14 Apr 2002 10 45 35 0500 Kevin Sorry for the late reply I spoke to Monte about this and he d be glad to sign the guitar So bring it to any one of his shows and just ask him to sign it Best Regards Ray Rodriguez Manager Monte Montgomery Monte Ray Enterprises www montemontgomery com div strong style clear both Giving the Guitar to Tisa strong I had to hold onto the guitar for 10 solid days without letting her know anything about it much less that I had just been to Dallas the night before and gone to a Monte concert On her birthday she came over after going out with one of her friends and I was anxious to give her the guitar I presented it to her and of course she was incredibly excited that I had given her a guitar in the first place The funny thing was she thought that I had signed it I explained to her that it was personally signed by Monte Montgomery just for her I had to explain the entire story but I think she was more than amazed with the effort made div style border 1px solid c0c0c0 margin bottom 20px background color fafafa padding 20px strong ardoty yahoo com strong br Wow That is so cool I can t believe you went to all that trouble But I can see you had a good time doing it I am a huge M M fan and have driven between Dallas and Austin to see gigs myself Tisa a a lucky girl div div style border 1px solid c0c0c0 margin bottom 20px background color fafafa padding 20px strong zorgux caramail com strong br bonjour je cherche la tablature de romeo and juliet par monte montgomery Pourriez vous m eacute crire pour savoir si vous l aviez et si possible pourriez vous me l envoyer a mon adresse mail je vous remercie a bientot div

The Graham Honeymoon Since I just spent some time off in the Yucutan I thought I d give the Grahams my notes on where they might want to go while on their Honeymoon In case anybody else is headed in that direction here is some information strong Getting to Cozumel strong The ferry leaves from Playa Del Carmen on pretty regular intervals It s incredible easy to get there Go to the east end of Ave Juarez the busiest street that runs through Playa towards the Caribbean The cost of a round trip per person is about 15 00 USD There is plenty of information available once you are in the area and you should not have any problems getting to the island Just make sure that you know when the last ferry leaves from Cozumel back to Playa Del Carmen or you ll be stuck in Cozumel for the night The ferry will drop you off in the main area of Cozumel There you ll be able to do tons of shopping like we discussed mainly silver gold shops T shirts and cigars Cozumel is a wonderful place to go exploring especially if you can get there somewhat early in the morning to explore the island or right around sunset to enjoy the dining and nightlife The taxi services there are pretty regulated so don t worry too much about getting ripped off Obviously be aware that it happens but you should be okay photo 36008 740 0 right photo If you get there early enough it might be fun to rent a car for just a few hours it shouldn t cost more than 20 30 You ll be on the west side of the island when you get off of the ferry There is plenty to do in that area but there are also a few hidden treasures on the east side of the island though no beach I marked off a bar restaurant that you might want to look into over on the south east side of the island During the day it is a beautiful bar that over looks the Caribbean Mexico at its finest Albeit you ll need a car to get to the bar because a taxi ride would be very expensive It s about a 45 minute car ride I ve listed off where the drop off for the ferry is From there you can make your way into the shopping area If you do happen to rent a car the bar where I promise there won t be more than 6 people at is to the south east The black inside of the island boundaries is more or less the road Cozumel is not terribly huge so exploring the area should be a good time If you think to do so look into any snorkeling that might be available Either at Chankanab Reef or Palancar Reef The locals will certainly know what you are talking about But I am not sure exactly where they will let you snorkel strong The Mainland strong This is the mainland I just wanted to point out the major points so that it s in print for you You ll see Cancun to the north which will be to your left when they start driving you out of the airport The driver should take a right onto HWY 307 to head south HWY 307 is the road that runs the entire length of the Yucutan You ll be exiting just a little ways before Playa del Carmen but all the same Tulum and Akumal are also to the south past Playa as you can see on the map The distance from where you ll be staying to Playa del Carmen is just a few minutes I think It will then be about 30 minutes to Cancun to the north about 45 minutes to Akumal to the south and about 75 minutes to Tulum to the south photo 36007 740 0 left photo As I mentioned Combis are available for just a few pesos at most parts of HWY 307 They are little white vans that will pull up and let you hop in Just tell them where you are going On HWY 307 you ll see that there will be bus stops here and there for them otherwise you can just toss out a thumb when you figure out what kind of car you are looking for I know it seems a bit sketchy but they re actually very common and effective Another good way for getting around mainly because its so cheap is to use the bus system There is a huge bus station around the corner of 8th Avenue and Ave Juarez in Playa Del Carmen Any cab driver can get you there Anyway the MAYAB bus service is fantastic and buses are departing regularly to anywhere that you ll want to go Remember that all of the prices will be in pesos so you ll find that 8 pesos is really cheap One more note of interest regarding money all ATMS will dispense your money in pesos This means that when it says withdraw 1000 that is really only about 100 USD So keep that in mind I once made the mistake of taking out just 20 when I really wanted 200 The card worked the second time but I had to pay twice the international fees