Saturday - working around the house on this and that. Not
feeling too well, actually, but I want to get the raised planters up
and planted. One thing I did was to go the the Painted Rose Ranch and
pick up about a cubic yard of compose, i.e., horse manure. Nice, old,
dry stuff, and the ranch hand, Ron, loaded it using an old tractor.
I'll try to get the teenager to help me unload the stuff. The lawn
tractor won't start, and the little trailer has two flat tires, with
the (tubeless) tires off the bead. Otherwise it's the wheelbarrow for
the last 50' or so.
Ron was a character. He's retired and picking up cash as a ranch hand
now, but he used to be a mechanical engineer, specializing in rocket
test stand instrumentation. He worked at most of the major aerospace
companies in the 1960's and 1970's, and spent a lot of time at
Vandenberg AFB. He had some great stories about the Titan II....
Friday 13 May
2011
Friday
- the WYSIWYG editor is doing the funky cursor-one-space-to-the-left
thing again. It does this occasionally, and I don't know what it is.
It's as if the cursor is exactly one text element to the left of the
space that it should be in. Using the "end" key, or the arrow key and
going past the end and coming back doesn't fix it either. I've seen it
before, and don't know how to fix it. Annoying. It's
persistent as well, I can close KompoZer and re-open, and it will
persist in the same behavior. And it's a page based behavior, because
anywhere on this web page the activity is the same.
My sister called yesterday, asked if I could tutor my niece in Algebra.
Apparently my sisters "solutions" didn't match those in the back of the
book...
Found here:
"Contrary to public belief, math textbooks arent written in some
dialect of Ancient Latin which can only be read by the priestly class
of mathematicians. At least, not until grad school "
Riley and Phoebe pose for the T3i's "First Light". IMG_0001
Thursday 12 May2011
Thursday
- not much going on.
Book #41 was Into
My Father's Wake. This was the story of a man sailing to Hawaii and
back, in the 1970's. I wasn't particularly interested in the author's
problems with his father, and it's hard to feel a lot of empathy for a
man on this third marriage, but I did emphasize with his need for his
fathers' approval, even as an adult, and the sailing travails were
interesting. Arrival at the islands were complicated by bad weather,
bad electronics, and most importantly his own fatigue and a number of
bad decisions.
Wednesday
11 May 2011
Wednesday - one amusing thing
at the event was that Kirk, a guest of honor, almost didn't get served
his meal. He was sitting next to me, and the rest of the table was
served, bit by bit. We just assumed our (slow) server was coming back
and waited patiently until we saw him removing
trays from other tables. Heh. I tracked down another server and Kirk
got his meal, eventually.
I haven't downloaded the imagery yet, from the new camera. The booklet
says to install the software first, so I'll look to see what it is.
There is so much Junkware out there that I hate to install anything on
my laptop, but maybe Canon has something that will be useful.
Tuesday
10 May 2011
Tuesday
- The scout event went off very well. It was in Van Nuys, at the Airtel
Hotel and we arrived a bit early, talked to various people, and enjoyed
a pretty good steak dinner. The dinner, sponsored by Gelsens'
Markets, had awards to several scouts, including my friends son
Kirk, and it was impressive to hear the stories of their various scout
projects for the Eagle badge. A great bunch of kids, who will probably
go far in life!
I took a number of pictures and video's, but will have to download and
view them tomorrow. At least on the camera's screen the videos and
stills look bright and sharp, despite being in a fairly dark hall, and
the sound seems OK, despite not having a external shotgun microphone.
There didn't seem to be any need for a tripod, the image stabilization
and the huge 3200ISO working well.
Monday 9
May 2011
Monday
- My new camera arrived!
On Saturday I ordered a new camera from Amazon, a Canon
T3i. Since it's a Canon my existing lenses will work fine with it.
I did get the kit lens, rather than just the body, because the old
18-55mm lens was always just a bit short, and the 55-300mm is a beast
for just walking around with.
My old Xt worked fine, but was lacking in a few areas, specifically
indoor photography at indoor events (worked fine with close subjects
though) and as an astrophotography tool. I think I posted a bit about
that. Also the T3i does full 1080p HD movie recording, up to a 4GB max
file size, which is neat - my old Xt didn't do video at all and my
dedicated Canon DV unit is just standard video. And with a friends Boy
Scout award ceremony coming up I thought it might be time to upgrade.
The T3i is 18 megapixels, as opposed to the Xt's 8, which satisfies my
rule of at least doubling the pixel count during a camera upgrade.
I fooled around with it a bit, and I think it'll work OK. In fact I'm
more pleased with it than with the original Xt.
I'm still feeling tired. Allergies? But I got more chores started and
done, among which were baskets and baskets of laundry. There is so much
that I'm having trouble putting it all away. Some was on the boat, some
in Martinez, some in my travel bag, and when all washed at once, sheesh.
Sunday 8
May 2011
Sunday
- a slowish day. I just can't seem to summon up much energy.
However, that said, I did go see Thor in the morning
with my friends.
The theater was not crowded, and we had good seats. It was a good
movie, not quite up to Ironman I or Spiderman I, but certainly as good
as the
sequels. The special effects were good, and the characters all well
played. I didn't actually know Natalie Portman was in it until a couple
of days ago, and honestly, thought she kind of phoned her performance
in. She looks a bit like a young Julia Robets, and has the same
somewhat uneven acting style. But everyone else did a pretty good job (Kat Dennings as the
comic relief did well, could have used more lines), and it was well
worth the
$6.
There is a sequel planned...
It's Mother's Day. Mom's been gone since 1998, but I still miss her,
always will. The photo below was one of Dad's, that I copied from his
computer after he passed away.
"
