Tag: camera

Normally given the choice, I will sleep blissfully through all of Saturday morning, arising from the depths of my slumber only when the morning has past. Unfortunately, I’d gotten stuck at work Friday night till nearly 7 and so I couldn’t get the rent paid the night before. Since rent must be paid within 3 days or you get hit with a late fee and since I’ve had problems before with dropping the rent off in the night deposit box around a holiday weekend; I really needed to get the rent paid while the bank was open. So my alarm was set and awaken in the wee hours of Saturday morning I did. Ariesna decided to go along with me; so went off to the bank and successfully paid the rent and then hit up the post office.

While I was waiting in line there, an old/odd friend of ours was there as well. Elf was farther up in line than I and was trying to be friendly, but I’m not at my best during the morning particularly not during the morning before I’ve gotten some caffeine in my blood. So, I apologize Elf; I wasn’t trying to be rude/mean, I just don’t do mornings. Finally it was my turn and I got my package mailed off1. The post office was kind of nice because my favorite worker waited on me. He’s an older guy who’s always nice and has a smile for everyone. Plus, he seems to take some real pride in his work and his appearance; as I’ve never seen him show up looking sloppy (like most of his co-workers do).
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This update was partially delayed due to some problems with our domain name. And depending on what the old bank balance looks like after paying my bills; I’ll be seeing about moving musings to it’s new host/domain name/style (maybe).

Most days of the week, I end up staying up far later into the night than is good for me; so I sleep late on the weekends to help catch up on my sleep. This last weekend, I actually managed to drag my sleepy but out of bed and make it to the bank so I could store some stuff in my safety deposit box. Whew!

After I got back from the bank; Ariesna and I headed over to the Coralville Public Library Booksale. We picked up a few interesting looking books, including one that I later started hoping wasn’t somebody else’s purchase.

See, CPL has a freebie section and a purchase section. We always go into the purchase section first and buy whatever strikes our fancy before going through the freebies. We’d done that and while looking through the freebies; I noticed a small book, titled Understanding the Scots, in a box near the door into the purchase section. Being part Scottish, I picked it up and started flipping through it. While I did this I turned around to see what Ariesna might be up to and then turned back to see if any other books in that box were of interest. Alas, the box was gone. Now, I don’t know if those were supposed to belong to somebody else (e.g. they’d finished in the purchase section and just set the box down) or if they were legitimate freebies and somebody grabbed the box with all the rest of the books. *sigh* I doubt I’ll ever find out.

After the booksale, we headed to downtown Iowa City for their 2004 Art Fesitval. We did a lot of walking around looking at all the cool stuff and I bought Ariesna a silver bracelet with a daisy in the pendent on the bracelet. She loved it and was going to just walk away from it, but I couldn’t have that so I bought it. While I’m not sure that it was a sound financial move; the smile on her face was well worth it.

Oh and I took some photos of the Art Festival with my new camera but I haven’t had a chance to go through them yet. Once I have; I’ll see about posting them here.

Later in the afternoon, we met up with Ariesna’s sister (Dee) and her husband (Ken) to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter 3). To sum it up, I think the overall production values were higher in this film than any of the others but the story was very badly hacked up and if you’ve not read the book; I can’t image how you’d be able to follow what was going on. Still, if you’re a fan of the series; it’s worth seeing on a matinee.

As mentioned in a post earlier today, I got a new toy this weekend. I probably shouldn’t have, but Ariesna kind of ambushed me into doing it and I’ve researched my choice of toy enough to know that I’m going to like it.

What is the new toy you ask? I finally got myself a new camera. My old one was a Pentax K1000 SE (all manual, 35mm). My new one is a Canon PowerShot S500 Digital ELPH. It’s a 5 megapixel camera but it’s teeny-tiny (roughly the size of a deck of playing cards) and the best part is that even my bear paws fit on the thing without smashing half the buttons. There’s a nice wide, clear spot on the back to put my right thumb, the lens is shifted enough to the left (as seen from the back of the camera) so that I’ve got room to put my fingers across the front of the camera giving me a fairly, solid grip. The left side is a bit more crowded, but there’s enough room on the top & bottom of the camera that I can steady it when needed. The zoom on this camera is nothing to write home about (3x optical, 12x digital) but that’s the price you pay for compactness. I’ve only played with it a little bit so far, but I can say that I’m really digging it. Though my co-workers are a bit annoyed seeing the flash go off. That’s ok; I won’t be taking any more pictures around the office (for now) and will delete the test shots that I made. Though I do plan on carrying this camera with me everywhere, since it’s so small and since there’s been so many times that I’ve wished I was carrying a camera.

Oh and in a related note, though the camera’s specs say it only works with Windows & Macintosh computers; I was able to browse/download the photos on the camera using Digikam under SuSE Linux 9.0 Pro under KDE 3.2.2. Score!

Right, back to work for me. Again. *sigh*

I know I’ve kind of been in the habit of updating musings most everyday and in the last few; I’ve been slacking off, but I have a pretty, good excuse. I’ve purchased a new domain name for this website and I’m busy working away at a new theme to fit the new name. I hope to have to ready in the next week or so (and then I need to get back to working on some templates for a friend’s new site).

In other news, I once again succumbed to the lure of buying a new sketchpad. I don’t know why I do this because if I look around my apartment I know I can find at least 4 sketchbooks that I haven’t used all the pages in yet. *sigh* Oh well, this one’s a lot nicer than my previous one. which was a cheapish clearance item from a bookstore, hardcover but with a standard spin so pages are not really removable and one can’t really scan the sketches either. The new one is roughly 6″x8″, has a cover made of a dark corkboard, the pages are bright, white acid-free paper and the book is spiral bound; so I can actually scan the drawings from it without killing the book. I was thinking I would save this sketchbook for my Japan trip later this summer, but last night as I was laying down trying to go to sleep, an idea came to me and the new sketchbook was the first one I could find. So, it won’t be blank for trip but that’s probably just as well; since I only want to take one sketchbook with me and it wouldn’t hurt to have some art in it to show people in the class I’ll be taking.

Umm, what else can I write about to pacify my non-existant audience….. Oh, I know. Last night after I got home from work, Ariesna and I walked down to the local Farmer’s Market. On the way down, we stopped in the library and I picked up a copy of Neil Gaimen’s American Gods to read. Some friends of mine (Bryon & Aizuchi) have been talking about the book in relation to the new RPG that we’ll be starting up soon. From our group’s last discussion, it doesn’t sound like we’re going to be following the premise of the book as closely as perhaps was originally thought but I still thought it would be worth reading through and so there you go. I hope to have the book finished in a week or so and I’ll let you know what I think then.

Err, the last thing I can think of is that I’ve been thinking about getting a digital camera again. The one that I’m currently leaning towards is the Canon PowerShot S 500 Digital Elph. My main concern is that I’ve got no real money to speak of and plenty of bills to pay. To compound the problem, I see that Best Buy is currently offering 10% of all their digital cameras (only when you order online) and I know I could get at least 6 months 0% financing. But I also know that I should replace the following bits on my car:

  • Timing belt & water pump: The estimates I’ve gotten on this tell me it’ll cost between $600 & $800. Ouch!
  • Air bag sensor: $500
  • Front brakes: They still work, but are getting really damn soft and I’ve not checked into this yet.
  • Speedometer: Sometimes when I first start up the car in the morning, I’ve notice it takes it a while before it actually starts registering my speed. Fortunately, my morning drive is all in town, on 25 MPH roads, so it’s pretty easy to guestimate my speed to keep it under the limit.

*sigh* Some days I really hate being an adult and long for those golden days of yesteryear when my parents handled all this sort of thing.

AWelkin said:

Sometimes I wonder about pieces of my life, whether I like them or not. I do mostly like my life, but I know there are things I would do differently if resources like time or money weren’t an issue. Today what I want you to consider is what your fantasy life.

NOT well, I’d get a million dollars and live on a yacht with Orlando Bloom (although there’s nothing wrong with that fantasy, that’s not the kind of thing we’re after.) Here’s what I’m talking about: what kind of changes would you make in your life, the life you have now, to improve its quality.

Shen then listed 6 things; I liked the idea, so here are my six:

  1. I’d get 7 solid hours of sleep every night. By solid, I mean none of that weak@$$ lying in bed waiting for sleep to come, but honest to God deep REM sleep.
  2. I would carry a camera with me everywhere I go and work at bringing my photography skills back up to snuff.
  3. I would be living in a nice, cozy house (with plenty of storage!) rather than my rather cramped apartment.
  4. I’d change the dresscode at work so I could wear t-shirts again.
  5. I’d take up Tai Chi or some form of martial arts to get into better shape.
  6. I’d spend an hour everyday in a sunlit room working on my drawing skills.

What’s on your six? Feel free to answer here or in your own blog.