Tag: Photos

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*

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.

I just finished reading Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine’s Last Chance to See. Wow. It was great! I’ve been a fan of Douglas Adams since I was knee-high to a grasshopper (mostly for his Hitcher’s Guide to the Galaxy) but I’d never read any non-fiction by him before. It was wonderful to see his irreverent and humorous style remained unchanged. Unfortunately, the copy of the book I got from Fritz was in an electronic format and didn’t include the photographs which I understand exist in the dead-tree version. Still, it was a delightful read and any Douglas Adams fan should enjoy it. Overall, I give it 4.75 out of 5 points.

Next up, I’ll me reading through Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic by Terry Jones. Mr. Jones apparently read Douglas Adams’s Hitcher’s Guide to the Galaxy series, saw the couple of paragraphs that talk about the Starship Titanic and thought to himself “That would make a fun book! I shall sit down and write it, right after I take off all my clothes!”

Oh and in case that wasn’t a sufficient hint for you; this is the same Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. Keen! 🙂