Year: 2009

And So it Goes – ZZzz

09-16-09_0511sSo kmilyun what whee you doing at 4 freakin am this morning?

Cell phone shot of  the CSI SUV.

Why I was across town watching the police.

Why oh why were you doing that?

Because some A holes broke into the store where my sig other works.

The pharmacy got hit to be exact.

A few more controlled substances out on the streets today. Talk about a mess. Why not just break one window? How about the axe job you did in the pharmacy – yes folks they used an axe. I guess all good thief bring axes to the party – I mean what is a burglary without an axe.

You can not just let a loved one go out in the night when the alarm company calls and says numerous alarms going off . .. geezz . … fun watching the tech taking her crime scene photos. We had a short chat about photography gear too.  Other than that it was kind of like being here in the neighborhood – cops – guns – smashed windows.

What a PITA. Their 3 minutes of thievery will take hours to clean up and lot of inventory work for the pharmacist not to mention folks having to work all day after having to get up so dang early.

Augh – I gotta go get some sleep.

Lions, Tigers, and …

lionNG_web_Lowres<<<< Here is a lion shot I took at the Sacramento Zoo.  I used the GIMP program.  So far I am pretty happy with the program – whatz not to be happy about a free program!

The new computer handles the application of the filters well. The processor is suppose to be good for doing video and photo processing and so far it has completed the tasks faster than I think my old on might have.

Another photo I applied the filter process to was the tiger shot below.  I uploaded to flickr – if you click on it you will open a new window or tab and you can view it larger at flickr.

If I had a photo of a bear I would post it but the only thing that comes to mind when I see a bear is to run and hide. Are you suppose to run? I know with mountain lions you make yourself appear larger and hope for the best. A mountain bike does come in handy for this and works – trust me on this one.

Drops of Rain Remembrance

flower_rain_webI am so excited. Thanks to Steve at The Wheel Of  Fortuna I can get my photos processed! Thank you Steve.

After it stopped raining I headed out to the backyard and took a few shots trying to capture the drops.

It has been awhile and compensating for my left eye being off today I think it went ok. I can not get used to using my right eye in the view finder but it is getting easier.

I pulled out the memory card, stuck it in the reader, and started up the GIMP program that Steve gave me the link to. Awesome it handled the conversion from NEF well and I even applied a few filters that I downloaded.

The air has that ozone  smell (can you smell ozone?) with a hind of wet dirt and it lends  the air a fresh feel. I really like the first rains. I friend of ours when near his last days wanted to hear the rain on the window. Unfortunately there was no rain in the forecast in the near future.  A few of us put or heads together and dusted the window outside his room with dirt from the garden beds and the we played with our collection of nozzles until we hit upon a very close emulation of how rain would sound and smell as it hit the window.

He was excited when it rained!  Every time it rains I remember him and how such a simple thing of nature meant so much to him – listening to rain or smelling a flower bloom.

One of my favorite plants in the yard is an aloe vera that has grown quit large.  It is strange to photograph sometimes getting an interesting shot eludes the lens.  The greens are very particular to the correct white balance settings and the spikes make focusing manually a must especially when trying to get the rain drops. I played with different aperture settings and managed to get some interesting (well to me anyway) shots.

aloedrops_web

You should click on the photos to see the larger view to get a better idea of how they came out – not my best but better than not taking any at all.

aloe_web

That is it for now.

Update in Computer Land

IMGP0760Finally the pieces are coming together with the computer.   If anything has been ingrained into my memory it is how the support a company offers makes all the difference.

One of my backup drives would not restore, heck, it did not even get acknowledged by Windows.  After clicking through the companies support pages it came down to remembering the user name and password I used last year.  ugh err ok I forgot to write it down.

Eventually I gave up as the support site returned errors on every email I have – so I decided to try and re register the drive in order to get access to the new version of the software and drivers.

Now I needed the serial number. No big deal right? Wrong the print was so small and I am telling you I mean small! Three of us tried reading it with a magnifying glass and even then it was hard to read. Ought to be a law against that.

The backup software never did work but the folders are there. Thanks to my pal that has access to one of the pay driver update sites.

The other drives manufacturers site was very user friendly, and it remembered me!   I logged on, searched for the drivers and in two minutes  I was done. A few keystrokes later my drive worked. Then I plugged in my oldest drive and windows found the updated driver and happy joy joy it works also.

Now can you guess which drive I will recommend to someone or purchase again – sure is not the dinky arse serial numbered suck-o support site companies now is it?

The best thing happening right now is 254 GB of photos are happily backing up along with  3 GB of MP3’s.

The pics on the hard drive that were not backed up – boo hoo – I morn 🙁 . …  I also heard back from Nikon and none of their products will work with Vista 64 nor do they have any updated drivers for the D80.

Thank you for emailing us.

Compatibility and support for Nikon software running on a Windows 64-bit system is under review by the Nikon Quality department.
At this time we do not have any time table on when we will or if we will issue drivers and software support for this new system.

I apologize for this inconvenience.

Again, Thank you

Jay
Nikon Technical Support.

So now I have no software to post process with! Capture NX, Elements, nada. Good thing I use a card reader and not direct cable hook up to get my photos of the camera.

It is kind of nice having a clean start. All the useless files that build up on my drives are no longer there to suck up space.  Plus even though the clock speed is slower than my old computer it seems to perform better with some of the programs. Cool. Not sure of all the ins and outs of duo v quad but so far I am a happy camper with the gateway for the money – not bad.

I sure have learned to set the backup program to monitor and backup everything. Easier to delete garbage than to loose the good stuff. I have 2T worth of drive space to use so there really is no excuse not to. I downloaded the trial  version of the newest Adobe Photoshop Elements, even though it is not certified to work with the 64bit system so far I have not experienced any problems with it. The upgrade is under 100 bucks so I am thinking that is the way to go right now if I can come up with  the bucks before it expires. I have to see if the laptop will run NX with any speed.

Had a few drops of rain yesterday and this morning the wind is blowing it is nice and cool right now (59). Not sure if it is still cloudy as I have not stuck my head outside to look. I think I am going to go cut up a few nectarines and maybe treat myself with a little sugar on top of em. ‘Then again there is apple pie emm decisions, decisions.

Ok I am going to be a piggy and have both!