Cemetary Retirement
Today’s pictures fit this post extremely well. Regular readers of this site know that I have been getting into photography the past couple years. I have a Canon S30 which is now definitely starting to show it’s age. I managed to get a few good pictures out of it soon after I bought it. This intrigued me, so I took a course at Camosun College to learn more about photography, and ended up loving the course. The instructor suggested starting a photo club to get people out shooting regularly, so I did. Since the end of the class I have tried to get out every couple weeks to shoot, and it has been great. I now have an excellent collection of photographs that I love. Well, time has come for me to put to rest the S30. As good as it has been to me, it is getting old.
Yesterday the photoclub met for the first time in the new year. I chose the Chinese Cemetary in Victoria. What a gorgeous place. The cemetary has had a makeover in recent years, and is a wonderful place to go take pictures. We were also very lucky with the weather yesterday. The sun was out for quite a while, and it was very warm. What a wonderful feeling to be overlooking the ocean, the sun is out, the sky a warm blue. And yet we were surrounded by graves. Interesting juxtaposition.
More on the old and new. My trusty S30 was with me, but I did not use it. I am proud to say that retirement of the S30 occurred just after Christmas. I will continue to use it occasionally, specially when I am out riding, or just need something to conceal in my pocket. I am an owner of a new Canon EOS 20D. I got it just after Christmas, but this was the first real photoshoot I had taken it on. Wow! I am loving this new camera. Very awesome piece of equipment. I am starting to know the controls, and switching modes is becoming easier. I sometimes forget to switch back though, and that has lead to a few disasters already. Oops. I have 2 lenses for it, a 28-135mm, and a 50mm. I also bought a lens hood for the 28-135, and I think that it makes quite a diffence to the quality of pictures. *grin*, I am having lots of fun now!
Drained Night
I was left feeling a little drained the other night. Suede and I had our blood donation Weds night, and as usual it went smoothly. No complications of any sort. The one thing that is a pain now, was that since our Mexico trip, there is one question that we have to answer yes too, and not the standard no. When they see this yes answer, they have to ask a few more questions to make sure our blood is safe to use.
All in all I still enjoy giving blood. It is a (relatively) painless way to help society, and doesn’t involve an outlay of cash. On that note I have decided that I will not ever donate money to charities that cold-call me. I have donated to one in the past (lets call them CharityX), but then I noticed one time when they called that I had already donated to them recently. When I asked CharityX when my last donation was, they were able to quote me the exact date. That just sat wrong with me. It felt like they waited long enough for me to forget I already gave to them this year, then tried to hit me up again.
Back to the topic at hand. Blood donation good. Tele-solicitors bad.
Tuesday Progression
I have started swimming with Suede on Tuesday nights after she walks dogs at the SPCA. The first time was a bit difficult. I wasn’t wearing goggles, and I can’t stand water in my eyes. Breathing was difficult, swimming was very hard. Every time I went to take a breath, I would lift my head out of the water, and this would cause my feet to sink. It was still good to be out in the pool, but it was very hard work.
Last week I borrowed some goggles from Suede. Much better. I could get my face in the water and stroke much better, but I couldn’t figure out the breathing part. I would hold my breath too long, then when I needed to breath, often I would be in mid stroke on the wrong side. I would get out of breath quickly, then need to lift my head out of the water to gasp in a few breaths. Again, this slowed me down a lot, and made swimming more difficult. Suede gave me a couple pointers, and I tried them, but couldn’t get the hang of it.
Last night was another progression. Each time I lifted my left arm out of the water I took a quick breath, then exhaled through the water when I stroked with my right arm. This worked great as long as I could keep the rythm. Anytime I got out of sync things fell apart, but I could see the light. Being able to breath made swimming a lot more enjoyable! Last night I swam 350 or 400m. I still find it easy to lose track of how much I have swam.
It is interesting trying new sports, and seeing how I can pick them up. Some are easier than others, but it is usually fun to try something new. Swimming sure is a good workout though. My shoulders are a little tight and sore this morning, so I know I must have been pushing myself.
Considering Lower
My plan to go biking in the snow last weekend fell through. I decided that I really wanted to go, so I managed to convince a few other guys to go this weekend instead.
I had thought that the trail conditions would be alright considering how much ot had warmed the previous week, and how much snow had melted. My house had no snow whatsoever, so I figured that there would only be a few inches out at the trails.
I was wrong on how much snow was remaining. As soon as I got to the parking lot, I could see the ride wasn’t going to be as I expected. The trail reports from people just finishing didn’t sound good either. Hmm. I was still set on riding though.
We pushed up to C-Section, then I figured we should hike the road up, and hit Snakes and Ladders, a very fun downhill trail. Off we went, hiking up the road. We were the first people with bikes to go up the road. Hmm, not necessarily a good sign. At times the snow got so deep there was no point in pushing, so on the back the bike went. Ouch! Slogging up the hill was quite a chore. We decided to take a shorter route to Snakes and Ladders. This involved a steepish trail that went downhill. Again, we had first tracks, but no matter how steep it was, there was too much snow to get any good momentum going. When we reached the turnoff to Snakes and Ladders, we could see that there were no tracks heading up there, so we packed it in. We took the straightest, steepest trail down to the lower half, but even that invloved lifting bikes over and under blow downs. When you could get on the bike and pedal, we usually only got a few feet before sliding out, or just falling over.
Finally we got back to C-Section, and there had been a lot of riders on the lower half ot the trails. We took the fireroad back down to Skull trail, and that was a blast! Getting up some speed finally felt awesome, and you really just need to let the back end of the bike dance around instead of trying to control it. Zipping down Skull was awesome too. The snow had been packed down a lot, and some ice sections were encountered, but overall there was a lot of traction. Back in the parking lot we made plans to hit a local pub for some food to help warm us up. I had brought a change of clothes, but forgot socks. Doh!
Even though it was mostly hiking while pushing, pulling, or carrying our bike, I had fun. Yoshi had a great romp in the snow too. Would I do that ride again? Nope. Next time I will stick to the lower section of trails. Live and learn. I am very sore today though. It was a tremendous workout.
Deeper Trail
Sunday KaptainK and JJ, myself and Suede, and JennV went for a wonderful trek out at Thetis Lake. The snow was a lot deeper there than in town, and it was quite beautiful to be out in. Of course the dogs that came with us absolutely loved it too. We took a different trail than normal and it took us up high to a lookout over the lake. It was pretty amazing. There was lots of snow, but the temp was just perfect for a nice walk. The trail had been packed down quite a bit which made it easy to follow the trail, but a little slippery at times, especially for JJ who was wearing running shoes. 🙂
Of course now the snow is almost completely gone, and I am a little sad. It was pretty nice to see while it was here, and getting around was only difficult for a day or so. We might get some more before the weekend, but it is unlikely we will get as much as the last dump.
WSOD Keyboard
I am so very pissed off right now. Actually, I started being mad last night. You see, I bought a Universal Wireless Keyboard for my Tungsten T3 PDA.
When I got home last night I ripped open the package, grabbed the manual, and the disc, and installed the driver on to my pda. A quick resynch later, and I was good to go. I tapped the icon to launch the driver so I could enable receiving keyboard input, and WHAM WSOD (white screen o death). Strange that a PALMONE released beyboard driver would crash on my T3. No problem, a quick reboot should get things in order.
Here is where the problem is. The reset button wouldn’t work. I tried all the combos for hard resetting, and soft resetting, but my nice, expensive PDA was a steaming pile of slag. Nothing but the white screen.
I jumped onto the net, and lo and behold I find this. Turns out many people have had serious issues on their T3 with this driver. Many people report waiting until the battery drains completely. When this happens everything on the PDA is lost. Thankfully there are a couple solutions for this.
When I do get it running again, I can resynch with my computer. This should restore everything that used to be on there. Downside is that it will also reinstall the problematic driver.
My other course of action is when the PDA is back up and running I can slide my SD card into the T3, bring up my copy of BackupMan, and restore the last save point. Thankfully this software runs flawlessly, and every night at 3am it was doing backups, so I will only have lost changes I made yesterday.
In all I still don’t know the state of my PDA. This morning it looked like the battery was drained, but when I placed it in the cradle, the charging light didn’t come on. This is a bad sign in my book, so I may have to call PalmOne and complain. Shitty thing is that it is just out of warranty (I bought it on Dec 27 2003). I am hoping that tonight when I get home things will be in a better state.
I will have to remember to update the PalmOs before I slam in the SD card too since the T3 had issues with those before too.
Snowy Suede
Snow days are here again! We have had cold and snowy weather the past few days here in Victoria, and I must admit that it is pretty nice to get snow once in a while, as long as it doesn’t stay around too long. This morning Suede and I took Yoshi for a quick spin at the park before having to run some errands. He and Digger will get a better walk this afternoon.
On the way home these ice and snow encrusted ferns caught my attention. There were lots of icicles hanging off this rock, but the way the ice surrounded the ferns was pretty cool.
I did some playing in Paintshop with a few of these. The above one I aplied a soft focus filter.
This picture I changed to black and white, then darkened the darks a bit.
I duplicated this picture, deepend the colors, merged back to the original, then applied the soft focus. I like the way it looks. Kind of dream like.
I tried to make this picture colder looking by duplicating it, adding a blue filter, then merging back to the original.
Our cat Aprhodite is none too impressed with the white stuff.
Sendoff 2004
This is my sendoff to 2004. It was a great year that held many suprises and some big changes for me. Photographically speaking I am quite happy with how I have progressed. I fell my signal to noise ratio of pictures is getting better.
January
An awesome snow walk with Yoshi and Digger. I woke up extra early that morning for some unknown reason so I took the dogs to the off leash park for first tracks.
February
One of my most favorite riding photos from 2004. Taken at Broom Hill, I managed to freeze Shane in the air like I had intended.
March
Sue and I up at Point no Point. This was taken right before I asked Sue to marry me.
April
Cheena. May she rest in peace. This was Suede’s dad’s dog.
May
Some flowers on my front porch right after a lovely rain shower.
June
This is spook, Suede’s mom’s cat. This was right after Pat arrived home with her new puppy. The cat was a little “spooked” and climbed up here for saftey from the pup.
July
Taken at Christ Church Cathedral, this shot just speaks to me. The slight off axis tilt, the color, the composition.
August
Reflections have been big with me lately. This boat caught my fancy, and since the water was so calm, the reflection was quite intense.
September
A fluke that I spotted this shot. Originally I was shooting across the street from Esquimalt City Hall. As the sun was seting I headed back to my truck and cought this super shapr shadow.
October
Suede and I enjoying a beautiful suinset on our Mexican cruise.
November
A lucky catch on morning before work. This sunrise is facing east off the deck of the house we are renting. I had to stand inside, and hold the camera over my head since it was raining, and I wasn’t dressed to go out in it.
December
A wonderful photographic experience. The photoclubmet early one morning to catch a sunrise. After waiting for what felt like an eternity in near freezing temps, we witnessed a spectacular sight. The clouds in front added a lot of drama to the shots from that morning.
Benedict Decorations
Over the Christmas Holiday this year I had a very relaxing time, and took quite a few pictures. For the first time ever for either of us, Suede and I woke up Christmas morning in our own bed. My mom and sister had come down the night before with my moms dog Kodi. Yoshi and Sheba were a little confused by Kodi (a long haired Chihuahua). Christmas morning was relaxed with just the 4 of us. We opened our presents, then ate an awesome brunch of home made eggs benedict. Yum! Later in the day Suede’s dad and step-mom arrived, and we set about making Christmas dinner. Again, and awesome meal. KaptainK and JJ also came by for dinner, and brought their faithful companion Big D. In case you weren’t keeping track, that was 8 people, and 4 dogs at out place for dinner that night.
The rest of the past week has been a bit of a blur. Dogs walks pretty much every day. Mountains of laundry, and dishes were done. More people visited. Then the cleanup. Taking down the tree, putting away the decorations, putting away the loot. Phew, exhausting. I almost need a break from my vacation.