365.356 work party abstraction

So the annual holiday White Elephant gift exchange happened this afternoon at work, and I had some errands and phone calls to make after work, so I went ahead and shot the 365 with the phone this morning. Ends up, the party got me out of work earlier than expected, the errands took no time, and the phone call was an absolute pleasure.

(Believe it or not, the main phone call was to set up moving internet service from the current place to the future place, and was completely painless! Time Warner have listened to their customers and stepped their game up somewhat in the customer service department, and I should have 1) no interwebs downtime; 2) faster speed; 3) a tiny increase in price for the much faster speed, all of which were completely unexpected! I should go buy a lottery ticket…)

I dropped most of the $10 maximum on wrapping supplies, as my gift for the White Elephant came to me in 2010’s White Elephant… (its third appearance in said gift exchange), and I therefore had the fanciest wrapping in the house. This is some of the plastic foil wrapping sheets that I used in place of tissue paper. It looked so interesting on the desk… it had to be shot, and so it was.

And now I have a few minutes to dust the empty bookshelves before dinner time! GoGo.

iPhone 4. Built-in Camera app, in HDR mode. 4 shots made at different exposure points, and combined/recombined in TrueHDR app, with a very minimal crop in Aperture.

365.355 Trumpets

About 2 months ago, I noticed that the plug end of the cord on my 2 year old Klipsch S4i headphones had split, leaving the wires all exposed.

I took some electrical tape to it and hoped for the best.

The best was about 6 weeks, I guess, because I started noticing a short or something about two weeks ago, and the controls became sporadic. I didn’t think much of it, but then last week the controls on the headset stopped controlling entirely.

So I started researching.

I was happy with the S4i’s, and planned to buy another pair, but thought I’d look around anyway.

I saw the Miles Davis Trumpet headphones from Monster, and was immediately struck by the design. I was further struck by the price ($349, list), but decided to read some reviews anyway…

Last Thursday, I decided to check around for prices, still planning to pick up another set of S4i’s…

I came across $299, $279, $249, all too rich for me, and I had planned a route home that would take me past the Big Electronics Store.

Later that day, I popped on Amazon to look for a gift, and decided to check the price there… $209.

Buy it Now was too easy.

And this was far and away the best sonic purchase I’ve made in my Adult life.

I went from some really good old Shure’s that I’d used with an iPod since 2003 or 4 into the S4i’s, and that was a big step up, for sure.

But the step from S4i’s to the Trumpets is more like a giant leap.

These headphones are flipping amazing: believe. I don’t think I did them justice here, but maybe I came close to capturing the rainbow of aural joy pouring into my cranium about now?

D7000. Vivitar 50mm f/1.8 (Cosina), reversed, on 40mm extension. ISO800, 1/60th, f/1.8. About 40 seconds of slider play in Aperture.

365.354 green growth, 16 December 2012

Is this what climate change looks like? It’s currently 74 degrees fahrenheit, and I’ve been in shorts and flip flops since I woke up this morning, because it was over 50 when I woke up.

For someone that likes it cold, this isn’t quite cutting it, and weather like this worries me.

Anyway, it’s a good thing I spotted this scene this morning, and an even better thing that I stopped what I was doing long enough to grab the camera, because I’m totally sapped of energy and enthusiasm already, and it’s only 3:45p.

D7000. Vivitar 70-210mm f/3.5 Series 1 (Kiron, maybe) @ 105mm. ISO400, 1/20th, f/3.5. About 4 minutes of slider play (some of which I regret, now, and may go back and redo: if so, I’ll post a second version later, but don’t hold your breath) in Aperture.

365.353 a popular post

I’ve been in full out expunging and packing mode all day today, and I lost the last bit of motivation and interest in just about anything about 2 hours ago.

So it’s a good thing I noticed this popular post on the way to Giant Electronics Store, quickly pulled out the phone and grabbed a couple of quick shots before the light changed. (I don’t buy presents for people for the holidays—I give a pile of cash to a charity or two and send cards around instead—and the thought of what a nightmare such a place might be the weekend before the weekend before Christmas never even crossed my mind. Never, that is, until I was in a 50 meter long line to check out with my $12 purchase that I could’ve easily ordered from the interwebs as it wasn’t a particularly urgent purchase, though it was necessary. Thankfully, there was a nice fellow in line behind me, and we had fun joking around about the 64 checkout stations—57 closed/7 operational—and various items for sale and how both of us were in such a line for things we didn’t really need right then (he was shopping for a new television: Giant Electronics Store didn’t have it, so he was picking up a stand for it and about to head to Big Electronics Store to find the one he wanted), and all sorts of other things whilst we hung around in line, so it wasn’t total hell, and I wasn’t swayed by any of the shiny things we crept by, though I was somewhat tempted by the LED flashlights…)

Now for some dinner and relaxing on the sofa. Woo.

iPhone 4. Built-in Camera app. ISO80, 1/511th, f/2.8, all fully automated. About 4 minutes of cropping and slider play and black & white conversion in Aperture.

365.352 a very welcome PITA

Apologies for the sorta halfarsed attempt today. I’m still worn out from activities and frustrations of previous days, and even more so after the hour it took me to travel home after work (vs the 25 or 30 it usually takes).

The delay was due to wet roads, which are something of a novelty around here, especially of late.

So the rain was a gift, indeed, and very welcome, but a huge PITA nonetheless.

Some things are like that, I’ve found.

D7000. Sigma 30mm f/1.4. ISO100, 1/1250th (AP mode), f/1.4. About 45 seconds worth of slider play and a slight crop in Aperture.

365.351 missed it by that much

Best laid plans… I was wrapping up the last bit of work today when I got a simple question from the boss.

While I was typing up a simple reply to the simple question, I received a request for some metrics from my team.

I sent of the simple reply to the simple question and opened the metric spreadsheet to add my data.

Sadly, the metric spreadsheet was out of date by at least two weeks, and it too, me about 40 minutes to sort everything out and send back my numbers.

I looked at the clock. It indicated that I had reached and breached the 9.5 hour mark for the day.

So I didn’t finish the little bit that I had left; I shut everything down and left, as I had plans to go shoot the (soon-to-be) new apartment.

I went and shot the (soon-to-be) new apartment. I took measurements of all the rooms, the doors and windows and portals to other spaces, and noted the locations of power and phone and cable lines. I talked to a couple of (soon-to-be) new neighbors. I drove home.

Oh my, were the texting-while-driving drivers out in force today!

I spotted this while stopped at a stop light that I wouldn’t have had to stop at had the jerk three cars ahead not been busy with something other than driving his/her car. I grabbed the camera and shot two quick shots before the light changed and I could finally come home (where Aperture decided that its Library was corrupted and in need of repair, again: two days in a row! GoGo!).

Had I been maybe five feet closer to the intersection, this would’ve been lined up perfectly dead center, but had the jerk not been too busy to drive, I would’ve missed it all together and I’d be fumbling around trying to find something to shoot instead of writing this too-long rant, so GoGo, I guess.

Also, had there been a goofy dog-walker or some men in suits/hats or a couple necking or some kids running by or a leggy blonde strutting somewhere or some other non-exploitative human subject in the frame, this would be a mediocre street shot instead of… whatever this is.

Again: I’m tired. (<– also two days in a row…)

D7000. Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G at 18mm. ISO100, 1/400th, f/10, in Program mode (where my special, double secret real estate shooting user settings are based). About 2 minutes of slider play in Aperture.

365.350 afternoon snack

After 350, you’d think I’d remember to reset the camera after I get done shooting for the day.

Alas.

After shooting the HDR of the crumpled paper yesterday, I left the camera in bracket mode and at ISO400.

For the first 8 shots of a picture-making session that should’ve taken maybe 3, maybe, I finally realized that the wild, incomprehensible variations in exposure were neither particularly wild nor particularly incomprehensible: the D7000 was still in bracket mode.

And then the last two bites of banana fell onto the floor, leaving me the option of coming up with another subject or torturing one of the under- or over-exposed shots from the silly, face-palmy error into submission.

And then Aperture crashed the mac twice, and I had to rebuild the library (after determining that Aperture was the culprit). This left me more determined than ever to switch to Lightroom in 2013.

I’m tired.

D7000. Sigma 30mm f/1.4. ISO400, 1/400th (Bracketed AP mode: should’ve been ~1/100th), f/1.4, -2 EV (Bracket mode, again). 50 minutes of torturous, computer-crashing slider and brush play in Aperture including perhaps 2 or 3 minutes of actual image processing.