Digital Photography, a short rant..

My biggest concern is this area is that a number of people seem to feel that they have to tweak a photo by applying what seems like all the features of their photoshop equivelent and turn what may have been an average picture to something that just doesnt look natural..

Its very much personal taste, and sure, I think there are some awsome pictures made by tweaking maybe an average photo and making it awsome, but in the wrong hands (perhaps such as mine) but Ive seen so many pictures turn into down right ugly, or they got highlighted, shadowed, sharpened, bits added, taken away, to the point that so little of the picture seems in there now..

For example this (work safe) takes an average photo to a striking picture, but, its just not a photo to me any more..

Also, another example here (also work safe) this site doesnt seem to really have anything that looks remotely real on it.. Im not saying its not awsome what hes done, but, to me, thats too much..

IMHO..

If you took a poor shot, keep it to yourself, dont try and photoshop it to within a pixel of death and pass it off as "art".. please, learn to take a better photo.. Make the most of your scene with the camera, dont use photoshop to make up for the fact you didnt bother to start with..

Sure, many of my pictures wont be winning photo of the year 2008, but, I can at least sit here and know that I took them with my camera, not made them up.

On the left is a link to some recent photos, keep an eye out, or go visit other online photos I have there, you're always welcome to drop me your thoughts on some of my photos (and yes, some are kinda ugly I know that)

Playing catchup..

So.. whats new since the last post.. Oh Im so bad for leaving it till now!!!

So, this is our new friend Maddie, she is as her name implies, a nutter, a complete 100% nutter. Shes only young, she was supposed to be 6 months old, but we arent so convinced, by now she should be 7 or 8 and she still acts like 4 or 5.. it may not seem a lot of time to you and me, but, to a dog thats a couple of years almost and its that difference between 12/13 when all kids just annoy everyone, and 15 or so, when you actually find them reasonable to talk to and human.

What else, oh, my job is falling apart around my ears.. I had some hopes but they've all crashed and burned.. The short version is my jobs being split in 2, and I get a choice of doing the incredibly soul destroyingly boring version or just the incredibly boring version.. (notice there is no good version).. Both would report to the same guy who drives me nuts, and the marginally better version could involve a salary cut, so, neither option is ideal.

Hmm.. what else.. Ive decided that i need to get a faster lens for my digital camera.. the one I have is poop. For the non photographically minded amongst you, basically lenses have 2 measurements of interest.

1. its mm distance, 50mm = normal vision, <> 50 makes stuff closer
2. its "f" stop, f stop tells you how much light you lose. f1 is PERFECT, so obviously as near to f1, you can get is a good thing, then while it doesnt work logically to you and me 1.4 is half the light of f1, 2.8 half the light again etc.. Now, for short lenses like <=50 this should be a low number, as its the amount of light bouncing around that needs to go on and so on that removes light (normally), well, the lens I have is 18-50, but the F stops are 3.5 -5.6, that says at 18mm it has a low fstop of 3.5, and at 50 its 5.6, 5.6 is SLOW.

What does this mean in reality? Well, what it basically means is at any given exposure time, the higher the f-stop the brighter it needs to be to get a same picture.. So, in short, my current lens in dappled sunshine or cloud has actually told me it wont take a picture its not bright enough.. and there are rude words for that.

But the cost of the lens is a lot, when for pretty much the same value I can get a brand new supposedly lesser camera, but, the whole ease of ability to just "take the photo" seriously weighs high, when I got my current camera, I deliberated for hours.. annoyed the heck out of everyone I could about their thoughts and views.. and I guess in someways, I regret my decision, I love my camera, its awsome, it takes great photos, but so much of the time, I just wanna take the photo, I dont want to waste time swapping lenses, carrying a bag of stuff around... I just want to get the moment "Now"..

Rant

One thing that annoys the heck out of me..

Theres an ad for fabric softener, fine, its "smell" ? its lotus flower and white diamond.. Um.. GEMS DONT SMELL!! Their whole range is flower + gem, but gems dont smell!!!!!!

Frustrating week..

Sorry for not posting for ages, a while ago I took up a volenteer role at:

You can get a lot of website there for free, which is never a bad deal, and as a result, I do spend a fair bit of time as a Senior Account Manager helping people who've messed their accounts, etc

The last 7 days go like this:

Last friday..

I went to karate, was really trying hard as it was grading sunday, and while Im sensitive to grading its not an issue about me not grading that hurts its the seeing others who graded who IMHO shouldnt have, eg, they are now a belt higher than me, and act like someone whos worse than me. Its that that upsets me..

So I worked my socks off..

End of the lesson came, sensei gave grading permission slips to people who hadnt met the requirements, were a few lessons short..

My turn came..

You've plenty of lessons, you'd pass if I put you forward, but, Im not going to... What a slap in the face, dont get me wrong, I know there are things I can improve on (heck if I listed them here you'd fall asleep) but, at the same time, Im not going for a black belt, far from it, in terms of time, Im not even half way to a black belt, again the problem is looking at those of the same colour I would be, Im no worse than them. However, begrudgingly I accept that my sensei does it for a reason, and so went to the store to buy a big bar of white choccie to get over it.. and set off home..

On the way, I passed some people in a group and thought "Hey their dog looks like Maddie!" and drove home..

Got home, "Woof Woof Woof!" opened the door, 2 dogs.. Hmm.. Maddie?? Maddie!!??

After scouring the house and garden .. We were a dog short...

Went back to get dog from the people I had passed in the street... Oh the shame of it!!!

So..

Sunday comes, the day of the grading, I decide to sit in the garden for a bit, to chill, and mope about the fact people were now grading and now Id find more people who have a higher belt than me and would make me feel down..

Was playing with Maddie.. Whos not very good at the whole "give" thing.. so, put my finger in (as you have to) to extract the tennis ball thing.. and *chomp* "OW OW OW" .. grabbed finger, blood drips out of the clenched fist around it.. eep.. thats bad..

Thankfully it just blead a lot.. it was a small puncture wound and a 1cm split.. darn that hurt.. see? If I had graded my finger wouldnt hurt now..

Im getting greif at work, my "day job" part takes longer than I want it to, but someone who wants me to do some additional parts is getting rather upset I havent done and finished things they want, I dont see how Im supposed to fit all this in, everything they give me is always "top priority" and I should to it "Now" .. but there are only so many things that you *can* do now....

Been a bit quiet

Yeah Im sorry, been quiet the last couple of weeks..

Lots in mind mind and time flying away quicker than I can explain..

I havent forgotten.. I promise!!!
(Write and tell me Im not talking to myself!)

Something so cool

A good while ago, I bought you volcanoe webcams, for which I still follow, however, a new fad for me is this: Yellostone Webcam

OMG so cool!

work, child and verything else friendly

Cheaky Skype!!

Heres something you may not know about skype.

In skype you have the option to customise how it connects to skype servers/other people. Did you know, only uses that *IF* you make it..

Yes you read that right. If you specified a https proxy, or socks proxy, theres almost a dead cert it isnt using it, unless, it couldnt contact the world any other way. Thus, if you maybe trying to hide a little from your network admin or just other peoples prying eyes, you maybe sadly mislead!

How to tell what skype is doing:

1. Start->run->cmd
2. netstat -ab
(this will show you ports by program with the program in [xxx.exe] underneath the ports.

Now if you dont see skype connecting to your proxy like you set, that means it successfully made it out irrelevant of your settings.

If you want to force it, Skype themselves had this to say:

"It is normal for Skype to try and establish a direct connection to the P2P network. Skype will use proxy connection method only if direct connection methods fail. When the firewall allows only proxy connections, Skype will use that, but when the firewall is less restrictive, Skype will most probably try and connect directly to the network. This is default behavior.

To force Skype using a proxy connection in your situation you can try to set it via GPO (Windows Global Policy). Skype supports GPO settings.
More information can be found by reading the Network Administrators Guide. You can get it here: http://www.skype.com/security/guide-for-network-admins.pdf"

I tried the GPO.. Oddly, it didnt seem to make any difference! As in fact the doc describes how to set the GPO to have direct access not to block it.

In the end, I resorted to zone alarm. After I had logged my question to skpe it seemed the documentation which originally said it used your IE settings - which also clearly wasnt true as mine had been set to the proxy too, but, it is a thing to be aware of.. Just coz you said how to connect, doesnt mean it actually is!

WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP!!!

We were so cross when the forumla one tickets came up for sale this year, last few years we bought them the day they were announced which is almost like 11 months before the event, this year the seats we've come to know and love, ok, we pay 165 pounds thats best part of 340 dollars EACH, for standing on some concrete, laugh all you like.. Its my birthday present, and its the best 3 days, I get as sunburnt to a crisp which provides all the people at work a serious laugh, as first year I really really really probably should have been hospitalised!! (We didnt have suncream!)

This year, tickets came and it was grandstand only which are 265 pounds each, so thats err, what near on 580? dollars each?? yeah, love F1 tons, but thats stupid money for a seriously uncomfortable plastic seat.

So, hubby wrote and asked and was told basically they doubted wether they would sell our normal tickets, you could have on the day tickets but no real info on where you could go, in fact it sounded more like you could get in the track but you'd be lucky to be able to see any cars..

So, having been talking about the disapointment with hubby over tea tonight, while sewing some ends in my blanket, I decided to check the site.. and there, you guessed it, TICKETS!! our normal tickets were available (they werent yesterday which was at the discounted price sigh) so, we have bought our tickets..

YAY!!!

Time to book the days off work :P

Couldnt be happier

So, heres to hoping Jenson Button has better luck this year, would be a seriously cool birthday present to see him win at Silverstone!

Down down, deeper and down

As you all probably know by now, I can feel very miserable at times, and nearly always it stems from something most people wouldnt even think to consider. These generally are:

1. Feeling Im different to everyone else
2. Seeing Im treated different to others
3. Someone being mad at me and not knowing why

This week, has had plenty of pretty much all 3.

2 - Generally work related issues , stupid things, in so many ways, things like.. A guy dropped some tapes, they jammed the unit, company arguably was at risk because backups failed and I know, if that had been me, Id have been in HR with a written warning.. Im not even sure he got a talking to.. Other things like, everyone in our area, other than me and the tape guy have all worked from home in the last two weeks, but, we cant, I dont think hes asked but I know I cant, and it wasnt even, "I'll think about it" it was "No, and I wont consider it"..

3 - and this will make you laugh.. you probably picture crochet people as sad old grannies in rocking chairs making little doilies.. Well someone out there has basically now been telling 1900 ish people lies about me, and they wont post my replies pointing out its not true, or to defend myself, but even worse, she wrote me an apology and then when I thanked her and said I really didnt think the things of her she thought I had said (yes trying to be vague) and I thought she really was a good person.. she read exactly what I wrote but without the NOT in it.. so she read it as I accused her of stuff and then posted it on to a bunch of people! Even highlighting the bit where I said she hadnt done something she thought I had accused her of.. as proving how horrid I was accusing her doing it and praising her for being a bad person.. which I so havent done.. a bunch of the people in the group then replied with like "You go girl" to her comments, and almost the "reverend" (if you ever saw blazing saddles).. I feel really unhappy that I cant get these others to at least read what I wrote and realise the things shes accused me of, I simply did not say, in fact, for most cases I said the exact opposite !!

the first thing on my list though.. tends to come from the others, that "well it must be me, I must be different" .. when its ok for others to do things, and its not for me, there must be something wrong with me to make it that way..

Problem is, in someways others can help with points 2 and 3 by saying they have the same or saying that its not true etc.. but that inner feeling doesnt go away..

On a flip note..

The crochetting is going well, Im happy with that and thats a good thing to be happy about!

Pedigree Adoptadrive..

The following site (child and work friendly) has an ad on tv running at the moment, it goes something like "I know Im a good dog, I can sit, I can fetch, I can roll over, but what I dont understand is why I ended up here" ..

As someone who has adopteted two dogs who needed a loving home, and would if I could adopt more, but I just dont have the space, and having paid up a fair chunk when I had a pay out on my own car accident I paid up to a local rescue dog place, I actually object to the almost every 20 minute guilt trip they try and put me on..

Please, donate and help the doggies if you dont have those you already have helped doggies of your own area, or have rescue dogs, or just plain cant afford it, but if you're sitting there on your plush pc, with fat internet link, car, and savings and no cares in the world... think of them.. and the fact they dont necessarily have a tomorrow, they have no home, no family they can get in contact with, no one to turn to.

All gone green..

So, after many months of swear, tears and a couple of bits of blood..

I finally got my green belt yesterday, I get the impression the regional guy was not happy to do it, but, kinda didnt have any real reason he could give to stop me. So, finally, my green belt.. RAR! I worked my feet off, I lost blood and feeling in one foot and had extreeme pain in the other.. I sweated like a man in a forge.. it was not a great grading I felt terrible, I was tired, drawn out and there were only 14 of us, not the 100+ that there had been at my last grading, so, I felt rather on show..

My friend who made the orangey/pink and red blanket for? got her blanket today in the post, and is dead happy, which is excellent news..

Its my mothers 61st birthday (assuming shes still alive somewhere)

My Dad phoned he has a new furry friend..



As you can see, shes a big ball of black fluffy fur, shes 11 months old, and called Rosie! Currently weighing in at a monsterous 33kg, so, shes only going to get bigger!!!

A view on life.

Im a member of a number of crochet mailing lists. They work out as roughly similar while some are UK others global, its all pretty much the same, except 1.

There are a couple out there who make crochet hooks, generally rather tubby ones. They market it as very different, eg, like they invented crochet. Which if their marketing is to be believed they make nice hooks and so on. However, this one mailing list, is devoted to these "hooks" .. but the attitude of those people almost follows on from the site.. They believe that while they use a technique thats been around for like 100 years, this couple invented it, and that by using these hooks it will be entirely different, and thats fine.. although it is rather amusing to read.

However, what really stands out is the general attitude of wanting patterns.. To give you an idea of how hard it is not necessarily to make a "graph" try the following.

Go to google
select search on images
type a cartoon character
Look for something that has only a few colours, something such as bloo here..

Now, save it, to your disk, open it in mspaint.. And select the view menu, then zoom, then custom, select 800, then select the view menu again, then zoom and then show grid.

Now, you see some part of bloo with little squares. Each of those squares can be used as a crochet stitch. There, now you have a graph you can use. Congratulations..

So, why is this group full of people who want graphs for things? things that you can find all over the internet, and in fact can find pre done saved with grids and everything graphs..

More to the point, some also then want "row counts" which is that you could from the bottom and (assuming right handed) right to left, the number of each colours.. so it might go

Row 005 (R to L) :{White} x1, {Christmas Green Med} x6, {White} x4, {Orange VY DK} x3, {Christmas Green Med} x7, {White} x1

yes, all you do is count the squares colour by colour...
and they almost get rude and offended if people dont make the graph and row counts for them!!

So.. I finished my last project



Ignore the "work in progress" banner.. but, I did this, I did this without asking anyone to count things for me.. I did ask an artistic friend to turn it into simple set of colours, as it was originally a chalk sketch.. but, its really not that hard to count..

These people are kinda frustrating because I see them being so demanding, but at the same time, if you dont do the same they all but lynch you!!

Weight loss inspiration..

OK, so theres a program on my tv about Renee Williams who weighed 841 lbs

Shes on the tv program about how its not because she ate too much, yet at the same time her children point out she'd buy 8 big macs.. and eat them..

The sad reality is (as an overweight person, but not in the same league as Renee) that we kid ourselves we arent eating badly, that it must be "something else" .. however, the sad fact of the reality for Renee was

a) the gastric bypass then she lost 67 lbs in 12 days.. Hmm so funny now you cant eat the weight starts shedding.
b) the shock was too much for her and it sadly cost her, her life.

Now, I have a BMI of somewhere around 31-32 which is fat. However, I know its because I eat more than I do.

This year, I vow to do more, so even if at the end of the year, I still eat more than I do.. I will be eating less or doing more..

Welcome to 2008!

2008 has arrived, at least around here by being blown up with small firework like bombs.

The boring person looks out my window this morning at the grey miserable looking weather and cant help but think, its only another day..

Well today my doggie goes swimming, he loves that, but he was limping last night so I need to check him this morning.. sigh..

Heres to hoping 2008 goes well.

Time flies..

They always say, "Time flies when you're having fun" .. well I guess I must be having the time of my life :P

I have been on vacation since 18th Dec.. its now 29th, thats 11 days.. it seems like 11 minutes!!!

And christmas cheer disapears with a pop!

After karate on monday I went home and somehow had a fear in my stomache. Tuesday was to be the last senior lesson, my supposed grading day, and I just knew deep in my heart it wasnt going to happen..

To condense the story to a short blog paragraph, Ive been promised each month of oct, nov and dec that I would grade by the end of the month... he (the trainer for senior class)"forgot" for the first two, and in part I cant help but think he forgot this month too, but decided that he would say things that contradicted the last 3 months of what he'd said, and well, my expectation (as it wasnt a hope it was promised) of a green belt for christmas, has not come. More to the point, as a result of his actions I dont believe I can grade again in this region, because he is the guy who makes those decisions and I cannot bring myself - certainly for now - to respect anyone who lies to my face and calls me a liar while doing it.

This also makes me sad as I have tried my little guts out this year, and this 1 person has spoilt all the effort Ive put in, because I believed him when he was telling me I was a blue belt level, and to be told that Im not even green, despite no corrections, and yet somehow over 3 weeks off I'll suddenly be green belt level just makes no sense.

This will play on my mind a lot - I dont normally dwell on things like this, but 6 months worth of effort feels like it was down the pan, and that doesnt sit too well right now.

The christmas break

Fortunately for me, my christmas vacation starts early this year, in fact it started this morning.

Unfortunately with all thats going on at work somehow having a long vacation doesnt seem like the right thing to do, but at the same time we had to take all the time off or lose it.. so.. It had to be done. I just fear the monumental mess that will wait for me for when I return.

Im sure my name will be muck for something..

anyway, today Charlie went for a swim again, hes doing so well, being off next week hes going to be a lucky fluff and I'll pay the 37 pounds for him to swim twice! He thoroughly loves it, and it has to be said you almost want to take him every day because its such good exercise, but also, at the same time at 18.50 a go, theres no way I could afford that. It also seems that winter and wet dogs is probably not such a hot mix, so, going too much he'd probably get a chill.

Ever noticed how much you hate the huge number of Ads around christmas? Here in the UK the ads seem to be either.. purfume, dolls in the shape of babys who do one of the more of puke, cry, move, wet themselves, poop themsevles or have "owwies" that you can make better.. But then the one time you see an ad you actually might want to take a further look into by the time you thought you'd actually not mind seeing it again to find out who made it or something.. do you ever see it again??? no.

sigh..

It really feels like christmas is just round the corner.

Been a while...

Its been a while huh...

Well what have I been up to? Not a lot, why? well Im overdue for my green belt by a substantial amount, I had done sufficient to qualify 3 months back now, and arguably could have had it then, but no, the regional manager wont let me grade so now Im 3 months behind others I train with and Im reassured its not because Im not good enough, which is just spit in my eye really. Oh, and the guy holding me back said he would grade me end of this month, well thats like next week, so, does 2 whole weeks *really* make that much of a difference? I doubt it.

Ive crochetted loads - I finished the blanket for my friends wife, see below (the copyright liz is deliberate)

Im now working on a new blanket for an equally german friend its pattern looks like this:

I started at the bottom of the picture, and Ive just started his head, so, Im just about half way.

Ive had a lot of headaches over the last month, partly stress, hence Ive been a bit quiet, headaches leave me very drained, that and its winter, and Im never enthusiastic over winter..

Charlie has been having swimming lessons - hes doing really well. Its great to see him have so much fun and have totally weighless exercise which is so good for him. The bone crunching lady has let him off crunches till the new year, the vets pleased enough Charlie can have odd little short walks on the lead again, and the swimming people are pleased at how well his swimming and confidence are doing.

Hes a good boy.

Theres also been some trouble brewing at work, it seems with the uncertainty of how jobs are going a few members of staff are making most of the opportunity to shine at other collegues expense, not necessarily mine I should say, but, various examples of withholding info, and trying to blame others where it could not be their mistake seems to be growing. The latter does apply to me, I had a week off, someone did something while I was off, it was wrong, a huge crap-o-gram was sent, to me I should point out from the effected people, and I apologised but apparently the person who made the mistake is mad at me.. I guess coz I hadnt stopped them? despite my absense? The mind boggles.

Well, I only have 4 more days of work this year (bar being on call), each day is hard to be got down too much now because in a few days I can rest almost till the new year, being on call shouldnt be bad as we have a prime response person who should get all the calls and only if important pass them on, this is a good thing. Otherwise there are various areas who wouldnt fake importance, but would make out the importance is far greater than it is.. eg, they cant print something, their collegue could do it, but, no no, its a life threatening priority 1 that *they* cant.. you know the kind of thing.

Well, we'll see how the rest of the week goes.

So.. it looks like winter..

IUts just turned 5pm and its blacker than a dark cellar out there.. :( and we already converted to daylight savings.. Exceedingly soon will be the go to work in the dark, come home in the dark rigmarole we hate..

It hasnt quite got to the cold wet stage, but this time of year was deffinately made for hibernation, something which we humans could learn a trick or too from, its certainly the time of year we seem to find we want to sleep every afternoon!