I think this is a record in two ways;
1) the earliest I have ever put up lights.
2) the most lights I have ever put up.
And, come to think of it,
3) the most dud light strands I’ve had in one year.
As you can see in this picture, the center middle eve of the top roof, is out. Weird thing about that section; it’s the middle of one continuous 100pc strand and it’s on about 20%.
Sounds like a short-circuit to me. Any electrical engineers in the house?
Ahem.
On the way to the train this morning, I was dutifully circumnavigating a monster puddle. Like a submerged crocodile lurking at the waters edge, a manhole-sized, frost-heaving, pothole jumped up and snapped at my wildebeest.
It didn’t pull us under but it did put an unnatural end to the life of this rim.
I’ve backed it IN to the garage several times – but 5th grade geometry clearly indicates a $300 bill when attempting the math in the other direction.
About six weeks ago my iPhone got wet and despite all attempts to dry it out the screen backlight and ringer wouldn’t work.
At first the buzzer didn’t even work. But somehow dissemble/reassemble worked like a windows reboot – p’tuh p’tuh.
I resolved to wait to upgrade ’till the next iPhone 5 came out, toughin’ it out.
Let me tell you, using a touchscreen without a backlight is a pain. It only works well in direct sunlight – which in Seattle…meh.
I thought maybe, just maybe, Apple would announce a new iPhone at the WWDC today. meh, meh.
Anyway, long story short, I have gotten kinda used to restricted iPhone usage and then…today, I had lunch with Tackleman, and I left my iPhone on the table in the ‘blazing’ Seattle sun as we ate and chatted.
When input it back in my pocket I mentioned aloud,
dOoh my phone is really HOT!
Two hours later, in a meeting, my phone buzzed with an iMessage and suddenly my backlight is back on!! It’s like having a new phone!…errrr…computer.
So now I can write little, relatively inconsequential, snippets on my blog while I’m laying in bed, in near darkness, in abject comfort.
Didn’t take more than a coupla seconds to break Grumpys waterproofing spray nozzle.
He was still able to use it, amazingly.
We all know that we’ve had Halloween since the last time I’ve made a post.
In point of fact, there’s also been a birthday and an anniversary in this same time-frame and it appears I’m only a month in arrears.
So, there are pictures of those events, but that’s not what finally got me off my duff – it is (was?) my new camera.
Ya seeeee, in the weeks before Halloween I was busily engaged in making PacMan ghosts for my office costume party. TheWeeOne wanted to film, direct, bestGrip, and narrate “A Five Year Old’s Version of How It’s Made”.
What is quite clear to me know is that while Wee excels at filming, directing, and narrating (for a five year old) the machinations of a costume build her grip is rather typical for a five year old.
So, I upgraded!
After some research, I came to realize that our iPhones are suitable as point-and-shoot, have with us anywhere cameras, and that paying a premium for a good quality, “take anywhere” compact camera wasn’t an operating goal of mine any longer. So, I moved up the chain (and in the process COMPLETELY ignored some rather good advice about DSLR’s from my friendly neighborhood photo-geek) and traded a Canon SX40HS for some CreditCard points we’ve accumulated.
My targets were:
(This and $$ were the biggest reasons for ignoring aforementioned photo-geek)
So, here are some sample shots to get things started.
With a long lens, it turns out, image stabilization is rather necessary to counteract shake. This camera has an excellent pre-set feature for taking low-light photos, without a tripod.
Check out this shot of the moon on a clear night.
Pretty awesome – and at 100% crop, with no retouching, you can see some blurring and jaggy jpg’s
The way it does this low-light anti-blur thing is it takes four shots in rapid succession, each one likely too low to see much individually – but then the camera lines them up a little bit (stabilize) and stacks them together, on the fly, to make one good (perhaps) image.
You can see what happens then if a moving subject enters the scene.
But seriously, the bike lane marker and other things in the background?! Not blurry.
This won’t really help with moving dancers methinks, unless I can call it artistic, but it sure is fun to play with on still subjects.
The feature on this camera I know I’ll use is it’s super zoom; The range is (35mm equivalent) 24-840mm which I’m told is the equivalent of three separate SLR/DSLR lenses. Granted the quality won’t exceed those three lenses but, I am much less likely to A) bring three lenses to a performance and B) have the right one on at the right time. I still may not get zoomed in/out all the way in time but…I’ll take that tradeoff.
Check out the image stabilized, wide angle, low-light mode, shot of downtown Seattle from Alki.
But you know, without any retouching, a 100% crop of this picture shows, whatever you call that – lots of bleeding lights – and quite a bit of noise. Not pretty at 100%.
So, let’s zoom in all the way, don’t change a thing on the settings and see what a 100% crop of The Space Needle will look like.
Now, that’s pretty cool. Put that sucker on a tripod in manual mode and you might resolve people in them-thar windows.
And, since you’ve made it this far, I’ll demonstrate the results to be had using the ultra-fast, 10 frames per second mode. What better than two TheMermaids jumping…
…off the bed…
…and off the ground.
Both of these were middle shots of 6-8 pictures – the other shots weren’t quite as impressive although interesting to look at in succession.
This mode, unrestrained, does tend to fill up memory rather rapidly. More to come.
Found a pothole, with a manhole, in a sinkhole just now,
Just now I found a pothole-manhole-bunghole just now.
It was lumpy it was crumpy it was FRUUUMMPY just now,
Just now I saw’t bumpy, went’a thumpy just now.
Made it over it, saved my lower bits, but she GALLOP’T just now,
Just now I made it over it, swore a wittow bit just now.
Since I made it through, slowed it down a few, then I SAAAIID a quick ‘woo hoo’,
But the ‘do da do’, meant a rim boo boo, it was THEH-en that I knew.
That I broke it.
TheMommy said
Just get the water off before you put it back on.
so I did…along with the handle.
8mm Allen head screw on the thunderbolt.
Urgh.
All I was doing was inflating my tire one second and the next second…
…my ears were ringing.
My first thought was that I had burst the tire and I gave a little curse (‘spose it was probably a loud curse but I couldn’t hear anything).
[Tangent]
If a loud curse is uttered in a garage but your ears are ringing loudly…did the curse happen?
Grumpy – care to weigh in on that one?
[/Tangent]
Since it was about 23:00 I moved quickly upstairs to reassure The Mermaids that I was safe, not bleeding, and all that.
Through the squealing E-flat in my ears I couldn’t make out any words of concern – as I approached I saw why – all snoring.
[Tangent]
Hmm, that’s slightly…well…not reassuring?!
The lightest sleeper in the house is immune to the sound of a gunshot in the garage, not 30 feet from her head. How is it then that the sound of a fly buzzing at the other end of the house causes ME so much grief at oh dark thirty?
Well, maybe a gunshot is overstating things but I can tell you that 140PSI released instantly through the sidewall of an aluminum rim, even a weakened one, is plenty loud.
I guess we’ll sleep through the next earthquake.
[/Tangent]
Having ensured that The Mermaids weren’t afraid for my life, or theirs, I returned to survey the damage.
It wasn’t the tire that blew it was my rim!
Guess I overinflated a little bit?
So – since I have to commute tomorrowtoday I set about replacing my wheels with, as it happens, my brand-new-used set of bladed spoke, Mavic Ksyrium Equipe700C wheelset which I bought from a racing buddy at work not 6 days ago. Too bad they still have the 12×25 cassette on – that’ll make for some hard hill climbing in my future.
You see, I knew my old rims were wearing thin, I just didn’t know they were THAT thin.
Anyway, long night of replacing tires and wheels aside – I am extremely glad that I wasn’t riding when my wheel failed – that could have gotten ugly in a bad way in a real hurry.
blief 