How fast this time files, when you’re having fun!

I just noticed that my “venting” blog site has not been updated since last June. It certainly doesn’t mean that I had no gripes, frustrations in my life; plenty of them, and many times came from very unexpected sources. One might think, that working on taxes is a stressful, but believe me it ain’t (to paraphrase a character from one of my favorite movies). Sometimes life gets very innovative in throwing you few surprised that leave you surprised, mad, disappointed….

But, back to my original reason to write this entry:

I    LOVE    P H O T O G R A P H Y!

Two months or so ago, I finally decided to bite a bullet, and splurge on Adobe’s Lightroom 3 (nice 45% discount didn’t hurt either in the decision process); till now, I was just a  pure Photoshop-with-Adobe-Bridge guy. What a difference!

First of all, new functionality (concepts) of the Lightroom world. All of the “imports”, “exports”, “virtual copies”…. head is spinning just from the number of new options. Thank God for the vast excellent  resources that the world of Internet provides. Only available time and … will itself can be the limiting factor. As I started looking at the world of presets (and believe me, they are everywhere), I do get a better picture on what is required in the world of today’s world of photography.  

Of course, no new software would make any sense, without … new pictures. I did try to take few. Some during my daily walks, others as I visited my favorite Bay Area spots, but most of them during number of church events in my church.

Lots of fun, but also a lot of work.  This is were I was hoping new Lightroom would come handy, and was not mistaken.  I can see, that in time my workflow / process of dealing with hundreds of pictures will get shorter (i.e. better).    Last weekend I took a ride to a beach in Half Moon Bay to take some snapshots of the sunset. As a photographer,  I still don’t have much experience with this particular time of day  (was not ready for a way too long waiting time in a freezing  California weather!), but I got to talk to some other very nice fellow photographers  from the area.

The trip was not a total waste then. I also took few pictures which couple came out quite all right. Here is a first one of a dog guarding a ball in the water; so funny.

Now something the ocean decided to rejected, and it landed on the beach:

… and finally, a test of an extreme cropping.   Love my 7d with all its 21 million of pixels.

Don’t take me wrong, before you master the art of picture taking you will go through a healthy dose of frustrations (my being using  external flash light with my Canon XTi). If you do not have patience, you may not survive the initial numberless out of focus, over and under exposed shots that have been ruined by an amateur photographer (this means YOU).

I was fortunate to be asked by my priest to be the official picture taker from some church events, so I got to take many of very rewarding pictures lately. What a blast!  First Communion, Corpus Christi procession, new altar boys’ introduction and the Christmas Eve dinners. So many pictures, so much disk space to use, so little time!

Even today, I got to take few family pictures, which will bring a lot of joy not only to me, but to the folks I am photographing. Even one of the headers for this blog is a panoramic creation of my afternoon walk to the local park.  With the help of Photoshop CS4 and a good use of adobe tutorials, I managed to create a decent looking background headers for this site (look for the island with few pelicans at my city’s artificial lake).

 One more year has passed,  so you and I have added some “millage” throughout last 12 months. All Americans got new el Presidente ( I call him Obambi, since I am such a big admirer of his ), you’ve been getting used to the new title of “grandpa”, “paps”… and lovely Jennifer is getting married in July. The last one hurts a bit, since I WAS hopping that she would settle for a more mature guy, and I would be calling you “Dad” some day – with all the love you deserve, of course.

Anyway, hoping that your birthday anniversary was a fabulous one, I wish you all happiness and anything your heart may desire my friend. Stay positive and most of all healthy.  Remember, you and I are may be a bit older, but we age well, and our families, friends need us.

 The next time we meet, let’s finish the  bottle of “Goldwasser” – remember that one? 

In a meantime my friend – Happy  B-day!

- Bogdan

P.S.

To make your day a bit better, I found this little music clip.  I hope you like it.

The upgrade itself didn’t take that much time, and off I went into the new administrative interface. Different to be sure, but I do agree with the authors – much quicker and easier to use. I took some chances with this one, but it looks that there are no show stoppers that would make me consider a rollback. So far, I am happy camper.

As I was forgetting the story of the crooked investment advisor from New York» , I looked into few WordPress plug-ins. I decided to give them a “go”.

First, I opted for a optimization. New plug-in I used moves all the javascript code to the end of the page. It is a suggested technique for allowing the main static content to display as soon as possible. This gives the perception of the page to load faster. So far, it seems to do its job.

Second on the list, were two add-ins to provide footnotes and “sliders”. I notice one blog site to use them, and …. I liked it enough to give it a spin.  Will see, which one is going to stay, and which one is going to go((I don’t think that adding so many plug-ins is going to be “healthy” for the overall performance of the site.))

Tomorrow … oops… today is a celebration of “Wigilia”"  in my Church, so I better finish.  Tomorrow, I will upgrade my second blog for my children. I still need to figure out how to split the content into multiple distinctive sections without going to multiple installations of WordPress.  Oh well…

I wonder if She actually recorded an English version of the same song» , but then again – who cares! She is French, and I love her music in her native tong.

The “evil” empire (for some of the computer folk) fought back and … provided us with a fabulous (IMHO) solution. Microsoft Windows Home Server (WHS). Product based on mature Windows 2003 server modified to provide headless access (no monitor required), backup of all attached workstations (actually- XP and above only) with software raid support (redundancy at the folder level), etc. .. One can buy this program on a CD ($170-$180 + tax) and install it on his own hardware or … (and this one is a better one) by an appliance from reputable vendors like HP.

Speaking of HP and WHS. The good folks at HP released server HP470 and HP475 which is basically a PC based appliance which is capable of supporting internal 4 disk drives (we talking 2-4 TB of storage babe!) and additional storage using external USB and eSATA interfaces. You can access this little and VERY quiet box via 1GB/s Ethernet card. You can “have” it for about $600 in a single drive configuration (add 3 extra 750 GB drives at $160 each and you have a monster).

Groovie….

BTW, I was so amazed to find so many people contributing to many wonderful projects. I am currently trying to find a portal software that could help our priest to (as he describes) move into the 21st century. If you know of any (free that is) please let me know.