Thursday, June 26, 2008
Oh goodness....
So I'm working in the VISTA office here... today has had its upsides and downsides... When I went to bed last night, I wasn't feeling so hot. I've had the same headache since the second day of my vacation, so it's been a good 2 1/2 weeks with the same headache... it had gotten so I'm pretty used to it, unless it spikes, which it has done a time or two... but now it's merely an annoyance... except it occasionally makes me wanna hurl. Not like "it hurts so bad I'm gonna puke" feeling, but just like out-of-nowhere-nausea. That's really weird. And last night, I noticed that when I tip my head, it feels like my brain is moving. Like that weird "where'd my brain go- dizzy" feeling. So this morning I got up to go to work, and felt like I was going to die before i even got out of bed... wanted to vomit, sooooooo dizzy, headACHES.... but it was my first day doing work in the office... so I went in anyway... guess that's how it goes....
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
So I'm 'home' from vacation. We left Cooke City, MT Thursday morning, after checking weather and such several times, and decided to get outta Dodge any way possible. Which meant, since several park roads were closed, that we had to take a 'scenic' highway back to Cody. "Scenic" meaning long twisty roads going up and down mountains and taking forever to get nowhere. And of course, more snow. So several hours of my parents arguing and complaining, and we were out of the mountains. We stopped in Cody for a while, visited a miniature village thingie, which was positively ridiculous, then made our slow way out of Wyoming, stopping at Devil's Tower for an hour or two. Dad and I walked the path around the tower (which is a much longer path than I would have thought, when I thought we were 3/4 of the way finished... 10 yards up the trail was a halfway point sign.)
After leaving Devil's Tower, we argued a lot about where to stop, or even if to stop, for the night, and then finally went on to Wall, SD. Where we spent the night. There was a mosquito in the hotel room. Grr.
The next morning, Friday, we traveled East, stopping at Huron at my brother's house for several hours. While there, he proceeded to show off how great his camera is and how great his photography is compared to our vacation pictures, and how we did everything wrong, that we didn't know enough about our cameras to 'properly' use them 'to the fullest' and that we screwed up because we didn't get this feature, or that lens or what-the-crap-ever... I may not know in 3 seconds or less how many pixels my camera has. That's not how my mind works. If you give me a minute to think, I can answer. But if you give me 4 technical and one art question in one minute, I'm not going to process them all, I'm going to answer the art and get wrapped up in my answer and forget technical stuff. If you ask me how to change something on my camera while I'm looking at it, I can show you. If you ask me while I'm across the room and working on 3 other things for you, I'm not even going to answer. And frankly, if you ask me how to change the quality of my pictures, I probably can't tell you without trying it several times, because, quite frankly, I shoot on the highest quality my camera has to offer. I don't care that I can take more pictures by using a lower quality. Why would I want several mediocre pictures when I can have a couple great ones?
Second, I have had my camera for 2 weeks. Of course I don't know as much about my camera as he knows about his. He's had his for 6 months. and you know what? I took 3/4 of my pictures hanging out the back window of the car going 45 mph through the park. He takes 10 minutes to set up a shot of a parked car down the street.
Third, I HATE live-view. So I didn't get the more expensive camera that has it. I prefer to use the view finder for all my pictures. It's steadier and I feel like I get a better shot that way. Let's face it, a 10 pound camera is a lot of weight for my to hold up steadily to take a picture. So for me to pick a 20 pound camera and hold it at arm's length and hold it steady while taking a picture is ridiculous. That's almost 30% of my weight. If he likes Live-view, that's his preference. He can have it on his camera, I don't care. It's MY camera and I never asked for his opinion, or his 30 minute tirade on why I need to be able to take a picture by looking through my LCD screen.
I also don't care how much he can zoom to look at the new picture on his screen. The reason I shoot digital is so that I can look at the pictures and edit them on my computer. Why would I want to crop and save a picture on the camera?
He may know some technical things about his camera that I don't know about mine. But here's the catch: would he know that much about his camera if he didn't have to sell it? Chris is a Wal-Mart manager. He has to be able to answer questions about cameras that I would never even imagine asking. I can't explain a lot of things to my dad when he asks. That's because I know how to use it, but not how it works. Chris has to be able to explain things to people who don't understand any technology (such as my dad). (And another thought: if he's so stinkin' smart, why did he have to ask me the difference between a compact flash card and an SD card?)
Chris may know how to change the pixels in his camera, but I know what hot shoes are, I know how to sync lights, how to use a manual light meter, what an F-stop is, and how to balance the aperture with the shutter speed. I can use hot lights, spot lights, radio transmitters and light tables. I'd like to see him even figure out which light is which.
We looked at vacation pictures on his TV using discs I burned and using his camera. Yeah, his pictures looked better. BUT his were going directly from the camera to his TV via the AV cables. Ours however, were burned onto discs and played through his DVD player, on wide-screen. They were being stretched horizontally, but not vertically. So, of course, ours are gonna be distorted.
Wow, this was supposed to be an entry about the end of my vacation and coming home and such, not a rant about my brother. And that was only the first 2 hours we were with him. We were there for 7 hours.... so yeah, my brother frustrates the hell out of me. We had supper at Godfather's with him, the food was good, I can imagine better company, then we headed home. We got home 11ish, I played with the cat, took a bath and did some general getting used to being home and then went to bed. Satuday didn't really do much, Sunday, went to Sunday School, left early, drove dad to work in Spencer *ooh* I passed someone for the first time, usually I just patiently drive behind them... pirated some internet, goofed around that night and Monday... Now, Wednesday, I'm at Finleys'. Got here yesterday about 1ish. Will be here until Friday. Better than being at my house tho. Can't wait to go home to Andy.
Tune in for more tirades later, gotta fix a little lady some lunch.
After leaving Devil's Tower, we argued a lot about where to stop, or even if to stop, for the night, and then finally went on to Wall, SD. Where we spent the night. There was a mosquito in the hotel room. Grr.
The next morning, Friday, we traveled East, stopping at Huron at my brother's house for several hours. While there, he proceeded to show off how great his camera is and how great his photography is compared to our vacation pictures, and how we did everything wrong, that we didn't know enough about our cameras to 'properly' use them 'to the fullest' and that we screwed up because we didn't get this feature, or that lens or what-the-crap-ever... I may not know in 3 seconds or less how many pixels my camera has. That's not how my mind works. If you give me a minute to think, I can answer. But if you give me 4 technical and one art question in one minute, I'm not going to process them all, I'm going to answer the art and get wrapped up in my answer and forget technical stuff. If you ask me how to change something on my camera while I'm looking at it, I can show you. If you ask me while I'm across the room and working on 3 other things for you, I'm not even going to answer. And frankly, if you ask me how to change the quality of my pictures, I probably can't tell you without trying it several times, because, quite frankly, I shoot on the highest quality my camera has to offer. I don't care that I can take more pictures by using a lower quality. Why would I want several mediocre pictures when I can have a couple great ones?
Second, I have had my camera for 2 weeks. Of course I don't know as much about my camera as he knows about his. He's had his for 6 months. and you know what? I took 3/4 of my pictures hanging out the back window of the car going 45 mph through the park. He takes 10 minutes to set up a shot of a parked car down the street.
Third, I HATE live-view. So I didn't get the more expensive camera that has it. I prefer to use the view finder for all my pictures. It's steadier and I feel like I get a better shot that way. Let's face it, a 10 pound camera is a lot of weight for my to hold up steadily to take a picture. So for me to pick a 20 pound camera and hold it at arm's length and hold it steady while taking a picture is ridiculous. That's almost 30% of my weight. If he likes Live-view, that's his preference. He can have it on his camera, I don't care. It's MY camera and I never asked for his opinion, or his 30 minute tirade on why I need to be able to take a picture by looking through my LCD screen.
I also don't care how much he can zoom to look at the new picture on his screen. The reason I shoot digital is so that I can look at the pictures and edit them on my computer. Why would I want to crop and save a picture on the camera?
He may know some technical things about his camera that I don't know about mine. But here's the catch: would he know that much about his camera if he didn't have to sell it? Chris is a Wal-Mart manager. He has to be able to answer questions about cameras that I would never even imagine asking. I can't explain a lot of things to my dad when he asks. That's because I know how to use it, but not how it works. Chris has to be able to explain things to people who don't understand any technology (such as my dad). (And another thought: if he's so stinkin' smart, why did he have to ask me the difference between a compact flash card and an SD card?)
Chris may know how to change the pixels in his camera, but I know what hot shoes are, I know how to sync lights, how to use a manual light meter, what an F-stop is, and how to balance the aperture with the shutter speed. I can use hot lights, spot lights, radio transmitters and light tables. I'd like to see him even figure out which light is which.
We looked at vacation pictures on his TV using discs I burned and using his camera. Yeah, his pictures looked better. BUT his were going directly from the camera to his TV via the AV cables. Ours however, were burned onto discs and played through his DVD player, on wide-screen. They were being stretched horizontally, but not vertically. So, of course, ours are gonna be distorted.
Wow, this was supposed to be an entry about the end of my vacation and coming home and such, not a rant about my brother. And that was only the first 2 hours we were with him. We were there for 7 hours.... so yeah, my brother frustrates the hell out of me. We had supper at Godfather's with him, the food was good, I can imagine better company, then we headed home. We got home 11ish, I played with the cat, took a bath and did some general getting used to being home and then went to bed. Satuday didn't really do much, Sunday, went to Sunday School, left early, drove dad to work in Spencer *ooh* I passed someone for the first time, usually I just patiently drive behind them... pirated some internet, goofed around that night and Monday... Now, Wednesday, I'm at Finleys'. Got here yesterday about 1ish. Will be here until Friday. Better than being at my house tho. Can't wait to go home to Andy.
Tune in for more tirades later, gotta fix a little lady some lunch.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-rumph!!
It's 83 degrees in Sioux City today.... and in Cooke City Montana... it's snowing and supposedly 30 degrees, but I'm pretty sure the thermometer is broken. It snowed overnight while we were in West Yellowstone, then almost all day as we were driving. Not much seems to be landing and not melting, but since my father keeps making comments about being snowed in here, and wouldn't listen to my suggestion about just going home, I'm apprehensive... I hate Montana...
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Grrs and Brrs....
So we enter the park...and the ranger warns us that a couple of roads are closed due to weather... we didn't take it to mean much, I kinda thought she was exaggerating... and then we got around the first corner into the park... and there's like 3 feet of snow everywhere.... happy freaking June.
BTW, this was obviously taken out the back of the car as we drove along....
Rocky Rootings
I took this out the side of the car, going 60 mph down the highway just outside Cody, WY, so I'm glad it came out so well... I saw it last year and was watching for it this year... It's just a hopeful little tree... hit by a rock, just bends, doesn't break, and keeps on growing. Inspirational, I guess....if you're sappy like that.... which of course, I am...
Clean Dogs
So we were on our way thru Wyoming, stopped for gas (in Casper?) and I looked across the street and saw.... a Self-Serve DOG wash... and I wondered... does that mean the dog washes himself?
Monday, June 9, 2008
Blogging Blues....
So I'm in West Yellowstone, Montana tonight. Spent last night in Meteetse, Wyoming. The internet connection sucks something fierce, so I guess vacation blogging will have to wait a while... I think I'm going to write blogs everyday in Word and then just copy and paste them when I have good service. And I'm taking lots of pictures to be uploaded to Flickr and posted here... stay tuned for Adventures in Insanity.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Andy's Smamich
So Andy got hungry, a few nights before he moved to his new apartment, and decided to finish off some stuff in the fridge... OK, maybe he didn't care about the fridge, maybe he just wanted a big sandwich... but anyway, This is my favorite of all the pictures I've taken so far....
Technology bites my butt... a lot...
OK, So I was going to post the pictures of M'side's new green-space, but to do that you have to go thru Flickr and each picture is it's own post and I don't know if you can combine them into one post, but it doesn't look like it... and I just joined Flickr (like 10 mins ago) and haven't gotten it all figured out yet... But I will post pictures one-by-one to post them when we go to Yellowstone... bummer.... I was also gonna add pics of my camera's first road trip (to Andy's house in Durant) but maybe I'll just have to do that later... We will see, I guess.
3 a.m. Craziness
So we stayed up until three... and I had a new camera... and we had a lot of pop.... I think you can see where this is going.....
The birth of craziness, part 2
So after a huge dramatic graduation day, my father had a lot of ass-kissing to do, both to me and my mother. I had never been so mad at him, and he knew it. He hung up on me when I called to tell my family that Andy and I were getting married, but I'd still never been so mad at him before. I considered not inviting him to my wedding and having a personal friend walk me down the aisle instead. So about 2 weeks after graduation, my father was in town.
Now, my father has never been one to buy affections, but he knew he had royally screwed up this time. So he bought me a gift, the best one he could have. I have a friend with a Canon Rebel XT. Actually, she has both the film and digital models. We took the film one on vacation last year, and even my father, who pretty much hates technology, was so impressed with the camera that he started discussing buying a laptop and a digital camera so that he could take more vacations, and thus, more pictures. My family hadn't taken a trip like last year's since just before I started kindergarten. This year we are going again.
I had expressed interest, before all this, about cameras, since I got into photography. But, let's face it, they're expensive. So I just put it out of my mind.
But after the fiasco that was my college graduation, my father had a lot of lost ground to recover. So when he came into town, he called me and I picked him up, and drove him to Target. At Target, he bought the camera I recommended previously and that my mother had decided she wanted. He bought all the stuff she needed to get started and I told him I'd search online for the other stuff she would eventually need. My mother is not tech saavy either, but she was adamant that she wanted a Rebel. So my mother got a Canon Rebel XT. Target, however, only had one camera. We couldn't believe it.
So we went to Best Buy, and discovered that the Xt was an old model. The next thing was the XTI. They had several other models, but I chose the XTI for it portability and other reasons.
So several failed attempts later, my mother and I both got new digital cameras. Whoo hoo!
Now, my father has never been one to buy affections, but he knew he had royally screwed up this time. So he bought me a gift, the best one he could have. I have a friend with a Canon Rebel XT. Actually, she has both the film and digital models. We took the film one on vacation last year, and even my father, who pretty much hates technology, was so impressed with the camera that he started discussing buying a laptop and a digital camera so that he could take more vacations, and thus, more pictures. My family hadn't taken a trip like last year's since just before I started kindergarten. This year we are going again.
I had expressed interest, before all this, about cameras, since I got into photography. But, let's face it, they're expensive. So I just put it out of my mind.
But after the fiasco that was my college graduation, my father had a lot of lost ground to recover. So when he came into town, he called me and I picked him up, and drove him to Target. At Target, he bought the camera I recommended previously and that my mother had decided she wanted. He bought all the stuff she needed to get started and I told him I'd search online for the other stuff she would eventually need. My mother is not tech saavy either, but she was adamant that she wanted a Rebel. So my mother got a Canon Rebel XT. Target, however, only had one camera. We couldn't believe it.
So we went to Best Buy, and discovered that the Xt was an old model. The next thing was the XTI. They had several other models, but I chose the XTI for it portability and other reasons.
So several failed attempts later, my mother and I both got new digital cameras. Whoo hoo!
The birth of craziness
Ok, so there's a complicated story about this blog. If you don't care to read it, skip to the second post after this post.
I started off in college as a Biology major, with the intention of being a vet, and a possible Spanish major. Then I discovered I hated Chemistry more than I had ever realized and a series of events revealed to me how much I like grammar. So after a semester as what my advisor called a "closet English Major" I officially switched to an English major, with a Biology minor. However... to get a minor in Biology, I would have to take MORE chemistry, as well as human anatomy and physiology. Blech. Then I discovered I had enough art credits to only take 2 classes for a minor. I had already taken design and decided that wasn't for me. BUT, to finish a minor, I could take photography (which I had had an interest in for some time, just no way to explore my curiosity) and then then I could decide to take either more photography classes, or to take graphic design. either would fulfill my requirements.
After Photo I (classic film and darkroom work), I decided I loved photography. I decided I wanted to take a 2 week course in Costa Rica after graduation, like a reward to myself. Of course, plans like that never actually come true for me, but it was fun to believe for a while. Photo II, digital and studio work, was more of a head-beating exercise, but I did learn and no one died (which was a close call, considering the TA in that class), and I graduated, so I guess it was worth it.
I started off in college as a Biology major, with the intention of being a vet, and a possible Spanish major. Then I discovered I hated Chemistry more than I had ever realized and a series of events revealed to me how much I like grammar. So after a semester as what my advisor called a "closet English Major" I officially switched to an English major, with a Biology minor. However... to get a minor in Biology, I would have to take MORE chemistry, as well as human anatomy and physiology. Blech. Then I discovered I had enough art credits to only take 2 classes for a minor. I had already taken design and decided that wasn't for me. BUT, to finish a minor, I could take photography (which I had had an interest in for some time, just no way to explore my curiosity) and then then I could decide to take either more photography classes, or to take graphic design. either would fulfill my requirements.
After Photo I (classic film and darkroom work), I decided I loved photography. I decided I wanted to take a 2 week course in Costa Rica after graduation, like a reward to myself. Of course, plans like that never actually come true for me, but it was fun to believe for a while. Photo II, digital and studio work, was more of a head-beating exercise, but I did learn and no one died (which was a close call, considering the TA in that class), and I graduated, so I guess it was worth it.
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