Dear Charities

Just because I chose to donate to one charity, does not mean I want my mailbox filled, my email bombarded, or telephone calls from other charities. It's not a case of jumping on the bandwagon with "Hey, she just gave to (insert charity name here), let's see if we can tap that well, too!"

Go away.

Everything old is new again

The chair end plug for the power supply for my lumbar massaging chair broke off, and I had been looking on the internet for replacement. I spent months looking, to no avail. Event he store where I bought the chair didn't have a number for spare parts.

Then I had a light bulb moment. We have all these power supply cords from now defunct or no longer used items. I gathered ones that looked similar to the plug that broke off the cord. Three candidates.

First one I tried, pushed the power switch on the massage control.. nothing. I sighed and started to remove it from the chair. Then I noticed the massage control wasn't plugged into the chair (sheepish grin). Hooked the plug back in, plugged the controller in, closed my eyes and pushed the power switch again. I opened my eyes and was rewarded with a little red light on the control. Selected Lumbar and heard the blessed sound of the mechanism working.

By recycling, I saved me the cost of at least a new power supply for the chair, or a new chair.

EL CHEAPO STRIKES AGAIN! (but enjoying a nice lower back massage while typing this)

Can you give me a "Hell yeah"?

This kind of lack of professionalism gives photographers a bad name

I had the privilege to work with professional model a few months ago. She was professional, took direction very well, and is extremely photogenic. Even with all this, she has been treated rather shabbily by a different photographer at a different photoshoot. "S" was told that for all her work on the day, this fauxtographer told her she wasn't going to be paid, as he only pays large breasted models, but he would give her 'time for prints'.

"S" has her own portfolio, and doesn't need freebies. (I know this feeling only too well. I don't need a photo credit, or portfolio freebies, as I have over 700gbs of photo, more than enough for a portfolio). "S" works hard, deserved to be paid for her time, as her time is valuable. She did not deserve this dismissive jackass saying that to her.

This guy really needs to be named and shamed. I won't nag "S" about it, but he does need to be called out for this.

So, Google Play Market said "not compatible with my device"?

I wanted a specific app for my android tablet. But according to Google Play, it wouldn't work on my tablet.

This not being the first time I've seen this, nor do I think it will be the last. Oddly enough, if I circumvent their 'download prevention' by installing it on my Android phone, then using ApkManager to make a back up of it. Copied the apk to my desktop, then moved it to my tablet, installed it and it works just fine.

Personally, they should leave them to be downloaded and have the device toss up an error message saying it won't work.

Well, that boring task over, time to upload

Over the last few days, I've been compiling another photo book. After tweaking image sizes on the pages, the layouts, frames, drop shadows, borders, came the not so fun task of proofreading.

I've made 6 photobooks, and in the first 4, one typo in each. It's difficult to read words and consider them out of context. Of course, while reading, I would want to adjust the text layout, or decided a certain image framing just didn't work. I finally got to the point that all the wording is correct, the layouts and design look great, and proceeded to the upload.

2.5 Microsoft hours for almost 140 full sized images to be uploaded. Image size varies between 3.5 megs to 14 megs. Average size would be about 8 megs. Times 137. Hmmm, when I look at it that way, it's no wonder it's going to take 2 hrs or more to upload them all.

Sometimes, just sometimes...

I wish stupidity would cause pain or at least itching, so stupid people could tell when they're being stupid.

Occultation of Jupiter - Feb 18 2013

Jupiter slides behind the moon.





Jupiter re-emerges from behind it.

Borrowed Tech

While searching for Wing 's glasses, I spotted my old Lumix DMCFZ50. I decided to give it a try to see if all was well with it.

Not surprisingly, the batter in the camera was dead, but one of the extra ones was fully charged. Popped it in, turned on the camera. Oh dear, it had been unpowered for so long that I had to reset time and date. Did that. Then I took it for a mini test drive. Still works and works well. Of course that EVF, after using a DLSR, is a bit fiddly, but doable. I miss the light weight of it, too. Takes great photos:

Valentine's Day Bouquet. Colors are bright, and whites are true.



Ziggy, ever patient camera model/tester



I came across a wireless keyboard his previous job gave him, along with the laptop computer w/ its docking station. I decided to see if it was still functional. Opened up the battery compartment and spotted two old, starting to corrode batteries. Not good. So I removed them, and carefully cleaned the contact points inside the battery compartment.

Next step, finding the wireless hub for the mouse and keyboard. Found it, plugged it in. Then went in search of charged batteries. As it turns out, Energizer rechargeables are a bit too big for the battery compartment, so I grabbed a couple of my camera flash batteries. Fit in perfectly. By the time I did that, the drivers for the hub and keyboard had downloaded and installed.

Typing on the keyboard now, and it's not too shabby. The action is smooth, and it feels as if I'm actually typing. They space bar is a bit clunky by comparison to my other one, but it does the job. Will be taking the batteries out and putting the keyboard away for a 'just in case' (and if you've ever seen Wing's previous keyboard, you would know what I mean) a keyboard is needed.

I still haven't found Wing 's glasses yet, but haven't given up.

Back to the search!

Too bad we have to wait until 2014 to toss their sorry asses out.

Once again the House Republicans abuse the filibuster in a case of pure obstructionism. They're manufacturing reasons (even I knew when he was talking about Israel, and he said "Jewish Lobby" he meant Israeli Lobby, who funnily enough are Jewish) why they oppose him. When you have a tea-tard chicken hawk, Sen Cruz slander him by saying he takes money from terrorists, and only one or two sitting GOP senators have the balls to actually defend Hagel from the slander, you know the only reason they're blocking him is because President Obama wants him.

Wish the House was 'right to work' because I'd fire the lot of them.

Now that's what I call recycling

Started a load of laundry. When I opened the cupboard to get the laundry soap, I noticed that my plant food had leak out because the bottle had tipped over. Had to clean it up. Grabbed a tea towel, and 4 cup measuring cup for water. Filled the cup, dunked the tea towel and wiped up one shelf. Rinsed the the towel in the measuring cup.

Hmmm, looked like proper plant food, so I took the cup which was now diluted plant food, and started feeding the plants! Refilled measuring cup and rinsed the towel three more times, repeating the feeding of the plants. Did the same thing on the shelf underneath, cleaning the last of the spilled plant food, and feeding all the potted and hanging plants in the back yard.

A bit more "Bonfire of the Vanities" in miniature form

Been going through some areas of the house with a garbage bag, Mini Dyson, and other cleaning items. Been throwing away accumulated 'stuff'. While in the middle of this, I ran across my old Handspring Visor and the GoType keyboard. Curiosity got the better of me, so I unboxed them, got batteries for the Visor. Even though I had seen the "GoType" disc recently, I couldn't remember where, so downloaded the drivers for it.

Got out my netbook as it still runs Windows XP. Installed everything and it all works. I used to use the Visor for an ebook reader, a grocery list/memo list, and had a few greyscale games for it. I mean, it's really old school by today's standards, but when I got it, it was one helluva PDA. Still is, if you take its limitations into consideration. No clue what I'm going to do with them.

Kong Hee Fatt Choi

Happy Year of the Snake

Canon Customer Survey

I have a feeling that they might not like my customer response.

I'm a bit disappointed, that after purchasing over $25k worth of Canon kit, all three of my 'big' purchases have been faulty. 5DMkiii, short in the battery terminals, 70-200 IS, the auto focus stopped working. Now, a 4 yr old 100-400 Auto focus won't lock. I was told this is a known issue, but not wide spread enough to send out a recall, and is now going to cost me $640 to have fixed. Not happy about this.

You read that right. This "Jumping focus/Aperture 00" is a known issue, well documented, but not wide spread enough for Canon to issue a recall or fix gratis. If I wasn't so heavily invested in Canon, I might be tempted to jump ship.

Exercise comes in many forms

Because of the heat, I haven't been riding my bike. Yeah yeah, I know dedicated enthusiasts have no problem riding, but add asthma and extra weight, makes 31+ degree heat and my riding a bike mutually exclusive.

Was feeling a bit sedentary, so what I did was while my news programs were on, I stood by and did 30 minutes of 3/4 shimmies and Turkish shimmies. After the news was over, I got a drink of water, and attacked the rugs with the vacuum cleaner.

Now, my left leg feels like lead, not sore, just heavy, and slightly unresponsive. And tomorrow, I plan to do this again.

It could me my fault

If it starts raining, it could be my fault. I just hung clothes outside to dry. Bets? :)

Singing his little heart out

A Rufous Whistler sitting on a grapevine, sings out his challenge.

A beautiful bit of blue

A Splendid Fairy Wren in full color.

Early night for me

Loki woke me up at Dark O'clock this morning.

I've been spending weeks getting a flock of Carnaby Cockatoos accustomed to my presence. Keeping a supply of cool fresh water has helped. This has resulted in close, sharper images. Today, I was about two car lengths away from them. Got many great shots. I even managed to get Wing out there taking photos of them.

Here's a few of them: