Friday, March 18, 2005


Dune and Sea Oats at Sunset - Pensacola Beach (Fort Pickens)

Its Friday Again

and I swore to myself I'd have a photo for
every PhotoFriday challenge. This week's
challenge is "glow". My scanner is not
back from being repaired yet (although I
did get mail saying it was being repaired
under warranty). So I, and any readers
out there by extension, are stuck with
what I can come up with from my library
of photos I've already scanned. I already
used the moonlit graveyard for "ghostly",
which may have been my first choice. So
instead, I'm putting up a sunset, but unlike
most sunset photos, I took this one facing
away from the sun, the "glow" of the sunset
evident in the dune and seaoats.

Friday, March 11, 2005


Faces - Masks of Venice

Faces - PhotoFriday

I'm up way too late, and the PhotoFriday theme is
already listed...faces. This took me a whole second
to know what photo I would use (because my scanner
is dead, another photo I'd consider isn't possible
today...er tonight)

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

IPod Rant

The straw finally came and broke me...I read yet another
article that held up the Apple IPod as the epitome of an
easy to use high tech device. I couldn't disagree more.

I'm computer literate, and am comfortable with all kinds
of technology, I have a Packet8 (8x8) IP phone (now that
is THE BEST/EASIEST plug and play high tech item I have
ever seen, a blind monkey could set it up in 10 seconds,
unlike competitors such as VONAGE, for which you have to
be a system admin, a programmer and a network analyst that
speaks a language other than english, all wrapped into one
person so you can deal with their tech support...but I digress),
a wireless network with 3 wireless laptops, a desktop, a
printer and a photo printer.

We bought my daughter an IPod mini for Christmas.
It was worse than putting a bike together.
Getting the Itunes software to install correctly was a pain in
the butt, it constantly was upgrading, like every 10 minutes.
The Itunes software and interface (GUI) is so clunky, I'd be
embarrassed if it was one of my programs.
Getting the songs to go from a CD or harddrive to the IPOD was
problematic (and remains so to this day, but at least its my
daughter's problem now :)
The Itunes format is also a pain, it would be much simpler if
the IPod just sucked in mp3 files from whatever source.
If mp3 was used as standard format, the IPod could be plugged
into the computer like a camera's card is now, and songs could
be simply dragged and dropped from your computer or CD to the
IPod.

I think Sony's new music players (using mp3) will eventually
take Apple to the same place with its proprietary IPod that
Apple went with what once was its proprietary computers...
essentially nowhere, a bit player with less than 10% market
share. I remember when everyone was hot for Apple...like
20 yrs ago, Apple dominated schools and desktop publishing,
Steven Jobs hasn't learned a thing in 20yrs.

Sunday, March 06, 2005


Cemetery - Grindelwald Switzerland; You have to read my blog entry as to why this represents "obsession"

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Obsession

PhotoFriday's theme this week....hummmm
obsession
Pronunciation: äb-sesh'-&n
Function: noun
1 : a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable
idea or feeling; broadly : compelling motivation

I'll go with the "compelling motivation" for my
photo this week.

First, a few things I've noticed about my photography...

I like photographing cemeteries, its one of my first
choices when I go somewhere new. I've already posted
a number of cemeteries photos here, and in fact the
first photo I posted was a cemetery photo.

I like really blue sky, I wear polarized sunglasses
and more likely than not, usually have a polarizing
lens on my camera.

I shoot the vast majority of my photos as verticals
(or portrait) orientation. I didn't realize how
biased I was toward vertical orientation until I
started contributing to avisualplanet.com
a web supplier of high-quality presentation graphics
in a standard 1024x768 horizontal (landscape) format.

And the last reason I chose this photo as opposed to
umpteen others I have that all illustrate the three
points above...the Swiss are obsessed with keeping
their cemeteries beautiful.