Time Engaged vs Time in Chair

I was at my son's computer class and sure enough a PC was still out of service for two weeks. So after his class, I thought I'd take a closer look... Now my specialty is the gigantic systems, but even though I'm not a PC jockey as we Enterprise Support folk call them, I can hold my own quite well.

Maybe it's starting and spending a good part of my career at a University, but I've always been somewhat of a go getter. I walk fast, talk fast, do stuff fast. I'm always reading (big boring tech stuff), learning and doing new things. Lucky thing, the equipment I started on is in a museum and has less computing ability than a PDA.

So first thing is to isolate the problem, nothing on the monitor, adjust brightness and contrast (even though I couldn't see anything), check connections, reboot PC, looks like the monitor, swap out for the monitor next to it, works fine, OK, its the monitor or the cable. Just ready to swap cables when the next teacher comes in.

First Pet Peeve

OMG you can't do that, our main tech guy is here, oh he'd be mad. The "I'd rather suffer for the process" problem, the artificial barrier of in the box thinking. This is the same teacher that was bitchin she didn't have enough PCs for the class last week. But oh lets not try to do something to fix it, we have a process. Fill out a form and wait...

Now to be fair she probably doesn't realize that I've worked with computers for 30 years and usually have at least one PC being torn apart or rebuilt at any point in time... But technically my resume may not be good enough to get me a job as a PC jockey. It almost didn't get me a job selling them after I was fresh out of selling IBM''s small business computers (in the startup consulting company) that go for $50-500 thousand dollars. That's another post... Well OK, I almost have it, I'll send my son's teacher an email. So I hang out a little longer to check out the new configuration the school installed this year.

Second Pet Peeve

Here comes the PC Guru. Oh boy. What is the etiquette for greeting the exalted one? Any one who calls themselves a guru or a czar and isn't at the top of a mountain or in a Russian grave is full of shit or full of themselves or both. (jqism)

Third Pet Peeve

He moved in slow motion. Have you ever seen that? This guys a little younger than me and moves like an 95 year old man. Ya just want to go over there and get him moving. He looks at his one sheet database list for at least 10 minutes, then he's gonna leave. The frustrated teacher stops him, points to me and says "Ask him". Should a guru have to ask? Would it be so hard to walk around the room to the only PC that wasn't in use and assume that's the one that could be broken?

I don't know how someone with so little logic can leave the house in the morning let alone get a job with computers. So, I can see this is the lowest form of PC Jockey, so I make it easy. "The processor is fine, it's the LCD panel or the cable". He fidgets for the longest time and I see that all he is doing is disconnecting the LCD panel. Thank God I saved him the trouble of shooting the problem, that probably would have been weeks. Then in classic single tasking fashion, he's gonna come back to straighten up the little mess he made on the desk, being unable to watch this snail in action anymore, I told him, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it". He grunted and left with the LCD and cable. I would have done a cable swap right there and have figured it out for sure if that teacher was just a few minutes later. I can hardly wait to see how long it takes the "guru" to fix it.

In Summary

Engaged	In Chair
Watches results	Watches clock
Enjoys solving problems	Enjoys being praised
Works quickly to get to next problem	Works slowly to avoid next problem
Thinks out of the box	Should be put in a box
Life Long Learning	Life Long Lazing
Obsolesce Avoidance	Work Avoidance
Legend among peers	Legend in their own mind
Enterprise Strength	PC Wimp

Feel free to give me suggestions for more Engaged/In chair comparisons in the comment section.

Benefits of being engaged

• Reduces boredom
• Enhances self worth
• Prevents Alzheimer's Disease
  
• Reduces risk of being mistook for dead when you stand still
• Should enhance your employment opportunities, but that's only if management is engaged and that could be rare indeed (another post)
  

On the lighter side

There were some funny moments during my son's computer class.

• My son's friend called me over to show me his bandaged finger and he explained how it was slammed in a door, how it was all black and blue, how his fingernail was kind of slimy and then with excitement on his face he said, "Ya want to see it?", "Oh gosh no, I'll take your word for it, it will heal better if you don't fuss with it". Then several more times he asked, "Are ya sure?".
  


• Apparently his teacher talks with her hands too (and neither of us is Italian), I was standing next to her while she was giving instructions and she unexpectedly pointed at the computer projector output and I (with quick reflexes) leaned backwards to avoid being poked in the face. She said, "Oh gosh [my Son's name] I almost hit your Father".


• The children occasionally raised there hands for permission to go to the bathroom. So while we're walking swiftly around the room to answer questions, the teacher leans towards me and asks politely, just like the students, "Can I go to the restroom?" And I replied as usual "Sure, I'll tell the teacher", with a giggle.

Status: First Draft
Almost done if Blogger would respect my Table HTML... OK, one Blogger Bug Fixed, Back to writing...

Another step on the digital photography path

I take a lot of photos, I always have. But with digital photos I take even more. With 35mm, you naturally printed each photo. Even when I planned on maker made prints, I'd still have the lab print as a basis to get a feel for which photos I was going to print. But with digial photos, I rarely make prints from my computer or from a photo lab. Instead I usually look at them on my PC or using the PhotoShop Elements Organizer which allows me to tag, rate, and describe my photos.

Now in my home I usually have at least one of my computers active at any given time. But still do I want to go through the trouble of running a slide show on my PC, especially if I'm using it. So there you see a Digital Photo Frame on my desk. And since my son finds my things irresistible, you see one of his cars near the frame and a pumpkin on my stapler. He leaves his mark everywhere in the house, but since I don't see him as much as I'd like it's a nice reminder.

So now I can see a slide show anytime, regardless if I'm using my PC. Digital Frames can still be pricy, but so is printing several hundred photos that easily fit on a modest flash card. So after shooting a bunch of photos, I can take my flash card out and show photos from it or I can load them to my PC, edit, select, and copy hundreds of photos to a flash card and plug that flash card in the frame. Very simple. One of my next experiments will be to imolement the PC to TIVO connection and then display photos on my TV through my TIVO and AV system.

But for those who don't have a PC on all the time, my parents and my son, this will be very handy. I am giving each of them a Digital Frame and 2 SD cards. They can watch the photo albums and then every now and then exchange an SD card for a new one that I give them with a new slide show. I could burn photo DVDs as my brother does, but then you put in the DVD turn on the TV and watch it. The photo frame allows the ultimate simplicity. When you power it on it does a slide show.

It seems to me with the dropping flash prices and the digital photo frame, that a non-computer person could use a digital camera and occasionally have a computer friend backup their images. The days of 35mm film seem numbered for sure.

As far as purchasing advice, compare resolutions, sharpness/contrast, PC connectivity (if you want it), size, and of course price.

9/11

I live in a big city, we have a 9/11 memorial with items (ground and building) from each of the 9/11 sites (NYC, DC, PA). In the foreground you can see an eternal flame and behind that iron work from the twin towers. Below is a close up of damaged iron work from the twin towers in NYC.

Of the suspected hijacked planes that day, one (Flight 93 that later crashed in PA) entered our air space and one was forced to land at our International Airport.

NYC is one of the cities I have visited often, I consider it one of my 2nd home cities that I have spent so much time at over the years that I feel at home there.

I heard what was happening after the first tower was hit, but saw both towers collapse live on TV and I was just numb in disbelief. It was such a senseless loss.

I have been to those towers so many times, photographed from the roof top, circled them in a helicopter and the Circle Line cruise, photographed them from the Brooklyn Promenade and the Empire State rooftop. It’s still hard to believe that they are really gone.

Mentioned in Dispatches

I am so honored, am I close enough to the microphone, can you hear me in the back. I humbly accept this great honor of being officially 'Mentioned in Dispatches' ... I'd like to thank...

Well it was only a matter of time before someone took notice of my blog posts and decided to give me an award. I was attempting to comment on LittleWing's blog and while I was doing it she was updating it and things went awry so I commented about the trouble she caused me just to see some questionably funny comics. Nearly all the readers enjoyed LittleWing's comics but only one man took pity on my plight and thought that my experience was funnier than LittleWing's comics.

Not only did dickiebo take the unpopular minority position of sticking up for me, he also declared it publicly in a separate post by bestowing the honor of 'Mentioned in Dispatches' upon me.

Click here to see the LittleWing's entire post, click on the comics to enlarge:

My initial comment to the comics was:

Ugh, shaking head, but smiling...
and you didn't think my dam joke was funny... lol

So then I went on to relate my story...

ahem... AHEM...My dearest littlewing are ya trying to drive me nuts... You are makin me work way too hard for this joke...

I have started to use Atom feeds to monitor Blogs I read regularly, so I don't have to check on them manually, and beep, it told me you updated yours so one click and it launches me directly to the newest post, I looked at it, wrote a comment, as I was posting the comment, you deleted the post to rearrange the comics and give the post a different name. Meanwhile I'm trying to force the comment to post by issuing a refresh and repost command impatiently while cussing my computer and crash boom bang my browser and all the windows and tabs (like to keep a dozen or so open) go clattering to the ground, my diagnostic recovery kicked in dumping the system memory, advising me of my privacy, asking me all kinds of questions about what I was doing then connecting to the vendor's (Firefox, the alternative browser for those who hate Micro$oft, Go Mozilla) quality control database...

So after restarting my browser and signing into Blogger, what did I do, take a short cut by using the link in the Atom feed to go directly to the post that was now completely gone, and almost started the process over again... Then I said - Wait is that girl playin with me... Would she do that, sure she would...

Of course I'm just teasin ya, LOL

Oh and for those into technical details I was reorganizing my bookmarks, and doing about three other things at the same time, so maybe Blogger wasn't to blame, but I still think its all LW's fault... So people what's funnier her comics or what she did to me???

LittleWing defended her comics with:

John, you are just being evil, lol!!!!!!!!!

dickiebo is a retired police officer who calls them as he sees them. And after all those comments agreeing with LittleWing, he had the courage to say:

Well. I think they're awful! BUT...boy, what you did to that chap's computer. Brill. Laughed me socks off.

To which I responded:

Figures it would take someone across the pond to appreciate my wit. Thanks dickiebo...
Yeah, LW is in rare form today. Was that GOOD or should it be "GOOD"...

What tickled dickiebo the most was how this all looked

Poor sod! Can you just picture all that hassle, frustration, curses, and what-have-you, and all ‘cos of Little Wing’s awful cartoons!

Thanks for the recognition dickiebo...
So what do you think, which is funnier, my comment or the her comics...
Now LW don't take any offense its all in good fun...

Up, up and away

I've always found travel exciting. It mixes well with my photo hobby. This shot was taken in the old days when the pilot would leave the door open. I leaned into the isle with my fastest lens and snapped this off.

Thankfully flying has never bothered me. On my first flight I remember looking at the wonderful aerial view so I didn't think about being several miles in the sky above the clouds. I've also been on a seaplane in San Francisco, a few air balloons, and helicopters in lots of places, including my own home town on a life flight, but the view sucked on a body board.

My early college summer trips to Virgina Beach were road trips with my brother and a few close friends. Then came my business trips by air. Working for a University, I had 4 weeks vacation. So I took the 50/50 business trip, 1 week business, 1 week vacation. As my tradition I worked hard and played hard. During the business trip, I might collect info for fun after the week, but when I was on the business trip it was all business. I crisscrossed the nation and got to know the major cities very well. Almost like second homes. It's kind of funny returning to some of them, that I have spent so much time at that I know my way around instinctively.

I've had trips that were pure pleasure too. Not as many as the 50/50, but some none the less. A group trip with my ex where I was the party tour guide to Chicago (a second home city). My proposal to my ex on a Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, Bryce and Zion vacation. Honeymoon in Cancun. A few trips to Niagara Falls. The trip to the USVI, to witness my brother's wedding. Our tense trip to Orlando, the last "family" vacation where I was constantly taunted about the divorce. My ex can be a cruel bitch.

And of course my two month long trips to Europe, the first was a bus tour with my brother. The second was free form with my ex to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. I wish I had taken the opportunity while in college to go, its hard as a working adult to get the time off to take a leisurely trip. There is so much to see. We can forget that in the US where a century home is a big deal compared to a normal occurrence in Europe where its possible to see things a thousand years old. I do find the 8-9 hour flight a bit disconcerting, you become paralyzed from the waist down and have severe cabin fever.

But this bird's wings are clipped. My ex has got me listed on the state dept watch list and my grievance hearing is not even scheduled. My latest review of child support shows I am one month ahead plus a partial overpayment, just as I have been for over 2 years. I think its going to be time to escalate to the state agency again to get the enforcement actions revoked that never had any other merit besides false accusations being made and the assumption of guilt against the divorce looser (me).

So I look forward to the day when I can fly free again. My birthday is coming up, six months after the final decree. With a lot of effort (surprisingly so) that will be my goal, to have resolved all the divorce bullshit in the 91 page orders, and all the enforcement actions and penalties taken against me. I've been grounded far too long, it's time to fly free again. I can hardly wait. What a wonderful birthday gift that would be, just to be free, I would be so thankful.

...Down the Hill

At age 7, we moved from the city at the lakefront and to a suburb, with a little more land and a better school system. Our house was on a street on the top of a hill. We don't really have mountains in this state, but we have some big hills and changes in elevation.

From the second floor bathroom window you had a nice view of the city toward the lakefront. In the winter when the trees were bare you could see all the lights stretched out ahead. I never compared it side by side, but the view was similar to one I had photographed over looking LA from the Griffin Observatory. No tour of our house was complete without taking the surprised guests into the bathroom, closing the door to see out the window and shutting off the lights. LOL

But the feature that no kids could resist was the hill. After a modest sized backyard of grass was a retaining wall and then the hill covered in trees slopping moderately down to the street. This hill was part of our own private property. Ours was the widest and least overgrown on the street. Everyone on our side of the street lived on top of this hill and had at least 300 feet behind their yards as private property until the end of the street where the metropolitan (public) park started. But some were quite overgrown, hard to get through with fallen trees, eroded banks, and poison ivy.

Well thanks to my Dad, the poison ivy was eradicated on our part of the hill, fallen trees were cut and removed, ground cover planted (Pines, Orange Lilies, Ferns) to prevent erosion. That meant that we had our own private park, our own woods. No making noise in the house or yard. If you were looking for us, we'd be "down the hill". Exploring, making forts, blazing trails. If you wanted to play hide and seek or war, this was the place, lots of places to go. Of course my brother and I could get through the trails the quickest, we lived there, we made the trails. Our friends couldn't run over this terrain as well as us.

Even our neighbors who had their own hills preferred ours, especially as we got older and improved it even more. It got so good it needed to be defended, but I'm getting ahead of myself. And then the neighbors who didn't have their own hills, of course they came to play at ours. Pretty much if you were looking for anybody they were down our hill. Occasionally we'd have multi hill battles, that's where advance scouting and map writing came into play so you could get to the enemy quickly. Can't run down a path and trip over roots or come to a dead end or to where the pond drained out to make you a muddy mess.

No need for video games (there weren't any, I'm from the pinball era) we had real games. And then we started building... Improving the trails, patio, picnic table, and the beginning of the best fort ever. It started as "the platform", 4x4s buried deep by my Dad, on the side of the hill and a wooden floor up off the ground. In the middle of the woods, with a perfect view everywhere. The front was about 3 feet off the ground, the back was over 6 feet off the ground.

Then the improvements - a tarp A-frame roof, a (drawbridge) plank entry, then a wooden roof, then walls, front door, a back screen window. Then electricity, a long line strung through the trees from the garage. Now we could have a radio, fan, lights. So it wasn't just a day time play area, sleep outs, sometimes large ones, involving little sleep.

My parents stretched their budget a bit to afford that house, but they had some foresight on what a fun place it would be for growing up. They liked the woods and the double level patio area we built. A little wildlife so it didn't feel like crowded city living.

Must be why I bought the house on a wooded lot. My house is barely visible from satellite images. It's not as big as my parents, but it's in the best school system in the state, just as theirs was back then. My son has seen where my fort stood, it didn't survive all these years. We walk around my back yard talking of where I might build something for him.

Maker Made Photography...

...Old School

My earliest memories of photography was as a young child, seeing my Uncle's darkroom, dim safelights, odd looking equipment, black and white 8 x 10s drying.

Years later in college I took photography classes and worked in the darkroom. First in BW, then later in Color. Displayed here is a photo I took of the college darkroom, enlargers on two walls and a large sink in the middle.

Back then you sent your film out for developing and printing. If you did it yourself, you entered contests in a special category - maker made. And believe me, maker made meant something. It was craftsmanship, hand made. BW contrast or Color Correction were done with test strips and colored gel filters.

The college darkroom was set up for BW, doing color was difficult, the BW safelights are not safe for color. So I had to ask the others to go to total darkness when I was exposing color materials. How can you do anything without any light whatsoever? Just like a person without sight, by memorizing locations and sense of touch. Don't put things in the wrong place! After a while as I liked doing color prints I setup a darkroom at home. I have an enlarger with continuous gel filters built in and a light sensitivity meter connected to the exposure timer to help speed up the process. I have foot pedals that control the programmed timer unit. A paper safe is light tight and ejects one sheet of paper each time you pull the handle down.

My Uncle did not live to see his influence grow to be a serious hobby of mine. And I've often wondered how things would have been if we could have shared the experience, the growth in photographic technology over the years. In the twenty years since my youth, color chemistry and processes became so much more accessible than they were when BW 8x10s were the standard in my Uncle's time.

What would my Uncle think of my first maker made color contest winner entitled "Curious Squirrel"? As a Photojournalist and Professional Photographer he would be looking at so many things beyond the cuteness of the photo. What was the technique that made the squirrel stand up, how did he happen into the narrow focus plane?

I set up a tripod mounted camera with a 50' electric shutter release. The camera was aimed at an active spot for visiting squirrels and seed and nuts were left as an enticement. Sitting back well out of sight and smell I waited patiently, the squirrel came within camera range, I started pressing the shutter release, click, click, click the motor drive made a foreign sound and it had no scent, the squirrel became curious, looking, standing, staring, at the odd sound, click, click, click. In focus, standing, staring directly at the motor drive that is slightly under the camera lens.

I have hundreds of maker made prints in the 20 years following college and been through a lot of equipment during that time, much of it Canon, first the AE-1, then the top of the line A-1, then the T-90. I have so much Canon FD compatible equipment I bought a second T-90 as they were going out of production phasing in the auto focus EOS line.

But it is a new era, digital photography is firmly entrenched, but I will discuss that in another post...

I still have the maker made equipment, it is harder to find the materials (chemicals and paper) as they've been replaced with digital processes. But I hope to at least be able to demonstrate the lost art of maker made photographic chemistry to my son. Just so he can see how lucky he is to be born in the digital age. My Uncle would truly marvel at it, just as I do at times, realizing the history of how it was done.