I have found myself fairly busy for the past several days, but not in a way that can be reflected here too well, so with a few minutes to spare, I’m just doing a small update for my millions of imaginary followers, who have already flooded my inbox with imaginary e-mails asking me if I’m okay and when the hell I’m going to put up something new. This is what you get for being demanding.
Between work – that other job that helps pay bills and is in that way alone essential – and various house projects, I’ve been not only busy, but beating myself up a bit, crawling under cars and the house and up on the roof while the weather was amenable, which it no longer is, having turned colder again, so now I won’t be chasing any other critters for a few days even when I do have time. It’ll change back though, soon enough.
I’ve also been helping The Girlfriend with her projects, among them doing some video shooting and editing – not like I’m some kind of authority on it, but among the two people that she can actually ask for assistance right now, I’m the only one who’s done anything of the sort; the most experienced video editor in the household according to JD Power and Associates (no, that’s not at all true, because we didn’t give them a dime to make that claim.) Given that I still have to render video projects multiple times to find the balance of size and quality that I’m after, plus the search for the right free background music, this takes a long time for a brief video clip, but that’s the nature of the beast.
I’ve done a couple of local excursions, really not finding anything worth an entire post, but the occasional bit here and there.
There’s the photo sorting, deleting all of those that don’t pass my exacting and stringent standards (let it go) and relegating the remainder into appropriate categories. I’d put this off for a little too long as usual, but it’s going faster than anticipated and I should be done with it today. This is also the opportunity to catch those images of interest that I didn’t immediately write about and set them aside for a later post, but most of the worthy ones have already been featured here.
And then the ongoing, little things, an ever-changing list. Among the items awaiting attention on my desk or otherwise:
Getting Linux to play nice with some exterior IP cameras to monitor the property, for critters and assholes; Getting a webcam to work with Linux too, because I may be engaging in some online games and meetings soon. No, I don’t have a laptop with that shit built in, because laptops suck (just for the sake of it, I have three harddrives, 10Gb of RAM, expanded USB ports, and a multi-card reader installed on my system, all to support my normal activities, so you can keep your portable folding toys); Cleaning the sensor in the 30D, which is notorious for attracting dust, though my habit of changing lenses in less-than-clean-room conditions just might be contributing to this; Planting and transplanting a bunch of stuff – we’re a little behind on that too; I was recently given a Bio Orb, a glass globe containing live dinoflagellates, so the obvious next step is to obtain photos of them through the microscope. The idea of capturing their bioluminescence is intriguing but most likely impossible without special equipment that I do not have. Nonetheless, I’ll at least make the attempt; Along the same lines, I’ve had a zoom magnifier head for some time, having picked it up from university surplus, a bit of lab equipment that would fill the gap between macro lenses and microscopes very nicely, if I can get it in a useful mount – I’m almost there now, so pics and results will be forthcoming once I get the whole affair in order; And there’s a big project that I’m not going to say a lot about right now, mostly because this may take a while to come to fruition, not at all helped by a) going about this in no approved manner, b) trying to tackle multiple aspects at once, and c) requiring a certain mood, motivation, and block of free time. When it all comes together, however, you’ll be sure to hear about it here.
So hang loose, more is on the way, and in the meantime, I leave you with another mantis image that I neglected to put into the appropriate post about a week ago. How could I miss this one?
