Digital Impulses

Impossibly Busy Wednesday: Beyond Tired

Microsoft HHH Event
Attended the Microsoft Global Launch event entitled "Heroes Happen Here" for Windows Server 2008. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 & Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.

It was hot, crowded and bothersome.  The keynote speech was great with Tom Browkaw and Steve Ballmer sharing Keynoter duties and showing us a whole bunch of case study videos on the use of the new software.  Lines were 20 minutes long everywhere and I basically went just for the free software that I received for filling out a survey about the conference.

Visit to Rojas Inc for Purple Dell install
After the Microsoft event, I drove over to the factory to deliver the purple Dell to Bert.  We installed it and were strategizing about where to put it, when Miguel Insua from Insua Graphics showed up and took Bert away for like the next 30 minutes.

I got tired of waiting for Bert, so eventually I went outside told him I would just be going home.

Picking up the Corvette from Champion Chevrolet & Returning the Kia Rondo to Enterprise
After coming home from Rojas Inc., AJ and I went to pick up my Corvette from Champion Chevrolet ($261.00 in repairs this time around) and then drove over to Enterprise Rent-A-Car near LAX to return the Kia Rondo that I had rented the weekend before ($384 for 4 days).  All of that proceeded smoothly and we were home well before 1800.

Letter creation for Aldo:  Isa stops by to sign letter
I then fell into crazy letter creation mode, getting letters of support for Aldo ready to sign for Mom and for Isa.  Isa stopped by and signed Aldo's letter and I got Mom's letter worked out also.

Visit to Ritz Camera to look at lenses
Before heading over to Mom's I stopped by Ritz camera and looked at some lenses for my Nikon D40.  I am considering a 55mm to 200mm Telephoto lens that  retails for $249.00 plus tax and I also looked at a very nice Macro lens that retails for like $430.  I am pretty sure I will be picking up the 200mm Telephoto as soon as I learn more about what these lenses do.

Getting water for mom from Food 4 Less and a visit to Mom’s
Before stopping at Mom's for a visit, I stopped in at Food 4 Less and bought 3 cases of Spring! bottled water for her.  I then went home and AJ gave me a ride to her house where she signed Aldo's letter and we had a pleasant visit of watching TV and general overall chit-chat.

iPhoto '08 photo library corrupted

So this evening, after stopping by Best Buy to pick up a sandisk Multicard reader, I took the time to install it correctly and then I made a MONUMENTAL GAFFE:  In trying to free up a USB Port on my Mac Mini to plug the card reader into, I UNPLUGGED my External Seagate 320 GB hard drive that is home to my iPhoto library. With iPhoto '08 OPEN.

Not good.

Upon restarting my Mac after all of the iLife 08 patches had DL'ed and been installed, iPhoto 08 presented me with the dreaded "gray box with the dotted lines outline" where most of my pictures used to be displayed.

After a bit of Googling this problem, I learned from the Mac Observer that you can hold down "command-option" and double-click the iPhoto 08 icon.  This will result in iPhoto '08 launching with a dialog box that prompts you to select a number of different rebuild and repair options for your thumbnails and your photo library.

Unfortunately for me, none of these options worked for me and nothing I did brought my images back into iPhoto.  Now the images appear to still be on the external Seagate, so I should be able to ferret them out and get them re-imported into iPhoto '08.  It was nearing 10:30 P.M. last nigt when I gave up the ghost and decided to call it a night and tackle the issue again tomorrow evening after work.

We will see how I fare in my first iPhoto '08 disaster.

Well, I just purchased my ticket to Gnomdex 7.0, the premier tech industry conference for bloggers, podcasters, Vidcasters and all manner of Web 2.0/Social Media influencers.

Gnomedex this year is going to Rock!  See you there...

A nice Sunday after the Wedding

So, I spent a good part of the morning and early afternoon today working on the pictures of my brother Pete's wedding.

I gotta say, I love how absolutely trouble-free it has been to transfer pictures from my Nikon D40 to my computer, be it on XP or in Vista.

Editing Pete's wedding pictures
My current rookie workflow is to create a folder on my Server's external drive that I am dedicating just to media and then manipulate the pictures once I have them safely transferred there.  Once I had all of the images off the Nikon D40, it was time to get them tagged.

I am excited at the possibilities offered by developing a real discipline in getting images tagged the instant they come off the camera.  I think the real trick is to split the task into manageable, bite-sized tasks, using multiple folders created by picture theme to tags bunches of images at a time.

Once the images are tagged, doing a search for a place or someone's name, having just those pictures show up in the search results really rocks.  I am really having fun with this digital photography hobby I am filling my time with.

Printing a CD Cover.  NOT.
After getting the pictures from the wedding sorted out, it was time to try and print to a CD.  Hah. In short, all I managed after nearly two hours was to get extremely frustrated and pent up with the desire to just throw my printer into the middle of the street.

It simply *REFUSED* to print on a CD, and all I can think is that the mechanism to pull the CD Tray in is broken.  time for a new printer.  I am not going to invest any more time in this.  I hand-wrote a title on the CD's and left it as a bad job.  *sigh*.

Windows Movie Maker in Windows Vista
I should note that I created a "movie" slide show of the images using the new version of Windows Movie Maker included in Windows Vista.  It was utterly simple to do and added value to the CD's that I turned over to my brother and his new bride.

1408
After that, my boy, his girlfriend and I took off for the movies in El Segundo and stopped by Pacific Theaters to see 1408, a horror flick starring John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson and Mary McCormack.

The movie was typical nowadays horror fare with a couple of genuinely scary moments and a so-so ending.  All in all, it was OK and served as a nice ending to a hectic weekend.  In any case, the kids enjoyed themselves and that's what matters ultimately, right?  Right.

Pete's Wedding

Getting Dressed
The afternoon of the wedding rolled around and after my son and I returned from getting manicures and haircuts, we proceeded to take showers and get ready for the wedding by dressing in our suits.  Actually, my son took all of his stuff and drove to his girlfriend's in Huntington Beach, where he proceeded to get dressed over there and brought her to the wedding later.

Getting ready was really stress free and much better than I expected, because I suspected that something (something missing, ill-fitting, etc.) was *bound* to happen.  Nothing did and that was great.  Having previously agreed with my wife that I would get ready and go on my own, I did just that.

Getting There
Nary a problem.  I took off by myself and arrived there about 20 minutes later.  I was very early and I seemed to be the 1st of the guests to arrive. I arrived early enough that set-up of the tables and everything else was still taking place. 

Camera Setup
Seeing as to how I arrived extra early, I took the time to set up my Nikon D40 and tripod in different places around the area where the wedding was going to take place.  I took a few reference images and just waited for my brother to arrive.

Seeing Family
Eventually, my son and his girlfriend arrived (after being lost for a good 1/2 an hour) and the rest of the invited family showed up as well.  It was good to see a lot of people that I don't see every day, including my cousin Perla and her mom my Aunt Romelia.

The Wedding
Eventually, 6:30 P.M rolled around and the wedding itself started.  The priest was a little long-winded but I thought he officiated a very beautiful ceremony.  My brother and my new sister-in-law Patricia looked great together and it was very touching to se how emotional Patricia got when it was her turn to recite her Wedding Vows.

The ceremony itself proceeded perfectly and was great.  My niece Tori behaved great and did an awesome job as a ring girl.  Yay Tori!

The "Toast"
As is routine in my life now-a-days, I was caught completely unprepared to offer a toast (100% my fault, I just flaked and never got around to preparing notes for it) to my brother and his wife.  I had to wing and I think I did a reasonable job.  At least no one has said anything rude about my performance. So Far. That has gotten back to me.  I wonder what they *really* think?  Hmm.

The Reception
After the ceremony and the toast, We all got seated and proceeded to eat, dance and listen to some great music.  The Italian food was great  and the music was excellent.  It was combination of Jazz, Pop and Opera selected by my brother Peter.  It included Frank Sinatra, Andrea Bochelli, Placido Domingo, and the Buena Vista Social Club. 

It was truly an awesome reception and I had a really relaxing and just overall fabulous time.

Going Home
At around 11:00  P.M., when it was decided that no trip to  club down the street for further dancing was going to happen, the wife and I walked out to our cars and headed home without any problems, taking Ocean to 3rd Street to the 710 Long Beach Freeway to the 405 San Diego Freeway.

All in all it was a very nice wedding that was remarkably drama-free.  I am very happy for my brother and his new bride.   I hope this works out for both of them and that they spend the rest of ther lives together.

Walking and taking picutures in Manhattan Beach, CA

This afternoon, I decided to bring my camera (a very nice DSLR Nikon D40) along during my daily walking for fitness regime.  As I had the camera, I thought that it would be a great opportunity to find a new locale for walking, so I drove down to Manhattan Beach, CA and decided to walk there while I took some pictures.

Below are some of the images I took:

A view of the Manhattan Beach Pier, looking West on Manhattan Beach Blvd.:

Walking towards the end of the pier, you see this, where people congragate to fish:


Locals playing Volleyball in Manhattan Beach:

Local Surfers:

And finally, a nice sunset picture to cap it off:


All in all, I hada great afternoon of taking some pictures and at the same time walking over 2 miles.  I need to do this more often.  Highly recommended.

Life

Barnes & Noble and Ritz Camera visits with AJ
This evening after work, my son and I drove over to the local Barnes and Noble bookstore to pick up a couple of titles he was interested in.

Researching a Telephoto lens & a remote control for my Nikon D40
Before the bookstore, AJ and I dropped into Ritz Camera where I spoke with Dan Purdy about getting a Telephoto Lens for my Nikon D40.  Dan showed me a beautiful new 200mmTelephoto lens just released by Nikon that has the VR function included.  This puppy is $250+tax and definitely an addition I will be making to my photography equipment.

While I was there, I placed an order for the ML-L3 Remote Control Transmitter for my Nikon D40.  It is only $19.00, so that one was a total no-brainer.  It will be fun to shoot pictures on a tripod and not touching the camera at all.  Should produce some tack-sharp images.  Woo hoo.

After the Ritz Camera visit, we walked across the parking lot to Barnes and Noble and browsed around for a bit.  AJ found the books he wanted and I ended up picking up yet one more tome on Digital Photography.  We walked over to the coffee shop after paying for our books and got some drinks and then headed home.

Mexico loses to Paraguay 1-0
After the bookstore visit, AJ & I watched a soccer game between Mexico and Paraguay that went on till 9:15 PM or so.   Unfortunately, Mexico lost the game 1-0. 

It was a game that featured a spectacular mid-air collision between to Paraguay defenders where they ended up knocking heads in the air and one of the Paraguay players got a huge, deep laceration to his right-side temple which bled A LOT.  \

That player was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where we later found out it was like an 8- stich gash and that he would be fine, thank god.

2-mile walk/run
After the game, I put on my running gear and iPod Nano and took off on a 2.15 mile run/walk that I completed in just over 37 minutes.  It was one of the best workouts I have had yet and it felt really, really, good.  I was most happy that I had 3 sections of the walk in which I was able to complete 1 to 1 1/2 blocks of non-stop running at a good pace.  Man, it feels good to be exercising.  W00t!

Errands, optical filters for my Nikon D40 and more Walking

Costco run with Mom
This afternoon after work, I drove my mom over to Costco to pick up a few items that she was missing and mostly so that I could assist her with putting the heavy items in the car.  I saw a few interesting items at Costco, mostly stuff to consider getting to prepare for the summer.

Getting some filters and a tripod for my Nikon D40
After the Costco run and an early dinner, I drove over to Ritz Camera in Manhattan Beach and bought 2 optical filters and a tripod for my Nikon D40.

The filters I bought are:

• Quantaray  Polarizer Filter
• Quantaray  UV Haze Filter

I also bought a tripod:

• Quantaray Sunpak QSX 6601 Tripod

All in all, I spent just under $100 for 2 filters and a tripod.  Money well spent, as I continue on my quest to become an expert digital photographer.

Walking another 3 miles
At dusk, I went on for my daily walk and ended up walking a total of 3.32 miles, this time going from Mansel to Manhattan Beach Blvd. up to Redondo Avenue, down to Marine and back up to Mansel.  That was a *long* walk that took almost an hour.

More miles to tack on to my charts on the web.  Woo hoo.

Unpacking the Nikon D40

Walk with me through a "virtual" unpacking of a brand new, fresh-out-of-the-box Nikon D40.  In the box we find:

• U.S. English Nikon D40 Quick Start Guide
• Spanish version of the same Nikon D40 Quick Start Guide
• Warranty Form
• Nikon Digital Imaging Limited warranty card
• Nikon Digital Imaging product registration card
• Nikon PictureProject 1.7 software on CD-Rom
• Nikon 5 year Nikkor AF/IX Lenses warranty card
• The Nikon Guide to Digital Photography with the D40 Digital Camera
• Spanish version of the same card

The equipment included is:

Purchasing the Nikon D40 from Ritz Camera

So after months of careful research and much reading and consultation, I finally took the plunge and purchased the Nikon D40 from Ritz Camera in Manhattan Beach. I had been to the store on 3 or 4 different occasions, looking at the available camera bodies and trying to decide between the Nikon D40 and the Canon Digital Rebel XTi.

After speaking at length with Dan Purdy, who, by the way runs the Option Photography website, I made my decision.

I must say, Dan was extremely helpful and patient with all of my inane "rookie" questions. If you have questions or aren't sure about what camera best suits you, you would be greatly served by paying a visit to Ritz Camera in Manhattan Beach and speaking with Dan Purdy.  You won't regret it.

In the end, I finally decided to go with the Nikon D40 due to ease of use, available affordable lenses and also the fact that it was like $200 cheaper than the Canon.

I got all kinds of goodies thrown into the package, including 18 tickets for FREE photography classes put on by Ritz in Marina Del Rey, where I can take the 9 different courses that they have to learn the ins and outs of shooting with a full-on Digital SLR.

I will post more about my experiences with the D40 as I unpack it and set it up and actually shoot some images over the next few days and weeks.