| free photo software |
[Jul. 15th, 2009|11:50 pm] |
Aurora photo processing software from lightcrafts for free (for about another 10 hours)
Go to http://www.lightcrafts.com and enter FREE24 at checkout
There are probably about 9 hours left.
The downside is that it only works on jpegs, but the price is right, and the auto processing of jpegs seems to be pretty good. |
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| Getting my finances in order |
[Jul. 15th, 2009|11:30 am] |
Things I might do to bring my finances back in line:
Drop my gym membership. $80 a month is a bit steep. When I signed up there were more classes I wanted to do. However we have too many crunch periods at work where it's tough to get across the street in time for classes, if at all. It's a tough call, I'd rather spend $80 for a gym I go to, than $30 for one I don't, but I stopped going during the last crunch at work, then when I went back I injured myself. In theory I can ride my bike, use my own weight machine at home.
this is a tough call because I also really need more exercise than I've been getting.
Stop hosting red4est out of the house. Static IP costs me $70/month. Plus the power cost for red4est, plus the cost in time and money of keeping the hardware up to date. I much prefer being able to ssh into my server and use mutt for mail, but I can save money there.
Move the DSL to the voice line. I no longer use the modem line and it's costing me an extra $20/month.
Drop data connectivity on my phone. This is a tough one. I really like having network connectivity all the time, and it has come in very handy at times.
Sell the racecar. I need the cash to pay off credit cards. Also the insurance on it is reaming me for $30 or so a month.
Bring lunch to work more often.
Actually figure out what I'm spending on what to see where I can change things for the better.
In a related note, now that we have a shed full of stuff to sell or get rid of, I should get off my ass and get that stuff sold. In a related note, I should start thinking about what I really need to keep, and what my goals are. With the hot wheels shelves converted to bookshelves, maybe I should just sell off my hotwheels, that would likely net $500-$1,000 if done right. Likewise I have various car parts, seats and mag wheels that could, in theory earn me $500-1500 if sold. Then there is the question of books. I should go through my books and just get rid of the ones I really don't need. For a long time I just loved to have books, on a wide range of subjects, but these days you look prettymuch everything up on the net. Plus, I only have time to read maybe a dozen books a year, and all my good books that I have read seem to just sublimate off my shelves, so I'd probably be better off turning them to cash, and recovering the space int he house. |
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| It doesn't look good for a trip to the playa |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|11:58 pm] |
To start with, I had to take off my glasses and squint real hard at my finances to make it look like I could really afford to head to burning man this year. If I neglected such minor costs as $200 for the gas to drive my van there and back, the photo gear that I'd buy because of the trip, and if I pretended that the shade structure could be reused for another project around the house, it almost seemed doable.
On my way home from work I was seriously thinking about not only could I afford to do it, but would that use of my time and money really make me the happiest. I have several house projects that I'm in the middle of, plus Jasmine, my MGBGT, is on the cusp of being reassembled. I had fun at the playa, but I am a bit out of my element socially there, plus worrying about the things I'd be letting slip, and I was beginning to think I may be better off waiting until it wouldn't be a last minute slap dash affair.
When I got home, there was a surprise $450 bill. I've already been in deficit spending mode for a few months, and am in far deeper credit card debt than I should be.
If I find myself going deeper in debt, it really ought to be on things like repairing the large holes in my living room floor and wall, upgrading the power & lights in the house, and putting a roof over the dance floor so that it doesn't rot out in a few years again. |
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| pvc quonset hut sunshade |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|10:52 am] |
I'm still debating going to the playa. One thing I'd want is a really nice sun shade. Ideally one that could also be used as a rain cover for the dance floor, so roughly 20x40 feet.
I'm thinking about making something quonset hut like using pvc pipe, then, when I'm done attaching it to the rail on the back deck and using it to cover the back deck/ dance floor. Each arch would probably be two 20' sections of pvc. I don't know how close I'd need them to be. Anybody seen plans for something like this already? It'd be easier to improve on someone elses plans than do it all from scratch myself. |
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| bif |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|04:48 pm] |
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| Backups are good |
[Jul. 11th, 2009|05:47 am] |
My photographic workflow lately, such as it is, has been to copy the raw files off of the SD card onto black4est (my linux desktop machine), scp them over to i4est, where I process them in lightroom, and when i4ests drive gets too full, move the older raw files onto an external disk.
Something bad happened to the external disk. MacOS will mount it read only and df will find all the space that has been used, but I can't seem to get to all the files. OSX just says to backup and reformat the drive . I bought a new external drive, tried to copy the files over, and while I got most of them, i4est got into some weird loop.
Since the new drive is formatted as a mac drive (so I can use it for time machine), I've got it plugged into i4est and am doing an scp of all my raw files off of black4est onto the new drive. The files that actually describe how to process them are still on i4est (I believe). It seems that the worst case is that I lost the local copies of a lot of my jpegs. Pretty much all the interesting jpegs (for very small values of interesting) have been uploaded to flickr and/or facebook. AKA my offsite backup facilities.
It would be convenient if I could recover the files from the old external harddrive before it gets reformatted. But if I don't, it's not a huge loss, I still have the raw files. |
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| I'm thinking of going to the playa this year |
[Jul. 10th, 2009|02:51 pm] |
We were told we need to take a week of vacation in August/September. It turns out that I'll be taking the week after Burning man off, but it's still tempting to go, even though there are other things I should spend my money on. Who all is going and what are your camping plans?
One of the projects I'd like to build this summer is a canopy for the dance floor. If I design it properly, I could make it modular and bring it to the play on my trailer, which would give us basically a 24x40 shade structure. There is the question of how to pay for it, but maybe camp mates would be willing to chip in. |
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| Spontaneous trip to Texas |
[Jun. 29th, 2009|04:35 pm] |
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Something came up, it looks like I'll be driving to Texas for this weekend, Austin and probably Collinsville (north of Dallas), if you're along 10 and or 40 and are missing my company, let me know, I may able to say hi on my way through. |
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| Weird sore throat |
[Jun. 25th, 2009|11:55 am] |
Last night I woke up about 0440 coughing, with a burning in the back of my throat and a really weird taste in my mouth. I eventually tried eating some potato (there's no bread in the house) and drinking some milk, as well as water. Eventually it subsided enough for me to get to sleep, though my throat is still a bit sore/raw this morning.
It's hard to describe the taste, almost a sour/smokey taste, though not much like the barbecue I had last night, at least as I remember it. |
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| That's weird |
[Jun. 21st, 2009|10:40 pm] |
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This months issue of Via (California AAA magazine) has an article on Paso Robles, great getaway. |
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| The server closet is (more or less done) |
[Jun. 21st, 2009|07:31 pm] |
The server closet is more or less done. I've set up shelves for all my plastic drawers, red4est and the family joules.
Now that I'm done working, I'm ready for a weekend. Anybody want to go out and play? Are there any fun parties tonight?
:) |
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| For the others... |
[Jun. 21st, 2009|10:38 am] |
My thoughts go out today to all my friends who recently lost their fathers. Especially those that don't have kids themselves.
I know how weird it is when Father's day becomes "just another day". |
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| I want to go out and play, but I don't feel like driving |
[Jun. 20th, 2009|07:56 pm] |
Am in a ridiculously unmotivated mood, don't feel like driving up to Oakland for lindy mixup.
Wish I had some friends to hang out with closer than SF or the East Bay.
I guess I'll get back to work on the server closet. |
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| Synchronicity |
[Jun. 19th, 2009|09:35 am] |
Last night, I sent an pun to a net.friend in Israel, which I don't expect many people to understand:
"It occured to me that if you're shooting macros in the morning, playing with the depth of field, is your goal bokeh tov?"
I got a reply this morning. Then, when I got into the office, one of my Russian co-workers showed up with a shopping bag with hebrew writing all over it. It turns out that she was born in Uzbekistan, but lived in Israel. |
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