Huggies: Going To Great Lenghts To Proofread Their Online Ads

I just can't leave typos alone. Yes, I know one of my own escapes my eagle eye every now and then — but I'm not a huge corporation with a well-paid marketing department.

Blue Eyes

[Taken 26 Oct 2011 | iPhone 4 | processed with PS Express and Colorsplash apps]

Hoping to revisit this soon in Photoshop CS2 and post a tutorial so my mother can try it herself.

In My Eighth Month

[Taken 4 August 2011 | 1/60sec @ f/4 | ISO 200 | 24mm | adjusted in Photoshop CS2]

If I'm looking a little less than tickled in this photo, it's because I photographed myself for half an hour straight in a small, hot room in the upstairs of my house after I got home from work. I'm a little uncomfortable... which isn't to say I'm not enjoying myself anyway.

This image was actually a pleasant surprise in post-processing: it wasn't until I messed with this initially-underexposed image (with a bounce flash that was meant for fill) that I thought about tweaking it into a high-key, high-contrast portrait. That's not my M.O. — but I'm pleased with how it turned out.

I've posted some more of my maternity self-portraits in a set on Flickr.

Garage Sale Flags

[Taken 9 July 2011 | exposure unrecorded | ISO 200 | 50mm]

Another photo from my Praktica Super TL1000 test roll, prominently displaying the light leak from its missing/damaged foam seal.

Aaron With Iced Coffee and iPhone

[Taken 9 July 2011 | exposure unrecorded | ISO 200 | 50mm]

I took some test photos with my new-to-me Praktica Super TL1000 during the beginning of July. Thanks to a massive (read: not artistic in the slightest) light leak that rendered many of the photos unusable, this was one of the best images that came out of the 24 exposures. I suspect that it had something to do with the failing sealant foam; I may try some camera surgery in the future to see if I can manage the light leak without resorting to mummifying the camera in gaffer's tape, a la my Holgamod.

Apart from the light leak, I really do like the look of the photos that come from this camera. I seem to have cleaned the camera well enough, despite feeling super sketchy (almost naughty, even) about actually touching its interior. After scanning the images, I couldn't tell what dust was from the camera and what was from my scanner, which tells me I must have done OK. (Hope I didn't cause the light leak during cleaning...!)

My Praktica will definitely stay in the collection for a while — someday I'll come back to it and fix its light leak(s) and take it for another spin.

Update: I found a topic in the Praktica group on Flickr that details where the light leak is coming from. I was right: I did inadvertently cause it (or make it worse) during cleaning, when I scraped some old foam off of the back hinge. Once I replace that foam, my East German axe should be right as rain.

Silhouette

[Taken 13 July 2011 | 1/40sec @ f/3.5 | ISO 200 | 18mm | Adjusted in Photoshop CS2]

Me at 29 weeks, 2 days. Experimenting with poses and camera settings at six months, so I'll be ready when I take the "real" maternity self-portraits at eight or nine months.

I'm already pretty big now, though. Damn.

Park Bench and Bridge, Toledo

[Taken 6 June 2011 | ISO 160]

On the banks of the Maumee River, on the Owens-Illinois Corning campus, in downtown Toledo.

Sprinkler

[Taken 4 June 2011 | ISO 160]

A child runs through a sprinkler during the Toledo Old West End Festival, 4 June 2011.

The little girl in the shot was totally unplanned, but ended up in the perfect spot in the composition. I'd waited for the sprinkler to hit the right angle, and just as I pressed the shutter, there she went. That's serendipity right there.

This was my first run with the Spartus Full-Vue since August 2009. I had a much easier time loading and shooting with the camera this time around, and got much better results (which I will continue to post here and on Flickr in the near future).

There seems to be a minor light leak, and the in-focus "sweet spot" is relatively small and a bit off-center... but those are characteristics I find endearing, for the most part. Stay tuned to see the rest of my second test roll!

Lingering Sunset

[Taken 5 May 2011 | 1/25sec @ f/3.5 | ISO 800 | 18mm]

During our vacation at the Tamarijn, Aruba.

Snorkeling Self-Portrait

[Taken 5 May 2011 | 1/90sec @ f/2.8 | ISO 50]

Another photo taken with the point-and-shoot in a marine case. I'm going to keep this little camera around as long as I can, just because the case I got for it is so handy around water!

Floating

[Taken 7 May 2011 | 1/250sec @ f/6.7 | ISO 50]

On a relaxing afternoon, enjoying a dip in the Caribbean. Taken using my point-and-shoot in a marine case (with a desiccant pack!).

Tamarijn Patios

[Taken 1 May 2011 | 1/60sec @ f/13 | ISO 200 | 40mm]

View of the first-floor patios of Building 25, and beyond to Building 24.

Caribbean Apple Pie

[Taken 2 May 2011 | 1/40sec @ f/3.5 | ISO 200 | 18mm]

Dessert enjoyed beachside at The Red Parrot, located at the Divi (adjacent to the Tamarijn, and owned by the same parent company).

Aruban Sunset at Poolside

[Taken 5 May 2011 | 1/100sec @ f/4.8 | ISO 800 | 34mm]

One of my favorite photos to come out of last week's vacation to Aruba.

Promenade Park, Toledo

[Taken 24 Feb 2011 | ISO 400 | 50mm | Kodak 110 film]

The Anthony Wayne Bridge

[Taken 24 Feb 2011 | ISO 400 | 50mm | Kodak 110 film]

A.K.A. The "High-Level Bridge," downtown Toledo. Another shot from my Pentax Auto 110.

While researching this camera online, I've learned something important: since the manufacture of 110 film cartridges was never standardized, film manufacturers could choose whether or not to remove a notch on the cartridge that some cameras (including this one) used to identify film speed. Since the camera misreads the 400 speed that I use, and exposes it like 100 speed, all my photos are slightly overexposed.

When I test my wide-angle lens, I plan to manually remove the notch on the film cartridge and see if that makes a difference in the exposure.

Tall Skinny Caramel Macchiato

[Taken 20 Feb 2011 | ISO 400 | 50mm | Kodak 110 film]

The return of Photo Thursday (after a brief hiatus) features the return of the Pentax Auto 110 SLR — this time, with a longer lens than the standard 24mm.

Snowstorm Aftermath

[Taken 25 February 2011]

Last month, we got the last major snowstorm of the season (hopefully). I took a personal day off of work — our neighborhood looked nearly unpassable, and the online traffic cameras showed that the main roads weren't much better.

Aaron managed to power his way down our street so he could get to work that same evening. These are the ruts he left. (The main roads were clear and well-treated by then.)

Ironically enough, a small city plow came through our neighborhood barely 15 minutes after he left, and very thoroughly cleared and salted our street.

Tumbleweeds

I've been kind of quiet lately, blog-wise, for several reasons.

Mainly, I just haven't been able to get into it. When I come home from work, I'd really rather just chill in the recliner, check Twitter and Facebook on my iPhone, watch the news and Travel Channel, maybe read a book. Most days, I don't even turn on my computer in the evenings anymore — and if I do, it's to do some genealogy work or scan some photos or sync my iPhone or iPod.

Then there's the fact that I tend to self-censor a lot more heavily than I used to. There are the "nobody really cares about this" subjects, like what I ate for dinner or what I bought online; there are the "I'm not ready to share this" subjects, like major life-altering stuff (which doesn't come up often, thankfully); then there are the "I should really keep this to myself" subjects, like when I get pissed at someone and really want to vent, or when I play hookey from work (not like I would ever actually do that).

Once I finally come up with a blog-worthy topic, it's either so in-depth that it would take actual research and writing and editing (see lazy streak, above), or it's a timely topic that I procrastinate too long over, so it's no longer relevant by the time I sit down to write it. Long gone are the days of me sitting down at my computer after dinner and basically writing a Dear Diary entry about my day. Also long gone are the days of me working a job that's so slow and tedious that I can write a blog entry at work, e-mail it to myself, then post it when I get home.

One thing that's kept me from blogging, too, is Twitter. Topics that once would have taken several hundred words to cover now get covered in 140 characters. No buildup, no lead-in, no drawn-out resolve; just the meat and the meaning, distilled to quasi-poetic brevity.

I also have a physical journal in which I write longhand every night or so, just to clear my mind. It's quite therapeutic, and helpful for getting stuff out that I can't (or shouldn't) share with the entire internet (see self-censorship, above). It's definitely a help to be able to write down those things that aren't suitable for public consumption. It was a habit I clung to back in junior high, high school, and most of college. After college, I started blogging, and my physical journaling became sporadic; random notebooks, or text files on my computer, or scraps of paper (usually intended as blog notes for later). It's about time I started journaling again.

I'm going to try to start blogging a little more regularly, too, but I make no promises.

Lions' Heads

[Taken 17 Feb 2011]

Probably won't be taking this camera out again. Read on to find out why.

read more...

Starbucks Product

[Taken 30 January 2011]

This was the first outing for the Ricoh 35FM, and I enjoyed photographing with it. I ended up with some good photos, but no really amazing ones. That was partially on purpose; I tend to avoid taking unique shots on a test roll, just because I'm not sure if anything will even come out. I should probably rethink my philosophy there...

Overall thoughts: This camera is very automatic, except for the focus and film speed. I might take it places where I'd be hesitant to take my Lomo LC-A (since it's getting older and slightly fragile), but not if it involved very low-light situations. Indoors by a window = OK. Indoors by lamplight = not OK.

Share The Road

[Taken 24 January 2011]

The last roll of film I took with this camera was back in 2005, and that test roll wasn't terribly successful. This one was much more so, and I've decided that I do, in fact, like my Brownie Bullet.

Read on for more commentary and photos...

read more...

Brownie Bullet

[Taken 24 January 2011 | iPhone 4 | Instagram filter: Earlybird]

This week's photo would have been by the Brownie Bullet, rather than of the Brownie Bullet, had the weather not turned nasty late this afternoon. I decided that the drive to Taylor Photo wasn't worth risking my safety — not over eight exposures of 127 film.

Just remember that the photos you'll see next week will have been taken by this camera.

Downtown Toledo

[Taken 17 Jan 2011]

The last time I used this camera was 2007 — this roll came out a lot better than that one did. I'm not sure what's up with the tobacco tint, but perhaps the negative sleeves I got at Goodwill didn't come from a non-smoking home.

More photos and camera observations below...

read more...

Along the Riverside

[Taken 2 December 2010 | aperture unrecorded]

In November and December 2010, I finally tried out a test roll in my new-to-me Kodak Brownie Starmatic. Overall, I think it creates unique (and very mid-century) photos, but it's not necessarily my favorite.

Read on for more details (and more test photos)...

read more...

Ghostly Conversation

[Taken 25 Dec 2010 | 5 seconds @ f/cloudy (~f/8)]

Brought my new Diana Mini to Christmas in Cleveland; thankful that it has a long exposure setting for these indoor photos. More images from the initial Diana Mini test roll are posted on my Flickr.

Next roll, I'm going to use the half-frame setting instead of the square setting, and I'll try to take more shots in brighter light. Not sure what I think of the trademark "dreamy focus," but I do think I like my new little camera.

Greek Salad

[Taken 11 Dec 2010 | iPhone 4]

Enjoyed at Gem Coney Island in Toledo.

Christmas Portrait 2010

[Taken 12 Dec 2010 | 1/60 sec @ f/6.3 | ISO 400 | 38mm]

Season's Greetings from Diana, Aaron, and Mei!

Kodak

[Taken 9 Dec 2010 | 1/60 sec @ f/2.8 | 50mm | ISO 400 | bounce flash]

Close-up of my Brownie Starmatic. One exposure left on the initial roll...

Sleepy Eyeball Reflection

[Taken 9 Dec 2010 | 1/60 sec @ f/3.5 | 50mm | ISO 400 | bounce flash]

Not the most flattering photo of myself, but the reflection of the camera in my eye is cool.

Restarting a Habit

I tend to approach blogging like I approach speaking: if I don't have anything to say, I won't say anything. I'm not going to speak (or write) simply to fill the silence. In some situations, I've found that it makes people more inclined to listen when I do have something to say.

Aaron asked me this weekend if I was planning to post to my blog every weekday for just the month of December. I had originally thought I should start in December, but then make it like my Photo Thursday agreement with myself: all year long. Now that I think about it, though, it might be a better idea to just commit to one month of blogging every weekday, then to sit back and see if the content quality matches the quantity. I don't want to be posting drivel, after all.

It's not like I don't have plenty of topics to cover; some topics have been in the queue so long that they're no longer even relevant. The problem is figuring out when to write. Do I sit down right after my run? After dinner? After chores? At what point will I be finished with my other responsibilities of the day, but still have enough mental capacity to focus on writing? And how do I successfully unplug from my iPhone games, my blogs, my Twitter, long enough to write something coherent?

Writing is a habit and a skill that I'm going to have to redevelop over time. As with all writers, though, Rule #1 is to just get my butt in the chair and start writing.

Dear Diary

I've kept a diary or journal off and on since I was about seven years old. My first diary had a classically late-'70s/early-'80s red corduroy cover, and my first entry was about how I was "nervice" to get my tonsils out.

As I got a little older, I was allowed to stay up a little past my bedtime if I was writing in my diary; looking back on my journal entries, a lot of them tend to either be typically elementary-school, starting with "Today I..." or a short excuse: "Nothing happened today. Memaw's watching, though, so I need to write some more..." Very rarely did I manage to record any major life events — mainly because I didn't recognize their importance at the time, or because I was too busy living it to record it.

In Junior High (and to a degree during High School), most of my journal entries recorded how outcast I felt and how depressed I was. I also recorded the stupid and immature things I did and said, without realizing how stupid and immature they were at the time. All that means that I can barely stand to read my own journals from about 1987 through 1990, with many cringe-worthy entries up through graduation in '94. And again, when I go hunting for Major Life Events, they're conspicuously MIA for the most part.

Once I hit college, my journaling was much more... journalistic, I suppose you could say. This event happened on this day, and this was my response, and these are my thoughts about it. Major life events were covered, even if I didn't realize they were major at the time, because I just wrote every night out of habit.

My private journal shifted to a public blog in late 2002, but my style hadn't changed yet. I still wrote about daily events and my reactions to those events, without any thought of the public nature of blogging. It wasn't until a few years later, when the Internet became a much more crowded place and everyone was online, that I realized my blogging topics were occasionally inappropriate (about the time I discovered Dooce®, now that I think about it).

Since the mid-2000's or so, I've been much more guarded about my choice of topics. I no longer write to complain about my job or about certain people by name. In fact, I haven't been writing much at all. I'm almost reverting back to my early diary days of missing out on documenting major life events in writing, just from failing to journal every day. I post a photo every Thursday, but sometimes that's the only post (other than tweets) all week.

I don't need a new year to start a new habit. Starting in December (that's two days ago), I'm going to post a blog entry every weekday. (I'll cut myself some slack on weekends.) I don't want to turn this into a Tumblr-style reblog, though, so I'm going to sit down and write every night, just like I used to. Granted, it was more relaxing and cathartic to write whatever I wanted into a journal as I lay face-down on the bed in my dorm-room, but times have changed... and I'm not writing an entire blog post from my iPhone or our clunky legacy laptop, no matter how much I'd like to blog from bed.

Self-Portrait

[Taken 2 December 2010 | 1/60 sec @ f/2.8 | ISO 200 | 50mm | Nikon Speedlight SB600 off-camera]

Playing around with lighting and posing ideas for this year's Christmas Portrait, and reminding myself of the details of using my lighting kit. Yes, I know the strobe umbrella is visible in the reflection; I think it adds to the charm.

Happy Thanksgiving

[Taken 25 November 2010 | Apple iPhone 4]

Turnip Cakes

[Taken 14 November 2010 | Apple iPhone 4]

One of my favorite offerings from our local purveyor of dim sum.

View of Manhattan

[Taken 15 July 2010 | modified Holga 120N]

Another shot with the modified Holga, this time from our trip to New York City.

First National Bldg, Ann Arbor

[Taken 16 October 2010 | modified Holga 120N | f/cloudy (~f/8)]

Finally mastered the Holgamod light leaks with gaffer's tape! See more on Flickr.

(Note: I scanned these while still in their nifty negative storage sleeve, so I picked up a lot of dust and cat hair and other indignities, of which I only removed the most offensive. If I ever decide to print them, I'll rescan, but not until.)

Sunset, Greenhouse, Grapevine.

[Taken 27 October 2010 | iPhone 4]

This was my view upon returning home from my Wednesday evening run.

Grass and Sky

[Taken 21 October 2010 | iPhone 4]

Seen during my lunch walk on the Owens-Corning campus. No color correction necessary; it was just that beautiful.

Autumn Sky

[Taken 7 October 2010 | iPhone 4]

I love the color of the autumn sky.

iPhone Self-Portrait

[Taken 5 October 2010 | Apple iPhone 4 | Processed with Tilt Shift Generator]

The front-facing camera on my new iPhone, although it's not of the best quality, has gotten me taking more self-portraits than usual. Contemplating starting a 365-day self-portrait project.

Belly up to the Coffee Bar

[Taken 25 Sept 2010 | Apple iPhone 4 | HDR mode]

Under a Harvest Moon

[Taken 22 Sept 2010 | 13sec @ f/3.5 | 18mm | ISO 200]

I spent 45 minutes with my Nikon D50 and tripod in my front yard, shooting the moon (as it were). Trying out all the tricks I'd read and settings I thought I knew: using the "Sunny 16" rule to capture a crisp image of the full moon and all that. Finally, after peering at my previews and not knowing if I actually got a decent image of the moon itself, I dialed the aperture back to wide-open and took a single shot in my normal, narrow-depth-of-field style before turning to go back inside.

A moment after I picked up the camera and tripod and took a couple steps toward the front door, the noise reduction algorithm finished doing its magic and showed me a preview of what I'd just captured — the image pictured above.

Dammit, I thought, now I have to go back and take some more like that! I turned back around and set back up, but only got one more shot composed and taken before the neighbor's dog started barking. I realized at that point that the mojo was gone, anyway, and that it was time to wrap up and call it an evening.

Seems to be how all my intentional photo shoots go: the final shot is usually the best. Does that mean I know when to quit, or that I quit just when things are getting good...?

Ants on a Tree

[Taken on 27 April 2010 | Apple iPhone 3G | processed with TiltShiftGen]

Also known as Ants Climbing a Tree, this dish is made from bean thread noodles and minced pork cooked in soy and chili sauce. Delicious!

Note to readers: ask for the Chinese menu at your favorite Chinese restaurant, and you may discover treasures like this one.

Ground Level

[Apple iPhone 3G | processed with TiltShiftGen]

One chocolate chai and one sugar-free toffee latte, enjoyed at the Ground Level Coffeehouse in Toledo.

Baked Pasta with Butternut Squash and Ricotta

[Taken 30 August 2010 | iPhone 3G | processed with TiltShiftGen and Photoshop CS2]

I decided to be all domestic on Monday and bake some pasta for dinner. It's not as decadent as you might think, either: whole wheat rotini, low-fat Ricotta, fat-free milk, and only five Weight Watchers Points® per one-cup serving.

Tomukun Pork Buns, Ann Arbor

[Taken 7 Aug 2010 | Pentax Auto 110 SLR | ISO 400 | 24mm ]

The test roll for my new Pentax Auto 110 was a rousing success!

(The pork buns were delicious, too.)

More test photos after the jump...

read more...

Confluence

As a Business Intelligence professional, David McCandless's TED talk about the beauty of data visualization really struck a resonant chord for me. I aspire to be a designer who has a solid background in programming and database concepts, but I don't find many opportunities to work on data visualization at my 8-to-5, as I'm focused mainly on straight-up reporting.

Last year, in lieu of one of my normal and customary Year In Review blog posts, I created a series of graphs that represented the easily-trackable data in my life: weight loss, music listening habits, miles walked, photos taken, things like that. In going back and re-reading my past Years In Review this week, I realized that my "infographic" review didn't actually give as much information about what I'd done during the course of the year. It didn't do an effective job of presenting the highlights like I'd previously done in verbal form. The idea had been along the lines of "show, don't tell," but it didn't manage to do either very well.

Looking back objectively at my 2009 Year In Review, here's what the graphs and numbers tell me:

• I went to Japan. I walked a lot one of the days I was there (14 miles), and I took lots of pictures.
• When I ate out (back at home), I had mainly Asian food (Chinese, Japanese, Korean).
• I tried to lose weight, but didn't do very well.
• I took lots of pictures. Some of them were with my iPhone. Most of them were from vacations and trips, including Japan and Chicago.
• I listened to music, and my musical taste was stuck squarely in the '90s, for the most part.

That's kind of lame. I can do better than that.

With these two experiences rolling about in my brain, I've decided to try creating personal infographics over the course of the year, but keep the standard prose-style Year In Review for next year.

Practice is the only way to learn and improve, be it creating data visualizations, or writing, or photographing. We'll see how long it takes me to successfully find my own style, and to successfully identify and convey relationships between datasets.

Black and Chrome

[Taken 18 August 2010 | f/5.3 @ 1/60 sec | 60mm | bounce flash ]

Set up my new computer yesterday. Took a bunch of unboxing and setup photos, but they didn't end up being as interesting as I'd hoped, for the most part.

Adventures in Cross-Processing, Take 1

[Taken 27 June 2010 | Lomo LC-A | XPro expired slide film]

Yes, this week's photo was taken by Aaron!

read more...

Walter Konstantin Bura, 1918-2010

[Taken 5 May 2002 | exposure unrecorded]

Walter Bura, 91, of Lakewood Ohio. Husband of the late Betsy (nee Hamlen); father of Peter, Elaine Eschbach and the late Christine Schnuth; grandfather of Megan, Alex, Natalie, Joseph Bura, Aaron, Matthew Schnuth, Nathan Eschbach; great grandfather of 2 passed away on August 2, 2010.

Love ME

[Taken 15 July 2010 | 1/1000 sec at f/8 | ISO 400 | 30mm]

Seen in SoHo, New York City.

Across the East River

[Taken 14 July 2010 | 1/200 sec at f/8 | ISO 400 | 34mm]

As seen from the sheltered upper deck of the bus, during the second part of our Downtown Tour in New York City. Luckily, the pre-Chinatown part of the tour wasn't as rainy and dismal.

Manhattan

As seen from the 72nd floor of the Empire State Building.

Mustang

[Taken 12 June 2010 | modified Holga 120N | f/cloudy (~f/8) | ISO 100]

Seen during the Waterville Community Garage Sale, 12 June 2010.

Although it's not visible in this photo, the annoying light leak made a reappearance in many of the frames I shot. Light leaks are not one of the aspects of Holgas (and toy cameras in general) that I find endearing, so I've ordered some gaffers' tape to seal the seams for my next roll.

Bicycle

[Taken 12 June 2010 | Apple iPhone 3G | processed with PS Mobile and Tilt Shift Generator]

Seen in Waterville OH during the community garage sale.

Pink

[Taken 17 June 2010 | 1/1250 sec at f/6.3 | ISO 200 | 200mm]

More from last week's trip to Wildwood with Mom.

I might have to start taking evening photo trips out there on my own during the week — while flower photography isn't exactly cutting-edge, it would help me improve my composition skills.

Yellow

[Taken 17 June 2010 | 1/2000 sec at f/6.0 | ISO 200 | 125mm]

Mom and I went to Wildwood Metropark for a photo walk this afternoon, and spent a goodly amount of time in the flower garden.

Garage Sale Find: Expired Film

For 10¢ each, I got three rolls of expired slide film and two rolls of (assumedly expired) print film. Looking forward to experimenting with these in my Lomo LC-A, Blackbird Fly, and maybe my Holga or my Olympus XA.

Other finds from today's trip to the Waterville Community Garage Sale included a Pat Paulsen LP, an LP of steel drums from St. Lucia in 1977, a copy of Sid Meier's Gettysburg!, and a tank top. Not the most awesome yield from an afternoon of garage sales, but the best we've had in a while.

Old West End Festival, 2006

[Taken 3 June 2006 | Holga 120N]

Last weekend was the Old West End Festival in Toledo, where we always enjoy the yard sales more than the art show or the fair food. Alas, this year we got rained out of our afternoon of yard sales and lo-fi photography, so I'm posting a photo from four years ago, instead.

Lamps, Ann Arbor

[Taken 22 May 2010 | modified Holga 120N | f/sunny (~f/11) | ISO 160]

W Washington St, Ann Arbor

[Taken 22 May 2010 | Holgamod | f/sunny (~f/11) | ISO 160]

This was one of my favorite shots from the recent Holgamod test roll. Aaron bought me my modified Holga for Christmas, and I never got around to testing it until last weekend. I expect that I'll post in depth about it once I get another roll or two through it, just to get a feel for its little quirks and sweet spots.

I got my film developed locally, at Taylor Photo, as I've had one two too many rolls of film lost in the mail from mail-order shops online. The owner is a friendly and personable guy who knows photography (and also develops black and white!).

Once I get some anti-Newton ring glass for my scanner, I'll save money by paying for processing only — no prints. Even with paying for prints, though, it's likely that I'll be burning through my stash of freezer-stored film a lot quicker than I'd expected.

Sun Protection

[Taken 25 April 2010 | 1/1600 sec at f/6.3 | ISO 200 | 200mm]

During our final afternoon on the beach in Playa del Carmen.

Our Waiter, Jorge

[Taken 22 April 2010 | 1/13 sec at f/3.5 | ISO 1600 | 18mm]

At Maria Marie, the French-Mexican fusion restaurant at the Royal Playa del Carmen.

Nightly Candle

Each night, while we were out at dinner, housekeeping would come by and turn down our bedding, light a candle under the scented oil burner, and leave Bon-Bons on our bed.

When We Arrived

[Taken 20 April 2010 | ¼ sec at f/4 | ISO 200 | 18mm]

There was a cake made out of towels on our king size hotel bed, sprinkled with real rose petals.

Nohoch Muul, Coba

[Taken 22 April 2010 | Apple iPhone 3G | processed with PS Mobile]

Seen during the Maya Encounter tour with Alltournative.

O-Jing-A Bokeum

Aaron and I introduced his brother to Korean food on Saturday, by treating him to lunch at Korea Na. He had the bulgogi as his first-ever try at Korean food, and seemed to really enjoy it. I ordered the spicy squid stir-fry; as always, it was delicious.

Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor

[Taken 10 April 2010 | Apple iPhone 3G | processed with PS Mobile and Tilt Shift Generator]

New Manicure

[Taken 8 Apr 2010 | 1/8 sec @ f/3.2 | ISO 800 | 50mm]

My too-expensive professional French manicure didn't last as long as I would have liked, so my friend Sheryl offered to redo my nails over our lunch break today. I think they turned out just as good as my overpriced manicure.

Sheryl, I owe you lunch! :-D

Pre-Vacation Haircut

[Taken 1 Apr 2010 | 1/15 sec @ f/3.5 | ISO 800 | 28mm]

Growing my hair long again, but keeping some shape to it. Kudos to Kristie at Attitudes in Toledo for keeping my hair looking fabulous!

Memaw

[Taken 23 March 2010 | 1/5 sec @ f/2 | ISO 200 | Lensbaby 3G]

Just a little younger than I remember her...

More about Memaw (aka Jessie Mae Fay Mickler Taylor Cook Lowe) in my genealogy research.

Jefferson and Huron

[Taken 17 March 2010 | Apple iPhone 3G | processed with Tilt Shift Generator]

Car Wash

[Taken 7 March 2010 | Apple iPhone 3G | post-processing in Adobe Photoshop CS2]

One Perspective On Starbucks

[Taken 28 February 2010 | Apple iPhone 3G | post-processing in Adobe Photoshop CS2]

As seen from The Comfy Chairs at the Starbucks in Levis Commons, Perrysburg.

Another Sunday Morning

[Taken 31 Jan 2010 | Apple iPhone 3G | processed with PS Mobile]

Icewalkers

[Taken 18 Feb 2010 | Apple iPhone 3G | post-processing in Photoshop CS2]

I watched these men walk out onto the frozen Maumee River as I was taking my lunchtime walk. I got out my phone 1.) to take a picture, and 2.) just in case I needed to call 9-1-1 if one of them fell through.

New Nightly Ritual

[Taken 11 Feb 2010 | 1/25 sec @ f/6.3 | ISO 800 | 50mm | ambient light, handheld]

Just ordered some new facial products from SpaGoddess on Etsy, after reading an interview with her in Ready Made magazine. I'm not usually one to get overly excited about such things, but these are definitely worth trying. I'm not ashamed to admit that, the day these products arrived, I washed my face RIGHT AFTER DINNER. I just could not wait.

I purposely bought several sample sizes of different products, to give them a test drive. I already have an idea of what I may be ordering again in the future (including one item she included for free!), and what I may pass on next time. Even the products that haven't completely sold me, though, feel better than the over-formulated, chemical-laden commercial products I've been using. These products from Angel Face Botanicals (aka SpaGoddess on Etsy) literally make it a joy just to wash my face at night. Highly recommended.

Sunday Morning On The Couch With Mei

[Taken 17 Jan 2010 | Apple iPhone 3G | processed with PS Mobile]

Having some Sunday morning chill time with my kitty.

Gotcha...

[Taken 14 Jan 2010 | 1/60 sec @ f/3.5 | ISO 800 | 18mm | off-camera flash, bounced]

Oh, yes. When you stop in to talk to me while I'm taking pictures, you'll get your picture taken, too.

Old Leather

[Taken on 21 Jan 2010 | 1/60 sec @ f/6.3 | ISO 800 | 200mm | off-camera flash, bounced]

Getting ready to re-leather my Yashica FX-D. Expect a full report in the next few days...

Lain Figurine

[Taken on 14 Jan 2010 | 1/60sec @ f/6.3 | ISO 800 | 200mm | off-camera flash, bounced]

Serial Experiments Lain was one of the first anime series Aaron got me to watch, over ten years ago now. If you're into anime or sci-fi, especially thought-provoking (or even mind-fucking) plots and universes, you owe it to yourself to watch it through. It's only 13 episodes, so it's not a huge time investment, but the experience is worth it.

Photo Thursday

Last year, I resolved to post a photo to my blog every Thursday for all of 2009. Thursday was a totally arbitrary day; New Year's Day was on a Thursday, and I happened to post a photo that day, and decided to run with it (instead of the Photo Friday that many bloggers seem to observe).

I succeeded, for the most part, only missing one Thursday (and I think that was because my webhost had temporarily hosed my blog).

The idea was for me to start photographing more, to make photography a priority in my life. Over the course of the year, I moved away from my original plan of spending Thursday evening photographing, then posting the results that night — I started pulling older photos, or taking up an entire month of Thursdays with the best photos from our vacation(s). Still, I definitely feel that Photo Thursday was an impetus for me to get out and photograph, and I think my skills have improved because of that. I've also had more experience with post-processing, and I'm getting a feel for what I want my photos to look like and how to get them there.

This year, I'm going to continue Photo Thursday. I have new toys to try out, like my Holgamod and my Gorillapod and my lighting rig, all of which Aaron got me for Christmas.

For the photography buffs in the house, read on for my lighting geekery. Everyone else, continue to enjoy the weekly photos!

read more...

Second Best

If there were a branch of my favorite coffee franchise downtown, I might go there every day. As it is, I visit its runner-up on occasion, since it's right across the street from my work.

Christmas Portrait 2009

Joy to you and yours this holiday season and throughout the new year!

Angry Pho

To celebrate Aaron's 35th birthday last month, we drove up to Ann Arbor for dinner. There are (at least) two kinds of cuisine there that we can't get in Toledo: Vietnamese and Ethiopian. Aaron chose Vietnamese.

As an aside: As we were driving from the highway to campus, a carload of college guys pulled up behind us and saw the Trek fish on our car (it's like a Jesus or Darwin fish, but it says Trek... and has nacelles like the Enterprise). These guys loved it so much, they took cameraphone pictures of it, and were embarrassed/geeked when Aaron flashed them the Vulcan salute.

Mistress Of Her Domain

And a few moments later, it was OM NOM KITTY NOM:

(Taken with my Nikon D50 and the Lensbaby 3G)

Stalking the Presents

[Nikon D50 with Lensbaby 3G and Nikon Speedlight SB600, f/2.0 @ 1/60 sec, ISO 800]

Thankful

For all the little things that make life enjoyable -- and the big things, too.

Dessert Centerpiece

Taken at the Fertel Reception, 27 October 2007. (Happy Belated Anniversary!)

Fresh From the Salon

Self-portrait in my bathroom. Taken one month ago, immediately after after my last trip to Attitudes, 13 October 2009.

Empty Chairs At Empty Tables

Taken at our local Starbucks, using the bulb (long exposure) setting on my Blackbird Fly TLR.

It took me forever to adjust this in Photoshop (I'm still not quite satisfied), and I didn't realize what was throwing me off until I was almost done. Look closely, and you can just barely see the person who walked in front of the counter during the three-second exposure, then paused at the right side of the frame. (Easier to see at a larger size — look especially at the legs of the left-most chair.)

A Narrow Writing Window

It's funny: I have, let's see, no less than fifteen ideas for blog entries written in my faux-Moleskine notebook, yet I can't make myself sit down and write.

Part of the problem, at least for today, is that I let myself get sucked into video games during my tiny bit of productive, brain-is-working time. Part of the problem is that my body has reacted unusually strongly to the time change this year, and demands to be put to bed an hour earlier.

If I want to write a coherent blog entry that's worth reading, I need to get my ass in my desk chair shortly after dinner, without any TV or gaming. If I want to watch TV or play games, I need to resign myself to that being the only thing that gets done that evening.

Tomorrow is Photo Thursday. That I can do.

Halloween, 2003

Halloween that year was on a Friday night — and, as with all Friday nights, I was home alone, instead of out being social. I'd just started the Atkins Diet, so I wasn't about to have bags of candy in the house to pass out to the trick-or-treaters. Plus, I knew from experience that trick-or-treaters actually didn't come down our street very often.

As I remember it, the decision to go out and photograph was a spontaneous one. I was in an especially good mood as I affixed my trusty Minolta to my tripod and headed out to squeeze off a roll of Halloween pictures.

These are some of the better ones...

read more...

Lamppost (Sprocket Photography)

Taken at Levis Commons with the blackbird,fly twin lens reflex camera I bought in Japan. The Blackbird takes 35mm film, but has a removable mask specifically to allow sprocket photography.

The double-exposure at the top and bottom of the frame was completely unintentional, but adds to the charm, in my opinion.

Autumn Window

We've officially hit the height of Autumn color. Glad I actually managed to catch some of it on film and digitally this year.

Stuffed Lobster, 2003

This has to be one of my favorite photos from our honeymoon — specifically, our trip to Boston. Yes, Aaron is a good 70 pounds heavier here than he is now, but I still love this picture.

Granville Platform

[1/8 sec @ f/3.5, handheld (braced against wall), 18mm]

Seen during our Labor Day Weekend in Chicago, on our way back from dinner at the Ethiopian Diamond.

The Old General Store

My first major project since getting my new scanner has been to digitize the photos from our honeymoon, back in May 2003. (The process went surprisingly smoothly, which bodes well for future scanning projects.)

This is where we stayed for a good part of our trip: Aaron's grandmother's house in Cummington, Massachusetts. The house had long since been parceled out into apartments, and Grammie kept one in reserve for herself, in case she had need to go visit her rental property. She graciously let us stay in her apartment for the week, using it as a home base of sorts.

As far as the honeymoon photos go, I still need to properly date and geotag them all... but that's a follow-up project for another day.

Elf Shot The Food!

I have a tendency to forget how much mental energy it takes to write a coherent blog entry. I'll do other things I want to get done earlier in the evening, not realizing that, once it gets to that point in the late evening when my creative juices once flowed most freely, my brain and body now find themselves to be shutting down for the night.

I suppose I'll just have to wait until tomorrow to tell the tale of this weekend's fun times with Amy, and how I still lost 0.2 pounds this week, despite eating Korean and Ethiopian and Dim Sum and making multiple trips to Starbucks.

Spontaneous, But Not Really

This past week, two people directed me toward a $40 film & slide converter on woot.com. After checking out reviews of it, both at woot and elsewhere, I opted not to pull the trigger on it.

However. It did get me thinking about scanning film again.

Our Epson Perfection 1670 scanner has been holding up well. It even scans 35mm negative strips, but it only does so one strip at a time, and it only scans that one kind of film. Its transparency-scanning ability is limited to a small area in the middle of the scanner. I've been craving either a film scanner that scans various sizes of 35mm and medium format film or a scanner that scans full 8x10 transparencies, thereby allowing it to scan any damn size of film I want, including 35mm, 120, 127, or any other obscure film size I might end up with later.

So, when given an excuse to look — again — into transparency-capable scanners, I gladly took up the search. After less than a day of searching, using such jumping-off points as photo.net, I decided on the Epson Perfection V700.

One of the first things I did after the scanner arrived on Friday (after setting it up) was to experiment with scanning a proof sheet — a full 8x10 page of sleeved 35mm negatives. Since I haven't been properly storing my negatives lately, I beelined for my old VCT 282/382/465 notebook, full of negatives from Photography I, Photography II, and Commercial Photography. The sheet I chose was from my final project in VCT 282, where I photographed Aaron and his videogames in his basement apartment one August night in 1999:

It'll be fun to scan some of my old negatives from Photography class (from which I never had prints made, except the ones I turned in for class) and other slides and negatives I have stored in boxes and books. Plus, I'll be able to have my odd-sized film processed without prints, then scan them myself later. I'll also be able to try some of that sprocket-hole photography I've never bothered to try out because I couldn't have properly seen the final result.

I don't usually drop $500+ so easily... but it was something I'd been thinking about for some time.

Navy Pier Park

As seen during our Labor Day Weekend in Chicago, 5 September 2009.

Blustery Day

Brownie Starmite Test Roll, 2007

I was recently cataloguing my camera collection, figuring out which ones I like to use in various situations and which ones hadn't even been tested yet. (For the record, I currently own 16 film cameras and two digitals.) Some of them I was unsure of, so I scanned my blog for reference — and, oddly enough, there was one camera that I had mentioned acquiring and finishing a test roll with, but never posted any photos from.

Long story short, I managed to unearth the test prints from the disaster that is the area beside my desk, and am now posting a test roll two years tardy.

read more...

On The River, Chicago

Taken from the upper deck of a double-decker tour bus in Chicago, Illinois: 5 September 2009.

Lomography.com

I was just poking around in my photography category on my blog, and clicked on a link to go to my lomohome on lomography.com.

404 Error? Hmm, looks like the site got a redesign. Oh, look — I can migrate my old account. All is not lost.

Or is it? All my photos are gone. Huh. Good thing I have local copies, eh? Ah, well. I can reupload.

Then I read the legalese:

5. Use of Ideas

If you send any communications or materials to the Site by electronic mail or otherwise, including any data, questions, comments, suggestions, or the like, all such communications are, and will be treated as, non-confidential and non-proprietary. Anything you transmit or post may be used by Lomography, its parent and/or its affiliates for any purpose, including, but not limited to, reproduction, disclosure, transmission, publication, broadcast, and posting. Furthermore, Lomography, its parent and its affiliates are free to use, without any compensation to you, any ideas, concepts, know-how, or techniques contained in any communication you send to the Site for any purpose whatsoever, including, but not limited to, developing, manufacturing, and marketing products using such information.

I'm reading this as saying that I lose the rights to any photos I upload — or, rather, they gain unlimited rights without me getting any kickback or even acknowledgment. They might mean this to refer to unsolicited product ideas, but it comes off as ANY upload to the site ANYWHERE.

See ya, lomohomes. Check my Flickr for my Lomo pics from now on.

Spartus Full-Vue Test Roll

The good news is that the Spartus Full-Vue works and takes some decent photos. The bad news: a.) The long-exposure toggle is in an unfortunate spot versus the shutter release, and b.) It's a bitch to get 120 black and white film developed anymore.

read more...

Selling Myself Short

This evening, over the phone, my Mom was telling me that my photography has gotten so good that I should be photographing for a magazine or something. I'd just uploaded the first half of my photos from our Chicago trip, and she'd been paging through them as we talked.

Now, mothers are known for exaggerating the talents of their progeny. However, being that mine is a portrait photographer by trade, I'd like to think that gives her opinion a little more weight. Still, though, I see the other photos on Flickr — the ones that make the Explore page, or have high ratings of Interestingness — and I realize that I'm nowhere close to being in their league, for the most part.

Then, again, sometimes I look at photos on Flickr, or photos for sale at art shows, and I think, "My photos are easily that good!" Maybe I just don't give myself enough credit. Maybe I don't pimp myself out enough on Flickr by posting to relevant groups. Maybe I should start submitting my work to stock photography websites/companies. After all, I've been published in a magazine (Tricycle) and in an online travel guide (Schmap Baltimore), among others.

Then the question becomes: when will I feel satisfied with my photography? When I'm making a steady income from my photos? When one of my photos is recognized by Flickr's super-secret Interestingness algorithm for the Explore page? And how much time and effort do I put into these goals, just to satisfy my own ego?

Maybe, for now, I can simply remain satisfied with my continuing progress as an amateur photographer, and just enjoy taking pictures.

Yashica FX-D Quartz Test Roll

I mentioned last month that I was planning to get a new battery cover for my Yashica FX-D Quartz. It cost me $25 for a Yashica FX-3 off of eBay (which doesn't seem to work, incidentally), plus a $10 battery from Radio Shack, but it was totally worth it.

read more...

Gulls on the Maumee

Seen near One Seagate in downtown Toledo, this past Monday.

Pictures of Mom

My Mom asked me to scan in some pictures of her over the years, since the family photo albums are all at my place now. I posted over a dozen of them over on my Facebook... but this is one of my favorites. She's probably about 18 years old here, and I'd like to think that the family resemblance is obvious, even though I was never quite that thin.

Catbus In Flight

I bought this miniature catbus-on-a-stick during our last trip to Tokyo. Now he happily guards my jade plant.

What's New With Me

I rarely do these catch-all blog posts anymore, but since I've committed to blogging every weekday for a while, I figure I can let one of these slip in.

Last night I bid on (and won) a Yashica FX-3 35mm film camera on eBay. I bought it specifically so I could have a battery compartment cover that will also fit the Yashica FX-D Quartz I already own — I think that's all that's wrong with it. This particular model of camera won't work with a dead battery, and the battery cover is completely stripped out, so it's nigh on impossible to remove the cover once it's screwed in. So, if a fresh battery fixes it, then I have two cameras to play with, and I just have to swap the battery cover between them. (Also? Once I get the FX-D working, I'm planning to re-leather it for cheap.)

Today I finished running a test roll through the Spartus Full-Vue. Brought it to work, in fact, and got several comments about the fancy/old camera sitting on my desk. The test roll will include photos from my house, the Hindu Festival, and downtown Toledo. I really hope I kept the camera on "instant" exposure instead of "time" exposure — when I went to remove the film this evening, it was on "time", which could mean that the last part of the roll will be especially blurry and overexposed. Crossing my fingers that I didn't accidentally fuck up my test roll...

I mentioned the Hindu Festival — Aaron and I went to see my supervisor perform a Bollywood-style dance with a group. Well, to be fair, that wasn't the only reason we went — we wanted to try the food and see the sellers' stalls, too — but it was the main one, and the reason I knew the festival even existed. My supervisor, it turns out, once did classical dance (she's built for it like I never was — my height, but long-limbed), and she was a joy to watch.

And now for something completely different: I went on my first walk/jog in a VERY long time yesterday morning, and I'm feeling it today. I only ran for a total of maybe three or four minutes out of the 20 I was outside, but I'm OK with taking baby steps. My plan is to walk/jog — or do "interval training," as it were — on Sunday mornings and Tuesday and Thursday evenings. How I do it: I have an exercise playlist set up on my iPod, where the songs are mostly four minutes long, and between 100 and 150 beats per minute. I run through the first verse and chorus, then see how I feel — run through another verse, or switch back to a walk? I should probably stick to more brief jogging stretches for now, and not try to push myself too hard in the middle of my jog like I did on Sunday (damn you, Kool and the Gang). I also should add more songs in the neighborhood of 150 bpm, as I think that's about the pace I jog (gauged from running around the basement for less than a minute just now).

Well, It may not be terribly coherent, but that's the latest in a nutshell. Looking forward to the International Festival this coming Saturday, going to King's Island with Amy and Aaron in a few weeks, and going to Chicago over Labor Day Weekend. Which reminds me: I need to go research the conveyor belt sushi joints in Chicago...

Camera On-Deck

Next up for a test roll: the Spartus. It's basic, it's old, and I think it's actually supposed to take 620 film, although I managed to successfully load a roll of 120.

Perusing the Jewelry

At the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, Saturday 18 July 2009.

Actually, Amy is perusing the jewelry, while Aaron is looking bored out of his gourd.

Miniature Diners

Seen at the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, 18 July 2009.

Front Porch Barbershoppers

Seen during the Toledo Old West End Festival, 2 June 2007.

Street Musician in Alley, Ann Arbor, 2008

Taken at The Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair (The Guild) on 19 July 2008.

We'll be heading to this year's art fairs on Saturday. Since I've taken photos of Ann Arbor with my Holga 120 film camera (photo above), DiMAGE X50 digital point-and-shoot, Nikon DSLR, and my iPhone, I figure it's time to bring my trusty (?) Lomo to the fairs.

Digital Memories

The last time I put photos into a physical photo album was June 2005, from my step-brother Philip's high school graduation.

I purchased my Nikon D50 DSLR in December 2005.

Coincidence? Definitely not.

I didn't completely stop using my film cameras once I bought my DSLR, of course. I still regularly used my Lomo LC-A — and, later, my Olympus XA and Holga and some vintage cameras. So, now I have two photo storage boxes full of photos from Jan 2005 (and two with photos from 1994 through 2004, in addition to multiple photo albums). Since I get my photos developed by online mail-order photofinishing, I get scans of my photos before the prints arrive in the mail, which is helpful for blogging and Flickring, even though they're not super-high-res.

Now that the majority of my photos are digitized (except the occasional roll from the Holga or another vintage camera), I sometimes forget that my switchover to digital wasn't so long ago. Our honeymoon photos aren't digital. Our photos of our apartment in Bowling Green aren't digital. I did take digital photos when we first moved into our house in Toledo, but with the point-and-shoot we had at the time. Plus, like I mentioned, I have scans saved of all my Lomo and other 35mm photos that I sent to Snapfish or other services.

But there are events I'm remembering that I don't have digitized, like previous years' fireworks photos (which sparked the thought in the first place). I'm definitely going to go through and start scanning and posting notable photos from years past — I'll have to go through my boxes and albums to see what rates being scanned and what can just stay analog.

Stay tuned to my Flickr photostream to see what gems I unearth...

Fireworks, 2009

Aaron and I enjoyed our evening of Myles Pizza and fireworks in Bowling Green this year. It had been a few years since we'd done the fireworks thing, and we enjoyed ourselves, even though the fireworks weren't especially spectacular.

This was the first year I shot digital for fireworks photos; I think they came out great, and photographing fireworks with instant feedback was a lot of fun! Check out other fireworks photos from years past, including 2005 (in Holland, Ohio), 2004 (in Bowling Green), and 2002 (at Hemlock Lake in Michigan).

Bonus shot from 2002: Diana incredibly fat and sunburnt. Yikes.

Quick Nap

Seen from the window of Okonomi Yukari, in Akiba Ichi.

Tokyo Tower Sunset

As seen from Room 950, Tokyo Prince Hotel, in that brief moment between sunset and the illumination of the Tower (6:15 PM).

In other news, all of my Japan 2009 photos are finally uploaded to my Flickr account, so feel free to peruse, if you haven't already.

Jizo and Pebbles

Seen in Nikko, west of the Annex Turtle Inn Hotori-An, where we had stayed the previous night.

From Wikipedia:

In Japan, Jizō, or Ojizō-sama as he is respectfully known, is one of the most loved of all Japanese divinities. His statues are a common sight, especially by roadsides and in graveyards. Traditionally, he is seen as the guardian of children, particularly children who died before their parents. Since the 1980s, the tendency developed in which he was worshipped as the guardian of the souls of mizuko, the souls of stillborn, miscarried or aborted fetuses. In Japanese mythology, it is said that the souls of children who die before their parents are unable to cross the mythical Sanzu River on their way to the afterlife because they have not had the chance to accumulate enough good deeds and because they have made the parents suffer. It is believed that Jizō saves these souls from having to pile stones eternally on the bank of the river as penance, by hiding them from demons in his robe, and letting them hear mantras.

Jizō statues are sometimes accompanied by a little pile of stones and pebbles, put there by people in the hope that it would shorten the time children have to suffer in the underworld (the act is derived from the tradition of building stupas as an act of merit-making). The statues can sometimes be seen wearing tiny children's clothing or bibs, or with toys, put there by grieving parents to help their lost ones and hoping that Jizō would specially protect them. Sometimes the offerings are put there by parents to thank Jizō for saving their children from a serious illness. Jizō's features are also commonly made more babylike in order to resemble the children he protects.

This Jizo must have been part Wicked Witch, or made of sugar, as it seems to have melted...

Blackbird Fly Test Roll

I purchased a new toy camera at Kiddyland in Harajuku while I was on vacation. I hadn't expected to find any such thing there; we had other cuteness on our agenda. But when I saw that camera on display, I couldn't say no.

I had planned to take a test roll in Tokyo and Nikko, but I forgot the Blackbird Fly in Aaron's backpack at the inn, and once I realized what I'd done, wasn't about to walk all the way back to the edge of town to get it. So I finished the roll at the Old West End Festival on Saturday, instead.

Overall impression: I like it. It makes distinctive photos, which is a big plus; also, it's just manual enough to keep me on my toes, while being forgiving enough that my slip-ups don't ruin everything.

More photographic geekery follows — and more pictures, too.

read more...

Tokyo Tower, Thursday Morning

As seen from the Tokyo Prince Hotel, room 950, on 18 May 2009 at 7:45am JST.

Why I Don't Do Event Photography

I had been planning to write an entry about the strong and weak points of my new "walkaround" lens, and why I'm contemplating buying a similar but more expensive version of the lens. After some reflection, though, I realized that I just need some more real-world experience, both with my Sigma 18-200mm and with my DSLR in general.

Don't get me wrong: I got some great shots in Japan. My new, wider lens allowed me to get everything I wanted in the frame without backing way up: meals, quick snapshots, and self-portraits all turned out a bit better for the wider angle. The zoom factor also helped on occasion, and allowed me to choose how to frame a shot, instead of just getting in as tight as I can and composing what I've got in frame.

The major downside, apart from some bigtime distortion at the 18mm end, was the speed of the lens -- that is to say, how well it performs in low light. It's not a particularly fast lens, meaning that it can't "suck light out of a black hole." This can be problematic, since I tend to do a lot of available-light photography.

My knee-jerk reaction? I need a better lens. One that's faster, or that has vibration reduction. The truth? I need to learn to use my camera to its fullest before I go maxxing out my consumer-grade equipment.

The whole time that I was mentally complaining about my slow lens, trying to use a slow-sync flash or brace the camera or whatever -- that whole time, my ISO was set to 200. I could have cranked it up to 1600, if the thought had ever occured to me. Better to have a sharp and grainy picture than a blurry and unusable picture, after all. But the thought literally never occured to me.

I guess I'm still living in a film world, to a degree. ISO? Set it and forget it. I should have set it to auto and let the camera decide, if I wasn't going to keep up with it myself.

I still got plenty of neat pictures, even so. (And, yes, I'll be posting them over the next while. Check my Flickr for the latest.) I just still have a lot to learn.

Playing Field, Tokyo

Seen from the Main Observation Deck of the Tokyo Tower, 13 May 2009 at 6:55pm.

Second-floor Light

Seen from the upstairs of PizzaPapalis in downtown Toledo.

N University and State St, Ann Arbor

Sanja Matsuri, Asakusa 2007

Seen in Asakusa during the Sanja Festival, 19 May 2007.

We never did find out what mythology was being played out here, and were slightly disappointed that the main characters never actually enacted the swordfight that kept being alluded to.

Party Like It's 1996

Heather, me, Liz, and Mary at Drew's party, March/April 1996. (Or thereabouts.)

From back in the days when friends were plentiful and my love with Aaron was new, shortly after Mary introduced the two of us. This party involved watching the Star Wars Christmas Special, drinking Everclear mixers, and playing Risk.

(Taken at the same party this photo was from.)

Exactly 13 years ago... Damn.

Candle Composition

Pictured: Cosmopolitan, Amaretto Sour, and Lavender. Wish I would have played with this composition a little more; I didn't try this particular angle until the very end of this evening's photo session.

The candles are, of course, made by Yours Truly and are for sale — $5 for the Cosmo, $4 for the Amaretto Sour, and a mere $1.50 for the cute 2oz Lavender. Other scents that would be smashing in a cocktail glass: Piña Colada, Fuzzy Navel, Green Apple (appletini, anyone?).

High-Level Bridge

As seen from the fitness path by the Owens Corning building.

This was originally going to be a test of posting a photo to my blog from Flickr via my iPhone... until I discovered that I can't blog photos via Flickr Mobile. D'oh!

I can, however, "moblog" by e-mailing a photo to my Flickr account. Flickr will then automatically post it to my blog at the same time, which is handy. I'll give that a try sometime soon.

I do wish that Flickr had more specific settings for category and excerpt and a few other minor tweaks. It's a pain to have to go in and assign a category after blogging a photo from Flickr (which is why I rarely do it that way).

Attentive Kitty

Mei always gets so excited when the windows are opened for the first time in Spring. It's like her Cat TV turns into Cat HDTV.

On My Candlemaking Hobby

One of the many things I record and track in my life is the income and expense from my hobby of making soy candles. Since September 2006, I've recouped in sales about half of what I've spent on candlemaking supplies.

This is not a lucrative hobby for me, mainly because I keep it as a hobby. I'm not willing to spend time and money to make this a viable second income. I don't need a second income right now.

I tried selling on Etsy, just for shits and giggles, and only had one customer. Granted, I only sold my standard wares, and didn't do anything fancy or eyecatching with the packaging, so my candles were basically lost in a sea of craftiness. It also didn't help that candles are heavy and relatively expensive to ship, compared with their per-unit cost.

Mainly, I have two repeat customers, both friends, both local. They've been responsible for the majority of my sales (15 out of 24 total sales, or $130 out of the $300 total I've made in the past 2½ years). I've had some sporadic decent-sized orders from other people — one gift basket, ordered by a former supervisor of mine; and one batch of stocking-stuffer candles with custom labels, ordered by a friend and former co-worker — but I subsist mainly on my two repeat customers and a few random co-workers who discover (or remember) that I make and sell candles.

I recently had the chance to kick things up a notch. A really BIG notch.

I got an e-mail last week from a potential candle buyer in New York state, who requested a quote on a custom batch of candles for a party she was throwing at her church. It was a 1950's-themed party, so she wanted root-beer-scented mini-mugs (which she must have found via Google, since they're no longer linked from my candle site) and parfait/sundae glasses in vanilla. There would be three to four candles per table, and 35 to 40 tables.

I about passed out when I did the math. That's roughly 140 candles. At $4 apiece (minus a bulk discount of 10%), that comes out to $500.

I seriously considered doing it. Then I kept doing the math.

Mine is a very low-volume operation. I don't even have a proper wax-melting vessel; I use a Pyrex measuring cup I got at Goodwill years ago. I can make about 18 ounces' worth of candle in one batch. That means I'd be making candles for literally two weeks straight. Every night. Unless I took a weekend to just make candles ALL DAY LONG.

And that's not even considering the initial monetary investment I'd have to make in bulk fragrance oils, dye, and soy wax.

I e-mailed the woman back and politely declined, telling her that I just am not equipped for such a large order. Granted, I probably could have done it. Would it have gotten me more return customers and expanded my business? I doubt it; not from New York.

I'm content to continue making custom hand-poured candles for my friends and acquaintances, and to keep my hobby as a hobby. Although I must admit that I wouldn't be upset to see myself break even one of these years.

Built By King Bridge Co.

Seen in downtown Toledo, 1 February 2008.

Stalking the Wild Totoro

[View larger on Flickr]

Too Many Hobbies

I'm fighting the urge to embark on too many projects at once. This is normal.

Would you believe that I still haven't finished scrapbooking our honeymoon? From 2003? Or that I have 8mm videocamera footage from back in April 2000 that I never managed to edit together into a final montage? IKEA kitchen accessories purchased a year and a half ago, and never installed? Photos and art moved from our apartment back in 2004 that I still haven't hung on the walls? Art that I've purchased, and photos that I've gotten enlarged, and haven't yet framed?

I'm trying to make a concerted effort to finish these orphaned projects before I start on anything new. I'm also coming to terms with the fact that some things, like my three unfinished novels, may never be done.

I'm on Day Two of a new initiative to prioritize and get things done, and it's going well. One chunk at a time, and nothing too overwhelming — that's how everything will get done.

Maybe, someday, my desk will even be clean and organized.

Pshaw.

Weekend Hangout

As seen on 26 April 2008.

Lensbaby 3G

The Lensbaby 3G that I purchased on eBay last week arrived yesterday — just in time for me to have only a few minutes to play with it before heading off to Zen. I spent all of today looking forward to having time with my Lensbaby this evening... then found myself fresh out of ideas for still life setups in my house after only an hour (which, honestly, didn't seem like that long).

Two more photos and some product commentary after the jump...

read more...

The Laughing Buddha

Fantasy

Seen in Barnes & Noble, at the Shops at Fallen Timbers in Maumee.

Someone was making an editorial comment about these elusive male multiple orgasms... Cute.

Published

Many thanks to the fine people at Tricycle Magazine for offering me my first real opportunity to be officially published. My photo, Zen Altar with New Bowl, was printed in conjunction with a brief article on Setting up your home altar in the Spring 2009 issue of Tricycle.

I'm published!

Review Addendum: Sigma 18-200mm Lens

My husband was surprised when I gave such an uncomplimentary review to the Sigma 18-200mm lens I recently purchased. True, I did originally drool over the idea of having a wide-angle and a telephoto in one lens. It's also true that the entirety of my "test" involved only low-light interiors: a sushi restaurant, a coffee shop, and our living room.

Before passing final judgment on this particular lens, I thought it only fair to research the other comparable lenses. By "comparable" I mean similar focal lengths and maximum apertures. I had thought to find a faster and more expensive lens but, as I discovered, even the most wide-open superzooms or walkabout lenses aren't suited for low light photography.

I do own a Sigma 50mm macro lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.8, so I thought it would be only fair to compare the new superzoom with the 50mm prime lens, just to make sure I would be able to get the shots I was after with a faster lens. Earlier this week, I took a few identical photos with each lens to see how they compared.

This image basically embodies what I found: the results from the 50mm prime lens were definitely more passable, due to the faster shutter speed, but were still nothing to write home about.

If I were to want to take ambient light photos in this kind of lighting situation, I would likely brace myself and/or my camera against something stable, rather than shooting handheld alone. I would also crank up the ISO as far as possible — something I failed to do in either test.

I'm planning to give the walkaround lens more of a walkaround, learn to use it properly, and develop a steadier hand. I really am looking forward to having such a wide range of composition options open to me... although this will force me to consider all of them, rather than just working within what my 28-70mm (and my feet) can give me.

Review: Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 AF DC II Lens

I've been wanting a longer lens for my Nikon D50 for some time. I've owned this camera for over three years now, and have been making do with my Sigma 28-70mm zoom for most of that time.

My previous "good" camera was the Minolta X370s 35mm SLR. Over the six or so years that it was my main camera, I acquired a 28mm wide-angle lens, 50mm standard lens, 80-200mm zoom, 2x teleconverter, and three macro filters. I've been jonesing to be able to get in close to the action like I once could.

So, I went online, seeking out the zoomiest zoom for the most reasonable price, and I found the Sigma 18-200mm. First, I found one with Optical Stabilization, but when I saw how much that added to the price, I opted against it and ordered one without.

It really is true, what they say: you get what you pay for.

read more...

Winter Walk Triptych

Self-portraits during my lunch walks in 2006 (Arrowhead Park in Maumee), 2008 and 2009 (both downtown Toledo).

I always seem to be scowling in my self-portraits, except when I'm being deliberately cheery (or cheesy). Makes me wonder if I always look like that, and if everyone around me always thinks I'm pissed off.

She's Ready For Her Closeup

Thanks to the dedicated flash that Aaron bought me for Christmas, I can now take photos of my kitty Mei without weird shadows and otherworldly glowing eyes. I also love the soft catch-light in Mei's eye, from the bounce-flash off the ceiling.

See Mei larger-than-life on Flickr.

How Far We've Come

Diana, Kris, Mark, and Aaron pose in the parking lot after the Dirtbombs show on 21 September 2002, at the Magic Stick in Detroit. We sat the camera — whose was it? — on the roof of the car, set the timer, and posed together behind the back bumper.

Diana and Aaron are both at maximum girth (and still engaged), Mark is younger and skinnier, and Kris... well, he's just Kris. At least some things never change.

(Incidentally? I officially started blogging the day after this photo was taken.)

Buddha

Sophie and my iPhone

On Christmas Day, Aaron's cousin Sophie was playing with my iPhone, checking out the photos I'd posted to Flickr from Thanksgiving.

Twitter Update (#1081854694)

read more...

Christmas Portrait 2008

Season's Greetings from the Schnuth Family - Aaron, Diana, and Mei.

Cozy Thanksgiving

Curled up on the couch after a pleasant Thanksgiving.

Quiet Night At Home, December 2007

This is how I still see myself in my mind's eye, even though this is how I really look now: 20 pounds lighter and with 13+ inches less hair.

MC Frontalot @ Howard's

Aaron and I went to see MC Frontalot and his nerdcore friends at Howard's in BG on 6 November 2008. Right up front. Awesome show.

I also took some video from our front-row vantage point, and Aaron posted a review of the show on his blog at schnuth.com.

Lomo LC-A: How Do I Love Thee?

I realized before I went out to the Fulton County Fair out in Wauseon that I hadn't used my Lomo LC-A in a good three years, since the Bob Mould show in Detroit back in October '05. So, I loaded up with two cameras for the fair: the digital point-and-shoot, for pics to post online ASAP; and the Lomo, for artsy, low-light pics of carnival rides.

I took a whole roll of hopefully-artsy photos of people and rides and buildings, trying to recapture the look and feel of my old Wood County Fair pics from back in 2002. Burned through the whole roll, sent it off to Snapfish, and awaited my scans and photos.

Alas, it appears I should have tested the camera first. The shutter isn't firing. I got back not a roll of artsy photos, but a replacement roll of film.

So, after the disappointing performance of the XA at the Matthew Sweet show, I decided to look into fixing my Lomo. See, the Lomo is fully automatic, while the XA is aperture-priority, so the Lomo actually might have performed better in those conditions. Anyway, I Googled "lomo shutter repair," and found a site I'd actually used the last time I had to repair the Lomo (again, three years ago), which reminded me that maybe I just need to get some new batteries. *facepalm*

But. If it's not just the batteries...

Maybe I should look for a new Lomo.

Checked on lomography.com: $250. Heck, no. Checked on eBay: $150-ish. Not entirely OK with spending that much, either. I mean, it does make unique pictures, but I only use it a few times a year, if that.

I'm hoping that it's the batteries.

Matthew Sweet at the Beachland Ballroom

Unfortunately, the usually-trusty Olympus XA didn't handle the lighting very well, so this is the best photo I got from the show on 25 October 2008.

What I Do For Fun And Profit

This candle will soon be going up on my Etsy store, assuming I don't sell it to someone at work first.

I'm planning to do a bit of a holiday sales push on the candles, reminding all my friends and former co-workers that my candles are perfect Christmahanukwanzakah gifts. I can't really do discounts, since the whole point is to actually break even on this hobby of mine... but I have been known to cut deals on gift basket sets.

I've gotten some sample scents from my newest supplier, and have been highly disappointed to find that their Cranberry scent smells like port-o-john, and their regular Basil scent smells like Seabreeze astringent. From what I can tell so far, though, their Eggnog and Christmas Pine and Candy Corn and Caramel Apple and Fresh Basil are double-plus awesome. We'll see for sure when I make test candles out of them.

Think of me when you get your Secret Santa going on at the office, and suddenly need a selection of anyone-will-like-this gifts! (The four-ounce candle in the picture is $4 plus shipping, if you're interested..)

I Used To Be Able To Draw

I think I want to pick up drawing again, just so I can make ad-hoc webcomics of funny things that happen to me, or things that Aaron says. I mean, some things are just funnier visually.

Case in point — and I probably shouldn't even blog this until I have a three-panel comic to go with it, but I will anyway: Aaron and I were standing on the floor before the Matthew Sweet show at the Beachland Ballroom, chatting and being bored until the opener came on. So, I pulled out my cell phone and updated the world about how we'd just eaten Vietnamese with Aaron's cousin, and were now waiting for the show to start.

"You know," I told Aaron, "since I haven't been able to tweet from work, my blog has really gone down the shitter." It's true: when I would tweet six times a day from work, I'd feel obligated to put some "real" content on my blog on a daily basis. Lately, though, I haven't, and content has gone, as I said, down the shitter.

Aaron looked at me and said, "The Twitter Shitter?"

Immediately, in my mind, I had the flash of a three panel comic detailing our exchange, ending up with a great font-perfect parody of a Twitter Shitter, with appropriate and obvious signage.

This isn't the only time I've thought that, man, I should really draw this and put it online in a comic/flash animation. If only I could *really* draw.

It's been so long, though...

My Queue

My plan had been to get a move-on with migrating my blog to my other server tonight. I'm planning an entire redesign, and am finally ready to sit down and do it.

My hosting provider had other plans.

Turns out that, somehow, I didn't get the Past Due Notice that I'm *sure* they must have sent before charging me a late fee. So, when I tried every possible password combination to log into my Cpanel and nothing worked, I decided to log into the Members section of their site, where I discovered that my account had been suspended. I promptly PayPal-ed them my annual $85 for 5GB of webspace (plus a $9 late fee), then contacted Billing (via a support ticket, since they had no e-mail or other contact form on their site) to confirm that my payment had been received and that my account would be un-suspended.

To their credit, they responded within an hour and reactivated my account — while I was writing this blog entry, in fact. I was seriously considering whether I wanted to continue my business relationship with a company that doesn't seem to notify its customers before suspending their accounts... but this is the first real issue I've had with them (besides their initial data entry error in calling me "Dina"), so I'm willing to stick with them for another year. After all, dianaschnuth.com has been hosted there for the past three years with no major snafus.

I hadn't been planning to go off on my web hosting provider, though. I'd been planning to detail my project plan for the next couple of months.

November, as usual, is National Novel Writing Month. I've never "won," meaning I've never successfully completed a 50,000-word novel in the month of November. I've never finished a 50,000-word novel at all. I have three unfinished novels, though: the first, started in 1999 (I think) and clocking in at 19,400 words, I haven't touched since 2004, according to Windows. The second was my first real attempt at NaNoWriMo, back in 2005 — between my NaNo wordcount and subsequent additions, it's up to 16,000 words, and hasn't been touched (besides the story bible) since late 2006. The third was last year's half-hearted attempt at NaNo, which only made it to 10,000 words, despite being a plot idea I'm particularly fond of.

I'm going to pick one of these to write on this November. Since I haven't successfully completed NaNoWriMo with 50,000 words in 30 days, I'm not going to be invoking the Zokutou Clause by finishing a previous work and still claiming to be officially participating. See, the rules clearly state that all actual writing must be done within the month of November (of the current year) in order to qualify. So, technically, I'm not planning to do NaNo this year. I am, however, planning to devote much of my November to writing.

Which means I need to get my blog redesigned (or well on its way) in the next 2½ weeks. And then decide which story I want to finish this November.

Oh, yeah, and after that? I should really update my portfolio and resume.

One Thing I Saw This Weekend

Seen in the dealer room at the Providence Anime Conference, 5 October 2008.

More photos (and con report) to come...

Fear of Rejection

Out of my previous list of candle inventory for sale, I managed to sell three: two Kahlua and one Hazelnut Coffee. The rest are in the process of being posted to my new Etsy store:

There are a LOT of soy candles for sale on Etsy, though, and mine don't really stand out for any particular reason. I guess I just wonder how long it's going to take before I actually sell anything.

I know that nothing has really changed about my little operation: I still melt 18oz of wax at a time in my thrifted Pyrex measuring container. I still measure my annual sales in single-digit quantities. But now that I've put items for sale on a much more public scale... I don't know.

I'm really just dabbling in a hobby, and making money to offset what I spend on said hobby. I have no right to feel like I'm a "candlemaker" or a "craftsperson," really. If my candle sales took off, it's not like I'd actually ramp up the operation or anything. So that means I shouldn't feel bad if my three little votives don't sell, right?

Right?

Twitter Update (#928946003)

read more...

Downtown BG

Seen during the Black Swamp Arts Festival, 6 September 2008.

Twitter Update (#915133244)

read more...

Twitter Update (#915105474)

read more...

Candle Sale!

It's time for the First Annual Soy Candle Blowout! (No pun originally intended... but that does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it?)

See, I figure I can justify my candlemaking hobby if I actually recoup some of the money I spend on supplies. My losses have been steadily declining over the years, until 2008 is finally looking like the year I might actually turn a profit on this hobby. Granted, I've spent only a fraction of what I spent on supplies in previous years, but still. It's all about learning how to maximize profit while still having a good time and making smelly-good candles for me and mine. Right?

I've had this idea in years past that I should really make a big push for Christmas sales, since that's when I usually sell (and gift) the most candles. Last year, 72% of my annual sales were made in December alone; the year before, 65% were from November and December combined. So, I figure that if I can increase my visibility in the months leading up to the holiday season, all the better.

I've considered putting up an Etsy store to try to sell my candles, but I have the feeling I'd probably only sell to my friends and family (and co-workers), anyway. So, best to skip the middleman and just try selling direct from my blog!

For sale to the first people to e-mail me (since comments have been wonky lately), I have up for sale the following 3oz votives from my current inventory:

• Kahlua (three two one available)
• Cool Citrus Basil
• Creamy Coconut
• Hazelnut Coffee [SOLD]
• Vanilla Mint
• Lilac (available via Etsy)

The price is $4 per candle. If you need your candles shipped, we can discuss shipping charges via USPS. Along with your purchase, you also will receive a FREE tealight sample of another fragrance (of my choosing). These samples come two to a box and are perfect for deciding whether you like a scent well enough to buy a votive or mason jar candle. (Not so good for smelling up a whole room, though.) Also excellent stocking stuffers. These tealight samples usually sell for 50¢ for a box of two.

My normal M.O. is to take custom orders: say, two eggnog candles in quilted mugs, or a 10oz cranberry candle. I prefer not to have too much inventory laying around for too long; since I don't have very many customers, I'd rather not make candles in advance and just hope they'll sell. But, while I'm making these custom orders, I like to make additional small votives and tealights, either for myself (why do you think I got into this hobby?) or as gifts, or to sell like this. It's helpful to have SOME inventory when a former boss e-mails me and says, "I need a holiday gift basket for the Secret Santa exchange — what can you do for me?" Since I'm such a small operation, I don't exactly have the equipment to make multiple batches of candles, so a gift basket could take me a week to create, you know? Nice to be able to pull out a Cranberry and a Pumpkin Pie and some boxes of tealights and only have to make one or two "big" custom candles.

Point being, if you ever decide you want a soy candle, and you have a particular scent in mind (even a Bath & Body Works or Yankee Candle scent), just ask. Chances are, I'll be able to oblige.

OK, enough rambling about candle crap that you probably don't care about. Who wants some?

Twitter Update (#910987593)

read more...

Prayer... Warriros?

Thus saith the Lord: When thou makest thy signs in the manner of Microsoft Word, surely shalt thou heed the line of red, which marketh thy misspellings.

Seen at the Fulton County Fair, 31 August 2008.

Grandpa Pants

This is especially funny because my Grandpa Cook seriously does wear pants like this.

Found the Typo... Again.

Something tells me that the "S" in OSHA doesn't stand for "spelling."

Rainy Church Rainbow

Seen on Nebraska Ave, en route to downtown Toledo for a Mud Hens game this past Saturday.

Zen Altar with New Bowl

I purchased this bowl on Etsy.com from Bridgeman Studios. Beautiful workmanship, simple design — exactly what I was looking for.

The flowers in the background are clay flowers purchased at the Ann Arbor Art Fairs... but they deserve their own close-up later.

Graffiti Conversation

Seen on William Street during the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, 19 July 2008.

Etsy (or, Who Knew I'd Buy Homemade Crafts?)

I first learned about Etsy from Dooce.com. Heather buys lots of interesting and kitschy prints and bags and whatnot, and posts about them on her site. Honestly, a lot of the things she posts about are a little too cute for me, so I didn't really go check out Etsy just on her recommendation.

Later on, Aaron pointed out some video game related items that were posted on Etsy: earrings, specifically, I believe. It was at that point that I realized that there are all kinds of crafty people that make all kinds of crafty things, and I started looking for things that would suit my own style.

While I've found some interesting items that I haven't actually bought, I have purchased an etched Buddha pendant, and I have some more purchases on the way this week, including a hand-thrown bowl (for burning incense on my Zen altar) and a cup/mug, and a triptych of Zen-inspired gicleé prints.

Maybe I'll pull a Dooce and photograph my finds and post accolades as appropriate. We'll see...

P.S. - I can't deny the fact that I've considered making things to sell on Etsy myself — specifically, my soy candles, and maybe prints of my photographs. Honestly, though, I'm not sure they'd sell very well. I'd have to come up with some sort of gimmick to make them more saleable — holiday gift sets, or unique packaging, or something like that. I haven't ruled it out, but I have plenty of other projects to keep me busy right now.

P.P.S. - Along those lines... If I were to start offering a weekly candle sale on my blog, to liquidate my current inventory (and actually make some off-peak income to keep funding my hobby), would I have any takers? Or would it really depend on the price? Leave feedback in the comments...

Eagle-Eye or Anal-Retentive?

I see these all the damn time online. I suppose I shouldn't be so continually surprised that professional organizations are apparently bereft of their copy editors in the rush to get news posted online. But typos in ads? This banner ad ran on CNN.com for several weeks before a corrected one appeared.

I'm such a stickler for typos anymore. I guess I always was, but I'm finding them even more lately. I just finished reading a trade paperback — a Sci-Fi Book Club printing, I believe, of The Dragonriders of Pern — that was embarrassingly rife with typographical errors. They're like speed bumps; they take me right out of the story. I can't fathom how a three-in-one book like that got published with so many typos. Don't these companies have editors? Even for a reprint, mistakes happen, and I'd think there would be someone to catch them.

Simple errors like that can make or break a professional relationship, especially one so dependent upon the written word. Would you trust a newspaper that misspelled the word "missile"?

My Obsession With Photos

This weekend, Aaron and I spent an afternoon with his Dad and brother. We went out to lunch, then spent a few hours just talking at their Dad's house.

Of course, me being such a sucker for photos, and being curious about Aaron's family, I started off the requisite photo album viewing by declaring, "I want to see pictures of Fat Grammie!" (Referring, of course, to the brief period of time in the early 1970s when Aaron's grandmother was quite overweight. She went on Weight Watchers and lost it all, and kept it off over the years.)

We ended up looking though nearly a dozen photo albums from the late '60s and the '70s, and I got to see not only Fat Grammie, but Poppa with a beard, and Baby Aaron at two weeks — and Aaron's mother, who passed away just about five years before I met him. I kept being amazed by the people and places I was seeing in these photos — "Wow, you really do look like your mother," and, "Is that the same rocking chair that's still at Grammie and Poppa's house?" and just looking over toward the kitchen to be sure that the linoleum in that photo from 1978 is really the same linoleum that's still there today.

It wasn't until then that I realized why I have such an obsession with photos, and candid, unposed shots in particular.

They're a time capsule.

read more...

Litres

Working gas pump, currently dispensing diesel, seen in rural Ontario in June 2008.

Hawaii Report #2

Friday was our day to go to the Polynesian Cultural Center. When we'd bought our airfare and hotel package, the PCC was listed as one of the possible touristy things we could tack on for an additional price. Since we tend to gravitate toward cultural sorts of things anyway (like Behalt in Amish Country, for instance), we decided to go for it. It wasn't until after everything was bought and paid for that we read online that the PCC is owned and operated by the LDS church, and that the center is more of a theme park than an actual cultural experience.

Even without booze at the luau, though, we still had a great time:

read more...

Flickr'd!

The photos we took in Hawaii are now posted in a set on Flickr. If you go through the slideshow, it'll take you about 25 minutes, assuming you don't pause the slideshow and don't skip through.

Next on the agenda: scanning the two photos we bought — one before the Orientation Breakfast (OMG cheesy!) and one before Germaine's Luau (not really cheesy at all). Also, I plan to post some short videos ("moving pictures") to Flickr, as I think some video we took will adhere nicely to that concept. I'm also going to edit together the 100 minutes of video we took into something a little more watchable.

For those of you who have asked if we're planning a party to show off our pictures, here's your Save The Date notice: June 21st, the first day of summer. Start scouring the local Goodwill for your aloha attire!

Happy Birthday To Me

My husband sent birthday flowers to me at work! Aww!

Blast From The Past

This used to be one of our favorite antique / retro stores to frequent, before it went out of business. Now, about eight or nine years later, it is merely an amusing play on words.

Sapping My Will To Blog

I think that being able to Twitter quick updates all day long is diverting my blog creativity. Well, maybe not my creativity so much as my desire. I mean, I still have plenty of topics to blog about. I have a list. But twittering quickies about how I feel or what I think about during the day is seeming to take the place of blogging. Which isn't what I'd intended at all.

So, for those who subscribe to the RSS and don't read my sidebar (wherein lies my twitter feed), here's what I twittered today (in reverse order, of course):

• 19 days until Hawaii. 26 minutes ago
• Longest Friday EVAR. Because I had nothing to do and had to look busy at my desk. And it was beautiful outside. Now I am home. about 3 hours ago
• last.fm appears to be mainly unb0rked now. we'll see when i go to scrobble today's listenings... about 6 hours ago
• iPod just shuffled from the Beasties to Bonnie Tyler (Total Eclipse of the Heart). WTF? about 6 hours ago
• o noes! @wilw sez that last.fm asploded. well, their datacenter lost power, anyway. ungood - i'm addicted to tracking my listening habits. about 8 hours ago
• New live-action Speed Racer by the Wachowski bros looks sweet: http://tinyurl.com/6absre about 9 hours ago
• Still can't concentrate on work. Doesn't help that I'm waiting on someone else before I can actually do what I need to do. about 10 hours ago
• Can't concentrate on work. Want to be outside! Argh! about 12 hours ago
• Just found out how to set Windows Movie Maker to widescreen mode. AFTER I already captured and uploaded the video wrong. Fix it after work. about 12 hours ago

See the fun crap I post all day? My tweets seem to be par for the course: mainly self-centered updates about the status of me, occasional interesting linkage, and random observations about life in general. Kind of like my blog, but shorter.

My 8th-grade English teacher, Mr. Jay Falls, signed my yearbook (or was it a comment on an essay of mine?) that, like a world-class athlete, a writer like me should practice every day. So, in honor of Mr. Falls and his wisdom, I'm going to make a concerted effort to write a blog entry every day, from now until I go to Hawaii (on May 7).

That doesn't mean I'm going to stop twittering, though...

Edited to Add: Just for kicks, I Googled Mr. Falls to see if I could find out what he's doing now. I think I found him... so I wrote him a "thanks for being a good teacher" e-mail. Am I a goober? I think I might be...

Building Dreams at BGSU

I found this juxtaposition amusing. What kind of dreams are they building?

Butt In Chair

I like to write, but I am not a writer.

I have several unfinished stories of various scopes and degrees of completion sitting in the Writing folder on my computer — a dozen short stories, two potential novella-length works (19,500 words and 10,100 words so far, respectively), and one completed piece of short fiction that I wrote seven years ago, trite and utterly predictable though it may be. (I believe it was Ray Bradbury who said that a writer's first million words are just for practice.)

I'd like to try my hand at short fiction, especially since I don't seem to have the mental stamina to stick with a novel-length work long enough to finish it. (I'd love to know how both of my books end! I'd love nothing more than to pick one of them up at a Barnes & Noble and thumb through it in one of the comfy chairs in a corner, learning about my characters and their worlds... but that's not how it works.) Short fiction, though... that takes a certain amount of wit. Savvy. Planning. All of which will take some time to develop.

Unfortunately, the base issue I have with my writing is the same base issue I have with my Zen practice. Call it Butt In Chair, call it Tush To The Cushion, or (in photography parlance) call it f/8 And Be There. It all boils down to just doing something. Do something, and keep doing it until you get better at it.

Until I get better at it.

Photo: Walker Texas Retard

Seen on the BGSU campus, 29 March 2008.

Business Trip #2, Wrap-up

The short version: Hotel was what I expected. Training was what I expected, and exactly what I needed. Time spent with co-worker was what I expected, yet not quite, in many ways. Chicago was as cool as I expected, and I expect to go back someday soon.

The detailed version follows....

read more...

New Toy

Since I've had a little extra money to throw around, I've been treating myself here and there to things I've been wanting, but haven't really been able to justify. This time, it was a macro lens for my Nikon D50.

I'd noticed recently that the lens I usually use didn't work so well with close-up photography. This is unfortunate, as I really enjoy finding small and/or unusual things and photographing them as best I can. Granted, I do think my "old" lens is in need of cleaning (OK, I know it is), which would explain the weird glow in the comparison photos I took tonight:

I can get in so much closer now, and the images seem to be crisper and have more contrast. I can also narrow the depth of field waaaaay down, throwing everything but my subject out of focus. (Which, for those of you who have seen a decent amount of my photography, is my usual MO.)

So, now I can give you the marimokkori photo I really wanted you to see:

Note the pronounced, um, mokkori. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

OH MY GOD.

View From the 12th Floor

Per my mother's request: a view from 12 South Conference Room.

Haiku: Winter Commute

giant fluffy flakes
(this is the way it should be)
drifting down to earth

Toledo: City of the Future

Found at Promenade Park on the Maumee River in downtown Toledo.

City of the future... now there's a scary thought. o.O

Christmas Portrait 2007

It's going to be a long time before I take a Christmas family portrait that I don't have any qualms with. I must say, though, that this year's portrait session went more smoothly than any so far.

If you'd like to know more, read on. Otherwise, accept our best wishes for a happy Yuletide.

(By the way, I've posted all six Schnuth family Christmas portraits, 2002 to 2007, in a set on Flickr.)

read more...

Maumee River, Toledo

Taken during my first week working downtown, over a lunch break. I hadn't realized how beautiful downtown Toledo could truly be, if you just look in the right places.

Writin' My Novel With A Stick In The Sand

The astute observer will have noted that my NaNoWriMo word count has not moved since the end of the first week of November. This is not for lack of updating — this is for lack of writing.

I had a strong start. I cycled between four subsets of characters, and wrote one chapter for each. I'll share their synopses, even though you may not care:

Character Set #1 is a married couple who has recently suffered a miscarriage (art imitating life? what?), which is nearly unheard of in this future society of DNA analysis and "selective progenesis". They go to therapy, as prescribed by their doctor, but it is unhelpful. The wife ends up submitting her late embryo's perfectly healthy DNA to an online service which is able to provide her with digital images of what her child might have looked like at various ages. She becomes obsessive and delusional, despite the therapy.

Character Set #2 is a teenaged couple; he was raised at home, she in a centralized government children's home — an orphanage of sorts, although her parents may very well be alive, but allowed her to come to term without having successfully applied to have a child. This couple ends up experimenting with multiple simultaneous partners and drugs — basically, the girl invites the boy and his friends to an orgy at the children's home.

Character Set #3 is another married couple, but this couple has had their child application denied. The buggy DNA belongs to the husband, who is summarily sterilized so as to prevent his mutation from spreading into the gene pool. His wife is unable to face the prospect of a childless future, and serves him divorce papers.

Character Set #4 brings back a familiar face: the doctor from Sets #1 and #3. This doctor has been practicing since before "selective progenesis" became government policy, and hates having to have people sterilized and having to terminate pregnancies for a few shady genes (or SNPs, if you prefer — Amy, I'm looking at you). He joins an underground society whose focus is saving fetuses which would otherwise be "reclaimed," or terminated and collected for research purposes.

There was almost a Set #5, involving a law enforcement official who specialized in finding people who attempted to subvert the progenesis laws. After writing about a paragraph, I realized that I didn't know enough about the process of detective work or about the inner workings of law enforcement officials and their driving sense of justice. ("Think Javert," I have in my notes on this character.)

When I started the cycle anew, I got to a roadblock. I didn't know what happened next with Set #1. So, I skipped them and moved to Set #2, whom I liked better, anyway. Then I realized that my NaNo could so easily turn into a smut book, even though I did have a focus for their story (guess who gets knocked up and ends up connecting with the rebellious doctor to save her baby?).

Then I just got distracted, and, well, there went the NaNo. Now I have decent starts to three, count 'em, three stories. And that doesn't count the dozens of shitty false starts I have, too.

I'm not overly disappointed. A little, sure, but think about it. This ended up NOT being the month I could or should have concentrated all my effort on writing. New job, mainly, plus stuff with the sangha and trying to wrap up some of my other long-term projects (which I haven't officially wrapped up yet, and I'm feeling kind of guilty about... but more on that later, probably).

I'll get back to it eventually. I'll try to plow through it, too, NaNo-style, and not think too hard about the details. That's what editing is for.

The Happy Couple

October 27, 2007
Brio at Polaris, Columbus OH

L'Chaim!

NaNoWriMo 2007

So, who's in?

I have Amy, Beth, and Aaron on my Writing Buddies list at NaNoWriMo.org. Anyone else I should add? Post your NaNo username in the comments, and I'll add you as a Writing Buddy.

Last year, in 2006, I didn't officially do NaNo; instead, I tried adding to my incomplete NaNo from 2005. I didn't get terribly far with that. In 2005, I actually started a new story for NaNo, but petered out halfway through November. In 2004, I wrote on a previous story, but didn't officially do NaNo. This will be my first year actually successfully "winning" NaNoWriMo.

(Like my positive attitude? Me, too.)

I have 1800 words written for my first day. I've figured that if I can write six pages a day, with how I have Word set up, I should get between 1700 and 2000 words per day, which should get me to the finish line in plenty of time. It also makes it easier for me to break things into 2000-word chapters, so I can finish one complete thought in one sitting. That's going to make the month a lot easier to swallow, I think. My plan is to write several different characters' stories, and tie them up at the end into one big overarching story of how things work in one particular aspect of my future society.

So, again I put out the call: who's in?

Volunteering Again

I had a slightly spontaneous (but not entirely unexpected) meeting with Sensei this afternoon. He called around noonish asking for some help with the podcast he wanted to start — mainly, where to start. So, we met at the dojo (a five-minute drive for me), drove over to Starbucks (another five-minute drive or so), and talked about podcasting over coffee. (By the way? If you're into corporate coffee, the Pumpkin Spice Latte is delish.)

After an hour of discussion, mainly about what podcasts are and how to create them and what we want to do with ours, I went home with his new H2 recorder, a CD of original music, a password or two, and some other vital info.

This is the result.

I spent two hours on the editing and tweaking of the files (which will get progressively easier as I (we) learn the appropriate level settings for the recorder), and I spent considerably longer than that setting up the domain name and the libsyn account.

Now, I know I don't need anything else on my plate right now, especially since I'm a.) job-hunting and b.) revamping the drum corps website. Oh, yeah, and c.) planning to do NaNoWriMo in a week. But, really, I could streamline this to a one-hour operation after zen on Wednesday nights. Aaron suggested I barter for a discount on my aikido, but Sensei suggested that this could be what I contribute to the sangha (zen community). I don't want to get sucked into more than I should, but I know that my talents are best used, rather than left to languish. Plus, like I said before, I like to feel... not so much important, but needed, I guess.

We'll see how this pans out. I want to be helpful, but I know that sometimes that translates to being used, depending on who I'm "helping." I may have to cut some other projects free soon to make room for this one.

Candle Redux

Just got done making a batch of Kahlua candles. Now the kitchen smells like coffee with a hint of chocolate. Mmm.

I really hate having multiple time-sensitive project ideas in my head, especially when I'm so under-motivated to actually *do* any of them. But... I'd really like to make a minor push for candle sales this holiday season. I have e-mail addresses for all of my former co-workers, and I know they like my candles, and I'd like to offer them some sort of deal — maybe a choice between free shipping and a tealight sampler pack or something.

Thing is, my candle website is horribly out of date, and needs a facelift and a new backend — um, that came out wrong. I mean, I need to redesign the site as well as make it database-driven instead of manually-updated. I need to photograph all the containers I have available, plus include other containers I can order online at a moment's notice (these hex votives have been favorites of mine, for example).

That's going to take some time, and I already have more vital things to tackle. Finding a job, retooling the LSM website (per the Board of Directors and Executive Director's instructions), and NaNoWriMo, which isn't so much an imperative as it is a personal goal/desire.

So, if I ultimately decide to do a sales push, and I don't make time to get the website redone soon, it'll have to be with some sort of catalog-style one-time thing. And I'll have to hope that my former co-workers don't get pissed at me for spamming them.

The Flaming Lips at the Agora Theatre

The Flaming Lips at the Agora Theatre, originally uploaded by dianaschnuth.

The Flaming Lips in Concert

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].

This was quite possibly the most fun I've ever had at a concert.

Not only are the Lips an incredible band from a musical and lyrical standpoint, but they put on a great show. The audience participation bits actually don't seem cheesy or silly. —Well, I guess they do seem a little silly, but no one really seems to mind. Who cares, when you're beaming a laser pointer (provided by the Lips) off of a giant mirror, or participating in a "scream-along," or bouncing a giant balloon through the crowd up to the very top of the upper balcony?

You MUST check out the rest of my Flaming Lips photos. They tell some of the story. As for the rest of the story... you really just had to be there.

Best concert EVAR.

ETA: Here's the first couple minutes of the show, recorded by Yours Truly:

A Quickie

I pulled my groin in aikido on Saturday, while trying to roll. I'm getting annoyed with myself for not "getting" it yet. At least my leg seems to be on the fast track, and feels like it should be healed by Wednesday's class. It really put a damper on the weekend's other extra-curriculars, though.

This week, Monday through Thursday afternoons, I'm attending an outplacement workshop paid for by Sky/Huntington. I was dubious about its actual value, but it actually seems like it's going to be helpful. Among some of the highlights will be resume-crafting, networking and job-searching, and negotiating a job offer. I'm actually looking forward to some of this... plus, it gets me out of the office for half a day.

Rob has requested another manly candle, to be picked up this week. In looking at my records, I realize I haven't made any candles since February (which was the last time Rob requested a manly candle). Candle-making is definitely a seasonal thing for me, being that I don't like to have the oven on in the summer, and my timing mojo gets thrown off if I melt candle wax in the microwave instead. Maybe I'll have to ramp up the seasonal candle-making a little earlier this year, and be sure to give everyone at work a going-away candle with my name and URL on it. :-)

Update, 11:45pm: Rob's candle came out well. I used a blow dryer to even out the surface — I should have tried that long ago.

In other news, bumping up the difficulty in Civilization IV really makes a difference: from me beating all the computer players in Chieftain mode to me getting my ass kicked and barely making it to the end of the game with one city intact in Warlord mode. If it weren't almost midnight (and if I weren't gainfully employed and due at work at 8am), I'd start another game.

Samurai Statue, Imperial Palace

I'm overdue for another Japan Trip installment, I know...

In lieu of that, for now, I present this photo of the statue of Kusunoki Masashige, just outside the Imperial Palace grounds in Tokyo.

Writer at Heart

Despite my assertion that I would get to bed early after a day of being exhausted for no good reason (except lack of sleep, I suppose), I'm still at my computer, twiddling with my "story." Well, my most recent long and unfinished story, anyway. The one I worked on for NaNoWriMo 2005, I believe it was.

I've been listening to my backlogged episodes of I Should Be Writing, and have (unfortunately) started getting the writing bug again. I say this is unfortunate because I have a list of other creative and quasi-creative projects that are much higher on the priority list than fiction-writing. So, in lieu of getting wrapped up in my world of love-struck vampires (I really should read up and see how effing cheesy my premise is, compared to other valid plots within the genre), I went technical and decided to reformat the 16,000 words I have into standard manuscript format.

The last time I had touched my story was November 2, 2006 at 10:46pm. I'm sure I'd edited the wiki since then — jeez, maybe not. Only a few days later. Guess I really haven't worked on this in quite a while. At any rate, going through and adding a pound sign in all the scene breaks allowed me to skim through the story and see things that jumped out either as ridiculous or as needing more detail.

My start of a manuscript was 35 pages before reformatting. Now, double-spaced in Courier font with one-inch margins, it's 75 pages. I'm so used to seeing computer-generated type that looking at a layout that simulates the typewritten page seems odd and blocky.

Once I finish my laundry list of job-hunting-related and other website responsibilities, I have a good part of my story in my head, ready to go. I just need to type it out. And make it sound right. (Aye, there's the rub.) I have my offline wiki "story bible" underway (thankfully — there's a lot I can forget in a year), and I really, REALLY want to finish this story.

Remember, this is my second attempt at a potential novel or novella. My first "real" attempt at novel-length fiction is a good premise, but I'm afraid it's going to need a complete rewrite, and I'm not even halfway through it yet, and I haven't touched it in... *checks file* ...wow. Almost three years. Main setting/plot points to that one: Matrix-esque Arthur-C-Clarkian headgear for direct information transfer, mobsters infiltrating the police, virtual crime and violence, a subplot of racism vs. cultural pride, and the requisite love interest. The trouble with that one is the setting, really. And all the crazy subplots. I want it to be something I would enjoy reading, but I don't know how it all fits together yet. I want to jump into the future and read it and be entranced by the story, instead of having to figure out the story myself. You know?

One other thing I wanted to write here before I go crash out without making my lunch: I was listening to the Motivation to Move podcast the other day, and Scott Smith rattled off a quick but fascinating list of questions to ask yourself about a situation or decision you may be having trouble resolving. I thought these questions would also be great writing questions to determine character motivations and plot possibilities:

1. What would happen if I did?
2. What would happen if I didn't?
3. What wouldn't happen if I did?
4. What wouldn't happen if I didn't?

Seems bizarre and circular to just look at the questions, but think about what they really mean. You could use these for plot points, for character decisions, for all kinds of writing-related issues. Just wanted to throw those out there, so I'd remember them later.

And with that, my readers, I am going to sleep.

P.S. - Is it bad form to ask your First Reader to read your work-in-progress? I feel like I want feedback on where the story is going before it gets there, so I can rein it back and take it elsewhere if it's getting dumb and cliché.

Laughter

Somehow, I really like this picture. I think the blur adds to the photo, rather than detracting from it.

Productive

Finished the initial roll of film in the Brownie Starmite. Today was appropriately sunshiny, so I took identical photos to yesterday's overcast ones, plus some others to pad out the roll. Wrote a check to Dwayne's Photo for $14, packed up the film, and will be shipping it off tomorrow morning. I expect to have twelve 4" x 4" prints in my hot little hands by May 1st.

Put away the mess of clothes on the floor by the bed. Went into the small bedroom and arranged all of our board games on a small plastic shelving unit in the closet. (Damn, we have a lot of board games. Trivial Pursuit especially.) Moved my empty steamer trunk from the small bedroom to beside my nightstand. Sometime in the near future, I'll be going through the linen closet and moving blankets into the trunk to make room for the new sheets I intend to purchase.

Submitted the new freelance site to Google for spidering and indexing. I'm planning to use a Google search for the site search, so a good spidering by Google would be a definite plus. Still have a lot to do... I'm not going to end up getting everything done this week that I told them I would. I knew I was giving myself a mighty tall order, what with the laundry list of stuff I had yet to do. Not to worry. It'll get done well before the Japan trip. Hopefully by the end of April, if not sooner.

Paid my credit card bills. A simple task, but still one that makes me feel... satisfied? Relieved? Accomplished? Meh. It's done, anyway.

Paying bills is going to get more interesting in July, when Sky changes over to Huntington's payroll system. Bi-weekly instead of semi-monthly. This will take some getting used to, after being paid on the 15th and the last day of the month for the past 4½ years.

Kodak Brownie Starmite

A couple of days ago, my cubemate James told me that he and his wife had found a couple of old cameras while they were cleaning their house. Since he knew I collect old cameras, he saved them both from the landfill and brought them in to work yesterday for me to check out. One was a simple late-70s / early-80s Instamatic 110 camera, which I dismissed as passé.

The second camera, though, piqued my interest.

It was a Kodak Brownie Starmite camera from the early 1960s (an "instamatic" of sorts itself, as it has no adjustable settings). I gladly took it off of James's hands, and offered him five bucks for it, which he refused. I just so happened to have a roll of 127 film leftover in the freezer from testing the Brownie Bullet a couple of years back, so I brought the camera home, cleaned it off, and loaded it up, then brought it to work today to test it out during my lunchtime walk.

The research I did online said that the Starmite has an aperture of f/11 and a fixed focus at infinity. That basically means that I'm limited to sunny landscapes, so today's overcast weather didn't bode well. I went ahead and took the standard test shots, though: gazebo, telephone pole, path. I'll take similar or identical pictures in a day or two, when it's sunnier out, and we'll see how the camera (and film) reacts to different levels of light.

Note to self: This time, when I'm done with the roll, I'm going to have individual prints made, rather than a contact/proof sheet. The proof sheet for the Brownie Bullet didn't turn out so good. Maybe I'll do some searching for a different place to process, too... but I'm not really dissatisfied with Main Photo. I'd just like to find someplace a little closer to the Midwest, for some quicker turnaround.

Imperial Flash Mark XII Test Roll

Part of the fun of buying antique cameras, or even just crappy plastic cameras, is that you never know what kind of results you'll get. Could be the focus is off. Could be some crazy vignetting. Could be that those things add charm. Could be that the images are just crap.

I'm not quite sure with this one. I think I need another test roll...

read more...

The Perils of Film-Based Photography

You will have noticed the photo post from earlier today — a rare bird these days, as a.) I haven't been photographing much lately, and b.) I'm not particularly smitten by much of my photography... enough to post it here, anyway.

So, how did it come to be that I waited nine months to get this particular roll developed? Well, I'll tell you...

read more...

Drum Corps Cameraphone

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].

Taken at the Toledo All-Star Review, 17 June 2006.

(Yes, I just got the film developed...)

Ohayocon7 Retrospective, Part I: Fried Bologna Sandwiches

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].

I haven't blogged about the last few cons Aaron and I have attended, mainly because I prefer to save my opinions and narratives for Aaron's podcast. This time, though, there are enough other random, un-anime things that deserve mention that I think I'll go ahead and blog about the weekend. And I will begin at the beginning, with fried bologna sandwiches in Waldo, Ohio...

read more...

Christmas Portrait 2006

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].

After ten minutes of experimenting on myself, and ten more minutes of throwing a less-than-thrilled husband and cat into the mix, this was the resulting Schnuth Christmas Portrait for 2006. Not quite sure what I think of it, although it is definitely the best of the set. I think it might be an improvement on last year's photo in some ways, although it's still way ahead of what I did in the past.

What follows are notes to myself for next year and general photography rants and wants. If you're down with that, read on...

read more...

A Photo Retrospective

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].


My drumcorps buddy Paul just started a Flickr account and, like so many new Flickrites, has started scanning and uploading photos from his past.

I had been using my Flickr account for artsy photos I was proud of... but Paul inadvertently made me rethink that decision. So, I've started scanning and uploading old photos of my own, starting in 2002. (I was going to start at the end of college in 2001 and work backwards, but 2002 was still a lot of fun.)

Expect more retrospective photos in the near future!

PS - Kris. I must borrow and scan your photo album with the photos of Aaron's move out of Lake of the Schnuth. Especially the one with the giant long brown couch strapped to the top of the Taurus station wagon. Holy shit, that was priceless.

Crunching Numbers

Listen. I know everybody who reads this isn't all excited about candlemaking. I know this isn't a candle blog. However: this is where I write everything I'd normally write in a journal — well, almost everything. I do have a private file for potentially embarrassing dreams and rants about people who might read my blog and things like that.

But I digress. My point is that I know you're not all keen on my candling exploits. So, if you'd care to read my stream-of-consciousness number-crunching, continue reading beyond the cut. If not, simply enjoy a picture of my 3.75oz hexagonal votives:

read more...

More Candle Crap

Well. I'm finally getting some income to balance out the $100+ expenditure on candle supplies in the past couple of months. It's slow going, but I have faith that Gena will singlehandedly pimp my candles to the entire building where I work.

Sight unseen — or, rather, scent unsmelled — Gena decided that she wanted four, count 'em, four eggnog candles in the quilted cups like I made a few years back. She also told me that she's a total nut about Christmastime, and has something like seven trees up in her house during the holidays. She sets up an annual gingerbread-themed display, she said, which got me thinking about making gingerbread candles, too.

So, I ordered eggnog and gingerbread scents, among other fragrance oils, from my new favorite scent supplier. I also hit the local Goodwill for more cups, as I only had two. Good thing that the quilted cups are among the glassware you will *always* find at Goodwill; I ended up buying four matching cups out of the 20 or so they had. All matching.

Made two eggnog candles Monday evening, and brought one to work on Tuesday for Gena's approval. When she drooled her OK (and it *did* smell pretty damned good), I made two more, plus a votive jar for me. Or for selling later, whatever. Brought those to work today, all wrapped up in tissue paper and packed into a gift bag. Got paid in cash. Good deal. Fun times were had by all.

Later in the day, someone else in our department happened to be hobnobbing in Gena's cube, and saw the candle she had sitting on her desk. Gena gladly volunteered that I made the candle, and that I sell candles, and sent Julie over to my cube to smell my wares. Now, my tealights' scents have faded from being in such close proximity to other scents, so most of my tealights had just kind of mushed together into a generic soy candle smell... but the cranberry tealight was apparently strong enough and fresh enough to spark Julie's interest. She requested a cranberry candle, once I told her how much I charge for various sizes. (Four bucks for a four-ounce large votive, BTW.)

In making Julie's candle (and one for me) this evening, I have officially used up all of my cranberry scent. If this is a hit, I'll be needing to make another candle supply order, even though I had told myself that I wouldn't buy more supplies until I absolutely had to. But, shit, if cranberry sells for the holidays, I'm gonna buy more cranberry.

Maybe tomorrow night, I can finally get around to testing that gingerbread... God, I've turned into a craft geek.

Cla-Zel Theatre, Bowling Green OH

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].


Haven't posted a photo in a while, so I figured I'd post one of the Black Swamp Art Festival pics I just got around to getting developed.

I need to use my Olympus XA more often. Most of the photos on this roll came back out-of-focus, which was *very* disappointing, since it could have been remedied with a steadier hand and more practice at rangefinder focusing.

Day Two of Not-NaNo

I wrote nearly 1,000 words tonight, and came up with a more detailed backstory about one character's genealogy. I also wrote out a timeline of events, so I can decide in which month each event happens, so I can more accurately present the setting and all that shit.

Basically, I'm filling out the interpersonal part of the story, because that's what I'm feeling right now. Later on, I'll add in more of the supernatural bits, the backstories, the setting and more characterization and all that. For right now, I'm being very juvenile and wanting to write my more emotionally charged scenes — and no, they're not all love scenes. Actually, I'll end up having very few of those, all told. I'm going for more tension than actual fan-service. Y'know?

I ended up writing for around three hours tonight, and I wouldn't have stopped if my brain hadn't wanted to go to sleep already.

This weekend, I'll be in Michigan at Youmacon, so that'll put the kabosh on any writing for a few days. I'm sure I'll get back into the groove when I get back, though. I'm finally starting to get over my "what do I write next" hurdle, and am just writing *around* the story until I figure out the exact logistics of everything, and the backstories of all the characters and such.

I remember why I enjoy this now.

Day One of Not-NaNo

I am officially NOT participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I am, however, budgeting at least one hour per day (preferably two) during the month of November to work on last year's NaNo.

Tonight, I successfully rearranged my story bible wiki into a more navigable tree; I fleshed out my female lead's background and personality; and I rewrote an argument between my male and female leads that had been bothering me and was a big part of why I'd stopped writing on this story. I'd painted myself into a corner, and I've successfully unpainted myself with this rewrite. Making the male lead do what he wanted to do, instead of walking off silently and meekly without even a "fuck you," really added some dimension to their relationship and to their personalities.

I also did some more succubus/incubus research online. There are several resources on the internet that start with, "the only way to kill a succubus is" — and they all end with something different. Burning her. Starving her of sex. Trapping her in her own reflection. And so forth. With all these ideas, though, I'm finally coming up with a halfway decent idea of how my Guild of immortals probably hunts down and destroys incubi and succubi.

I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow evening, but I'm sure I'll make some more headway of some sort.

In Over My Head?

I just got an e-mail from a friend of a co-worker, asking if I do parties.

?!?!

I had to reply that I don't have enough candles made at one time to do a party, and that's the truth. I'd be making candles every night for two weeks to have enough to give a candle party. I remember how those Partylite parties were, back in 1995. They had so many awesome fragrances, and neat candle holders, and overpriced doodads, and you *had* to order something! You just *had* to! I don't know if I have that kind of draw yet.

For that matter, I don't have a large enough bank of OMG-this-is-so-good fragrances yet, either. So far, it looks like this:

Favorites
* Amaretto
* Amaretto & Coke (my own special fragrance combination)
* Spiced Apple
* Drakkar
* Chocolate Java Beans (another special recipe)
* Cranberry (I'll have to make a bigger candle to be sure, though)

Untested So Far:
* Balsam Sandalwood
* Chocolate Brownie
* Lilac
* Very Vanilla
* Patchouli (Essential Oil)
* Lavender (Essential Oil)
* Cinnamon (Essential Oil)

WTF Not Even Close:
* Basil
* Evergreen (smells like fake evergreen, according to one person)

Everything Else That's Nothing Special:
* Banana (intended to use in making a Banana Cream Pie combo, along with the...)
* Coconut (which could also be good with pineapple for a pina colada candle)
* Chamomile
* Eggnog
* Coffee (excellent combined with the Hershey's Chocolate scent, which I may or may not reorder)
* Hazelnut (not bad with the Eggnog, although I need to try some different eggnog scents)
* Pumpkin Spice
* Spearmint
* Toasted Marshmallow
* White Shoulders

As I said recently, I have more stuff on order from various places, so there are more possibilities in store in the coming days and weeks.

I guess I'm feeling kind of like I'm spinning my wheels; but even if I managed to get a bite (like, say, someone wanting a party, or someone wanting me to be their wholesale soy candle supplier — both things have happened), I'm not prepared for "success". But I don't want to stock up for something that's never going to happen... and I don't want this to be the next big idea I have that never comes to fruition... and I don't want to overthink it, either. :-)

I guess the thing is that I feel like I'm on the verge of a fun and creative supplemental income, and I don't want to blow it by trying too hard and not being able to deliver, or not trying hard enough and missing the boat.

Jesus Christ, Diana, it's just candles. Don't sweat it. *rolls eyes*

Candle Speedbumps

I know it's to be expected and all, but I can't help but be frustrated when things don't turn out right.

Tonight, I tested out my new Cranberry scent, and made five tealights and one teeny votive for myself. The scent seems to be OK, but the color is off. I made the "cranberry" color as vivid as I could, and it ended up coming out more pinkish than cranberry. Maybe next time I'll try my "red berry" dye and see how that turns out.

Last night, I made up a super-quickie batch of Eggnog tealights. They smelled OK, if a bit weaker than I'd wanted. I totally screwed up the color, though. I'm not used to working with *that* small of a batch, and I'd thought that a little touch of caramel color would look good mixed with the "sunshine" dye in the eggnog candles. Nope — they all turned out looking like somebody left the eggnog on the stove to burn or something.

On top of that, I put five different fragrances of tealights in one container, and the scents overpowered one another overnight. The Coffee totally made the Eggnog smell like nothing, and the Coconut was just barely there. Maybe I should look into a little bitty shrink-wrap machine for the individual tealights in my tealight multi-packs? I dunno.

On Friday night, I tested my Evergreen fragrance. One votive for me, and nine tealights. Doesn't smell like evergreen at all, and the hunter/moss green dye I used came out more on the mossy side than the hunter side.

At least Mark's Amaretto and Coke candles came out pretty good. The color wasn't exact, since I ran out of the french vanilla dye and had to make do with caramel instead, but the scent was just as I remembered it. I also made myself a votive of it, and burned that tonight, and the scent throw is awesome on that one. I lit it in the basement, and the smell came all the way up into the living room. Nice.

Note to self: Don't advertise a fragrance on your candle site until you've thoroughly tested it, approve of the fragrance, and have the dye ratio figured out. I now have some people interested in Evergreen and Eggnog candles, and I'll have to just hope they forget about them until I've come up with something better than what I've got right now.

Pine essential oil, anyone?

Business May Soon Be Booming

Remember when Rob asked me to make him a manly candle? Well, that jump-started me back into candlemaking, and I made a batch of Amaretto and Coke candles last night. I ended up taking one of them to work with me, and quizzing my co-workers about what alcoholic beverage they thought it smelled like. Now I suddenly have major interest in my little enterprise — well, four potential buyers, anyway, and at least one person who might just buy a crapload of candles from me as Christmas gifts. Considering I've only ever sold one pack of tealights and one candle, that's major interest.

Now I have to decide: do I gear up for a big run, and potentially have a bunch of candles and containers and scents and packaging material that might just end up taking up space; or do I keep my operation on the down-low, and only make custom candles as requested, keeping my inventory of premade candles at a minimum?

I've already decided that I want to SQL-ify my candle website, making it more easily updateable as I sell candles and as I get new fragrance and container inventory. Not redoing the design, just managing the content.

I guess the big question is, do I ramp up my production, at least of sample tealights? I'm saying that's a yes. On the samples, I mean. Samples are good. Also, do I wait and see which of my current scents sell, and just focus on those, or do I branch out and get even more scents for diversity's sake?

I don't really expect answers from the peanut gallery — I'm just asking them to give myself something to think about, I guess. If you have any pearls of wisdom, though, I'll gladly take them.

I do have a request, though. Name me off some mixed drinks that would smell good as a candle. Ones that I've already thought of:

• Amaretto Sour
• Amaretto and Coke
• Cosmopolitan (Cranberry, Orange & Lime)
• Sex on the Beach (Cranberry, Orange, Pineapple & Peach)
• B-52 (Kahlua & Bailey's Irish Cream)

Any other ideas?

Update, 10/22/06: Additional ideas from my friends/readers:

• Mojito (Lime, Mint, Rum)

I have on order Lime, Kahlua, Bailey's Irish Creme, and Bay Rum fragrances. I already have Amaretto and Cranberry and Coffee and Spearmint on hand. If I can come up with a way to make a White Russian (Mary) or a Jäger Monster (Fries), I'd definitely be up for those. For now, I think I'm going to focus on drinks that are a.) fruity or b.) include Kahlua.

Damn — now I'm going to have to do some "field research" to discover new candle scents... ;-)

Grammar Geek

James: Which is right: "you or I" or "you or me"?
Me: In what context?
James: "Let me know if it is you or I."
Me: *pauses* "You or I" is right.
James: OK. It sounded right, but I wasn't sure.
Me: Yeah, it's "you or I," because it would be "me" if it were an object, but "is" is a linking verb, so the object would take the same...

*pause*

Me: I just totally geeked out on you, didn't I?
James: Yeah.

In Lieu Of NaNoWriMo

I now have two unfinished stories — at least two, that is — which I think are worth finishing. One I began in 1999, and one I began officially during last year's National Novel Writing Month, although I had the ideas brewing for a couple of years before that. I also have... *counting* ...twelve unfinished stories and one complete short story.

The last thing I need is to start a new project for NaNoWriMo.

If I'd ever successfully "won" NaNoWriMo — that is, written 50,000 words during the month of November — I could invoke the Zokutou Clause, which states:

You have to start your novel from scratch, unless you are a previous NaNoWriMo winner. If you have already attained the status of Winner, you do not need to start a new novel, as your main aim is now to finish one. You can now consider yourself a winner if, by midnight on the 30th of November, you have either:

1. Written 50,000 words on one or more previous works.
2. Completed your novel's first draft.

I have, however, not written the requisite 50,000 words in one month, so I do not qualify.

14,681 / 50,000 (29.4%)

My plan is to research where my characters hail from, discover their individual backgrounds, and figure out precisely how a team of vampires can capture and kill an incubus without seriously injuring themselves. Hopefully, by the end of November, I will at least have enough backstory figured out so that I can continue writing without worrying about the details that form the basis of the intrigue.

Don't be surprised if I come to you for help, like I have in the past. I suck at dialogue, which is only a symptom of my general social ineptitude, so I'll be needing some guidance along the way.

Return of the Soy Candles

I have a kitty on my lap and the smell of Drakkar candles in the air. Sometimes, life is good.

I hadn't made candles for several months. Then, last week, one of my co-workers approached me and asked, "You make candles, right?" I answered in the affirmative, and he went on to say that he had been disappointed by his most recent Yankee Candle purchase, and was seeking a new supplier of smelly-good and long-lasting candles.

He explained that he required a big, manly-smelling candle. So, I had him sniff the Drakkar tealight I keep at my desk, and he was sold. (I had referred him to the somewhat outdated list of fragrances on my website, and he'd decided it was either that or evergreen.) We agreed that I would make him an appropriately large and smelly candle, and he would give me ten bucks for said candle.

Of course, I was almost out of wax, so I had to make a run to Michael's tonight; and, of course, the pint-sized mason jars I bought at Big Lots for the purpose of candle-making didn't look quite as big when I unpacked them. But that's OK. The price listing on my site says that 16 fl. oz. candles are $10.99 plus shipping, so I'm actually cutting him a deal. ;-)

I always have a problem actually *selling* my candles, being that the only people who buy are people to whom I feel I should just *give* candles. Then there's the random e-mail I got a year or two ago, asking if I do wholesale.   o.O   Um, I melt wax in a glass three-cup measure in my oven, dude. Sorry, but I can't be your primary candle supplier.

I'd forgotten how much I enjoy making candles, though. It's really a cold-weather pastime for me, since I have to have the oven on for a good part of the evening, so I haven't done any candle-making for a while. Tonight was probably the first time in... *thinking* ...maybe close to a year.

Making candles also helps me be more productive in other realms, too, since I have to keep myself occupied while the wax melts, then again while it cools to a good pouring temperature. I ended up going to Kroger while I was out at Michael's, and getting stuff for Friday's potluck (OMG ice cream cone cuppie-cakes with white chocolate chips). When I got home, I made my dinner (also purchased at Kroger — I haven't had imitation crab in ages), did a load of laundry, put the dishes away, cleaned up my desk, and did some maintenance to the LSM website, all while either waiting for the wax to melt or to cool.

I'll have to order up another 10lb bag of soy wax and maybe some essential oils to experiment with. I have a crapload of votive-sized containers in a cupboard in the kitchen, just begging to be made into random gifts...

"Published" Photos?

I received a message on Flickr today, from an Alexandra Moss at schmap.com. It seems that these two photos are to be included in the second edition of an electronic guide to Baltimore — with my permission, of course.

How neat!

It somehow validates my meager talent and boosts my self-esteem when I get non-solicited praise on my photography. I forget sometimes that I really am OK.

Incidentally, these Schmap Guides seem to be pretty cool. If I could put one of these on my Palm IIIc, or even an iPod Photo, that would really be the bee's knees.

New Podcast Episode Coming Soon!

I was sitting here tonight, feeling like being a lazy slug, when the sudden urge to podcast struck me. I hooked up the handy-dandy MXL 990, printed off the notes I'd written myself TWO MONTHS AGO, and sat down to podcast about why I hadn't been podcasting.

I'm so kewl, I even figured out how to make Movable Type post entries at a scheduled time in the future. So, Episode 11 of the Low Carb Lifestyle Podcast will be up at 8am tomorrow morning.

I'm going to try to keep a weekly schedule, complete with main topics that are recorded weeks in advance (what a concept!). I have... *counting* ...eight show topics right here on a list by my desk, with two book/diet reviews ready to go and a couple more books to read yet.

So, miracle of miracles, my podcast is back! And, for those of you not eating low-carb... it's really not going to be totally about low-carb eating. Some of my future show topics include:

• Vinaigrette
• Average Your Weight
• Disappearing Low-Carb Products
• Throwing Away Food
• Setting Yourself Up For Success
• Order An Appetizer
• Positive Thinking
• Stop When You're Full
  (or, it doesn't do any good to put your fork down between bites if you're going to stuff yourself anyway)
• Moving Outside Your Comfort Zone
• Review: Body For Life
• Review: Carbohydrate Addict's Diet
• Review: Protein Power

Basically, I'm writing down ideas that come to me at random times, and planning to write an outline about each of them and jabber about them for about 10 minutes each. Resources and references will be used heartily.

Oh, speaking of resources... I have a voicemail line! 206-984-2-EAT (2328). If you're into the diet thing, and have some diet or exercise advice or commentary you'd like me to include on my show, please call! You're also welcome to e-mail me mp3 files, too, if you so choose. But you know those free night and weekend minutes are eating a hole in your cell phone pocket. ;-)

My New Hair

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].

I donated 10 inches of my hair last weekend. I haven't had hair this short in three years, and I'd forgotten how fun it is.

I have a new 'do, and I've helped a cancer-stricken child get a new 'do. It's a win-win situation.

Self-Publishing

There's only one work of writing that I've actually a.) finished and b.) felt was acceptable overall. I wrote it back in 2001, and I will admit that the first paragraph or two was loosely based on my own real life. After that, I let the story do its thing, and if elements of myself appear in the main character... well, it happens.

I've decided to post it here, under a Creative Commons license. I think it's entirely too cliché to ever be published anywhere, but deserves to see the light of day somewhere. I did post it on my website years ago, and got some positive feedback about it, so here it is again.

I know my writing-related limitations. If you feel the need to critique, I'll try not to take it too hard, but I'm not specifically calling for critique. I'm just sharing, for whatever fucked up reason. Remember, this is a sample of my writing from five years ago — not that my writing style has changed *that* much since then. Although I was hard-pressed to keep myself from making minor edits as I plugged in the HTML for italics and such.

[Update: I didn't mean you shouldn't leave any comments... If you read it and liked it, or even if you were ambivalent about it, feel free to leave your thoughts.]

Please be aware that this story contains sexual situations, occult hocus-pocus, and ending dialogue adapted from a chapter of one of my favorite Star Trek books. If you aren't turned off yet, read on...

read more...

Records For Sale

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].

Haven't posted a photo for a while, so here's one from the Old West End Festival back in June.

Nothing Special

dianaschnuth.net is never going to become an internet giant. It's never going to earn revenue (or at least, not of job-quitting calibre). Hell, it's probably never going to get even 100 hits a day on a regular basis.

It's just an excuse for me to write almost-daily. Who knows if I'd still journal if I didn't have my blog?

I have volumes of journals dating back to when I was seven years old. Most of my life is documented in journals of one form or another, be they bound volumes of lined paper in fuzzy bookcovers, stacks of notebook paper with single metal rings holding them together, or electronic text files. The years that aren't documented seem almost lost to me. The important events that I skipped over sometimes seem hazy in my memory. Then there are memories that I'd completely managed to push into the farthest corner of my subconscious and had almost forgotten, but were documented at the time, and later read and remembered.

This is really just an open journal. For you, and for me. For you, so you can laugh at my funnies and muse with me about stupid shit. For me, so I can look back later and remember what it was like before [insert major life event here]. The only thing that differentiates this from what I would write for myself alone is that I can't (or won't) go off about any particular person for any particular reason. The internet's a big place, and a potentially permanent one, and I don't need people (or their friends or family or bodyguards) coming to me years later, after I no longer have a beef with them. Or while I still do.

I don't make a concerted effort to always be witty, or to have a great punch line, or even to maintain coherent structure in my entries. I try to effectively get out what's in my head. If you like it, that's cool. If all I've got to say is, "Man, I'm really in a mood tonight," then I'm just going to say it and not put some sort of interesting spin on it for my readers. I'm not Dooce or Wil. I'm just me.

My English teacher, Mr. Falls, wrote in my 8th grade yearbook something along the lines of, "Like a world-class athlete, a writer like you should write every day!" Well, Mr. Falls, here I am. Getting it out of my head. Trying to express myself. My fiction has gone by the wayside (dusty and neglected, but not forgotten), but my little essays about my life keep on keeping on.

Honeywell Pentax Test Roll

As promised, photos from the Pentax test roll. Taken 7 May 2006 at Wildwood Metropark.

read more...

Voigtländer Test Roll

I purchased a bag full of camera equipment from my friend Kris about a month ago. This bag contained a 1970's-model Pentax camera with three lenses; an electronic flash and other accoutrements; and a Voigtländer Vitrona rangefinder camera, circa 1964.

read more...

Neglected NaNo

I want to write.

I have part of a story done — my NaNo from last November.. I need to do some character studies and some research and figure out what happens next.

Thing is, this is the second time in a few months that I've read my story, to get a feel for where I'm at... and still didn't know what happens next. I can't get excited about doing research on undead myths of various cultures, and I can't get excited about writing background pieces, although both are very necessary at this point.

Maybe this is my social inadequacy coming into play. I don't know what happens next in this scenario:
- man falls in love with woman
- man does (non-sexual) favor for woman
- man gets no love (so to speak) but stays faithful
- woman hears gossip that man is sleeping around
- woman gets pissed and sleeps with the gossiper, despite not having made her feelings known to the man
- man goes to see woman and gets an earful
- man walks out on woman mid-rant
- man refuses to do favors for woman any more, despite being in love with her

...And then? Who's zoomin' who?

Wait. This is my story. Am I not supposed to know what happens next? WTF?

It has a happy ending. I know how it ends. I just don't know how to get there. The supernatural bits I can deal with. It's the interpersonal bits I have a problem with.

Any ideas?

P.S. - It also sucks that I have these characters brewing in my head as anime/manga characters... and I CAN'T DRAW MANGA OMG. But how I want to. My heroine would look like Haruhi in makeup and goth clothes, and my protagonist would be a tall, lanky, pale-skinned bishonen type with narrow, evil-looking eyes.

What's also funny? The setting of the story in my head is Bowling Green, even though I don't mention it in the text.

Podcasting Vacation

I finally did it. I posted a message on my podcast site admitting that I may or may not be continuing my podcast.

I just have so many other things demanding my attention. The LSM site. Genealogy (sometimes). Blogging. Housework (again, only sometimes). And I tend to be really unmotivated anymore when I get home from work. I haven't even exercised in a couple of weeks.

I actually feel as if something's been crossed off of my perpetual to-do list. Now I have room for something else, like finishing one of my stories or writing letters to my family or cleaning my desk or my corner of the bedroom. We'll see which gets done first. Hmph.

Black and White Film Photography

Like I mentioned earlier, I had loaded up my Olympus XA with black and white film a few months back, in preparation for Beth's wedding. I was curious about shooting black-and-white with my XA, and it's great in low light. I had also planned to test out the proprietary flash, but I realized too late that I'd forgotten to put a battery in it.

When I saw how dark the reception hall was, I thought for sure that none of the pictures would come out with no flash. So, I only took half the roll, not wanting to waste a relatively expensive roll of Kodak.

That was a mistake.

Had I just gone for it, and not worried about wasting film, I could have gotten so many great images. As it was, I only got about ten. This is where digital has definitely spoiled me: had I been able to see that the images were in fact good, I would have continued to shoot. As it was, I shied away from using up my film, because I'd started thinking of it as such a commodity as compared to my reusable memory card. I can't let myself do that when I'm shooting film instead of digital, even if I'm not positive the pictures will come out. I have to take chances. After all, it's just money, right? Besides that, I ended up blowing the rest of the roll on pictures of trees and shit, just to finish it up and get it sent off for processing.

I can also see the allure of black and white photography now. The last time I shot in black and white was my very first photography class, I think, and I truly didn't appreciate the artistic possibilities back then. Shooting in black and white forces your brain to look at the scene a little differently, to see the tones and the composition, rather than the colors and the literal scene in front of you.

It's difficult for me to see what would make a good black and white image when I'm looking at a color print (or jpeg). I know that people say you should shoot in color, then convert the image to black and white later if you think it would work better that way. If left to my own devices, I would focus on isolating the subject of a given photo using depth of field (having only the subject be in focus, and the rest of the photo be blurry). Using b&w, though, I don't necessarily find that the only (or easiest) way to isolate my subject. Lighting conditions and composition can help create a powerful image, as well.

I should set my Nikon to black and white mode and go out photographing. Get some practice, see some different compositions, so that next time I'm faced with a film-based situation, I won't feel so frugal with my frames.

Beth's Wedding

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].

Finally got my pics back from Beth's wedding back in February. I had experimented by loading some black and white film in my Olympus XA... but I forgot my flash. The pictures actually came out extremely well, though — I'll have to post the rest here shortly.

Update, 5/27/06: I scanned in my negatives and posted them to Flickr. You can now view a slideshow of the ten good photos I took at Beth's wedding. When I did my post-processing on the photos (i.e. Photoshop adjustments), I purposely left them a little dark, just to keep the ambiance. I was honestly surprised that so many of these came out — I don't think they would have if I'd been shooting color.

Return Of T-Shirt Surgery

It had been almost a year since my last t-shirt surgery, so I was getting that hankering for some sewing action. I've managed to collect a decent number of XL t-shirts that fit, but are kind of boring. I'd like to turn these into cute Diana-sized girly tees. (Unlike Threadless XL girly tees, which are about two inches' circumference shy of being comfortable for me to wear out of the house. That does not stop me from ordering them anyway and hoping to shrink into them.)

My first reshaping attempt was using my Otaku Generation t-shirt. Aaron and I got matching Otaku G shirts free from the Otaku G crew at Ohayocon in January, and I've been meaning to surgerize it for a while now. It fits just fine, but I wanted to do something to make it a little more distinctive, and easier to tell my shirt from Aaron's in the wash. :-)

I followed this tutorial on resizing a t-shirt, for the most part, although I didn't really have any resizing to do. Mainly, I just wanted to shrink up the armpits and make the sleeves smaller and more girlish. First, I lopped off about an inch and a half from the length of the shirt. Then I put the shirt on and figured out how much smaller I wanted the armholes to be, and pinned the armpit of one sleeve. I then marked the spot with white fabric pencil and removed the sleeves.

Enter the Singer Tiny Serger. While I watched my Logan's Run DVD, I sat on the living room floor and serged up the armpits of my t-shirt torso a couple of inches. Then I adjusted the length and width of each of the sleeves, serging them up the armpit seam. Finally, I serged the sleeves back onto the t-shirt torso — inside-out, of course, so the seams were on the inside.

Three hours later (including movie-related distractions), this is how it turned out. I haven't hemmed up the bottom yet (the "real" sewing machine was having bobbin tension issues), and I'm considering altering the collar and adding white bias tape. Until then, though, at least it's all girly on my figure. I know it doesn't look all that different, but it definitely *feels* more fitted.

As usual, I did have one or two screw-ups. I accidentally sewed the left sleeve on wrong-side out, so the red-and-blue serged armpit seam on the sleeve shows when I lift up my arm. I decided it adds to the character, though, so I'm not redoing it. I also serged some of the sleeve-to-torso seams a little loose (although I'm unsure how to do it any differently with my Tiny Serger). Once I get the Giant Singer (aka the "real" sewing machine) going right, I'll probably straight-stitch next to my serges while I'm hemming the bottom of the shirt. And maybe fixing the collar.

For my next attempt at restyling a t-shirt, I'll probably make the sleeves a little shorter and cuter, and maybe make the shirt itself a little shorter. I'll also adjust the shoulders, so the sleeve attaches a little farther up my arm. I'm thinking my next victim will probably be either my Relay For Life 2005 shirt (once I find it) or maybe my Youmacon 2005 shirt. Should be fun!

Heathbar's Final Move

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].

Aaron, Mark and I helped Kris and Jamie move stuff from Waterville to their house in Maumee on Saturday. See the whole move in my Flickr set "Moving Kris And Jamie."

Alternatively, you can browse my "moving" tag, or view all photos I took on Saturday 6 May 2006.

Forty Pounds Ago

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].

As a reference, this is what I looked like when I was 40 pounds heavier. Amy, Aaron and I were going to the Dayton Air Show back in 2003.

I hunted down this photo because I'm thinking that I want to cut my hair and donate it again, and was wondering if I wanted to go with the standard bob again. I think it was cute, but man, I can't get over my hugely round face.

Weeds I'd Be Happy To Grow

As I've mentioned in my weekly diet updates, I like to take a half-hour to 45-minute walk every day during my lunch hour. There's a short path through a small wooded area in the middle of the business park, and I've walked it almost every day for... gee, probably seven or eight months now. I feel like my day is incomplete without my walk through the woods.

Since this is the first year I've walked the path in the early spring, I'm seeing all kinds of new wildflowers and plants I never noticed before. They all just melded together into a fantastic wooded greenness. Now, though, after walking in the winter and seeing everything bare, the new growth is really catching my eye. Especially flowers and things with splashes of color or unusual shape.

Now, I figure that if these plants are growing in the woods with no help from Man, they must be native to the NW Ohio area and able to thrive on their own in a shady environment. That's pretty much a definition of my back yard: shady and neglected. :-) If I could identify these plants, and could procure seeds or seedlings (I'd rather not remove them from the walking path), I could very likely grow quite the kick-ass wildflower bed along one of our hedge walls. Assuming Aaron wouldn't nix the idea due to his allergies.

I wish I could do a reverse Google Image search: plug in an image and have it search for images like it, or a definition of what I photographed. But alas (and alack), the only thing I can do is take pictures of the pretties and post them for my good readers to help me identify.

For pretty pictures of weeds wildflowers, read on...

read more...

Podcast

Have all the components of a 20-minute show recorded, despite my less-than-optimal sickly voice. Have music bed and ID bumper selected. Have list of links to include in show notes. Have "April 21st" in intro to podcast #10. Have it half-edited together.

Have to go to bed. Can't stay up another half-hour to complete the editing and post the show notes. My clamoring public will just have to wait another day, and pick up the new episode in the Monday morning rush (when my stats invariably jump by 50 listeners or so).

So tired. Ugh. Time to go to bed.

Under the Radar

I was just updating my About page to reflect my upgrade in digital cameras and blogging software, when I noted that one of my links was broken. So, I went to the Konica Minolta site to find a new link to my camera's info, and found this instead:

Konica Minolta Photo Imaging, Inc. ceased the camera business on March 31, 2006.

As of April 1st, 2006, Sony Corporation is providing customer service for Konica's, Minolta's, and Konica Minolta's cameras (excluding single-use cameras) and camera-related products except for the binoculars.

Apparently, somebody must be behind on reading her photography magazines. I'm sure I should have heard about this before now. Ah, well. That sucks.

Incidentally, it looks like the specs on my manual-focus Minolta X-370s are no longer available online. You can, however, read about my new Minolta point-and-shoot. Hmm.

Seedling Update

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].

The seedlings are just over two weeks old, and they're starting to show me what they're made of. The catnip (above) is growing like mad, and I'm seriously contemplating planting it in a container, rather than in my soon-to-be herb garden. If I actually plant it in the ground, I expect that it will run rampant and destroy all growing things in its path.

The parsley is finally coming up, the sweet basil is growing tall and stately, and the lemon basil is about on a par with the parsley.

I've managed to kill four out of six hollyhocks, thanks to us being out of town during an apparently crucial watering weekend. (Who knew?) One had already died from damping-off, and three others just died of thirst. My two remaining hollyhocks are about 2-3" tall and not very strong. One already needs staked, which can't be good. I'm hoping they'll grow out of it (so to speak).

Growing Things

This weekend, I drug Aaron out with me to purchase some planting supplies — most notably, a seed starting kit. I'd purchased several packets of seeds last year, and decided that this is the year I start my own plants from seed.

I ended up starting five plants each of hollyhocks, lemon basil, sweet basil, parsley, and catnip. Well, each peat pellet pot has two or three seeds in it, but they'll be thinned to one per pot, so we'll just say it's five plants apiece.

I've never done this before, so I had no idea how peat pellets worked. It is SO COOL. They start out as little flat discs. You water them with warm water, and poof! They become little miniature biodegradable pots! How cool is that?

And what's cooler? My hollyhocks and my basil are already starting to germinate, after only two days. There are little, pale green stems curling up out of the soil. I opened up the lid of my mini-greenhouse, and it smells like those bean sprouts we planted in first grade. *squee*

So, what's my diabolical plan? Well, I'm planning to plant the hollyhocks close to the fence that borders the neighbors. This will hopefully act as a bit of a privacy screen, as I understand that hollyhocks can grow pretty tall. Beside the hollyhocks, farther away from the fence, I'm hoping to plant one or two of the potted Rose of Sharon bushes/twigs I've been trying not to kill for the past two years. I'm hoping to manage this in a way that doesn't complicate Aaron's lawn-mowing mojo.

In the NE corner of the backyard, I'm planning to plant a little herb garden, with my basil and catnip and parsley and maybe some store-bought plants. There's a decent little patch of sunshine by the fence and the gate, so hopefully I can nestle a little corner of herbalicious goodness there — and, again, not complicate Aaron's lawn-mowing mojo. I'm hoping that my strategy will reduce the amount of edging for me to neglect.

As much as I'm tempted to go buy myself a nice climbing rose, I know I should hold off. I've already just about killed one rosebush from neglect; I don't need to continue my murderous rampage of flora until I can take care of what I've already planted. Plus, goodness knows how much I'll be able to take care of any of this once we pop out a kid. I can't help but assume that infant care and gardening are not particularly compatible.

But that's not for some time yet. For now, I'll be content in watching my baby plants germinate and make condensation inside their little greenhouse.

Wanted: Men Who Like To Sing

...They didn't mention that the men needed to sing *well*.

Taken in Sylvania OH by  sheryls, while we were walking off our J&G's pizza and gyros.

I'm in the Toledo Free Press?!

Check out what I found when I looked at my website referrers today:

Blog it, Toledo!
By Lisa Renee Ward
Special to Toledo Free Press

(exclusive online content: 3/8/06)

Most of the blogs out there are personal ones, people write not just to communicate with each other but to share what is happening in their life. Diana Schnuth's blog is personal in nature. However she's taken her blog beyond just the mere journal of life aspect. She has also created a pod cast and a second blog related to that called The Low Carb Lifestyle.  There are a few people in my life that follow a low carb diet, I've downloaded and listened to a few of Diana's pod casts and have found them very informative/helpful.

Some personal blogs are more like diaries, Petey P takes you thru the happy and sometimes the less than happy moments in Pete's life. Another thing about visiting blogs is checking out some of the people a blogger links to which led me to the next featured blog.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, I'd have to agree with that, especially when it is done in humor. The Peep series of posts and photos on Iron Duke had me not only snickering but glad that Peep season was just around the corner.

Another thing about personal blogs is that it seems from time to time a blogger will step away from blogging because real life gets too busy. Joshua at One Bad Website is at that point, "Lack of motivation and school has prevented me from posting. I'm sure this blog has fallen off of most radars. Meh." Au contraire Joshua?radar is still operational.

Most of these personal blogs are not meant for those under 18, Omar the Great is one of these. He writes about almost everything from his having the flu, dating adventures and personal exchanges he has with people that make me think at times?Gee, I hope none of these people read your blog?

Then we have blogs like Mind Matter where in her posts titled, "Through The Rabbit Hole" and "Blogging Under A Magnifying Glass", some of the reasons why people decide to not go into too much personal detail are discussed.

So there we have this week's adventure into personal blogging, from diets to dating to break ups to peeps, someone out there in our area is blogging about it. If you have a blog you want to share with me, email me at glasscityjungle@gmail.com. When I'm not out surfing the net you can find me at Glass City Jungle.