Truer Words - A Journal

PMC Day 0: The Huckleberries Ride Again

seth@macrobyte.net — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:50:25 GMT

Friday, August 1, 2008

This ride was epic.

There were fifteen of us, as shown in the picture below:

15 at the Start

From left to right: Scott, Joel, Jon, Tom, Mark, Dave, Tim, Not Sure, Ellen, Me, Steve, Mike, Mark, Not Sure, and Steve.

Could someone fill me in on the "Not Sures" please?

Did I forget to mention that I was riding with Lilliputians? They may be tiny, but they make up for it with numbers!

Click the image for higher resolution. (This is Mark Stockwell's photo, used with permission.)

Not pictured...

Happy Birthday Michelle & Isaiah Drake

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 28 May 2008 01:25:13 GMT

Corinne, Lauren and I went to Isaiah Drake's birthday party on Monday. He's one year old. Monday was actually his mom's (Michelle's) birthday, his is today, but we were mostly celebrating his because it was his first.

I took 134 pictures (good grief), and managed to whittle that down to “only” 104 before uploading them all to Facebook. The flickr set contains a more manageable 55 pictures: I recommend the slideshow.

The party (cookout) was held at Ben & Mandi Isbell's house on the Bradford River. Games, canoeing, lots of food, cute kids, friends, and loads of presents for Isaiah. Ben even started a big bonfire on the ground near the deck (but more than one story below) that made some of the kids a little nervous.

(If you're reading this in email, make sure you see it on the web for the pictures.)

The Noisy Fox Has Babies

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:25:12 GMT

Remember the noisy fox I wrote about last year? It's still out there, making its calls a few nights per week. I rather like it.

Well, someone answered the call, because now there's at least one baby.

This is only the second time I've seen the kit, but it's the first time that it stayed put long enough for me to get a picture.

Update May 21:

The mother brought at least two kits into the back yard for a little playtime yesterday. Couldn't get a shot of the babies, as she called them back into the woods as soon as I went on the deck to take pictures, but I got her staring right down my lens.

Mystic River on a March Evening

seth@macrobyte.net — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 19:11:06 GMT

Lauren and I drove down to the Mystic River for some reason... i don't even rememeber why we were there, now. I had my camera with me (surprise!), and loved the light, so I took some shots. They're a little dark, but I like how they came out. The river was smooth but not quite glassy. The sun was setting behind us, but it lit up the clouds over the river.

Would love to know which one(s) you think are best. Leave comments on the photos, or post something here, please.

Because of Firefox's unfortunate color-space issues, the pictures will look best in Safari or Internet Explorer. They're already dark (intentionally), but they're practically black in Firefox.

Annoying Color Space Issue in Firefox

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:42:32 GMT

Jim Correia and I spent a little time talking about this a few months ago, but I just noticed the problem again. Look at the following image:

The image on the left is how Firefox 2 and 3 render it. The image on the right shows the same image in Safari. (You won't see any image if you're reading this in email, you'll have to go to the link above.)

If you don't see the difference immediately, look at Lauren's face. The color in the one on the right is really good, and is why I marked this image as one of my favorites in both iPhoto and Safari. The color in Firefox is terrible. She's darker, and the skin tone is way off.

This is really annoying. I think I understand the basics of this problem, but I'm told that the root of it is the cost of licensing the colorspace technology (from Adobe?). Mozilla has more money than they know what to do with right now, and they have a lot of really smart people. I hope they solve this soon.

(Note that the picture looks pretty good in Internet Explorer, also. Of the three major browsers, Firefox is the only one with this problem.)

Happy First Birthday, Lauren!

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:35:02 GMT

This beautiful, happy, silly, little girl is one year old, as of today. It's almost impossible to believe.

We had the birthday party at the ecclesial hall in Westerly, today. Angi Drake decorated for us, and Rachel Carlson (Corinne's friend from work) made dozens of cupcakes and a special "teddy bear cake" for Lauren, which she demolished.

She got lots of presents from all of her "aunts and uncles." I'm making notes about who gave her gifts that make lots of noise. (I will repay...) ;-)

Possibly the best part of the day was that Shannon had permission to go to the party... in Rhode Island! She now has permission to cross the line with us on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Yay!!

Most of the ecclesia was there, and I got some good shots (not just of Lauren). Check out the full set of pics in the flickr set, Laurens First Birthday Party.

Decay and Delapidation

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:52:54 GMT

Rich gave me a link to a single picture of a tree growing out of a mound of old books. Fascinated, I looked through the entire set.

The set made me cry.

At the bottom of every picture in the set is a link to a weblog post called Sweet Juniper about the photographer's thoughts on decay and delapidation in Detroit, and his reaction to the nearly overwhelming emotions evoked by those pictures.

The contrast he draws between the abandoned train station and the abandoned schoolbooks gave me shivers, but it wasn't a good feeling.

New 50mm Lens for My Sony Alpha A100

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 22:55:24 GMT

Remember the new camera I bought when Lauren was born? I bought the Sony because it was the only modern DSLR that would work with my old lenses from my Minolta. It's not the greatest camera in the world, but thousands of shots later I'm still pretty happy with it.

My biggest problem with this camera has been related to shooting portraits. Most of my pictures are of people (especialy Lauren, but not exclusively), which was certainly not the case when I bought my lenses in the 90's. I have three zoom lenses: one wide angle, and two telephoto; all three are Tamron zooms.

The brightest and fastest is a ƒ2.7 @ 20mm to ƒ3.5 @ 40mm. I could live with the ƒ2.7, but 20mm is too wide for portrait work. ƒ3.5 @ 40mm was the best I could do with this one. However, the lens is in pretty good shape (not great, but pretty good), and it certainly wasn't designed for portrait work. If I'm going to sell any of my lenses, it'll be this one.
At the other end of the spectrum, there's my gigantic bazooka of a lens. It's a ƒ5.6 that ranges from 200mm to 400mm. It's a beast, and is designed solely for outdoor wildlife shots in bright sunlight. It's not in great shape, either. I'll probably sell this one for less than $200. Useless for portraits.
My workhorse lens, and the one I used for most everything this year, is a 28-200mm, ƒ3.8-ƒ5.6. Can't really use it indoors without a flash, but I have a big Minolta 3500xi which is bright enough to tan an albino. But that means that most of my pictures have to use the flash, and part of the "art" of photography is capturing the light as you see it, not what things look like in harsh glare of a small sun attached to your camera.

I made do. My primary subject is totally adorable, so this wasn't difficult. A great subject can make up for a lot of other "issues."

Still, I am and always have been interested in photography itself. All along I've known that a better lens, designed for portraits, would only make for better pictures. Having never taken any classes (nor really read any books), I didn't really know what "better" meant other than lower ƒ-stops (faster).

Earlier this year, John Gruber talked (on his site, and in Twitter) a lot about 50mm lenses. He linked to some articles written by pros. The lessons I pulled from them were that to learn better photography you should start with a 50mm (or thereabouts) lens, ƒ1.4 or ƒ1.7. No zooming, and preferably no flash. Learn to work with the most basic elements of photography first, then go back to your zooms and flashes.

Sony's 50mm lens is expensive, and we don't have the money for it. So I looked on eBay for something that would work. I found one, and made the ridiculously low bid of $26. A few days later, I'd won. Surprise!

With shipping it was only about $33, and a couple days later it was in my hands. But not on my camera. It was the wrong mount. I knew that Minolta lenses worked on the Sony, but I didn't know that Minolta had an older mount that was incompatible. Oops.

The seller was more than helpful. We talked things over, and I told him the story (the whole thing!) of the old camera, Mike and Shannon, Lauren, the smashing of the Nikon, the new camera, all of it. He pointed out that the lens I need is much more expensive than the one he sold me. (I knew that, which is why I was so surprised that he sold it to me for so little… but I was confused.)

He surprised me by giving me the lens I need in trade for his original lens. So I now have a 50mm Minolta AF ƒ1.7 lens, for $26 (plus two shipping fees).

"He" is V. John Paloulian and totally deserves a link. If you're in the market for some used camera equipment and want a very knowledgeable and friendly seller, please check out his goods first. (He didn't say, but I'm guessing that he runs some sort of a camera shop, based on his list of products.)

I've only had the lens for a day, so I don't have a lot to show for it yet. All the pictures I took yesterday of my new niece Lydia (and actually one of my Dad, which happens to be one of my favorite pictures ever) used that lens. I'm delighted with it so far, but I'm still learning. There's a huge difference in the field depth between ƒ4 and ƒ1.7, and some of those pictures of Lydia show that I'm still, uh, "experimenting."

A Good Weekend

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 05:40:43 GMT

It's only Saturday night, and it's already been an excellent weekend.

Art and Sarah (brother-in-law and Sister) had their third child (Lydia Sarah Peña) on Thursday. Technically not the weekend, but I didn't see her until Saturday so I'm claiming it.
I got a new (to me) lens for my camera. Love. It.
After almost three weeks, my Toyota pickup is back on the road.
We got a phone bill for $890, and that doesn't include my (relatively inexpensive) cell phone.

Whoo! What more could one ask for in a single weekend?

OK, well, three out of four isn't bad.

I was going to write about each of those things in more detail tonight, but I've totally run out of steam so I'm putting it all off until Sunday.

Visit with Shannon, and Her Therapist

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 21:54:51 GMT

Corinne, Lauren and I drove to Norwalk for a visit with Shannon and her therapist, yesterday.

Though she still hates the whole experience, she has decided (or perhaps "realized") that discipline and structure are good for her. The therapist was there to express Shannon's hope that we'll provide some of that when she comes home.

She's coming home, we think, on December 26th. That's the date she's been given, and will most likely be under a program called "Transitional Supervision." Essentially, she's still a ward of the state. She'll be required to have and keep a full time job, and will be monitored very closely. But most important is that she'll be here, with us and her daughter.

Anyway, she's worried that she'll fall back into her old habits when she comes home. She has no resistance to peer pressure, and said that the first time she hangs out with her old friends she'll end up smoking pot (or worse).

We all agreed to a few simple rules. First, her friends can't come to the house. Our home is a sanctuary: ours first, and hers as long as she chooses to live here. Second, she's going to take care of her kids (both Lauren and her son, Richie) when she's home, and she won't bring the kids anywhere that they "shouldn't be" (such as where her friends might be drinking or smoking pot). Third, she's going to do what she can to support herself and her kids with the money from her job, and will work to pay off their old debts. We'll help her figure out a budget once we know what her income looks like. If she can also help with Mike's ongoing expenses while he's still 'away', she will.

The therapist rubbed me wrong at first, but we both relaxed eventually and it was a good meeting.

Afterwards, we gave Shannon a ride to Staples so she could show Lauren off to all of her coworkers. (Thus these pictures of her and Lauren in front of the store.) Then another quick ride to the Starbucks parking lot. From there she walked the mile and a half back to the halfway house, pushing the stroller and lugging the diaper bag, so she could have Lauren to herself for a couple hours. (We weren't supposed to drive her at all, but it was a few miles from the Therapist's office to Staples. The traffic was heavy and it was sprinkling.)

I worked from Starbucks for ninety minutes while Corinne ran over to Carters for some baby clothes (immediately after telling Shannon that we never need to buy clothes for Lauren because others have been so generous). We grabbed some lunch at Stew Leonard's, picked up Lauren at a few minutes after 2 PM, and were home again a little after 4 PM.

Look Out Kitties, Here She Comes!

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:45:43 GMT

Friday night at the hotel room, Lauren figured out how to crawl. Our first reaction was "uh oh", but really it was very exciting.

What prompted the crawl? A piece of pizza! Clearly a child after Corinne's own heart. (Ok, the pizza was wrapped in shiny aluminum foil, but still...)

The full story is actually on Flickr, because I managed to get a picture of her just before she crawled, and another one seventeen seconds later when she took her first, uh... "crawl-step."

I must get a movie of this tonight, while she's still very hesitant and deliberate. There's nothing else like it.

New Lauren Photos, with Shannon!

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 12:09:10 GMT

I already mentioned that I brought Lauren to see her Mom at the halfway house last week. I took some pictures (they're on Flickr now, see the current end of the Lauren set) while I was there, and now they're up on Flickr. Lauren, her big brother Richie, and Shannon, all together! I think Mike (Lauren's Daddy) is going to cry when he sees these. ;-)

Wow that kid is cute.

Pictures for Lauren's Fan Club

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 17:03:04 GMT

For anybody who cares (which I believe is no small group), I've put up a bunch of new pictures of my favorite little model, the cutest baby girl in the whole house, Miss Lauren Deane.

As you can see, she's pretty happy about it. She knows her fans have been missing her.

Can you believe she turns five months old in just a week? I can't.

She's Very Photogenic

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 03:30:46 GMT

This little girl grows more and more photogenic (read: cute, adorable, lovable, beautiful, perfect) every time I look at her.

Seriously. Check out all these pictures, or at least look at some of the later ones. Like this one from today, for example, where it actually looks like she and "Aunt Bonnie" Locke are both laughing at something "Nonny" (my Aunt Ellyn) said.

Corinne looked at Lauren today and muttered to me, "I'm totally gone." I know exactly what she meant. :-)

Westerly Summer Solstice Festival

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 12:54:35 GMT

Last night, Corinne and I brought Lauren to the Westerly Summer Solstice Festival. She's three and a half months old and has no clue what all the stuff is, but we figured it would be fun anyway. :-) We were right, but mainly because we met Ellyn, Katie, Tom and Gramma there.

The highlights of the festival included the best smile picture of Lauren (so far) as seen here; a really tasty sausage and peppers grinder; the rock wall that Tom couldn't climb often enough; the beautifully restored, antique fire truck owned by the Westerly Fire Department, and the local karate school's street show.

I took lots of pictures, so go peruse.

Ride #34: 73 Miles with Steve and Mike

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 29 May 2007 04:25:18 GMT

As I mentioned, Steve and Mike came down for an 80 mile ride on Thursday. We actually rode only 73 because we started a little late and Steve had to head home for a school concert with one of his nineteen sons. (Nineteen, four, whatever.)

The route was basically a combination of my various training routes, but I really did try to avoid any significant hills this time. (Two years ago, Steve dubbed Cossaduck Hill Road, "I Hate You Dillingham Hill." Couldn't do that to him again!) We started at the house, went up 184 to 117 into Ledyard, Col Ledyard Highway most of the way back but then cut over to Pumpkin HIll Road (to avoid having to climb Pumpkin Hill itself), to Gallup Hill Road for a few hundred feet. Then I said, "Let's do something fun," and they followed me DOWN DOWN DOWN Town Farm Road's crazy-steep hill (and my bottle bounced out of my cage at 47 mph, so I couldn't coast out at the end, had to go back for it). Right on Wolf's Neck, left on 201, right on Al Harvey, right on 184, left onto North Stonington Road, across 27 onto River Road into Mystic. Left onto Route One and over the drawbridge.

Then we stopped at the Henny Penny in downtown to recharge our bottles, then stopped again just a mile later at the New & Improved Mystic Cycle Center. I said that they have a full scale model of the old store in the changing room. That was a joke, but it almost could be true... the new store (well, they've been there for over a year now, but it's new to Steve and MIke) is really big.

Continuing East on Route 1 North, then a right onto Green Haven Road all the way to the Pawcatuck River, where it makes a hard left and turns into River Road, and then into Mechanic Street just before it ends back at Route 1 in downtown Pawcatuck. Right on Route 1, through Westerly, then onto 1A into Watch Hill. We stopped for lunch at St. Claire's Annex, same as two years ago. Finally pulled out the camera and took the only shots of the day: one of Mike sitting at the table (looks like he wants to hurt me, but I don't think he even knew I had the camera out), and two outside after we ate.

After lunch we finished the loop around Watch Hill, saw the big hole in the ground where the Ocean House used to be, and continued to Misquamicut Beach.

I could tell that we were going to have a tail wind along Atlantic Avenue (Misquamicut)... yeah! I love flying down that road. It's as flat as they come around here, and with a tailwind you can really fly. I was at the back of the group, and started to pick up speed. As I passed Steve, he said something like, "Restrain yourself!" but I couldn't do it. I maintained 31 mph for about 1/4 mile (all the way around the big beach parking lot), then noodled along at 18 mph waiting for them to catch up with me. (They apparently hadn't picked up their speed at all.) Normally I would try to average 25 or better for the full length of Atlantic Ave.

Left at the end of Atlantic, up into Dunn's Corners, stopped to recharge our bottles again at the Mobil station. Crossed over Route 1 onto Bradford-Dunn's Corners Road to the other property Gary and Ellyn own (rental property). Stopped in to say hi (and use the bathroom). Ellyn and Katie were there, cleaning up after the previous renter before the next weekend rental. This is when I talked Ellyn into having a Memorial Day picnic on Sunday, by tempting her with Lauren. :-D

The rest of the ride could be summarized in one word: hot. (Not that I would ever leave it at just one word, right?) We continued on 91 to Collins Road, past my parents' old place, to Maxson Hill Road, to Frontier Road, to Route 3, to Wellstown Road, to Route 216, to Route 184.

When we reached the rotary for Routes 2 and 184, Steve was so hot he was in imminent danger of self-immolation, so we stopped at Mystic Pizza II so he could splash nasty, algae-infested water on his neck from their outdoor fountain. Yuck!

From Mystic Pizza II it was eight uneventful miles home.

Steve (and Mike) even met Lauren! She was sleeping when we arrived, so I took a quick shower and then woke her up. She even stayed happy the whole time.

Great ride guys, thanks for coming down!

Stats: 73.11 miles (117.7 km) in 3h 58' 45" for an average speed of 18.37 mph (29.58 kph).

Gruber or His Not Evil Twin?

seth@macrobyte.net — Sat, 19 May 2007 05:33:13 GMT

At dinner tonight (hamburgers at the Red Robin), I explained the nightmare that I suffered implementing Markdown support for BBEdit. I told my funny-to-me-at-least story about wanting to snail-mail Guido's beautiful Python language spec to John Gruber with instructions to cook and eat (and how I thought it couldn't hurt the language-design process).

Imagine my surprise, then, when Mr. Gruber sat down in the row ahead of us, just thirty minutes later, for the evening's keynote presentations! (Mac-heads, most of you may better know John Gruber as daringfireball.net)

No, it wasn't the real John Gruber, but he looked so much like him that he had me fooled for a few seconds. (One might say that he had Grubered John's look and feel, if one knew exactly what it means "to Gruber" something.) :-D

Please compare this picture of Gruber's non-evil twin with this one of the original. Freaky, no?

Picture of Sean and a Fountain

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 18 May 2007 22:03:37 GMT

Here's a picture of Sean McMains, taken last night on our way to dinner. Yes, he's taking a picture of a fountain on the sidewalk. These copper fountains ("bubblers") are all over the place.

Cool feature: click this picture to zoom in on the fountain. Try it!

Update: Now you can Zoom Out from this picture, too. This is what we call "meta photography."

Refugees from the Weather

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 23:26:04 GMT

Sunday that crazy storm started to blow, the Nor'easter that dumped record amounts of rain all over the northeast. Very early Monday morning — around 4:00 am — there was a very powerful blast of wind and our power went out. (I happened to be awake at the time.)

Later that morning, Connecticut Light and Power didn't know when our service would be restored (but they were "aware of the problem"). By noon they were reporting (through their phone service) that our power would be back by 12:00 am on the 18th (so, midnight on Wednesday morning). This was on Monday the 16th. So we were facing up to almost two days without power. Nuh-uh.

That's not going to work. We have a baby here now, and would really like to keep her warm and well fed without resorting to extreme measures. We talked about finding a hotel room for the night, but Ellyn suggested we talk to Eric & Bonny about staying in their summer rental property for the night, as it's currently empty. They said yes, so that's what we did. (Thank you guys!)

After returning from my weeekly breakfast with Rich (and, this week, Kerri, Teddy and even Lauren!) in North Kingstown, Corinne and I decided to pack up the vehicles and trek back to Mystic. The phone company was still saying that service would be restored by midnight tonight, and we really wanted to be home. (Plus, we'd only brought enough "baby stuff" for one night.) (Pictures are of Rich and Kerri holding Lauren.)

First thing we saw as we approached the house? The garage door ascending in response to the truck's built-in remote. YAY!!! According to the blinking clocks all over the house, the power had been back on since before Corinne called the first time this morning.

Incidentally, this storm was no joke. Though western CT received more rain than we did, it's rather hilly around here so the streams, creeks, brooks and rivers all rose significantly. One in Waterford (just a few miles away) rose a full nine feet. Also, the wind ripped our closed deck umbrella right off of its base and tossed it over the edge, wrapping it around the birdfeeder I had mounted to the side of the deck with a fancy wrought-iron hanger. (Our only losses were, thankfully, the umbrella and some wind chimes that I think were given to us as a wedding present.)

I've posted some pictures of the very flooded Mystic River Road.

Ride #14: A Fine Early Spring Day

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 18:28:10 GMT

What a beautiful day for a bike ride!

It was a little chilly (43° F, 6° C), and slightly breezy, but clear and sunny and I was able to work up a good sweat.

I've taken to carrying a small camera with me on all of my rides. So besides the incessant stats that have come with every ride report, I'm going to post a picture with some of them, too. Including this one of the Pawcatuck River, about half way through my ride. (If you're on the mailing list, you may have to go to the web page to see it.)

There's a hidden motive for posting the photos: I'm going to try to convince Steve (and Mike and/or Paul) to come down here for a ride in May again, like he and Mike did two years ago. I know Steve likes the scenery down here, so the idea is that the pictures will do most of the persuading, and I'll just have to ask.

I'm six months behind on updating my stats, but I've been faithfully recording them on paper so eventually they'll all be up to date. For now, there is no "2007" section in the cycling area of this site.

Which reminds me that I need to get the ball rolling on the PMC fundraising. Donors!? The old PMC page still has the right link, even if the page only talks about the . I've raised $500 so far this year (thank you, Mr. You-Know-Who-You-Are), the goal is $6601.

Stats: 43.72 miles (70.38 km) in 2h 27' 25" for an average speed of 17.79 mph (28.64 kph).

Yes, that's slow. It's also very early in the season! (Oh, and I'm not 100% positive about the ride number. It may be ride 13, I'm not sure yet.)

Lauren is 35 Days Old

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 15:08:14 GMT

Speaking of the baby who ‘owns me’: Lauren is over a month old now. I was supposed to take pictures at her "monthiversary," but I just didn't have the energy!

This morning I felt pretty good when I woke up, so out came the camera.

You can see the results on Flickr. Just keep clicking the "More ->" link on the right under "Lauren (Set)" to see them all.

Yes, she's getting old, but I still think she's cute.

Where are the Pictures of Lauren?

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:59:55 GMT

Lauren's large and far-flung "fan club" (family and friends) has been coming here to find pictures of her, because this is where I posted the earliest sets.

I'll still post the occasional photo here if I have a good reason, but you all (that is, her extended family and friends) should bookmark my full set of Lauren pictures on flickr. That's where I'm putting most everything, even those that aren't mentioned here.

Another Picture of Lauren

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 01:53:23 GMT

Yes, I guess you'd better expect quite a few of these. I think that raising someone else's baby makes excessive photography a requirement!

However, I'l try to not to make a habit of posting them all separately. I meant to include this one with the last post, but forgot about it until it was too late.

(Click the picture to see other sizes, or see lots of my photos on flickr.

Can't Fully Use 3500xi Flash with Sony Alpha A100

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:54:35 GMT

The old flash is a bust.

My old camera equipment included two decent lenses, one nice lens, and a fair-to-middlin' flash (the Minolta 3500xi).

It seemed to work with the camera, but I was struggling with it. I took a couple pictures with it last night that looked like I was trying to cook the subject. (I just want to shoot it, not cook it!)

After digging around in the manuals and on Sony's site, Google finally found the answer for me on some forums. The 3500xi isn't fully compatible with modern DSLR cameras.

The 3500xi isn't compatible with the flash metering in digital cameras. It always fires at full power.

Bummer!

the other problem is that it won't work as a remote flash. So if/when I get around to doing something with the old Minolta body, this flash is going with it. Sony makes a couple of alternative flashes with the same features, and one of them (at least) costs about the same as what I paid for this one 13 years ago.

It Was Time for a New Camera

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:41:33 GMT

Lauren was born Friday morning at 7:48 am. One of the nurses demolished my camera that night, when she pulled it from the top of the entertainment center in Shannon's room to the tile floor six feet below.

That was the end of my Nikon Coolpix 950, a wonderful camera that had grown a little long in the tooth. (Still, my biggest complaint about it was that it was too difficult to get pictures from it to the computer. USB had been around for a while when we bought that camera in 99. That is also the most common complaint you'll see about the 950 in old reviews reviews.)

I borrowed Eric & Bonny's Canon Rebel for the weekend. Excellent camera, which we used pretty heavily for a few days to get shots like this and this. (Shannon has some talent... she took the best shots.)

Monday we were bringing the baby home, and the Prides needed their camera back for a trip to Boston. I needed to buy a camera.

See, back in '93 and '94, I had a lot of money, wasn't married and had almost no expenses ($185/mo rent!). I splurged on camera equipment, and ended up with thousands of dollars in lenses. Then I went digital in 99 when Corinne bought the Coolpix 950 for my birthday. For the next seven or eight years I rarely touched the old camera and lenses.

With all the D-SLR's out there now, I figured I should be able to find something that would work with all of those lenses.

The lenses are all Minolta AF mount, from Tamron. Problem: Minolta stopped making D-SLR's a year ago.

I searched for clues about cameras that use the same mounting system, or adaptors that would let me use my Minolta AF lenses with another camera (preferably a Nikon D200). I knew my chances were slim to none when I started... but the surprise was that I couldn't find any useful information! There are way too many junk "digital photography" sites on the web.

The closest camera shop (with which I was familiar) was Ritz Camera, in the mall. Ugh. Already late to pick up "the family" at the hospital (but under orders from everybody to HAVE A CAMERA WHEN THE BABY COMES HOME!), I went to Ritz hoping they'd have some solution for my problem.

The only clerk in the store was also the owner. It took her 25 minutes to "get to me," but when I explained my problem she said, "Here, this is the one you want," and handed me a Sony Alpha A100.

I bought it. Body only, since I didn't need the lens.

Apparently when Minolta decided they couldn't compete in the D-SLR market with the likes of Nikon and Canon, they sold their technology to Sony. The A100 is (basically) a Minolta model that was never released... Sony just rebranded and tweaked it a little.

I'm very happy with it. :-)

(To the right are some of my favorites-so-far, which I shot with the new camera.)

Meet Lauren Deane

seth@macrobyte.net — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 04:46:43 GMT

Lauren Santana Deane was born at around 8:00 this morning, weighing six pounds fifteen ounces (3.15 kilograms) and measuring 19 and 1/2 inches long. Here are pictures of her first day. (I've left out the really, really early ones, where she's totally nekkid and screaming her head off.)

Yeah, that's right, she's a small fry. But she's adorable, and already has four full grown adults wrapped around her cute little fingers.

And check out that head of hair. Whoo!

(Yes, B.A., I know you don't think babies are cute. If you don't think Lauren is cute or pretty, it's ok to not tell me. ;-)

I sat out in the waiting room from 5:45 this morning until they finally let me into the room at 11:15... and even that was only by special request of Mike and Shannon. Visiting hours didn't start until noon, and the nurse made sure I was very clear on that point. (I hadn't asked for early access, so I don't know why she made such a big deal of it).

Corinne came back after her dentist appointment, sometime before 1. I took Mike out for lunch, and then Corinne and I went home for the afternoon. She got some sleep, i ran errands and worked for a couple hours.

After assembling a care package (food for Mike, toiletries they had both forgotten here at the house, and "Ring Dings" for Shannon by special request), we went back to the hospital for a little while.

Unfortunately, this is when I realized Lauren's first day would also be my camera's last. Mike had been using it with the AC cord because the batteries were worn out, but at this moment it was sitting on top of the entertainment center, about 6 feet off the ground. (You know what's coming next, right?) The nurse opened the door, reached in and grabbed a rolling lamp from next to the tv. She started pulling it towards the door, and I heard the camera sliding across the top of the entertainment center. The cord was on the wrong side of the lamp... but it was too late. SLAM!! Pieces scattered all over the room, and my Nikon Coolpix 950 was no more.

The real irony of this was that we had just — I mean, just moments earlier — been talking about the age of my camera and what a total pain it is to get pictures off of it and onto the computer. With a new baby in the house, we have good reason to consider buying a new camera.

Well, now we have another reason to consider it. :-(