Hail Shapes - The jumbled life of Shailesh Pai

House v/s Home

2012-01-25T23:00:00.000-05:00

I used to like House until House came home.
Now I don't care for him anymore...

Two years later...

2011-11-21T14:21:00.000-05:00

Over two years since I fat fingered Amazon.com, I did it again just a few minutes back....

Anazib.com.............Took me right back to Amazon.com

Glad to know Amazon has been renewing all their domain registrations!!

Something's fishy

2011-08-09T23:58:00.002-04:00

I just watched Gordon Ramsay scale, fillet and slice up a huge Salmon into 14 portions.

It was so very inspiring and I don't even eat fish!

He can be an arrogant, foul mouthed jackass but he sure does know his stuff.

KenRockwell is boring now :(

2011-07-30T01:48:00.003-04:00

It used to be a very good, informative site. But now, most of his posts are about some super expensive leica cameras, vintage lenses, "sales" and "exclusive discounts" at his "favorite" Adorama and other stores.

Just a few minutes back, I went to his website - First page in view only talks about 'SALES' and 'PHOTO TOURS'.(I can go to slickdeals.net to browse through all the DEALS and SALES I want)

First pagedown is newsflash about a firmware update for 5D2 and a review on headphones (already starting to get bored)

Next page down is about a new Olympus interchangeable point and shoot camera (wonder how many people come to his site to read his review on a point and shoot camera....I don't) (Already lost interest)

Subsequent few pagedowns are all boring to the point that I close it and come here to rant about it.

Don't get me wrong. I still really like his site...but there isn't anything new that is worthwhile there anymore. I still go there occasionally to read his past posts on tips for better photography...but just a top header link on his website is enough to take me there.

He may be gaining a lot of new readers with the SLR rage these days (everyone and their mom want to buy an SLR because supposedly it will make them a better photographer) and he is good at reviewing every new SLR and lens that lands on the shelves, especially Canon and Nikon ones - which is a good thing for those who are in the market for one.

Please think of ways to keep your older audience engaged with your photography and tips; and not just be a site for reviews, "sales" and "tours". I get it, your site is your primary source of income and you are good at reminding us of that. In fact, in the past, anytime I needed to buy stuff at Amazon, I used to click through your page so that it sent a few cents your way. But not anymore, simply because I'm rarely visiting your site.

To end this rant (may be I should have started with this...), I want to say - Thank you Mr. Rockwell; you are a supersmart guy and you have helped me a lot in my photography journey. But...

/end rant.

Oh Blackberry

2011-07-28T10:02:00.000-04:00

Oh Blackberry, how much suckier can your camera get?
My 3 year old Nokia and 5 year old Ericsson
Took better pictures in the hands of my son!
How bad would it have been for your bottom line,
To spend 10 buckaroos for a half decent camera
On this Blackberry of mine???

Social Science

2011-07-28T00:06:00.000-04:00

Facebook? Yes, have an account to sign up for sweepstakes and receive spam
Twitter? Yes, have an account filled with spam tweets from Amazon to ZipZoomFly
FourSquare? Nope
Android Device? Nope
iDevice? Nope
Google Plus? Yes...but already going the spammy way
Actively participating Forums? None...dormant in one
Blog? This one with as many readers as my last name
Am I a social recluse?
Do I mind it?
Should I mind it?

Never gonna give you up

2011-07-25T23:21:00.001-04:00

I got RickRolled today.

Was browsing Amazon.com
Cos I had nothing better to do
I scrolled to the bottom but did not stop
Until I hit the rock

There were these sites
That Amazon had bought
There was Diapers, Soap, DPReview
Zappos, Aubile, IMDB and Shopbop

And then there it was. Woot.com
All by itself with a description that read
"Never gonna Give you up"
I wondered why it said, what it said

So I clicked.
Was taken straight to Woot
With a Daily Deal on Zoku
But right next to the set top box
Was dear old Astley
Going...

"Never gonna give you up"

Yes my friends
I got RickRolled
By Amazon
By Woot
By the curious puss
In my Boot

(Just so that you know
You go directly to Woot
You don't get Rick
Nor do you get to hum...

Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you)

My newest toy...

2011-07-22T11:01:00.000-04:00

Got one of these last week from Amazon.com. Best 6 minutes of flytime you can have for 18 bucks and 60 minutes of USB charging!

Buy it here. You won't be disappointed!

eBay can be strange sometimes....

2011-07-21T23:49:00.001-04:00

Kindness is the best investment

2011-06-13T02:44:00.000-04:00

"Kindness is the best investment" or was it "Kindness is your best investment"

I noticed it on a bumper sticker on one of the cars in the parking lot. If I remember correctly, it (the bumper sticker, not the car of the parking lot) belonged to some church around here.

WTF? Am I the only one who thinks that the phrase makes no sense at all? Do people just make shit up to make it sound pure and righteous?

No, I won't try to explain why I think it did not make any sense.

Scared the shit out of me

2011-06-13T02:38:00.000-04:00

I recently experienced the meaning of this phrase. I learned that I seem very calm and composed while I poop my pants. I also realized that I hardly have any folks around to talk to while shitting in my pants. It's a shitty feeling.

Poopiest post ever!

Pop went another one

2011-06-13T02:28:00.001-04:00

In the last 6 months, I built myself a new computer and I really love it. It's fast, it's smooth, it's cool, it's hot and it reminds me of some pretty groovy memories from the college days when we tried to do this for a living. (Crescent Computers now seems like such a uninspiring name for it)

Last week when I was trying to copy stuff over from my old computer onto this one, I head a lout *pop*. Almost sounded like a bullet. I had read about these pops online when I was r&d'ing how to solder caps but had never thought I'd get to hear it.

I was not even sure that it was my capacitor that had popped. The old PC was working fine since I had remoted into it. Just to confirm my suspicion, I tried to switch the display to my old PC and the screen went blank. I opened up the desktop and pulled out the video card and here it was, the popped capacitor.

Ironically (or murphionically), it has a different rating that the ones I have 7 more of - the ones I had replaced. This one is a 470mF 16v capacitor. Now, I need to buy 10 more of these and make 6 more posts about how badly I suck at desoldering/soldering, post 3.4 more graphs about my success rate probabilities before I get it to work (or burn down the house).

Here's a pic of the new caps I soldered on 6 months back. It has worked like a charm ever since.

If you ever want to read about the history of bad caps, click here.

Oh, by the way, these are untouched pics were taken with a $135 p&s camera, which I have been using more than 75% of the time these days...

7.0 liter W12, 500 HP, 475 lb-ft of torque

2010-11-16T01:23:00.001-05:00

Now that would be a monster of an engine if all of those cylinders fired under one hood. Those are the combined numbers if I put our two people haulers together. All that power and torque for transporting a handful of people at average speeds of around 35 mph!

I'm always amazed at the technology and reliability of current day internal combustion engines. I'm not even taking about those super advanced engines in an exotic German or Italian car. This is just our day-to-day, run-of-the-mill, mass produced cookie cutter cars.

Both of these cars can go around 12,000 miles between oil changes. The don't need water or any other fluids added on a regular basis (well, besides gas of course).Both these cars are categorized as ULEVs (Ultra Low Emission Vehicles??). The only routine maintenance I perform on them (every month or so) is check and fill any air in the tires if needed. They are not new either. One of them is over 5 years old and other around 3.

Hell, the 5 year old one can even turn off 3 of its 6 cylinders when the engine computer determines it doesn't need all the power! Yeah, I sound like a baby in awe, but as I said, whenever I think about how often I don't have to think about whether or not the car will start the next time I crank the engine, I continue to be amazed...and thankful!

Thank you technology. Thank you human brain. Thank you mother necessity.

(If Murphy has his way, one of them is going to breakdown tomorrow)

Guess where I'm posting this from?

2010-11-16T00:44:00.001-05:00

Nope, I'm not sitting on the throne while posting this.

Yes, I fixed my graphics card! After multiple failed attempts at being able to de-solder the bad caps, after giving up on the whole project a couple of times and after finding that this card still sells on eBay for north of $50 used, I went the brute force approach to de-solder and clean up the holes.
Finally at 2:00 AM yesterday I managed to de-solder the old caps (~20 effort hours), solder on the new ones (1/2 hour), installing the card (2 mins), hitting the power button (20 secs) and waiting for things to show up on the screen (20,000 hours), it happened. I finally got this card to work!

I had to literally drill the solder out of the holes after failed attempts at trying to get the solder off with solder sucker and desoldering braids (those videos on Youtube make it seem so easy). The older solder won't come off easy and when soldering the new caps, the new solder won't stick on easy! (those videos on Youtube make it seem so easy...wait didn't I already say that??)

In the meanwhile, last week, due to unknown/unrelated cause, the power supply also went kaput. eBay came to the rescue and I managed to snag one for 15 bucks.

So, I now have a working 7 yr old desktop....wooohooo!!!

OMGBBQWTFacebook Mail!!!!

2010-11-15T14:07:00.000-05:00

OMG Gmail killer! OMG Quick! Run! Get one!

Life is a series of left turns...

2010-10-18T15:28:00.002-04:00

From home to drop-off, it's just a series of left turns. I'm surprised, I'm not home by the time I'm there!!
Turn by turn account goes thus... (Road name in parenthesis for my reference)
1. Left.... (WO)
2. Left.... (OP)
3. Right.... (PL)
4. Left.... (HH)
5. Left.... (WD)
6. Right.... (WD)
7. Left.... (TP)
8. Left.... (FL
9. Left.... (RT)
10. Left.... (MD)

WTF? 2 out of 10 turns are left turns? 3 of them with stoplights! One might think I'm going round in circles!

The good thing?? Well, my way back is a series of right turns with a couple of lefts (without stoplights) sprinkled in between. If I measure the time, it probably takes me 25% more time to go than to come back!

A bad workman blames his tools

2010-10-17T20:11:00.000-04:00

A possible corollary to the previous post :)

No updates on the repair job yet. Just a pile of tools, bad caps and more tools taking up space on one corner of a table....

Cheapo parts not a good job do

2010-10-13T23:05:00.001-04:00

The stupid 4 dollar soldering iron won't get hot enough to melt the solder. I paid a dollar for the iron and 3 bucks for shipping. No point going around the hassle of returning it either.

RadioShack came to the rescue. I've never been a RadioShack fan but this was the second time it proved to be very useful.

A couple of months back, the Microwave went kaput. After opening it out and checking some of the circuits, it seemed that the internal fuse might have blown. I wasn't sure but it was worth replacing before spending a hundred bucks on a service call to a repairman. Checked online, the fuse was at least 10 - 15 bucks shipped. Tried my luck at RadioShack - 3 for $2!!. Yaaay....replace...see if it works...rinse...repeat 3 times. It worked on the first try. The microwave has been working fine ever since. Hundred bucks saved - thank you RadioShack!

Fast Forward to yesterday. Went to RadioShack, found a decent 30W soldering iron + starter kit (some solder wire, stand, etc.) for 8 bucks! Made me kick myself for wasting time and money ordering online before checking at RadioShack (2 mins from my house)

The project still is facing hurdles. I was able to easily remove the bad caps with the RadioShack iron....but the solder in the holes won't come out. My noobiness is shining very bright. I've already tried a couple of times - spend around 2 hours an successfully cleared out enough holes to put in half a capacitor.

Good news? No burns yet - no fingers burnt, no table burned, no house on fire either.

If it doesn't work by this weekend, I'm giving up (would be a BIG blow to my ego if I do give up). Let's see....

Fatso. Undo. Update. 1

2010-10-07T10:19:00.001-04:00

From the various things I had set out to do, these are the one's I'm doing and the once I aint...

- Drink more water - try to keep track of qty drunk - Target: 1 gallon/day
>>> I have upped my water intake for the most part. Not consistently though. Also I'm not tracking my consumption so cannot say how close I am to hitting the gallon a day mark. I'm probably close to 1/2 gal/day

- STOP late night snacking
>>>> Been successful at doing this for the most part. Some nights are bad but those are rare.

- Wean away from reaching for the candy jar (I have a sweet tooth and I know I cannot completely give up on it)
>>>> Reduced considerably but not given up completely

- Build an exercise routine - at least 3-4 days a week - cardio, weights
>>>> Failed miserably at doing this. I must say I did not attempt this with any effort at all. This is definitely something I should start soon.

- Exercise portion control and attempt to consistently count calories - plan on using caloriecount.about.com
>>>> Been doing very good at portion control both at lunch and dinner without ever starving myself. Water intake before meal, whole wheat bread, fruits, etc. are some of the things that are helping this.

I have not been using caloriecount...but I'm pretty sure I've been within 2000 cals most of the days.

- Sleep at least 6 hrs/night
>>>> Weekly average of 6 hours is being met but not on a daily basis.

- Weigh in every Friday and monitor the weight gain/reduction on a weekly basis
>>>> Been doing this every Friday morning. Three weeks later, I am tracking at 189-190 lbs. I have lost 3-4 lbs over the last 3 weeks, which is in line with my target of a pound a week.

However, these initial pounds that I've been losing are the easy on, easy off ones. They were more of a bloat due to bad habits over the last few months as opposed to gradually gained over a few years. After I lose another couple of pounds, I know it would get harder and I will have to add exercise to the mix. So I better start working on it now!

To solder or not to solder....

2010-10-04T23:24:00.002-04:00

I think I have answered the question

Over the weekend....
- I found the stock VGA card that came with the desktop.
- It doesn't even support any widescreen resolution or any std resolution beyond 1280 * 1024
- At 1280 * 1024, you can literally see the screen refreshing when you switch windows
- Anything graphicky runs yucky and puky with the stock VGA card
- I found yet another graphics card (FX 5200) that had a couple of popped capacitors
- I noticed that all the popped capacitors on FX 5200 as well as the 7600GS were of the same ratings
- Figured even if I manage to fix one of them, I would be in good shape
- I also figured I must have spent around 150-200 bucks between these two graphics cards (Dang! PC Gaming is expensive!!)

So, I went ahead and placed orders for....
- Off eBay -- Rubycon 1000uF, 6.3V Low ESR capacitors - 15 qty - $5.50

- Off eBay -- 40W soldering iron with pencil tip + some 60/40 solder wire - $8.50

- Off Amazon -- Solder sucker - $ 3.49
- For a total of around 18 bucks, I figure this is way cheaper than getting a replacement card

- I also figured that it's way way way cheaper than replacing the 6 year old desktop (Just looked it up, purchase date: 8/23/2004) that still continues to function and perform like new

What would be the outcome? One (or more) of these should/would/could happen...

- I burn one of the cards with the soldering iron - I burn both the cards with the soldering iron
- I burn 10 of the 15 capacitors with the soldering iron (I only need 5)
- I burn my fingers with the soldering iron (sidebar: As of this morning, I have either a cut or bruise on 4 of my 5 fingers on the right hand!)
- I burn the table with the soldering iron
- I burn the house down with the soldering iron
- One of the two cards gets fixed- Both the cards get fixed
- Both the cards get new capacitors but still don't work

Worst case? I burn my fingers, the cards, the table and house --- Outcome: I'll have buy a new desktop
Best case? I fix both the cards, both test out fine, 7600GS goes in Desktop, FX 5200 on eBay --- Outcome: Profit!
Most likely case? Jury is out on that one....

RIP Video Card. He loved to laugh....

2010-10-02T01:11:00.003-04:00

I have a Dell SC400 as my primary desktop. It is old, outdated, relatively slow, but a the same time, it has been one of the most stable desktops I've ever had. I've owned it for 6 years now and it has never given me any problems. It has been upgraded over time with more RAM, Hard Drive capacity and Video Card. I have been contemplating upgrading but have never been compelled enough since the stability of this desktop more than made up for it's lack of speed and processing power.

It was working fine until a couple of days back. Today, I turn it on and nothing comes up.

I don't get a BIOS check complete beep either. It's not completing the POST.

Did the initial pushing and pulling of wires but no luck.

After opening it up, I hear two very feeble beeps a few seconds after turning on....unsure whether it's coming from the motherboard or the VGA card.

I suspected the RAM first so I uplugged the DIMMs one at a time to see if any of those had gone bad but no luck.

I finally unplugged the video card and here's what I found....

Seems to me like the two capacitors are toast. I don't have the inclination to go buy a couple of capacitors, a soldering iron, solder wire, unsolder the bad capacitors, solder the new ones, etc. etc.

I think I have a old base VGA card somewhere. Will hunt for it in the morning and plug it in to make sure that is actually the problem.

Ironically, I had bought an external hard drive a couple of weeks back to backup the data on this PC. Never got around to actually backing it up!

Sidebar: Don't you love the fact that a $100 point & shoot can take better macro pics than a $1000 SLR unless you have a dedicated macro lens?

Ma look! No internet!!

2010-09-29T00:58:00.000-04:00

Beginning October, i.e. two days from now, we're losing our current internet service. I procrastinated about researching which one to go with. I had whopping 3 choices and I did not decide on one. Nor did I call any of them to find how soon they can come over and setup the new service.

Yikes, looks like it's going to be a few days with NO INTERNET. OMGWTFBBQ. IDK MY BFF JILL? Will the world end? Will I vegetate?

*Reminder to self* Make the call tomorrow!!!

Feeling old....

2010-09-28T17:47:00.003-04:00

Was in a meeting at work today with a room full of people, when suddenly the topic of age came up out of the blue. This guy asked the question to the folks in the room "Who do you think is younger of us, him (me) or me (him)?"

Pretty straightforward but it's full of irony...

-- The guy asking this question was a bald guy - not that there's anything wrong with that and he's a pretty nice guy.... (just saying that in case he ever reads this blog)

-- The only person who said I was younger said what she said because she already knew how old I was...

-- The guy asking this question was 42...

-- When asked how old I was, I couldn't remember my age...

-- After doing a quick math, I said I was 36 or 37...

-- I am not even 35 (yet)!!

Damn, I feel old!

2001 Infiniti i30 for Sale.....

2010-09-27T12:43:00.002-04:00

Putting our car on the market hoping to sell it in the next couple of weeks. It's a nice car that has served us well for over 5 years. I washed the car and cleaned out the interior this weekend and took some pics.

Some of the pics are a bit over-exposed. The lighting conditions were not optimal and I only had 15 mins to take the pics (excuses, excuses). I'll be post the ad online sometime today or tomorrow...

Thought I'll post them here so that I can hotlink the pics from here instead of imageshack/tinypic.

^z ^z ^z ^z

2010-09-22T00:26:00.004-04:00

Undo Undo Undo

Wouldn't it be great if undo'ing stuff in real life was as easy as as hitting ^z ^z ^z?

Overslept? Undo undo undo...
Missed an appointment? Undo undo undo...
Forgot about the PTA meeting? Undo undo undo...

Over-sped? Undo undo undo...
Turned the other left? Undo undo undo...
Took the wrong exit? Undo undo undo...

Overspent? Undo undo undo...
Bad investment? Undo undo undo...
Bounced check? Undo undo undo...

Overstressed? Undo undo undo...
Laid off? Undo undo undo...
Fired the wrong guy? Undo undo undo...

Overcast sky on your day of golf? Undo undo undo...
Take a shot and miss the ball? Undo undo undo...
Caught sleeping with 15 of them? Undo undo undo...

Overweight? Undo undo undo...
Overate? Undo undo undo...
Let go a stinker with your boss behind? Undo undo undo...

Overpost and bore the most? Undo undo undo?
Boring posts and clunky prose? Undo undo undo?
Discard post or publish post? ^z ^z ^z ^y ^y ^y

Hey Fatso!

2010-09-14T01:02:00.005-04:00

I've been gradually gaining weight over the last 9 months - around 10 lbs from my then stable weight of 183 - 185 lbs. Over the last couple of years, I have been as low as 180 (+/- 2) to a recently recorded high of 195 lbs. Although it's gone down a couple of lbs since then, it's still above 190 at all times.

I think I know the reasons...
- Remnants of binging on sweets and snacks from back home
- Decrease in exercising to almost zilch
- Late night snackings
- Reaching for the candy jar at work
- Bad sleep habits
- Other changes in lifestyle

I would like to lose the gained lbs and then some. The plan is to get to the 175 - 180 lbs stable weight range by end of this year. This way, it would be more of an mid-year resolution as opposed to a new year resolution and hopefully have a better chance of success!

The plan is to use a somewhat scientific and somewhat disciplined approach in order to achieve this goal.

Some of the things I don't plan on doing....
- Won't follow any "named" diet regime (Atkins, South Beach, low carb, cookie!!)
- Won't go overboard with either diet changes or exercise (e.g. exercise 2 hrs a day, 7 days a week and consume only bananas for breakfast, lunch and dinner)
- Won't do anything that's not sustainable

What I plan on doing? Few small, simple things I start doing from today for starters...
- Drink more water - try to keep track of qty drunk - Target: 1 gallon/day
- STOP late night snacking
- Wean away from reaching for the candy jar (I have a sweet tooth and I know I cannot completely give up on it)
- Build an exercise routine - at least 3-4 days a week - cardio, weights
- Exercise portion control and attempt to consistently count calories - plan on using caloriecount.about.com
- Sleep at least 6 hrs/night
- Weigh in every Friday and monitor the weight gain/reduction on a weekly basis

I know I'll probably reach a plateau after losing around 5-10 lbs. I'll have to re-visit my plan then and possibly add/restrict additional stuff.

Until then, good luck to me and let's see where this goes!

Chasing the rising sun - HDR edition

2010-09-12T01:34:00.001-04:00

HDR'ed and heavily edited version of the previous pic. Generated by merging 3 exposures 0, -1, +1 EV in Photomatix. Do I like it? Kinda. Is HDR super overused? Betcha. Will I keep messing with it? Sure. Do I like it better than the original? Noppa.

What the font? Google Instant!

2010-09-10T23:34:00.005-04:00

So, Google introduced Instant a few days back. Seemingly a progression of Suggest, Google now not only tries to auto fill your search phrases but it also attempts to automatically execute the search for the most likely phrase you are going to search on.

One interesting thing I noticed about Google Suggest and subsequently Google Instant is their censorship of search phrases while suggesting. What the....Font??? Even if I turn off "Safe searching", the results are still censored. If they are trying to save milliseconds off my time, then should they really perform a search on "What the Font"?? Do they really think that's what I'm searching for? Really? Really Really?

Pondering away further...what might be the natural progression to this feature?

Open up gmail, click compose mail...
Bing! Suggested To person: Mom --- Last email sent 2 years back
Bing! Suggested Subject: I miss you Ma! --- Last 23 emails from Mom had keywords "miss you son"

Wake up in the morning, Google dress suggestion via SMS...
Bing! Wear the purple polka dot shirt today. You got 112 Facebook likes the last time you posted your pic in that shirt.

Google seems to be a really interesting place to be. Sometimes I wonder about the extent of information google has about me. If they dig through the info they have about me, they probably can write up my biography better than any person.

My emails (GMail)...My recently visited places (Maps)...My likes around entertainment (Youtube)....Stocks I'm researching (Finance).....News I'm interested in (News)....Pics I've been clicking (Picasa)....Stuff I've been searching/researching/exploring/sites I've been visiting (Search).....and above all.....CRAP I've been posting (Blogger).

Loading the dishwasher

2010-09-10T23:20:00.000-04:00

The wifey loads the dishes as if they are traveling first class on Sunday. I make them commute second class in a Mumbai local train at 5:00 PM.

Talking of local trains, it's been over 5 years since I've traveled in a local train in Mumbai. I wonder how the crowd on the local trains are these days? Exponentially grown? Stayed around the same? Getting better?

Chasing the rising sun....

2010-09-07T00:13:00.001-04:00

Went shooting today after many months. It's been quite a while since I woke up early morning to do something by myself.

Not many months back, it used to be like clockwork - wake up by 6:45 every Saturday and Sunday, leave home by 7:10, play an hour and a half of tennis and be back home by 9:00 AM. It was almost a ritual, only difference was that this was not a forced one; it was something I liked doing. Something I used to look forward to. It went on for almost a year and a half until it stopped cold. Man, I miss it.

I digress, but the point I was trying to get to was, along with the tennis, gone was my drive to wake up early morning on weekends. Photography could've take its place, so could've golfing or running. Only thing that took it's place was an hour or two of extra sleep. Well, I still continue to digress.

Today, I was woken up by one of the kiddos desire for a 5:00 AM snack. This granted me an opportunity to leave home before sunrise and go shooting.

Tampa might have quite a few places to capture beautiful sunsets, but not many places offer clean views of the sunrise. Only place close to my home that offers it is Safety Harbor and nearby areas.

The pics here are from the Safety Harbor Marina. This is a place I visit quite often when I am in the mood for a quick shoot. I think at least a third of the landscape pics on this blog are from a 2 mile radius surrounding the Safety Harbor downtown area.

As luck would have it, we had a completely overcast sky. I knew it when I left the house but I was hoping for a glimpse of the rays from the rising sun escaping between the clouds. Nope, no go The clouds were too dense; only a few streaks of orange sun managed to get past.

I still managed to get a few decent pics (or so I think). More than anything else, this inspired me to get out of bed in the dark more often and go chasing the rising sun...

Knowledge v/s Skill v/s Creativity

2010-09-01T12:51:00.002-04:00

Read a ton of books and magazines and I'll gain a ton of knowledge...

Take a lot of pics and I may think I've gained a lot of skill....

I look at some of these pics and I realize...

A ton of knowledge and a lot of skill cannot make up for lack of creativity.

Photos from: http://www.fubiz.net/2010/07/27/milas-daydreams/
(A lot more very neat pics of this baby there)

I saw this posted on one of the forums. I have no idea on the background of the photographer, equipment used, years of experience, etc. etc. It might as well be a mommy shooting her peacefully sleeping kid with her $60 point and shoot.

As wifey said when she saw these pics, "It’ll make the child feel so special when she grows up and looks at them."

Zen and the art of Omelette creation...

2010-07-30T00:41:00.000-04:00

Was on a forced vacation a couple of days back (which is getting to be too old now!)...spent some open time cooking and clicking.

Outcome of the cooking turned out to be pretty good; outcome of the clicking, not quite.

Earthy Omelette...

Mushrooms, Scallions, Tomatoes, Thai peppers, Corn

Sauteed in a pan with a lil bit of oil...

Two eggs beaten with salt and a tsp of oil poured on top and spread around for coverage....

Medium Low heat until eggs are cooked per taste preference and then a liberal sprinkle of shredded cheese...

Cooked until cheese is melted...

.Tri-folded.on the pan with a little bit of finesse

A few mins spent appreciating the texture...

Off the frying pan and onto onto the plate with a couple of slices of bread...

Devoured...

Not a big fan of HDR....

2010-07-19T23:13:00.001-04:00

But I like to mess with it out once a while just for grins....

Original version (with normal exp)looks like this... (Note the washed out skies...)

I probably could have gotten a better picture without HDR'ing if I had taken it at the right time/light

Care for some....

2010-07-19T23:00:00.002-04:00

Care for some Biryani??

(Might post the recipe some day if I get to it...)

Simple pleasures....

2010-06-15T01:45:00.005-04:00

The kiddo and I have gone biking a few times over the last month. A couple of times we went out in the morning - around 7:30. Whenever I tell him, let's go biking in the morning (say at 6:30 AM), he probably doesn't sleep in the night. He just waits until it's 6:30 to come and wake me up.

I feel sad that I have been neglecting his enthusiasm to go biking. Like this week....

Friday night:
"Let's go biking at 8:00 AM"
"Coool!!"
"Be sure not to wake up before 8:00 or wake me up before 7:30...ok??"
"OK!" (still very excited)

Saturday morning 8:00 AM
"It's 8:00 let's go"
"Aah come lie down besides me for some time"

One hour later
"Now it's too hot outside...may be we'll go in the evening?"

Very stupid of me. I'll do better next time.

The pics here are from one such early morning biking trip, probably around 7:30. He bikes pretty well (probably got it from his dad). We biked around 6 miles that day and he (we) thoroughly enjoyed it. I had taken my camera with me and I was clicking some pics while biking (yeah yeah shame on me for being so irresponsible!!)

Yahoo in Maliboo or Malibu in Yahu?

2010-06-15T00:45:00.003-04:00

Isn't this the dumbest thing ever? An ad of Chevy Malibu occupying the whole background when I try to access Yahoo Mail?

Borderline desperation, IMO. Is yahoo ready to fall? Has it already fallen? According to Alexa, yahoo now falls in a distant fifth position in terms of usage.

Once upon a time, it was THE place to go to for emails, web searches, shopping, news, etc. (at least for me). Now a days, only reason I go there is to check an occasional email that may land there from a contact or an online account that I've been lazy enough not to update with my current id (gmail).

Anyways, my rant was about the background image. Bing always has had one, at least since I started using it (from the Live days)....but it has been some pretty neat photographs which as sometimes very interesting. Google very recently introduced Background images....but they feel very out of place imo. Google looks very neat in plain white background....please please please always keep it option to have a background....and NEVER show me a Chevy Malibu when I go to search for "Underwear sizing guidelines"

Diss-Qualifiers....

2010-06-09T11:35:00.001-04:00

I'm sorry........but....
I don't mean to offend you....but....
I don't mean to sound disrespectful...but...

I don't want to start an argument....but...
I will regret saying this later...but...
I don't know how else to put this...but...

Don't take this the wrong way....but...
I don't know how to say this....but...
I don't want to sound difficult...but...

I hate to sound negative...but...
I know you are going to hate this....but...
I know you will not like this....but...

...your shirt stinks more than a sweaty dog
...is that photoshopped?
...why is that so dark?

...it's not you, it's me.
...it's not personal, it's professional.
...I really need that thing done by end of day today.

...do you always add so much oil when you cook?
...is it meant to be this raw?
...why does this taste so stale?

...I don't really care about the issues you have been facing
...are you expecting? (or are you just getting fatter?)
...can you get that kid to stop crying?
...when are you guys planning on leaving?

...is this post done or will you keep typing????

Casting couch....

2010-06-07T10:57:00.005-04:00

Drawing a blank.

I have this habit of starting off posts and leaving them as drafts, forever at times. This is one such post - Casting Couch. I'm not sure when I created the post with this title nor can I recollect what this was going to be about. Kinda funny when I think about it - hmmm....casting couch.....Was it about a real casting couch?? (Yeah, I wish!). Was it about some java class casting? (I bet not).... Was it about a pic of our sofa? (Too dirty to display)....

Then, what was it about? How will I ever know? I have been thinking about it even while I have been typing this up....but can't remember. I'm guessing it might be some pic or joke or something I had found somewhere that I was attempting to link to and left it for later.

On a completely off-topic note, I ordered a new lens (well, it's a used lens but new for me) yesterday. I'm pretty excited about it. Am waiting for it to arrive. It's not something I can make any use of inside the house for sure. Now, only if I can find the time to go shooting with it.

Graduation....

2010-06-03T14:05:00.007-04:00

Done with the bottles and graduated on to the sippy cups...yay!! As of last month, the kiddos have transitioned to sippy cups. Gone are the days of endless brushing and cleaning of bottles and nipples. Oh, yes, and the countless number of liners!

Sometimes I wish I was in the baby gadget business. Must be quite easy to make money by suckering n00b parents....

- Emotional Blackmailing - Do you really want to feed your first born child from that Made In China bottle?? Is your child not worth the extra $10,000 that you would spend on this Taj Mahal of feeding cups???

It has automatic backflow prevention and it automatically throttles the milk flow - just point the bottle towards your baby's mouth and it's robotic arm will automatically align it with her cheeks and lip. It even has a safety release valve that automatically burps the baby too!

Oh, did I mention, it automatically washes, rinses and dries itself too???

- 72 Million Star Safety Rating - What? You gotta be kidding when you say you have not heard about this ErgoCargo Car seat. It should not even be called a carseat but the federal safety regulations make us call it that.

It's in fact a Fully-automated Oscilloscopic Octahedrally-tethered Logic Enabled Device (FOOLED).
Just drop your baby in it while you are standing. No need to bend and strain your back - the triple gelled and pneumatic shock absorbers gently envelop the baby into the shell. The robotic arms (yes robotic arms again) align all the 8 belts (remember it is octahedrally tethered!) over the baby and lock into place by themselves.

And then the device legs protrude out and walk by itself and lock itself into the car....all at the touch of a button, of this 829 button full functional remote control!!

- Sleepless in Seattle - Disruptive sleeping pattern? We have the tool right for you. This Nano-Nanny activates itself as soon as you put your baby in the crib. It has a database of 30,000 lullabies to put the baby and her parents to sleep.

These velvet laced belts will keep the baby tied to the bed in case she tries to climb out. The dual robotic arms (don't ask) will gently pat the baby to sleep - it can be pre-programmed with these 58 patting motions.

Those earmuffs you ask? Well, those are for you - sometimes technology cannot do everything for you, can it?

(50mm, f/1.8, 1/40sec, iso1600)

Hissssnake in zeee backyardsssss

2010-06-02T00:05:00.003-04:00

Found this snake in our backyard the other day. Although, supposedly, it's very common to see snakes around here, this was the first time I saw one and I was quite startled.

I was in my own world doing some yard work that I did not even notice this guy at first. I was probably around 3-4 feet from him; it was probably a good thing I did not see him then or I might have screamed like a girl. I actually saw him a few mins later when I was walking back with a trash bag. There he was relaxing in the sun, all 5 ft of him, probably had come for some frog for dinner (which we see quite a few of in the backyard).

What did I do? I ran back in to grab my camera to snap some pics of this little guy. I just had my 50mm and I did not bother to change it. I hurriedly came back but he was no longer in his original position. He was ready to go hunting or find a place without a hyper-excited snake noob disturbing his beauty bask. I manged to get a couple of pics before he was all gone. It was not in the best angle - mind you I was scared and did not want to get too close to this guy nor did I have a zoom lens on.

Once I got back in, I tried to identify the type of snake - What's the first question that comes to mind? Yeah, is/was it poisonous? What's the next one -- Does it bite? Duh, yeah it would bite, but I was also aware that most of the snakes found in the urban areas are the non-venomous types. There are some pretty good resources online to help identify the species of a snake. I used this site to help I identify my new-found friend - http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/herpetology/fl-guide/snakekey.htm

From what I could tell based on this pic and the questionnaire on that site, it was a Southern black racer. I was probably right, it was visiting ys to feast on some of the frogs that we have been seeing a lot of. More info on the racer here

DND DND DND DND

2010-05-17T17:46:00.003-04:00

Sign outside this guys' cube....

DO NOT DISTURB. Get the message? No? How about now? No?? How about now? How about now? How about now? How about now? How about now?

I sit pretty close to him and I whisper all the time...just to make sure I don't disturb him. I remove my shoes and walk on my socks just to make sure my steps are not too loud to grab his attention. More so, I don't even get to gurgle on my straw when I sip on my coke!

May be one of these days, I just take the kiddo's toy horn and walk by his desk tomorrow and honk. Wonder he will actually get disturbed?

May be everytime I pass by his desk (his cube is at the end of the aisle), I say *Beep Beep* and run away. Wonder he will actually be disturbed?

Disclaimer (in case he ever reads it and comes to beat me up) - He is a pretty decent guy...he is just a collector of fine things and has probably been collecting these Do Not Disturb signs from every person who has left this place over the last few years)

Magnolia blooms

2010-05-13T01:44:00.005-04:00

We have this huge mature Magnolia tree outside our house. It's around 30 feet high and around 15 feet wide and has large green leaves. The tree is beautiful and dense with large dark green leaves.

All year long, it bears no flowers, its just a huge leafy tree. However just for 2 weeks every year, the Magnolia flowers blossom. It's that time of the year now. The whole tree is filled with these beautiful white Magnolia flowers.

These flowers are HUGE in size ...in fact HUGE in everything....size, perfume and of course pollen. The sad part is once the blossom they don't last very long. They wither and fall off within a day or two, three at max.

The kiddo likes to pluck the flowers from the low hanging branches and bring them home and set them in a cup of water. Within half a day or so, they open up and bloom completely.....exposing the entire anatomy of the flower. May be our science teacher should have used these flowers to explain Calyx, Corolla, etc..etc...instead of the black and white pictures of our science text books.

The second pic has my blackberry resting against the flower...just to give a sense of size. The flower in it's full bloom is more than twice the size of my blackberry. Now, that is huge. Imagine wearing one of them on your head; or a garland of these around your neck!

Unfortunately, it's just a matter of days before all the flowers wither and fall...and in a month after that, they bear fruits (I think they are fruits, or seed pods or something). That's when comes the task of picking the remains - of the flowers, the leaves and the fruit. Until then, it's time to enjoy nature in it's fragrant glory

When things are just not going your way....

2010-05-12T11:50:00.003-04:00

Saw this pic somewhere and found it funny yet true at times...made me wonder...

There are those days, weeks and months...
When no matter how hard you try and no matter how you turn...
You do all the right things and press all the right buttons...
You plan the next steps and make the right moves...
When things start to pile; they never seem to relax...
You are looking for a break; all you get's a breakdown...
You wonder what you did and ponder what you didn't.
Then you realize and then you awaken;
Twas just a game of tetris and the floor wasn't even

How many engineers does it take...?

2010-05-09T03:07:00.001-04:00

How many Engineers does it take to replace a Ceiling Fan?

-- One to go buy a nice new fan on sale from Costco

-- One to click some pics of the old fan in attempt to post them on classifieds

-- One to take down the old ceiling fan

-- One to try mounting the new Costco fan only to realize it uses a different mount

-- One to further realize that the Costco fan once assembled couldn't be easily dismantled

-- One to pack up the round peg of the fan in the square hole of the box with the rod hanging out

-- One to go to Lowes to buy the same brand fan as the existing one

-- One to try mounting the Lowes fan only to realize it uses a third kind of "slightly" different mount

-- One to consider replacing the outlet box after realizing it took almost 4 hours the last time

-- One to give up on the supposedly mini project and decide to call an electrician

-- One to call the electrician.....the Electrician who comes and installs the new fan in less than 30 minutes start to finish

-- One to have his ego seriously hurt, smashed and hung over the new ceiling fan

-- One to pay the electrician more to install than it took to purchase the fan

-- One to post this blog post and go to sleep.

Oh by the way...

2010-05-06T10:25:00.001-04:00

Oh by the way, Hi! Been quite a while....

Silly Bandz

2010-05-06T10:11:00.001-04:00

"Do you like these silly bandz"
"Yes"
"Why do you like them?"
"Because they are cool"
"Why are they cool?"
"Because everyone has them"
"You remember we had talked the other day about not copying others blindly?"
"Yeah................but I really like these bands"

A cloudy, windy, rainy day...

2010-02-13T01:46:00.002-05:00

I don't feel like typing much at all these days. So much so that I have been slacking on sending out work related emails too!

Back on topic - for some reason, I really like this pic. Is it because of the lone palm tree swaying freely on this cold, windy, rainy, chilly day? Is it the busy clouds behind? Is it the colors or the lack thereof? I don't know but as a whole it feels peaceful...

Slow down today...

2010-02-10T23:37:00.000-05:00

A piece of unwrapped, unsolicited advice that I'm sure I can use.

I'll keep the candy, you can have the advice!

Kseniya Simonova's sand animation

2010-02-05T02:17:00.000-05:00

Saw this earlier today, thought I should post it here...

continues here...

Mood Swings....

2010-02-05T01:37:00.008-05:00

Saving the world, one flush at a time...

2010-01-12T23:43:00.004-05:00

Woohoo! All the restrooms in our office recently got upgraded to WATER FREE urinals!

Woohoo! No more forgetting to flush!!

Woohoo! The new urinal itself is ergonomic, sleek and sexy!

Woohoo! It's touchfree and hygenic (although we did not have to touch the older one's either...)

Woohoo! No more feeling guilty about global warming and ozone layer depletion everytime you flush half a gallon of water with your 50ml of pee!

Woohoo! No more having to think twice about going to pee on the hour, every hour!

Woohoo! My personal public urinal at work saves 40,000 gallons of fresh water per urinal per year!

Woohoo! I was so intrigued about how it works that I had to google it up!

Woohoo! I so wanted to share it with the world (well...at least the 6.25 visitors of my blog) that I took a pic of it with my blackberry while at it!

Woohoo! I'm saving the world, one flush (skipped) at a time.

Other side of the oatmeal...

2010-01-05T01:14:00.004-05:00

Bumped into this site - www.theoatmeal.com the other day. Found it to be pretty witty, humorous and mildly informative at the same time. I wish he was around to write the textbooks while I was in school.

He mentions that his website is a one-man operation. Seems to be a very creative guy with some top notch illustration skills. Here's an excerpt (most of his work is in the form of images). This one's is from 15'ish things to know about coffee

(Slightly off-topic....I get my culinary lessons from Alton Brown)

Jump-starting the new year...

2010-01-05T00:29:00.007-05:00

It's starting to get cold here in Florida. December was a very mild month, milder than the December of 08. After many days of highs in the 70's and lows in the 60's the mercury has dropped now with 30's for lows and 50's for highs. "Hahaha" the 6 inch thick fur coat clad farmer in Lonetree, ND might laugh at me and cry at the same time, while looking through his window at the sidewalks covered in a foot of snow, but the fact still remains, your body gets used to the Floridian warmth. And for us Mumbaites, it feels right at home.

Back on topic; the battery on wifey's car which was purchased from Costco a little over a year back died this morning. It was dead, dead as a doornail, no, deader than the phone line after not paying the phone bills for 6 months. I tried jump-starting it with the battery on my bus, which is probably twice the capacity as the one on wifey's car. No luck. I tried leaving the jumper cables on and the bus running for over half an hour. No go.

I gave up and started my frantic search for the sales receipt for this battery. Drawer 1 messed up, not there. Drawer 2 digged into, nope. Drawer 3 which was almost empty was still strip searched and felt around but in vain. It wasn't in the drawers, it wasn't in the files, it wasn't in my wallet which still had a Free lunch coupon from 2006.

Giving up, I called Costco and asked them whether they would still honor the warranty if I have lost my receipt. The lady on the phone was pretty pleasant. She said it's not a big deal and that they can look it up using my member Id. She asked me to get the battery to their returns desk and they would take care of it. Duh, I probably should have called her before spending an hour searching for the receipt.

Removing the battery from the car was very straightforward, especially since I had installed it just a year back. The first time was a real pain in the rear but that's a story for some other time. Loading the battery on the bus, I left for Costco

The warranty replacement process was a cake walk. Basically, there was no warranty replacement! The lady at the returns desk explained to me that all I have to do is return the battery at her desk and then go buy a new one. Sweet!! A new battery and an all new 3 year replacement warranty for at least 20 bucks cheaper than the cheapest comparable battery in other places. She also told me that the price on the battery has gone down 3 bucks since the time I bought it last year.

So basically, I got a new battery, 3 dollars back and a brand new warranty, no questions asked. That's customer service. Why did the battery die within a year? The question still remains. Was it a cheap quality battery in the first place? Is there something else wrong with the car? Alternator not doing its job may be? Will it break down again tomorrow or next week? Only time will tell. For now, it's Thank you Costco you have earned yet another loyal customer.

www.hailshapes.com

2010-01-02T14:28:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

I had bought this domain a few months back when they had it on sale for 99 cents. Thought I'll configure this blog to point to www.hailshapes.com

Woohoo!

London Dreams

2009-12-30T01:30:00.002-05:00

These days, I rarely get to watch a movie from start to finish in one go. However, yesterday I watched this 2.5 hour long movie, London Dreams, in around 4.5 hours.

I am not "current" or may also be that this movie did not do so well at the box office, I had not heard of this movie until earlier this week when I had bumped into it while aimlessly browsing the web. However, it was good enough for me to stay up until 2:00 in the night to finish the movie. (Not that I need much of a reason to stay up late into the night)

What I did not like?
Not a long list but just a couple of things worth mentioning...

The end sucked donkey balls. Reminded me of Hyderabad Blues. I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone bumping into this post who has not watched the movie but I'll just say that sometimes people just take a huge dump on a story just to get to a happy ending. If this was based on a book, probably the director or someone decided that it was too gloomy of an end so he decided to screw it up and try to make it look colorful and lively while sucking the life out of it.

What else? Well, it wasn't anything close to reality. Not sure if it was meant to be close to reality, probably not. But, some things felt like a musician's version of Rajinikanth jumping off the 4th floor of a building, shooting 6 bullets from his revolver which ricochet various things killing 10 baddies, landing a roundhouse kick on the main baddie and rescuing the princess.

Anything else? Yes. Salman Khan. He is not 20 anymore. He is probably 50 and should act like one right about now. It was fun 15 years back in Andaz Apna Apna with Aamir Khan. It is not fun watching him do the same old antics anymore.

Now...for what I liked?
THE MUSIC. In two words, it was aww some! In one word, ENERGIZING. I am listening to it while typing this post and it just rocks. (Shola Shola is currently playing) I don't listen to a lot of music but I have the illusion of having the ear for good music. Yes. Energizing is the word to describe it. It makes you want to put some earphones on and go run a few miles. If you don't have this in your collection, get out and buy a CD or download it to your ipod or hunt for a torrent or something.

I loved all the songs, however, Barson Yaaron was a real powerhouse especially the later half of the song. Man ko ati bhavey saiiyan was also pretty decent but not one of the best. Shankar sang it very well. Shola Shola was my least favorite but it was still much better than 80% of the songs I've heard in the recent. I did not care much for the remixes at all. It beats me why one would want to put teriyaki sauce and hummus in a really well made pav bhaji.

After today, I've a freshly ignited respect for Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy in particular and good music in general. This is a CD that will probably be playing in my bus for the next 2 weeks.

I wish I listened to more music, more good music. Thank you S-E-L, I just ran 20 miles. In spirit.

Almost a year since...

2009-12-26T13:40:00.000-05:00

Its been almost a year since I started this blog. I have not been very regular at posting - sometimes many a week while other times, a month between. Looking back, it has been a good year. May be one of these days I'll post a synopsis of the year that has gone by.

Enough blabbering.

Uggh. I miss my camera :(

Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrgcorporateantivirusuxxxxxhhhhh!!!!!!

2009-12-16T09:58:00.000-05:00

"Sorry but I need to screw-up your morning and start running the weekly scan now"
"Umm...can you start a little later"
No response...
"Hello? Can you start a little later please?"
"Uhh...sure! I'll be glad to start later. How much later? One hour or three hours?"
"3 hours please"
"Suuuure! Give me 2 hours to pause what I'm doing"
"WTF#*%&"
No response...
Exactly 3 hours 0 mins 0 secs later (an hour after it actually paused #*%&#)...
"Aha! Thought I forgot about it eh? Gotta start the weekly scan now"
"I'm in the middle of something. Can you please start a little later??"
"Aww whatheck....one hour or three hours?"
"One hour should do"
"Suuuuuure! Give me 2 hours to pause what I'm doing. But remember this is your last snooze!"
"WTF#*%&"
No response...
Exactly 1 hour later (10 mins after it actually paused)...
"Point of no return! Ready or not....I'm starting the weekly scan now."
"Oh well, go ahead. I'll take a coffee break. How long can a weekly scan take any ways"
2 hours and 6 coffee breaks later
"Ding! I'm done!! No threats detected"
Great! I've my laptop all for myself!!

10 minutes later
"Time to start your monthly virus scan"
$#^@&$#&#@!%@%&$%$%!$#@!

Asparagus anyone?

2009-11-23T13:05:00.003-05:00

Made some Asparagus yesterday, thought I'd share some with you. For those who like asparagus, they're on sale at Publix for $1.59/lb. They are usually around $3.50/lb.

Recipe? Sure! It's pretty simple...

You need:
Around a pound of Asparagus
4 cloves of Garlic - chopped
Fresh ground black pepper
2 tsp Extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Directional directions (yes, not absolute, just directional, go crazy improvising):
1. Wash the asparagus.
2. Hold an asparagus, one end in each hand and bend it until it snaps into two pieces. Throw away the bottom of the asparagus. Use the top one as a scale to cut the remaining asparagus around the same length. The bottom half of the asparagus stalk is very fibrous and inedible (unless you pressure cook to tenderize it, perhaps?)
3. On a hot (but not too hot) skillet, pour 2 tsp olive oil. Add to it the chopped garilic and saute for half a minute.
4. Add the asparagus and topic it with the lemon juice and saute for 4-5 minutes
5. Add salt and pepper per your taste preference
6. The asparagus is done when it can be easily cut with your wooden spatula. I don't like it cooked too soft but I guess that's also a personal preference.

Serve hot. A pound should serve two people. Folks have asparagus as a side to steak or other meat dishes. I'm a vegetarian and have this as a side to rice and lentils or just by itself

They are safe!

2009-11-23T11:01:00.000-05:00

The fishies look pretty ok now!!! They are not upside down floating at the top of the tank anymore. They still seem a little sluggish and the Daddy Fish still wants to hang out at the top of the tank but they are both right side up and don't seem like they are half-dead anymore.

I did it again.....

2009-11-23T00:14:00.003-05:00

Around 15 years ago, I killed my best friend's fishies. He had asked me to feed them while he and his family were out of town for a week. Being the irresponsible guy I was then, I completely neglected it, remembering about it only 3 days later, going to his house to find his two black goldfishes floating dead in his aquarium. I still remember the sight and the sinking feeling deep inside, knowing that I was responsible for their death, that it was my neglect that starved them to death. No amount of regret would bring them back. My buddy forgave me but I don't think he ever forgot about it. I don't think he ever kept any fishies ever since.

Fast forward 15 years, we had two fishies that I got as a birthday present for our son in December of 2007. "Daddy fish" and "Baby fish" is what he called them. I have been taking care of them pretty decently. I have put off cleaning the tank for almost a month a few times but never have starved them.

This weekend, it had been almost 4 weeks since the last time I cleaned the tank. I also wanted to give the tank decor a complete overhaul. I siphoned out half the water from the 10 gallon tank into a bucket and put the two fishies in it. I had bought some new gravel to add to the existing one. So I took the tank and gave it a nice scrub, cleaned the gravel, added some plants, replaced the lights and the filters and setup the tank with fresh water.

I had checked the fishies in the bucket a couple of times. It had been over an hour since I last checked them and almost 4 hours since I put them in the bucket. My plan was to let them stay in the bucket overnight and put them back into the tank around midday tomorrow.

I grossly overestimated the amount of air they needed. I had put them in the bucket a few months back for around 3 hours and they had done pretty well then.

They were half dead, floating on the top of the bucket, upside down. They will still breathing, trying to get any oxygen they could from the water that probably was devoid of any. The aquarium was probably dangerously high in chlorine but I had no option. I thought it definitely had more oxygen than the water in the bucket.

So I transferred them back into the tank. The "baby fish" tried swimming around, upside down at times, right side up at times but then after a few minutes went floating upside down, still breathing, but upside down, with it's gills moving where the water met the air outside. Same was the fate with the "daddy fish".

Now, they are both upside down, like they were an hour back. I'm scared to check on them, lest I find they have stopped breathing. What am I hoping for? I'm hoping (and praying) that they live...that they get as much air as they could to make them alive again. Will they make it? Only time will tell...8 hours tops.

Fast forward 15 years, I did it again....almost.

.........

Early Morning light...

2009-11-20T11:16:00.001-05:00

Early morning light is just beautiful. The angle of the light source also adds a lot of perspective to the pictures.

In this case, it's just a random building with glass windows. However, the color of the morning sunlight provides the glow and the angle of the light source blended with the palm trees provide the gobos which liven up this random building in downtown Safety Harbor.

Convergence...

2009-11-19T00:48:00.004-05:00

On my way home from work this evening, the sky seemed magical - the colors were blue, white and orange in the far, the clouds were broken up into tiny little pieces of cotton candy and they all seemed to be going somewhere...far into the sea. They were converging to some focal point..as if they were going home to their mother ship.

I wanted to go to the top of our parking lot and snap some pics but there were too many people leaving the building and I shyed off from doing so. This pic was taken from my car at a stoplight, while waiting for the signal to go green. I think it came out pretty well especially given the fact that one of my eyes were at the signal, one at the rear view mirror and this one looking through the viewfinder...

Another stop on my way home just to click a quick pic of the setting sun and the converging clouds...

Time for a shower...

2009-11-17T01:34:00.003-05:00

Just a few feet away from the Safety Harbor Marina is this small little park in this small little town. I think it's called the Memorial Park. It has a war memorial honoring the veterans of the various wars. I don't have the accurate details so will need to look it up and update this post at a later date.

This park has a small walking trail, a few benches, a couple of shelters and this - a nice little fountain in the center of the park.

I have also heard that Safety Harbor Marina is a vantage point for viewing the space shuttle or rocket launches from Kennedy Space center. Next time they have an evening lauch during a weekend, I might come here with my camera and tripod...just for fun.

A bird in the hand is worth how many in the water?

2009-11-17T01:20:00.002-05:00

This one is from the same marina. There were quite a few birds flying around but this one was busy basking in the morning glory - beautiful weather, heavenly sunlight, cool but not cold water....oooh. This is the best time of the year to be in Florida. November through March is so very beautiful around here. This more than makes up for the 4 months of muggy summer and news channels filled with hurricane trackers.

Early morning reflections

2009-11-16T01:45:00.063-05:00

Went out on a early morning photo drive this weekend. The plan was to leave before sunrise and get some pics of the rising sun. However, due to the recent DST change, sunrise time was miscalculated and I left the house almost an hour into the day.

I did not take too many pics, may be around 45; out of which around 10 have come out good (yes, relatively good, good on my scale, good compared to the 35 others, good enough for me to post on here). The two posted here made the cut.

I spent a good 2 hours driving around. This was my first stop - the marina in downtown Safety Harbor. This is a small little town among the other small little towns around here. There are around 10 small little towns in this 15 mile radius - Safety Harbor is one of them. They have a nice fireworks display here every July 4th. This place gets so very crowded at that time - cars and people all around you. Last time I was here for the event, it took us 2 hours to get out of downtown Safety Harbor, as opposed to 5 minutes today.

I might post a few more pics of the next couple of photo-stops I made on this trip soon...

Where no man has gone before....

2009-11-13T16:13:00.006-05:00

I turn left...
I enter the door...
I find things cleaner...
I find something funky...
I notice something missing....
I see vending machines...
I wonder where I am...
I gasp and look around....
I find no one and breathe a sigh...
I backtrack my steps..
I get out the door....
I turn right...
I enter the door...
I am in familiar territory...
Oooooh....I relieve myself...
Mission accomplished!
I detoured through a place...
Where no man has gone before...
Or choose to admit they have.

When you're happy and you know it...

2009-11-11T09:36:00.002-05:00

You breathe more...

You smile more....

You don't need a reason....

You see good around you...

You like watching the gloomy skies...

Your station plays all the good songs on Pandora...

You giggle like a girl when you read something funny...

You drive slower...

You park at the farthest end of the lot and walk...

You see new ponds and plants you want to come back to...

You see the curlew pecking for bugs in the grass...

You leave the blog post open ended....(to be continued....)

These are a few of my favorite things....

2009-11-07T00:27:00.003-05:00

A laptop outdated that just keeps on going...
Scratched up Blackberry that's constantly buzzing...
The time shifting magic a Tivo that brings...
These a few of my favorite things.

My Laptop - I have probably gone through around 20 laptops in the last 10 years but am yet to buy one of my own. This is something I have gotten so used to - whether it's a laptop or a desktop. I've had one for over half of my living years. I cannot imagine living without one. I'm not an early adopter when it comes to electronics - The desktop (that I bought) is older than my first-born but it's still going strong. I'll probably have it with me for at least a couple more years.

I've never been that lucky with laptops though. I have had crashed hard disks in at least 5 of my laptops so far. It can probably be attributed to my not-so-gentle handling.

My Blackberry - Two years ago, I did not have one. Two years ago, I did not see the need for one. It will be exactly two years in December since I've had this blackberry. It's like one of those things that you can live without until you start living with.I love carrying it with me. I'm addicted to the crackberry - It is my morning alarm, it is my personal navigator, it's been a lifesaver in boring meetings that I've found a fatal attraction to. IPhone appeals to me but I won't carry one until one lands on my table.

DVR (and the DVR remote) - What can I say about this one. Never had one, never thought I'd find a use for one, never found the value in spending money on one. Last year, I was offered one for free with no monthly fees. I whatthehecked and took them on the offer. Now, I cannot imagine not having one (again one of those things...). I can hardly watch anything live anymore unless it's on those 'no commercial' channels. 99% of my viewing has been time shifted - starting to watch 10 minutes into the program or watching a day/week/month old episode of Good Eats.

If I was stuck on a deserted island, what are the three things I would like to take with me? Well, now you know - a Laptop without power (Did I mention that my laptop battery lasts 20 minutes when unplugged?), a DVR without a TV and a Blackberry without coverage!

Nice long walk...

2009-11-05T01:33:00.056-05:00

(Another pic from the same park, cropped for a better perspective)

Are long walks a thing of the past? I remember going on long walks with my dear buddy during the college days. We used to roam aimlessly for hours, just walking, talking, eating....just walking. It used to be quite peaceful.
These days, I hardly walk without purpose anymore. If I were to chart my walking profile, it would probably look something like this:

I used to bike (motorbike) around a lot. Many times just aimlessly; sucking in the open air and the bugs, suspended particles, unburnt oil fumes and at times water from the rain. Never did I fall ill due to the varieties of exotic alien particles entering my body.
These days, the pollen in Jan/Feb manage to bring me to tears.

I used to xyz a lot too. However, these days, I only abc.

What does this mean? Things have changed for the bad? Have they changed for the good?

Well, neither - things have changed, priorities have changed, there's a stark contrast in what I did then and what I do now. However, the person in me is probably still the same, just evolving over time...

All I know, is that I will be walking down the path...raring to know what's at the next bend...

The Reflecting Tree - part ii

2009-11-04T01:10:00.010-05:00

...Today, I had 30 minutes to kill. I usually have these 30 minutes to kill around the same time every Tuesday and Friday. However, today was a bit different from the last time I visited this place....

...Today, I had my 18-55 lens with me (as opposed to the 35mm prime the last time)

...Today, I had a circular polarizer on the lens

...Today, It was 5:30 PM standard time in November (as opposed to 5:30 PM EDT in August or September the last time I was here). It was 20-30 minutes before sunset

...Today, I wish I had a tripod on me

...Today, the sky was overcast - not white, not dark but gray clouds.

...Today, the picture came out much better than the last one. Still room for improvement, but some things are definitely better - a lot less gray, much crisper reflection, a little more saturation

...Today, I felt kinda labored taking this picture. May be it was a one-off event.

...Today, I took this picture so that I can post it here. Most other pics I've posted on here, I have taken because I wanted to take them. (Not sure if it matters...just an observation)
Where is this place? It's a park in Oldsmar called "Bicentennial Park". It's just an OK part from what I've seen of it so far. Not one of the best maintained parks, but it has two pretty decent tennis courts, a skate park, a basketball court and couple of walking trails.

I have played in the tennis courts, I haven't been on the walking trails so cannot comment on how good or bad it is. This tree and the pond (I think it's a pond) is just a minute's walk from the parking lot. One of these days I'll explore this park more but I cannot do that on Tuesdays or Fridays. I only have a 30 minute window of opportunity.

...Today, I am sleepy, tired, content and happy. I feel....blessed.

...Today, I have two hundred bucks to spend and trying to figure out what I should spend it on.

...Today, I'm wondering whether I'll make good use of my day off tomorrow.

...Today, I have blabbered enough for....well, today!

What's wrong with this photo???

2009-11-02T01:00:00.003-05:00

Well, firstly, it's not plumb. One might argue that it could be easily fixed post capture. However, there is no room at the top or the bottom for straightening. So either the tree or the reflection or both will get cropped if I try to straighten it.

Secondly, it's very gray and bland. I should've used a better white balance. Again, not something that cannot be tweaked...but why do something later that you could've done while capturing?

Thirdly, I couldn't have picked a worse time of the day or day of the week. It was around 5:30 in the summer. The sky wasn't cloudy and the sun was out casting a white sky in the background.

Fourthly, may be using a telephoto lens might have given it some perspective but all I had is a 35mm which is kinda bland for these kinds of pictures. I'm not sure about this one though.

Fifthly, color saturation is weak. It just looks gloomly - the grass could have been greener, the water could have been bluer, the sky could have been....well...anything but a blanket of grayish white.

Here's what I plan to do. I'll be going back to this same spot in the next couple of weeks, taking at least 5 more with more or less the same composition - A tree and it's reflection. I'll attempt to do it at different times of the day and different days of the week (from a weather standpoint).

After I have my 5-6 pics, I'll post them all together and we can see which one stands out the most.

The Monkey and the waterfall...

2009-10-30T15:54:00.010-04:00

These pics were taken at the zoo we went to the other day. Yes, the same one where the pic of the giraffe was taken. There was this monkey (Chimpanzee, orangutan, some other monkey family) who was sitting behind and in between the two water falls. He can clearly be seen in the picture above. However, from that point, he was way far away and I did not carry my 55-200 with me to the zoo.

The picture to the left is of the same waterfall, taken with a smaller aperture/slower shutter but the monkey is not visible from this angle. These photos were taken in the middle of the day. Luckily it was overcast so there wasn't much glare....just nice diffused sunlight. I would like to add a circular polarizer to the mix the next time, it should enrich the color of the water for me...

Happy Halloween!!

2009-10-30T01:42:00.016-04:00

We carved a Jack-o-lantern a couple of days back for halloween. It was a pretty simple one but it turned out pretty good at least for a n00b carver like me.It was a fun event with the kiddos all sitting around me while I was busy sucking out the guts of the pumpkin. It did not take very long though. I might go out there after halloween and get a slickdeal on a clearance pumpkin and carve another one. May be, may be not....depends on how enthusiastic I feel on Sunday.

Search the net for pumpkin carvings and you will find a whole slew of really cool and very intricate carvings....from the very creative to the laugh-out-loud funny. There isn't a lack of creativity in this world. There is creativity in everything. A good photographer can probably take a picture of a door knob and make it look like heaven. I remember one pic of a port-a-potty on kenrockwell.com or some other site. It was just a toilet, a cheap one for that matter. However, the way the foreground colors gelled with the background, the composition and the overall scale of the photo made it look like something you wanna own!

Here's what I'd like to do. I'd like to post more often. I'd like to do more than post and run with pics. I'd like to put a context around the pics I post and probably post a bit about abstract me. If it's just posting pics, I don't need a blog, Flickr or Picasa. can do a much better job of hosting my pics for me. Like many other like to dos, this may remain a like to do or it may actually turn into am doing.

Happy Diwali from our family to yours....

2009-10-24T23:57:00.016-04:00

Although a little belated, here's wishing a very Happy Diwali to you and yours...

Diwali reminds me of the scheduling, planning and budgeting we used to do during our childhood days. We used to get a fixed amount to burn every Diwali. It used to money well burnt with a bang. These are some fond memories, something I used to look forward to every year, right until the early morning of Diwali day and leading into the grand finale a couple of days later.

Diwali was never a big auspicious day for me nor a big gift giving/exchanging occasion. The grandest part of Diwali was buying, hoarding and lighting of fire crackers. This was in addition to watching a family of business folks have a GRAND Diwali gala on the day of Laxmi puja. This used to happen a day (or two) after our Diwali day and it was always something to look forward to. They used to get all the cool pyrotechnics available at that time - Parachutes being one of them (don't remember what the others were called).......

As for our own collection of fire crackers, the planning used to start weeks in advance. With our allocated budget, we used to make long list of crackers we wish to buy for that Diwali....2 boxes of fuwaara, 2 boxes of chakri, 3 boxes of lavangi, 4 boxes of atom bombs (dang I'm sure this page will be indexed by FBI now) and above all 5-6 boxes of Volcano bombs. In addition to these, we also bough Taj Mahals and Laal Kilaas which were larger versions of lavangis that we used to separate out into individual tiny noise makers.

Once the list was prepared, we used to go to the local "Wholesaler" to purchase the items from our list. (There wasn't a Slickdeals or a Fatwallet to hunt for slick deals on fireworks). This used to happen at least a week or so before Diwali day. The guy was like a Sams Club of fire crackers. He used to have a lot of quantities but not a lot of varieties. So, after purchasing 60-70% of the items from him, we used to get the rest of my needs from other smaller shops.

On the eve of Diwali, there used to be the Diwali bath - Oil massage, very hot water, Uthne (some kind of scented soil) and lots of soap to remove the oil. Following the Diwali bath, we used to have our first round of fireworks....the tiny/puny stuff - the lavangis, chakris and fuvaaras - the ones that were visible but not very audible. This used to be a 3-4 hour affair starting around 9:00 PM and going all the way past midnight. Following this, the south indians amongst us used to go to bed for an early morning wake up call - the day of Diwali.

Diwali day used to start at 5:00 AM in the morning. This was the time for bringing out the big dogs - the atom bombs and volcanoes amongst other smaller sound makers. They used to be really loud. With at least 4-5 for us lighting the fireworks, it used to make quite some sound. I don't remember anyone complaining about noise pollution those days. Come to think of it, it used to be really loud, hardly anyone had any A/C or associated sound insulation and it used to be way early in ther morning. If someone does that to me now, I'll probably be out there with a shotgun giving them an ultimatum. Back on topic, the morning phase of the blow out used to last at least 4-5 hours. By the end of it all, the whole place used to be filled with burnt paper and smell of smoke that gave me sore throat for at least a couple of days. But, it was a WHOLE LOT of fun!

The Grand finale used to be the fireworks (and monetary) display by the business families. This used to be the night after Diwali. Around 9:00 PM is when the fun started and we gathered around them watching them light all the cool stuff. Climax to their fireworks display always used to be this 200 feet long garland of firecrackers that once lit took probably around 10 minutes to finish off. We used to rig them with atom bombs and volcano bombs at every 20 feet or so to enhance the sound effects.

Fast forward 25 years, here I am now, lighting these fuvaaras with utmost caution, being a role model for my kids and explaining them the dangers of playing with fire. Lighting any of those atom bombs or volcanoes is out of question. Cops will probably at my door after the first loud thing I light out on our porch. Diwali these days is mostly a non-event. We have a small pooja at home and if time permits, we visit the temple that weekend (We didn't this year). Fireworks are usually purchased months in advance, usually a week before the July 4th weekend. In fact half of the the ones we lit this year were purchased a year back.

Ah memories...

Giraffe at the zoo

2009-10-18T18:18:00.005-04:00

Met this giraffe at the zoo the other day.

They had a platform at a height which made it at the same level as the giraffe's head (which is pretty high off the ground, mind you!)

Folks can purchase a cracker from the lady for $1 a piece and feed it to the giraffe.

What a novel money making scheme..."You pay me so that I can sell you a 10 cent cracker for a dollar so that I can let you feed my own giraffe" Whoa!

Anyways, i did not buy any crackers (although they looked appetizing and I was hungry) but I did get to snap a couple of good pics of the giraffe. I need to remember to turn on the flash the next time I shoot animals. The eyes look lifeless without it.

Random pumpkin....

2009-10-18T00:54:00.001-04:00

I don't really know him but he let me take a couple of pics of him while he posed for me!

Life's a rollercoaster....

2009-10-18T00:47:00.001-04:00

Nothing to say.... (part deux)

2009-10-18T00:09:00.003-04:00

Nothing to say...

2009-09-06T13:21:00.004-04:00

....just sit and watch in peace...

Stolen joke #1

2009-08-26T12:39:00.001-04:00

(Well aren't they all stolen?)

A photographer goes to his friends house for a party, and decides to bring along his camera. He takes a bunch of photos, and then a few days later he prints them out. His friend’s wife, who hosted the party, calls him up and thanks him for his photos saying, “The photos are so great you must have an amazing camera.”

The photographer’s annoyed, but he doesn’t say anything to her about it.

That next weekend he’s over at his friends house again for dinner. As his friend’s wife is clearing the table he looks at her and says, “Dinner was excellent, you must have some amazing pots and pans!”

I got this one from one of the comments posted on this article

More bananas!

2009-08-10T01:07:00.003-04:00

The banana tree seems to be producing bananas non-stop. Every other day I go check it out and there is another bunch of flowers blossoming that would eventually bear fruit. I'm not counting my bananas before they are ripe though.

Random facts about a Banana tree....one tree produces only 1 set of bananas in it lifetime. After bearing fruits, the stem that produced the bananas dies and is replaced by one or more stalks.

I can already see 3 more banana trees coming up from the ground! Makes me wonder whether I should have planted this a bit farther away from the wall....

A more technical explanation can be found here

Bananas are fast-growing herbaceous perennials arising from underground
rhizomes. The fleshy stalks or pseudostems formed by upright concentric layers
of leaf sheaths constitute the functional trunks. The true stem begins as an
underground corm which grows upwards, pushing its way out through the center of
the stalk 10-15 months after planting, eventually producing the terminal
inflorescence which will later bear the fruit. Each stalk produces one huge
flower cluster and then dies. New stalks then grow from the rhizome. Banana
plants are extremely decorative, ranking next to palm trees for the tropical
feeling they lend to the landscape.
<<<<<<

(18-55 at 26mm, f/16, 5 sec, iso200)

Expired medicine is not always a bad thing...

2009-08-10T00:13:00.003-04:00

One of the piglets has a fever and bodyache. Looking through the medicine cabinet, earlier this afternoon, I found 2 bottles of ibuprofen and 1 strip of acetaminophen that were past their expiry date by a few months.

Bad thing? Need something on a rush, you don't have it (Luckily, had one strip that was just a month away from expiring)

Good thing? Well, might be a waste of money....but not having to use it so much so that it expires? I wouldn't mind spending a few bucks on that anytime instead of having to use all of it!!!

*Touch wood*

(35mm f/1.8, 1/40sec, iso400)

Bananarama Reloaded.....

2009-07-31T12:44:00.002-04:00

Retook the pics again this morning. This time with a 55-200 lense to create a background blur without opening the aperture too wide.

Also sprayed some water on the banana tree in an attempt to create a subtle "just after the rain" effect. These pictures have come really sharp, especially because of the iso 100 and the tripod!

(55-200 at 55mm, f/4, 1/20sec at iso100)

(55-200 at 55mm, f/11, 1/15sec at iso200)

Bananarama - Yippee ka ye - The bananas are here!

2009-07-30T20:00:00.006-04:00

I planted this banana tree over two years back. We haven't been paying much attention to it lately since it's in the front yard and is out of sight most of the time. Rarely do we water it....the only water it gets is from the rains, although banana trees require a lot of water to grow well. The only sunlight it gets, well, is from the sun. I have fertilized it probably twice in the last two years.

So, it was a a very nice surprise to see bananas on this tree today. Dad told me about it in the morning and I couldn't wait until evening to go check them out. They look so cute and tiny. So many little teeny weeny bananas....awwwww.

I took my camera and tripod out to bananarama this evening to snap some pics. It was only after I uploaded the pics on my PC earlier tonite did I notice the noisiness of the pics. I had set the camera on iso1600 a couple of days back and did not notice until today. I may go out tomorrow and take some better pics of the baby bananas.

(35mm at f/14, 1/13 sec, iso1600)

Have you ever shopped at anazib.com?

2009-07-29T22:03:00.005-04:00

How about anazob.com?

Today, I fat fingered (or rather misfingered) Amazon.com and typed anazib.com. Rather than luckily bumping into some porn site, I was taken straight to Amazon.com

Either the developers at Amazon.com are very familiar with fat-fingering and registered these fat-finger domains in order to help fellow fat-fingerers like me.....or...well, they fat-fingered while registering their domain :)

Yeah yeah, I get it, most of them register these kinds of domains to avoid cyber-squatters from taking advantage of them but I was pleasantly amused to see my fat-fingering corrected and sent to where my lean fingers were supposed to take me!

(Is there a record for highest number of references to fat fingering in one blog post??)

(Yeah those are my fingers and my nails and I bite them...so bite me!)

(35mm, f/1.8, 1/400s, ISO 1600)
(I just realized after looking at the hi-res pics that I was shooting at iso1600....no wonder the pic is so noisy!)

I have been taking a lot of pictures...

2009-07-13T23:03:00.003-04:00

I have been clicking a lot of pics lately. Over the last weekend, I've probably taken around 200 pics. Out of those, around 25 have come out really good! I think that is a very good strike rate. I have been shooting in full manual mode, with an off-camera flash mounted on a tripod with a shoot-through umbrella.

However, I cannot post any of them here. Almost all of them are photos of people in my life. As a rule, I won't be posting any personal pictures on here (A random guy on the street corner is a different thing....but I have not been shooting outdoors).

I would like to thank the strobist for inspiring me to take the flash off the camera. I really love his website http://www.strobist.com If anyone wants to learn how to light with basic equipment, one must spend some time on his website (that "some" time can very easily change to a big black hole sucking all your time....so just be careful :))

So....what's keeping me busy, really??

2009-07-06T23:10:00.001-04:00

Answer's to the right....our twins! May be it should have been a picture with two bottles in the foreground and a couple of boxes of diapers in the background.....but one gets the gist.

And then I check out Ken Rockwell's website. Given, he is a professional photographer and shoots for a living (although I think his website gets in a huge chunk of his overall earning). He has two small kids (yeah, it's mentioned on the bottom of every page on his website - about his growing family). If he can shoot 8 hours or more a day, I should be able to shoot a few minutes.

It's not the time to shoot though. It's the inclination needed to get out of the house and roam around looking for things to shoot. Don't get me wrong, photographs are everywhere. But, the view from my porch is just that - a view from the porch today, a view from the porch tomorrow, a view from the porch a day after. I need to get out! No...it's raining (20%) ....no...I need to cook today (10%) ....no, I need to exercise (0.003%)....no, I need to laze off a bit (69.997%).

(35mm at f/1.8, 1/30 sec, iso800)

Candle holder lady, meet my 35mm af-s. 35mm af-s, meet my Candle holder lady.

2009-06-19T23:12:00.004-04:00

Got my Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 AF-S lens a few days back. I'm thoroughly impressed with it. I did not realize how much difference a f/1.8 makes when compared to a f/3.5. Here's a typical, really blurred out background. In this case, the candle holder lady is just a couple of feet away from the most comfortable recliner in the whole wide world.

I have been using this as my primary lens these days. I'm not sure how it would fare when used for landscape and nature photography. Might take it out for a shoot one of these days. It has been a long time since I've been on an outdoor photo shoot.

Family and work priorities have taken up most of my time but that is an excuse in the best sense. I can always make time to do what I really want to do. I still play tennis for a couple of hours every weekend. There is no reason why I cannot find an hour during dawn or dusk (more likely dawn) to go do some shooting.

Long time no see!

2009-06-18T17:13:00.002-04:00

It has been a long time since I have posted on this blog....almost 6 months! I hope to start posting regularly starting this week. Let's see how it goes!

The candle holder lady

2009-01-29T18:56:00.001-05:00

This our candle holder lady. I had gotten her from the dollar shop a couple of years back. Since then she has been standing on our mantle with her bouquet of flowers. Pretty isn't she? She has been lit may be twice since we had her. She surely looks pretty when lit up!

Guest in our bathroom

2009-01-29T18:44:00.001-05:00

We had a guest in our bathroom the other night. I was ready to take a shower and find this guy on the bathroom sink. He was bright green in color. I really wanted to take his pic at that time but I was all undressed and the camera was in the other room.

By the time I was done with my shower and had grabbed my camera, he had changed colors! The guest you see in the pic looked bright green in color may be 15 minutes before I took this pic of him!

My wifey is way too scared of anything that crawls or moves or flies that is not human or machine (I think I covered all the exceptions to her scare list). Hence, after I dressed up, my first task was to take this guest out but I did not feel like killing it....afterall he was the subject of my photograph. So, I took a inverted plastic cup and a paper plate to scope him in the cup and let him go out in the lawn. He seemed kinda slow though....probably was his hibernation period?

Muhuhuahahaa...Dirty laundry is haunting me!

2009-01-06T22:30:00.001-05:00

The basket full of clothes to be washed was lying on the table waiting for me to pickup and put in the washer. Snapped this pic while zooming our the lens to give the effect of..of...umm.....the basket actually haunting me in my dreams...."Come....Wash me.....now"

On that topic, I find that ad about the GE Washer Dryer very irritating "6 Months of laundry can be a scary thing" In this ad there is this huge ball of laundry chasing the family around and then finally the washer comes to the rescue. The biggest selling point they focus on is that the washer comes with a reservoir that can hold up to 6 months of laundry detergent!!

Big deal, if pouring the detergent was the suckiest part of doing laundry, I would have been washing clothes all day!!!!

My attempt at HDR imaging

2009-01-04T03:35:00.001-05:00

This is also at the park...just a grill. Took two exposures, one at f/22 for 1/140s and the other at f/22 at 1/10 sec. Both at ISO 400, 18-55 at 18mm. Then used HDR editing software to blend the two together. Looks kinda surreal, doesn't it?

Phillipe Park

2009-01-04T03:08:00.001-05:00

I was at the corner of this road to the right taking my pics of the rising sun. Looking at this pic, it shows how beautiful the eary morning light really is. If I take the same pic around 60 mins later, it will look bleh but this one, I really like. It actually looks like early morning (it might pass as a late evening too)

(18-55 at 55mm, f/22, 1/3s, ISO 100)

2009-01-04T03:04:00.001-05:00

And here's the same one in portrait. In this case I like this one better than the landscape. It seems to visualize the beautiful morning sky a lot better than the landscape version. Thoughts?

(18-55 at 55mm, f/22, 1/30s, ISO 100)

Portrait v/s Landscape - part 2

2009-01-04T03:01:00.003-05:00

Same day, slightly different location, around 30 mins after sunrise. Here's a pic in landscape....
(18-55 at 55mm, f/22, 1/20s, ISO 100)

2009-01-04T02:39:00.002-05:00

Oooh how I wish I was in the boat instead of that guy in the left! This boat was circling around the bay that morning. If they were on the job I would like to have that job...especially if it pays well!!

(55-200 at 200mm, f/29, 1/60s, ISO 400)

2009-01-04T02:24:00.001-05:00

Same view but a different perspective. I'm not sure which one I like better. Most of the landscape pics I have seen have been in well...umm... landscape orientation however this and other pics I took on this morning seemed to look very good in portraits too.

(18-55 at 55mm, f/22, 1/13s, ISO 100)

2009-01-04T02:06:00.001-05:00

Here is the original version of the pic.

It was a very beautiful view of the sunrise. The weather was also very lovely. These days are the best days to be in Florida. If you ever decide to visit Florida, do so between November and February (or March).

We have a few chilly days when the temperatures do stay in the 35 - 45 range but other days its in the 50 to 70 range all through these months. I think this day it was around 55 in the morning. I was out there in my shorts and wished I had worn my trousers instead.

(18-55 at 18mm, f/22, 1/13s, ISO 100)

The dawn of a new year....

2009-01-04T01:58:00.002-05:00

The morning of January 1st 2009. I was up almost all night on the 31st so I decided to make the most out of it and head out for some early morning photo shoots. It wasn't all that early a morning but then these days the sun rises at around 7:30'ish. I left home almost around 7:00 AM.

I headed out to go to Phillipe Park in Safety Harbor, FL. This park is about 6 miles from home. I don't know why I don't come here more often. I have come here for a couple of birthday parties but both of them have been in shelters that are away from the water. Once I've been here just to hang around but it was a chilly day and we did not stay around long enough to enjoy the views.

It's a beautiful little park with lots of walking and jogging trails and some beautiful views of the upper Tampa Bay. I've heard that you can also see manatees swimming it the bay if you are here at the right time.

About the pic - It has been cropped a lot to highlight the sunrise. I'll post the original pic in the subsequent posts. I think this was my first ever sunrise photo shoot. I have not been a morning person in the past however since the past 4-5 months, I have been up by 6:00 AM almost every weekend.