A Tip Or Two About Movies On Your Digital Camera

Dumb Camera:

A man was driving when he saw the flash of a traffic camera. He figured that his picture had been taken for exceeding the speed limit, even though he knew that he was not speeding.

Just to be sure, he went around the block and passed the same spot, driving even more slowly, but again the camera flashed.  Now he began to think that this was quite funny, so he drove even slower as he passed the area again, but the traffic camera again flashed.  He tried a fourth time with the same result. He did this a fifth time and was now laughing when the camera flashed as he rolled past, this time at a snail’s pace…

Two weeks later, he got five tickets in the mail for driving without a seat belt…
 

A cruising friend of mine emailed me today and asked if I knew anything about movies on a digital camera as they were planning an Alaska trip soon. She had seen the movie I made about a bear on the side of the road while driving north of Skagway on the way back from the Canadian Yukon on my Alaska cruise last June.

I looked up my Alaska trip files and I found that the 'bear' movie used 8.9 mb. and ran for 1 minute and 10 seconds. This was with the camera set at 30 fps (frames per second) At 30 fps, the picture appears smooth, like a TV picture. You can set the camera for 10 fps which will use 1/3 the memory, but the picture will be more jerky.

Considering that my 6 mega pixel camera uses about 0.26 mb per picture, this movie used up the space of about 36 pictures. In other words at 6 mega pixels I get about 4 full resolution pictures per megabyte.

If you have a 2 gig chip, it will hold  about 650 pictures or 18 minutes of movies at 30 fps.

I don’t know about you, but I take over two thousand pictures on a trip so I travel with 4 to 6 x 2 gig. chips. I used to download them to my tablet computer, but now with the price of a 2 gig chip down to $10 -$15 it might be easier not to bother with the tablet. Get a few chips, they don't weigh anything or take up hardly any room in your luggage. Back them up on your computer as soon as you get home.  Start a new file, titled and dated for the trip. If you don't, you'll never remember what you have. I've included a screen shot of what my Alaska trip file looks like.

Practice using the movie feature on your digital camera. You never know when you are going to get that ‘once in a lifetime’ shot and sometimes a movie tells it best.

Here's my 'Bear' movie. Not professional but definitely shows the bear! 
Panasonic DMC-FX9 6 mp Camera





I still need the camera because it is the only reason anyone is talking to me.
Annie Leibovitz

BWTM

But Wait There's More:

By way of an update, Wendy and I went to Kelseys and had... you guessed it, wings. Today was their half price deal. We were trying to figure out the last time we were here and the best we could do was that it was 18 to 20 years ago so you wouldn't call us 'regulars'. I do plan to return again on a Thursday because the wings were right up there, rated at maybe an 8 or 9. The half price special for Thursdays is, according to Colin (our waiter) ongoing.
.

Health food makes me sick.
  Calvin Trillin (1935 - )

.

Winter Depletes Vitamins B and C

It hasn't been real bright around here. Fishing boat in Port Stanley Harbour. Click on the pic,

View out our back door in London
 .
The dull weather of January has my body craving for vitamins B and C which as everyone knows comes from Beer and Chicken wings.  Then of course there’s also a deficiency of the little known vitamin BS which always comes with Beer and Sunshine. In conjunction with my SAD Light Project, in the name of better health, and in an effort to maintain my sanity, Wendy and I headed out on or quest for ‘cut rate’ chicken wings. I scoured the Internet for specials on the tasty morsels.

I came up with an on-going Tuesday special at Crabby Joes Tap and Grill for 39¢ ea. (with a beer order.) The other special is conveniently held on Thursdays at Kelseys Bar where they offer wings at half price in celebration of their 30th Anniversary. These nicely spaced wing specials coincide with one of my favorite nice-weather spots - Stokes Bay in Sarnia, which offers half price wings on Tuesdays and Thursdays as well. We go there by dinghy usually. Also, in the summer, we enjoy the 'two for one' wing special at Dave's Clubhouse the outdoor deck at the Oakwood Golf Course in Grand Bend on Thursdays. So there we have it - Wing Specials in the drab days of winter, that co-ordinate nicely with my summer venues.

The wings at Crabby Joe's didn't seem really fresh. I doubt if I'll buy them again.

The wings at Crabby Joe's were not the greatest, maybe I'll try Kelsey's Thursday. Anyway, the draft beer was good and my body is beginning to come back in balance. Now I just need a tan!
.
Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps. Tiger Woods

.

Virus Scanning Web Site Could Save You Hours And Your Valuable Files

This site is good if you are in doubt about an email.  http://www.virustotal.com/metodos.html Instead of relying on your single virus program (that could be out of date) the on line program checks the email with 40 or so virus up-to-date checking programs. They also provide uploading for software programs you may have found on the internet. It returns a performance report so you can confidently open the mail (or run/download a program). 

If you are serious about preventing damage to your computer and valuable files, you should bookmark this site and use it regularly.

.
My computer beat me at checkers, but I sure beat it at kickboxing.
Emo Philips

.

When Not In Florida, Do As In Florida!

The weather lately has been very 'blah'. I'm not sure if my SAD light experiment is helping or not, but I was talking with friends in Florida and my thoughts turned to chicken wings and draft beer, Since a journey to Florida is not in the cards for now, Wendy and I decided to pay a visit to Joe Kool's bar, where, except for the temperature outside, (and the price of beer) the environment was fairly similar to what we'd be doing if we were there. We took a window seat and quite enjoyed a Sunday lunch. Alas, not quite the same as being there.

The wings are excellent at Joe Kool's.
.
Between two evils,  I always pick the one I never tried before.

Mae West
.
.

It's Time To Remind You About Freezing Your LCD

Modern art or a new doorstop? Not pretty when it's your expensive electronic gadget.

Don't forget to bring your cameras and other LCD devices inside in the really cold weather. I don't know if a Garmin GPS could freeze and break, but I'm not taking the chance. I've brought it inside. Click here to look at last year's blog entry to see what happened to Erin's camera.

Whether you are using your camera in very cold weather or very hot, your camera can fog up when you go from one extreme to the other. This fog can obscure your images and is due to moisture condensing on the lens. In the worst case scenario the moisture can short out and damage the device's delicate circuitry. To prevent this from happening, I carry a zip lock bag with me. Place the camera inside the bag when you go from one temperature extreme to the other. The condensation will form harmlessly on the outside of the bag until the camera becomes acclimatized. I have used this method successfully when cruising in very hot, humid climates.  The problem can arise when you leave a cool, air conditioned ship and head ashore for an excursion. Use the zip bag too, when getting in and out of an air conditioned car or bus. Until I figured this out, I lost quite a few good photos to moisture.


.
. In tough situations, ask yourself, "What would Curly do?"

Good Day To Be Inside

The streamer off Lake Huron followed us right to Sarnia. It's sunny in London but a regular blizzard was blowing here. Good day for lallygagging around and staying inside.

The sales are on with large discounts

There was an Olive Garden in London years ago but now we have to come here to have their famous soup and salad special. Still $6.95 all you can eat.

 .
Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed.
George Burns 
.
.

To USA For eBay Stuff

I haven't been to the States for a month or so. This means I have a few items accumulating at my UPS box in Port Huron. We were going to go earlier this week but Macy's 'One Day Sale' starts Friday and runs to Saturday, (go figure - one day sale???) so we delayed the trip to correspond with that annual event. On this side of the bridge, we like to check the condo from time to time and Wendy has some old antique dinner-wear she wants to sell, so we'll stop by at Grace Brothers Antiques in Sarnia. It's only an hour drive each way so it provides a nice break.

.
The reason there are two senators for each state is so that one can be the designated driver.
Jay Leno
.
.

A SAD Experiment

I won’t really wear sunglasses and I promise – no more pictures of me in bed!

Treatment of depression with bright light is not an entirely new concept with us. A while ago I installed four fairly powerful flood lights on a track above the head of the bed. They are connected through a dimmer in order to tone them down for normal living. When they are on full blast they are very bright. At three hundred watts, these lights which are pointing straight downwards, even seem to radiate heat somewhat like the sun in summer.

Wendy has used them in the past to alleviate stress/depression but I found them somewhat uncomfortable. Now these are just hardware store incandescent floodlights, with no precise blue wavelength or anything scientific, but when you lie there for twenty minutes or so before getting up in the morning, you actually do seem to feel a little better. After ‘the treatment’ it is not difficult to get out of bed and get on with the day, even when it’s dreary outside.

I was never sure if the motivation to get out of bed was because it actually warded off the winter blues or whether I was just fed up with the bright light in my face. Anyhow, they are there and we never did give them a try on a routine basis, like twenty minutes every morning for a month or something. I don’t even know if they are strong enough or contain the wavelength of light required to blast away depression, but I’ll give it a try starting tomorrow and let you know how I make out. (This may not work because I don't feel depressed, but let's see if it makes me feel better about getting up in the morning)




.

We Made It Through The Festive Season

In review of this year’s plan to keep things low key, with the minimum of travel and entertaining, I must say that with fewer expectations, there was less of the usual feeling of disappointment that the 'Festive' season has come to an end. The experiment did not however, appear do anything to reduce my caloric intake for the past couple of months.

Now I must again fore-go my cherished carbs and attend to the serious job of losing at least 20 lbs. That's more than the whole turkey weighed, and I only ate a part of it! Would you believe your mood can affect your weight?

I was reading about SAD and 'winter blues'. Apparently a good portion of the human population suffers from this form of depression, especially those situated within the gloomier northern climates. I thought you might be interested in reading about it. This is from Wikipedia:

SAD But True - You May Need More Light

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), also known as winter depression or winter blues, is a mood disorder in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year experience depressive symptoms in the winter or, less frequently, in the summer, spring or autumn, repeatedly, year after year.
In many species, activity is diminished during the winter months in response to the reduction in available food and the difficulties of surviving in cold weather. Hibernation is an extreme example, but even species that do not hibernate often exhibit changes in behavior during the winter. It has been argued that SAD is an evolved adaptation in humans that is a variant or remnant of a hibernation response in some remote ancestor. Presumably, food was scarce during most of human prehistory, and a tendency toward low mood during the winter months would have been adaptive by reducing the need for calorie intake. The preponderance of women with SAD suggests that the response may also somehow regulate reproduction.
If these interpretations are correct, SAD would not be a dysfunction or disorder as most psychiatrists assume, but rather a normal and expected response to seasonal changes.
The occurrence of low-level depression during the winter months, or seasonal affective disorder, may have been adaptive in the past, by limiting physical activity at times when food was scarce. It is argued that humans have retained the instinct to experience low mood during the winter months, even if the availability of food is no longer determined by the weather.

The US National Library of Medicine notes that "some people experience a serious mood change when the seasons change. They may sleep too much, have little energy, and crave sweets and starchy foods. They may also feel depressed. Though symptoms can be severe, they usually clear up." The condition in the summer is often referred to as Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder, and can also include heightened anxiety. It has been estimated that 1.5-9% of adults in the US experience SAD

Symptoms of SAD may consist of: difficulty waking up in the morning, tendency to oversleep as well as to overeat, and especially a craving for carbohydrates, which leads to weight gain. Other symptoms include a lack of energy, difficulty concentrating on completing tasks, and withdrawal from friends, family, and social activities. All of this leads to the depression, pessimism, and lack of pleasure which characterize a person suffering from this disorder.
Lightbox therapy is effective at doses of 2500–10,000 lux, with the patient sitting a prescribed distance, commonly 30–60 cm, in front of the box with her/his eyes open but not staring at the light source. Most treatments use 30–60 minute treatments, however this may vary depending on the situation. Many patients use the light box in the morning, and there is evidence that morning light is superior to evening light, although people can respond to evening light as well. Discovering the best schedule is essential. One study has shown that up to 69% of patients find the treatment inconvenient and as many as 19% stop use because of this.
Dawn simulation has also proven to be effective; in some studies, there is an 83% better response when compared to other bright light therapy. When compared in a study to negative air ionization, bright light was proven to be 57.1% effective vs. dawn simulation, 49.5%. Patients using light therapy can experience improvement during the first week, but increased results are evident when continued throughout several weeks. Most studies have found it effective without use year round, but rather as a seasonal treatment lasting for several weeks until frequent light exposure is naturally obtained.

Maybe it's not my fault I want to eat more carbs. I just need more light! Makes you want to live in the sunny south doesn't it? Now there's a good excuse!

.
.

Amazing New Ball To Change Football Forever!

I'm not a football fan but this new ball is so amazing, I felt I had to write about it here.

Google Australia announced it had partnered with the Australian rules football league to develop the gBall:

The gBall contains inbuilt GPS and motion sensor systems to monitor the location, force and torque of each kick. The data is interpreted by a new curvilenear parabolic approximation algorithm developed in Google's Sydney office, known as DENNIS ("Dimensional, Elastic, Non-Linear, Network-Neutral, Inertial Sequencing"), which plots the ball's trajectory, accuracy and distance.

Using artificial intelligence technology, Google can provide users - from amateurs to professional players - with detailed online kicking tips, style suggestions and tutorials based on their gBall kicking data.

Kicking data is also sent to national talent scouts and player agents. The gBall will vibrate if talent scouts or player agents want to make contact with the user. Users can log in to their gBall account to make contact.

CLICK HERE to read more about the Google gBall.

.
.
.

Gene’s 85th - Chinese

Today we decided to have Wendy’s Mom over for Chinese food. We also invited Erin and Jake and Tricia and Greg but a blizzard kept the number to four. Tim, Tim, Wendy and Gene. Even though Gene’s birthday is tomorrow, we moved our celebration up one day because Wendy’s brother Doug planned on taking her out for lunch on Monday. If she did that, she wouldn’t likely be too hungry for supper.

We Finally Got Some Snow.

It came a little late for a white Christmas, but it started in earnest earlier this week and has been falling fairly heavily at times especially in the past three days. Above, I posted a picture off the Internet of a radar image of the snow pattern. This is a classic and fairly common situation where we live (in the lee of Lake Huron) The snow clouds pick up moisture off the relatively warm water and the prevailing northwest wind funnels it right into London. As you can see, other areas received very little as the pattern remained almost stationary for days.

Note the "tall person handles" on my 25 year old blower

Well, it’s 2010 and that makes my old MTD “Gran Prix” 825 snowblower twenty five years old. I recently gave it a full tune up with new plug, rebuilt the carburetor, and replaced the fuel line and muffler. Here’s a picture of Tim giving it a workout. You can clearly see the extension handles that I put on in March 2008. They are about a foot higher and allow a tall person to work without stooping. To see the old blog entry, click here.

It's great that you can still get replacement parts for this common old workhorse. You see, MTD made this same machine as "a cheapie" for a dozen companies like Noma, Canadian Tire, Sears, etc. so there are lots around and they still haven't changed the design or parts in all these years. The new muffler for the 8hp Tecumseh engine was $10 on eBay and locally, Kensal Rentals had the carburetor rebuild kit for $11.

It still runs as good as new after all these years and the machine was ten years old when I bought it used. Tip: change the oil every season. Also, I use Shell V-Power highest octane gas because it contains NO ETHANOL, It was the ethanol I think that rotted out the rubber parts in my carburetor and fuel line. My personal campaign: DRINK ETHANOL, DON'T BURN IT!!!

.

Year!!! Happy 2010 New

The excitement of New Year's Eve just overwhealmed us all!

We're all getting up there! . . . 

Dick Clark gives it a valiant try.

.