Thoughts on Lightroom and Other Things

Ooooh, what a mysterious title!

Whoever posted that link to the photo contest, I appreciate the gesture, but I don't have anything to submit that would fit the theme, unfortunately =(...also...the prizes seemed...biased...like, technically I'd enter under the amateur category, but even the grand prize seemed like a bit of a copout (point and shoot camera and some other stuff). I was tempted to enter the professional division, if it wasn't for the like $50 entry fee. So, yeah, thanks for the suggestion =) I might enter a picture or two into JPG Magazine again soon. In fact, I had a few that fit the "On Stage" theme they have this week, but I wouldn't be able to get a model release in time from Illuminations =(. I entered one photo a long time ago with Soyoung in it and everything blurry. I think it was themed like "What would you see in heaven" or something, and I liked the blurry abstraction of a friend who greets you standing in front of a foresty-looking/green background (background was the slope, but the blurring made it seem more 3d).

Richardson, the only Chinese music I have is F.I.R. and I like them a bit. Any suggestions? Trying to get Jiyeon and Soyoung to help me with Japanese music, lol.

So, I used the beta version of Lightroom 2.0 on this machine because of the 64 bit support. Kinda like how I used the beta Lightroom 1.0 on my old computer. As I expected, there were QUITE a few feature changes/upgrades in the real version. The full retail version is decidedly quicker and a bit more intuitive, and it hasn't crashed yet (beta version crashed often)! As such, I have to heartily recommend Lightroom 2.0 for anyone with photos...it isn't as powerful as Photoshop, but it really doesn't have to be.

Anyway, I have restarted my horrid Lego addiction! I started because I saw this video. I don't think it's healthy to replace WoW with ANOTHER massively multiplayer online game...especially a Lego one, since that will probably be more addictive...Oh well, it's not out yet...Oh, yeah, so it restarted my Lego addiction because I starting looking around at stuff...and...I mighta bought some stuff...like 2 ice trays, a popsicle maker, and a t-shirt...moving on, I found a pretty cool blog dedicated to Legos! I'll link it here (http://www.brothers-brick.com/), and I'll add it to the side, as well as a Lego section =).

Also, I have Rosetta Stone and will be trying to teach myself some languages! I'm starting with Japanese, cuz technically I've wanted to learn it since middle school. I want to eventually learn Korean and Spanish, relearn Mandarin, and maybe relearn French. They had a CD for Arabic too, and that sounded very cool...even if it'd be very difficult...oh well, never give up, I say!

I should finish packing...I'm going back to Ithaca this weekend! So yeah, packing and Japanese!

Stay Tuned.

LIGHTROOM 2.0 CAME OUT LIGHTROOM 2.0 CAME OUT LIGHTROOM 2.0 CAME OUT LIGHTROOM 2.0 CAME OUT LIGHTROOM 2.0 CAME OUT LIGHTROOM 2.0 CAME OUT LIGHTROOM 2.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/
YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAY

Sorry for the essentially meaningless post, but I wanted to say this as it's now out of beta and hopefully won't be as buggy....

Now that it's not beta, I can fulfill Directive 1 of photos! No temporary software to process my pictures! Should be a deluge of photos coming soon.

Also, I'm going to quit WoW cold turkey. At least for a few days. I have other things to do with my time during the summer. Today I'm going rock climbing and will probably edit photos...tomorrow is probably editing photos...lol....

Plus, it gives me free time at work. This summer I'm doing a lot of project management, so I kinda sit in my office and wait. I used to use that time for reading about gaming and WoW and stuff, I think I'll study my GRE vocab all day instead.

Oh yeah, I still want some recommendations for music for my slowly-being-rebuilt music library!

Speaking of which, time to whip out the flash cards!

Back from the Dead! Mostly

Hey guys,

I finally got my computer back up and running! Vista64 didn't want to play nice with 2 of my older hard drives (they were PATA attached to a RAID on the motherboard, for those of you who care), so I took them out and got another Terabyte drive. Now I'm slowly rebuilding my photo and music libraries, as well as my bookmarks and stuff. If you guys have any recommendations for music, let me know! I like listening to a lot of different artists and styles. However, any suggestions may have to wait...I have to refind all the music I listened to before, plus go through a 59 gb backlog of music I downloaded but haven't been able to convert, much less listen to yet =(.

But yeah! Hard drives are up and running, Lightroom 2.0 beta sorta works (its amazing when it DOES work, but it crashes for no reason sometimes), Zeke is bored most of the time though.

I'm looking at getting more photography stuff. I really want a fisheye lens! They have a 180 degree field of view that's distorted and looks pretty cool. Specifically, I like this one. How useful is a fisheye lens? Not really. Look at pictures taken with fisheye lenses and you'll see why. How COOL are they? Tres cool. So cool, I don't even need to put in the proper accent.

I also want a normal wide angle lens, like this one. The super wide looks awesome...plus, L-series glass is pretty phenomenal (my white lens is L-series).

I might also replace Zeke with a newer model in the fall. I want a full frame sensor, which Zeke doesn't have...I dunno what I'm gonna do with him! I don't really want to sell him since 1) my dad wants a camera and 2) Zeke really likes my white lens...

Also, these things aren't cheap...gotta keep scrimping and saving...

Been playing WoW a lot lately...I didn't work out so much this week because I basically had 2 weeks of no exercise and my body couldn't handle my normal exercise...oh, I should detail that I guess

Monday: 30 mins cardio, arms and shoulder resistance training, 3 X 15 reps of 80% max capacity
Tuesday: 30 mins cardio, upper torso resistance training, 3 X 15 reps of 80% max capacity
Wednesday: 30 mins cardio, lower torso resistance training, 3 X 15 reps of 80% max capacity
Thursday: 30 mins cardio, legs resistance training, 3 X 15 reps of 80% max capacity
Friday: Open
Saturday: Open
Sunday: Open

I want to fill in Friday, but I tend to travel Friday afternoon, so it screws things up...

But yeah, 2 half weeks of work screwed my schedule really bad and I have to get back on track. I think I lost like 10 pounds, but vacations kinda messed that up...by last check I lost 6 pounds. Yay! I'm going to sign up for a gym membership at school, too.

Anyway, I'm gonna stop this post now. Feel free to sound off in the comments!

Stay Tuned!

PS. Dark Knight put a smile on my face.

I Know It's Been A Long Time

Hey guys,

Sorry sorry sorry, it's been forever, I know. I got extremely busy at work and home and had no time to do anything.

First off, that contest I entered my photos into. I'll find out results in the spring. I also asked them if they had thought of an online gallery or something to show the entrants, and they might look into it! So, if I see anything, I'll post it up here. I'm more interested in seeing what everyone else submitted.

Thanksgiving was pretty solid for me. No fancy food, no real Thanksgiving feast. Just homecooked meals. Asian food, eating out at restaurants too. It was nice. Plus, not having a feast meant we didn't have to worry about preparation or leftovers.

I got a GPS unit (Garmin Nuvi 660). Well, technically, my dad wanted it for like over a year, so we bought it for him. Then he just gave it to me. He bought a cheaper one. Best Buy had crazy GPS deals this year for Black Friday. Couple video games. Kind of a quiet Black Friday. We didn't try for the hot ticket stuff, like the $300 laptops, since we didn't really need them. Actually, we almost missed all of it. I was supposed to wake my dad up so we could drive out, but my alarm didn't go off. Richardson called me at 6:00 am and asked about a price for Burning Crusade before asking me how BF was going. Course, I just woke up, so I calmly told him that I was in Texas, so we hadn't started yet. It was only then I realized that when my clock says 7:00 AM, EST, it's 6:00 AM central. I bolted downstairs, grabbed my dad, and we sped to Best Buy, which was....pretty much empty? One of the workers even complained.

BB Dude: "OK, we rearranged the ENTIRE store, brought in SO many people on extra shift, and we've been here since like 4. WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE PEOPLE?!?!"

They had boxes of Rock Band, Halo 3 with the helmet, Xbox 360's, PS3's, everything piled high. No one was touching anything. Even the GPS units were relatively plentiful. At that time. We would try to go back later at noon since we liked them so much and try to get another one but ALAS, twas to no avail.

OH, something funny happened on my flight down though. I was sitting in the gate when the JetBlue gate announced something.

Gate Attendant: "We will begin boarding the flight now, but not everyone. Nope. First, we want passengers [so and so] to board first. Why? Well, they're actually getting MARRIED!!!! So, we'll let them board first, and everyone say hi to them when you walk by row 2!!!"

So yeah. That was Thanksgiving.

The week after Thanksgiving, I think I spent most of my home time looking up and buying presents for people. Then that weekend, I went to Boston to go home and also visit another P&G plant in South Boston, MA. That was all fun too. Got 4 levels in one weekend in WoW, hehe. Aaaaand, now putting on the addiction tag.

Last week, I have no idea what happened. I literally cannot account for home time last week. I only played like an hour or two of WoW. The entire week. Then I went to Cornell to see you guys off before finals and break. I'll be going back when y'all are gone to move stuff back into the apartment, though.

I've taken up knitting a bit. I suck pretty hard but I'm just trying to learn the basics at first. I've gotten some flak for it already though. Phil, guy from work, my boss...*sigh*

Oh yeah, I also got sick. Strep. Very bad. Missed Monday because of fever and such. Missed Tuesday because of the same thing, then doctor's office. Went to work for an hour on Tuesday to check my messages. Went for over a full day on Wednesday...and overworked...so I missed all of Thursday. I felt pretty shitty Friday morning, so I went later and stayed for about 3 hours before I felt sick again. The headache from the fever is a killer.

But it's about 1 am, and I should go get some sleep. Another post later!

Stay Tuned.

PS: How's everyone else doing?

I'M HORRIBLE

**EDIT**
Can't believe I forgot this:
YAY SOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
**End edit**

SO SORRY FOR NOT POSTING MORE OFTEN.

Granted, I don't think anyone reads this religiously.

It's been hard, as usual, to post. I've been spending a lot of time editing pictures actually. I'm trying to enter a small portfolio into an Architecture, Art, and Planning photography contest. The grand prize is $7,500, which is a nice lure to college students, but I'm more interested in the competition.

Here's the information for anyone interested.

Photographers in general are an interesting lot. We look to each other's work to draw inspiration and ideas. This is what I'm much more excited about. I really doubt I'll win any prize in this contest, but I want to see what Cornell students are capable of. The contest is open to any students at Cornell, and I want to see what other people take pictures of. See what qualifies as art to them. How did they take their pictures? Who will win? How will the photos be judged? These are the things I'm thinking of. Because of this, I actually encourage more people to try out! You don't need an SLR to make great photos and I want to see more! In my opinion, art is communal and should be shared, so I really like the idea of being open about sharing techniques and ideas and such. Granted, I still hold all copyrights on my photos, but I'm protective about my work.

Other than that, Photo Society is trying to print a magazine with member-submitted photos. They'll vote on the best photos and have the magazine printed. I'm trying for this one too but I'm also very interested in how, who, and what people are shooting. It's a very exciting time for me, photography wise. I'm also about to buy a new lens, bag, and flash!!! =)

Going through my photos for these contests has shown that I actually forgot to upload about 50 pictures from the spring onto facebook...oops...I'll try to fix that soon.

When I decide which pics I want as candidates, I'll post them as a collection/group onto Zooomr and ask for opinions. Til then,

Stay Tuned.

PS: How's everyone else doing? Sound off in the comments!

Massively Late Update

Sorry guys, I've been really caught up in WoW, editing photos, and just going out to the mall and stuff.

Uhhh, where to start...

Well...you guys have probably heard me complain about my phone and provider. For those of you not in the know, I had this, a Sony Ericsson.




I really hated it. On paper, it looks like a good phone. Bluetooth, fairly comfortable dimensions, web access, camera. In actuality, it's terrible. I only got this phone because my RAZR was stolen from my pocket two summers ago...like a week after I got it. Admittedly, the RAZR isn't that great a phone, but it was better than this one. The camera takes horrible pictures. Every person I took a picture of looks very blurry. But that's probably not a big deal when the phone can only take about 10 pictures before it complains about lack of memory. The voice dialing feature never worked for me, instead, it added my voice command to each person I made a voice for. So everytime my dad calls me, I hear "Call Dad" before the ringing starts. Web access was always slow, so I never bothered to use it or wanted to pay for it. The battery never lasted very long. Two days on standby with minimal calling was pushing it's life. Big stretch from the 315 standby hours advertised. On top of that, the phone had a tendency to lock up and restart itself very often. Most times, for no reason at all. I distinctly remember one day where I slid the phone into my pocket, and it restarted the second it settled in the cloth. When I used my Bluetooth headset (also stolen) with the phone, the battery lasted all of 4 hours. Couple that with T-Mobile's spotty service, and it was an aggravating time with this phone.

I think I will try not to ever buy Sony's products ever again. I've owned a PDA, this phone, a CD burner, and several game consoles. I can honestly say that each item I've bought with a Sony brand on it has horribly disappointed me.

Anyway, what to do about my phone? Well, my family is kinda locked into T-Mobile, but there's hope! T-Mobile started a brand-new service called HotSpot@Home. If you buy a H@H plan, it allows you to make unlimited calls over WiFi. Any WiFi network you have access to, including T-Mobile's HotSpot locations. Why is this good? Think about Cornell campus. T-Mobile's coverage outside buildings is actually pretty good. Especially on Central and West. This is actually T-Mobile's strength; T-Mobile signals are known to be very good outside, mostly in urban areas. Now move inside with a T-Mobile phone. No cell signal. But, there's always WiFi. And since it's WiFi and you're on the H@H plan, all calls are free. Even during days. Most people have not heard of this plan. Why not? T-Mobile announced this service the day that the iPhone was announced.

Don't get me wrong, I like the iPhone. Especially for the lower price now. However, Apple has disabled a lot of the features that I thought were necessary or missing from the phone itself. For example, we know it has WiFi capability. Why is there no iChat program? Or Skype program? Even AT&T can have signal issues when WiFi is strong. Also, it is strangely odd that a smart phone lacks any sort of MicroSoft Office compatibility at all.

Anyway, I managed to convince my family to get me a new phone. Here it is:




(About the pictures: I just did a Google image search. Didn't know who to credit, so I hope the url is still embedded in the pictures)

Mine will be one of the newer ones with WiFi. Obviously to use the WiFi service. We're not signing me up for the email plan since it's kind of expensive for the limited use I'd get out of it. Also, mine will be black. I'M SO EXCITED HEHE.

Btw, if you have RSS readers, you might want to add this blog to that. They're quite handy. Especially if you have Gmail. You can download an extension called Better Gmail. Among other things, it integrates Google Reader (one of those RSS readers) into Gmail!

I had fun cooking for and eating at Nightmarket. Although, in my opinion, CTAS was not as on the ball as JUSA was. JUSA had chaos, but it was a lot more organized and smooth. CTAS was very confusing from what I saw. What does that ultimately mean? Well, it means that JUSA got pictures of everyone cooking. CTAS didn't allow me time for photo breaks, so they lost photos for club posters and such*. Oh well, just things to learn, I guess. It was still a good experience.

Why the asterisk? CTAS will most likely never receive any of my pictures. I ran into a lot of trouble with them this past summer and I would not like to repeat the events. Especially since some people not in the loop on what happened actually went and called the whole ordeal my fault. Just shows that if you look out for everyone, it just goes and backstabs you in the end. Specifically, I wanted to avoid anything like this happening to Optix (one of the parties involved), but my ideas and message were misinterpreted and misrepresented later and made me a bit of a villain.

I will try to update more often. Specifically about things that I experience/think about.

Expect a video game review or three, or advice on photography or cooking!

Stay Tuned.

First Week of Co-Op

Hey guys,

First week of Co-Op ended. It was pretty intense...a lot of meeting new people, attending orientation/training classes, and just basically getting adjusted. I haven't actually done any work though. I just got a project schedule/outline on Thursday afternoon/Friday.

I went back to Ithaca this weekend because I missed people and wanted to see everyone before it got too busy. I sorta failed at the latter since I really only hung out with Alice...sorry, all. I bet even Alice got sick of me towards the end.

I'm thinking of coming back next weekend. I found an amazing radio station that plays in Ithaca. WBBR, 93.5. Lots of rock music, with a nice mix of classic and modern rock. There were a lot of nice songs that I had to scribble down titles, artists, or lyrics of in my directions home....which I almost lost out the window as I was waving goodbye to Alice, haha.

Anyway, next weekend is the first annual Ithaca Brewfest. I wanna attend as a designated driver since it's $10 and there's a concert. I dunno, does anyone wanna go?

I finished Heroes....6 episodes in 2 days....now, I'm free to restart my WoW addiction after work everyday...hmm...I wanted to start working out too though...

Zooomr's bulk upload is still down...so that's gonna have to wait...I should get out more with my camera too....

Stay Tuned.