Monday, July 29, 2019

One last daylilly...and the Brooklyn Town Hall

With all the deer damage, this is probably the last Daylilly of the year, down by the mailbox.

Canon EOS 50D,0.0125 1/80, f/6.3, focal length 87, ISO 100


Stopped at the Town Hall to drop off the check for taxes, decided to come back after work. Not sure I'm ecstatic with any of these...I think there is still something more here to pull out one day.

Canon EOS 50D,0.04 1/25, f/6.3, focal length 25, ISO 400



Canon EOS 50D,0.00625 1/160, f/3.5, focal length 28, ISO 400



Canon EOS 50D,0.02 1/50, f/6.3, focal length 200, ISO 400

Well this is a miscellaneous weekend...

Fortunately there were pictures of battery operated candles on the box too, otherwise I would have been very worried what I had ordered from Amazon...





Ah, drink from 2:30 to 6:30 (Dan's going away, then Day's End) then go to Market Basket for a pantry re-stocking run.





Really cool modern headstone made in a pre-revolutionary style!





These came out pretty cool.
Canon EOS 50D,0.0008 1/1250, f/6.3, focal length 200, ISO 400


I was actually playing a bit trying to get both flowers in focus, but shooting the flowers in direct sun with a very shady background made the background (almost) completely black. I've read about this with indoor portrait photography so I recognized what happened even if I didn't plan it (of course indoor they plan this more with flashes on the subject).

Canon EOS 50D,0.0008 1/1250, f/6.3, focal length 200, ISO 400


Canon EOS 50D,0.0008 1/1250, f/6.3, focal length 200, ISO 400

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Few miscellaneous photos...

The wall 'o flowers has expanded a bit more:



Lunch today...the most.Happy.Garden.Thing.Ever.

Or, "If you had to chose one picture to sum up Oxford, Massachusetts ...what would it be?"



Chuckled at this -- the "spotlight" on the garage seen by the new security camera by the front door is the infrared LEDs on the security camera on the garage.


Mahonking fast new PC at work...

Got a new PC at work -- by far and away it's the best machine both in absolute and relative terms to any other corporate machine I've had.

I don't get to play with hardware very often these days, so I was like a kid on Christmas.

i7 processor with 32GB of memory with two slots open so I can expand to 64GB (maybe for height reasons, the tower form factor can go to 128GB :shrug:). My old PC had 16GB and the first server I was an administer on I think had 16GB of storage using 4GB drives.



That chip is the "hard drive" (512GB NVMe)


I got it on Monday, didn't like how somethings functioned. Ended up with fresh installs of Windows (twice!) and loading up 80% of the software I needed in four hours on Thursday evening. That's fast hardware plus Win10 being pretty decent -- 20 years, 10 years ago that would have been a 2-3 day project having to constantly check back to see if it was ready for another button to be pushed.



How old was my old PC? It had a parallel port. I had PS/2 connectors. BIOS was 10 years old, and it's possible that had been flashed and the machine itself more like 11 or 12.



Why I was desperate for a new machine to replace the one maxed out with 16GB of RAM -- this is the new box on just an average, ordinary morning:


...and with all this power what do I do?

Find OneNote and go, "I wonder what this program does?"


Sunday, July 21, 2019

Hot Day in the Old Town Tonight...or weekend or whatever.

So today started off with my Keurig still tasting faintly of vinegar, so off to get an ice coffee again from Baker's. It's 7:30am, schmegy as heck. Dew points around 80 degrees which is about as humid as it gets in New England. Do I want to bring my good camera? Nah, I'm not planning to photograph anything and I wasn't going to go for a drive either. Heat indexes in the afternoon pushing well over 100 both Saturday & Sunday.

So I stop at the end of the driveway, get my mail, turn around...holy shit!



So I go back to the house to get the camera. I just pull up pointed towards the front door like I do when I'm just running in and out. I get out with my hand full of mail. Car starts driving towards house...holy shit I forgot to put in park. I'm pretty impressed with the run-and-dive into the car to jam on the brake with my hand :D I'm also surprised so far no injuries have shown up from that move.

I'm very happy with this photo, I don't know if I have the skill to remove the power lines especially where they are around the intricate wood work on the steeple. (The blue sky part are easy as pie, and the tree shouldn't be too difficult because leaves are irregular so it doesn't show edits easily). I may end up spending a few dollars to have it professionally retouched -- I know two sites but they both say their for "professionals only" so I don't know how much they enforce it. But it should only be like $6 to fix it -- I'm sure what they do is farm out the pics to India, Philippines, or similar country for someone to retouch them.



Did take a swim today. I never got in the pond last year...it was so nice to be in it again.

Bought the tomato, basil, mozzarella yesterday between Walmart and the Danielson Farmer's Market but I forgot bread. And quickly decided I'd rather bake a loaf than venture forth out in the heat to go to Big Y.

Loaf came out very well. I didn't measure a thing -- I proofed the yeast in warm sugar water, poured some flour in a bowl, mixed the water with it, punched it down once, let it rise overnight. Wet my hand and rolled it into the dutch oven this morning. Put it in the oven with the top on for 30 minutes, then 10 minutes with the top off.



But owe making a tomato sandwich when the bread is still oven warm...mmmmmmm.



Yeah, that's in the shade. My house is cleaner than it has been in many months as I hid from the heat in the A/C most of Saturday and today.

Farmer's market maters and taters for dinner :)



And having watched Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse...it amuses me that Spiderwoman has the same build, attitude, age, haircut, and comes from Brooklyn -- as L. o_O

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

That time of year when the Daylillies are blooming...

Some more 4x6 pics (and a 6x4) to go up on the wall:

Canon EOS 50D,0.003125 1/320, f/2, focal length 50, ISO 100


Canon EOS 50D,0.003125 1/320, f/2, focal length 50, ISO 100


Canon EOS 50D,0.005 1/200, f/2, focal length 50, ISO 100


Canon EOS 50D,0.005 1/200, f/2, focal length 50, ISO 100


Canon EOS 50D,0.005 1/200, f/2, focal length 50, ISO 100


Canon EOS 50D,0.005 1/200, f/2, focal length 50, ISO 100

Saturday, July 13, 2019

Another day...some more flowers (and a bee!)

Had some time to use up (and still not feeling like yard work :D ) before I could swing by Sorel's to inquire about my truck and to hit the farmer's market. Which I went to Putnam and holy hell I don't think there was a parking spot open as I drove by so I went down to Danielson instead!

Canon EOS 50D,0.008 1/125, f/2.8, focal length 50, ISO 100


...and a crop. With a pink petal "C" that I removed in Lightroom from the top edge of the crop :)

Canon EOS 50D,0.008 1/125, f/2.8, focal length 50, ISO 100


Canon EOS 50D,0.0025 1/400, f/2.8, focal length 50, ISO 100


Cropped:

Canon EOS 50D,0.000625 1/1600, f/1.4, focal length 50, ISO 100


East Woodstock Congregational Church is really becoming a favorite photography spot of mine...
Canon EOS 50D,0.000125 1/8000, f/2.8, focal length 50, ISO 100


Canon EOS 50D,0.0004 1/2500, f/3.2, focal length 50, ISO 100


Canon EOS 50D,0.000625 1/1600, f/3.2, focal length 50, ISO 100


Missed having the focus nail the bee, but not too bad. And darn these suckers are tough to get a good photo -- they were flittering all over the place!

Canon EOS 50D,0.000625 1/1600, f/3.2, focal length 50, ISO 100


Canon EOS 50D,0.00015625 1/6400, f/2, focal length 50, ISO 100


...and cropped:
Canon EOS 50D,0.00015625 1/6400, f/2, focal length 50, ISO 100


And what I've been doing with all the crops -- taken me a month, but I finally today figured out how to get the crops to print out right 100% of the time:


Friday, July 12, 2019

...and there goes the GT 2550

Just realized I never took a photo of the old Cub Cadet and the new Gravely together...:(

The mower deck on the Cub Cadet GT 2550 self-destructed. I was looking at needing about $700 in parts (deck shell and a spindle). Lawn was a hayfield, figure at least another week for the parts and for me to transfer everything over from the old deck. The GT 2550 was hard to steer (the next series up from Cub Cadet has hydraulics for implements...and power steering), and 50" was a bit too big for my yard with all it's nooks and crannies so it didn't exactly break my heart to go out and get my first new mower since I've bought this place.

I got three+ seasons out of the Cub Cadet, which works out about $433 per full season. I did consider keeping it and fixing it up until I sa how well the new Gravely does and realized there was no real need for it.



Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Home + Dog Photos

Cooper was down for the long weekend...since he usually sleeps in a bedroom shared by 10 and 16 year old boys, he's perfectly at home in my desperately needs to be picked house.

Well shit...love to know who the teenage driver's great-grandfather or so was politically connected to :D

I don't even know how many months I've been putzing away on this...but the hood is up and the stove pushed back. The vertical part can slide up some more. I'll slide it up as high as practical, then I plan to put up a couple brackets and "cap" it with a little shelf for knick-knacks and then trim either side. I'll stain the shelf / trim / the door to attic to match the cabinets and mantle.

And holy cow I need to wash the front of the stove!