Weekly Ephemera #121

Eight years ago yesterday my friend G_v passed away.  Sometimes it feels like yesterday ... other times it's been forever.

• I decorated the house for Christmas this week.  Early in the week I put up the front door garland, wreaths, and laser lights.  Yesterday I put up the tree.
  
  I was going to put up the balls in our oak tree but the tree hasn't shed its leaves yet.  If my crappy memory serves, there was a year when the tree didn't drop its leaves until the end of winter/early spring.  I'm going to wait for a week to see if something happens with he leaves and then will decide if the balls go up or not.
• Our television took a dump.  A dark vertical bar appeared along the left side of the screen.  Ordered a new one and were up and running by Friday with a new TV.
  
  Also on the tech front I lost an earbud during one of my walks.  It fell out on a noisy street when I couldn't hear the podcast I was trying to listen to so I didn't notice when it fell out of my ear.  Fortunately it was a cheap set of buds so not a great financial loss.  I ordered a new pair before I got back to my car.  I might have to experiment with the larger ear cushions.
• The Wife's Aunt and Uncle celebrated their sixty-fifth anniversary.  If the Wife and I make it to that one we will be nearly one hundred years old.
• Speaking about the Wife, she's been fighting a cold this week.  Hope she gets better soon.
• I walked twice this week for a total of 23.4 miles (37.7 km).  It was cold this week but I still worked up a sweat.  As I walk longer distances it's getting harder to plot interesting paths.  I try not to visit the same place very often and I try to do loops instead of doing there-and-back paths.  I'm also finding that walking along rural roads near the outskirts of the city is not interesting or desirable to me.  Unfortunately there is only one place I can do long enough trail hikes (Indian Cave state Park) but it's over an hour drive from where I live so not worth doing very often.
• This week I started watching "Arcane" on Netflix.  Really liking it.

Welcome to December and the Holiday Season!

Weekly Ephemera #109

A relatively quiet week with things moving in the right direction:

• Mom had Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy visits this week.  They went well.  More of the Medicaid paperwork fell into place.
• My car after being totaled, then repairable, finally settled on totaled.  I discovered that body shops will not touch a totaled car due to liability issues.  I can understand this.
  
  The Wife found me a car on Carmax that looked good.  We ordered it on Wednesday and I picked it up on Friday.  It is a 2014 Toyota Prius Four with 85K miles on the odometer.  It has more bells and whistles than my 2016 Prius - Backup camera, electric adjustable heated seats, keyless ignition.  The car is a little bit bigger than my old one - mostly longer with a bigger trunk which is nice.  The only thing I don't like are the displays.  My old car had a lot of information consolidated on one screen while the new one has the information spread across multiple screens.   I'll just have to get used to that.
  
  Tomorrow I'll register it.  The only thing left will be to wait for the insurance payout check which should come in a few days.  One of the three big things on our plate will be finished.  Yay!
  
  Also, no more sharing a car with the Wife.  That was a bit irritating for the both of us.
• Next on our plate is getting the hail damage fixed on our house.  Our contractor came by this week to take pictures so we can appeal the insurance company's damage assessment.  I expect another visit from an adjuster and a larger check.
• I walked twice this week for a total of 18.4 miles (29.6 km).  My legs are still feeling it a bit but I am happy to get out of the house and forget about the world for a few hours.  Also saw two foxes (or one fox twice ... not sure).  First time I saw a fox in our neighborhood since we moved here sixteen years ago.
• Olympics has once again dominated out television watching but that is coming to an end this weekend.  This week it's time to catch up with a few shows I've been putting off until I was in the mood.

Weekly Ephemera #96

Happy Mother's day to all the mothers out there, especially my Mom!!!

This week was not full of much activity.  I only have a few things to mention.

• Yesterday we went to the combined birthday party for the niece's four year old son and two year old daughter.  Their kids are awesome and, after this party, they will need a bigger house to store all the toys these kids got.  The one gift we are all jealous of is a battery powered bubble gun.  Is it normal for a sixty year old man to want a bubble gun?
• I watched "Star Trek: Lower Decks" this week.  I love all the easter eggs they can wedge into a Star Trek cartoon.  This week I'll take a Trek break and will watch the second season of "Halo".
• The Wife went out to see the Aurora Borealis on Friday night.  I didn't join her as I was really tired.  She saw some good displays near Hitchcock Nature Reserve.  I was asleep before she even arrived there.  This is unlike me really since seeing the northern lights is on my informal bucket list.  Not sure why I couldn't find the energy to join the Wife.
• One possible explanation for my tiredness is that I did a long walk Friday morning and really didn't nap afterwards like I usually do.  This week I walked twice for a total of 18.67 miles (30.0 km) with most of those miles being on Friday.
• This week the tile guy is coming to tile our bathroom floor.  The end of our bathroom remodel is in sight.

Weekly Ephemera #82

Another early Weekly Ephemera post and for a good reason.

• Tomorrow the Wife and I are flying to Tampa (It's been ages since I've flown domestic - all our flights have been international).  The Wife's cousin, who we visited last year, will be on vacation and they offered us the use of their condominium and car.  We will be spending the week exploring Tampa and the warmer weather.  The highlight of the week will be Tuesday when we scratch an item off my unwritten bucket list and go skydiving.  My stomach does flippity flops when I think of it.  It will be fun.
• I walked two times this week for a total of 12.7 miles (20.4 km).  The last few days in Omaha have been foggy and blucky and it has been hard to get motivated to get out and move.
• Speaking of walking, my GPS took a dump after I downloaded the last track so I had to buy a new one.  The old one was around ten to twelve years old and served me well on the Camino and the Appalachian Trail.  The new one, a Garmin eTrex 32X, is smaller and has a different interface that will need some getting used to but it seems to do what I need it to do so I'm happy.  The carabiner/belt clip from my old GPS unit fits the new one so a piece of old faithful persists. 

Weekly Ephemera #36

• 

  2022 Christmas Tree (Lights only for now).

   On Tuesday I bought an early Christmas present for myself.  I replaced my aging Lenovo tablet with a new Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite.  My old tablet went a lot of places with me including all my Appalachian Trail attempts and our 2022 Fall Travels.  All of my AT posts were written, and photographs edited, on that tablet.  Unfortunately I started running out of memory and kept having to delete things on our travels.  So, out with the 16 GBytes of memory, in with the 64 GBytes.  I'm sure my new tablet will serve me well on our travels and will be my book while at home (the tablet is 8.7 inches about the same size as a large paperback book and the same size as my old tablet.)
  
  I ended up getting a good deal too ... 40% off.  I ended up ordering it online from Samsung and picking it up at Best Buy an hour later.
• On Thursday we had Thanksgiving lunch at Mom's place and stopped the Wife's Brother's house to say hi and give travel gifts to the kiddos.  Lots of good food was consumed.
• I usually don't decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving but this year felt a bit different.  On Monday I put up the Christmas laser lights, garlands, and wreaths outside.
  
  On Tuesday I put the balls in the oak tree (Pictures will come sometime this week).  Over the next few days only four balls were blown out of the tree which I am pleasantly surprised.  One year more than ten blew out the night I put them up.
  
  On Sunday I put up the Christmas tree and wrapped it in lights.  The Wife will be decorating it later.
  
  The Holiday Season has begun!
• I walked twice this week for a total of 17.7 miles (28.48 km).  It felt good to do more than one walk this week.  I was wondering if I would ever manage more than one walk in a week.
• After Thanksgiving and decorating I decided to take a short break.  We resubscribed to Netflix and I binged a few things.  Because of this my next Travel post will be delayed even more.  Not sure when I will restart but it won't be Monday like I said in my last post (sorry).  I will have to get started because I want to finish by the end of the year and my schedule is a bit full, fluid, and somewhat unpredictable.

Music: Alice Cooper With Buckcherry At The Liberty First Arena

Bookending the crazy weekend we had last week was a second concert.  This one was in the newly renamed Liberty First Arena only a few minutes from where we live.  I was concerned about being too tired since I drove back from Minneapolis the morning of the concert but I ended up getting a second wind.

Alice Cooper and his teenage frankenstein.

Buckcherry.

The warm up act was Buckcherry.  I'd heard the name but wasn't familiar at all with their music.  Can't say it was of my taste but the energy of the band definitely woke me up.  It was the lead singer's birthday so the entire band and audience sang happy birthday to him before they rapped up their set. 

Alice Cooper came on with a bang and the drop of a curtain.  From there it was a non-stop rockfest.  Special effects, giant figures, incredible playing, fun songs.

Alice, Tommy Henriksen, and Nita Strauss

The highlight, right after Alice Cooper himself, was lead guitarist Nita Strauss.  She was awesome.  They all were frankly.  Everyone had a solo and they all took advantage of the spotlight.

Double decker stage.

I really enjoyed the show.  It ended with a medley of "School's Out" and Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" which was incredible.

I ended up with some good swag too.  A t-shirt with a type-o:

Ralston is in Nebraska (NE) not Iowa (IA).

and this:

Bobble-Alice

Pictures can be found in my 2022-04-04 Alice Cooper w/ Buckcherry, Liberty First Arena, Ralston, NE Google Photos album.

Weekly Ephemera #6

• Went to a Gastroenterologist on Monday.  An MRI back in November to examine my prostate (due to a high PSA from my last blood test) showed indications of intestinal inflammation.  I've been suffering from on-again off-again back pain that spreads up my right side since September.  I thought it was muscular but, since it wasn't getting better, I suspected it was something else and a gastrointestinal issue may be the culprit.  Blood tests from the doctor's visit came back normal but, just in case, I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy next week.  I've have two colonoscopies before and the procedure is a real snooze but the prep for it is crappy.  Next week is going to be one of restricted diets, lots of fluids, and a day and a half of not feeling well.  Whoopee!
• On Tuesday I visited Mom and helped her sign up for social security survivor benefits.  I didn't do much since Mom had it under control.  Afterwards we did some shopping and went out for lunch.  I think I ate too much but it will balance out with the lack of eating much next week.
• On Thursday I swapped out my old LG phone for a Samsung Galaxy A32 5G.  My LG's battery appears to have been fried during our roadtrip in the south (a couple times I had pop ups saying charging was halted due to high temperatures).  It ended up cutting the battery capacity nearly in half.
  
  I spent most of Thursday afternoon and Friday configuring the new phone.  It's one thing going between phones of the same brand.  With different brands you have to figure out all the different ways to do things that you already knew by heart on the old phone.  One thing I discovered is that I really don't need to turn on WIFI.  It turns out that 5G data is two to three times faster that our cable fed WIFI.  I think I've got most of it figured out and hopefully this will last for a while.
• I did only one walk this week.  Monday's walk was prevented by the Doctor's appointment and Friday's walk was … I just didn't feel like it.  On Wednesday I walked 11.6 miles (18.7 km) which is under the 20 miles a week goal I was trying to meet.  Next week I won't be walking at all.  Walking makes me hungry and since I won't be able to eat my usual snacks (nuts, seeds, fresh fruit, fresh vegis) I'll just not walk this coming week.
• On Friday, instead of walking, I finished setting up my phone apps, vacuumed and dusted, and watched the Book of Boba Fett.  I've also had the Olympics on in the background.  I must admit I'm not watching the Winter Olympics as much as I did the Summer ones.

Next week is going to be strange and somewhat busy, especially next weekend so the next Weekly Ephemera update may be postponed … we'll see.

Kicking And Screaming Into The Twenty-First Century

Well ... we finally did it.  Today we got our first real cell phones.  After the dead landline fiasco last weekend we decided it was time to ditch the landline.

We've had at least one cell phone for nearly twenty years but they have always been pay as you go, not so smart phones.  We decided we wanted an unlimited talk/text/data plan smartphone to replace our dumb phones.

We chose middle of the road phones (LG K20) on the T-Mobile (their network works in many countries without the need to change the SIM card) 55+ plan (two lines for $70) with the unlimited everything we were looking for.

No more printing out map directions.  No more being incommunicado (though nobody ever calls me anyway).  No more wondering about anything when Google is at your fingertips.

Our landline will go away once our old number is transfered to the Wife's phone.  Her phone will be our old number.  I will have a new number.  If you need it, let me know by email and I'll pass it along.

Let the twenty-first century ... begin!

Number Seven

I've owned one film camera and six digital cameras over my lifetime.  My first digital camera recorded pictures on floppy disks (One picture from my current camera would need seven floppy disks to record!).  I killed my second digital camera by dunking it in Malibu Creek.  My third, the one I took on my first Camino, is still around and still works.  My fourth was my Canon T1i DSLR I won in a photo contest.  My fifth - bought for it's compact, rugged, waterproofness - died while snorkeling off the Galapagos Islands.  This camera was replaced by another compact, rugged, and waterproof camera of a different brand.  Last week I bought my seventh digital camera, a replacement for the T1i which started to die of old age last year (the exposure sensor is going flaky and randomly overexposes pictures).  I upgraded to a Canon Rebel T7i.

Here are a couple of my first pictures with the new camera: 

Old Man Iago.

Iago is looking grey these days.

A picture of an hibiscus from the rear.

"Behind the Petals"
by Bruce H.

The new camera is similar to the one it's replacing.  I bought just the body since all my old lenses work on the new camera which saved me some money.  It has a better sensor and several new functions that I will have to learn.

It has a flip out touch screen which is handy for some awkward over the fence/crowd pictures. The screen can also be folded in towards the body protecting it from scratches.

One of the things I was excited about is the Bluetooth and WiFi support.  Unfortunately the app doesn't run well on my Chromebook so WiFi connection is flaky and Bluetooth doesn't work at all.  I blame this on Chromebook/Android hybrid idiosyncrasies.  Nevertheless I have managed to upload pictures to the cloud and to my Chromebook over WiFi though it would be easier to just pull out the memory card and plug it into the Chromebook.

The camera has all the bells and whistles. It's missing only one thing - GPS.  Strangely enough GPS is mentioned in the setup but it is not implemented in the camera.

Now I just need to get out and find things worth photographing.

P.S.  This camera was partially funded with Christmas/Birthday/Anniversary money from the Mother-in-Law.  Thank you!

A Tablet Replacement

My tablet, a Nexus 7, turned four years old last November.  In computer and gadget terms, four years old is ancient.  Over these years apps have become more demanding of the hardware and my Nexus has slowed down to a crawl.  Things it could do when I first bought it will now take forever, or worse, crash.  It was time to upgrade.

My choice of upgrade was an Acer Chromebook R 11.  The laptop/tablet/convertible is faster than my Nexus, has a much larger (11.6") display, and a physical keyboard.  The keyboard can be folded back to convert it to a tablet.  The screen is, naturally, a touchscreen.  I find myself alternating between using the keyboard touchpad and touching the screen - I like that flexibility.  It was also cheaper than my original Nexus.  So far ... I love it.

My intention when I bought it was it to be a replacement for both my Nexus and my desktop.  The past week or so of playing with it has shown I've met my goal by about 85% - 90%.  The Chromebook is essentially a front end to the internet.  If you want to do something you have to have a website or in the case of this Chromebook an Android app, that will do it.

So far I have only run into a couple things that the Chromebook can't do.  I was unable to find an app to geotag my Appalachian Trail photos using my GPS generated GPX file.  I had to use the Geosetter program on the desktop.  Also, the scanner app for my printer/scanner could not find the scanner on my network.  Fortunately, there is a multi-step workaround to use the scanner.

That is what I am finding out.  To do things it often takes a two or three step process on the Chromebook to do what takes a single step on the desktop.  This is more a matter of getting used to how things work on the Chromebook than anything else.  I'm sure I will find more things that I cannot do on the Chromebook but I'm also sure more apps will be written to fill some of the gaps as well.

And what of my Nexus?  I've removed most of the bloated apps that slowed it down and now has mostly reader apps.  I've relegated it to being an e-book reader.

A New Camera For The Appalachian Trail ... And Everywhere Else

This week I received my new rugged camera that I will take on the Appalachian Trail (AT).  This camera replaces the Nikon Coolpix AW100 that I've owned since March 2012.  I really liked the AW100 and took it everywhere.  Unfortunately, off the Galapagos Islands, the camera screen went dead.

When I returned home I planned to replace the camera with the newer model (the AW130) but, after reading a few comments, found out that the dead screen problem still existed in the newer models.  This was disappointing.  I decided to go for the newer version of the camera that came it second to the AW100 when I did my previous search.  The Olympus Stylus TG-4 had good reviews and hit most of my criteria (I list those criteria in the AW100 post linked above).

Olympus Stylus TG-4

In fact, the TG-4 actually meets one more criteria than the  AW100 does - the capability of taking RAW format pictures.  The one thing that convinced me to purchase the AW100 before was the 5x zoom vs the TG-4 4x zoom.  As I mentioned in the linked post, zoom and tough cameras are not always compatible.  We'll see if i miss the extra zoomability.

I like the TG-4's auto Panorama mode which creates the panoramas in the camera without the need for external software.  This simplifies things a lot.  I do love me a good panorama and the tools provided should allow me to take better ones.

The Microscope mode (referred to as macro mode on most other cameras) is great.  The TG-4 has more options that make taking close up pictures even better including focus stacking that increases the depth of field of macro pictures.  Like panoramas, close up macro pictures are another favorite form for me.  Looking forward to experimenting with the new modes.

The Underwater modes are also more versatile than the AW100 including an High Dynamic Range (HDR) mode for underwater photographs (there is an HDR mode for above water pictures as well).  Not sure when I will get to try these new underwater modes out.  Who knows, it may be in a swimming hole along the AT.

Talking about the AT, travel weight for the camera is comparable to the AW100.  The camera, charger/data cable, and extra batteries come in at 13.6 oz (386 grams)  only a smidge (2 grams) heavier.  The TG-4 is heavier than the AW100 but the charger/data cable is much lighter.

The camera also has GPS and even Wi-Fi.  I will be taking my full size GPS so will probably not use the GPS function to conserve battery power.  The Wi-Fi, which allows transfer of pictures directly to my tablet without cables may or may not be used.  I think a direct cable transfer may be quicker and, at times, easier.

All in all,  the new camera has a lot going for it and I can't wait to really experiment with it.  Tomorrow may be that first day as I hope to take a walk and I almost always find something interesting to photograph on my walks.

Witnessing The March Of Technology

My first laser printer - the HP LaserJet IIP *

I remember in the early 1990s going to a business computer store and purchasing my first laser printer.  It was an HP LaserJet IIP.  By today's standards is wasn't anything special but in 1990 it was incredible.  It replaced an old dot matrix printer I'd had since the early 1980s.  It only printed in black and white but it was such an improvement over the dot matrix printer.  I don't remember the exact price but I think it was over $900 before taxes.

Earlier this week I was walking through Sam's Club looking at the printers.  All priced under $300.  All printing in color, as well as scanning and copying,  One was less than $100.  Things had changed a lot since that first LaserJet of mine.  Then I came to the end of the aisle ...

There, sitting on the end of the aisle, was a Makerbot 3D printer.  I've known about 3D printing for quite a while but I didn't realize you could buy one at Sam's Club.  It was price at $1,299.  Not much more than what I paid for my first LaserJet IIP '2D' printer.  Seeing it there on the shelf really drove home just how things are changing and progressing.  What a wonderful technological future awaits us.

P.S. TGAW, a blogger I follow, has played around with 3D printing including winning the White House 3D Printed Ornament Design Challenge last month.  You should pay her blog a visit and read about her 3D printing projects.

* Photo is a derivative of a photo uploaded to Photobucket (Majorbloodknock)

Getting Photographs To My Nexus 7 And My OTG Cable Rant

One of the things I want to do with my Nexus 7 is edit photos while on the road and upload them to Flickr or Facebook.  The one thing the Nexus is missing is an SD card slot.  What to do?

What to do turns out to be quite simple.  I even learned how to do it before I even bought my Nexus 7.  You need three things to get your pictures from the camera to the tablet.

1. An USB card reader capable of reading your camera's card.  In my case I needed an SDHC reader which I already had.  Bought it a while back so I could read my camera's card while I was on the road.  I even used it in Jordan for that exact purpose.
2. An On-The-Go (OTG) USB cable.  This five and a half inch cable (see the accompanying picture) allows you to connect a standard USB connector to a mini-USB connector.  The OTG USB cable is rather easy to find.  I found mine on Amazon.  It's cheap.  I have more to say about this later in the post.
3. The Nexus Media Importer app.  This $2.99 app allows you to import files (pictures, videos, and documents) from a card reader via an attached OTG USB cable.

That's all you need.  Now I can import pictures while I'm on the go.  I found a free app called Pixlr Express that does a great job at editing photos.  With an available WiFi connection I can send the edited pictures to Flickr, Facebook, or just about anywhere I want.

On-The-Go USB Cable

Now more about the OTG cable.  This is going to be a minor rant.  More of a slap you forehead "What are they thinking?" type moment.

When I bought my new backup drives (after my NAS crash), I bought them at Best Buy.  I did this because I was more in a hurry, and less price conscious, than usual.  When I bought them I received a $10.00 gift card  - a promotion from Western Digital, the makers of the drives.  I've wandered around Best Buy looking for something to buy with this gift card and have come away empty handed.  I just couldn't find anything I wanted.  Once I bought my tablet I thought about the OTG cable.  My local store didn't have one but I did find it at BestBuy.com (strangely enough I can't seem to find it there anymore).  They were selling the cable for $5.00 and change plus tax with free in store pickup.  I would have bought it but I lost my gift card (long story short I found it later in the snow next to our garbage can).

Not having any free money I searched for another source.  I found it on Amazon (they have everything in the world) ... for $0.82 ... no tax ... free shipping ... from Hong Kong.  That's right.  Over $5.40 from the local store or $0.82 from a store half way around the world.  Same cable, same manufacturer.

Now I know why Best Buy is slowly dying and why the world economy is in such a mess - Everything just doesn't make any sense at all.

Now I just need to find something at Best Buy to spend my free money on before it takes its last breath.

My New Toy: The Nexus 7

I've been telling myself that when my laptop died I would look into buying a tablet.  Well, my laptop hasn't died yet but the battery, which once lasted over four hours on a charge, is slowly dying, lasting only forty to fifty minutes on a charge.  I finally gave in and, after Thanksgiving, I purchased a Nexus 7 tablet.

First I have to say that I like it.  This isn't my first tablet.  I've gone through several iterations of Palm devices ending with the Palm Lifedrive.  My Lifedrive died when I dropped it in Wal-Mart a few years ago.  The Nexus runs the Android operating system (OS).  It's a bit different from the Palm OS.   There's been a little of a learning curve.  The first thing is the Palm OS uses a stylus.  Android is finger-centric.  After using it a bit I've decided that my fingers are thick and clumsy.

The past couple of weeks I've been playing around and loading apps.  There are a lot of good apps out there ... and a lot of crappy ones too.  A couple of the apps I've downloaded didn't work but have since been updated and work great.  In other cases I haven't decided which is better, a custom app or just using the Chrome browser and just going to the website.

So far the Nexus has been a pretty good laptop replacement.  Its small size makes it convenient and eminently transportable.  The size does have one slight inconvenience - I have to wear my glasses when I use the tablet.  Not sure if this is the tablet's fault or just old age.  Who am I kidding ... my eyes are old.

The tablet allows me do do some things I couldn't do with my laptop.  One of those is reading internet stuff and eBooks in bed.  I can now download eBooks from the library to read.  I can also read articles I've saved using Instapaper, a web service that allows you to save articles you find on the web (something I learned from the Best Man).  I use Instapaper to save longer article I think might be interesting so I can read them when I have more time.

Okay, time for a rant.  Be warned.  I went to our library website and looked at their rather limited selection of eBooks   I found one that may be interesting and tried to check out/download the book.  Oops, the book is not available.  The library only has one copy and it's checked out already.  What the heck?!?  You only lone out eBooks  books that can be copied easily, one at a time?  I understand that book publishers wouldn't want libraries to lone out unlimited free copies of books but I would think that a library should offer say five copies.  This way the waiting would be less and it would not eat into the publisher's profits too much.  Rant over.

There was a time that I considered myself an early adopter.  I used to try to be at the bleeding edge.  But that was many, many years ago.  I've fallen behind in the last fifteen to twenty years. With the purchase of my Nexus 7 I am finally crawling my way into the twenty-first century.

New Toy: Nikon Coolpix AW100 Camera

After returning from the Camino last year I decided that I needed to rethink my camera situation.  On my Camino I took my old Canon Powershot S5.  I took it because it was smaller than my DSLR (a Canon Rebel T1i) and much lighter.  It also took regular AA batteries.  The S5 served me well but it had a couple drawbacks.

The main drawbacks were it's relative bulk compared to the modern compact cameras and the fact it wasn't rugged or waterproof.  The lack of waterproofing necessitated the carrying of a camera bag to protect the camera from damage and unpredictable weather.  The bag added weight and the potential of getting the camera wet during rain precluded me from using the camera on a couple rainy days during the Camino including me missing taking a picture of the friendly dog on the way to Fisterra.

Another drawback ... and this is more of a personal one ... is that I like to geotag my photos.  To do this with my S5 I had to take a handheld GPS (a Garmin Oregon 400t) and some twenty AA Lithium batteries to power said GPS which added  19.5 ounces (553 g)  to my pack.  One beneficial byproduct of carrying the GPS was I could keep track of the distance traveled, average speed, elevation climb, and generate nice tracks of my daily stages for Homer's Travels.  After I returned home I used a piece of software called GeoSetter to combine the GPS tracks with the photos.  While this was easy to do, it was an extra step that had to be done to process the photos.

So, when I got back I wanted to come up with a solution that would fill these deficiencies.  I put together a spread sheet with the characteristics I wanted in a camera.  I ended up with 12 criteria:

1. ≥ 10 Megapixels*
2. ≥ 12X Optical Zoom
3. Image Stabilization*
4. GPS Tagging*
5. GPS Tracking*
6. Macro Function*
7. Slide Panorama/Panorama Assist*
8. Water Proof*
9. RAW format
10. Swivel Display
11. Viewfinder
12. Standard AA Batteries

It turns out many of these criteria are incompatible either with each other or with the compact size of the modern day point and shoot camera.  I found that items 10, 11 & 12 are not found in compact cameras.  Displays are fixed, there is no viewfinder (Something I have always had and used), and rechargeable batteries are now the norm.

The biggest pair of incompatible criteria, the one that caused me most grief when trying to decide which camera to buy, was the Zoom vs Water Proof.  If a camera has a good zoom, it isn't water proof.  If it's water proof, the zoom will max out around 5X.  I probably agonized over this trade off for a couple months.

I finally decided that water proof/rugged was more important than zoom (something I'm still not sure about). All this deliberation led me to by a Nikon Coolpix AW100.  (The * in the list above are the criteria the AW100 meets.)

I've been playing with it for a week now and I am happy.  I miss the zoom.  I miss the viewfinder - I keep putting the camera up to my face and realizing there isn't one.  I like the picture quality.  I like the compact size.  I like the panorama mode - I am a big fan of panoramas.  I like the macro function - I am also a fan of macro (i.e. close up) photography.  It's resolution is actually better than my DSLR.  It also takes HD video.  I also like the GPS function.

I have used the GPS function three times during the last week.  The first test ... well I messed it up.  I accidentally stopped the GPS logging function shortly after I enabled it.  I was a little disappointed that the GPS had trouble locking on to satellites when walking among buildings and trees.  The second test was in Galena.  I managed to activate the GPS logging function successfully this time but the tracking was, again, a bit spotty.  Before the third test I loaded an A-GPS file (assist GPS).  This file, downloaded from Nikon, is supposed to help the GPS lock on to satellites quicker.  The third tracking test went much better.  I'm not sure if it was the A-GPS file or if it was the fact that there weren't any tall building where I walked.  I compared the camera's log file with the Garmin Oregon GPS track.  The tracks matched pretty well, deviating between 53 and 158 ft from each other (16 m to 48 m).  Since the typical GPS is accurate within 33 ft (10 m) the errors I saw were not unusual.  Here are a couple of pictures comparing the two tracks (Red is the AW100, Blue is the Garmin Oregon):

Tracking on a curve.

Tracking on a straight.

As you can see the Garmin Oregon saves more points (The little blue arrow heads/squares) than the AW100 does.  The most obvious issue this causes is the cutting of corners by the AW100.

The AW100 tracking is not perfect but it was pretty close.  The distance measured were similar for both devices varying by less than 2%.  The average speed matched.  The elevation (more a function of Google Earth, actually) were withing 11 feet of each other.  A better antenna in the camera would probably improve the GPS function a lot.  One thing I haven't fully tested is how much the GPS shortens battery life.

One last thing.  Travel weight.  For my Camino I carried a camera, camera bag, GPS, and batteries which totaled approximately 48.4 oz (1,371 g) - a substantial amount (this weight declined as I walked as I tossed spent batteries).  The AW100 (assuming no camera bag - it is rugged and will easily fit in a pocket of my cargo pants), charger, and extra battery totals approximately 13.6 oz (384 g) - substantially less.

All in all I think the AW100 will work well as a travel camera and a travel GPS substitute.  The first true test of my new toy will be our China trip this summer.

Converting Prize To Toy In One Quick Step

"Last week, after returning from our most excellent Easter visit, I went to a nearby shopping center to dispose of a few gift cards.  Two of the gift cards were the prize money from the Nebraska Geopicting contest and the other was a card given to us by our neighbor for blowing their snow all winter.

Now I need to clarify something.  After I won the contest they asked me if, instead of sending me a laptop, I would mind getting gift cards from either Dell or Best Buy instead.  I said sure, Best Buy would be fine, and, at their request, I promised to buy a laptop with the $1,000 worth of gift cards.  After thinking it over for a few months I decided to buy a very specialized form of laptop.  Specifically it is optimized for capturing and processing images and it's small enough to fit on my lap.  I bought this:

A Canon EOS Rebel T1i DSLR.  I know it isn't exactly what they had in mind but it seems an appropriate prize for a photography contest.

My first grown-up camera.  While I've had it for a week now, I really haven't played around too much with it. The main reason is that it didn't come with a data card so I ordered one and had to wait for it to arrive.  I did have a 32 MB card lying around but it only could hold two to three pictures before filling up and I couldn't even take one picture in RAW mode.  I now have a 32 GB card that will allow me to take over 1,300 pictures in RAW so I'm set.  Today I received a second battery pack (It uses a rechargeable battery pack - I would have preferred AAs but whatcha going to do).  Now the only thing stopping me from taking it out of the house is the lack of a camera bag.

That brings up a problem that I'll have to get over.  The camera and the telephoto lens together cost $1,177 (including tax).  While I only paid $127 out of pocket (89% off!!!), I'm still a little afraid to take it out into the real world.  Add the card ($59.99) and the extra battery ($16) and it starts being real money.  Once I've got a case I'll feel more comfortable and I'm sure it will start going on hikes with me.

As I've already suggested, I will be taking my pictures in RAW.  The instructor for the photography class I took last year really pushed the use of RAW vs JPG.  RAW makes it harder to share pictures when you are on a strange computer without the necessary software to convert stuff to JPG but it does mean you have much more power to manipulate the pictures you take.  JPGs always lose a little in the compression.  Having said this, the software I use the most, Picasa and GeoSetter, along with the software that came with the camera, all handle RAW just fine.

I still have a whole lot to learn to really get the use out of it.  For one, I'll have to get used to switching lenses.  But I think I'll enjoy it once I've got the hang of it.  Here's my first picture using the new camera and card:

One more thing.  A few quotes from the letter that came with the 32 GB card.

"For All Our Memory Cards We Using The Drop Ship Option..."

"Please If For Some Reason You Unhappy With Your Item ..." 

"If You Wise To Make Money On Ebay And Amazon And Sale Our Products ... Its Guaranty You Will Make More Then $500 ..."

She seems to have problems with her 'ares'.  Attached to her letter are two business cards.  One is for an Electronic Product wholesaler.  The other is for a free hair styling and hair straightener trial.  Odd business combination you have there, Jessica.

My First Look At The Garmin Oregon 400t

I went out for a long walk today to play with my new toy - the Garmin Oregon 400t. I chose a walk instead of snowshoeing because the higher temperatures we're having is melting the snow surprisingly fast.

I started my walk on the Nebraska side of the pedestrian bridge. I crossed the bridge and headed south on the Iowa Riverfront Trail. My primary walking goal was the Western Historic Trails Center in Council Bluffs, IA. Along the three to four miles I took pictures so that I could play around with geotagging. I also searched for geocaches that I had loaded into the GPS.

The 400t worked pretty good. It locks on to satellites very quickly - much faster than my old Magellan. I had to calibrate the internal electronic compass but it was easy to do and took less than a minute.

Those who know me know I have a data fetish and this bad boy overflows with data. The trip computer display includes such data as time moving, time standing still, average speed while moving, total ascent, and many other data sets that were not available on my old GPS.

Loading geocaches into the unit was simple. Plug it in with the provided USB cable and it acts just like an attached drive. Copy the GPX file containing the geocache information into the GPX folder and your done. Not only are the geocache coordinates are loaded but the complete geocache description, hint, and five logs are included as well. I used to print out descriptions when I went geocaching. Not any more. Paperless caching here I come. Unfortunately geocaching and snow don't work well together - no finds.

After I got home I easily copied the track GPX file and, using a program called GeoSetter, geotagged my pictures. Looking at the map generated the track was right on. There were a few glitches in the track but I think they occurred when I accidentally turned of the GPS (See below). If you geotag pictures to upload to Flickr, don't forget to authorize Flickr to import the EXIF Location Data (My Account - Privacy & Permissions) before you upload. (I could have been doing this with my old GPS but I was too lazy - the 400t is much easier to get data off of.)

That is the good. Now for the not so good. The display is hard to see in bright sunlight. I knew about this when I bought it. There are a few things you can to to improve the visibility. The main thing is to turn off the topological shading. The shading is cool but it makes things less clear at times. I found if I dipped the display just right so that the sun reflected off it, you could read the display better.

The touch screen is pretty sensitive. A couple of times, when I pulled it out of my carrying case (actually it's my Magellan case but it's fine for the Garmin) the screen had switched. After this happened a few times I used the screen lock function to stop it from happening. I could use the screen even with my glove on but the pointing accuracy was hurt. Even without my gloves, pointing on the screen can take a little trial and error. A stylus might help but that's something else to carry.

The 400t has one last annoyance. It only has one button. It's the power button ... and the brightness/screen lock button ... and the screen capture button. That one button gets overworked and using it can be confusing. I turned the unit off accidentally a couple times. This is probably less a design problem and more a "user has to get used to it" issue. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it - this was my first real outing with the 400t.

Overall I'm happy with my purchase. Once I get the interface idiosyncrasies figured out, it will be awesome.

The Long Wait Is Over???

When I went to Scheels on Monday, they said new snowshoes wouldn't be in for a while. Well, it turns out a while is 24 hours. Not complaining. I picked them up this afternoon. My new shoes are a tad bigger than my last ones, cost nearly twice as much (I paid nothing of course), and seem not to be built as sturdy as my last pair. I will be keeping the receipt just in case.

Of course, it may be a while before I go snowshoeing again as the highs for the next week or so are in the upper 30s to mid 40s and the snow is melting fast. Not only that but the forecast for next week includes ... rain. Rain in January. Very strange weather we're having here.

Christmas ... The Day After

Leading up to Christmas this year, I was feeling rather neutral about the whole thing.  I wasn't excited and hopeful as I sometimes feel before the holiday.  Neither did I have the feeling of dread and foreboding that I  feel at other times.  It felt like just another day.  Maybe it was the lack of Christmas music - I haven't heard a lot of Christmas music this year.  I think I mostly avoided it but it seemed easier to get away from than in years past.

We had our tree and decorations up early this year.  I thought this might spur the holiday spirit but it didn't do much really.
I did my shopping relatively late but managed to buy most of the Wife's gifts a week or so before Christmas.  I usually start at the beginning of November but this year it wasn't until the beginning of December.  I bought a Miracle Icon bracelet fro the Wife.  When I went to the store, the artist was there hosting a special event.  She saw me walking in with a print out of the bracelet and jumped up and walked over to me.  She said when a man comes in holding a piece of paper, I know he needs my help (I think I may have been the only man there).  She helped me pick out the bracelet, restrung it because "that bead isn't very pretty," and helped me find the appropriate medal from the heap she had in four untidy boxes.  It was very nice and all, I just wish the Wife could've been there.  She would have liked to meet the artist.

Things finally turned around when the Parents-in-Law arrived on Christmas eve.  We opened our stockings and things started to feel more festive despite the crappy allergy attack that kept me up most of Christmas Eve night sniffling and snorting and wheezing for breath.
On Christmas Day the Wife's brother T_E and family showed up.  At the Wife's request I'd connected my laptop up to the big screen and ran a slide show of all my Flickr pictures.  I have so many pictures (3,804 and increasing)  that it took almost four hours to go through them all.  For ambiance, I connected the 'puter to the stereo and played Christmas music.  I received compliments on my picture taking which always makes me feel good.  The pictures and the music set the atmosphere for a relaxing Christmas dinner that, despite the abundance of cooks in the kitchen, turned out pretty good.  My Sugar Cookies seemed to have been a hit.

T_E and family went home and the Wife and I took the Parents-In-Law down to see the million lights decorating Omaha'a old market area.  It's pretty amazing down there.
All in all a pretty good Christmas.  The visiting family lifted my spirits and I felt the holiday spirit more with them there.  The house, now that every one has left, is quiet once more.
Now for the loot.  I must have been good because I received some cool stuff:

• Snowshoes.  Unfortunately it's 58°F (!!) outside as I type this and I expect most of the snow to be gone in a day or two.  I'm sure there will be more soon.
• Camera Tripod.  Now my night/low light shots won't be all wobbly.
• Light weight Backpack.  I wanted this for my 2010 Spain Pilgrimage.  I want to start training this spring on the Steamboat and Cowboy trails.  The pack is versatile and very light - 2 lbs 7 oz.
• Balaclava.  Now I can ride the bike in colder weather and, if the stock market really takes a dive, I can fashionably rob banks.
• Borders Gift Card.  I transformed this into four books - reviews to follow sometime in the coming year.  Thanks Mom!
• Amazon Gift Card. I will transform this one into music.  I haven't chosen which music yet.
• Scheels Gift Card.  Closest thing to an REI in these parts.  I think some of it will go into some good walking shoes.  I think they would be better for long distance hiking than boots, especially since the trail won't be that rugged.
• Pastry Wheel.  I was looking for one of these when I made lasagna.  Couldn't find one.  The Matron of Honor comes through once again.  Now I can make fancy ravioli.  Thanks MoH!
• Twizzlers.  A traditional gift from the Mom.  Wouldn't be Christmas without them.  Thanks Mom!  (Yep, they are open but I haven't finished them yet.)
• A generous donation to the Wife's and my fun money from the Parents-In-Law.  We will be sure to use it for fun stuff.

I hope all you readers out there had as good a Christmas as we did.