Second Fiddle

I’m going to be honest with you folks.

You’re not getting anything tonight.

See, I bought myself a Christmas present – a Nikon D5000.   My pal Beastly introduced me to photography many years ago in Navy technical school. Beastly was professionally trained and is a hell of photographer, and he taught me everything I know about taking pictures and over the years I’ve ended up with many of his cameras as he has moved up in technology.  I have his old Pentax wetfilm 35mm cameras and his Sony D770. But somehow he never would part with his professional equipment, i.e. the Nikons. 

Though Beastly’s castoffs have served me well over the years, I’ve always lusted after a truly professional Nikon.

And now I finally own one, and in fact have managed to get a leg up on Beastly – who tonight on the phone referred to me as, and I quote, “The King of Suck.” 

This gives me no small measure of satisfaction (yes, yes, I am a small petty man, tell me something I don’t know).

I’ve wanted this very camera for roughly 25 years now. I didn’t know that it was this particular camera – which actually didn’t exist until recently - but this camera is exactly what I’ve wanted for over two decades. 

And now that I’m actually holding it in my hands, I’m giddy. Like a schoolgirl. Yes, I am.

This is one of the most amazing and beautiful machines I’ve ever seen, let alone owned, let alone handled.  The handful of pictures I’ve taken so far are stunning in their detail.  Here, have a look:

 

 

 

Both pictures were taken with the exact same lighting setup and from the same distance under identical conditions. Both bird houses are made from similar materials and finishes. The picture on the left is from my old Sony D770, the picture on the right is from the Nikon D5000 – with the Nikon set to “Normal” jpeg compression mode, which is the low end of its capability.   You can click on both pictures to enlarge them to their original sizes and resolutions, but even here the difference is immediately obvious.

The Nikon’s capabilities are multitude and the manual is the size of middling sized town’s phonebook (Question: in the future when the phonebooks, dictionaries, and other such large tomes have become entirely electronic, what the hell will we compare things to? “The electronic manual download was like downloading the entire Wikipedia!" But I digress). 

So, I intend to spend the rest of my evening reading the manual and fooling with this amazing camera. 

Sometime this weekend when I’ve had sufficient time to fiddle, I’ll post a review.

I’ll try to keep the gloating to a minimum.

I suspect I will be unsuccessful.

I’m Just A Cheeseburger In Paradise

I’m going to the VA this morning.

They just built a new VA medical clinic out here in the Valley and I’ve been assigned to it. This is a good thing, because it means that for routine medical stuff I don’t have to drive to Anchorage. The new clinic is five minutes from my house.

I went in there yesterday to get signed up. They told me I have to have lab work done to establish a baseline for my new provider.

Including a cholesterol test.

So, I’ve been “fasting” for the last twelve hours, but see, here’s the thing, prior to vacation I spent a month eating nothing but fat free yogurt and fruit and vegetables. However, for the last three weeks I’ve been living mostly on bacon, cheesy grits, country fried meat covered in cream gravy with a side of corn dogs and Whataburger chocolate malteds. There was a lot of French fries in there too. Plus a couple of funnel cakes and an order of fried pickles. There was a three day span where I ate nothing but steak. I did eat some squash, white, breaded and deep fried of course – and it was gooooood.

Basically, I’ve consumed the equivalent of a 55 drum of liquid Crisco over the last month.

Yeah, I can’t wait for this conversation:

Young Pretty Doctor with a total body fat of 1% (who probably runs marathons): Mr. Wright, according to our tests, you don’t in fact have any blood.

Me: I don’t? Well that’s good right?

Doctor: No. Not really. Frankly we’re somewhat baffled.

Me: Pass me another donut, would you? No, no, the one with custard filling and the chocolate frosting.

Doctor: We had trouble testing your blood samples, they keep distilling into bio-diesel in the centrifuge…

Me: Look! I’m Homer Simpson, doooonut! Mmmmmmm.

Doctor: Your arteries appear to be filled with a substance that most closely resembles two-week old McDonalds fryer grease.

Me: Ooooh, fries! With extra salt.

Doctor: sigh.

They really shouldn't have made me fast.

This Week's Alaskan Panorama is...

...The Alaska State Fair.

This panorama was stitched together from a seven shots taken in the central intersection of the Palmer Fair Grounds.

I learned something - making panorama's from pictures that have a lot of people in them is a huge, huge, pain in the ass. Hell, taking the pictures is a pain - see that old guy on the left hand side, near the light pole? That bastard deliberately stepped in front of me, and kept stepping in front of me, no matter where I pointed the lens. And he kept doing things like sticking his finger in his nose, or making dumbassed gestures. If he was eight years old, maybe I could understand it. But in this case I'm not sure what his problem was exactly, other than just being an asshole. He's lucky he didn't end up capping his fair visit off with a ride in an ambulance chopper, because he was seriously pissing me off.

Here's another pan, facing in the opposite direction:

Both pans swing through about 200 degree azimuth, and I had a hell of a time stitching them together. I removed a few jarring duplications, but eventually got bored and frustrated with the process. So, there are a number of dupes in each pan, and I didn't fix the shadow orientation. And there are a couple of obvious photoshop errors - I mention this only because I know that at least one of you is just a tad anal about such things. Heh. Overall, I think they give you the general idea of the event.

We were worried that the fair would be a bust this year, with the crappy weather and the high gas prices (And yes, the gas prices here are higher than anywhere else in the nation, including southern California, by about 70 cents. Why? Because our governor pushed to get Alaskans an energy check from the state's oil fund - which the oil companies seem to think somehow belongs to them, as if they haven't been screwing us for the last year already - as soon as the bill passed gas prices jumped up twenty cents and haven't budged since, despite declining prices everywhere else. Attention Exxon, Shell, Atlantic Richfield, and Chevron, you are nothing but utter fucking scum sucking bottom feeders, you bastards), but despite all of that the fair was seriously crowded and we had a good time anyway.

And yes, for those of you wondering how I faired in the judging, I did win a few ribbons. I entered five pieces in the wood turning category and ended up with a 1st Premium, 2nd Premium, 3rd Premium, and two honorable mentions. So, you know, I'm just a little tickled, especially since the competition was extremely well done and I would have been happy just to have been considered to be in the same class with them. Some of those guys are professionals with years of experience and their work is absolutely outstanding - and yet they were extremely gracious to a newcomer like me and complimentary of my work. Nice people, really.

So, despite the rain, the jerk that kept stepping in front of my camera, and the bastards at Exxon it was a good day.

Back to Work!

Ahhh! Hear that? That's the sound of blessed silence.

It's quiet out in a way that only rural Alaska in the deep winter can be. The temperature has been dropping for the last week, and as a result all the remaining moisture has been condensing out of the atmosphere as hoar frost on every tree branch and surface. Since we live very close to the ocean, that's a lot of moisture. The trees are thickly coated in fuzzy white crystalline jackets and the ground makes a weird squealing noise when you walk across it. The thick coating of hoar frost acts as a sound absorber, and the world is dead silent outside, pitch black, and the sky is full of stars. Some people find it eerie, but I like it - it reminds me of the short story by Fritz Leiber, A Pail of Air.

Christmas break is over. The kid is back in school, and I've returned to my usual schedule - which is good, because insanity wasn't far away otherwise.

I've got a veritable plethora of projects going at the moment. I allow myself a hour for blogging first thing. Then an hour or so for Deep Thunder. Then several hours on The Iyes of the Dead, which is my current novel - a scifi locked room murder mystery told in the traditional mode. I've been at a standstill on that book for a while now, but I've finally figured out how to move the story along without losing momentum, and I'm excited to get back to it. Then I need a couple of hours to work on a piece I'm doing for submission to the the Anchorage Daily News, and to work on the outline for a military leadership book which will use lessons from history to illustrate true leadership in the face of adversity. Some time this month I need to find time to outline a 'how to' book on building a professional woodworking shop for cheap, using nothing but materials and equipment scrounged from scrap heaps, Craigslist, and eBay.

Writing takes up the first seven hours of my day, then I need to head out to the shop to start the millwork I've contracted for. I completed the templates and jigs for that project over the break and today I'll start the prototypes in plywood, making whatever adjustments are necessary to the jigs and templates. Tomorrow I'll convert the prototype templates from MDF into the final Plexiglass versions, and Wednesday I'll be able to start production. And somewhere in between all that I've got to find time during the week to finish up a couple of carved bowls which are due within the next two weeks, sooner if possible.

So, I'm going to be just a bit busy this week.

And people told me I'd have nothing to do after I retired from the Navy. Hah, fools! Fools!

Gone for a While

Guys, I've got to go to Anchorage this morning, so I will be gone for most of the morning (my morning, early afternoon for most of you in the lower 48).

In the mean time, you may oooh and ahhh over these. I finished both of these yesterday, on schedule and just in time for two clients who need them for Christmas.

The first is similar to one I posted last week. A turned birch heartwood bowl, decorated with a the silhouette of an Alaskan musher and his team. The bowl is sculpted to invoke the feeling of a raging snowstorm. The finish is a clear acrylic, textured so that the bowl appears to be coated in ice (this effect is a lot more apparent in person than it appears in the photo).



This second bowl is called a hollow form. I don't do many of these, because they are extremely difficult to turn from green wood. The turning itself is not difficult, but green wood tends to deform as it dries, in the example above this deformation adds to the bowl's overall character. In the hollow form below, the deformation will detract from the piece's appearance. This shape must remain perfectly round, and it has to be dried slowly or else the bowl will split and crack. Like I said, I don't do many of these, but this particular piece was commissioned and so I made it to the requirements requested by the client. This one took about three weeks, a day to turn, and the rest of the time to dry. This piece is finished in a hard satin acrylic so as to resist scratches, as it will be used to store keys and change and various pocket litter (the client wants it as a 'necessary' bowl near the door), it's about 16 inches in diameter.



Gotta go, back in a couple of hours.

Soup Day

OK. I didn't get to making Kreplach this weekend. But I've got all the ingredients and I'm armed with instructions from a certain expert in Brooklyn, so today's the day. It's colder than hell out, and I still feel like crap (though better than the other day), so, you know, perfect opportunity and all that.

I've got some writing to do this morning. I expect to update Deep Thunder in the next two hours or so. Then I need an hour in the shop. By early afternoon I expect to be kreplaching in the kitchen. I'll let you know how it goes, expect pictures and everything. I'll put up the recipe and instructions, should it go as planned - if it doesn't go as planned I'll post instructions on Plan B (turn the foil back on the Swanson Patented TV Dinner tray so the Tater Tots become crisp and brown). Also I'll be posting my award-winning clam chowder recipe.

Stand back, or put on an apron, this will probably get messy!

Other things you can do on the lathe

I don't always make bowls on the lathe, sometimes I do other things.

This is an Ulu Cutting board, and by implication those odd looking knives you see are Ulus. An Ulu is the general purpose cutting tool made by native Alaskan Inuit women, used for everything from cutting meat and vegetables to skinning bears - though traditionally they were made from Caribou antler or other hard bone and not high-carbon steel. If you want to know more, go here.

The Ulus you see in the pictures were made at the Ulu Factory in downtown Anchorage and they are incredibly sharp. It takes practice to use one safely, and even though I once attended culinary school and have been an expert with a French knife for most of my life, I'm not very good with an Ulu - in fact, I dammed near cut my thumb off with that ivory handled one you see in the picture. Most non-native peoples use them for chopping vegetables to a fine dice, and for that you really should have an Ulu board. This is my own design, most Ulu bowls are just a flat board with a concave depression in the middle.


Like nearly all of my stuff, the cutting board is made from Alaskan Birch, turned on the lathe. The cutting surface is concave at a slightly shallower angle than the curve of the Ulu blade, which allows you to rock the knife back and forth, dicing whatever is in the bowl to a fine puree. Perfect for garlic or parsley. The board is finished with olive oil (didn't have any clarified walrus fat or bear grease handy), it's also heavy and has a cork pad on the bottom to keep it from sliding around on the counter top - because otherwise you could, you know, cut your thumb off.

The Upgrade, Part 1

First post from the new machine, woohoo!

As you can tell, I've got the new machine up and running in basic configuration under Windows Vista. So far, it's been fairly painless. So far.

First, the Hardware:
- the new machine is an HP m8100y series, configured as follows:
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 (2.66GHz)
- RAM: 3Gigs of 800MHz dual channel SDRAM (I've got another 2Gig sitting in anti static sleeve on my desk, I'll remove the 512MB DIMMS in block 2 and replace them with the 1Gig modules, giving the machine 4Gig total RAM)
- Graphics: 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8500GT, TV-out, DVI-I, HDMI (major overkill for me, but it came with the machine)
- Harddrive: 500GB 7200rpm SATA, 3Gbits per sec transfer rate
- Blu-ray writer/HD DVD player & Lightscribe SuperMulti DVD/CD Burner
- Crappy generic sound card (yeah, we'll be replacing that)
- Personal Media Drive dock (don't know if I'll ever use it or not, but there it is. You can purchase 500 and 750GB portable media drives from HP, might be useful, might not)
- and the usual bizillion-in-one card readers, USB 2.0/Firewire ports, digital video and sound out, and etc, etc, and so on.

Also bought a widescreen, 24" Norcent flatpanel monitor. Which I'm looking at right now in splitscreen mode and it just plain rocks! The color and clarity are incredible, and size does apparently matter.

Second, the Software:
Windows Vista Ultimate - 32bit.

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First impressions. The machine is goddammed fast, no doubt about it, and much quieter than my old one. I wasn't sure the fans were running at first, had to shine a flashlight in the back just to make certain. I like quiet so I consider this a big plus. Vista is slick and glossy, not too shabby and I think I like it (remember: first impression here, first impression). I have to admit I really like the look and feel of Vista, though it may take a while to get used it for long habituated XP users. Microsoft has done some extremely cool things with the interface, and some incomprehensible things as well. For example, it took me ten minutes to figure out how to get a top level view of my system (i.e. the 'tree view' in Explorer XP) because for some reason it's hidden under a pull-up bar in the left pane of Explorer. I don't mind that it's under the pull-up bar, but it sure would have been nice if there was a label or something pointing to it - finding the display is like finding an Easter Egg on a DVD menu.

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Aggravating things:

- I could not get the system to connect to the network/internet. Could not. Weird glitchy problems, I'd get no connectivity, then limited connectivity, then back to no connectivity. It was making me crazy. The control panel was showing the router, but nothing beyond it. I checked the cable half a dozen times, rebooted the machine, rebooted the router, ran the trouble shooting wizard - nada nada nada. You know me, I resort to violence as the first option, but somehow I kept my temper and eventually it occurred to me to move the cable to a different port on the back of the router. Viola! Instant connectivity. Apparently when the power supply fried on the old server, it zapped the router port too (talk about catastrophic failure mode). However, the other 7 ports are fine (and unused, because everything else in the house is 802.11g wireless). The router appears to be functioning fine in all other respects, so we'll do without port #1 and just move along. Obviously, this is my fault for not checking first, and had nothing to do with Vista or HP.

- User Account Control (UAC pronounced 'Yuck!'), what in the hell were they thinking with this utterly asinine nonsense? UAC is what happens when people and governments sue the crap out of companies like Microsoft for every little idiotic thing - and so lawyers end up integrated into the software development process. For those of you not familiar with UAC, basically it is the single most annoying thing I've ever seen. UAC opens a confirmation dialog box for everything, i.e. "are you sure you want to start this program?" "are you sure you want to connect to the internet" "are you sure you want to be sure that you're sure that..." ARRRGGGHH! Hate it, hate it hate it. Talk about overkill, and it doesn't learn either - i.e. if you start a program once, you shouldn't have to answer the same damned dialog box every time. For somebody like me, it's aggravating in the extreme, for someone who is afraid of computers (like my 74 year old dad) it's downright frightening - he doesn't know enough to make an informed decision, so he thinks he's done something wrong or dangerous every time he tries to start Solitaire (he's got Vista Basic on his new machine). Now, you can turn UAC off, but it's not obvious how to do it and the dialog box doesn't help you at all. Microsoft's lawyers don't want you turning it off (but I'll bet you good money that it's turned off on every Vista box in Redmond). Like I said, you can disable it, and I did (and called my dad and told him how to do it), but I cannot imagine how anybody thought this was a good idea. Bad, Microsoft, bad! No biscuit.

- Norton Internet Security 2007 is not compatible, at least not the version I have. You need the Vista version. Argh!

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Cool things:

- Hardware recognition: After making sure the machine was fully functional as purchased, and doing the requisite updates of Vista and the new version of Norton's, I opened it up and installed the 500GB SATA data drive from the old machine. The machine booted right up and I wasn't fast enough to F2 it into the BIOS Configuration page to set the parameters of the new drive (with a SATA drive this really isn't necessary, but it's a new machine and I like to check). Didn't matter, Vista immediately recognized that there was a new drive in the system, checked it's library for the proper driver, installed it automatically, updated the BIOS, and brought the new drive on-line without any effort on my part. Very cool. Same with two additional drives. So now the machine has 2TB of disk space and that ought to do for a while.

- Hardware recognition: Vista immediately recognized the Norcent monitor as a widescreen HD flat panel and recommended 1680x1050 resolution, which I accepted. The video is incredible. Once I get things up and running a little further, I'll show you some pictures.

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Software update:
- First thing I did after upgrading the drives was download and install Firefox. Works great under Vista, I downloaded my usual slew of add-ons and a new one, Split Panel, which allows me to split my FF display into panels, which on the wide screen is pretty dammed cool.

- Vista needed a 66MB load of updates, and if you upgrade to Vista I highly recommend you do those updates right away. The updates fix a lot of the bugs people have been complaining about, so it's worth your time and bandwidth.

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Things to do next:
- Upgrade the RAM to a full 4GB
- Install Another USB 2.0 card, the machine has six ports, but I need a least 8.
- Hook up and install the peripherals, 3 printers, 2 scanners, the WD external backup drive, the Pinnacle Video Box, camera, digital sound system, the GPS interface, etc
- Begin the software installation process, Office, Photoshop, DesignCAD, Corel, sigh
- Enable and configure the shared volumes
- Enable and configure the shared printers
- Import the music and video libraries into WMP, I'm definitely interested in how long this takes. I've got upwards of 420GB of music files, all super tagged, and on the old machine the import took about 7 hours. This machine has double the bus speed and the 4 core processor, and much faster throughput off the SATA drives, so I'm expecting a major improvement (fortunately, I only have to do this once, unless, you know, I have to buy another machine someday).


Additionally, I'm still working on outlines to two different books, and about chest deep in a research project.


As you can see, I've got things to do. And I've to get it done no later than by this evening, tomorrow morning at the latest. Thursday morning I'm starting writing full time come hell or high water. I'll post periodic updates of the upgrade process as I go along. See you in a bit.

Full Schedule this Week

Posting here at Stonekettle Station may be a little light this week. I've got a fairly busy schedule - yeah, yeah, I'm supposed to be retired. You'd think I'd have some friggin' time, but no.

Actually I'm not bitching here, the VA has finally gotten around to me (can't fault them, I at least have all my fingers and toes - I'd be pissed if they gave me higher priority at the expense of some poor Dog Face who's missing significant portions of his anatomy). I've got a number of appointments at the VA this week, a bunch of medical exams to assess some ongoing injures as part of the disability assessment process. Hopefully this will lead to a fix for some of the problems two decades of Navy service have inflicted on me. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm in fairly constant pain these days, mostly low grade stuff, but it's irritating and distracting and I'd really like to get it fixed, especially the shoulder which is killing me at the moment.

So, anyway, I've got to drive into Anchorage for the next couple of days and I've got to leave early to make the appointments. On the other hand, I'm sure my visit to the Veteran's Administration will lead to some interesting posts, so hey, no downside here.

Today, I've got to finish a project in the shop, a carved birch heartwood bowl that I promised my wife she could have tomorrow. It's for a charity raffle she's doing at work. I'm fairly tickled with how it's coming out - I may even post some pictures of it this afternoon.

Once I've got that done, I've got to outline my project for NaNoWriMo. I have an IDEA I've been playing with for a while, it's been gathering dust and cobwebs in the idea bin. So my intention is to pull it out, dust it off, and flesh it out for National Novel Writing Month. I promised myself that I would get back to professional writing full time come November 1st, and NaNoWriMo is the perfect excuse.


So, what are you guys doing today?

And Another One

It's a day for pictures apparently. This is a little to the right of the picture in the previous post, about 6:30PM just as the moon was rising over Pioneer Peak.

And that's going to do it for today.

One More

Looking South, out my sunroom window towards the Knik Glacier. Just as I was heading back out to the shop the sun broke through the clouds, this is what it looked like:

One of those days, AGAIN

You know, I'm getting sick and tired of seeing my own blood. Really, enough now.

So after regaling you all with tales of woe with the lathe chisel across the knuckles of my left hand yesterday, I managed to do this today:


No, this is not what I intended.

This is, was, an eggshell turning. When finished (never!), the walls of the bowl should be no thicker than 1.5mm, thin enough that light shines though. This is quite difficult. I had the upper portions of the wall turned to about 3mm thickness and was slowly thinning down the bottom portion. I reached inside the bowl while it was turning to smooth the inside wall with a piece of sandpaper, so that I could get a good caliper reading on it, and BOOM! Pieces everywhere. Razor sharp pieces. Flying shards sliced three deep parallel cuts across the first three fingers and thumb of my right hand.

If you're going to injure yourself repeatedly, keep it bilaterally symmetrical I say.

Should you ever decide to take up wood turning, remember one of the best things you can invest in is a quality full-face shield. Just saying.


Oh, and get a good First Aid kit.

Gone Fishing

Actually I'm off for a couple of hours to the sawmill. I need to pick up some more rough cut birch planks and chat with a couple friends who own the place. The owner is a Vietnam vet, and his son is an Army vet, purple heart recipient (IED in Iraq), dammed nice people even if I wasn't buying wood from them.

Back in a couple hours.