Shocking: Facebook Education! OMG!
Posted on September, 1 at 12:18 am
I just cringe when I log into my facebook account and see my Wall full of stuff people Liked. It didn’t take long for people to discover that facebook users will click the Like button on a page if you post something that strikes their curiosity. All they have to do is setup the malicous code, dangle something like OMG Teacher beats student to death, see the shocking video by clicking the Like button. Soon thousands of unsuspecting people are clicking the Like button. Do people really want to watch such videos anyway? Anyway, now they just let some rogue application into their profile and causing a security risk to their account. Oh yea, and no video.
Believe me, all these Shocking pages you see on Facebook would also be all over the internet if they were true. If you google it, you find it only lives in the Facebook world. Here is a popular one circulating now(click on image to make it bigger). Notice how it has the Step 1, click the Like button.
Anytime you see this, do the world a favor and click the page off without clicking the Like button as you only compromise your account and respam the link for all your friends to click on and so on. See how fast this spreads? Wonder why your computer has malware? Wonder why your account posts messages you never posted?
A legit Facebook page is not gonna make you do anything to see the page. It will be there to be clicked freely with everything right there. No clicking on extra buttons, no filling out surveys, etc… Make it a mission to protect your friends and don’t click on rogue pages. You will only be making Facebook a better world by taking on that responsibilities. Keep kicking your buddies in the shins for clicking on rogue pages. Just say “No, I will not Click that Like Button to See the Content.”
You can read more on this behavior here:
Shocking hidden message on Coca-Cola logo, and other Facebook scams
Educate People, Educate!
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I Just Want a Simple Tv
Posted on August, 25 at 4:00 am
TV is getting complicated. We got a new tv here at the office as our old one died and if you ask me, it’s complete rubbish. When you flip through the channels it has now 2 channels of each channel, an analog one and a digital one. I didn’t have this before, so why do I now have 2 channels of every channel. The analog channels look horrible, to the point of one can’t even watch em. The digital ones don’t seem much better to me either. I literally spent like 6 hours trying to correct the colors. I get it set of the one channel and turn the channel and they would be a complete mess. Pop in a dvd to watch, adjust colors again, back to tv and it’s a complete mess again. The skin on the people look like an over processed portraiture 2 skin smoothing done up in photoshop. I can’t even see the facial details. Once scene the colors seem good and than in the next scene, horrible. Even the commercials vary, one commercial all good and the next horrible. If I rotate in my seat 5 degrees, it gives you different looking everything. Seriously? What is going on here? My old tv at home doesn’t have these issues. I don’t have 2 of every channel, but than I have dishnetwork instead of cable here at the office. This new flat panel tv was $250.00, my $80.00 tv blows this new tv right out of the water in every aspect, from ease of use to picture quality. The bazillion options it has, 5 different screen views can be selected from, why? Just put the pic on the screen like it’s suppose to, why do I have to choose, full or cinematic 1 or cinematic 2 etc….. I never had to do this before, the picture always knew how to present itself on the screen without me having to decide. Someone suggested that is could be the quality of our local cable company. Really? Why did it work fine with the old tv? Yea sure the cable isn’t the greatest, but nothing like this. I just don’t get it.
We keep producing better technology to give one a better picture and sound, but are we really? We seem to be making things more complicated at a more costly price. If I were to go out and buy a $250.00 tv, it had better work and adjust itself to work with the what it’s given to work with. One shouldn’t have to pop a book under the tv stand so the angle is correct to see the image properly. Are consumers really knowing what they are buying now a days. You have all these p’s and abbreviations out there now. 750p, 1080p, HDMI, It’s getting to the point where I am not interested at all. I don’t watch a lot of regular tv. I watch more of it on my old computer monitor from the internet. The cost for me to update all my equipment to get an over complicated tv that can’t produce same quality of my old stuff makes no sense. Maybe because it is a $250.00 tv, it’s the bottom line? Maybe a $750.00 tv does better? I just can’t imagine ever paying $750.00 for a tv. For that price, I can have dual non-tn monitors for photo editing and get way more use out of my $750.00.
What is this tv world coming to?
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August Delivers the Heat
Posted on August, 10 at 3:23 am
Seems like August never disappoints when it comes to heat. Today we hit 34C and some areas even higher. The wind was calm and with 65% humidity, it made for a balmy day. It’s just so weird when the wind speed is like zero, the air was just thick. I like the heat, but the humidity I do not. Evening came around and Ally was up for some pictures, so we head out to the field. The field is turning a nice golden color and it made for a nice set. I popped on the 5o nifty fifty and one off camera flash with umbrella and within minutes we had this picture, which was good as the skeeters were hungry and bountiful.
I would love to do more evening shots in the great outdoors, but not sure how to deal with the skeeters. I suppose everyone could just dose down with bug spray, but on some clothes, you really don’t want to do that. Maybe a fogger would work, but I think you would be fogging the area every five minutes to keep em under control. There is no fun trying to do anything when skeeters are this bad.
I don’t know how long our heat wave will last, but it would be nice to have a nice August at least to get the harvest done. The past couple of weeks the storms have been kinda hard on the crops. A lot of farmers are in the fields already. I drove by a sunflower field the other week and the flowers were about as tall as my knees, probably not gonna be much coming out of that field.
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Tornadic Storm
Posted on July, 27 at 2:26 am
I got my new webcam just in time to record a tornadic storm rolling through the area. It was a very hot and humid day. I don’t think I have ever experienced such humidity before. I was out trying to take some photos of the lightening, but the skeeters were just hungry and I couldn’t stand still long enough to take a pic. The skeeters are just ruining any sort of summer doings. Now the horseflys are thick and biting to add to the wonderful outdoors. We had some rotation go just to the south of us and parts of county are reporting uprooted trees, signs are down, electricity is out in parts, a missing deck and even a tree through a new house. Seems it was straight line winds or microburts that cause that kinda damaged. Several reports of 70+mph winds ripped through the area. It’s now 2am and Fargo area is going thru a tornado warning with 2 confirmed tornadoes on the ground. No initial damage reports yet so things are looking good that no sever damage occurred.
I ordered my new computer parts in Monday morning. I decided to go with the i5 instead of the i7 just to help keep the costs down. I will be plenty happy with the i5 and 4gb of RAM. This upgrade should last me till the 10x cpus come out. I’m not looking forward to reinstalling my stuff tho, but I do need to clean up stuff and get a fresh start. Stuff sure seems to pile up fast, at least I am getting at that. With today’s internet speeds, no need to hoard stuff locally as much. The worst part is the amount of time it takes to set it all back up. It will probably take me 3 days to get the windows and linux stuff back to normal.
I’m still wondering where July went….
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Rough Start to July
Posted on July, 7 at 4:49 am
Last week my allergies went out of control and I choose to try and wait it out and of course when you try to avoid the doctor for help is when you get yourself into trouble. Developing infection on top of it was a lesson to learn. I was so out of it last week and the week just flew by. Saturday I rolled out of bed and headed to Cavalier where they set me back onto the road of recovery with a shot and meds. It was a fairly quiet 4th weekend for me as it took till Monday to start feeling myself again. My eyes are still bothering, but tolerable. The lump in my throat is gone, which is making it easier to swallow and breath. That sinus stuff is some serious stuff and can leave a person in a world of hurt if you don’t take care of it. I’m not looking forward to the fall harvest at all.
I did manage to get to the wedding and do the pics. I dunno if one could ask for any more of a harsher environment. Outdoors at like 3:30 on a windy bright sunny day with hardly any shade and temps at 90F with high humidity. I’m processing the pictures still and the ones where we were able to get into the shade are looking pretty good. I ended up going with pure ambient light since it was so bright out. As long as the wedding party is happy with the pics, so am I. This was my first time doing a large group of people. I was worried about focus, but it came out really good and everyone was in focus. Trying to get a large group of people of various ages to all give 100% attention when the camera clicks is not easy. I managed to get it in four tries. It’s usually the younger kids that are hard to settle down. You get one straightened out and than another one decides to look around. Than you have the ones with their eyes closed. I tried to remind everyone with each shot at the count of three the camera clicks. For the most part it work well, woot!
Would I do it again? I wouldn’t in those kinda conditions. I might consider it if I could set something up where the pictures would be taken in a controlled area. The problem I see with that is the same background over and over. I don’t envy wedding photographers at all and have no idea how they have the strength to do it over and over. I can’t imagine shooting in a church either, they are just so dark. It’s definitely a great skill to be a wedding photographer. I like my landscape photography as objects don’t mind flaws as much as humans do. It’s a great experience and it would be interesting to be a second shooter under a professional wedding photographer. As a second shooter, I could learn lots more. I’ll stick to my regular routine for now. I’m comfortable with that and always looking and learning new things.
We did make it out to the dam on the 4th, but they did their big show on the 3rd. It seems a lot of places did things on the 3rd instead of the 4th, which really kinda surprised me. I seem to be missing out on the local events this summer. I missed the burn out as I ended up working and missed out on the fireworks. Oh well, still some time to have fun this summer hopefully. Hard to believe tho, next week will be the middle of July already. I work this weekend and than go on vacation again starting Monday. I would like to go out West and do some pictures, have to see how that goes. I need to get a car hauled out of the yard and get the rotors replaced on my car some time soon too.
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1/2 Way Through
Posted on July, 2 at 3:55 am
Can you believe that we are 1/2 way through 2010 already? I’m hoping July will bring in better weather and we can actually get a summer. Yesterday was our first day of any real heat and it shot up to 90 degrees, which is like 30 degrees higher than we are use to, kind of a shock to the system. I’ve been hiding indoors all week as the allergies have really hit me hard this week. Between the itchy eyes, headache, and itchy roof of the mouth, it’s enough to drive a person crazy. My body has just been drained battling it and frustrating at the same time as one wants to be able to enjoy the outdoors.
I went on vacation mode last week and Ally and I were able to get to an old school in Sarles, ND. The above picture is from one of the rooms. Here we are in this old spooky school and a thunderstorm on the outside, it all made for a great eerie feeling. Ally was a bit nervous, but she did well and she enjoyed the exploring. I did like 70 some shots and decided to go with a grunge HDR effect and than will do a natural looking HDR set with them. We also did some photo shoots back at home.
What would I do without her? She enjoys doing it and comes up with her own ideas. I just got to get the picture right, which isn’t always easy as I have been using on camera flash instead of off camera flash. It was a whole new thing for me using the on camera flash. On camera doesn’t mean the pop-up flash either. It felt great to get behind the camera and snap snap snap. I’m hoping to get more picture taking time in during my next vacation and would like to take a scenic route this time in the central part of the state. I might have to do that at a later time tho, see how it works out.
Today is a new step also for me, gonna be photographing an outdoor wedding. I remember saying I would never ever do such a thing. This will probably be my first and last one as I really have no interest in that area. I hear the horror stories and I am in no way comfortable handling the one day of such importance. I will get off work, take a nap and get setup for pictures. It should be fun with 90 degree temps, argh. Should be an interesting day.
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Crashing In
Posted on June, 15 at 4:09 am
It feels like ages since I have picked up the camera and went out for a walk. A break in the rain came along and instead of mowing I jumped into the truck and head out to a location I hadn’t been to in many years. I would of enjoyed it more if I would of remembered to grab some sort of bug repellent. Half way across the field I was suddenly hit with mosquitoes and than that omg thought hits you. I tracked forward as it was too late now and I really wanted to do this. I’m glad I went through with it as I forgot that a house was buried within the trees. The house is pretty much falling into it’s own basement, but still made nice for a grungy photo. I’m glad I had my tripod along with me as the mosquitoes about carried me away. I could setup the shot on the tripod, push the timer button and do some wild monkey dance to get the mosquitoes off of me. I never would of been able to hold still long enough to get a clean and clear shot off. I would hear the camera do it’s thing, jump over, reposition the composition, press the shutter button and continue to do my dance. I got my shots and decided that I wouldn’t attempt another one, so it was back to home. It still felt great to get out and see the sights since the weather has been pretty much a drag.
The house falling down upon itself reminded me that we, as in people, can do the same thing. A lot of frustrations, one thing after another, and the dreaded weather can start to wear heavily on a person. The end of June is the end of my certifications, which does bother me, even tho I still feel it’s the right and best thing for me. It’s just not good to live frustrated 24/7 over stuff you really can’t change. Just let it go than, they say, not so easy to do. You can try, but it’s like a pebble rolling down a hill, sometimes it slows down, but eventually it continues to roll and get bigger as it’s the same old same old. You try to get your mind off of things by doing things you enjoy, but when the weather won’t work with your schedule, it’s just another straw on the camel’s back. You keep going looking out not to step into a pile of #2 and you step into pile #3 instead. I understand that life changes constantly and we have our ups and downs. Summer will continue on and things will get better, maybe my tennis elbow will even heal.
The next big obstacle to get through is Ally’s knee. She went in to see a physical therapist today and she needs to see a more advanced doctor to find out what is going on. Let’s hope it doesn’t end up being a surgical thing. A laid up teenager is no fun for anyone. Ally’s had a rough year with doctoring. What does one do tho? You just want your kids to be healthy, so you follow doctor recommendations. If one doctor isn’t sure on how to treat, than it has to be more serious than your average thing. I know she isn’t going to like the process of finding out what is exactly wrong. The pain will get worse before it gets better. The plan for now is to setup the initial consultant appointment to determine where things will go. My fingers are crossed for a simple solution.
CJ’s first steps out of the nest are hitting her hard. A screw up in the hiring process and she lost her job. She explained it to me and I can’t believe a store has such a weird hiring practice. So she was pretty down about that and came back home for a couple days to see her kitty and chill. She had car troubles on the way home, but thanks to her friend’s mom, she made it home. She is currently getting applications and applying for a new job. I’m sure she will have no trouble finding one. It’s tough to watch your own child take these hardships, but it’s teaching them about life. I just hope it doesn’t drive her into a massive depressive state of mind. It’s been a rough June for CJ and everyone else is feeling it too.
I’m going to take some time off of work at the end of June and the middle of July. Some local events are going on and I plan to take part in some of them. I’m gonna focus on photography and get back out there to remind myself that we need to just live and be thankful. One day at a time, things will change and everything will work out for everyone. It’s just making it through to that day, ehehe. They say things happen in life to make us stronger. I don’t know if that is absolutely true tho. I think it leads us more to point in our lives where we are forced to make a decision of change. The change can be temporary or life long, but it must happen. It keeps molding you as to where you should be in life. The changes don’t have to be accepted nor make your life happy. It can drive a person to be bitter and resentful. Events can make you stronger, no doubt about it, but it’s not always the case. One day at a time and sometimes that is too fast. When in doubt, watch some SpongeBob SpuarePants!
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Firsts of the Year
Posted on May, 24 at 7:52 pm
Tried out a ring light experiment this past weekend with Ally. Ring light is pretty cool effect on the eyes for a catch light. I did a DIY ring light thanks to a post I came across on the photocamel forum. It was really easy to build. Basically 8 bulbs in a circle with a hole in the middle to shoot through. You than get the circle of the lights reflecting in eyes, which some love and of course some hate. I guess it’s a preference thing. I like it as it is something different and it’s something one won’t be using all the time.
The past weekend brought in our first thunderstorm of the season. We also got our first tornado warnings in North Dakota and I guess one touched down along the border of SD and ND. Here, we just got a little noise and lots of rain. I need to get myself a new rain gauge. I did manage to get in a bonfire on Friday also kicking off the first bonfire of the year. Seemed like the rest of the weekend was plumbing was going on or playing WoW since the weather wasn’t playing nice. The weather really brought in the high winds afterwards. Monday brought in more thunderstorms, rain and tornado warnings. There is currently 2 tornado warnings right now as I write this even.
This week will be the last week for regular school. The graduation ceremonies will be held this weekend. Congrats to all the seniors this year! CJ has gotten a full time job at Gordmans in Grand Forks. Hopefully that works out well for her and can work with her college schedule in the fall. I still need to find out where she will be living at. I just don’t get to GF that much any more. Sounds like Ally is gonna be doing babysitting and cleaning for some cash this summer.
Let the summer time fun begin!
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Hitting a Lull
Posted on May, 16 at 5:10 am
I would love to bring back April again. May just hasn’t gone any where, but rain and cold. I’ve lost so much motivation and feel like I have just taken a giant step backwards with progression. It shouldn’t take so much energy to get up and going. I finally got myself to go out last Wednesday and take some pics. It was cold and wet, but not raining. I was only out for like an hour as it was just too wet to go any where. It felt good to process a few pictures tho.
This farm is over by Hannah and at once upon a time was a live farm. Now it has become a storage area. The area didn’t get as much rain as we did and farmers were actually out in the fields. Weird how 20 minutes across country can make such a difference. My first real time getting out for May tho. In April I had already been out a dozen times.
I’ve actually broken down and started playing WoW of all things. Nothing going on, weather being crappy and after talking with Darwin about it, I just thought to myself, why not. It sure beats sitting in the house watching it rain. I can play WoW with my son and use ventrilo to talk so it’s all good as the rest of life just fades away.
Friday the weather snapped and brought the sun back and it actually warmed up. I took advantage of it and dragged myself onto the mower and got the entire place mowed before the grass got any more out of control. I think most people have mowed a couple times already. Today was beautiful and the forecast is looking good for next week. I sure hope so, I need my motivation back.
School is coming to an end and graduation is getting closer for CJ. Announcements were mailed out so they should of arrived by now. After three revisions we were able to produce our own announcements and saved a bundle of money. Yay for photoshop skillz and smugmug with their excellent service. As long as everyone is happy with it, I’m in the clear. CJ has already started moving into her apartment in Grand Forks. She has been recently nominated Art Student. One of her art pieces will be done up and displayed on main street it sounds like. She wants me to photograph all the art stuff she has made for a portfolio. I believe we are gonna attempt that on Monday. Set em up in the studio and shoot em and than get prints ordered for her. Should be interesting, never done something like that.
It’s been a long time since I have laughed at a movie where tears came to my eyes. I highly recommend the movie Old Dogs. Disney always seems to make great movies. You won’t go wrong with this movie and it’s a movie for the whole family. That whole part of the medications getting mixed up about put me on the floor from laughing. Oh and Avatar for sure lived up to it’s hype. I am curious to see it in 3D tho. I see a lot of the new up coming movies are in 3D now. I guess it’s the next big wave. I’m not even up to blue-ray yet and they coming out with 3D players, sheeesh. I just hate the idea of having to buy all new stuffs to watch a movie or tv when I am happy with the quality of what I got. I don’t watch much tv to start with so, blah. I do like my movies tho 
Well it’s going to be a long week here, almost 2 days down and 5 more to go……
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Early Spring
Posted on April, 27 at 5:11 am
It’s been a long time since I can remember a spring where it has been nice on Darwin’s birthday. Normally we are still waiting for the snow to melt out of the yard. This year the farmers have already been seeding and we are in need of some rain to settle down the dust. Each day it gets greener and greener and with a little rain, she would really pop. I wish we could get spring this early every year and than get a really nice long fall.
I drove down to Jamestown over the past weekend to watch Darwin do his 400 hurdles. He got first again, but still needs to get a faster time to qualify for nationals. All the first place finishers got free t-shirts, which was good enough for him. I’m proud of him regardless. I still don’t know how he can do it with the asthma that he has.
Darwin will turn the big 21 on the 28th. He says he won’t be doing much for the big bash, but he may go out on Saturday night. 2 big issues with bars, the price of drinks and the cigarette smoke. You about got to destroy your clothes after leaving the bar. We need more non-smoking bars. I guess I should mention the DUI factor, a designated driver is a must now a days as it don’t take much to hit the legal limit for driving. The costs are not worth the risk. It will be cool to buy him a drink tho, when we get the chance to do such an event.
Work has been a thrill a minute lately. I’m exploring and open to options more than ever before. I’m not really ready at this point and time to shift my life, but at the same time I sit and ask, why not? I got time tho, no quick hasty decision just yet. I would hate to go to worse and I know worse is out there. I keep wondering if a different career would have less insanity. I realize that each and every job has it’s challenges, but a lot of the challenges don’t need to be and this frustrates me to no end. What is more frustrating is when you try and correct it and more insanity comes out of it. I just don’t get how someone can jibber jabber all the insanity and actually think others buy into it. It’s not a bad thing to be wrong in this world as long as you’re willing to make it right or learn from it, but to continue on course without changing paths is just wrong. Time will tell I guess, one day at a time and nothing more.
I got the make shift studio back up and running again. I feel so rusty doing portrait shots again. Time to relearn the lights and what not. It would be awesome to have a place year round that didn’t cost a fortune to keep. I have a shoot to do later on today, hopefully it all goes well. One of the gals has already been shot by a modeling agency, so I don’t see how I am gonna compete with that as they were really good pics I thought. I think she really needs to pursue the modeling as she has the body for it, tall and skinny. She just needs to pull herself together and focus.
Till next time…
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Time and Changes
Posted on April, 14 at 4:35 am
This is the same creek I shot a couple of blog posts ago and the snow is now gone. There is still snow laying around and everything is pretty drab yet. Weather wise it seems to feel like we are a month off. It seems like April has been more of March type weather. March is usually an unstable month for us and it was really quiet this year. Once April rolled in, the weather turned a 180 degrees and has been rough. Parts of the state are still without power from that last snow storm from Easter weekend.
The past week has been rough. Ally was in the hospital for a week dealing with Mesenteric Lymphadenitis. She is out now, but tires easily and has only been doing 1/2 days of school. It’s just something that is going to take time. I’m just glad it wasn’t her appendix and needed surgery. I hate hospitals and I hate sitting in a hospital waiting for someone to get out. Hospitals are just not a positive environment for anything. Yea sure they can fix and heal people, but the stress and the emotions of it while that process happens is exhausting. All of this happens to fall upon CJ’s prom week. She kinda got bumped to the back burner, but I promised her that no matter what, I would be there to take her pictures. I wish I could of used off camera flash, but it was just too hectic with everyone pressed for time.
It also happened to be Darwin’s track day in Bismarck that I planned to attend like a month ago. I had never been to one of his events and so I met up with Lisa and Maddi in Bismarck and we watched. The weather was all 4 seasons in one afternoon. It was still a great time and I hadn’t seen Darwin since Christmas. He came and sat with us when he could. Time robs us of so much in life, it’s just unreal. It’s important that we try to make the best of the time we have. He took 1st in the 400 hurdles, ahead of everyone by 5 seconds. He still needs to knock off 1.5 seconds to get to nationals tho. Even if he doesn’t make it, still proud of him regardless. It would be fun to attend it and shoot him running, but it requires such distant traveling and once again, time works against ya on that.
After the track meet, Lisa, Maddi and I headed over to space aliens for a bite to eat. It seems to be Maddi’s favorite place to eat. They really do have good food there I have to admit. It was refreshing and a great way to end the week. I was back early enough on Sunday to see Ally before she went to bed. She was scheduled to go with, but she needed to stay home and rest instead. I’ve spent most of this week trying to get caught up from last week. I’m about there and I have Thursday and Friday off to hopefully get out and have an adventure if I can get the weather man to cooperate.
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What in the World
Posted on April, 1 at 3:40 am
It’s an hour and half into the day of pranks all over the internet. This usually doesn’t work well as parts of the world hit April 1st before other parts of the world and people still on the 31st are scratching their heads going what is the deal here. What else can I say but thanks for wasting my bandwidth and time, sigh.
Been following the news lately? The massive mystery of a so called social welfare health care plan passed. Nobody but a few people really know what it really all entails after being worked and reworked. I just get a kick out of the people that have no idea what it entails and their response is, well we had to do something. I can go along with that, but can you seriously say this is the ultimate plan to force upon the entire nation whether you like it or not. There is no opt out option of being fined, or as the government puts it, taxed. Than those politicians that supported it are wondering why the people are sending them death threats and what not. I’m pretty sure for the past year the people of the United States been saying no we do not want it. Course the people didn’t vote for Bush either and he still became president thanks to the electorial votes. Can anybody hear us? Hello, can you hear me now? Oh yes, and those that are still blaming Bush, that excuse is old, come up with something more creative by looking at Congress.
How about this story? “An autopsy report released Wednesday confirmed that a SeaWorld trainer killed after a 12,000-pound killer whale pulled her underwater died of drowning and traumatic injuries to her body, including her spine, ribs and head.” Wow! They couldn’t come up with that conclusion on their own? Did they think she may have choked on her gum instead? It’s just hard to conceive the idea that a 12,000 pound killer whale could cause traumatic injury resulting in death. Oh wait, I bet having the title of Killer whale is just to throw us off guard. Don’t get me wrong, it was a horrific event, but seriously. I’m remembering some phrase that went like, when you’re play with fire ……
When Tiger Woods checked into a sex addict clinic or whatever it is called I thought you have got be kidding me that such a thing exists. I was just tired of hearing about it. What’s that? Someone had sex? Let’s turn it into a circus and broadcast it 24/7 to every media outlet. So now we have Jesse James checking into a sex addict clinic for treatment. Now every unfaithful person out there has an excuse to cheat on their partner, just claim you have a sex problem and check into a sex addiction center. 2010 can be the year of “Sorry Honey, but I have a sex problem.” One thing I am not understanding of these cases is the people that come forward claiming they had sex with them too, but they don’t give their identity, they have some spokes person make the announcement. Yea like the press isn’t going to find out who you are. Some sort of new game called “I want to be secretly famous” I guess.
I get to work tonight and they are talking about the Pope. “Pope Benedict XVI is confronting the greatest crisis the Roman Catholic Church has faced since at least 2002.” What happened in 2002? Sexual abuse of children by priests in the Archdiocese. What is happening now? “Now, evidence of sexual abuse is once more rocking the church. But this time, it’s global in scope, with fresh claims of abuse of boys and girls by priests in the US, Ireland, Holland, Italy, and in Pope Benedict’s home country of Germany.” Seems to me the problem has existed even before 2002 and they are just now calling it the greatest crisis? If you ask me, the very first case should of been the greatest crisis and it should of ended there. Apparently the catholic system is ok with having pedophiles that just keep on going like the energizer bunny. In the real world a pedophile faces a judge, sentencing, treatment, etc…., but become a priest and you are exempt. I’m just waiting for the Pope to construct a sex addict clinic next to the Vatican.
Alright, to be fair it’s not just the catholic system with pedophiles. They exist every where and in all sorts of organizations. Good news is, Obama’s health care has $250 million dollars for abstinence education for teens. Good Luck with that one! That is like spending money on trying to teach your fish to swim without water. I’m all for sexual education, teach teens and provide the needs for safe sex. You know they are gonna do it, focus on that instead.
Here is a real shocker. “Senior U.S. official confirms new addition to growing list of more than 100 released Guantanamo Bay detainees who have returned to terrorism.” What did they think they were gonna do, take up basket weaving? Maybe someone should start up a terrorism addict clinic?
And finally, “Area 51 vets break silence: Sorry, but no space aliens or UFOs.” Apparently a bunch of workers are now free to talk about their jobs back in the days of Area 51 with the spaceship crashing and aliens recovered. I suppose next they will tell us that Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster don’t exist either. For 47 years we been reading and watching stuff on Area 51, what a let down. Maybe someone should start up a conspiracy addict clinic?
This is the stuff making the news of April 2010. It’s bad enough that some of this stuff makes the news, but to repeatedly repeat it is another thing. It really makes you question humanity and where it is all going when you have stuff like this constantly in your face. This stuff is really happening right outside your door.
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First Hike 2010
Posted on March, 23 at 4:24 am
I had last Thursday and Friday off and the weather could of been a bit warmer, but I couldn’t wait any longer to head out and take some pictures. I didn’t plan on actually going down to the river due to amount of snow in the trees yet, but I wanted to get a good shot of the river and before I knew it I was at the river. I managed to run across a creek on the way down and was wishing I had my ND filters along, but oh well. I managed to get the shot above tho. My legs weren’t prepared for the up and down of the hills tho, was kinda sore the next day.
The Red River is going down in Fargo, which is a good thing. The overland flooding is happening but it’s not like last year. People were more prepared this year and with the lower levels, things are going really well. In our area we are drying up nicely thanks to no snow or rain. We shouldn’t be experiencing much water damage this spring. So far we have only had one report of a road closure. I forget how many we had last year, but it was many. Now we just need the summer to be better than the last two years. 20 degrees warmer would help out.
This weekend I am heading back to Bismarck to have our 2nd date. We also already got plans for the April 10th weekend since Darwin is having a track meet there. Things seem to be rolling along naturally, but slowly. Life is just so dog gone busy. Just need to balance it all out and have fun. I’m looking forward to making more and more plans.
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Spring!
Posted on March, 17 at 3:36 am
Spring is arriving early here in North Dakota and the sun has finally came back out after 2-3 weeks of foggy weather. It’s so exciting to see the sun again and it really boosts the energy level up to get outside. The problem with being outside is the mud and water. The good part is the flooding predictions are coming in lower than last year, which is great news. Wahpeton, ND has already crested and Fargo is predicted to crest this weekend at 38 feet, which is 3 feet below last year’s crest. The worry was how saturated the ground was last fall and all the snow fall we got, but so far, all good, knock on wood as I say that.
Twitter is very active of flood information. You can follow the hash tags of #flood10, #ndflood, #fargoflood, #fmflood, and #ccflood. The hash tags are getting a bit out of hand, but getting a massive amount of people from all over to agree on hash tags is not gonna be easy. It’s just hard to tweet information with only a 144 characters or whatever it is that twitter allows when you got so many hash tags. By the way, hash tags are something you can use to search and find posts on twitter. Think of it as a keyword for your search. Just enter the hash tag in on the twitter search box and presto, the information flows. I really like TweeDeck for a twitter client. It not only does twitter, but facebook, linkedin and myspace also. For linux, Gwibber is a pretty nice client. TweetDeck will work on Linux, but I find unwanted issues when using it, like flash no longer working in the browser.
March started out rough for me with being sick. I managed to come down with a cold and major sinus problems. That sinus pain is unbelievable and than I developed a cough every time I moved. Sleeping was about impossible as I couldn’t breath the moment I laid down. I would literally cough to my lungs were burning. I just finished my anti-biotics yesterday and doing much better. I know some people have been suffering for 2 weeks with it.
Anyway, hoping to get out in this nice weather and get some pictures of current conditions this week. My turn to work the weekend so yay. It seems like I get more and more frustrated with how are office runs. I don’t even know how to describe it. You got the frustrations of the judicial system and you would be surprised at how much that system doesn’t know. The people involved are just people after all and only using what resources they have available to them to make decisions. Some times these decisions make you really wonder tho. Then you have the county and it’s people to answer to. People depend on us to be their problem solver. You have people with real problems that need to be attended to and than you got the chronic people with problems everyday and expect someone else to solve their problems. What do you do with these type of people? Then you got the whole budget thing to stir in. You hear for months at a time how we need to do cut backs and that there is no room for extras. Jobs get threatened or cut, but than you see very questionable stuff going on that involves spending. It just makes one stand there and scratch their head with a stupid look on their face as one tries to figure it out. I guess I shouldn’t let it get to me, but it’s such a chronic thing. All jobs have it, nothing new. We have tomorrow to look forward too and in the meantime, take a picture so you can relive those times.
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My Dream
Posted on March, 5 at 4:42 am
Tonight, this is my dream where I come out of the cold shadows and enter up into the light. Each step I take I can feel the heat from the light warming my skin and the most calming feeling begins to flood my body. I can not see clearly what will be waiting for me with each step towards the tranquil light. I do not fear the light as the body soothes from the heat. I slowly look back to only see the shadows growing closer and darker as they morn the lose. My own shadow is almost out of the cold shadows as it tries to hold on to the dark. The grass around my feet is slowly becoming less weighed down from the tears of the shadows as the light dries the tears away allowing my feet to flow freely through the grass. The colors start to flourish and become rich all around me. The dark and ill colors of the shadows are too weak to even notice as they have given up hope and no longer see anything but the wet, cold ground from their tears. As the light becomes brighter I must squint to try and see what is up ahead. The trees beside me are standing tall, guiding me and the warmth of the light is reassuring and encourages me to keep going. I stop and turn around for one last look and I notice my very own shadow is no longer taller than me. My shadow is being consumed by the light as it fades. I whisper to my shadow, it’s alright, you will always be with me. I reach out to my shadow and as I do, I can see my shadow has faith in me that we are gonna be safe. The shadows in the back are confused, scared and can only feel a sense of loss as they question the little faith they have left. I begin to feel sorry for the shadows, but I can not help them now. I turn around and raise my hand up to to act as a visor to try and see what is up ahead of me. The light surrounds me with it’s warmth and I slowly walk and feel with each step the burdens lift off me. I look down at my feet and as I raise my head back up, I can no longer see anything as I am now consumed by the light. I can hear the happiness, feel the joys in the light and I no longer feel physical. I am not alone and feel the love in the light. I have become a part of the light, I am the light, I am the hope and I will wait for all to join me. I will shine upon you till you are ready to join the light.
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Travelin
Posted on March, 3 at 5:10 am
Last weekend I did something that I haven’t done in a very long time. I drove down to Bismarck, ND and met up with a wonderful gal that I have been chatting to since end of December. It felt great to get out of the area and to have fun. The first thing we did was checked out Bobsphoto store to check out the photography stuff and I finally got a camera bag that I am satisfied with, Lowpro Flipside 200. I was surprised at their prices, they were right in line with other online retailers and were very friendly. I know I could definitely spend a lot more money at that store if I really wanted to. I had the will power to hold off tho, ehehe. We then went over to BestBuy and looked at laptops. We then had a wonderful meal at AppleBees followed by movies. Her babysitter plans fell through so we had a young chaperone along with us. The chaperone was a hoot tho, I think she could bring a smile and a laugh to anyone. So now what? Well I guess we just go with the flow. March is a hectic schedule for me unfortunately. It could be a little rough going for time with spring arriving with the forecast of flooding every where, it could make traveling interesting. Let’s hope the flooding just stays away.
The picture I captured of the Bald Eagle was on my way home. I was cruising along and looked up and had to come to a stop pretty quickly. I was surprised it stayed there long enough for me to grab a shot. I would of preferred my bigger lens, but I figured there was no way it was gonna let me switch out lenses. I always stress to people to carry a camera with them at all times, you just never know when the shot will be presented.
I finally started working on CJ’s dvd graduation video. Scanned in a bunch of pics. I’m glad Ally lived in the digital camera age, it will be a lot less photos to scan in with her. So as you go through the photos you get to take a trip down memory lane. I just wish I knew how to take better pictures back than, lol. I got to work on her senior announcement also. She picked out a template so I just got to get it all lined up. I saw Bobsphoto will do the cards for .99 cents a piece, which I thought was a good price. I should get a test print into them to see how they match up with my monitor. Time is ticking and it’s March already. The year is whizzing by and graduation will be here before we know it. Her plans are to move right away, she seems to have everything under control. I don’t have any doubts in my mind that she will do just great on her own. I do hope she becomes a bit more social tho in college.
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Mother Nature needs to take a nap
Posted on February, 16 at 3:34 am
The snow just keeps coming and coming. It seems like mother nature is getting a nasty habit of rolling in bad weather for the weekends and making getting to and from events a mess for many. Hockey season is in full motion and a lot of our games are away games, so it’s making it rather interesting for teams to travel. I should also mention the college indoor track is also on with them trying to travel also. I bet this weekend will be beautiful tho as I am working it. It seems to never fail the weekend you get to work the weather is just beautiful outside. It’s just not our area that is getting dumped on, seems the whole USA is battling weather and areas are getting dumped on with snow that are not normally custom to even seeing it. It’s sure gonna make for an interesting spring if this keeps up.
I was suppose to head out over the past weekend and have a date, but we will try that again in a couple weeks and hopefully the weather will cooperate this time. So I got to spend some time with Ally and we watched some Olympic girls hockey, also she had a game on Sunday. She than tried the snowboard, but we soon discovered that soft snow does not work with snowboards. One needs a groomed trail or something for that.
February is over half done already. The year is definitely moving quickly. I finally sent in my taxes the other day. I need to invent some more deductions, if only pets were deductible, eheheh. I am hoping March will be a quiet month as far as weather. If we get into flooding situations, I so want to get up in a plane to take aerial photos. Lets hope for no flooding tho, that would be better.
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In Rolls February
Posted on February, 1 at 3:30 pm
I had a nice 4 day weekend and got the opportunity to get out and get some pictures. I would of preferred a bit warmer temperatures, but January in North Dakota is usually cold. We did get our January thaw tho and I did get out during that time too. I am looking forward to spring tho, just not the wood ticks. I was reading the other day on the NOAA site that the spring flooding situation isn’t looking good. I know we got a lot of snow and hopefully it’s not full of moisture, but a lot of areas did get a lot of rain in the last blast. Hopefully the rest of the winter will remain quiet as far as moisture.
I did make it back into my favorite place over the weekend. Usually one can’t drive back in there in the winter time, but they are in the process of moving the old house off the farm so they have the road open. It’s tough getting around in there as the snow is deep and all you do is sink. One needs to look into some affordable snowshoes to get around.
Luka sure enjoyed getting out and exploring. She did run into another coyote and thankfully the coyote took off immediately and she didn’t pursue. She sure tuckered herself out tho plowing through the snow. Wednesday sounds like it is gonna be a nice day and maybe we can get back out on Wednesday for a quick trip.
Ally also made it out and we had a great day snapping photos.
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Firefox goes Bing, ewwww
Posted on January, 22 at 12:40 pm
Instead of Mozilla forcing upon the people Bing, they could of at least warned or gave an option during the install to change or keep your current search engine, good grief. So how do you get back google as your default? Well, luckily it’s easy with only a few steps.
1. Open up Firefox and in the url box type in about:config and you get the pretty warning box, continue to click on I’ll be careful, I promise! button.
about:config
2. You should see a screen like this now:
about:config page
3. Now you see at the top, a Filter url box, so we need to type in that box keyword.URL and presto, we see the line we need to change. Please note the url you see is different as I already changed mine.
keyword.URL
4. Go ahead and double click on line and you will get a pop up box to enter your new url. You will want to enter in http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=
Changing URL
5. Click the OK button and Restart Firefox for good measure and you will now be back to good old google search engine. Try typing Kate Beckinsale into the URL box of firefox, you should get google and Kate I do say Enjoy! Also, I hope for the love of pete when microsoft changes the name of their search engine that they come up with something better than bing. They keep changing their name to convince you it’s new and better, blah! Just Google It! Shame on Mozilla tactics!
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January Thaw
Posted on January, 18 at 9:07 pm
Last week brought our January thaw and I missed out on most of it due to having the flu. It wasn’t the full blown flu, just enough to feel tough and need lots of sleep. Thursday and Friday were the two worst days and by Saturday I was doing pretty good again. I did manage to get out on Monday tho and drive around the country side and capture the beautiful sunset. The back roads are tough getting around on. It doesn’t take long for the wind to blow in the roads.
Last Saturday I got to take Jody and Terry’s engagement pictures. We did it at the office and I am using digital backgrounds on them. I forgot how much work it was to deal with digital backgrounds. I think so far they are turning out good. I will be shooting their wedding too. That should be interesting and it’s planned to be an outdoor wedding, which I think is great, as I don’t have to fight low light conditions of a church. I so need to get the 70-200 f/2.8 lens.
I am enjoying the ISO 3200 feature tho. At the last hockey home game I got to try it out and was able to stop action shots as I was able to pull up my shutter speeds. I still need to figure out the lighting where some pics turn out pink. It’s really weird at how some turned out perfect and the next one is pink. I read that is due to the cycling of the lights, something else to read up on I guess. I was reading at how people are strobing their sporting events. Learned some great tips and would be so cool to try it out, but I would need a more reliable wireless triggering system for the flashes.
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