Scattered Thoughts . . .

We just exited a long, frigid winter with more snow than usual. I didn't expect all the huge piles of snow and ice to melt until a little later than usual since we had so much snow and because it had been so frigid cold. Not only is all the snow gone but we have already planted seeds for our wildflower gardens... a few weeks earlier than usual... and the temperatures are far above normal which clearly contributed to melting all this snow and ice so quickly this spring.  Considering the extreme temperatures we've been experiencing and how quickly all this winter's snow has melted, I'm expecting a brutally hot summer this year. We are already experiencing higher than average temperatures and that is taking a toll on my health, unfortunately, but not surprisingly. Since developing Systemic Mastocytosis, warmer than average environments have been problematic. I have difficulty breathing, I struggle with weakness, and my overwhelming fatigue becomes far more overwhelming

I recently picked up a used Panasonic 45-200mm G Vario OIS lens to pair with my Panasonic G3 camera body. As some opportunities present themselves, I've been giving this combo a whirl and I have to say that, so far, I am impressed. Don't get me wrong... This lens is not even close to being my sharpest, most impressive lens. However, for its cost, size, weight and format, it is pretty impressive though.  This lens has a decent amount of reach being equivalent to a 90-400mm in full frame terms and that means a lot considering the small size of this lens. Also, having OIS (optical image stabilization) is a pretty huge plus. This image stabilization could come in handy in less-than-ideal light.   If I could find some birds or wildlife in my yard, I would test this lens in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, our neck of the woods seems to be void of wildlife lately. It is actually pretty quiet out there... no birds calling, no squirrels chattering, nothing. I've come to the conclu

I've been fighting a cold for months. With my health as poor as it is, a cold can be a major health risk and problem. In January, I developed a typical winter cold. It lingered through to mid-April before abruptly worsening significantly. When this cold worsened, my nose was running like a waterfall... constantly. My eyes were irritated to the point of mildly burning. After a few days and a lot of cold medications, this runny nose turned into a constant post-nasal drip... or flow. This caused me to lose my voice and I started a bit of coughing. I was having great difficulty breathing and was wondering if maybe I was developing pneumonia. Subsequently, my energy level plummeted to the lowest of lows.  After two weeks of these significantly worsened cold symptoms and months of lingering cold symptoms, I think I am just about back to "normal"... as "normal" as I could be with Systemic Mastocytosis and extensive spinal injuries anyway. Funny thing is that the

Our moon captured using a Panasonic G3 camera with a Panasonic 45-200mm (90-400mm equivalent) G Vario lens. Anyone who follows this blog knows that I have a bit of an infatuation with the moon and an active interest in aerospace which involves continuous study and research. Consequently, I often will be pointing one of my cameras toward the moon on those seemingly rare clear nights with no clouds obscuring the sky.  Last night we had a sky with a light, wispy cloud cover but our moon was bright and beckoning through our living room window. Needless to say, I grabbed some of my camera gear and headed outside. As I've written in recent blog posts, I just picked up a used camera and lens in the tiny Micro Four Thirds format. I really haven't had much of an opportunity to test it out though for numerous reasons. This was one camera and lens combo that I knew I should test on the moon last night. Most of the night I had to struggle getting clear shots of the moon becaus

New grill placed in the backyard in its temporary home... a new grilling kitchen area is being built off the backside of this log shed... you can see some blocks out marking locations of posts for the roof. It was a busy and productive morning today! First, I added much needed RAM to my desktop computer as well as my laptop computer. Getting that task done is a huge relief especially after the difficulties I had with the laptop computer ( see my previous post ). After accomplishing those tasks with my computers, I headed outdoors to see if I could make some headway in getting our new grill out of our living room. The grill was still sitting in the living room after assembling it a few days ago because I had no place outdoors to set it. The old grill was located in a place where we are building an outdoor kitchen grilling area under cover. If I set the new grill there, then it would be in my way while working on building this outdoor area. I first had to find a level area nearb

I had just finished adding a new additional 8gb memory card to my desktop computer and now it was time to swap out the RAM on my laptop computer for a new 8gb memory card. I use this little laptop whenever we are on the road or at the lake house for music, editing photos, updating my blog, and any other internet activities. Because I use this laptop for editing photos, I needed more RAM than the stock 4gb's.  Wow... this 'little' task which was a piece of cake on my desktop computer was significantly more complicated on this little laptop!  I had to dismantle the entire laptop to gain access to the RAM card. To say this made me nervous is a gross understatement. First off... just figuring out how to open the case was a pain in the butt! There are about 17 tiny screws holding this thing together... most plainly visible but some were hidden under rubber feet and flush covers. Next... everything on this little laptop is miniscule and I have big hands and rather poor eyes

I bought a new desktop computer almost a year ago after an unknown component in my old computer stopped functioning rendering the computer useless. I couldn't figure out which component went bad and didn't want to start buying parts and swapping out parts hoping to get lucky so I just bought a new computer.  That new computer came with 8gb's of RAM installed which is more than enough for most people. I, however, use my desktop computer for editing photos, creating video, and various other graphics intensive programs so I knew that I would want to install more RAM before long. Fortunately, installing RAM in a desktop computer is a piece of cake...  Open the big side panel by sliding it off...  Push open the two clips in the next empty RAM card slot... Then insert the new RAM until the clips lock in place.   Slide the side panel of the desktop tower back into place... Boot up the computer... Done!   So, I added another 8gb's of RAM last night.  Piece of

It seems that most years we have difficulty finding wildflower seed so we end up a little bit behind schedule.  This year I didn't even bother wasting my time and energy by searching for seed locally and instead ordered it from Amazon the moment I realized it was that time of year.  I couldn't find any seed locally last year and I really wasted a lot of time so I eventually had to order it online from Amazon. It was such a painless, quick and easy way to purchase that I went right to Amazon this year. Now we have the seed... we just need to get out of the freezing nighttime temperatures so we can plant. In the meantime, we need to clean out the flowerbeds all around the house in preparation of this new short growing season. We could probably use some top soil and peat moss as well... I'll have to grab some of that the next time we are at Lowes or Home Depot. So far, however, we are on track for some nice wildflowers this season!

Our old grill finally bit the dust. I had rebuilt the grill a couple of years ago just to buy us another year or two and we clearly managed to get another couple of years out of it but now that old grill sits in the yard as a pile of rusted out metal. We have some really nice plans for the yard and those plans always included a nice area under cover for a little kitchen/grill area. On the positive side, what started out as vague ideas for our yard had already turned into specific plans before our grill bit the dust so we already had a pretty good idea of what we wanted. It had been a frigid winter here this year so we didn't use the grill much in the past six months or so. The temperatures finally moved close to freezing a few weeks ago so we fired up the grill to cook some steaks... I went outside to check on the steaks and noticed the fire was not hot and the grill sounded like a jet plane! I knew what that meant... leaking gas... there was a little flame-thrower-action go

Lunch at the top of the Tower of the Americas.  This is a situation where the fisheye distortion actually works... not only was I able to get all of us in the frame but I got the rest of Earth in there too! There are all sorts of different lenses available today. There are long telephoto lenses, medium telephoto lenses, standard telephoto, wide telephoto, prime, macro, tilt-shift, wide angle, fisheye, portrait, and all sorts of additional specialty lenses. The list goes on and on... Lately I've been doing a lot of writing about long telephoto lenses for shooting photos of wildlife but I've been wanting to write about a completely different type of lens since arriving back from our long journey to San Antonio. This is a lens which provides a bit of a strange view and one which I had just used for the first time on this trip. For certain applications, this lens really was a great choice... the fisheye lens. I've wanted a fisheye lens for years. It really is an od