Lunar Eclipse
23:44 Thursday, 17 April 2014
Words: 129
Insomnia does have its little perqs. I figured as long as I was awake, I might as well go out and look at the eclipse. It wasn't the best seeing. It was hard to tell, but I think I was shooting through some thin cloud cover. Focus was very difficult, even manual and I couldn't make out very many stars. This was shortly after the peak. Shot it with the Zuiko 50-200mm and the EC14 teleconverter, from a tripod. Used the Wifi connection from the OM-D E-M1 to my iPhone 5s. Pretty cool.
Painted Buntings
23:54 Thursday, 17 April 2014
Words: 119
Squirrels broke my last bird feeder, and I finally got around to getting a new one. I had never seen these guys before, so I had to look them up. Cloudy day today, so lighting wasn't ideal. That's my excuse anyway.
This One's In Color
08:39 Wednesday, 17 April 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 66.15°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 0mphWords: 643
Brought along the E-P7 this morning, with the Lumix 20mm/f1.7 on it. Did the bench and the arches again, probably upload those to Flickr after I get finished here. I played with in-camera RAW processing, choosing different built-in profiles.
After shooting the arches, it dawned on me I hadn't been notified by Delta to check-in for my flight tomorrow. So I opened the Delta app on my phone and saw the flight to Albany, but not the return leg. Spent some time fooling around trying to figure out what was up with that, and decided it would have to wait until I got home.
After some confusion on someone's part, I don't think Delta's system was running properly, I finally got the whole itinerary listed and checked in for tomorrow's oh-dark-thirty flight to Atlanta. I'm getting up at 0300 tomorrow to get to Jax for an 0520 flight. Oy. I'll park in the parking garage ($$) because it's just for the weekend, and I'm only bringing a carry-on and maybe a camera bag.
I printed my boarding passes, just in case, and then noticed they omitted TSA pre✅ (let's see how that renders). So I went to the app on my phone, which couldn't find my whole itinerary previously, and had to wait while something happened in the background. Now all is well, and everything is up to date. The electronic boarding pass has the TSA pre✅ logo, and now they're in the Wallet app.
I tried to do Hertz's "touchless" check-in, which is pretty creepy because they want to enroll you by having you take a picture of yourself and your driver's license. I initially declined, then thought about it and figured we're all screwed anyway as far as privacy is concerned, might as well make it convenient.
So you start on the computer in the browser, it then sends a "secure link" to your phone, where some web app is supposed to step you through taking photos of yourself and your driver's license. For better or worse, it wouldn't work, so I guess I'm standing in line to get the car. No big deal.
Planning on bringing the OM-5 with me tomorrow. Maybe the 14-42EZ pancake zoom, the 20mm/f1.7 and the 45mm/f1.8. Mostly going to be indoors with Mom, no sense going crazy.
One question will be exercise. I've been pretty consistent for the past few months, getting my walk in. Maybe I'll use the treadmill and listen to a podcast. It'll be a lot cooler up there, high for the weekend is supposed to be 61°F. I'll bring a pair of shorts in case I use the treadmill, but looks like jeans weather to me.
Watched two more episodes of Fallout. Moderately more interesting than the first four, but it's basically just ripping off Silo now. Am I entertained? Meh. I'm mostly just watching out of curiosity, I'm not emotionally invested in any of the characters and the plot just seems lazy and weak. The energy question was answered... "Fusion cores!" Of course! The "I oversee..." and the "overseers" threads were tied together with a 2x4 over your head. Vault 4 was "scientists" experimenting on "the effects of radiation on human DNA," so of course you shouldn't go down to Level 12.
It's not "art." It's just a cash grab.
I won't finish it tonight. Last night's effort left me with "unpleasant" dreams. I'll watch the rest after I get home. If you don't have Prime, you're not missing anything.
Anyway, guess I'll work on the bench a bit. Then there's a photography club meeting this afternoon, so I can get my "socialize" check in the block.
The beat goes on.
✍️ Reply by emailThis Morning's Moon 4-17-25
Current Wx: Temp: 54°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 82% Wind: 3.44mphWords: 4
And so it goes...
✍️ Reply by emailMinute by Minute
06:44 Thursday, 17 April 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 51.24°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 0mph
Words: 492
I keep getting sucked into closely following the latest developments in the ongoing crisis that is the Trump presidency. There's no value in it, indeed, it's depressing. I sent $100 to VoteVets and hoped that helped... something.
Anyway, spoke to Mitzi last night and I guess I missed a memo or something. Apparently we are going to do something similar to what we did last September and get a trailer to deliver some of our stuff after the house closes. That changes the situation pretty significantly.
So what I need to do now is identify those things that I might need/want in the interim between June and whenever the house closes. That's pretty squishy, because we might get lucky and get a contract before our "desired" sell-by date in the first week in July. (Saves us from having to file NY state income tax, as we'd be Florida residents for more than half the year.) We've decided that if we get a buyer who wants to close before that, we'll take it, assuming it's an offer we can accept. Uncertainty being what it is today, "A bird in the hand," and so on. We may take it on the chin come tax time; but better that than something happening between contract and closing that squelches the deal.
In any event, it definitely means I don't need to take two trips in the truck. And it also means I'll be flying back here in June, peak thunderstorm season. Just need to book a flight that gets me out of whatever hub, probably Atlanta, before noon.
In other news, still getting accustomed to the OM-3. My left achilles tendon is still bothering me. It's improving somewhat, so I'm trying to walk on it more. I did almost two miles last night and it's barking at me this morning. But it gives me a chance to take the OM-3 out. I put the 40-150/f2.8 on it with the MC20 2x teleconverter, which gives me a 300mm/f5.6 at max zoom. Shot a few bluebirds, but they were soft and I'm not sure why. I know the lens is tack-sharp.
But the more interesting thing, to me, is that that combination weighs three pounds on the sling, and I had no discomfort between my shoulders carrying the rig, which was not formerly the case. That discomfort is what prompted me to carry the lighter OM-5 in lieu of the OM-1. I attribute this to the strength training I've been doing. It also occurred to me just this morning that I haven't been experiencing the shoulder pain I normally get when I sleep on my right side.
So I guess the takeaway is, if you're getting old, get in the gym! Even if working out with weights was never a thing for you before.
Whelp, guess I better get going on doing something.
The beat, it goes on.
✍️ Reply by emailMore Power Than a Locomotive
09:11 Friday, 17 April 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 57.07°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 8.97mph
Words: 753
You're probably over 60 if you get the title.
Alas.
So I'm up on the 14" M5 MBP. Kind of an ordeal. You'd think I'd be better at this by now.
It was supposed to be delivered between 11:30 and 1:30 yesterday. A little after noon, I checked the tracking and it had updated the delivery time to between 5:30 and 7:30. It arrived at 7:10 PM.
Of course.
A wiser man would have done some homework on the best way to use Migration Assistant to set up a new Mac. Let me just say that wifi ain't "the best way." It finished sometime after 6:00 AM this morning. Then the fun began.
I was running MacOS 26.5 on the M3 MBP, but I couldn't update the M5 MBP to 26.5 from within the initial setup, so I skipped that and proceeded. When it was finished, Migration Assistant on the M5 reported that a couple of files related to Siri could not be migrated. I figured it was probably due to something in the beta version of the OS.
I logged in and my usual startup items began launching and complaining that they were demos or needed a license or what have you. I launched Mail to find a license key for something, and it immediately crashed. I figured it may have had something to do with the 26.5 beta, so I updated to the beta. When I relaunched Mail, no problems.
I worried that the mail links I'd stored in Captain's Log would no longer work on the new machine. Why wouldn't they? I have no idea, I just worry about shit. So that's one of the first things I tested.
Well, the links did work. Sort of. It would open the email message in Mail, but only the header was displayed, not the body. I tried five different logged emails, all exhibited the same issue. I made a SWAG and selected "Rebuild" from the Mailbox menu.
From what I observed, there is no feedback to the user that anything is taking place. I waited a couple of minutes for something to appear, and then tried to quit Mail. The window closed, but the app remained open for some time after that, less than a minute though, not long.
I relaunched Mail and tried one of the links from Captain's Log and it opened the correct message in Mail and everything was displayed.
So far, so good. More license fun and games, so I tried using InfoClick to find the relevant email and no dice. Had to screw around a bit getting the index rebuilt, but that got sorted.
The real ordeal came with Backblaze. Maybe I'm just losing a step or too in my dotage, but their guidance for transferring a license to a new computer is opaque. I eventually figured it out, but it was an exercise in frustration that involved unnecessary jumping back and forth between the old machine and the new machine. Pro tip: You can do everything from the new machine, you just need to uninstall the BB app and then download and install the app on the new machine. I got the impression that you had to create an "Inherit Backup State" on the old Mac, so that the new app would recognize the backup as one that was "inheritable."
Nope. Just do that on the new machine.
Similarly CogSci's Hookmark has a cockamamie licensing scheme. The app launches on the M5 and I tried to check for any updates and the app complains that my "Basic" license has expired and it wants me to buy a new one. But I just bought a "Pro" license back in October, and I should be eligible for updates for a year. So I used their contact form to bitch about it.
Maybe I should just delete the app, because I don't use it very much (at all). I keep meaning to, but it's something I have to force myself to do until it becomes a habit, and I have too many other habits I guess. I can link to files, emails and URLs using AppleScript, and I mostly store those links in Captain's Log, so maybe I don't need Hookmark?
Anyway, for the time being it seems as though everything is back up and running on the new machine. I'm sure I'll encounter a few more surprises as I launch apps I don't use that often.
Until then, the beat goes on...
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