I was gonna use frequent flyer miles for my October California trip, but when I found round-trip tickets to San Francisco for $230, the choice was clear. I’ll save up my miles for the Alaska trip I’m dreaming about next summer…
What's been on my mind lately? Read on...
I went on Friday to the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Mostly, it was just hot and buggy (if I stop posting in about a week or so, you can assume it’s because of West Nile), but I saw some nice birds, including ibis, osprey and many black crowned night herons. I’d definitely recommend stopping in there, just not in late August around noon-time.
Saturday and Sunday were mostly spent avoiding spending time outdoors in New York – although it was only 85 or 90°, it was also 80% humidity!
The “studio” photography went really well last night. Check it out here. More pics to follow…
I went for a nice walk at lunchtime today and saw a family of Cedar Waxwings hanging out by the stream near my office. One of them took flight, hovered for a few seconds in front of a big spider web, plucked the spider (while still hovering), and ate it. Pretty amazing! I might bring my camera in next week and try to take some pictures.
The CostCo photo printing experiment from the other night produced mixed results. They did, in fact, print an 8″ x 12″ glossy print on nice photo paper in about 45 minutes from my digital file for exactly $2.09 (with tax). However, it wasn’t such a great print – it was very grainy, and the colors weren’t right. I’m not sure what kind of control I have over either of those parameters – if I’d Photoshopped the scan differently, could they have produced a better output? I hope so, and it definitely seems worth trying again after a Photoshop tutorial or two.
Check out this article in the NYTimes in which people claim their iPod has an agenda when choosing music on “shuffle play.” Pretty funny stuff.
It’s my grandmother’s 90th birthday this weekend, and I’m finishing up a small box I made as a gift for her. I wanna set up a little photo studio somewhere in my house to try taking some fancier pictures than normal – a la the maple box (those photos were taken in a real studio, though). This page (PDF) seems to have some good suggestions.