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Clock turning back bullshit. Ugh! Anyhoo, before I scurry off for copious quantities of caffeine, I might mention that the weather is delightfully cool this morning. I'm digging being able to see and all. Who knew my prescription was so effed up all this year? I am grossly disappointed with my photography of recent, so don't be surprised if I take a bunch of crap photos down, but until then, I did update the code on 13th Stone to the RC2 version of the new Coppermine... recently saved by some fans and moved over to Sourceforge. I've been considering switching to Exhibit Engine, but they say the new release forthcoming will have full EXIF support, so I'm gonna stick it out for a bit. Have a great morning!

One good thing about the rain... all the critters come out for a drink!

I discovered a few new things today. I found out that my glasses prescription changed like a mofo. I got new contacts and new glasses this morning. Holy shit! I can see. I'm hoping my photography gets better. I don't understand how I could possibly focus before. I found out that Photo.net hates any type of border on images. I think that post yesterday is my lowest scoring image on the site. I also found out that (now) EL's Canon S50 takes some pretty pimp IR shots when given half a chance. Here is one out on of the french doors on the back of my house: I'll have to ask her to borrow it sometime when I'm out doing landscape. Why the hell was the weather nice all week and now, on my day off, it sucks ass? No fair. No fair.

We'll see what the Photo.net community thinks of EL's frame idea... be kind!

Why there is something inherently wrong with NASCAR...

The cleaning lady always comes by my desk and wings the trash can over her shoulder into the big bin with wheels she pushes around. Today, she came by with her little trick and the strawberry yogurt I had this morning didn't come out without a fight. She splattered yogurt drops all over the carpet around mine and Joe's desk area. Go team!

Just a note on all this solar flare hoo-ha... what it means in layman's terms is we may actually see some northern lights in Texas tonight and amateur radio enthusiasts should be able to chat with folks in North Dakota, Florida, and wherever on 10 milliwatts of power. Of course, it also means today sucks to fly. If your flying west bound in daylight this afternoon, you might just get a couple of full body X-rays worth of radiation. Let's raise our glasses to a charged atmosphere!

EL offered a fab idea for flat mount photos in simple presentation... semi-transparent borders. I think this idea will work well for large formatted prints. I tried a few different techniques, but the one I like the best is creating a framed channel in a new layer and setting blending to multiply at a reduced opacity. Nifty. Simple and effective. Way to go wife!

My mom sent me this link... pretty cool stuff, but actually one of the engineering geeks I work with gets the real advisories, so I had this yesterday: ISAC Security Analysis Team SECURITY ADVISORY Please do not reply to this message as it was sent from an automated mailbox. 2003-10-072 ///////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ SUBJECT: Coronal Mass Expected to Produce Intense Geomagnetic Activity RISK FACTOR: 4 RISK FACTOR EXPLANATION: Information Only IMPACT: May cause disruption or outages of telecommunications SUMMARY: A major solar event is expected to impact the Earth's magnetic field tomorrow at midday. A cloud of high-energy particles has been ejected from the sun's surface and is heading toward Earth at nearly a million miles per hour. It is expected to disrupt the Earth's magnetic field, with resultant disruptions in telecommunications that transmit via radio waves. PLATFORMS AFFECTED: Miscellaneous,Physical BACKGROUND: At approximately 3:00 PM on October 22, 2003, a coronal mass ejection (CME) from Sunspot 484 erupted on the sun. In the past, geomagnetic storms such as these have created voltage surges in electric power grids, disrupted radio communications and navigation systems, and negatively impacted satellite operations. Most recently, Sunspot 484 emitted a solar flare on October 19, 2003, that temporarily disabled high frequency radio communications over the continental United States for more than two hours, greatly impairing airline and marine communications. Larry Combs, a forecaster with the NOAA Space Environment Center’s Space Weather Operations, said that this region has developed rapidly over the last three to four days. "It’s somewhat unusual to have this much activity when we’re approximately three-and-a-half years past solar maximum," he said. "In fact, just last week, solar activity was very low with an almost spotless sun." Solar cycles of high and low activity repeat about every eleven years, and the sun has been moving towards solar minimum for the past three years. A second region of the sun is also active and could create more powerful eruptions during the next two weeks. RECOMMENDATIONS: N/A VENDOR-SUPPLIED INFORMATION: None ///////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

If you are a photographer of any sort and want to read some serious soap opera drama... check this out. Amazing.

Almost everyone in my office has taken the day off. My boss left a notice that I was the "point man" on any issues in his absence. Crap. My stomach is pissed off at me for drinking so many martinis last night. I didn't go to the Martini March, but I did meet Sam at Downing Street for libations. I wish I could be the one taking the day off. I would sleep.

Big brother is always watching... and sometimes little pets too.

There are some muthafukin' dense muthafukas where I work. IATSE is trying to unionize my office under Local 839, the animation guild, and there are folks that actually think it's a good idea. These dumb sombitches work at the cushiest place in town, getting paid better than any other facility in town (on average) and they're actually entertaining the idea that collective bargaining will somehow make their working life better. And the debates, all day, back and forth, in e-mail. The whole thing makes me glad I don't own a bolt gun so that I could put these cattle out of their misery. Anyway, just another reason to be considering the way of the ronin come Jan. 1 and chalk this episode up as a learning experience. Hairless apes just weren't meant to be happy, no matter how good they get it is the moral I'm taking with me. Not a new theory, just more evidence to prove the same. I had a pseudo business dinner last night that could be one option when my boots get to walking. We talked shop over meat at Ruth's Chris in Beverly Hills. I'd never been there before. Now I have. It was alright. Not the best steak I've ever had but not too bad. That in mind, it was rather disappointing. I'm of a mind, if I'm spending more than $20 on a piece of meat I better have to strain to keep from convulsing from orgasmic spasms with each bite. See, my bro and I have this theory, for $8 we've never walked away from a Sizzler feeling cheated. For $15-20 I've never had a bad meal at Outback. On average, Outback's meat is the best bang-for-the-buck going in restaraunt steak. For $35 I want the protein equivelent of MDMA and I didn't get it. So, unless I'm trying to impress someone with my choice of WASPy dining I don't think I'll be going back there again any time soon. Blah-blah, 500 degree sizzling plate, blah-blah cooked in butter...my buddy Nikos has made shorts spraying, marbled and luscious GOTDAMN! with nothing more than a $9 piece of meat and a bag of rock salt. Keep trying Ruth. Got my Deftones tickets today. Woo-hoo! Now I just need a date.

The same Darner... different shot. It's a closer vantage with no blades of palm obscuring his colorful little noggin. If you give a rat's ass, rate it here (still pimping the original, so rate that here).

It never ceases to amaze me how fast blood spurts out from the compression of a heartbeat. The Porto-Medic nurse came to my office this morning to get some pee and a bunch of the red stuff with her questionnaires and such. I hate needles. I mean, it's not a phobia or anything, but it's unpleasant enough to prevent me from becoming an intravenous drug user. I have a splitting headache. Our engineering staff meetings were moved from Tuesday to Wednesday so the Director could attend. We didn't cover any of the meeting's scheduled agenda items because he (the Director) took over 5 minutes into the meeting and talked for an hour and a half straight. Amazing. I'm in a pretty good mood today. EL got up and took me to work. I always am in a better morning mood when I get to spend time with her before hitting the office. Harry's inaugural "Poker Night" was last night. Tons of fun. I won a whoppin' 15 bucks, but would have had a blast regardless. One of the regulars has a professional casino style poker ship set that he got off EBay for like $130.00. Awesome chips. We played a lot of Texas Hold 'Em, but there were a lot of fun games thrown in. I personally liked Harry's variation of 7 Card, Follow the Bitch Wild, Suicide King Kills, Low Chicago. Much fun was had by all. I'm crazy sleepy from residual lack of rest carried over from yesterday's long, long day. Tonight, I hope, will be an early one. I love spicy bean dip more than any man should. I'm off to find pain killers. Happy hump day and all that rot.