Auto vs Manual

These two pics were recently taken with the same camera at approximately the same time of day. 

The next trip- Part deux

Saturday I had a few hours in the morning and decided to go back to D.C. and take in the sights; I intended to go to the Air and Space museum, but ended up stumbling into the National History Museum instead [mostly to avoid the heat]. Apparently the day I chose to wander to the Lincoln Memorial....heat index of 114F. Yikes!

The Washington Monument

The next trip - Part one

So I actually spent 3 weeks in July traveling for work. Yikes! My last trip was just outside D.C., and as expected, connection FAIL.

Here's my lovely plane. Note that no passengers are boarding because, well, we did board. And then there was a problem with the wing flaps not working right. And I am totally OK with not flying on a plane that has problems getting the wings to flap. But it did mean that I got to my lodgings at 1 AM instead of 5 PM. With a presentation to an international audience at 3 PM that day. Eeep! Could have totally been worse.

I made arrangements to fly out Sat evening (the conference ended Fri) to do some sight seeing in D.C. Friday night I caught the last half hour at the Natural History Museum

After getting my bags searched, I was greeted by:

Vegas Photos

As far as a Vegas trip is concerned, mine was pretty tame. M-Thurs there were presentations, tutorials, networking events, etc 8a - 9p. And then I flew out Friday morning pretty early. So no shows, and with my per diem, not really much good food.

So it turns out, that as big as the casinos are, they're not big enough. Seriously. There are several companies that own multiple properties on the strip, and resorts that have the same owner are connected by air conditioned trams. The stations may or may not be air-conditioned, but with trams running every 3-4 mins, it's better even than walking across the street.

Tip: even if your destination is not on the route, use the [free] trams to minimize walking outdoors.

During the week I was there, temps were ~115F during the day and stayed in the upper 90s until 10p, so my wanderings are limited to the resorts accessible from the Monte Carlo: Aria, CityCenter, Bellagio and Vdara.

Here's another view of the City Center shopping complex [top photo looks left of this]. Seriously, it's like only the good stores: Tiffany's, Louis Vitton... you get the idea. For people who really like the Vegas lifestyle, residential condos are available adjoining this area.

Remember this shot?

Part of this awesome Dale Chihuly installation in the foyer at Bellagio. Better pics can be found here.

Here's some more decorations. These can be found at multiple locations in the shopping promenade, again at the Bellagio.

Also at Bellagio is a garden with fantastic decorations. Right now the theme is ants.

The insects and mushrooms are sculptures, but all the greenery is alive.

Beautiful succulents!

Here's an ant transporting an egg

I also liked this quartz sculpture, which lit up at night:

What's this?

Ah, yes, the world's largest chocolate fountain

yum!

Totally amazing ahi salad. In addition to a nice greens mix, with various tomatoes and olives: watermelon. Unexpected and oh so tasty. I am making it a point to include more fruit in my salads.

some parting shots from my hotel room

Things I like: Food

Things I like: Flowers

Things I like: road trips

Sorting thru my photos, I discovered that I don't have too many action shots. I'm still a budding photographer, so this might reflect my inability to snap well-composed action shots. Or it might reflect my serious laziness at lugging a DSLR around.


Washington

Idaho

Montana

Yellowstone/Wyoming

New Mexico

Iowa

(sadly this plant is no more)

An alternative to Photoshop

Photoshop is expensive. I think it retails for ~$800 to the masses, and $200 for the student edition. But Mac and Linux users have an alternative. Behold the alternative (yes, even on windows).

GIMP

the GNU Image Manipulation Program

All the functionality of Photoshop, but free.

Note I said all the functionality. Not the power. One area where GIMP is lacking is a centralized distribution of actions (Photoshop will sell you packages of these), so you will need to use your interwebz research skillz to identify tutorials and scripts that fit your needs. Start with keywords "GIMP" and "actions".  Also, many of the Photoshop tutorials are applicable.

Have you ever wanted to do stop-motion photography? I have. And here's my first one:

iPhoto (part 2)

Hi there. So we were talking about the power of iPhoto, a photo-management software which comes pre-installed on Macs.

And we had these lovely shots as an example

iPhoto to the rescue (part 1 of 2)

Okay, for all you photography geeks, I know, Photoshop is the weapon of choice. However, for us poor folks, what are the options? I'm going to talk about what works on the Mac platform because that's what I'm using right now this instant. (Full disclosure: I also have a dual boot Linux/Vista tower and laptop).

Pre installed software: iPhoto

Check this before and after

Before: