I Am Such a Nerd

I’m such a nerd. Like there was any doubt that a guy who blogs like 3-5 times a day would be anything other than an uber nerd.

A couple of months ago I turned to Twitter with a question. I always turn to Twitter with nerd questions, and I never get any answers or advice or anything outside of occasionally being followed by spam porn accounts, but I digress.

I asked Twitter if anyone had any experience with using external camera lenses with their phones, specifically their iPhones. I was curious about The Photojojo Phone Lens Series, and the Olloclip iPhone camera lens. I was leaning toward Photojojo because it includes a zoom lens, where Olloclip does not.

As mentioned, the Twitterverse was totally silent in response to my questions so I had to decide for myself.

I just ordered the Photojojo set.

I told you I was an uber nerd!

Oh yeah, I also ordered the super deluxe blu-ray version of 2112.

I told you I was an uber nerd!

Grocery Shopping (Nerd Alert)

(this is a nerd alert. the nerd factor on this post is through the nerd roof. consider yourself warned)

I went grocery shopping today and I was on fire!

Jen drew up a list for me before I left home, and there I was in Market Baskett… finding stuff without any trouble. Every single thing on the list, BAM! Found it and threw it into the cart.

I was like a grocery shopping artist. There was no stopping me. Even things I’ve never bought before, like spinach. POW! Right in the cart.

I was so pleased that I went all Hipstamatic shake-to-randomize.

Backing Up Flickr

I have tried a couple of different publicly available (free) programs to back up my Flickr account. There are over 25,000 pictures on the account so backing up is kind of a huge undertaking.

The last time I did this it was on a windows machine. The program I used worked well, but not perfectly. It failed when there were multiple files in a set that had the same file name. Why it did not use Flickr’s ID and guarantee uniqueness, I will never know, but the result was my iPhone sets were missing just about everything. The upload app I normally use sticks the name “photo” on everything that isn’t specifically given a name. Therefore the back up program just kept overwriting everything.

last night I ran a really slick python script i found. It ran from the terminal on my Mac and it backed up everything perfectly. I was really pleased. I checked the folder created to hold my iPhone 4 set and everything was there.

How many photos were in the folder?

2,112.

Thats right, Rush fans… 2112.

My 2012 in Pictures – Part Deux

Yeah, I did a my-year-in-pictures thing the other day. It was fun. What the hell, thought I, why not do it again? This time I’ll run fast and loose with the whole one-pic-from-each-month thing. I’m crazy like that.

We have to get our pics of the Sands Bridge in Methuen before she collapses. Or maybe I should say before she finishes collapsing. It’s already started. Also, I don’t think I found a relative in the Grove Street Cemetery, but who knows?

In February I finally finished an RPM Challenge on time. It only took me five tries. We also got a new bed. Jen’s penguin approved.

In March, the kids and I became wilderness explorers. Hipstamatic came along for the ride. Actually, we just wandered around in the woods behind our house for a little while. It was fun.

April in San Diego. I want to go back RIGHT NOW!

May gave us baseball, Bar Harbor, and my first up close New England Lighthouse.

The picture pickin’s are slim in June, but we did get a new Rush album (and it is awesome) and we got another fantastic piano recital from the kids.

July offers more choices after a spontaneous trip to Boston, and a week long stay in Maine that included some time in the mountains of New Hampshire.

In August we went to the Top of the Hub for the first time in my life. The views of my city were spectacular. We also spent some twilight time on Hampton Beach.

September had mountain waterfalls, leaf peeping, my first ever attempt at photo-walking in Tewksbury, and more Rush.

October continues to belong to Washington, DC.

The camera didn’t come out much in November, but I did torture the cat, and my wife, with my camera phone, and we did celebrate Turkey Day.

December had more mountains, more mountain streams, and Christmas.

And there we have a second view of my 2012 in pictures. Forgive the gratuitousness.

Happy New Year (again).

ER

This is what the emergency room looks like:

This is what the emergency room feels like:

My Assistant

Patches likes to come out and try to help me work whenever I telecommute. Not right away though. She has to have her 6+ hour power nap first, so she comes out and says hello at about 3:30.

Moon Over the Gas Station

iPhone Astrophotography: The Moon Over the Gas Station.

We had a snow storm Saturday night into Sunday. I cleaned off the cars and the driveway on Sunday morning, but then stayed home for the rest of the day. When I took the kids to their father’s before work today I realized that I was a touch low on gas. I could probably get to work, but probably couldn’t get there and back without a fill up.

After dropping the kids off I went to a gas station near their dad’s house. I hit the button next to the driver’s seat to open up the gas tank and went outside… and the gas tank didn’t open. Ummm. That’s never happened before. I tried again. Nothing. I tried prying it open with the only tool I had on me, a pen cap. Nothing. Eventually, after about five minutes of digging and prying with the pen cap, and hitting the button over and over again, it opened and I could fill up. I took a picture of the moon to memorialize the occasion.

Happy New Year.

Dueling iPads

My beloved is locked in a dueling iPads game of Monopoly against her daughter. They are both listening to music at the same time so when they talk about the game they are both yelling.

I couldn’t love my family more.