BlogPress? What?!

Well guess what folks- I'm blogging... In my car... On my iPhone. Pretty sweet huh?! I thought so too!

How am I accomplishing this great feat? Well I'm sure you can guess from the title, but I'm using the $2.99 app from the app store called BlogPress. It's really cool because it cover multiple platforms. This means that now I can write directly to both my Blogger and WordPress accounts with one application! I can upload text, photos, videos and connect the app with my Twitter and/or Facebook accounts. Now that's what I call killing 5 birds with 3 $1 coins!

Anywho... Since I am on the road and have this amazing new tool, you people get to read all of my thoughts while I'm traveling! Geepers, I sure hope I can make this interesting. Otherwise, you will just be reading a very long blog post about a whole lot of nothing. Haha oh well!

First thought- I'm in the backseat. I have to stay here the whole trip because I don't know where we are going (SC) and because Dan gets carsick if he is in the back and because I'm not going to make or let my mom sit in the back. That just wouldn't be cool of me, now would it?
Now, because I am in the backseat, my legs are super cramped. This would be fine if the back of the seat in front of me would be padded- but it's not. It's hard plastic, which doesn't rub well with the scar on my knee.

Second thought- this is a 5 hour road trip. I sure am glad I downloaded 80 new songs for my iTunes library last night! I wonder if I listen to each song how long it would last in relation to the trip. :/ hmm I could also watch one of the 12 movies I have on my iPhone. Too bad I don't have Forrest Gump on here. That's my favoritest movie of all time. I just can't bring myself to paying the $9 to iTunes for a movie that I already own. I suppose I could use a DVD Converter to transfer it from one format to the other.... Nah- too much trouble. I'm a busy man. I don't have time for all of that.

Third thought- my back hurts. Ehh... Not funsies. I even put a different mattress and box spring on my bed. Not all that much difference. What I need to do is set up an appointment with my chiropractor. Or just get a new spine. One of those.

Fourth thought- Everything looks better through a polarized lens. Well, except darkness, but that's beside the point.

Fifth thought- Apple. Adobe Flash... Steve Jobs, sir, you are a moron. You have come up with some absolutely life changing products, and you nearly control half of the world of personal handheld electronics. Even after doing this, you are still a moron. I don't care if you have a health problem, that doesn't prevent you from being criticized or being called a moron by some no-name blogger. I think you might need to add blindness to your list of health concerns. Pretty much the largest difference in your products and other major contributors such as Samsung is the fact that they run Flash and your products do not. Don't you see that if you fixed your disagreements with Adobe, that would completely choke out a large majority of your competition? And don't lie to yourself- they are competition now... You've allowed them to earn that title. Wake up, open your eyes, and see the possibilities. Run Flash and reclaim your spot as ruler of the computer, smartphone, tablet, and music playing worlds. Please. Thanks! :)

Sixth thought- In celebration of National Hotdog Month, I'd like to talk about wieners. How do you like them? Plain Jane, Ketchup, Mustard, Onions, Relish, Chili, Cheese, Sauerkraut, or a combination of those? Do you like them extra long, or thick? Do you like buns or no? Let me know what you think! I'm a ketchup and mustard kinda guy. Occasionally chili and cheese. Special thanks to Oscar and Meier for giving us great meat that the whole family can enjoy!

Seventh thought- Satan called at one of the local gas station phone booths- he wants his weather back. It is 105°F here in SC! Notice that he called into a pay phone... Satan doesn't have my number- we just happened to be stopping to get something to refresh our parched throats when he made the call.

Eighth thought- I feel like I'm writing to myself right now. I bet none of you even read past my 5th thought. Haha

Ninth thought- I think I should probably limit this post to 10 thoughts. Sadly that only leaves me one more thought- but it mist be done.

Tenth thought- I miss hanging out with all of my Ricos in CR. I can't wait till I can go back and see everyone again. Maybe by that time my leg will be healed up well enough for me to play fútbol with them. #homeawayfromhome

BONUS THOUGHT!!!
I must admit a fault of mine. In my last post, I claimed that nobody in their right minds would rant about coffee. Sadly this is not true. In fact, I will now proceed to write a two sentence rant about coffee- I can't stand it when coffee is burned! Drinking burned coffee is almost worse than drinking iced coffee. :(

Hope you enjoyed that bonus thought!

Feel free to share yours in the little white box below!

Toodles!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Stonehaven Dr,Greenville,United States

Let's see...

I have been pretty busy lately. A large majority of my time has been dedicated to where I am going to go to college. I should say, where I am going to transfer to. A lot of times…

By the way, this post has absolutely no specific thoughts behind it and no intended topic. If what I say seems random, then good- I think? ANYWHO

… a lot of times when people transfer into schools, the become virtual freshmen. They don’t really know anybody, they aren’t familiar with the facilities, and they have to start fresh. This is a very sad statement. Sure, these people have to make a transition into a new area, but they shouldn’t be labeled as a freshman. The term ‘freshman’ has quite a bit of labels and assumptions that go along with it, many of which are negative. I am simply stating that I don’t look forward to being viewed as a freshman.

Has anyone ever noticed that their writing style is completely different from the way they speak? This is the case for me, and as a blogger and a student, I am not sure that I enjoy having my “professional” writing style flowing over into my blog. At times, a more professional style of writing has its benefits, but there are also advantages to writing in a more personal and interactive tone. I may try writing how I speak every once in a while.

Writing prompts… Who uses them? Who thinks they are helpful? Who thinks they are a good tool?    I am not against getting ideas from other people at all, but when it comes to writing, I just get a bad taste in my mouth when I start looking for things to write about. It is very much against being naturally inspired and can make the entire tone of a post seem scripted and impersonal. I have tried using prompts. I simply can’t manage to feel good about writing what someone else suggests writing about. The same goes for reading. I may take a look at a piece of work that one of my friends suggests, but I refuse to do so unless the subject material seems interesting to me. One of the things I hate(d) about school is the fact that I get forced into reading material that completely bores me. Sure, it turned out to be enjoyable maybe 20% of the time, but for the most part, reading in school is just annoying. I can’t stand reading anything that I don’t want to read. Perhaps this is one of my downfalls… perhaps I don’t care. No… not perhaps. I don’t care.

MARCO!

How about a big

SHOUT-OUT

to Jared Polin at froknowsphoto.com?! Yay Jared Polin. Thanks for teaching me almost everything I know about photography!

I find it humorous how hypocritical some people are… especially within my workplace. Sometimes I just want to slap some people and point out how ridiculous they sound. I really think it might do them some good, but I really think it would get me fired- so I won’t slap anyone. I need the money too desperately. Maybe whenever I get to the point where I can switch jobs I will do something drastic (but hilarious). There’s nothing like going out in style.

Babies.

Puppies.

They’re both new to the world. “Well that’s great to know. Thanks Captain Obvious” Well here is a bit of information that you may not know. You people sound like a bunch of idiots. Talking to puppies and babies like they’re, well, babies. It is completely ridiculous! Not to mention annoying as all get out. For goodness sakes, please just talk like normal humans do. You want your kids and dogs to be the smartest in the world? Then don’t confuse them by talking to them differently than you talk to every other person in the world. It has to be confusing and cause more learning than is necessary. I can’t prove anything right now, but I would be willing to bet that children and dogs that are spoken to in a natural voice will learn quicker than those who are spoken to in a high-pitched, annoying, repetitive voice. Just sayin’.

Should I end this post with that rant, or should I talk about coffee?

Well, I have decided to end with that. Rants are more exciting than coffee, unless it’s taken with coffee. Sadly, I can’t give you coffee in the middle of a rant… just after or before. Unless I rant about coffee- and who in their right mind would rant about coffee?!

Toodles!

Just give me a gun...

At this point, I just want to go shoot something. I don’t really care what type of gun I shoot it with- M16, 12 gague shotgun, Ruger, Glock, whatever. Just give me a gun, and give me a target.

But honey, you're too old to...

Yesterday I had the privilege of accompanying my step-dad to one of his tennis matches. He plays in a 50 and over league, and just barely squeaked by the age limit. He just so happened to be 50 by the time the season rolled around, so he was able to meet the requirements.

I had planned on going and just taking pictures of the matches so that I could add them to my portfolio for athletics. I was able to get a few good action shots.

 So, I got my shots… but thats not all! I got intrigued and inspired.  These men and women were out there putting everything they had into winning each point. They weren’t worried about their bum knee (which one guy had), or their arthritis, or their high blood pressure. They went hard in the paint!

These people were over 50! Heck, there was a mother and daughter playing in the same league! (thats the one in the photo above [mom] and the one with the green skirt [daughter]). I was just amazed at how well this group of people moved around the court and how little their age meant when it came to playing the game. Now sure, after each game and set they were complaining all over the place, but only to their teammates.

It just got me thinking:

1. Will I be active enough to still be able to play sports when I’m their age? Half of them could have beaten me!

and

2. What kind of age limitations do I put on myself without even thinking about it? I’d like to think of myself as someone who doesn’t really care what other people think of my age, but I’m not sure what I’d like to think and what I actually think line up.

Moral of the story: Never limit yourself based on age. (well except for clothing… nothing’s worse than seeing an old lady walking around in a mini-skirt or a belly shirt) LOL

Review of Aperture 3

As you know, one of my biggest hobbies is photography. Half of the fun comes from going out and actually capturing the images with my camera. The other half, however, comes from taking those captured images and making them even better by editing them. There are many different software options and platforms with which you can edit your photos. I choose Apple’s photo editing software, Aperture 3.

Below, I will show you what it feels like to work with Aperture 3: importing, organizing, and editing.

First, let’s talk about importing your photos. Aperture allows you to import directly from your hard drive or from any external device that is connected to your computer. As you can see below, Aperture automatically recognized my camera memory card (NIKON D3000) and has brought up the files located within that device. Choosing the files you wish to import is very easy. The files are displayed in either the browser (thumbnails), Split View (thumbnails with image preview), or Viewer (full images). Aperture allows you to select the files you wish to import by clicking a box on each photo, and then lets you pick where you wish to import them to by either selecting a project that has already been created, or by creating a new project.

Organizing your photos with Aperture 3 is clean and simple. When looking at the screenshot below, you can see that there are many different options for photo organization. First you have your entire library. Within that library, you can create projects. Projects are essentially folders within your library that allow you to coordinate which photos belong to certain, well, projects. I use projects all the time! For example, I participate in “Raw File of the Week” in the forums of http://froknowsphoto.com/. All of the raw files I download and edit go within my “Edit this Raw File” project, making it easy to keep those photos separate from all of my other images. I also have projects for my Flickr account and for my blog photos.

Another cool feature that Aperture 3 has for organization is Faces and Places. With Places, you separate your images by the locations where you took them. Photo Metadata makes this possible. Aperture’s Faces folder automatically detects and organizes your photos by similar faces. You can name a set of photos with someone’s name and then move images that have been recognized into their respective Faces categories.

As you can see below, Aperture 3 also has some very handy sharing options. Aperture allows you to directly export your photos to email, MobileMe, Facebook, and Flickr. I have yet to use these exporting options, simply because I place watermarks on my photos before I export them. I do think that they would be a great tool though.

Finally, we move on to editing the photos themselves. I have had so much fun playing around with this software. For my needs, Aperture 3 is beyond capable of producing fantastic results. This product could satisfy even tough professional photographers.

Lets begin with the Presets. Aperture offers many preset alterations that are very similar to an “autocorrect” feature that most computers have at base configuration. Within Presets, you have the option to edit color, white balance, and to make the image different variations of b&w. You also have Quick Fixes within the Presets drop-down. Quick Fixes allow you to auto-enhance the quality, adjust the exposure + or -, and to hold highlights / brighten shadows.

Next you have, Adjustments. I won’t take the time to explain what each adjustment does, because that is part of the fun involved with playing with it yourself.  All of the changes that you make within Adjustments are non-destructive, meaning they can be removed or added at any time before you choose to export the image. Even after you export the image, you can still come back later and edit the photo as if  you never left. Just to give you an idea, I will describe some of the cool features of Quick Brushes within Adjustments. Probably my favorite Quick Brush is the Skin Smoothing brush. This does exactly what you think it does. Ever wanted to get that retouched smooth look that you have only seen from professional companies? Well now you have that power in your hands. Skin smoothing makes pores and wrinkles seem to disappear. Similar to Skin Smoothing, is the Retouch feature. Using Retouch, you can either clone or “fix” spots within the photo such as telephone lines or blemishes in skin. For an example, just check out the before and after shots of the photo shown within the screenshot below.
Overall, the editing capability of Aperture 3 is very user friendly and completely worthwhile.

Below are some photos that I have taken and then edited using Aperture 3. Let me know what you think! Keep in mind that I am by no means a pro. All of the edits that I have done could have been done by any amateur using this photo editing software.

Before and After

If you have any questions or comments about Aperture 3, please feel free to let me know in the box below this post. I’d love to hear what you think about the software. If you have any feedback on my edits, those are welcome as well. Thanks!

A Ride Through History.

One of my favorite things to do is drive- not just to drive, but to travel without direction. Today I took the time to go exploring for a while. I had no idea where I was going or where the road would take me. As it turned out, I would be driving through history.

My excursion brought me to the “Historic Town of Marshall, NC.”

Nothing more in size than a hole in the wall, Marshall’s downtown spanned less than about 1 square mile. Despite its size, this area had quite a lot to offer. It was void of modern pleasures, but packed with tradition and relics of a time not so long ago.

In finding this town, I was reminded of a more calm, less complicated time in which my parents and grandparents lived.

My stay was limited, but the time that I spent in downtown Marshall was very advantageous. I rode off into the distance with a new state of mind. I now have a more acute appreciation for simplicity and historical beauty.

Having this experience sure makes it easier to listen to the words of our elders: “Back in my day, we used to…” seems just a little bit more real than it did before this experience.

I then proceeded to go home, eat, and chop down a few trees. Overall, today was a great day.

I went to the woods...

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…’”

Henry David Thoreau

Don’t confuse wandering aimlessly for living deliberately.

“The steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord.” -Psalm 37:23

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” -Jeremiah 29:11

“Your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” -Psalm 119:105

“When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” -John 8:12

I miss my dog... I want a dog...

What to write about...

This usually doesn’t happen. I typically have tons of subjects that I could write about at any given time. Today, that is not so. I don’t have anything to write about… Not only do I not have anything to write about, I don’t even want to write about anything. I think I might not have anything to write about because I don’t want to write. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe I don’t want to write because I have nothing to write about. *Sigh* Oh well…

So, that whole soliloquy  you see above, that is what I am going to talk about in this blog post. I don’t want to be writing right now.

If I do this methodically, I’ll try and list reasons why I don’t want to write. So here they are:

• I love to write, but I don’t love writing because it is all I have to do.
• I am bored
• I have nothing interesting to do
• All of the things that might be interesting to do, I can’t do.
• I can’t do those things because I am either too broke, too carless, too short on time, or too busy.
• I’m kinda frustrated because my day wasn’t all that great so far and shows very little to no promise of getting better.
• Other than about 3 people, I am getting very little response from readers. I don’t write these posts just for my own pleasure. (Don’t throw me a guilt comment though, that’s no fun)
• I’m in emotional limbo right now, which means deep intellectual writing is unexciting and pointless. I’m neither happy nor sad, although I’m certain that I could be close to one or the other.
• I haven’t had the chance to work on my photography, which means that I have no new photos to post in my blog. I don’t like just having words on the page, so if I have nothing to go along with what I write, the writing itself becomes less exciting.
• Monotony from my daily routine is settling in, especially because I have nothing to do. Monotony is not good for writers.
• I haven’t done anything lately that is worth writing about…       I’m a party animal, what can I say?

Question- So, if I don’t even feel like writing, why am I doing it?

Answer- I’ve always heard that it is good for a writer to write something every day. It doesn’t matter what, as long as it’s something…

Well, there’s my something: why I don’t feel like writing something.

Toodles!