What's the point of having a blog if you don't updated it every day, or week. Well, part of the problem is that there are so many blog opportunities (not to mention Twitter and Facebook) that it's easy to just get sidelined. I don't know if I'll get back to this one any time soon. For now, here's an update on what's been going on.

• We moved to Feeding Hills
• We're building over the garage
• It's getting cold, but so far, no snow

I'm A G-Man! ...and I failed Title 999

Technically, I'm an "Enumerator" for the U.S. Census Bureau. That nothing more than a census taker, an expression still used in their commercials on TV. It's a part time, short term job, and I'm having fun meeting all sorts of new people. It took four days of training to learn the ropes, but it was worth it because there's a lot to know before going out and delving into people's lives, short as the intersect with them may be.

While in the middle of this adventure, we seem to have actually sold our house. The nitty-gritty details have to be worked out and the buyers must get financing, but the end is in sight. So, in addition to being a government employee part time, I have to help pack up a large house, sell off things we won't need anymore, make any repairs the buyers insist we have made, and - oh by the way - get our septic system replaced.

Ouch.

That's right, we failed Title 5. The old system got tired. We never had any problems with it - no backups, soggy ground - but it's "technically" a failed system. Outwardly, it looks fine. Inwardly, it's not. It shouldn't take too much time for the repair. We just need to throw money at it.

When we tell people who we've just met about our situation - the move, the new opportunities, living near Six Flags (not kidding) - they always say something like, "well, enjoy your retirement". That gets me. I always have to tell them, "I am not retired, we ar too young!" Do I really look that old? The truth is, I'm simply out of work - between careers to an optimist but, like my Title 5 problem, I have a failed career. There should be a Title Something for that. "I failed Title 999...so I'm looking for something new".

My proposal:

• Title 999 - a failed career
• Title 998 - a failed marriage
• Tittle 997 - ran out of beer

I can hear a future conversation now...

MAN 1: "How's it going?"

MAN 2: "Not so well, I have a Title 999 problem. Looks like Title 998 is shaky. The good news is that, so far, I'm doing OK with 997."

I'm A Born-Again HDR Photographer

I can't say I've "discovered" HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography at this point. It's been around for a while and I've certainly enjoyed seeing its implementation. That's not the same as becoming a fan, however. Early on, I wasn't because I though most of the photos I saw using this technique were to odd for my tastes. Now that I've tried it, and applied some additional tricks of my own liking, I'm there.

So, what is HDR? Wikipedia has a good description so I'll just summarize here:

1. Film or photo sensors can't "see" all the lights and darks in many scenes.
2. You have to decide which to favor.
3. Your image will probably not look good.
4. You can tweak the image in your computer.
5. If you're smart and clever, your tweaks will be OK but not always great.

HDR takes this to another level. It makes 2-5 easy.

Here's one of my efforts offered as an example...

This came about as a result of five pictures, from way over exposed to way under, that I shot using a tripod. The HDR software and other special effects software did their magic and I liked the result.

So, now I'm addicted. In the past few weeks, I've done over a dozen similar images and I see no end in sight. Not all images will have the HDR "look". The scene of the rapids in Putnam, CT is about as weird as I'm willing to let HDR go. The next image...

...has a more painterly feel and it's more in line with what I like. But, who knows what I'll do with HDR over time. Maybe weird will become the norm for me.

You can see most of my HDR work on Project 52.

Project 52 Update

It's been keeping me busy. I thought at the onset that I might have trouble keeping things going. Then, my friend Steve Morse suggested that we go off every once in a while and do some photography. I jumped at that and it's been a blessing in disguise. I've had some fun with the images I've captured during our treks and they've helped fill out some of these early weeks. I had thought that most of my efforts would revolve around music. I haven't abandoned that but photos have been the main thrust. I think that's because, for me, photos are more immediate and more easily manipulated. I'm not so creative that I can think of a photo in my head and go off and recreate it. I can sort of do that with music. The problem is that, when I get a musical idea, it's harder for me to evolve it into a finished state. For prose and poetry, to the extent that I dabble in those, they fall between photos and music, but are more like photos in how quickly the evolve.

The good news, for me, is that Project 52 gives me a target, a deadline, a commitment to be fulfilled. Even though it's self imposed, I take it seriously enough and it gets done!

Really, I Can't Sing Is Online

I had asked a musician friend if he'd like a copy of the CD music I created last year. He asked me to upload it and I thought, why not? ...it's about time. It's not like I can sell this stuff or anything. After all, really, I can't sing!

So, here is the link...

RCDanek.us/OGRB

OGRB stands for Old Guy Rock Band and, even though the CD didn't include other musician in its recording, it's sort of a band effort because the folks I jam with are my virtual OGRB band and helped by willing playing along with the tunes while I was still fine tuning them. It's so much better to actually be able to hear them played that way. So, thanks to Mark, Dixon, Steve.

Google and Me

I love Google. From what I've read about the company, they are a nice place to work, they promote goodness in the Internet, and they provide nice, free stuff for folks like me to use. I'm hooked on Reader, I'm getting into Buzz, Wave is kind of out there but looks promising, and I've been a Gmail dude for a long time.

Regarding Gmail, I had figured out a while ago that all the separate email accounts I had (Charter, SCATC, others) could autoforward. So, if I autoforwarded everything to Google, and then used that as my mail server, I'd have a simpler life. I could check my mail locally on my Mac (which Apple's Mail dutifully would download from Google when started). In fact, could check my mail anywhere I was that I had Internet access. But, to do that, I had to leave my mail on Google's Gmail and not do download and delete as one may do on most servers.

Well, after a long while, the number of emails I had stored on Google was way too large. I recall a number over 24,000. It would take forever to read them all! Now, I had already processed these via downloads to Apple's Mail (or Thunderbird before that on my Linux/Windows systems). But, something interesting happened. I decided that I would be better of not using Apple's Mail every day. I already had my browser going all the time, and the Gmail page was living in an ever present tab. In fact, I've started using Google's Chrome browser all the time, so now it's all in the family, so to speak.

But here's the problem. Google gave me, for free, a bagillion bytes of storage for free. I thought I might never run out of this - a foolish assumption. I figured, there would come a day when I'd need to prune my message and if ever the message count got to filling the bagillion bytes, I'd be better of shooting myself in the head. So, I decided to start pruning now.

The process of pruning was/is painful with Gmail because they never show you more than a set number of messages. I have mine configured for 100, but the default is 20. When I try to scroll through older message, they come up 100 at a time. With 24,000 to go, I'd be scrolling for a long while. I decided to use Search to help. I figured that, if I just searched for those message senders I didn't need to keep, like Sears or Home Depot or Amazon or any of the other ad-based emailers out there, I'd have a easier time of pruning...just not 20 per page at a time. Then I discovered the "All" and "Select all conversations that match this search" option. "All" is pretty obvious, it lets you select all the messages that are displayed in the search window. But, if there are hundreds of search result matches, and you see them 20 at a time, it's a pain to have to do them one section at a time. That's where the second option pays off. It lets you select all the others. The, a "Delete" and they are done. Cool.

I'm now down to 10,000 or so message. I'm comfortable with that. Also, I'm not using Gmail as my primary client, deleting as I go on. Then, every few days (or weekly?) I'll run Apple's Mail to pull down to my local site. That way, if I need to access something while the Internet is busy, or dead, I'll have access.

This is a win-win.

I think I love Google. "Do no evil" ...this is actually in their Corporate Philosophy...

6. You can make money without doing evil.

How nice is that!.

Project 52

Project 52 is something new I started last week to force me to concentrate on creativity. Hopefully, useful things will come out of it. Of course, I hope I can keep it going with good stuff and I hope I don't run out of gas.

Here's the link: http://rcdanek.us/project52/

Google Voice is a an interesting, free offering from the Internet giant. You sign up, get a phone number (or use your existing one), and have some nice features available to you. I opted for a new number and was able to get one that includes CASEY01 in it. Neat. (Your mileage may vary.)

Well, one of the new features is that, if someone calls your number and leaves a voice message, Google will transcribe it into text. This way, you can hear the message on your voicemail and you can read the message as well. I get the text versions as a standard text message on my phone as well as an inbox text message on my personal Google Voice website inbox.

What so much fun is that the translation for spoken word to text is often inaccurate. There are many reasons for this. The cell phone originating the call may be garbled, the speaker may be bouncing around in a car or walking, making the speech pattern sound off. Who knows.

Here are some unrelated text translations from my friend, Dixon, who, so far, is the only one actually calling my new number.

Enjoy...


"Hi Dick, this is Dickson hobbled I was just heading over and i thought i'd let. Maybe I should of bats called yesterday and I got the message it sounds sort of like God show up withoutyour and I hope that's how you understood it. Anyway, I'm on my way over, but I realized that the then upset about not getting in touch. Anyway, I was. I'll see you when I see you.Thanks. Bye."


"Thank you. Hey, it's 6 and 2. I was thing, so I'm off. I put the web but I got lost in the day on chat and Shawn that, but I'll be free later in the air. 2. Hello."


"Hi Casey, this is Jason and that's when I get time the rafson it's 5:30 right now and I'm sure there are a Shah, I was just wondering what was works heading over or not, this is numberdidn't get to the subminimum. I will try your other number and see if I get that okay. Talk to you soon. Bye."


I still laugh to myself when I read these.

Google Voice is a good service. Someday, maybe, they'll get this translation thing working better. It's not entirely necessary because the audio version of the message is always available. But, if they can make straight messages sound this funny...I'm all for it never changing!!!

Between Weeks

Sunday morning, the Patriots are playing in their first playoff game at 1:00 PM. I have company coming (Camera Club) to review some images from our sister club in England. I guess it will be a busy day. I should get moving soon to do some cleaning and setup. If the club members arrive when the game is ending, I'll likely ignore them. There are priorities.

Patriots are expected to win, but anything can happen.

I did have a wonderful time last week visiting Art, Jeanne, and Steven in Merchantville. I was supposed to help Art with a video interview, but the dates got messed up and it didn't happen. We worked on some computer problems and secured/extended his home network. In fact, we found out that Steven, with his own computer, had been hooking into a neighbor's unsecured network accidentally.

While there, I got to visit the Martin Guitar Factory in Nazareth, PA. Wow! Now I want a Martin. Really. It's a good thing they're too expensive. Lessens the temptation. (I teased Lee about this and I think she really thought I was going to buy one.)

Who Am I, Really

I thought I'd start off 2010 with an explanation of my name, or names. Folks know me by different monikers and that can confuse some. So, here goes.

I was born and named after my grandfather. Kazimierz. I have a birth certificate somewhere attesting to that, although I can't read it because it's in German. (Well, I guess I can figure out the relevant parts.)

I grew up in Worcester in the Vernon Hill area. I was, up till about five, completely immersed in Polish. That was the language I understood. Then, I was released into the wild meeting English speaking kids and my transformation to Polish-English and English-Polish began. I think it took 20 minutes. Maybe less. I can't be sure. Seriously, I have no recollection of struggling with language back then. Kids just figure stuff out so magnificently at that age. (I envy that.)

But, the name think, well, that was a problem. Most kids got it by calling me Kaz. (Which, in today's day and age is a neat sounding name...back then, though.) The bad memory I have is walking down the street and having some kids yell out "Hey, Cashmere Bouquet". If you know what Casmere Bouquet is, and you're a boy, you just don't want anyone calling you that. So, I was always envious of my American friends who, Polish or not or whatever, had American sounding names (like Steve, or Paul, or Georgie, or Ray.)