Kathy & I recently returned from a 2-week adventure to Scotland. Wow, what an adventure it was! I have nearly 3,000 photos to go through and that’s going to take me a while. In the meantime, here are a few early winners to whet your appetite!
All posts by Tom Dills
Folkmoot Parade of Nations
Here is a sampling of my photos from the 2017 Folkmoot Festival Parade of Nations in Waynesville, NC. My success rate was compromised a bit by a less than ideal location (about 20 yards from the main performance area) and less-than-ideal lighting conditions, but I managed to get a few photos that tell the story. After seeing the parade for the first time, I’m now determined to go back and capture the festivities from before the parade to after. I think it might make a good project and would be good practice at telling a story.
A Little International Flavor
An annual event in Waynesville, NC is the Folkmoot Festival that takes place at the end of July. We typically get to Waynesville during the month of July, but for all our trips there we had never made it to the Folkmoot Festival or anything that had to do with it. This year, while planning our July visit I happened to notice that some of the performers would be participating in the annual Street Dance in downtown on Friday night, and that the Parade of Nations on Saturday would be right down Main Street That was too easy to pass up, so we went.
At Friday’s Street Dance, the Ogon’ki Ensemble from Russia (Siberia) were featured. They put on a great show with several groups of performers. These photos are from that performance. I also got some photos from the parade the following day, but those will need to wait for another post!
A Folder Full of Phone Photos
Got a bit behind (again) but catching up.
Kathy & I spent some time at the NC coast in early July, visiting Belhaven, Washington and Ocracoke. While I took my camera with me, it seemed like whenever I saw something interesting all I had with me was my phone. Out of a total of 93 photos, 77 were taken with my phone and only 16 with my camera. These are all from my phone.
A Visit to Jamaica – Ya, Mon!
I haven’t been terribly motivated to process photos lately but forced myself to get a few done for this post. It’s a tough job and no one is going to do it but me! 🙂
Kathy & I spent the Memorial Day weekend at Half Moon, a resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Quiet and laid back, Half Moon was just the answer to a hectic spring and early summer. I went with only my lowly Olympus point & shoot, but still managed to come home with a few photos.
Discretionary Spending
I just read an article talking about how a well-known shoe retailer missed analysts’ earnings estimates, blamed in part on a “slowdown in processing of tax refunds.” I’m admittedly naive about how people choose to spend their money, but it seems to me that a tax refund shouldn’t have that much of an impact on shoe sales. And if it does, would it be possible that people are spending too much money on shoes?
Revisiting some previously unprocessed photos from a year ago, just for fun. Enjoy, and happy Friday. TGIF! 🙂
Sunday Morning
Some Sundays I have a very grueling To-Do list:
- Make Coffee
- Drink Coffee
So far I have accomplished one and am working diligently on the other. And I have done a blog post, so that makes me an overachiever, right? 😉
Quitting LinkedIn
“If a LinkedIn account gets deleted in the forest and no one is around to see it, does anyone really care?” with apologies to George Berkeley
I recently decided to close out my LinkedIn account. Like I suspect a lot of folks did, I started on LinkedIn because it was supposed to be a professional networking site. While it certainly has its devotees and I’m certain that for many people it is a critical part of their business day, I just never found it to be all that useful. I was getting connection requests from people I don’t know who were just trying to sell me stuff, recommendations from people for skills that I probably have but don’t really care about promoting, and even after shutting off all the notifications, it was just something else I had to do. And now, since I tend to be trying to minimize my distractions and obligations, it just seemed to be time. I had planned to close it before the recent change in their terms of service and had already deleted most of my connections, but that email was the catalyst I needed to shut it down.
So I’m still on Facebook, although I rarely look at it and don’t share anything other than my blog posts. I’m on Instagram but don’t post much and don’t have many followers or follow many people (by design). I have a Twitter account but have never tweeted, although I think I might have liked or shared a thing or two. Most importantly, the people who need to reach me know how. and those who matter the most to me are probably reading this blog. Maybe all the way to the end! 😉
Printer Update
In my Computer Update post I noted that the one remaining item (and unexpected expense) from my recent computer conversion was the decision to replace my aging printer. This past weekend I received and set up my new printer – a Canon Pixma Pro 100. It has a lot going for it – most notably the price. With a $200 rebate the net cost to me was under $200, and it came with $50 worth of free paper. And I sold my old iMac to Gazelle for $150, so the out of pocket cost is practically $0! Of course I immediately reinvested some of that savings in a second set of ink, but at $125 for the new printer instead of $900 for ink for my old printer, it was an expense that is far more easily digested.
Some would say that it was foolish to get rid of a functioning printer just because I didn’t want to spend the money on consumables. In some respects those comments would be correct, and that was something I seriously considered in weighing my decision. The cost of said consumables was substantial, especially for a printer that got only occasional use. Every time I turned that thing on, it had to go through a long startup and cleaning cycle, and it felt like I was replacing an ink cartridge (at $75 each!) every time. Certainly the cost of ink is less per drop (or milliliter or however one chooses to measure ink cost) for a larger printer than a small printer. And the cost of roll paper is less than the cost of sheets. Regardless of those factors, it was hard to ignore the low initial and operating costs of the smaller printer. That, combined with a smaller footprint in my office, the promise of improved technology and a newer generation ink set made it a no-brainer.
The negatives are few, but include the fact that this printer uses die inks instead of pigment inks. Die inks are traditionally thought of as being less archival than pigment inks – they might only last 100 years…gasp! But pigment inks are generally thought of as being more prone to clogging than die inks, and for a printer that doesn’t see daily use, that was somewhat important to me. Importantly, color accuracy is similar between the two ink types as long as they are set up properly, and I think I’ve just about got that nailed.
The ability to use the Soft Proof function in Lightroom has been a welcome addition and has been leading to more accurate results without wasting a lot of paper. Since I wasn’t able to print from my computer when it was impersonating a Mac I never had a chance to use Soft Proofing. But now that I can use it from Windows, that improvement alone was worth the cost and effort of the change.
The fact of the matter is that my needs have changed since I bought the large printer. I rarely need to print anything larger than 13×19, and more often than not I would need to print larger than the old printer could print and would have to send the file to an outside print lab anyway. I have a couple of excellent choices for outside printing, so as long as I know I have an accurate file I have no problem sending the file to someone else to print. The smaller printer gives me a “good enough” proof for those purposes. For my own use, I have a lot less wall space now than I used to have, so I don’t do as much printing for my own use. Most of what I print for myself is for décor purposes, and printed on wood, canvas or metal. So I’m sending that work out anyway.
Probably the biggest challenge was figuring out how to get rid of the old printer. No one wanted it, for the same reasons I didn’t want it. I could take it to the county recycling center, but it weighed 120 pounds and wasn’t something that Kathy & I were going to move ourselves. I could have asked the kids to help me but decided against it. As it turns out I called one of the “Junk Hauling” companies, and two guys and a truck came on Saturday morning and hauled it away for under $100. It probably made our neighbors curious but was well worth the cost. Done and gone!
So there you have it. I think the transition can be called a success, and I am still way ahead of that $3,000 bill that I would have had with a new Mac. And I didn’t have to buy all those dongles!
Full Pond
Kathy & I had occasion to pass through Lake Lure, NC this past weekend. I was interested to see that the lake levels and the supply of resident boats have returned. Some may recall an earlier post in January where the lake levels were lower for the winter. It looks like things are ready for spring at Lake Lure!
