YUMMY!
From First To (Tied For) Worst
Last night the critic didn’t much care for my photo. He quickly ripped it apart, and then dismissed it by moving on to the next shot. Many of my friends fared better, however. Five of our little gang of FlickrRPS members either took a place, or honorable mention in the digital category. I’ll admit that I have a competitive streak and that not placing with everyone else hurt a bit. While I didn’t entirely agree with all of the critic’s remarks about my photo I have taken some of them to heart and hope to use them to improve my future submissions.
ITP Flickr Pic
This was the shot that I submitted.
The critic didn’t like:
- the lighting in the shot (wrong time of day)
- the fact that I didn’t perfectly correct the perspective of the building (I tried, but failed)
- the blue in the sky wasn’t dark enough (again, I tried but failed)
No need to tell me what you think, I’m just posting it because some might ask and I really don’t have anything else to put up today.
Just How Do You Milk An Almond?
When last I visited Raleigh ITP-Reader Randy’s brother Kevin bought some almond milk. Both ITP-Reader Lisa and I tasted it and shook our head in disapproval. “It tastes like milk at the bottom of a bowl of cereal.” I said. Then I remembered that I always liked the milk at the bottom of a bowl of cereal.
So, lately I’ve been using vanilla-flavored almond milk in my morning cereal. It’s very sweet, but as a morning pick-me-up has been quite pleasing to me. I’m sure almond milk is not nearly as healthy as the Almond Board, or Almond Growers of America, or whatever the marketing arm of the group responsible for inventing almond milk wants us to believe, but oh well.
I’m Becoming An Evernote Devotee
If I’ve never mentioned Evernote before I apologize. Evernote is a note-keeping application which runs on a multitude of platforms. Evernote is also a “freemium” application because they know that once you’ve become addicted to their service you’ll fork over the $5/month to become a “premium” member (I’m very close to making that commitment).
With Evernote notes are fairly easy to create (from sources such as text, websites, or photos), can be stored into notebooks for organization, can be tagged with keywords, and can be searched. Even better than all that, notes are synchronized onto all of the devices on which you use Evernote.
Get a business card from someone? Snap a photo and store it in Evernote
Find a recipe you want to reference later? Snap a photo or clip the website and store it in Evernote
Like writing To Do lists? Make them and store them in Evernote.
Seriously, the possibilities are nearly limitless and the folks at Evernote keep adding features to their clients in order to facilitate future needs.
I’ve used many systems for storage in my lifetime. I’ve used Delicious for bookmark syncing. I’ve saved websites that I’ve wanted to reference later using Instapaper. I’ve created reusable To Do lists using Zenbe Lists. All of these were fine, but now I’m seeing the power of storing it all in Evernote.
If you are more of a visual person here’s a snapshot of my Evernote window on my Mac.
Short Update On Something I Mentioned Last Week
I’ve requested June 1-3 off from work as vacation days. These three days follow Memorial Day this year so that means I’ll have six consecutive days off (May 29 – June 3) to execute “Paulie’s iPhone/iPad Development Boot Camp.” I considered taking that Friday off as well and making it a nine day break, but I think that six days will be sufficient for now. Besides, I need to save a few vacation days for later this year.
Stay tuned…
Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – okay, though I’m shuddering at the thought of the amount of money I’ll be spending this year.
Current Music – listening to a KEXP “Music That Matters” podcast
Website Of The Day – I’ve not tried Where’s My Milk From? (I would have named it “From Where Is My Milk?”) on my carton of almond milk, but maybe I should.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – 204 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 52
Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~4 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 20
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 2 (19)
Vegetarian Days – 3, Carnivorous Days – 19
Marta Rides – 0
March Goals
– Not get fired from my job
– Ride my bicycle no fewer than 100 miles
– Get the new LLC moving…
2010 Goals
– Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
– Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
РEarn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalape̱o Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
– Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
– Attend at least one professional photography workshop
– Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
– Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
– Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
– Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers
The Unmeasurable
– Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
– Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
– Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem
Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]
I think the perspective is a bit off… I would like a little less truck. The sky is a lovely shade of blue, and the light… well if you would have gotten out of bed at 5 and gotten that golden morning light, it would also be a lovely shot, but completely different.
You know what they say about opinions…
-FP
Since I’m not a photo geek, what does correct the perspective mean? (and, I think the sky is blue enough, otherwise it would have looked fake)
I’ve never tried Almond milk, I guess I’m old school, I just drink plain old white milk.
Yep, everyone has one. 😉
The truck is there to provide a foreground element. My intent was to have the truck in your face to create tension.
Barb, the because of the way I shot this the building looks as if it’s falling backward. I made efforts to get the building straight, but I didn’t have enough space around the edges of the photo.
This was taken at 10:38am in Colorado in 2008. Perhaps I should have risen earlier to get better light.
LOVE Evernote! It’s great for cutting and pasting notes and mailing emails and storing for use on my phone later. I don’t know if I’ll ever have enough to need to use th pay version though.
I take pics of items and their price tags in stores so I can compare later. Wine, etc.
Also, I would think that the teets on almonds would be hard to grip. It’s good you can buy the milk already “milked”!
Yeah Vic, I’m not a violent person so crushing all of those almonds to get at their milk would be difficult for me. 😉
I’m bordering on the need for the premium membership. My current usage doesn’t warrant it, but each day I find myself migrating more information to Evernote and may spend the $60/year to ensure they stay in business.