Eric M.’s Blog

So I was supposed to program Saturday, but that didn’t work out.

I decided that I wasn’t going to keep the Genius M609 tablet, and that I wanted the Wacom. After looking around online I discovered that Costco had the Wacom Intous3 6×11 for $300, which is $70 less than the cheapest elsewhere and $100 less than many places. Sara and I decided to go out and see if any of the Costcos in the area had them in stock. No such luck (not surprising), but at one of them we made another find - the Wii. Now we have had one since they launched, but Sara’s parents have been looking for one, and they are still pretty hard to find. It is both of their birthdays coming up, and of course Fathers/Mothers days, so we decided to get it for them.

Next up we headed down to Dearborn to stop by Adray, which is a great camera store (a real camera store, not a Ritz like affair, which carry nothing in store), and one of the very few in the Detroit area (I only know of 2 others).

I’ve been looking at a few lenses, and narrowed down the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 for wedding and other indoor work, and the Nikon 85mm f/1.8 predominantly for single person portraits. They had both in stock, so I gave them a try on my camera. I wanted both, but decided I would just get the Tamron, because I knew I would need it for some upcoming weddings. But Sara told me I could get both of them :). The Nikon was a bit over priced for what I could get it for online, even after the lens pouch for my camera belt they threw in, but we both see at least some value to having real stores you can go to and try things out, not to mention the benefits of instant gratification. So while I don’t buy lots of stuff in store, I have no problem paying a little more every now-and-then to show my ‘appreciation’.

We swung by my Uncle Pat’s house in Dearborn, but he didn’t answer (he was probably asleep). So we headed west down Ford road. Along the way Sara spotted a hobby store. I looked and it is ‘Nankin Do It Best Hardware and Hobby’. We go inside, and sure enough, its a Do It Best hardware store for the first 3/4 or so, and then a Hobby store in the back 1/4. It was probably the best stocked hobby store I’ve seen in the metro area. RC cars, planes, boats, you name it, and tons of parts and materials. That won’t be the last time I’m in that store

We drove the rest of the way down to IKEA for some food. If you’ve never had IKEA food, you are missing out. They have some really good food and amazing prices. I would go there more often if they weren’t quite as far of a drive for us. We bummed around IKEA for a while and then headed back towards home.

After a quick shower and some interneting, we headed out towards Brighton. We stopped at Jo-Ann Fabrics to look for good background fabrics and then off to Olive Garden for dinner with Sara’s parents. We gave them their present (which of course they insisted was too expensive) and had a nice dinner.

The day still wasn’t over yet though. We went back to their place to get the Wii setup for them. We took turns playing various games (one of the 2 controllers in the bundle was DOA, so we only had one), and in part of my down time I ordered the Wacom tablet from Costco using my iPhone. We didn’t get out of their until 11.

So lets see, 2 lenses, a replacement tablet, a Wii for the parents - it was quite the Saturday.

Ok, so as a part of the whole ‘making photography a business’ thing, I decided it was time to get a tablet. They speed workflow a ton, and make photo editing much easier and better. Back in the day (middle school or so I think) I got a nice Wacom tablet and used it for a number of years. Unfortunately it was obsoleted when Apple killed the ADB port, and so I haven’t had one since high school.

Now a Wacom tablet of a decent size would run me $370 or so, so I decided to look at some alternatives. Big mistake. I settled on the Genius line of tablets because they were cheap and had pretty good reviews (turns out from mostly Windows users). Newegg had the Genius M609 9.25″ x 5.5″ tablet for $110, even though it didn’t officially exist until yesterday. It has much a better resolution than its predecessors, and has some nifty (in theory) scroll wheels.

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So as a part of my master plan to become more serious about photography as work, I decided it was time to finally clean out my office (it has been full of boxes since we moved in almost 2 years ago).

Here are the before shots:

And the after:

So here is another one I gave a try, from the same shoot, but of the ever adorable Lauren

Before (click for larger):

After:

So I got my tablet (I don’t like this one much, but that’s another post), and I also installed some new photoshop plugins. I decided to give it all a try. Here is a picture I posted recently (click for larger):

And here is the version I ‘touched up’:

Obviously it became a low-key shot, and while there some things I might change, I kinda like how it came out, esp for a first try, though I should have added more color back to the skin.

So a multi-update for all one or two of you.

Windshield

So my windshield got hit by a stone on the way home from work the other day. I looked around and didn’t see the divot, but the next day on my way to work, I saw a ~6in crack running from the passenger edge of the window towards the center. By the time I left work, it had spread to about 16in long, but had turned downwards toward the bottom of the glass, and was only a few inches from the edge, so I thought it would stay all over on the passenger side, and I wouldn’t have to worry about it.

Unfortunately the next day it made almost a perfect 90 degree turn and ran another 2 feet or so over the the bottom part of the drivers side. Now it’s stopped about in the center of the drivers side, but low on the windshield. I’ll have to wait and see where it goes next, but the glare off of it is irritating.

$300 to replace

Sara

Sara is out of town Monday-Wednesday for some field work in Grand Rapids, so I have today and tomorrow off, so I can chill, and get some work around the house done.

Oakland

So it turns out I would have had today off anyways… There is a security scare on campus, so it is shutdown all of today, and is supposed to reopen tomorrow. Yay, day off w/o having to use any time.

My Office

Im finally working on cleaning out my office. I want to get more serious with photography as a buisness, which means setting up my office to actually be useful to work in. I also ordered a tablet which will hopefully get here tomorrow.

So Sara has had this Toshiba laptop that her parents gave her for 4 years. The entire time we have had it, it has had a hardware fault that causes it to randomly freeze up, but it would never to it consistently enough for it to be reproducible for Toshiba. Some time ago (probably a year), the clutches in the hinges broke, so you had to balance the laptop screen to keep it up. Every now and then the screen would fall backwards and either be caught or hit the stops.

Well, last night it finally happened. It tipped back, and snap, both hinges broke, so the screen is now only held on by the power and data wires…

Sara had to do some work cloths shopping at JCPenneys at the mall. After that we walked down to the Apple Store and I was finally able to browbeat talk her into getting a new laptop, something I’ve been trying to get her to do for a year or three now… So we walked out of the mall with a new black MacBook. I’ve had it here at work, getting everything installed and setup for her.