Buying your first serious digital SLR camera- June 19, 2008 I get emails out of the blue sometimes, and yesterday a guy who found me via Flickr asked my advice on buying his first serious digital SLR (single-lens reflex) camera. He's already quite a good photographer, with a keen eye, and he's trying to decide between the Nikon D300 and Canon EOS 40D. He likes the Canon's interface, but prefers the features of the D300, as well as the more vivid colours it produces (at least in JPEG mode). He wants low noise, good low-light performance, and good...http://www.penmachine.com/2008/06/buying-your-first-serious-digital-slr Where to get a door trimmed in Vancouver- June 18, 2008 We had carpet installed in a basement room last year, and it was just thick enough that we had to remove the door because it would no longer close—it ran into the carpet at the bottom. The simple solution was to get the door trimmed at the bottom to fit, but we never got around to it. Until today. We have a guest coming from Australia, and she's staying in that room of a week and a half. It would be nice if she had a door. But it turns out that finding someone to trim a door in Vancouver.http://www.penmachine.com/2008/06/where-to-get-door-trimmed-in-vancouver An easy way to donate for cancer research, and butts- June 16, 2008 Of all the charity events out there, the Underwear Affair is now the closest to me personally, because it is, as Gillian notes: ...a runwalk to raise funds and awareness for cancers of the unmentionable areas: cervical, prostate, ovarian, testicular, colon, and other words I dont say much on this blog despite having my mind in the gutter most of the time. Kidding aside, I hear stories now and again of people who had some problem down there but were too embarrassed to go see a doctor,.http://www.penmachine.com/2008/06/easy-way-to-donate-for-cancer-research Father's Day- June 16, 2008 We didn't get the whole clan together (my wife's parents couldn't make it today, for instance), but we did have a very nice Father's Day dinner at the Keg Steakhouse in Burnaby this evening: From left to right, those are my daughters, my wife, me, my mom, and my dad. We had steak. And dessert. Very full. Yum. It was particularly satisfying since it was a lovely sunny day, and my wife and I spent the morning painting one set of front steps at our house. She also cleaned and stripped the...http://www.penmachine.com/2008/06/fathers-day Getting good sound on your audio podcast- June 15, 2008 I co-host Inside Home Recording, a long-running audio podcast about recording music and other stuff in your home or project studio. Earlier this year we launched InsideHomeRecording.tv, a companion video podcast that offers short tutorials on the same subject. I just put together my first episode, which shows the process I use for my wife's podcast, Lip Gloss and Laptops, to get good sound reasonably efficiently and cheaply: IHR TV 3 - Podcast Audio Production from Inside Home...http://www.penmachine.com/2008/06/getting-good-sound-on-your-audio The machine- June 13, 2008 In 1992 I'd already been on the Internet for a couple of years, but most people had never heard of it. Personal computers with mice and windows were widespread, but the Web was just being invented, and didn't have images on it yet. That year, the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service produced a five-part documentary series called The Machine That Changed the World, which was about the history and impact of electronic computers. I would have loved that show, but I never saw it at the time....http://www.penmachine.com/2008/06/machine Chemo brain- June 13, 2008 I've been absent-minded recently, in a different way than when I first got diagnosed with cancer last year. I regularly forget things, or misplace them, in a way I didn't before. Just in the past week, without noticing, I somehow left a tiny SD memory card with some important podcast audio on it sandwiched between a Nintendo Wii disc and the case for a different disc in our den. It took hours to find. And in the past couple of days, I was searching endlessly throughout our house for my...http://www.penmachine.com/2008/06/chemo-brain Contentment- June 12, 2008 There is nothing so relaxing as watching my two daughters and my wife as they sleep.http://www.penmachine.com/2008/06/contentment Photos from ideas- June 11, 2008 Here are a couple of photo collages. The first one shows two views from the same place in my kids' schoolyard, one from today and one from this past winter: The second came to me via Jodi, who explains at her blog how to search for and assemble your own similar Flickr meme collage: 1. Penmachine in action, 2. 2006 07-22 HOOK typeB 16, 3. talking to air, 4. alive and bright, 5. Lavender crme brle with fresh berries, 6. hawaii lava, 7. The Glenlivet, 8. Kari Byron, 9. Auroville 014 - Colour.http://www.penmachine.com/2008/06/photos-from-ideas Book review: "Twinkie, Deconstructed," deconstructed- June 10, 2008 Anyone who's ever eaten a Twinkie remembers the experience, even if it's been years. The textured, firm, sweet dough combined with the intense vanilla creme (not cream, mind you) filling is distinctive and, especially when you're a kid, delicious, yet obviously somehow sinful and wrong and unnatural at the same time. While I was in hospital last week, my wife brought me Steve Ettlinger's book Twinkie, Deconstructed (buy using my affiliate code at Amazon Canada or U.S.A.). It's a perfect...http://www.penmachine.com/2008/06/twinkie |