First off, school. The latest project in my Digital Imaging course was to recolor a black and white photograph and make it look like it was always color. I went over to my grandmother’s to look at some of our old family photos and she showed me the wedding picture of my great great great grandparents (maybe another great on there…not sure exactly). It was definitely old, but it was in really good shape, so I ended up doing that. Finished it this week in class, although I think it could have turned out better if I had more time to tweak it (only got two class periods to work on it and he doesn’t want us working on stuff outside of class). Turned out all right though. I’ll post it up here when I get my flash drive back.

Along those same lines, I decided it’s probably going to be a little bit before I manage to take some of the more theory oriented design courses, so I’ve got myself a textbook on design theory that I’m starting to get into. Not quite as good as taking a course, but the book is good and I’m learning a lot of interesting stuff (well, interesting to me anyway).

Moving away from learning and school stuff, I’ll be meeting up with my sister Saturday afternoon to hang out a bit and watch the Syracuse game. Looking forward to it, after the realization that we only really see each other on holidays anymore.

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Title:

Summary
The world after the oil bust is a grim place. Labor is provided by massive animals, expensive methane is the source of most light. Global warming has caused the seas to rise and engulf whole cities while genetically engineered and mutating diseases ravage those who were not drowned.

In this world, the city Bangkok is one of the few surviving population centers, the ocean held back by massive walls and pump systems. The surface calm betrays turbulence as the Environmental ministry and the Trade ministry war with each other over the best philosophy to use to continue survival.

Notes
Ok, first of all, I should mention this book has several fairly sexually expicit scenes in it so if that kind of thing bugs you this is not the book for you.

I almost gave up on this one. I was about 25% of the way through and I had no idea what was going on. There were so many characters, places and random words in different languages (mostly Thai and Chinese) which did a lot to provide flavor for the world, but ended up being really hard for me to get over and figure out what was going on. But I kept reading and right about 1/3rd of the way through everything started clicking and the book took off.

This is the author’s first real novel and I’m hoping it’s not his last. He did a wonderful job of (after the initial confusion and story setup) intertwining multiple threads of story into a single unit. It’s based around 4 sets of characters which have their own independent storylines which run parallel and eventually intersect.

A deep story that presents a realistic example of what might be in wonderfully written prose, I’d have to recommend this book to any fan of science fiction. Just don’t give up on it too early!

Next Book
For the next book, I’m reading Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland & Through The Looking Glass by none other than Lewis Carrol. Not only because I’ve never actually read the book before, but because this month’s City of Heroes FArt Competition challenge is based around Alice. So I’m trying to grab some ideas.

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We decided to chance it and head north to see what we could see. And we ended up at Moose River which was a really cool area and had some great little spots to photograph, including a little nature trail thing (although kinda snowy at the moment). We think it’d be cool to, maybe next year outfit ourselves better for wandering through the wilderness in the winter and head down one of the trails for a bit to see what there is to be seen.

My shots turned out all right. I got a couple of good cloud type pictures. The clouds were really cool looking yesterday, so we lucked out on that one. Most of my shots, however, turned out a bit dark and I forgot to play with the white balance settings as I was shooting, which is something I’ll need to keep in mind in the future.

My favorite shot was totally accidental as it’s waaaaay darker than what I was actually trying to capture. But it turned a scene that was pretty cool looking into an ominous, foreboding scene, which turned out looking fairly cool all things considered:

That’s moose river, looking from the route 28 bridge, just before the apocalypse, apparently.

This one here is way more true to life (taken just north of Moose River) is probably my favorite of the cloud pictures I took:

The biggest thing I need to work on, I think, is trying to brighten things up a bit without getting them over exposed. I also need to figure out how to capture a very cool looking bright sky without totally drowning out the detail of the things on the ground.

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This one gave me all sorts of trouble. First poster I’ve ever done up and it’s kinda graphic intensive which brings into play my lack of drawing skills. I was about ready to just give up earlier this week but Thursday evening I had a bit of a breakthrough and managed to make it into something I think I actually like. Quite the turnaround.

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Title:

Summary
Shadow is released from prison after finding out his wife has died. Unsure of what to do with himself, he joins up with a mysterious man and launches into a journey of self discovery which eventually expands outwards into a journey examining the very fabric of spirituality (not religion, exactly) in the united states.

Notes (Some Spoilers)
This is a fantastic book, and the second book by Neil Gaiman that I’ve read. He’s quickly becoming one of my favorite authors for his ability to entwine multiple plot-lines into one cohesive unit and add hooks and twists to early parts of the book that don’t immediately call attention to themselves (“Oh, so the cat likes to eat tofu. That was random…I bet that’ll be used later”)

But it has the feel of more than just a good work of fiction. Through his story, Mr. Gaiman also casts a critical eye over the spirituality of the entire nation, offering an outsiders perspective on the way our spirituality has changed from the time our ancestors arrived in various ways bringing with them their gods from the old world and how, as time went on people began to lose sight of where they came from, caught up in the next big thing.

The last…oh, half of this book just snared me and I basically couldn’t put the book down. I sometimes zone out when characters engage in dreams and wacky spiritual trips through their own subconscious but that wasn’t the case here. I was glued to the story and left wondering what would happen next. Everything is intertwined from the beginning of the book all the way through to the end in a way that you don’t see coming and yet is believable once all is revealed.

My one small complaint is that some of the interludes between chapters, explaining how various gods arrived in the new world were a bit rough to get through. They tended to happen right as the book was getting good and I was more interested in continuing the story than being diverted.

But overall, I highly, highly recommend this book.

Next Book
The newest Sword and Laser book has been announced, so I think that’s what I’ll be reading next. The book: The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Headed back into Sci-fi land for this one. I know nothing about the author or the book, so I’m hoping this’ll be a fun ride.

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I really didn’t intend on getting a new betta this weekend. I was going out to price how much a new aquarium decor setup would probably be running me when I spotted the perfect fish in Petsmart. Well, I had to rescue the poor guy so I got him right there, rushed home and re-set up my fish tank (which now has a greek ruins sort of theme to it.

Mr. Spatula is a mostly blue veil tail betta with a black head, and red streaks in his fins. He’s also as dumb as a box of rocks. He spent the first two hours in the tank freaking out over his reflection in the back wall. I figured he’d stop eventually, but I ended up having to remove the background until I can figure out a suitable replacement that won’t reflect nearly so much. I also have to feed him by practically dropping the food on top of him. Otherwise he won’t notice it.

It’s interesting how two different fish can have such different personalities. Fish was mellow (He rarely flared, and never freaked at his own reflection) and raced right out when the food came in. Mr. Spatula is a bit more aggressive.

I’ll try to get a good picture at some point soon, and when I do I’ll post em up. He just wouldn’t cooperate. Probably not used to me being around yet.

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Over the past couple weeks I’ve been working on a project for my lone class this semester, as I’ve mentioned previously. It’s coming along pretty well, I think. It’s a composite image of two chess pieces playing a game of chess with little people as the pieces on the board. On Monday I was able to finally grab a good park bench type shot to act as the scene, so that was the last big hurdle.

During class Tuesday the professor mentioned how it would be cool if I could have a guy on a horse (to act as one of the knights) but he didn’t know if it would be possible to get the shot or not. Well, I happen to know a guy with a horse (my uncle) and they were able to provide some nice pictures to use which should really add to the quality of the piece. I’m kinda regretting not taking more pictures at the Renaissance Festival the last couple years I’ve went because they’d be extremely useful right about now.

I’m also going over to my grandmothers house this weekend hopefully to look through some of her black and white pictures for something that could have color added to it (as is our next assignment for the class).

I’m also starting to go all out on my 2010 City of Heroes FArt competition entry for this month. The theme is romance and I’ll be doing an advertising poster for a super hero oriented dating service. I’m trying to work out the copy on the poster right now (jotting down ideas as I think of them while I work). Oh, I just realized I never posted my entry for last month here! What If? The Rogue Isles Olympics. (Make sure you click the image to see the full sized view) You’re probably not going to get a the in-jokes unless you play City of Heroes, but I’m really happy with how that particular design turned out (still).

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He’d been pretty lethargic for a while now. After doing some research, I decided it was just old age. Their natural lifespan is about 3 years. I got him in March 2008 and they’re usually 6 months to a year old once they hit the fish stores, so it seems that he lived out his natural lifespan.

And he got to do it in a palace of a tank (just over 5 gallons, all to himself) as opposed to being stuck in a little tiny bowl for his entire life. He was one lucky little fish. Especially since I almost didn’t see the cache of bettas where he was stored. I remember agonizing over a selection, picking one and then rounding a corner and finding another cache of bettas sitting there to go through.

My current plans now are to clean out and redecorate the tank (I want to do more of a theme, as opposed to natural plants and such this time out) and get a new betta. I’ll probably start poking around this week to see what my options are and figure out how much the redecoration is going to run me.

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Nikon D3000

Had to take that picture with my point and shoot. But there it is! 70% of my tax refund! Before I get into the camera,  I need to plug the place I bought it from because they’re totally awesome.

The place: Danella Photographic in New Hartford. They’re a specialty camera store, locally run. I went in there and talked to the guy at the counter, explaining what I was trying to do and what I needed the camera for. I mentioned that I was looking at the D3000 and he brought one out for me to play with. He spent the next 45 minutes to an hour showing me how to use the camera and gave me a basic lesson in the more advanced Photography, including some very helpful tips and tricks for how to get some good results. He said once I take some shots and get comfortable with the camera that I can bring some in and he’d take a look at them and give me some advice, as well as go over some of the more advanced functions. He remembered Wassy from when she was in there a couple weeks ago too.

The camera cost me $100 more than it would have if I went over to Best Buy and picked one up. But nobody at Best Buy is going to be spending an hour walking me through it.

When I got home, it turned out that I was REALLY lucky with the lighting outdoors. I went out to see what I could do and get some practice in around the apartment complex. We have this nice little section of woods behind our building with a creek running through and everything. Wassy went down there last weekend in the morning and picked up some amazing shots, so I headed down there this afternoon to see what I could find. I managed to snap a couple of decent shots, I think (out of the 75 or so pictures I took down there). It was hard to see what I was taking on the LCD screen since it was so sunny out, but I was trying to experiment with the various settings.

As it turns out, the second picture down here is almost exactly the same as one of the ones Wassy took. I managed to find the exact same bit of plant and snap a picture in the exact same way. The only difference was in the lighting the fact that hers was frost covered. Freaky. Here’s some of what I got:

Really excited to have a new hobby to pursue. Especially one that’s in more of the creative space. And I’m REALLY happy with the camera. I was hoping they would have something used, but Wassy nabbed the one used one they had in the price range I was looking for, so I went with the D3000 (the slightly upgraded version of the D60).

Looking forward to seeing where this all takes me, and I’m very thankful to Wassy for getting me to consider these sorts of activities as something I might actually be able to do (after I convinced myself that I couldn’t) last June. I’m happy that I’m learning and doing something productive with my free time. Like I said earlier in the week, it just feels satisfying.

I need to take some shots for my Digital Imaging project tomorrow, so I’ll get another chance to play around and try out various things.

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