More From The Clouds

Not as spectacular as yesterday, but there was still a few nice patterns being formed by Mother Nature in the sky today.

Keep an eye out for Jonathon Livingston Magpie somewhere in the centre:

Communing With Nature

Since I discovered my camera had a macro lens, I have been keen to get right down to it and find some nice things to photograph. Well, today I have been crawling around the bush looking for interesting subjects and angles. I was looking for some slow moving wildlife, like a sun-baking goanna, but I couldn't find anything. I saw a couple of ants, but that was the entire extent of wildlife active in the park today.

I'm sure Ari the dog was confused. He couldn't understand why we weren't walking as fast as usual, and why I was grovelling down in the dirt.

Here are the results:

The Wonder of Clouds

I love photographing clouds. I love photographing sunsets. Tonight I got to do both with spectacular results, because tonight we got one of those all too rare bushfire sunsets. I swear to you that the spectacular red and yellow colours were not visible to the naked eye. This is just what my camera picked up. I didn't use any filters. I slightly altered the contrast using my imaging software, but not much. I didn't need to. The camera did it all.

Starting off with just the normal evening sky down at the park:

At this point, I turned my back to the sun and put down my camera to talk to some people about dogs and stuff. A few minutes later, I suddenly turned around and this is what I saw. As you can imagine I couldn't pick up my camera fast enough:

Welcome to the Macro World...

I recently made a big discovery about my little point and shoot Canon Powershot camera. It has a Macro mode....

That means I can get in real close and get some fairly interesting shots (I hope...)

Today I needed to mow my lawn. I have a push mower. Good for the environment (no fossil fuel needed for operation), and good for me as well. It keeps my shoulders, arms and back in good nick.

Armed with the knowledge that my camera is macro-enabled, I began to wonder if my push mower could offer some nice angles for taking a few close up shots. Like I said before, I only just discovered that my camera has macro capabilities, so I'm still learning how to use it. I'm hoping I'll pick up a few things and learn how to take macro pictures properly.

Anyway, here are my first goes at it:

The Mighty Uke

I recently took up playing the Ukulele. My aim is to meet up with like minded Ukulele individuals and have a bit of a jam. There are a number of Ukulele groups springing up all over Perth. It's great fun playing with other people.

Of course, as is my method of operation with projects like this, there's no starting off slow, dipping my toe in the water so to speak. No siree bob, I jump in with both feet and start splashing around. I didn't start with something cheap, I got something really good. Not only that, 4 strings was not enough for me, I got an 8 string Ukulele.

But wait, there's more: It's electric...

I plan to record with this Uke at some point, as soon as I get some recording gear organised, so having an electric Uke is a big advantage. I'm planning on acquiring a Roland Juno GI keyboard, which has both an 8 track digital recorder built in, and an input for a guitar (or bass, or Ukulele). That would be a real thrill to be able record some keyboard, a bit of guitar, bass maybe, and put the Ukulele on top of that.

Here is the mighty beast:

So there you go. Buy a good instrument and you sound better than you really are. I learned a long time ago that a good instrument makes a big difference. A friend of mine had a band, and I used to hang out with them  a lot. For me, a wannabe rock star, that was heaven. I even got to play a pub gig once when the regular guitar player didn't show up. What a buzz. Fortunately, prior to that, I made a great decision to get myself a Fender Telecaster. A genuine American Telecaster, not the cheap Mexican or Japanese versions. And it is a black American Telecaster, because I saw Springsteen play one once, and being a huge Springsteen fan, that was enough for me.

Anyway, back to the Uke. I sort of had an interest in the Ukulele previously, but I didn't follow through with it. Then I saw a documentary on TV called "The Mighty Uke", and I was sold, not on the instrument itself, but on the fun I saw everybody having, and it took me back to the days when I was hanging with the band. It's the greatest fun playing with somebody (I once had a jam session with my friend, just him on keyboards and me on a bass that happened to be in the room. I don't really play bass so I made it up as I went along. We were there playing, getting in to it, and I glanced at a clock, and we had been playing for 6 hours straight! It seemed like 6 minutes...)

As you can see from the above picture, this Ukulele, made by Lanakai, one of the top brands, is a magnificent looking piece of machinery. It inspired me to indulge in my other great love, photography, and take a series of classy pics (well, as classy as I can get with a little point and shoot camera). There's even a couple with big brother Tele...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, the Mighty Uke:

Something New To Play With...

I just got myself a nice shiny new Dell Latitude 10 tablet:

This is a great little device, and I think that within a few years, everybody will be carrying these things around with them. I got mine for three reasons: First, to read books and manuals, secondly to connect my camera so I can look at pictures on a bigger screen when I'm out and about, and thirdly to watch the odd movie or TV show. I can happily report that it does all three functions perfectly. And unlike what seems to be most of the world, I think Windows 8 is great on a tablet or a phone (I'm not convinced it works well on a desktop computer though). The only really awkward thing I've found so far is that it is difficult to close an application when you are finished with it. Most applications don't have a big button labeled "Close" on them.

I did go for the high end model, and it can be argued that I overspent compared to a standard laptop, but I don't think that was the point. This is the future and I wanted to see what it was like. The big battery was only $17 extra, so I can use it forever without a recharge. I also went for the largest storage size, which right now is 128 gigabytes (I wish I could travel back in time to my University days. A device this small with 128 gigs would melt thier brains!...)

I didn't take up the mobile broadband option, but it does have wi-fi anyway. I connect to the internet through my mobile phone. Here it is displaying a page from one of my websites:

Obviously it won't be as quick as a wired broadband connection, but still, it works quite well. And it probably won't be my primary internet connection anyway.

One of the big advantages of this device is that, as a software developer, I can use it to learn how to write proper Windows 8 applications. That also means that I can get the taxman to pay for part of it as well, which is always a good thing.

Well, you can keep your iPads and Android tablets, I just got something much better.

...and it's one more thing I can take cool pictures of!