gingerandjohn.com

Some administrativia: I finally updated the template on the blog from the Wordpress default - the first since I upgraded to WP 1.5. I've been experimenting with other themes, never finding one that really clicked, until I ran across Cutline. Nice clean layout, and I like the rotating header images (although they're not easy to generate). If you're a feedreader but still like to go old-school every so often, check it out. If you're not and you didn't notice the change, well, you've got other issues.

Last weekend I headed up to Cavehill via the Country Park (being lazy, I prefer to gain my altitude in the car rather than on my feet, thankyouverymuch). There's a nice 20-minute walk to McArt's Fort, well-graveled so not too mucky. This picture looks over Belfast to the Mountains of Mourne, 30-odd miles to the south. The high peak on the left is Slieve Donard, at 852m the tallest mountain in Northern Ireland.

This shot takes in several Belfast landmarks. In the foreground is what I think is Ballyaghagan Cairn:

"...there exists on the summit of Cave Hill a large stone cairn (about 16 metres in diameter and 1.15 meters high) which has almost completely been covered over by peat. The path from McArt’s Fort to McLaughlin’s quarry runs right over this cairn. The cairn is probably Neolithic (4500 BC to 2500 BC)."

Past that is McArt's Fort, and then in the distance is Scrabo Tower (about 10 miles to the west). On the far right just over the heather is Samson (Goliath?).

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Today starts a four-day weekend - Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday are both public holidays in Northern Ireland. Friday at work was quieter than usual, it being the Good Friday holiday in the Republic. Assuming things don't go totally pear-shaped with the testing, I only have three more days in the office until I head back on the 30th.

The weekend after Ginger and the boys went home, I took myself to the Lisburn Road Starbucks, and surfeited myself on caffeine, corporate-branded familiarity, loneliness, and self-pity. We'd been intentionally avoiding "things from home" - I mean, I can go to Starbucks anytime, but I can't always go to the Crown, right? (For the record, my attendance at SB's now outnumbers my visits to the Crown.) The local coffee shop (across the street from Starbucks) took about 30 seconds to lose my business (boring story). Starbucks at least has better (more familiar?) service, product, and maybe most important, atmosphere. Sitting on the couch, surrounded by decor I can see in any Starbucks in the States, listening to 70s disco and R&B, was hard but I've come here for grounding nearly every Saturday and Sunday since. It feels like home, and most of the time the music's too loud to hear the accents, and it's hard because I can't stay here forever, I have to go back to that smelly, cramped, uncomfortable place that's quiet and loud in all the wrong ways and most emphatically NOT home.

At last and least I'm at the end of this self-imposed exile. That's certainly what I beat myself up about the most, is that I brought this on myself - it was my idea to come here after all, a great combination of altruism and selfishness.

But enough of that - here's some pictures of people who care about me and have no expectations in return: Ginger and Paxton at the Ha'penny Bridge in Dublin, Chance and Paxton on the beach at Portmarnock, and Ginger at Portmarnock.

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Nine more days (or perhaps eight at this point, given I'm about to hit the hay). Hopefully I'll get oot and aboot tomorrow and take some flower pictures - it's supposed to be the last sunny day for a while, albeit cold and windy. In the meantime, here's a few pictures from Dad's trip out a few weeks ago, first me at Cushendun, then Dad at the Giant's Causeway, then some people in there for scale to show how totally awesome the waves were that day (still doesn't do it justice).

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I haven't written the release notes for my version delivery tomorrow. I'm already behind on writing minor new functionality for a version due next week. I haven't started writing the design for the major new functionality due in three weeks. I haven't started writing the six cartons worth of documentation due in six weeks.

So, I'm going to talk about my new camera!

Our little Canon SD400 is pretty awesome for a point and shoot, but I just felt like I wasn't getting the pictures I wanted. We've had so many great picture opportunities here in Belfast, and I knew I could take some really spectacular shots with a better camera. So, I decided to get a decent entry-level DSLR for myself (umm, I mean the family) for Christmas.

After lots of discussion with colleagues (thanks Chris, Josh, and Paul!) and family (thanks Tracy!) I settled on the Nikon D40. This article helped a lot, and certainly confirmed what an old optics hand like me really knew all along - pixels don't matter as much as glass. Amazon had a pretty good deal on a D40 kit with the stock 18-55 lens and a 50-200mm zoom, so I still had budget left for a Sigma 30mm f/1.4.

This is our tree, taken with the Sigma at dusk - no flash, handheld, so it's a little blurry. The reflections kind of mess it up too, but I think overall the feel is very nice.

Here's one taken with the zoom, along the Chattahoochee River by Cochran Shoals. I really like the way the colors turned out - at first I thought I'd made it sepia on the camera itself, but it's untouched (or maybe un-re-touched is a better term).

Another with the zoom. This one is cropped, and I just love how close I can get with the long lens. I can't wait to do some astrophotography with it this summer. All the rest are taken with the Sigma.

I just love this picture of Paxton at the Bangor Harbor playground. Shutter set to 1/60, and followed him down - I could never have gotten this with the Canon.

Another fairly candid shot, this one at the playground at the Silent Valley (where we have Starbucks, the Irish apparently have playgrounds). I thought the composition turned out well.

The bellmouth at the Silent Valley Reservior, in the Mourne Mountains outside of Newcastle.

I can see myself using the Sigma a lot, unless I know I'm going to want the zoom (animals, kids, or stars for now). I get to take the FOV variable out of the picture, and for the most part, get to take the flash out also - this thing is a photon bucket, for sure. The whole camera is definitely a different beast than the Canon; the good pictures seem better and the bad pictures seem worse (of course, I'm pushing it pretty hard on the bad ones, usually because I don't want to use the flash).

More pictures of our Bangor and Silent Valley excursions, and maybe even more words, to come soon - it's better than working!

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In September 2006, Lifehacker published an article on using wget to grab mp3 files from music blogs. That article was based in turn on Jeffery Veen's article, and that's where I found out about Fingertips Music. Every week, the editor of Fingertips publishes mini-reviews and links to three free-and-legal mp3s of indie bands. The criteria are simple: 1) there has to be at least one free and legal MP3 available from it somewhere online (but not on MySpace!); and 2) he has to like it a lot.

I used my newly-found wget skillz to grab the Top 10 list, and I was hooked. This was music I'd never hear on the radio, and even on Sirius I wouldn't hear more than a few of these.

And now, the editor's posted his top 10 favorites of 2007, his 22 best that he's posted in 2007 (the second-tier top 12 is up there too).

Given that my alternative on a Saturday night was to work, I thought that I might review the Fingertips music I downloaded, and generate the same kind of list. Mine, however, is a more-expansive Top 24, although the order is more of chronological posting on Fingertips than best-to-worst. Basically, I went through my playlists, and grabbed the ones that I'd listened to at the expense of others on the list. So, without further adieu:

• Parables - Rebekah Higgs
• To the Dogs or Whoever - Josh Ritter
• Belgian Beer and Catholic Girls - Siberian
• Nothing Burns Like Bridges - Penny Century
• Adrenaline - Emma Pollock
• Intelligentactile 101 - Jesca Hoop
• Throwin' Shapes - Minus the Bear
• For Science Fiction - Maritime
• Flesh and Spirits - the Gena Rowlands Band
• Take Me to the Ballroom - Moonbabies
• Dear Confessor - Immaculate Machine
• Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe - Okkervil River
• My Rights Versus Yours - the New Pornographers
• We Are Waves - Dirk Darmstaedter
• Perdu - Watoo Watoo
• Gimme Shelter - Patti Smith
• Going Numb - Tin Cup Prophette
• Los Cruzados - Elk City
• Deadringer Deadringer - the Book of Daniel
• Eye for an Eye - Telograph
• Every One of Us - Goldrush
• 23 - Blonde Redhead
• Hard Line - Jill Barber
• You! Me! Dancing! - Los Campesinos!

And I leave you with the first posted picture taken with my new D40, of the Beaghmore stone circles outside of Cookstown, NI.

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