driving in Sudan

What a nightmare. I realized when I was halfway home from work today that I’d forgotten something at work. I immediately turned back to get it. The traffic was so bad that what should have been a 10 minute trip took me 35 minutes. At one point, I was at a traffic light, standing still for several minutes. This is not because the light did not turn green but rather because traffic at the crossroad would not stop for their red light!! Did I mention that there were four lanes of traffic on a two lane road. I was thinking about closing my side mirrors to avoid having them hit. Ah, driving in Sudan. I didn’t miss it at all.

Bag received

I got my missing bag today. Great customer service. I was quite annoyed that the bag was missing since I’d asked Emirates about it twice while in Dubai and there was a 6 hour layover so ample time for them to forward my bag. Anyway, more stuff to unpack. I’m making good progress, keeping to my clean-up schedule. My apartment should be back in order by the end of the week. I’m really looking forward to that.

Back in Sudan

I arrived in Sudan last night. Wow that was a long trip. I left Ottawa at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday morning and got to NY around noon. I left my luggage at the airport and took a bus from Chinatown to Boston. It took 6 hours to get there! Had enough time for dinner with a friend, a short nap and a shower before taking the 2:00 a.m. bus back to NY. It only took 3.5 hours back. This left me with several hours before my 11:20 departure to Dubai.

The trip was long and tiring but not without its rewards since I got through most of the latest Harry Potter book. It is good to be “home”. Thankfully, one of my colleagues arranged for my apartment to be cleaned so I don’t have to deal with all the dusk and stuff from last year. I owe him one.

What would have made it better would have been for all my luggage to get to Sudan with me. Unfortunately, one piece got stuck in Dubai. Emirates did call today to tell me that it should be here tomorrow however. They didn’t say insha’Allah so I have some confidence…

New experiences

Tried horseback riding for the first time today. Went out to Dunrobin, ON with a friend and went on a 1 hour horse ride through the farm. It was fun. I’ll definitely try it again. Next time, I will go for a trot. Thanks for the encouragement, Sparkie.

The Good, Bad, and Ugly: Taking Digital Pictures Effectively

Notes from the presentation

Common mistakes and advice for taking better pictures

• not close enough –> “move in, take it again”
• look around the edges to see if you want the things that are around
• best multimedia cards: Sandisk Extreme 3 or Lexar Platinum 2 (get at least 1 Gb)
• take more pictures, and more importantly, share less pictures
• not focused –> use green boxes (when you press shutter halfway)
• camera shake (nothing in focus) –> “lighting is too low in the photo so the camera needs expose the picture longer to take the image”; the shaking of your hand results in a blurry picture –> Fix: use a tripod and set the timer, use artificial lighting or change camera setting
• composition –> wander around to try to figure out what is the best angle, composition, shoot high and shoot low. What do you want your picture to show? to say? – use law of thirds (get the focus in one of the central intersections- use cropping (but be careful that you not lose resolution)
• ignoring the background –> be aware of the surroundings
• lighting and speed are equal out of the box –>use action mode for action shot to make speed faster than lighting
• too much flash –> use natural light in the photo
• too little flash –> camera shake so stabilize the camera or introduce light
• digital zoom –> turn it off (it zooms up on the pic and crops it)

Terminology

• S – shutter
• T – time
• shutter priority – speed most important factor, can introduce camera shake
• aperture priority – everything should be in
• portrait mode – soft blur for everything except what’s being focused on
• landscape mode – everything in focus
• exposure compensation – make the image lighter or darker

The rest of the workshop focused on Photoshop CS3. Way cool! I’m a big open source fan, I use gimp but I have to appreciate the sleek and ease of using photoshop.

experiences and reflections

• About

  Damianne President.
  I reflect each day with the goal of being better the next.
  I also blog at Journey with Technology

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