abriskwok

Wednesday run

2009-07-15T06:47:00.002-04:00

Listened to La Traviata with Dmitri Hvorostovsky. The big chorus is great for running up a hill. I should figure out how to time stride and music and terrain. Each small body of water had it's own little cloud of fog over it today. The rabbit was more shy than usual. Ran lots. Maybe my goals are to get past the need to walk, and to be able to touch my toes.

Monday workout

2009-07-13T06:44:00.002-04:00

Was tempted to skip this morning's run as I fed baby Lizzie at 5:15.Listened to The Clerks, Missa Malheur Me Bat, by Josquin Des Prez [which I believe I bought on eMusic]. Ran to the southmost baseball diamond and did a few laps of the bases, clockwise. Stretched on the crest of a hill. 10 pushups and 2 chinups.

"Tempest" from the ME Super

2009-06-27T16:44:00.001-04:00

http://m.flickr.com/photo.gne?id=3320364490&Loving the ME Super - for some reason every shot is more fun. Maybe I have a streak of minimalism. Part of it is just gazing through that viewfinder and watching things go in and out of focus.

Mount Pentax lenses on Pentax mount! ;)

2009-02-02T06:36:00.001-05:00

With all the hubbub these days about mounting Contax and Leica onto the Micro 4/3 mount Panasonic G1, I just want to say something.I can mount Pentax lenses on my ... wait for it ... Pentax bodies!I now have a Pentax ME Super, manufactured between 1980 and 1986. I am in love - it is more compact and convenient than the K1000 I used to have before digital - and the viewfinder is even bigger. I

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

2009-01-19T09:08:00.000-05:00

This is me singing and playing at home. Roger Quilter was a British Composer. The text is from Tennyson.

The Top 10 Movies of All Time, and how I picked them

2008-12-01T07:23:00.000-05:00

All right, here are my picks for all time greatest, watch-again, watch-again movies.To make this list, a movie had to achieve all of the following criteria: Floor me on first viewing and make me want to watch it again right away Make me feel good, a deeply satisfying theatre experience Impress me on second viewing with originality, artistry, technical excellence, etc Have a message, a deeper

Barthii Sword Inflorescence

2008-11-27T15:31:00.001-05:00

My barthii sword is flowering!Have left the tank alone mostly, trusting in the external filter to last for a few months without maintenance. Just removing algae regularly and feeding well.

Royal Gold Barbs

2008-09-26T19:58:00.000-04:00

Here are some of my Royal Gold Barbs, and a bit of my Siamese Algae Eater too. Pic taken with the new lens; FA50/1.4. The plants are barthii sword and valisneria.These fish are speedy, and aggressive when it comes to feeding. The keyhole cichlids and the Siamese Algae Eater still rule the roost and get their own way in any dispute with these barbs, but I think the barbs are very comfortable

Pentax FA1.4 vs A1.7

2008-09-20T18:34:00.003-04:00

Here's my first humble attempt at a pixel-peeping lens comparison. Please leave your comments!One macro subject certainly won't show all there is to know, but it does show up some differences.I bought the FA 50 to replace my A1.7 chiefly for the autofocus, but before I get rid of the A1.7, I thought it would be fun to compare the two very similar lenses optically.It turns out that the two lenses

Chevy Volt Revealed

2008-09-16T11:05:00.000-04:00

The GM-Volt blog has official pictures of the production Chevy Volt design here.GM is throwing major resources at trying to get ahead of the curve with a car that drives the first 40 miles on electric, then switches to gas. Their stated plan is to have them on the general market by end of 2010.The Atlantic published an in-depth story about GM's effort in their July/August issue. The full

DSLR lens attach rate

2008-09-10T09:56:00.000-04:00

As more Photokina announcements come out like the Sony A900 and the Nikon D700, and everyone debates who will win, I can't help wondering why there's so little talk about the lens "attach rate".In Xbox 360 vs. Playstation 3 discussion, the attach rate, i.e. the average number of games sold with a platform, is one of the bragging points for the system.Similarly in HD DVD vs Blu Ray, the attach

Little Cove shot with A28mm/2.8

2008-08-28T11:45:00.000-04:00

When I went on a hike at Little Cove, Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, near Tobermory, I was hoping to capture those awesome greens and blues of the water. It's those colours that remind me of how refreshing and invigorating it is to swim there. I shot these pictures with what seems to be my favourite lens based on usage: the SMCP-A 28mm F2.8.Snorkelling in the waters of Tobermory is really

Frog at Little Cove

2008-08-08T08:04:00.000-04:00

Frog at Little Cove 9097.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael Barkowski.I used to catch frogs a lot when I was a kid. Taking photos is a pretty similar process - you sneak up slowly, making no sudden movements. Sometimes it's preferable to approach from their front, since when they jump, it's usually straight forward.This is probably the sharpest frog photo I've ever made, and with manual focus to

Megapixel race over?

2008-07-21T12:26:00.000-04:00

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3's announced, and the improvements they chose will make enthusiasts smile. Wider and faster lens. And, they'll take a break from increasing the number of megapixels. Michael Johnston writes:The big news is so far that Panasonic has declined to increase the pixel count, which in its press release it calls a "bold" move. Maybe from the point of view of marketing it's

Solved: Firefox Downloads Window Empty

2008-06-19T08:13:00.000-04:00

Finally found a fix for a problem that's been bugging me for a while. Some time ago my Downloads window stopped showing anything.[gallery]Searching around, I came across a widely acclaimed solution, which was to delete the xml file which stores the information I was supposed to be seeing; supposing it was corrupted. Well, I did that, and there was no effect. I started monitoring that file and

Moose south of Waubaushene

2008-06-13T06:00:00.000-04:00

Moose in Ontario seem to be ranging further south. Ontario has about 5% of all the moose in the world. My wife Jackie and her sister Sheri hit one in the dark on Hwy 400 south of Waubaushene - they're lucky to be alive and not in hospital. Thank God that the moose was sitting down, having just been clipped by a car in the next lane. The police later found the moose dead in the ditch.Now, why

Dory the Cactus

2008-06-11T10:53:00.000-04:00

Dory the Cactus, originally uploaded by Michael Barkowski.Okay - doesn't anyone think this looks like Dory, from Finding Nemo? I can just hear it saying, "P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney."Taken at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Centre, near Austin, TX, home of Freescale Semiconductor.

GameCube NHL 2005 HOWTO: Get the highest penalty killing average

2008-06-09T12:11:00.000-04:00

Ever since my brothers and I got addicted to NHL '94, my main source of what little hockey knowledge I have comes from Nintendo. When I say hockey knowledge, I'm talking about rules and basic details of players. Whereas, the following is really in the category of gaming knowledge.Achieving the highest season penalty killing average in the league is one of the toughest season goals in NHL 2005'

Selling my digital piano on Kijiji and Craigslist

2008-06-09T08:03:00.000-04:00

I'm selling my dear Roland HP-7 digital piano - this because I'm inheriting an acoustic grand...I'm putting ads on Kijiji, Craigslist and others.This is the first time I've actually used Kijiji, and it seems to be a very promising site. I found it much easier to use than Craigslist, since it has a proper WYSIWYG editor and snappy image upload widget, so I've ended up revising the ad