I've had a cold (and still do... ugh!), which is why I'm not writing much, but something just happened that makes me really wonder why people can't keep their word.
I ordered a new computer two weeks ago, and Dell said that I'd get it to me near Christmas, but it actually arrived a week ago (and is wonderful and zippy).
And now, two minutes ago, a deliveryman shows up with my camera, back from service at Nikon. Nikon had promised it on Dec 23rd, but here I am with it three days early.
I'm so glad people can't keep their word! 🙂
(I haven't even opened the box from Nikon yet, but just looking at it makes me feel the cold ease a bit. I know what I'm doing this afternoon....)
This morning, Anthony's preschool had a Christmas service, which included the kids (aged 3-6) putting on a “pageant” depicting the Christmas story. The older kindergarten-aged kids did a lot of speaking roles and other complex things, while the younger kids like Anthony had less challenging tasks.
Anthony was the star. Or, at least, a star, lighting the way for the three kings. He wore a star hat, and made “twinkling movements” with his fingers above his head. If you use your imagination, you can see Anthony on the far right in the picture above. (A crop taken from a short video of his shining moment I made with my point-n-shoot camera from my seat at the back of the room.)
Some of the youngest kids got to be sheep, crawling around on their hands and knees and making sheep sounds. That was the cherry role for the youngest kids, and Anthony wanted to do it as well. But we told him that since he was so tall, they needed him to be a star, and with that he was happy to be a star.
The tallest kid in his class is Monet — third from the right in the picture above — a cute kid that can have the most angelic of faces. I have a shot of her that I've been looking for an excuse to post, so maybe I will tomorrow. Besides their height, she and Anthony have the distinction of being the only native English speakers in their class.
Members of the audience could take videos, as I did a bit, but photography was disallowed. They probably meant to disallow the use of flash, but since so few people know how to actually control their cameras, it's easier to just lay a blanket ban. Sigh.
There were professional photographers who will provide photos for sale (they do this for all the events, such as the sports day in the summer). The main guy had a huge lens mounted on a tripod, a Nikon 300mm f/2. This thing can probably pull in more light than the Hubble telescope, and likely cost as much.
I didn't realize how rare it was at the time, or I might have asked to have my picture taken beside it because it's apparently extremely rare, having cost about $30,000 when new 20 years ago, with only about 300 ever made. Wow. Fumie asked me this evening what I want for Christmas. Hmmm.......
I've released Version 2 of my Photoshop CS2 Calendar-Template-Building script.
Here's a summary of new features:
- Added the ability to populate the calendar with holiday/birthdays/etc data read from a file.
- Added an “auto save” feature, particularly useful when generating whole-year templates for distribution.
Summary of bug fixes:
- Fixed the “weeks start on Monday” option, which had been broken when building all months in one shot.
- Fixed the pre-set margins and such for Portrait mode actually work properly (see an example above).
- It now references only fonts that come standard with CS2. I thought that's what I'd done, but it turns out that I had some other fonts (perhaps from CS1, or from other Creative-Suite programs).
I've also created PSD files for all months, for those who can't run the script (those with older versions of Photoshop).
Details and downloads are on the script's page.
Today started like most days, with Anthony waking me up because he wants some milk. (He normally gets up before us and plays until he gets thirsty enough to wake us up.)
Walking into the livingroom/kitchen, I said “It smells a bit like poopy in here” and looked at him. I checked his butt to see whether he'd done a poor job of wiping, but that seemed fine. I asked whether he knew what the smell was, and he got quiet. Uh oh, this is not a good sign.
After a bit, he said “I want you to go; I don't want milk now.” Uh oh, this is definitely not a good sign. I asked him what happened, but he wouldn't talk... he just looked down at his feet. So, I take a look around and it doesn't take long before I see that he make a poopy and pee-pee under the kitchen table. Excellent.
I should point out that we have sub-floor heating that comes on automatically in the morning, so Lord knows how long it had been simmering there. Ugh. I cleaned it up and opened the windows to clear out the room. He got sent to his room to wait until the livingroom got warm enough. Papa was not happy.
He had a slight cough and seems to be getting a cold sore or something in the corner of his mouth, so we decided to keep him home from preschool. Instead, I took him with me to Osaka, to the Nikon Service Center in Umeda, to have them look at my lens with focus problems. I'd already planned on bringing my D200 body and all my lenses, so with the added burden of Anthony and his stuff, I was glad that Shimada-san was going with me.
It was a fun trip for Anthony because it required using three trains to get there (two subway and one inter-city train), and the same on the way back. When not in the train or in a store, I mostly gave him a piggy-back ride, and Shimada-san (bless his heart) carried everything else.
Nikon took my camera and lenses and asked for a couple of hours to check them out, so we walked over to Yodobashi Camera to kill time in their toys section. I gave Anthony the standard “we'll just look and play; we won't buy anything,” and to his credit he wasn't fussy at all. (But Daddy did buy some accessories for his camera bag 🙂
Back at Nikon, they decided that they wanted to send in the body and the 70-200 f/2.8 to the main shop, and that I should get it back on the 23rd. I had them ship it directly to me in Kyoto, to save a trip. The 23rd is a holiday — Emperor's birthday, or some such. We'll see whether it comes.
So, I'm now sans camera for the next couple of weeks. Anthony promises that from now on he'll use the toilet. You win some, you lose some.