Paddling Up Cedar Creek

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Paddling, Travel

Lots of Green

Bob D. was up for a paddling trip, and we both wanted to do something besides the Green River or the Tuckaseegee. I suggested Cedar Creek in Congaree National Park, and Bob agreed.

The last time I paddled Cedar Creek it turned into an uphill death march, as we had paddled our canoes downstream, then tried to paddle back upstream to get to our cars. I was determined not to repeat that mistake. Initially we were going to take two vehicles and do a point-to-point paddle from Bannister Bridge to Cedar Creek Road, which would be about eight miles downstream. However, since it was a fairly long drive down there and there were just two of us, we decided to put in at Cedar Creek Road, paddle upstream for awhile, then paddle downstream with the current while we were tired. Made more sense to me.

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New Camera – Fujifilm Z33WP

Posted on By Tom 6 Comments on New Camera – Fujifilm Z33WP
Gear, Photography

DSCN3931

I was not able to find the perfect point-n-shoot camera. However, I was able to find an adequate camera. After a bit of back and forth and research, I purchased a Fujifilm Z33 waterproof camera today.

It was a trick to balance feature set and price. I knew that I wanted something waterproof, but there were several possibilities. I started off looking at the Canon D10, which looked like it was going to be a great camera, but the cost was higher than I wanted to go. It also looked a bit clunky and bulky to me. On the opposite end was the Vivitar 6200W. It was certainly cheap enough, but that came at too high a cost in lost features – no optical zoom, AA batteries, only 6 mp, and a long list of other deficiencies. That narrowed it down to the Olympus waterproof series, the Panasonic waterproof cameras, and Fujifilm cameras rounding out the middle tiers.

I had two distinct criteria for this particular purchase. First, it had to be available locally. I have a paddling trip to Congaree National Park coming up this weekend, so I didn’t want to wait for an online order. I wanted instant gratification, and that ruled out the Panasonic cameras. Secondly, the price had to fall within a reasonable range of a couple of gift cards I had gotten for speaking and singing engagements. That ruled out the Canon and the upper end Olympus waterproofs. It finally came down to a battle between two cameras – the Z33 and the Olympus Stylus 550 waterproof camera.

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Harry Potter and the Half-Pint Prince

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Entertainment

After many delays, the new Harry Potter movie is upon us. This was supposed to have come out in November, but was delayed for some strange marketing purpose. I don’t see why this would have mattered. The movie was going to rake in a ton of money, regardless. However, the ploy must have worked. Wednesday … Read More “Harry Potter and the Half-Pint Prince” »

From Wired – 100 Essential Skills for Geeks

Posted on By Tom 1 Comment on From Wired – 100 Essential Skills for Geeks
General Technology

UPDATE: I regularly check to see what search terms bring people to this site. Apparently lots of people are copying phrases from the list below and pasting them into Google to try to find the answers. Sorry, but I think that should automatically disqualify you for Geekdom. If you can’t phrase a search properly, you … Read More “From Wired – 100 Essential Skills for Geeks” »

Texture with a Focal Point

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Photography

Pumpkin Island with Texture

The problem with traveling during a week of fog and rain is that all of your shots start to look the same. The only way to remedy this is with a bit of post-processing. Adding a texture layer can be a quick way to add interest, but it can be overdone, and it can obscure the main focal point of your photo. Here’s a quick tutorial on adding a radial mask to your texture layer to preserve your focal point.

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Friday Freaks – Jerry Springer

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Miscellaneous

It was pure serendipity. We were making the long drive from Greenville to Laura’s sister’s house in Florida, and I had downloaded several podcasts from NPR’s This American Life to listen to along the way.  At random I selected the episode “Leaving the Fold”, and was treated to a story that has many parallels with the story of Gov. Mark Sanford’s fall from grace.

The first part of the episode tells the story of Jerry Springer.   If people think of him at all, they know him as the host off the off-beat TV talk show where idiots yell at each other about ridiculous things.  The truth is, he was a very promising politician in the Democratic party in the late 1960’s, working with Robert Kennedy’s campaign.  It looked like he had a bright political career of his own ahead of him.  That was all brought to a crashing halt by an indiscretion similar to Sanford’s.

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