Category: Day to day life

Updates on what’s going on with us

Sick Kitty

This past weekend was pretty eventful… One of the things that took place was Baobao, one of our cats, and her increasing difficulty in breathing. Grace started noticing it last week. But it was barely noticeable. And the symptoms took place rather irregularly and resembled coughing for hairballs. So we didn’t think much of it. Then came Sunday when she was breathing rapidly at twice the rate of our other cat. So we decided to take her to one of the emergency pet care vets around town.

Of the two possible causes for her rapid breathing, it turned out that the cat has, get this, asthma. I sure hope she’s not allergic to her own dander! (That’d be tragic if that were the case)

So I got some prescription pills and paid the hefty ER bill and was happy everything was much better (and cheaper; but not that cheap) than I thought. They tried to keep her in an expensive H2O chamber for 7 hours for observation (almost $200 just to breathe that pure oxygen; yummy). But Grace was like… “Um, thanks. But no, thanks.”

All in all, I still highly recommend the staff and Doctor David Novotny of Emergency Animal Clinic of San Jose. They are very friendly, communicative and very understanding. For example, when the staff at the front desk saw how Baobao was breathing, she immediately took her to the back of the clinic for treatment even before I filled out and signed any form!

The admission fee was slightly higher than another emergency clinic that we researched. But in comparison, the other clinic got plenty of bad reps for its staff’s indifference to the pets and their rude behaviors towards the owners. Also, I didn’t think the fees were too outrageous given what I’ve read online with some of the other ER vets.

It’s all good.

Bending Reality

Brian and I used to talk about how toddlers would distort reality in their own minds and become obsessed with this one thing that s/he really wants at that very moment. And for that moment, and in that moment only, the notion of reality is just him and the action/item — nothing else matters. And some adults sometimes are quick to dismiss and discourage that altered reality.

I’ve come to find that the theory is also quite profoundly true when applied to adults. The notions of fate, faith and reality get all twisted and intermingled that sometimes it’s impossible to tell which is which even when the adult is at his most capable mental moments. We all bend realities in our minds to suit our circumstances to some extent — let it be fantasies, make-believes, wishful thinking, dreams, illusions or just blind faith. But sooner or later, all these altered realities have to land at some point. And the higher we spring above reality in hope to reach possibly the impossible, the harder we land when the indifferent gravity that is reality yanks us back to earth. We can always dust ourselves off and try again, but sometimes the collateral damages are too great when the landings make too big of splashes.

Now, some people may attempt it again and again until even the collateral damages are internalized and calculated as part of “doing business”. But others may be so timid at going at it again that they are fixated only on the tangibles.

I am sure I had a point when I started writing this. But now it’s all just an idea with which if I ever get locked in in a conversation with Brian, this topic would be discussed and debated for hours on end while dueling on few games of chess.

Why Apple Aperture Kicks Adobe’s Butt

I’ll keep this short and try to be as objective as possible…

I’ve used Aperture for quite sometime and loved it. The problem with Aperture, though, is its inability to interpret certain RAW files produced by my camera properly. It got me to question whether RAW conversion should have been done somewhere else, which led me to looking into Adobe’s solutions — Adobe Bridge + Adobe Camera RAW.

A few problems with Bridge:
1. Unintuitive interface — a lot of assumptions were made on that you understand what each feature does; I literally had to force myself to stop using it and hop on lynda.com to take a quick tour before all the other stuff even made any sense! Adobe, this is NOT how you design great software! Take a chapter from Apple — the way features are laid out and structured should be self-explanatory!
2. It relies on other Adobe software titles to do the heavy lifting; Bridge is really just an asset management and grading system. For RAW conversion, I have to launch ACR; for basic book layout, launch Illustrator or InDesign… etc. Aperture, on the other hand, has a straight forward built-in support for some of those features in ONE place.
3. I can’t grade images while viewing them in full screen mode! What gives!?? How else am I supposed to tell if an image is sharp? Through the stupid tiny, pathetic, inflexible magnifying glass provided by Bridge? That feature is a joke compared to Apple’s solution!
4. Grading has to be done by 2-key combos — a rating of 2 has to be done via

1
command

+

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2

where as in Aperture, my fingers are a lot happier with just hopping through the numerics. No combo keys!
5. I can’t see the rating in the main preview image or window like I can with Aperture! So if I want to know what rating I gave to an image, I have to peer elsewhere on the convoluted UI! It’s extremely inefficient.
6. If I want to play with the potentials of an image, I am forced to launch ACR, but even then I can’t just make a new version of the image and play with it until I am happy with one version like I would in Aperture (without having to make a copy of the image, that is). I literally have to stop doing one thing just so I can do something else. In Aperture, editing, grading, cropping, keywording… etc can all be done simultaneously without forcing user to “switch mode”, or so to speak.

That said, there’s ONE advantage that Bridge has over Aperture, that is its “labels” feature. Besides grading images, I can label an image with a color for any purpose. But this is such a trivial feature that I wouldn’t switch my work flow just for that.

Now, the reason I am REALLY doing this is for Adobe Camera RAW. It’s a lot more flexible and can really sink its teeth into the wide dynamic range that my RAW files give me. The color adjustments made with ACR are also a little more pleasant and more flexible to control. But besides that, there’s really no way in hell I’d continue using this system once Aperture 2 is released with matching abilities in RAW conversion. And since Aperture has this great feature that allows me to two-way an image version with Photoshop, I really see no reason why I’d use any of those other convoluted and useless products Adobe has launched!!

So my struggle continues as I try to find a good work flow for digital photography. I’m a little frustrated with Adobe in that with its 20+ years of experience in making graphics software, its softwares still can suck so badly compared to a less-than-two-year-old Apple software! Yes, you can call me an Apple fanboy. But that’s just the harsh truth about Adobe.

Now I know I won’t even bother with LightRoom, Adobe’s answer to Aperture AFTER Apple launched Aperture (how embarrassing is that for Adobe having to catch up to Apple!). All the reviews about how LightRoom forces users into using “modularized” approaches is exactly the feeling I am getting with the Bridge + ACR combo. To that, I say “Thanks. But NO, thanks.”

Is Vegan Thanksgiving Meal Even Possible?

Why, yes. And I have to say that I much prefer it than the traditional meat-ful dinner.

AJ and Jason tested their newfound vegan Thanksgiving recipes on us today in preparation for Jason’s peeps… It was actually pretty filling and pretty damn good! I can probably have that kind of leftovers for a few days without hating it unlike the stupid turkey meat (which nobody even likes eating unless it’s Thanksgiving anyway).

Also Bryan tried tirelessly to tear down their apartment by slamming the glass door on his game cabinet, drawing on AJ’s drum, murdering Jason’s plant, purposely tipping over cats’ water bowl, misplacing Totoro magnet, littering crayons all over the living room, and pulling an electrifying stun (literally; but didn’t quite pull it off) — They’ve got the symptoms of the Terrible Two’s written all over them.

Breaking Windows

Windows rant ahead. Brace yourself.

I have no idea why, but my virtualized Windows XP just started bitching about

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svchost

crashing and started acting all weird on me — and this was on an installation that’s only used (or turned on, even) when I needed to test my code on various versions of IE. At first I thought maybe VMWare got corrupted, so I did a fresh install of VMWare. Then I thought maybe I could revert Windows XP back to its previous known good state. None of these helped, of course. So I did what any sane Windows user would do — complete re-install of Windows XP from scratch! Hah hah! I feel sorry for the poor souls who have to deal with this kind of crap all the time.

Thank god VMWare makes Windows installation easy and fast (at least 1/2 the time it takes for a fresh install on a real PC!). The first thing I do is to get rid of all the fluff out of Windows — games, MSN Explorer, Accessibility programs, Windows tour, Outlook Express (officially dead program by Microsoft’s definition)… etc. Then I started installing various versions of IE (5.01, 5.5, 6.x & 7) and other perceived “goodies” including MSN Live Messenger. Then Windows XP complained again in its own cute little way — it’s looking for

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msoert2.dll

… WTF!?! It’s a fresh install! It couldn’t possibly have something missing that MSN Live Messenger needed!

Then Google said it was a library that was removed when I got rid of Outlook Express. So why is it that MSN Live Messenger 8.5.xxx, the latest and greatest from Redmond, needs to depend on a library from a program that’s supposedly extinct? Locating and putting back the

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msoert2.dll

file back to

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Windows/system32

directory made it happy again though. And that’s all I cared.

I am guessing it’s a hook for MSN contacts to appear in Outlook Express and Outlook so that people who spend way too much time in those programs can start up chat sessions without having to look for the MSN Live Messenger contact list.

All this crap brought back the good old days of Windows tech support and having to decipher cryptic Windows errors. “Good” times.

More Shots from My Last Shoot

I have been experimenting with different workflows. Since I am just starting out and charging such low prices with very liberal terms for my images, I figured this is a perfect time to try different things out and see what works best. Unfortunately this was a “failed” attempt in trying to adopt using Fujifilm’s awfully designed Hyper Utility software that they even had to galls to sell separately from the camera.

So next up Adobe Camera RAW! Now I’ll have bout 600 shots from this past Saturday to experiment a new workflow with. What fun! (< -- Insert Sarcasm) Strolling Fun

Rest

Kristina

Sweet Girl

I Wish

Crusing on the Window

Of Mice and Drivers

I was looking for mouse driver for my old but trusty Microsoft mouse (they do make pretty decent mice), then I came across this “mouse driver selector” on Microsoft’s website:

Microsoft mouse driver options

What a joke!

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out something must be wrong with how the Windows operation systems are written over the years. And apparently nothing is being done to address the issue of how drivers should be written and made compatible across the board like the Mac OS. But I guess this is just another “advantage” when one company gets to control both the underlying OS and the hardware that works with it.

Earthquake

There was a crazy earthquake that took place shortly after eight PM. Bryan was confused, the cats were freaked out, and I grabbed my laptop on one hand and Bryan on the other and ran out of the door to find Grace (who was talking to a neighbor by our front yard).

The USGS says it was a 5.6 magnitude quake.

Earthquake map
Image captured, scaled, drawn on and uploaded using Skitch. I love this little program!! It’s just one of those programs that Windows users don’t have the luxury of enjoying. Ah, it’s a good time to be a Mac user.

Crazy Ex-Neighbor

Our next door neighbor finally moved out last weekend after our landlord evicted her. But just right after the earthquake hit, our crazy ex-neighbor mysteriously showed up at the front yard and started swearing at Grace and our other neighbor. After what she has put us through, she’s now crazy enough to come back and tell us that it was God who was now punishing us… Hah hah… But she got pissed when our neighbor replied that maybe God was trying to get her instead.

All this God nonsense amuses me.

Grace took out a camera to fake taking a shot of her car. She floored the pedal and fled the scene. But no matter, Grace got a hold of her license plate and called the cops on her again for another incident of harassment. Generally I hate drama like this. But this is getting to a point where it is actually funny.

What a day.

UPDATE: The cops came and spotted her car parked down the street. So now they are circling the neighborhood looking for a chubby silver haired lady hiding somewhere in the bushes. Cue the music [Cops theme song] “Bad boys, bad boys. What you gonna do. What you gonna do when they come for you… ”

UPDATE 2: It appears that the neighbors across the street helped hide the crazy ex-neighbor when the cops were around. I wonder if that qualifies as assistance in helping to hide a suspected criminal. Hmm… And just like the crazy ex-neighbor, they were shouting racial slurs. Maybe we should be moving out of this place. It’s hard to imagine that in California people still have such outspoken views in Hitler talk.