The Best Candidate for Enquiro

To answer your first question, my long absence from this blog was caused by a kind of an existential crisis. It went something like this:

What on earth do I blog for?

Interesting question isn't it? It sure does make one question the existence of one's blog. But today I felt a greater calling. There is something I believe the world needs to know. I have discovered the best candidate for Enquiro. It could only be Ryan Monson.

Having got that off my chest, I will go back to pondering life and the meaning of blogging.

The world

Fun with Picasa! Who needs Photoshop?

Untitled

As I glance down I'm looking up
Raindrops falling from an empty cup

As dusk descends on these empty streets
Where shadows fall and sorrow meets

And as I watch the birds circling this deserted town
I wait for them to turn and tumble down

Maybe we've all felt the touch of cold stone
Maybe we've all found ourselves alone

Maybe you've lifted dry eyes
To the vastness of the skies

Waiting for the sun to rise.

Written: February 2008

Summer's gone

Summer's gone indeed! And it has been a good summer. I spent most of the summer working. I also spent a lot of time with my parents who were in the country. I bought a camera.

I saw films I'd been wanting to see, new ones like the Dark Knight (good fun), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (dissapointing) and classics like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (excellent) and the Graduate (undecided). Speaking of, I stumbled across a copy of Citizen Kane, seen by many as one of the greatest films of all time, and watched it just last night. It was interesting. Enjoyable, definitely, but it's difficult to appreciate how groundbreaking it apparently was at the time (in terms of filming technique), as an uneducated viewer in the 21st century.

There's that for the film-watching audience. For the music-listening audience: songs I listened to a lot... But no, listing them all would be too much work. Yardwork in November by the Actual Tigers will have to do.

I also went on holiday. I hitchhiked across Europe to spend a week or so in the beautiful country of Croatia. A lot of time was spent lying around on the beach. Sitting around waiting for the bus that would take us to some other part of the country. Standing around looking for a ride to bring us back home. There were also good conversations, long swims, mountainbike rides, late night restaurant visits, rental cars and tourist offices. As we hitchhiked across Europe we encountered truck drivers, aging paragliders, German and Slovenian college students with American accents, Kurdish Germans who spoke Arabic, and other folk.

I got back just in time for classes. But not only classes, also barbecues, parties, dinners, everything seems to have started up again. Weekend is for room to breathe (and catch up with the reading for all my new classes). Hang out with my brother. Fix my bike. Or so I thought. And cook healthy meals.

Well then. If ever I decide to be a faithful blogger once more, I will let myself be inspired by Tim's blog. I hugely enjoy reading his stream of consciousness posts. I'm only worried that recording my stream of consciousness will never produce anything very interesting. Anyway, it was Tim's birthday today, he has reached the wise old age of 18 years. Back in the day we used to celebrate our birthdays which were a week apart, but these days, all we can do is look back upon better days. Other days.

There is much more I could write about but little you would find interesting. For now, I will concentrate on getting back to work on my studies.

More Photo Fun

People have been nagging me to upload some more pictures

I believe there are more bikes in Holland than there are people.

There are also tourists.

Rotterdam at night.

This truck doesn't really fit in with the rest of the cars in front of my house.

I take pictures like this just because, with this camera, I can.

Out Camping

We went camping in the prettier part of the country.

Our camp


Cooking was a little more messy than it usually is at home.


One of my favourites:


We don't have this kind of thing on my side of the country:


Poor guy broke his arm



There were other victims too


And that's all for today! I also got lots of great portrait shots but I don't know if people mind me putting them online.

First pictures

Big day yesterday: I finally bought my first digital SLR! I picked up a used D50 body for 200 Euros and an 18-70 3.5-4.5 lens for 150 Euros. Yes, the lens was almost as expensive as the body, but it's worth it. Here are some of the first pictures I shot after fitting the lens onto my camera.

I didn't have much time to play around because my sister and her fiancee were coming for dinner. I took some more pictures when I walked them back to the train station. Here is one of my favourites: Ineke at her most flattering. Love the background though.


Then Tim got a hold of my camera so I had to suffer someone else taking pictures of me instead of vice versa.


When I got home from work this afternoon I found an email in my inbox from the guy who sold me the lens. He knew I didn't have any picture editing software and came up with a couple of tips to get the best possible out of camera results, without having to tweak the photos on the computer afterwards. He explained how to adjust the colour output on the camera, and this was the result.

Before:


After:


Subtle, but I love the richer colours. Photoshop can do the same trick, but I don't have Photoshop.

Finally, one last picture. I took this picture of our clock at ISO 1600 (it was beginning to get dark and I figured it would be a good oportunity to test the camera at high ISO values). As you can see, even at ISO 1600 there is very little noise visible in the actual picture. You'd see it if you zoomed in far enough, but by that time you'd see pixels too. I was quite impressed.


This new toy will keep me entertained for a while!