Schierer Space

K pulled the images off the camera from an impromptu photo-shoot, and she found what she thinks is the best picture yet. I’m not sure if it surpasses the pea-pod picture, but asked her to put it in a frame for me to take to work.
You decide for yourself.

She put up some other images in the 3rd Month gallery also.

On a whim K and I visited the Simpsonize Me!* website, which theoretically alters an image you provide to produce a version of you suitable for your own visit to fictional Springfield. Well, in short, it doesn’t work very well. However, after its initial attempt you can edit your features by selecting from various selection lists of hairstyles, eyes, noses, mouths, etc. After some effort, one can generate a fairly convincing cartoon of themselves. Ok… it takes some imagination, but it’s sort of fun. I took the various images produced by the site, combined them together and made some minor edits**.

Ta-dah! Here is our family portrait after moving in next door to the famous dysfunctional family:

The pictures from last weekend are up.

In addition, Nate has reached the two month mark. So it’s photographic growth chart time:

And some pictures to start out the third month…

We had a busy weekend with relatives in town for Nathan’s baptism on Sunday. We took lots of pictures (and so did the rest of the family) so hopefully tonight I’ll get a chance to get the pictures up. For now, I’ll tide you over with this one.

Happy Birthday to Grandma Schierer!

My 1997 Acura Integra LS rolled over 100,000 miles today. Being the geek that I am, I synchronized my driving such that the odometer would roll over exactly as I pulled in the driveway. Now for a Honda based product, this mileage only marks reaching middle age even though the car is 10 years old.

I have always liked watching various milestone mileages roll over, and the big 6-digit rollover is the granddaddy of them all. I’ve never known a car to make the million mile mark. It’s sad in a way, because this is quite possibly the last car I’ll ever own with a mechanical odometer.

I was talking with somebody the other day about flight simulators, and how I missed WW2 Fighters* (which is the best, i.e most fun, combat sim I’ve ever played to date). So then today I get the GoGamer 48 hour madness mail and what do I see, but…

THIS MADNESS IS RIGHT ON YOUR SIX! Get Combat Flight Simulator 3: Battle for Europe for only $7.90 and Save 73%! This ain’t no free-flight, cloud-gunner, glory ride! Bombs shatter enemy airfields, trains, tank columns and more-as you streak across the European countryside! “The best-looking and most entertaining simulation in the series” (CGW)

I admit it. I’m weak. I’m a splurge buyer. At least for things costing about $10 (with “Dirt Cheap Shipping”). I figure, what can $10 hurt. I’m hoping the multiplayer works… and that at least one person who reads this blog has (or buys) the game.

What’s sad is I know I won’t even get around to installing it any time soon. Let alone playing.

And of course when I DO get around to playing, I’ll realize that I just can’t fly without pedals.

And I’m sure my pedals are well and truly defunct (after several thousand hours of WW2, NFS** and lets not forget MW4 abuse). That will be another $150 or so.

But it’s just 10 bucks, right?

Uploaded a few of the better shots of Nate from the last couple of weeks. Enjoy!

At least that’s what it felt like to me. K & I went to see the new Harry Potter movie, Order of the Phoenix, last night.
Even though I won’t get to anything resembling a spoiler for quite a while, I’ll put the break here to protect those who wish to keep their film viewing untainted. There will be another spoiler warning before the plot/storyline comments if you want to dare a bit further.
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Apologies in advance for the length of this post. This has been developing over the last two weeks, but I never got around to posting it. So consider this all of last week’s posts in one installment.

So the other day I broke down and walked into my local camera store, Johnson Camera (aside: they have a really crappy website). I had decided it was time to attempt to use my telescope, a Meade 127NT as a really long lens for my camera, a Canon 20D. My telescope, in camera lingo, would be a 1020mm f/8 “lens”. Technically, it’s not a lens at all, because it is a Newtonian reflector and has only mirrors.
To attach a camera body to a telescope, one needs a T-ring and a T-adapter. The T-ring has the correct flanges and features to connect to the camera body and is specific to the lens mount style (Canon EOS in my case). On the other side of the T-ring is a thread which allows it to attach to the T-adapter. The T-adapter is essentially a tube which mounts in the eyepiece holder of the telescope with threads on the other end to accept the T-ring. Sounds simple, right? And it should be… people have been attaching their cameras to telescopes pretty much since camera were invented. But it wasn’t.
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