The Ciel Show

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Monday, October 13, 2008

14-day free trial is over...

I took back the little Canon Elph camera, and traded for the slightly larger but still handy pocket-sized Canon PowerShot a1000 IS. This one has 10 megapixels, and a 4x optical zoom, up to 16x if you push it up to the digital zoom--talked about what that all means in a recent post here. So far, I like this a lot better. It fits the hand better, handles the light better so far as I have experimented, and I can get my computer to read the thing, which was a strangely difficult experience with the... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 5:31 PM | add or view comments (6) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Devotion: Never Mind the Gap

Urgo is Magic's favorite cat. Magic adopted Urgo when he was a tiny, defensive grey and white mite of a kitten, and now that Urgo is bigger than he is, and rather aloof, Magic still gets in a few licks and some moments of closeness... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 10:31 AM | add or view comments (4) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

I confess...

I have another camera... It's a little Canon Elph, SD1100 and I am giving it a 2-week trial against my usual one, the Fuji Finepixs5700. The Canon has great optics, but the optical zoom is only 3x which is standard. It has 8 megapixels, beating the Fuji which has 7.1 but the 10x op zoom. There are two kinds of zoom here: optical which is real zoom, and digital, which is a fake-out by expanding the pixels. Therefore, the more megapixels, the more quality you can maintain at higher digital zoom.... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 9:33 AM | add or view comments (8) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Monday, October 6, 2008

Thanks and bows with flourishes

to all who wished me a Happy Birthday! I spent some time this weekend chatting with my kids, various degrees of afar... Colorado, Maryland, Singapore... My quasi-step-grandsons even got in on the action, and asked when I would come back and visit again... Zoe, too... She is in real school now, and sometimes reads her reading homework to me. My son and I just hung out together a while, occasionally dealing with a few business and school concerns, but mostly he was on his computer game and I was... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 12:00 PM | add or view comments (11) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Friday, October 3, 2008

Happy Birthday to Me!

I am 56 today. When I was 6, I thought 50 was the limiit--a good round number, though as someone pointed out yesterday, 100 is rounder still. Maybe whe i turned 50, I still believed that a little. But I've gotten used to the new idea: the 50s are not over the hill, they are the crown of the hill. And I expect to take a good part of my 60s to get over the top. The 50s are the Indian Summer of the metaphoric year of life... The time when the weather is still fine, and the colors have begun to turn... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 8:26 AM | add or view comments (13) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Thursday, October 2, 2008

When my daughters reached the age when sex was somewhere

between 'possible' and 'probable,' I took each of them to our family doctor and made a proper introduction, telling them both, "If you, Daughter, ever want to talk to someone about contraception, this is the person to go to. You don't need me to bring you, you know how to get here on your own. Doctor, for the record, I don't need to know about it if she does come to you: you both have my blessing to do what you need to do without including me." I told my kids that sex is a better and a beautiful... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 1:37 PM | add or view comments (4) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Ow!

Yesterday I woke up with a leg cramp. Hate that--it hurts! Usually I can feel it coming and extend my leg, stretching the calf muscle, relaxing away the cramping. But asleep, one misses the subtleties... So it messed up my dream and woke me up. I got to thinking, if a heart cramps, it would hurt like this, but worse... The worst, being, it will stop altogether, and it's hard to stretch your heart muscle, or to massage it back to functioning yourself. Today I am re-thinking my casual attitude... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 10:09 AM | add or view comments (7) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Attack of the Fish Boy

I was at Petco today, returning some doggie treats that turned out to be unacceptible to the doggie. After spending some hours cleaning green veils of algae out my collection of betta tanks (that's betta, like better, not beta like baita --be one of the 5 % who get it right...) I had decided to get some algae eaters, little guys who whip around snacking on slime and stuff. Most bettas are willing to share space with fish who are not bettas. My bettas are in larger containers than the little... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 2:33 PM | add or view comments (6) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Monday, September 29, 2008

Davy and The Creek

On a recent walk, we went into the woods to a creek that runs through it. Last winter I posted shots of McClane Creek in flood. It is quite different there this time of year, after a very dry summer. But that's another story... Here is Davy meeting the summer creek: Moist but victorious! Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 12:41 PM | add or view comments (7) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Sweetest Davy portrait...

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posted by Ciel at 11:14 AM | add or view comments (5) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

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About this Blog

I'm doubtful the events of my life will be of great general interest, but I'd like to share a little more of me to the several of you on Blogit I've come to feel are real friends, and the many I imagine are potentially real friends. We'll see how it works out. ______________________ all my words and images posted on Blogit are copyright 2005-present, all rights reserved.

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