I woke up thinking it was going to be one I would just want to get through and be done with. I had an 8:30 appointment at the oral surgeon to look at a spot that has been on my pallette for at least a year. There was the possibility of a biopsy, but I was hopeful that it was nothing and he’d send me on my way. Then there was the memorial service for a friend of Matt’s.

When I got to the doctor’s office, I was wrong about being sent on my way. The doctor called me princess and love and sweetness as he poked novacaine into the roof of my mouth, scraped off the spot and then sewed me back up. A large Tigger stuffed animal sat in a chair staring at me all the while. I really wasn’t expecting that he’d have to order the biopsy. I’ve never felt pain in that area and he even remarked that it looked like it was getting smaller (comparing it to photos my dentist had taken one year and six months ago). When I got out of the doctor’s office, I went into work–this despite the fact that I was handed a prescription for vicodine and told I should take the rest of the day off. Popsicles and crushed ice were also suggested.

I headed home to meet up with Matt and we went to the service. Out of respect, I don’t want to go into details, but I will say that it was beautiful. The sermon was comforting as was the music as performed by many of her friends.

When we got home, we planted a small forsythia in the back. As we dug up the earth, we found rock after rock that we then placed around the plant, which we subsequently named Rocky. We also dug up three holes where we will be planting small lilac transplants after dinner.

It’s nice to sit on our pack porch and see the forsythia out there, surrounded by an imperfect circle of rocks.

Today was important.

• I didn’t mean for the first photo to come out the way it did. I’d had my camera’s White Balance setting on Incandescent (I think) and this is what happened. Pretty cool, eh? My favorite part is the look of the half-open window on the top row. To me it looks like an old photo you find in a history book.
• The second photo’s cyan was punched up a little to bring out the contrast of the sky and the roof.
• Neither of the smaller photos was manipulated, except I did some cropping to the one on the left.
• The 50mm is a beautiful thing.

I’m getting there. . . .

Pretty please?

1. Matt and I have devised a rock-kicking game. The object of the rock-kicking game is to kick a rock down the path as we go along. Whoever kicks the rock into the water loses.

2. The one thing I hate about Ashley Reservoir right now is the bug-swarming problem.

My office purchased a number of Flip cameras this week, so I’ve been testing one of them out. My early impressions are very positive, especially where design is concerned. It’s about the size of a pack of menthol 100’s and very lightweight. There are a minimal number of buttons to push. The designers definitely took a page out of the Apple book, right down to the boxy packaging the Flip came in.

I did need to flip through the instructions (and they were easy to follow) to figure out how to put the two AA batteries in, but after that I operated on auto-pilot. Recording, playing back, zooming were all simple things to do — easier than figuring out how to operate the camera on your cell phone (or at least my cell phone). Basically, you push the big red button. A red light appears in front of the camera so you know it’s recording. To stop recording, hit the red button again. Playback button appears to the left and a trash button (which I haven’t used yet) appears to the right. Zoom in and out buttons are above and below the red record button.

Once I recorded some footage, I flipped out the USB on the side (this is where the Flip comes in, I guess) plugged the camera into my work computer. Unfortunately, I have a 3-year-old Dell with a strange front-USB setup, so the Flip wouldn’t quite fit. I tried the back, but my monitor plug was in the way. I moved to a newer machine, plugged it in, and the software-download prompt came up. The software loaded in a matter of minutes and I was able to navigate through my video clips easily. The camera holds up to 60 minutes of video. I used up about 8 minutes of that.

The software is simple, albeit a little bit on the clunkier side than the sleek overall design of the camera itself. I figured it out relatively quickly, though (again, without the aid of the instruction manual). I reset the in and out points of some of my clips and then used the Make Movie option to bring them all together into one video. The program offers the option of adding music to the video (haven’t played around with this much, but it looks like you don’t have too many options about volume, so make sure that you don’t have much talking in your video) as well as some effects, like black and white.

There is a button called Share Video, which is good if you are an AOL user (WTF), or you’d like to send a video e-card, or if you want your video up on YouTube. Most will choose the YouTube option, I’d assume. If you are like me and want the video to go up somewhere else entirely, navigate to My Documents and you should find a folder named Flip Videos or something like that. That’ll contain the WMV of your finished video. Note: I had to ask a colleague in Alabama where my finished movie was, because I couldn’t figure it out and didn’t remember seeing a prompt. So, just remember, it’s in My Documents.

As a sidenote, the hard drive of the camera holds your raw clips as AVI files and you can always navigate to them in your My Computer folder when the camera is connected. That’s good if you want to edit your clips in Premiere or some other editing program.

As for video quality, I was impressed with how the video looked, but unimpressed with its audio capabilities. There is no external audio jack. Overall, though, this camera isn’t meant for hardcore editing projects. Stick to the quick and dirty stuff and have fun with it. For $150 you can’t go wrong.

Despite this, I’m alright with Obama’s bad bowling skills. He’s running for a job that doesn’t require much in the way of bowling prowess, or hunting experience, or whiskey-drinking abilities.

I’m alright with Obama’s gutter balls.