Making the jump to Lightspeed – 18 August 2020

New modem today. A little prezzy from Mr Branson

It was a lady from Yodel who handed Scamp the box just before lunch. Over lunch I digested the instructions as well as bacon and an egg. It seemed too easy. Switch off and disconnect the old modem. Connect, plug in and switch on the new one. They even supplied a plastic spanner for the disconnection/connection. Then we waited as little coloured lights flashed across the front of the new black box. Finally they settled down to a plain white (on light) and a couple of green lights. After that and after typing in the long password we were in!

Before the switch over the stats were:

Latency 24ms. Download speed 66.4Mbps. Upload speed 9.8Mbps

After the switch over:

Latency 30ms. Download speed 104.6Mbps. Upload speed 9.6Mbps

Yes, it’s all gobbledegook to me too, but the download speed was over what we’d been promised, so a 6ms lag in response was forgivable … for now.

With everything ticking along smoothly and both our phones now connected to the new black box we went out for a walk. Just to be on the safe side we both packed a light wet weather jacket, because heavy rain was forecast for the later afternoon. We needn’t have bothered, the rain kindly waited until we’d walked round the boardwalk at Broadwood Loch, walked over the dam, continued down and round the exercise machine circuit (no, we didn’t use any of the machines) and on up to the shops to get some fruit, then home. It was after all that, that the rain came. Lightly at first, then heavier until it was good wetting rain. Scamp had decided not to risk cutting the grass when we got home and I’m sure she knows it was the right thing to do. It means she’ll be out there tomorrow testing the grass to see if it’s dry enough for a short cut.

We spent the evening introducing the various electronic devices in the house to the new black box in the corner. Still got some to do, but it’s all a lot easier than when I brought a little bit of circuit board home one Sunday afternoon long ago, plugged it into the back of my home built PC and found the Internet.

PoD was a panorama of Broadwood Loch made in Lightroom from six frames and with a more interesting sky than nature provided today. That’s what software is for. Ansel Adams reputedly said that “Making a photograph only starts with the camera.” A wise man.

Tomorrow Scamp may be grass cutting. I’m thinking I may be painting. All that may change, of course. It will depend on the weather.

Confusion Reigns – 3 August 2020

Confusion may have reigned, but there wasn’t much actual rain. A bit, but not much.

I’d promised to clean up the inside of the car and that’s what I did first this morning. It’s not sparkling clean, but it’s not nearly as dirty and messy as it was. Not quite in the JIC category, more … lived in!

With the future of the Juke in mind, I phoned Nissan to check if I was actually booked in for a meeting tomorrow (not Thursday as I’d reported in yesterday’s blog). I seemed to confuse the receptionist because I didn’t have a department or a sales person she could transfer the call to. She eventually just passed it on to the first available sales person. I then proceeded to confuse him too. Eventually I cut to the chase and asked him: “Do you have an appointment scheduled for me to visit tomorrow?” He said “No.” Not the answer I wanted, but at least we were getting somewhere. He now wanted to hand this confusing and possibly confused customer over to someone else. He opened my file and found the salesman I dealt with three years ago when I bought the Juke. He said he’d contact him and get him to phone me later. I think he went out to have lunch then and left his phone deliberately in the office. Locked in a drawer, no doubt.

Scamp wasn’t feeling so good today. She had been feeling sick during the night and hadn’t slept much. For those reasons, she had a light lunch, and so did I because I was still trying to get my head round what had happened. To clarify things we started looking at options for loans or money transfers, basically working out what was the easiest way to deal with the offloading or keeping of the Juke. With my head spinning in a different way now I suggested we take a run to Bishopbriggs to buy a 2 Terabyte removable drive to let me back up the MacBook Pro and the iMac using Time Machine. It’s an old but reliable way of backing up your entire Apple computer with more options than there are with Carbon Copier. Don’t roll your eyes JIC, I’m not going deep into the technicalities. Carbon Copier is a disaster recovery tool. Time Machine is a file recovery tool. Anyway, we drove to Bishopbriggs and bought the cheapest one I could find with a reputable make.

Back home again, I was just about to go on a ‘beastie hunt’ when my phone rang and it was the salesman who sold me the Juke trying to unravel the mess. The phone call I got last week from Renault finance was actually telling me about a discount event that runs from Wednesday 5th until Saturday. They had got their wires crossed and had also been booking people for the event from today and causing a lot of problems as a result. To simplify things I agreed that we’d to to the VIP event which will also feature an extra discount (probably less than 1%). So, I have until Wednesday to get rid of the remaining seagull crap, dust the inside of the car. Wash it down and tidy up the boot. I might get the seagull crap removed. The rest? No chance!

There were no beasties posing for photos today. The bees were too busy, the beetles were beetling about, the ladybirds were lazing, even the flowers were fading. I came home almost empty handed and with no quality work.

Scamp was feeling better by dinner time and had some light tomato spaghetti. After dinner I was making my coffee when I spotted him. There is a Cyberman in my coffee machine! It took me a few seconds to prise him out and half an hour to get a tripod and camera positioned so that I could record his existence. What you see above is living proof that Cybermen exist!

Later we found that series 1 episode 1 of Line of Duty was on BBC 1 (also on iPlayer). It’s a totally believable storyline about corruption in the police and must be the best cop series on TV. I think we started watching it from about halfway through series 2 or maybe we started at series 3. Worth watching if you haven’t seen it before.

Right, so we aren’t going to Stirling tomorrow. In fact, by the looks of the weather we won’t be going anywhere tomorrow. Certainly not without a good Goretex jacket. It’s going to be wet and windy.

Feeling a bit run down – 2 July 2020

You know how some days you feel a bit lacklustre and not exactly full of energy. That’s how Scamp’s wee red car felt today.

We had spent the morning lounging around and too lazy to do much. Although the wonders of shopping in Glasgow were drawing us in to the big city, inertia was holding us fast. Eventually we decided that today was a lovely sunny day after a few wet and dull days, and we should both make the most of it. Tomorrow promises to be wet and windy. That might be a better day to wander round the shops. Our decision was to go and do some food shopping because Scamp was chef tonight, then I might go out for a run on the Dewdrop. Scamp’s car hadn’t turned a wheel for about a month, so she offered to drive, except …

When she turned the key in the ignition the starter coughed a few times and then went silent. She tried again and it was like a death rattle. Lifted the bonnet, but there was nothing to see. After my recent problems with the Juke, I suspected a flat battery. Scamp tried phoning for the AA which is run through our bank, but there was a 20min wait in a queue, even to find out if we were covered for home start. I phoned Jim Dickson our go-to place for all car consumables to find out how much a new battery would cost. It was a lot less than Kwik Fit or AA were quoting, like a hundred pounds less in the case of the AA.

After a fair bit of swearing and about half an hour’s work the old battery came out and I took it for a run to see what Mr Dickson would say about it. He (or as it turned out, she because it was Ms Dickson who was in charge today) said yes, they had one in stock and for once it was the cheap one we needed. Back home I wrestled the new battery into place and nearly wrecked a Torx spanner tightening the retaining bolt. Before I connected the terminals back in place I did check with Mr Google who told me that I was correct in assuming that the negative terminal was the first to be connected. I don’t know where I’d remembered that from, because it’s a very long time since I’ve replaced a battery in a car. With everything connected, the key turned, the engine started an Scamp had a smile on her face again.

Work done, I had an hour to spend walking over St Mo’s before dinner. Came back and sat in the garden with a pint of Guinness while the chef prepared dinner which turned out to be a lovely Paneer Curry. Quite the best curry I’ve had in a long time. I must get the recipe!

While I was out I got today’s PoD which is a seven spot ladybird. Managed a shot of a hoverfly masquerading as a bee too. I took the ladybird with a conventional shot, but the hoverfly was captured using Post Focus. It’s really an extremely short video that allows you to select one frame to download and turn into a JPEG file. Yes, JIC I know that’s Technospeak and you weren’t warned. Sorry. Just call it Black Magic! That’s how it seems to me and I know how it works.

Because of the battery problems, I didn’t really get round to doing a sketch until just before I started the blog, but it is done and will be posted tomorrow, all being well. Also tomorrow we may go in to Glasgow if the rain isn’t too heavy.

A Toy off the Rack – 12 June 2020

Ah, but all is not as it seems. Read on dear reader!

I got a text message this morning from Parcelforce: “Sorry but there’s been a delay to your parcel and we are no longer able to deliver it today …”. Blah, blah, blah “… it will now be delivered next working day (Monday to Friday)”. Can’t say I was all that surprised, I’d read the comments about Parcelforce, but as it was the only option for a decent timeslot, I took it. Should have known. My only previous dealings with Wex, the supplier of the lens, was before the New World Order started and then I could get my stuff delivered free to the Glasgow shop. Of course, now the shop is shut and I have to rely on flaky Parcelforce. I complained to Wex and they agreed to reimburse me for the fiver I’d paid for next day delivery, but I think this is the last time I’ll buy from them until they use someone who can actually deliver the goods (no pun intended.). I live in hope.

So, if that wasn’t the Toy, what was? Well, Scamp started searching through Which to find a new tablet. Her old one only has 8GB storage and although you can bung in a 64GB micro SD card, the OS and most of the apps must go on the on-board storage. It’s daft, but true. Even a quarter of the way into the 21st century, we’re still living with these unnecessary restrictions. She did find one that suited her and her price range and we could actually get it today from Currys. We had to pay for it up front and then wait for an email telling us to drive to the nominated Currys to get the handover. It was all very hush-hush. You drive to the store and park in one of the bays. Send a message to Currys to say that you have arrived, adding the make, model and colour of your car as well as the last three characters of its licence plate. Then a black clad attendant approaches and tells you to open the boot. Another operative approaches with the item you’ve purchased and places it in the boot and tells you you are free to leave. I felt like switching on Sport mode and doing the smoking tyres take-off out of the area in case there were snipers or at the very least NPR cameras tracking our every move. It was all a bit like a dodgy drug deal (not that I’ve ever participated in such a thing, of course, but a friend of mine told me that …).

Safely home we unboxed the tablet and plugged it in. Thankfully it uses a USB-C connector. At last there’s a hint that someone is making technology for use by humans, not tech savvy nerds. With it plugged in and a smile on Scamp’s face, I walked over to St Mo’s with my Oly and the old macro lens looking for something interesting to photograph. The something turned out to be a Marsh Orchid. Not something rare, but it does look quite exotic. They grow on a lot of the waste land in St Mo’s.

Tonight was spent transferring data and apps from the old tablet to the new one. We’re almost there now and I think I might even treat myself to a new tablet soon too. My old one is getting slow. My ancient one is almost dead and suffers from even more problems than Scamp’s old tablet. Maybe I’m just dying to wear the black polo neck sweater and the dark glasses and talk in passwords again to black clad operatives outside Currys.

Tomorrow it looks like rain.

Domain disaster averted – 5 June 2020

You’re lucky to be reading this!

It all started with an email this morning telling me that my domain name (the bit that starts ‘dhcampbell’) had expired and if I didn’t do something about it, i.e. pay them money, I’d lose the website. Well, that was a nice thing to read on a Saturday morning. I checked the address the email had come from and it was genuine, so I tried to contact my domain name provider, but couldn’t find an email address for them on their site. I did find a ‘chat’ box, but that timed out after a few minutes. After waiting for 20mins on the phone to them, I gave up on that too. Long story short, I eventually found that I could log a return call from them and did that. Had lunch and then Scamp and I went out for a walk. A very quiet walk on my part. Came home and checked for a reply, but there were none. Then I found a message to the effect that the message that started it all off was not about my domain at all, it was about a site they’d held for me “as a goodwill gesture”! It would have possibly have been an good idea to tell me that some time in the last year. I got the phone call from the help line exactly on time and the person on the other end confirmed what it said on the message. A message that had only been posted at 3.08pm today. I think I now know why. I’m guessing their switchboard was jammed with irate callers wanting to know what the hell they were doing. I may be looking for another domain name provider soon.

Our walk in the afternoon was round St Mo’s pond and then Scamp told me she was going to go to the butchers to get me a steak for dinner and I was to walk round the pond again and get some photos. There was nothing really worth photographing today, but I went anyway. It was only on the way home I found today’s PoD when a bee landed on the Marguerite flower I was photographing and made it much more interesting.

Scamp potted up her new rose today and it does look very elegant. Beautiful big pink flowers and what a perfume. I think she likes it!

Steak was very nice. Just on the over side of medium rare. Juicy and just what I needed to calm down.

Quick sketch today of two garlic bulbs. Couldn’t find anything I wanted to draw, so I reverted to another list. An old EDiM list this time. Looks much better than the 2020 list, although it was written at a time ago when we were free, there were shops, great metal birds flew in the sky and every year we were allowed to go on holiday. Seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it.

Tomorrow looks a bit warmer and calmer than today. It was a bit breezy!

Happy Birthday, Birthday Girl – 24 March 2020

Today is Scamp’s birthday, but because of Covid 19 we stayed at home.

Breakfast in bed for her, and for me. Actually that’s nothing unusual for us. One thing that retirement has taught me is that there’s no need to rush anymore. If it needs done, it will get done. If it didn’t get done, then it wasn’t needing done in the first place. After Scamp opened her parcels and almost choked at the antics of her ‘Dancing Cat’, we both finished the chapters of the books we were reading and got on with the day.

I sewed a torn seam on two of my shirt pockets, caused by stuffing my phone and my glasses in there. After finishing one shirt and starting another I promptly lost the needle and panicked because a lost needle can be a really dangerous thing in a house. You’ve heard the expression “Turned the house upside down” when looking for something? We turned the three seater sofa upside down … and then shook it, but no needle. We hoovered, we tentatively searched between the cushions. Finally, I went upstairs to carefully strip off all the clothes I was wearing to see if the needle had become lodged in them, and that’s when Scamp shouted that she’d found it. It was still tacked into the shirt I had finished repairing. We’d both looked and looked at that shirt without finding it, but there it was. Thank goodness.

By then it was coffee time and after calming down and some discussion we chose to stay at home today. Nobody, but nobody was moving their cars out. Maybe we stayed at home, but that didn’t mean we didn’t go out. Scamp planted out her two boxes of pansies in the front garden. She also did a bit of weeding and some feeding of her plants. She did a bit more pruning of bushes and plants in the back garden too.

<Technospeak>
I must admit I was tempted to go out for a walk, but I thought I’d better obey Boris’s Rules and stay home. So I took the Benbo out to the garden and set up the E-M1 and macro lens on it, turned on ‘focus stacking’ and took some 15 shots of a crocus flower. The focus stacking allows you to take a rapid number of shots, all at slightly incasing focus distances. My aim was to get a set of shots with focus settings from the very front of the nearest petal to the furthest back petal. Eventually I worked out it should be about 9 shots, not 15. Focus stacking works best with a totally still subject, and just as I pressed the shutter button each time, a tiny wee breeze would blow and start to make the crocus nod its head. I finally got the sequence I wanted without the breeze and could pack up and go inside. There I squirted the shots into the piece of software that does the magic and merges the 9 shots into one. The result you see here is what it looks like. It was done using Affinity Photo. Thanks again Hazy!
</Technospeak>

I became so engrossed in this process I forgot that I was making dinner tonight. Carrot & Lentil Curry. A long time favourite of ours. Got it made and left it to keep warm just in time to go and speak to Hazy, Neil-D, JIC, Sim and Vixen. We didn’t actually speak to Tilly and Penny, but we knew they were there too. All through the magic of Zoom™. We were very impressed with the software. Scamp was desperate to show off the Dancing Cat. I think Hazy & Neil-D thought it was funny. JIC & Sim not so much. I could just see JIC mouthing “What the hell is that” or something similar. It didn’t matter, the main thing is Scamp thought it was brilliant!

That was a good day. Curry was good. Flat bread was better and even better still was the orange and rhubarb jelly, which was superb! Best of all was the look on Scamp’s face when the Dancing Cat started his routine this morning!!

Tomorrow? Possibly more of the same, but without Zoom™.

What a dull day for the first day of the decade – 1 January 2020

Dull, but at least it was dry.

As predicted, bedtime was early this morning rather than late last night, and drink was taken. Therefore, it was a late rise this morning. After that a rather lazy start to the day with no attempt to achieve the required 10,000 steps or even the 250 steps per hour. The fact that I was moving at all was an achievement in itself. Scamp, however, was much better today with very little sign of the pains that had been bothering her for the last couple of days.

After a frugal lunch (piece ’n’ bacon for me and a piece ’n’ egg for Scamp), we went for a leisurely walk around ‘easy’ St Mo’s. We stuck to the new path and I took a few photos, but only a few were worth considering as PoD. The best of a bad lot was the swan’s head. Even that was poor. Hopefully there will be better light tomorrow, but I’m not too confident about that.

<Technospeak>
On the computer front, the bastardised macOS Sierra was still working on the old MBP, but it took a terrible time to boot up and I’m still not sure what exactly that patched OS is doing in the background. With that in mind I decided to do a clean install of El Capitan and to remove the ancient hard drive that’s been draining the battery for years. The reset worked well and the boot time to El Capitan is much reduced from that of the slightly illegal Sierra.

My Lightroom 6 is an upgrade version and needs proof of purchase of a previous version to install. That proof is the serial number for the original version, in my case, version 1! Today I found it at the back of a cupboard, so I can have Lightroom on my old MBP and a legal version too, because Adobe are very aggressive in their searches for illegal software. That’s tomorrow’s job, as is what someone once called “the tracery of free and shareware programs that constantly run in the background”.
</Technospeak>

Dinner was a bit of a mishmash. My steak pie was overcooked because I forgot that the Le Creuset pot holds the heat and therefore keeps cooking long after the heat has been turned off. Still it was edible and we had a civilised dinner sitting at the table as befits a New Year’s Day dinner. Scamp’s salmon seemed to fair much better than my stew. We had a bottle of Prosecco courtesy of Clive back in September, and it was one of the best bottles of prosecco I’ve had.

Tomorrow we may go out somewhere for a walk or a look in the shops. It all depends on the weather. As usual.

Sunshine! – 30 December 2019

The sky was clearing when we woke, but it took a while for it to clear completely.

Scamp was feeling a lot better today. Good enough to go for the messages. Rather than face the crowds and the traffic jams, we chose to shop locally in Tesco. I think we nearly emptied the place, judging by the amount of stuff in the trolley we wheeled to Scamp’s car. She had decided to give the Juke the day off because it had worked hard these last few weeks.

After lunch I took the ‘old’ E-M1 out for a spin round St Mo’s and got some lovely light because the clouds had all cleared away and the low sun was warming everything up. Not actual temperature ‘warming’, but colour temperature warming. The Mired value, but you don’t need, or want to know that, do you? Let’s just say it was lovely light during what’s know to photogs as the Golden Hour. Today it was macros again and my favourite and therefore the PoD was one of some moss on the limb of a tree.

By the time I was heading home, Scamp was getting ready for a Gems Christmas/New Year party at Carol’s. A good name to have for this time of year. I wasn’t invited, of course as this was a girls only night, but I was the nominated driver for Scamp and Margie. I was even getting the privilege of driving Scamp’s car, probably to extend the Juke’s holiday. Dropped the ladies off and headed home to do battle with the MacBook Pro again.

This time I was ready. I’d read the script and the the different pieces of software. The first attempt didn’t work. Apparently the secret is to change the system date of the MBP to something about two years ago and try again. I did, and it worked. Panicked after that because although the screen looked right, I had no mouse, no keyboard and no way of progressing with the install. Back to the ‘big’ computer and read the ‘Problems’ section. It was a know problem with a solution. I did a reboot and edited one small tick box before I lost control and voila! MacOS Sierra running on a 2009 MBP. You PC owners may be saying “So?”, but this is a big deal. Apple control what can and can’t be installed on their hardware, but one clever bloke has stymied that. Well done to him. Tomorrow I’ll populate it.

Got the message just about 11pm that a taxi was required. Checked the temperature (actual temperature, not Mired!) and it was -1ºc. Had to scrape Scamp’s car, inside and out!!

When we got back, Scamp was feeling sick. I suspected self-inflicted alcohol induced poisoning, but she said that wasn’t the case. She did look a bit under the weather and went to bed just before midnight. Hope she feels better tomorrow.

If Scamp is feeling better I may go in to Glasgow tomorrow to source some ink for the printer, or then again, I may not. It’s that certain.

Lost in Coatbridge – 3 December 2019

Not the place to get lost really.

Jackie left early to go for the bus home from Glasgow. As usual she booked herself a taxi, because she didn’t want to bother us. It was good to see her. We must visit Skye soon.

We set off ourselves a bit later in search of a walk in the fresh air at Drumpellier Park on the edge of Coatbridge. It was a fine day, not sunny, not bitterly cold and dry into the bargain. A comfortable walk around an essentially dull big pond, watching the ducks and swans being ice-breakers and cutting through the thin surface layer of ice. Had a coffee and shared a muffin in the cafe and gazed out over the pond. Great view across the water and although I said it wasn’t cold, it wasn’t too warm either, so a heat in the cafe was ideal.

Drove out of the gates of the park and turned right. After about half a mile I got a bit worried, because I couldn’t remember seeing those buildings when we came in. Turned at a school, I definitely couldn’t remember that. Lost, we switched on the sat nav and asked it to find the Fort. It directed us back the way we’d come. I didn’t think that was right either, but followed its instructions for a while before I went my own way again. Nope, that wasn’t right either. Finally after checking with Google Maps, I agreed that we had to go back the way we’d come and found the proper road. Trick was to turn left on exiting the park THEN turn right. Dumplin’! ( A “dumplin’ “ is like a “numpty”, but not as stupid. )

Found the Fort and got a few things for making parcels for Christmas. Then Scamp suggested we drive in to Glasgow because Santa was going halfers with me on my Christmas Prezzy. It’s (yet) another camera. This one is new. My first new camera for a month and before that? About ten years, maybe more. So, don’t start you pair! You know who you are.

Back home it was soup and Spaghetti Carbonara for dinner. Best I’ve made for ages, although Scamp’s Lentil Soup came a close second.

Testing the camera tonight, I found a big dust bunny on the sensor. This is a new camera and the sensor has dust on it and not just a microscopic particle, this one was bit. I was tempted to take it back, but then I tried my trusty blower on it and that did the trick. It’s a nice bit of kit this. It’s a bit smaller than the rest of my M43 cameras, but has that magic 4K Post Focus trick up its sleeve. Hopefully the best of both worlds. Even better, it came with a 12-32mm lens which I loved until it fell apart on me when we were down in Wales. Hopefully this one will last longer.

PoD was a Convolvulus stem making a neat helix on a cow parsley. Taken at Drumpellier before we got lost in darkest Coatbridge.

Tomorrow, hopefully we’re dancing again and I think I’ve worked out how to do that bloody spin 4 properly.

Coffee – 26 November 2019

Three auld guys moaning.

The three auld guys in question were Fred, Val and myself. It was more of a discussion than a moan today. We hadn’t met for quite some time, so there was a lot to discuss. Books exchanged, new tech demonstrated and coffee drunk. Even made plans for a bite to eat and a possible pint in Glasgow soon. Thankfully no politics muddied the the waters.

Drove home and found that my much needed tea and always needed coffee had been delivered by the DPD man. Such a clever and useful delivery service, flexible too. Worth the three quid I paid for it.

Scamp wasn’t feeling too great but she was still having lunch when I got back. It was too wet to go back out again and I had no notion of what I could photograph in the dull, dark landscape, and anyway it was raining, so I settled for an inside ‘flooer’ photo instead. When Scamp came back she got a phone call from the doc’s to say that there was a prescription for antibiotics waiting for her. I volunteered to go for it as it was getting dark now. I didn’t even bother to take a camera. Flooers it was then.

When I got back from the chemist and after a quick raid of Tesco, I made some soup along the lines of Scamp’s Just Soup and that was dinner with a couple of slices of good bread. Not home made bread, but good all the same.

<Technospeak>
Thought I could do the fancy 4K Post Focus trick with the new camera but then realised if I was going to use room lighting with low ISO it wouldn’t work. The Post Focus trick takes about twenty odd shots in 1-2 seconds. To get them all taken in that short time, it needs to use electronic shutter and the electronic shutter don’t work with exposure times greater than 1/30th of a second. Basically, this is a bright daylight only trick. Bummer.
</Technospeak>

Got the shot done using the E-M1 and it’s a rose from some cut flowers. Not exactly what I had in mind, but it works, and it’s PoD.

I was playing around with a trial version of a new prog called Luminar4. It has the amazing ability to change the sky in a landscape instantly to any one of about 40 different ones. It apparently uses AI to accomplish it. It really is a brilliant trick, but where’s the fun in doing it instantly when you can take an hour or so in Lightroom and ON1 to do it with a lot of swearing? AI? Not for me I prefer LOI. Lack Of Intelligence.  Typical result below.  Original sky on the left.

Tomorrow if we’re fit we’re hoping to go dancing.