Iron_Dreamer

So did anyone actually get out to this? Calling Mike.... Sounds great. Might be heading down to the San Diego area this weekend...so there is a chance that they'd have Dark Lord at the Pizza Port?

Wow, well I haven't had any issues with Ontrac, other than the fact that they drive up to my house in unmarked, non-business looking vehicles (out in the country, causing people to wonder who the fuck just came up their driveway). I had two packages delivered by Ontrac in the last two days down here in LA where I'm at now, and no problems. Thank goodness, I'd have really been ticked off if Amazon's shipping method lost my new phone.

Well, I broke down and ordered the Thunderbolt. It'll be my first Android (well smartphone, for that matter) experience. The cancellation/delay/whatever of the Droid Bionic, the Droid Incredible 2's lack of 4G, and the overpriced, somewhat ugly nature of the Droid Charge, convinced me that I'm not going to be missing much in the near future.

You don't. Camera specific settings are the domain of manufacturer 's software only. At any rate, most of those settings are only crude approximations of what you can do in software like ACR, and are really only there to accommodate JPEG shooters who don't have the time/desire/whatever to edit their own raw files. What I've traditionally done is use the most conservative camera profile in ACR, which is Camera Neutral for Nikon models, at least, and then apply my own tweaks. This ensures that the general color profile matches the manufacturer's, but allows me to control how much contrast and saturation I bake into the shot. BTW the WB looks overly warm and green tinted in the shot posted.

Yikes, Shelly. I hope the best for both of you.

Way to go Al. That was one long game...took enough perseverance to muddle through the whole thing on TV...it really became a foul-ball fest after the 8th or so. It looked like a glorious day at the ballpark, and a world away from the twenty degree temps and on-again, off-again snow here today.

Have a daggumedly good birthday Tyler!

This, now!

Happy birthday fellow Tannoy fan! You're still somehow on my ever-shortening list of HC'ers I still need to meet in person!

Yep, without question, it is my first option for selling camera stuff. The $25/year seller fee is a lot less than you'd lose on one eBay transaction.

Here's the latest from JHA on the 3A:

I'd want the 10-20 and 50 for sure. The kit lens could help minimize lens swaps, and fill in those more normal focal lengths. You'd need one of your tele lenses if you like to pull in details from large items, gardens, etc. So while the 18-55 might be the "easier" option, a telezoom could give you more creative possibilities. Or just take four and leave one of the tele zooms at home, it's not as if they are especially heavy lenses we're talking about here.

That's what I was getting at.

Yeah, I get using the smartphone for routing in the city, but I'm often in rural areas with no coverage, even on Verizon.

Fuck office politics! Sorry, man.

Have a great one, Doug!

ASR can do it without VR/IS/etc, he's a human boulder!

I see your point, but this unit actually has a much more viewable screen and better routing than the car GPS's I've used in the past. Also, it has a lot more tracking of various stats along your drive, can record your route/speed/etc. All I'm really giving up is traffic reporting (which never worked well enough to skip listening to radio traffic reports in big cities anyway), and screen size, which isn't really an issue, as it uses the screen space it has a lot more effectively.

A Garmin Oregon 450 outdoor GPS. Turns out, it is also a very good turn-by-turn GPS, with the right maps installed (though no sexy/scary computer voices).

Got up yesterday, found out I had some free SF Giants tickets, hustled about trying to find people to use the extras, drove 3.5 hours to pick up the tickets and get to the game, drank some beer at 21st Amendment, went to Al's house, watched some classic funky 80's movies, got up at 5:30am, listened to Beethoven's 9th in full while driving 1.5 hours to a trailhead, hiked over 15 miles and up about 5,500ft of elevation, had dinner at 5 guys, drove 3 hours home. Whew....just my kind of whirlwind fun. Here's a shot from deep inside the Ohlone Wilderness:

Here's a handheld shot from my hike today, courtesy of the magic of VR (24-120 f/4):

I can't say I'm a huge fan of the Lightroom file management system either. I find that I get what I want done easier and faster using Bridge and Photoshop CS5.

I would think that the "winter" reference is an old one, meaning the 1st quarter of this year, not the 4th. I'd be shocked to see it pushed to the end of the year, as it seems like things were on a roll.

I test drove the Thunderbolt the other day. It's the first touchscreen phone I've been able to type accurately on without severely degrading typing speed. I was impressed. The phone definitely felt pretty quick, and I'm sure it would only improve with bloatware removed. Still, I'm not quite ready to bite, between never having paid for a phone before, not being too keen on early-adoption, and still wondering exactly what will come out that's better in the next few months.

Happy belated Al, I hope you and your mom have a great time out at the first ever opening day of the WORLD CHAMPION San Francisco Giants!