crappyjones123

One of the most heartbreaking but yet satisfying volunteer projects I've been a part of. Today I went to a local pediatric oncology ward with 3 classmates and we hung out with some of the coolest kids ever. This was one of my favorite shots from this morning. On the right is Ana, who wants to be a pediatrician. On the left, is Jerimiah, who at the ripe age of 20 months wants to give everyone 'fist bumps of love' forever. We got to spend just a few minutes with each kid as they awaited their treatments. Just as we were getting comfortable, we got a constant reminder that they were there for chemotherapy. An awful plight but the incessant hugs and being asked to give everyone piggy back rides made it somewhat ok.

I think it's time for a astrotracker. :faceaplm:

Saw them on Facebook Ari. Very well done. Good fortune as well. Jeff, you must have used a much wider lens than the 50 I used. Haj, I had read of the 800 rule previously and was using 16 seconds as the absolute max. Figured 10 seconds would be a safe choice.

This is not false.

Stood in line at the local observatory for an hour and 40 minutes and just before they were about to call it a night, the lady directly in front of me called her family and asked them to leave the house because their turn was about to come. I figured it might be a couple of people so didn't say anything. In come walking 19 people (I counted). I politely asked them to join the back of the line and was summarily told to shut the fuck up, mind my own business and go back to Iran or Iraq or wherever the fuck I came from. Wished them all a good evening and left the line and mentioned it the person in charge who didn't seem to care for 19 people cutting the line. Once the people behind me found out, they raised their voices as well but the observatory folks didn't give a shit. Went out and tried to take some pictures. Found out that 50mm is far too narrow to get anything appreciable when it comes to astrophotography. Also found out that no matter what I tried, I got star trails even at 10s exposures. Either that or the camera shook. I tried both mirror lock up and a time delay but the same shake was present in both images. Close to a 100% crop below. Thoughts on if it really is a star trail or if the mirror slap is causing the shake?

http://www.benjaminkanarekblog.com/2015/02/07/nikon-d900-when-and-what-will-it-do-my-call/ canon can suck it.

What if you want a flatter response but less midrange and presence detail as well as warmth?

I got chastised by classmates for hating Mad Men for the same reason. Glad to know I am not alone in that thought.

Less than a week to go. We still need some funding to pay for the camera rental. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. www.photographyinmedicine.org

A classmate asked me to take some pictures for his sister's undergrad graduation despite me saying I had little clue as to what I was doing. Critiques welcome.

Might qualify for their third tier of conditions of 'broken.'

Some Fuji gear is $100-$200 off as per an email I just got from bh. If anyone wishes to see let me know and I can forward the email to you.

Growing up in India, I never really liked Hindi/Bollywood music. The stuff I did enjoy (sufi music by the likes of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) was considered "too adult (whatever that meant)" for me. I was always a night owl - had a weekly purchase of 4 AA batteries for my flashlight because my sister wouldn't let me read past her bed time so I would pull over the covers and use a flashlight to continue reading. Eventually I got to the point where I needed to stay up to do homework so I was allowed a table lamp. Around this time, my dad got me a Sony Walkman for playing cassettes as a birthday present and my weekly quote of 4 AA batteries went up to 8. Man I loved that thing. Over the next few weeks, I ruined the few tapes we had from listening to them over and over again and happened upon the FM feature. 99% of the stations were playing songs from the 70s and 80s which all sounded like crap to me and then out of nowhere I heard a very slow rhythmic acoustic guitar. Nothing Else Matters by Metallica started my journey into metal and english music in general. I never got pocket money or an allowance as a kid. I was told as long as I had straight A's, I could get whatever I wanted - all I had to do was ask. The requests for basketballs from America and badminton racquets from Singapore changed to cassettes. We had a shitty little Sanyo tape player but I couldn't listen to it at night once my sister was asleep and the walkman sounded infinitely better. The next birthday, I received a 12 pack of rechargeable batteries because I was going through quite a few batteries between the walkman and the flashlight. I listened to the cassettes during the evenings and the one radio station that played non Hindi music from 9pm until I went to bed as that was the only time it ever played english songs. I had a habit of listening to one cassette while reading a novel and I'd only move onto another cassette when I had finished the novel. Till date when I hear a song from the past, I remember exactly what I was reading over 15 years ago - whether I was under my covers during a school night reading when I should have been asleep or if I was sitting under a tree during the summer reading without a care in the world. Last summer, I decided to revisit some of Michael Crichton's novels that I had enjoyed as a kid and immediately the songs started playing in my head. It was a great feeling as it took me back to a time when I thought I was actually being chased by a velociraptor in the middle of Jurassic Park. Back when I thought some day I really would save the world from an island full of dinosaurs. To be 9 again.. When I moved to America at 16, I asked for a portable CD player and was amazed at the ability of this nifty Sony software to fit some 500 songs onto one CD compared to the 10-12 I was used to. At the time I didn't know that it was achieving this by compressing the shit out of the songs but I wasn't as concerned with the quality of what I was hearing. Fast forward a few years and I started looking for a better pair of headphones for gaming which led me to Head - Fi. A year of looking at insane people who had spent more than $150 on a pair of headphones, I purchased a pair of Sennheiser HD 595s and a Little Dot MKV amp. The combo was years beyond anything I had ever heard before. A couple of years later, I found out about CanJam in Florida and it seemed like an absurdly good opportunity right in my backyard. Still remember getting 2 flat tires on my way there. I had never had a job (always had been in school full time) so I didn't have any money to be able to afford a room at the meet and my parent's weren't too keen on letting me go either. Al and Gene, in their infinite generosity, offered the couch in their room and even kicked out Steveio when he passed out on the spot that had been promised to me. At the meet, I listened to blues live for the first time. The Eric Culberson Blues Band also happened to be the first live show and it made two things clear - live music was waaaaaaaay louder than I could handle and I really liked blues music. At the meet, I didn't hear a familiar song but it was a great introduction to all the music that I didn't know was out there. After the meet I went through a few years of gear farming where I bought and sold multiple pairs of HD650s in hopes of finding something better only to realize that I hated every single alternative I tried. Once the 650s were settled upon, I started cycling through amps and only really stopped only I built the bottle head crack and paired it with the inexpensive emotiva dac, that I was done with the gear acquisition syndrome for a while. At least until the Jh16s were announced. Since then things have been fairly calm in terms of gear and a lot more time has been spent trying to find new music and relistening to the music I grew up with. Somewhere along the way I was invited to HC and now I am here, amongst you fine people. Sitting on a comfy couch with my feet up (can't lay down flat because of a massive groin sprain), sipping on some good chocolate milk listening to Ritchie Havens live at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Cheers

I wonder what commission Peter is getting on all the 20mm sales

Overgrilled an absurdly expensive beautiful rib eye. So freaking pissed.

Already spent a 1/5 of what I sold the amp for on shipping the amp back and forth. Bleh.

Sold the crack amp a while back. After 2 weeks of not hearing anything, the guy says he is not getting any sound out of the left channel. I asked him to take pictures of the amp and he sends me completely out of focus images from a D700. Not sure how but whatever. He said he couldn't find any loose connections. Asked him to ship the amp back to me. Found this...

The moron explanation might be true. The videos I saw had the steaks cooked to medium rare but after the two minutes with the broiler it got to medium in effect cooking the center of the steak as well.

Does the searzall actually work? A few of the YouTube videos make it seem like a waste. 2 minutes on each side is too much.

I am still in my second year of classes. Just go to the ER on random evenings to help out and try to get to know the physicians as I hope to work in the ER some day. I have 2 years to figure out what exactly I want to practice and I'll be going through quite a few specialities in my third year that will hopefully help that decision. I realize now that the ER is where one sees people at their worst hours but it is not something that I truly understood earlier. Physicians often told me that once they are done with their shift, they truly are done. No work ever goes home with them and that was a big reason why I was drawn to emergency medicine but I just don't see how the crazy things that come in every day don't go home with the doctors. How do you not think about 8 year olds getting sexually assaulted or a parent losing a child to a distracted driver? I wanted to go into EM because I didn't want to have to deal with patients in a longitudinal manner but it seems like that is preferred to seeing very rough cases in a short amount of time. Perhaps radiology/pathology is where I need to be...

The hardest part is not the gross aspect but keeping myself from judging the patient and his circumstances. All the good physicians I have met have either lost their humanity and things like these just don't phase them anymore or they find a way to separate their own feelings from what brought the patient in. It's very hard for me to genuinely want to help a guy who was brought into the ER at 11pm for alcohol poisoning, discharged at 8am and then brought back in for passing out drunk next to a store at 4pm. I realize that as a society we are judged and held accountable based on how we help and treat those who are less fortunate but wouldn't our efforts be better directed trying to help those who want our help? I was far more idealistic when I was just sitting in the classroom. Now that I have to type up charts and stay up all night monitoring drunk guys, who do the same thing everyday without any feeling of remorse, I'm starting to grow resentful. Hope I can learn to set that part of my brain aside when I am actually treating patients.

Unfortunately, you would still have to go through this regardless of what you wish to specialize in. During the third and fourth year of medical school, students rotate through required specialities for at least a month. Some like family medicine are typically 2-3 months. Even if you wanted to go into plastics you would still have to do your share of genital exams whether you wanted to or not. Monday we learn to do prostate exams. Hooray!!! NOT...

Learned how to perform a male genital exam today. On a patient with syphilis. Who had a syphilitic chancre in a place where you really don't want a chancre. The size of a dime. The only thing I remember the resident saying the entire time - "always double glove." Pretty sure I will be triple gloving from now on for everything. PS. Sorry for your toe nail

I wouldnt have known. Never had spam either.

Looking forward to your pictures Jeff.