First Photos [13/366]
It was a big day today. The end of the first week of the semester always brings a sigh of relief. It was miserably cold today with wind chills dipping into the negatives and....drumroll please...my D7000 was waiting on my front porch when I got home today! Since you couldn't be here to unbox it with me, I took photos :-)
The box from Jack's, after I brought it in the house and opened up the packing tape...
Clear away all those peanuts to reveal some Nikon-ny goodness.
And, finally her box emerges from the safety of its packing peanut carriage.
It's her first portrait!
Because it was so cold today and I had no idea how long she had been sitting outside waiting for me to get home, I waited a LONG time before I charged the battery and started using her. I wanted her to warm up completely so she didn't go into some sort of bizarre shock. I'm totally rocking the two SD cards - one is holding the RAW images and the other the basic JPGs - even so, at the higher MP, I'm only going to get about 100 images on my 4GB cards - ugh! All of the other settings and features and knobs and dials - well - let's just say I'm going to be shooting in program mode for a few days until I figure out where everything is.
So, you know I took some photos, right?
Of course, I did.
Fluffy was serving as my model through several test shots until I got the ISO adjusted - none of which were pretty. About the time I got everything adjusted, she decided she needed a break so art guy filled in for a few.
After her beauty break, Fluffy did return. Don't you think this look says - "Oh joy...the camera is back?" (read that in the most sarcastic voice you have). She got a good belly rub afterwards so all in all, I think she was pleased with the deal.
One other thing to share today. One of my intentions, inspired by one of Gretchen Rubin's "resolutions" in The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun, is to "Change the Lightbulb". (BTW - if you haven't read it - it's a great book!) What does that mean you ask? It means, when some small inconvenience is bothering me, fix it. Now, you might be thinking, "Well, duh!" But the fact of the matter is, I have the tendency to throw these things on a to do list or, (probably more likely) just completely ignore them, and just allow myself to be a little irked every time I run up against one.
Case in point? The headphones on my desk at work. I spend an inordinate amount of time whipping my headphones on and off. Because they plug into the USB port on the front of my PC AND because I don't want them taking up space on my desk, I usually toss them on top of the PC tower under my desk. However, I often miss. Which means I have to crawl under my desk and retrieve them from wherever I've pushed/kicked them to. Not good for my mood and not good for the electronics. Enter...my lifehack. (I am a huge fan of the web site Lifehacker and for those of you who still think I know a lot of stuff about technology...that site is one of the prime reasons I do know about and keep up with stuff.)
I grabbed what I had on hand which was...a super large binder clip (I think it's a 1" clip) and some sticky-backed velcro. I keep sticky backed velcro EVERYWHERE. There is some in my toolbox, in my desk drawer at work, my desk drawer at home, and my studio. If you couldn't use sticky back velcro (as it is very sticky and most likely won't come off) you could fashion something out of the ultra awesome Sugru, use a 3M hook (they probably also make some sort of 3M ultra removable sticky stuff) or magnets if your surface is metal (which mine is so I could have gone that route, but electronics...magnets...never a good idea).
You probably don't need a photo to show you that you stick one side of the sticky-back velcro to the back side of the binder clip, but, what would my first lifehack be without step by step photos?
And, finally, stick the other sticky back side to the area where you want to hang your headphones. I then just flipped up the silver part of my binder clip to create a more natural "hook" and hung my headphones. They've been mounted like this most of the week and all is still well so hopefully it's a pretty solid fix for something that has been driving me nuts. I'm already in the habit of hooking them back in their new home after each use and retrieving them (the part that had made me nuts before) is so easy.
I'm off to Ikea with some friends tomorrow (huge YEAH!!!) and then just hanging out around the house on Sunday and taking a friend TV shopping on Monday since we have a long weekend. Do you have big plans for the weekend?