RedBubble

I came across another site that lets (i.e. helps) you sell your photography on different types of media: RedBubble.com

So, I thought I'd give it a shot. I uploaded some of my fav shots and we'll see how it goes.

You can find my "gallery" here.

Again, I'm not thinking I'll get rich off this. Just hoping to make a few bucks to add more toys to my collection. :)

On a different note, I built my light box last night. I'll post a pic or two of it once I start using it. First, I need to pick up a couple of small lamps for lighting. We checked them out at Canadian Tire this evening and I found one that I liked, but there was only one and it was an open box.

We'll have to try another location or see what other stores have to offer.

Untitled

via TweetDeck

Untitled

via TweetDeck

Light Box Photography

I've got a new project in the works.

I'm going to try my hand and light box photography. There's all sorts of different DIY instructions on the web. I'll probably try one of the more disposable ideas using a cardboard box ideas first and see how it goes.

Trailer-Sized Camera

I can’t believe the amount of work this guy puts into taking a single shot. The end results are pretty cool though, and unique.

John Chiara and His Amazing Trailer-Sized Camera 

Be sure to check out the video of the entire process.

Things you may not know about Gmail (or GoogleMail)

Did you know that googlemail.com is the same as gmail.com?

Yep. If you have a Gmail or GoogleMail email address, you can use either domain name suffix in your email address. It would appear that at one time, Googlemail.com was a U.K. only domain for Gmail and then Google gave users the option to switch it to gmail.com.

Did you also know that Gmail (aka GoogleMail) ignores all periods in the email address prefix for Gmail/GoogleMail email addresses?

Yep. This means that "myemail@gmail.com", "my.email@gmail.com", and "m.y.e.m.a.i.l@gmail.com" are all the same addresses.

Every once in a while I get an email intended for another Scott Paterson, whom I believe lives somewhere in the U.K. It would appear that the other Scott Paterson is using the "scottpaterson AT googlemail.com" email address.

Unfortunately for that Scott, he'll never get any email intended for him because I happen to have the "scott.paterson AT gmail.com" email address and anything sent to him shows up in my inbox.

This makes me wonder if the other Scott ever tries to read his email, or if he just uses it to prevent receiving spam, because I can't see how he could ever log into Gmail to read the email. From what I read in the first link I posted above, he would have had to click an option to make the change from googlemail.com to gmail.com. If that’s the case, I’m kinda surprised that it was allowed since I’ve had the “scott.paterson AT gmail.com” for a long time.

Facebook Places knows where Waldo is!

If the latest viril Facebook status is any indication, Waldo will have no place to hide thanks to Facebook Places, and neither will your kids.

Facebook launched Facebook Places yesterday. Anyone can find out where you are when you are logged in. It gives the actual address & map location of where you are as you use Facebook. Make sure your kids know!!! TO UNDO: go to "Account Settings", ..."Notifications", then scroll down to "Places" a...nd uncheck the 2 boxes. Make sure to SAVE changes and re-post this!! Stay safe!

First of all, Facebook Places was launched about a week and a half ago. But that's a moot point.

If you follow those instructions, what you are actually doing is disabling two notifications for Facebook Places. One notifies you when someone tags you, and the other notifies you when someone comments on one of your Places visits.

If you're paranoid about the whole concept of Facebook Places, wouldn't you want to be notified of these things?

As I mentioned in previous blog post, when Facebook Places came out, the default setting is not enabled. I say "not enabled" rather than disabled because the setting for mine was neither enabled or disabled, it was waiting for me to pick one.

Apparently there is some uncertainty about whether or not it really is disabled if you don't pick one, so if you'd like to make sure and disable it yourself, see my original blog post, describing step-by-step how to do that. Or look it up on the web; there are other sites that describe where to find the option in your Facebook Privacy settings.

Parc Safari Revisted

Somewhere around 1973/74, in either grade 3 or 4, I recall that our class had a field trip to Parc Safari. Back then I'm pretty sure it was called "Parc Safari African". There's very little I remember about the trip. I have a very vague image in my head of the deer park that you walk through and feed deer. I remember a red double-decker bus with all the windows replaced by mesh that we rode in through the drive-thru part of the park. It also had ropes running up the side of the bus so the baboons could climb on. I remember us all being told not to stick our fingers out through the mesh because if a baboon grabbed hold, they would never let go. I remember there being a very large picnic area. That's about it.

A few weeks ago, I won 4 tickets -- a "family pack" -- for Parc Safari. Today, we went.

I read a few reviews earlier this week and they were mostly mixed. There were comments such as "In need of upgrading" (it is in fact coming, apparently). The "food is expensive" and terrible. Half the rides either don't work or weren't operating when people went. The drive-thru part of the parc is packed and takes 3 hours to complete, when it should only take 60-70 minutes. The admission is overpriced. Some people, despite the negative comments, did say they enjoyed themselves but would not return because it was too expensive.

Thankfully, I wasn't paying, except for gas for the trip. We also brought out own food for a picnic. Oh yeh, we brought a bag of carrots and celery too to feed the animals.

It was about a 3-hour drive. It's a good thing I have a GPS because we didn't see any signage directing us to the park. Perhaps the GPS took us through the back roads near the end, but I fully expected to see a few large "Park Safari" billboards along the highways. Surprisingly, this was not the case. And they say that this place is one of the biggest tourism attractions in Quebec. Or is the the biggest? I can't recall.

We arrived at around 10:30am. During the drive up to the main gate, there were many signs asking "Do you have enough gas?" The multi-lane lineups were surprisingly short. I expected longer lines since it had already been open for 30 minutes. When it was our turn, we drove up, handed the guy our tickets, he gave us a receipt, a map and a souvenir tour book and told us there were two rules while driving through the Safari park: 1. Stay in your car, and 2. Don't feed the zebras because they bite. Too easy.

We made a quick pit-stop at the washrooms and then headed over to the Safari park after tuning our radio to the English "Parc Safari" station to listen to them talk about their animals. Sandra said she would drive so I could film and snap photos. We passed on buying boxes of food because we brought our own. It wasn't long before the traffic jams began. It wasn't because there were so many cars, it was because of human ignorance and lack of consideration for others. There are signs that say "Stay left to drive through" and "Stay right to observe", or something like that. It didn't seem to matter to anyone. They stopped in both the left and right lanes to feed animals. I read comments such as this on the review sites, so it wasn't too surprising. Now, even that would not be too bad if people would quickly feed the animal one or two carrots or whatever they had, and then move on so others can have a turn. But nooooo.... some would sit there and it was a like a fucking conveyor belt of food coming out the side of their van or sunroof. Sometimes the "whipping boys", as I like to call them, would come along and get the animals moving again.In the case of the giraffes, it was always away from us. It's like we were chasing the damned things at 5kmh through the park. While waiting to catch up to the giraffes, we were entertained by the zebras all walking past the cars looking for food. A few people did in fact feed them. Some of them reached out and pet them. An SUV with the rear hatch open had two little girls sitting back there and screamed at the top of their lungs when a zebra walked behind and poked its head in. :)

Let me explain the "whipping boys". These are young guys working at the park, each armed with a whip. They never hit the animals, but would sometimes crack the whip to get them moving, or prevent them from going in a certain direction. The park is split into gated sections and I think they're main job is to keep the animals from straying into other sections while the gates remain open during business hours. It's quite impressive seeing a small human bossing around a towering giraffe or massive deer or bison. Pretty cool.

Eventually, we did get to feed the giraffes and it was... amazing. To be so close to these giants is indescribable. Way cool. We fed one of them a couple of carrots or celery and moved on to the next. And then next. That's consideration. Helloooo? We got stuck in more traffic jams as people in the left lane would drive ahead, pull over to the right and get the attention of the giraffes who would then walk ahead again and we'd be held back once again. We eventually moved to the left and passed them all to move on to other animals. The more potentially dangerous animals, like elephants and rhinos are all in fenced areas so you can't really feed them. There are no cats roaming around. No baboons roaming around and hopping on cars or grabbing fingers. The drive thru park, for the most part, contains fairly "harmless" animals I would say. All deer, antelope, cows, bison, gnus, ostrich, and the like. Oh ya, all of the signs identifying the animals are in French. No English anywhere on them. I realized it's in Quebec, but come on... many of the visitors at the park are from the U.S. which isn't too far. Hopefully they add English names when they upgrade the park.

So, we continued on through the park, and didn't really encounter any more major traffic jams after the giraffes. We found out that most of the animals don't like celery. Giraffes ate it and a couple of the antelope/deer-like beasties. Carrots were never refused.

There was one scary moment not far from the end of the drive. I don’t know the name of the animals (*ahem*... need English names!), but they were these tall antelope creatures. A herd of them on the road. We, and another vehicle in front of us, fed them as we drove by. All of a sudden, four or five of them near the vehicle in front got very startled or excited and bolted a little. The "whipping boy" was nearby and started doing his job.. cracking that whip to get them to move to the other side of the road. He walked to the mini van in front and spoke with them and then looked at their rear left fender. Sandra heard something about a "baby". Perhaps one of the adult beasties got suddenly protective over one of the younger ones? Then as he walked towards us, again he cracked the whip a few times as he watched them on the other side of the road, the passenger side where I was. A couple of them were looking at him and moving toward him. Sandra asked him if we could move on, and he said something in French. We can understand French, but it wasn't loud enough to fully understand. We think he said something like he was using our vehicle to prevent the animals from charging at him. A few minutes later, he moved back to the next vehicle and we continued on down the road. Pretty freaky stuff.

I'd say it took us about an hour and a half to drive through the park. We parked near the picnic area and ate our lunch before exploring the rest of the park on foot. As others had commented on review sites, a lot of the attractions (rides, stores, food places) weren't open for business. Maybe they're understaffed? Or maybe it's near the end of the prime tourist season? Who knows. The park was pretty clean and did look like they were upgrading and maintaining the different areas.

The first place we headed to was the deer park to feed the deer. We had apples slices that we didn't eat for lunch, and celery left from the Safari Parc. These deer loved celery and the apples. I think we all had fun feed them as they followed us around. Sandra didn't seem to enjoy it as much and was pretty happy when we ran out of food and moved on to see the rest of the park.

The baboons are now on their own fenced off island, surrounded by water. You walk on large wooden decks over their habitat and look down at them. The same goes for apes, bears, wolves, some unknown cat (I think it was an ocelot) and other assorted animals. It's not bad because you can get a nice unobstructed view of the animals to shoot pics. The lions and tigers section was very cool. They have clear glass or plexiglas tunnels that you walk through. One big lion was lying on TOP of it as we walked underneath him. So close. :)

We didn't bother going on any of the amusement rides. Some of them look pretty archaic. It's funny because the guy on the Parc Safari radio even commented that some of them could be "museum pieces".

Sandra and the kids popped into a few gift shops and then we stopped for some ice cream. By around 3:30pm, we were pretty much done and ready to head home. Not the best time to leave because we hit the Montreal rush hour and extra slow downs due to an accident.

All in all, we did have a pretty good day. Would I do it again? Not if I had to pay for tickets. The value of the two adult and two child tickets that I won was just under $100. I honestly don’t feel that it was worth $100. I think a family pass should cost no more than $60 max.

I never did see a red double-decker bus. The rest of the park didn't really drum up any old memories of my first visit either.

I'll post a few pics and maybe some video at a later date, after I've had time to go through it all.

 

What is this?

If you arrived here using www.scottpaterson.org and are surprised that the entire layout and colour scheme has changed, there's a reason for that. (if you got here with that address and the page is black with grey text, then there's a problem...)

This is the same blog, but now hosted on Posterous.com. After a month or so of playing around with Posterous, I decided that I like it enough to switch my domain to point here.

However, if you prefer the old location on Blogspot or wish to purchase any of my photos via Fotomoto (which currently does not work with Posterous), the old blog location still exists and is synchronized with here. You can get to it by using http://blog.scottpaterson.org or its Blogspot address, http://spaterson.blogspot.com.

Zoo photos

Here's a handful of my favourite photos I shot at the Toronto Zoo last week. I think posted a few of them on here already.

Enjoy!

RAW Processing

Ever since I bought my Canon T1i/500D a little over a year ago, I've gotten in the habit of shooting both JPG and RAW for every shot. My reasoning was so that if I got a really good shot, I'd have a high quality RAW image as a back up to tweak and process to make the shot nicer, or fix something if necessary. I rarely ever found a need to process a RAW image, even for shots that I consider to be really good shots.

For a short time, I turned off the RAW format and shot only JPG. More shots per SD card.

I turned RAW back on when we went on our recent family vacation to Toronto and I'm really glad I did. I had a few "accidents" and shot images with totally messed up white balance, and even a few with the wrong aperture/shutter speed, resulting in an underexposed image.

This afternoon I decided to finally start digging through all of the photos I shot on our trip. I'm amazed and how much I was able to fix the underexposed images using the Canon Digital Photo Professional software that came with the camera. They're far from perfect, but they're better than a wasted shot and they turned out better than any underexposed JPG version of the same photo using a few tools that I often use for such things.

Not only that, but I started changing the white balance for a few seemingly good shots and found that they looked even better. Most of the time, I had my camera's white balance set to Auto. It does a pretty good job, but I noticed differences between an "auto" photo shot outdoors, compared to a "daylight" photo shot outdoors. You'd think they were the same, but that's not the case. The same applies to indoor shots with different lighting. Coincidentally, I'm currently reading "Light Science & Magic" and it talks about the fact that sometimes lighting is a mix of different light sources, which can result in incorrect colour. It's cool that I got to see the practical side of that first hand.

Anyhow, rather than hunt and peck through my images, I decided to do them all. All 633 images. It took me most of the day, but I'm really happy with the results. As I write this, DPP is exporting all of my processed images back out to JPG versions that I store on my PC. The original RAW files will remain on the 1TB external drive.

After this experience, I'm almost tempted to turn off JPG altogether and shoot just RAW. Almost. There are times that I do have a need to shoot a quick JPG and really don't have a need for a RAW file, so I think I may end up keeping it on for now.

I may turned off JPG for future trips though.

Checking out of checking in Places on Facebook

Thanks to Misty for bringing attention to this new Facebook feature.

Facebook is adding a new feature called Places, similar to FourSquare that some people use with Twitter. It allows a person to share their location with friends via their mobile phone.

You can read more about Facebook Places in this Washington Post article.

For the most part, it's something you would have to intentionally use and you may not need to do anything else to your privacy settings since it supposedly defaults to Friends Only. The feature that could worry some people is the ability to check-in their friends. Your friend could check you in to locations that you may not want others to know about. However, according to the Post article, "your friends can't start tagging you as being present until you authorize that activity."

If you want to make sure, here how to Disable that feature.

First go into your Privacy Settings:

Then into Customize Settings:

Scroll down and look for Friends can check me int to Places under Things others share:

To the right of that there is a dropdown you can set to Disabled. On my account, this option was neither Enabled of Disabled, it was set to Select One.

If you have no intention of ever using the Places feature, you may as well set the Places I check in to Only Me and disable the Include me in "People Here Now" after I check in option.

Scroll back up and look under Things I share:

Uncheck Include me in "People Here Now" after I check in and then click the the drop-down beside Places I check in and choose Customize and change These People to Only Me.

Save the changes and you're all done.

Toronto Trip - Day 3

Our first stop today was the CN Tower. It took us a while to find parking nearby in the spaghetti mess of streets and missed turns, but thanks to the GPS getting lost was pretty much impossible. :)

After parking, Sandra and Kaitlyn decided to pay a visit to the Leon's store located inside the old roundhouse. Kyle and I hung around outside and checked out the trains.

For the CN Tower, we decided to pay the extra and go the extra height up to the skypod, and it was amazing. The glass floor on the main viewing platform was fun. It seems the popular thing to do is lie down or sit on it and get your picture taken. Kyle and Kaitlyn both sat down.

Once we were back on the ground we went to see a 3D movie on surfing which was included in the price, then Kyle, Kaitlyn and I went for the Himalamazon "ride", which was sitting in side a small "room" that moved while a video displayed on the screen on front. It felt a little like a roller coaster ride. At the start, the woman said if anyone wanted it to stop for whatever reason, to wave their arms. A minute or so into it, Kaitlyn said she didn't like it. I told her to wave, she did, and they stopped it so she could exit. She stayed with the attendant and it started up again for the rest of us. While she was with the attendant, she got to watch the video camera showing us all inside the ride.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Next, we walked up to Yonge Street to grab a bite to eat at one of the hotdog vendors and to snap a pic of the Hockey Hall of Fame building. We decided not to go inside partly because of the time, and also the cost. In retrospect, we probably should have gone to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

We headed back to the truck, paid the $17 (SEVENTEEN DOLLARS!) for parking, and left for the Ontario Science Centre. The layout of that building is terrible, imho. And it seemed that most of the hands-on stuff that we tried didn't seem to work. Anyway, we were there up until around closing. I think I would have preferred the Hockey Hall of Fame.

So, we're done, and we'll be heading home in the morning. Overall, I think we had a great trip here. Kaitlyn is already asking where we'll be going next summer.

Toronto Trip - Day 2

What a long day.

Breakfast downstairs here at the hotel was excellent. Eggs, bacon, sausage, cereals, muffins, bagels, you name it, they had it.

The zoo was awesome. We paid the extra $3.25 per person to get tickets for the stingray petting pool and decided we'd leave it for last. More on that later.

There were a few exhibits that were closed for one reason or another, but not really any of the major animals that you would expect to see, so it really was fine with us. The day was hot, but the only animals that we didn't see because they seemed to be hiding were the lions. That kinda sucked, but even one of the zoo volunteers admitted that they didn't know where they were. That was a little disconcerting. :)

There was lots of walking, but what really burned us out was the walk down to and back up from the Canadian section. It way down a hill and the only way out is back up the same hill.

The highlight of the entire day for all of us had to be the stingray petting pool. It was much better than I expected and was well worth the extra $3.25 each. I thought it might be like where you lined up and got to pet one or two and then they'd move onto the next person, but it wasn't. They had this large shallow pool where everyone could stand around the side and spend as much time as they wanted and pet as many stingrays as they wanted. There was also a nurse shark and a few horseshoe crabs in the pool that you could pet. The shark kept its distance, but the stingrays were everywhere and seemed to enjoy being touched as they swam past. They asked that you only touch them on the back, but the stingers on the tails had apparently been "trimmed" just in case. Here's a tip: if you ever check this out, don't wait until the end of the day. Before you can get to the petting pool you have to remove all jewelry and watches from your hands and wrists, and wash your arms up to your elbows. After spending a day walking in the hot sun, we had a really difficult time taking our wedding rings off. :)

Our day wrapped up at around 6:00pm. We picked up some food at KFC and then headed back to the hotel. Tomorrow's agenda includes the CN Tower and the Ontario Science Centre. Depending on how much time we have, we may also visit the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Here's a few pics from our day. I have tons to sort through before posting more.

See the full gallery on posterous

Toronto Trip - Day 1

We left home at around 5:45am this morning and arrived sometime around 11:00am.

We decided to first visit Casa Loma. It was awesome. The place is much bigger than I expected and we ended up spending a lot more time than than I thought we would. I can't believe how many different movies have been filmed inside there!  If you ever decide to visit there, take my advice and go in the spring or fall. It was soooo hot inside, despite the large floor and ceiling fans they had running in an effort to keep the place cool(er). Keep in mind that the place was built before air conditioning and I can't see them installing any a/c any time soon.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

After we were done there,it was around 2:30pm, so we decided to find a place to eat and head to the hotel in Scarborough to check in. The traffic was pretty bad downtown and we ended up in front of the Royal Ontario Museum, one of the places we planned to visit. We decided to find a place to park, grab a bite to eat and then go to the museum instead. Lucky for us, they had the Terracotta Warriors exhibit, which cost an extra $7 per person to see. My wife really wanted to see it, so we did. Unfortunately, our time was somewhat limited because the museum closes at 5:30pm on Sundays. We had about 2-1/2 hours to see what we wanted to see.

We first checked out the Terracotta Warriors. Unfortunately, photography in that exhibit was not allowed. :( I could have had some really cool shots. It was a great exhibit to see though and we picked up a couple of our own smaller Terracotta Warriors from the exhibit gift shop.

We then checked out an Egypt exhibit, some dinosaur bones and the bat cave before hitting the gift store at closing. I have to say that we found the layout of the ROM to be a little confusing. Everything is very spreadout. But they did have air conditioning! :)

See and download the full gallery on posterous

 

We checked in at the Holiday Inn Express in Scarborough. We were here for 5 minutes and we were already impressed. The staff are all super friendly, the place is very clean, and has nice decor throughout. They have free breakfast and free 24hr coffee. :) I'll let you know how good the breakfast is tomorrow. Oh ya... and free internet! (not wifi though)

It looks like we'll be heading to the zoo all day tomorrow, if the weather is good in the morning as the Weather Network says it will be.

I have way more photos taken and will post more once I have time to sort through them.

Perseides Meteor Shower

Perseides Meteor Shower is tonight!

From everything I've read, there's supposed to be between 80 and 100 per hour. I always miss out on this every year, but tonight's weather forecast for Ottawa is clear skies.  I'll be taking my camera out on a tripod to a nearby hill where I'm hoping there will be very little light pollution. I just spent the last hour or so searching for info on the best settings and configuring my camera so it's ready to go.

It's probably a little late to share this info for this year, but here we go:

Digital Camera Settings for Astrophotography http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/SETTINGS.HTM

This message forum has a couple of links to downloadable PDF references for astrophotography. The thread subject says Canon T1i and astrophotography, but it’s not specific to the Canon. I just skimmed through the PDFs and they look like pretty good references:

Canon T1i and astrophotography http://cs.astronomy.com/asycs/forums/p/47502/451169.aspx

I'm pretty excited about this since it’s my first time trying it.

A few more photos

I was browsing through my photos on Flickr and thought I'd share a few other favourites that didn't get posted to Project 52, not because they're not good, but because I chose another photo that week. :)

These are a couple that I shot at the Mer Bleu Bog last fall. The first one almost doesn't look real.

I got this one printed on canvas at work for my home. I still have to mount it on a frame.

iStockphoto, take two?

About a year ago, I thought about trying to sell some of my photos on iStockphoto. I didn't expect to get rich from it, but I thought it might be cool if I could make a few bucks to save and put toward more camera stuff. Part of the enrollment process was submitting three photos for consideration. The powers that be take a look at them and decide if they're good enough.

I was rejected. Twice. I gave up.

I am by no means a professional, but I like to think that I can snap a sale-worthy photo once in a while. Anyone has the ability to get lucky once in a while, no?

A couple of weeks ago a friend suggested in a comment on one of my photos that I should sell some of my photos on iStockphoto. That got me thinking about it again. Have I improved enough to be accepted? Should I give it another try just for the hell of it? Do I feel lucky... err... punk?

I could probably go through them and pick three out the most commented and most favourited photos and submit them, but I’d like to hear from anyone who reads my blog.

So here's the deal. When you have some time to spare, take a look through all of my Project 52 photos. Each of the photos has a number in the title indicating which week it was for. Pick what you think are the three best photos and then post a comment on here with the numbers. I may submit the most popular three to iStockphoto and see how it goes.

Tilt-Shift Photography

Ever since seeing some cool examples of tilt-shift photography, it's something I've wanted to try. Thanks to the Photojojo newsletter article, I have now bookmarked a site with a few different examples on how to make your own tilt-shift lens. All I need now is to pick up a cheap, used lens to try it out.

Week 52 - 52 on 52 for 52

It was just over a year ago that I bought my first DSLR camera -- a Canon T1i/500D. I spent a couple of months familiarizing myself with most of its features, and finishing reading a couple of books that I bought a year earlier: Understanding Exposure, Learning to See Creatively, and Understanding Shutter Speed, all three written by Bryan Peterson. (excellent books, by the way)

After that, I felt that I needed a goal. As you can read in my first project-related post, I've always liked the concept of Project 365 but I didn't think I'd have the time and commitment to shoot and post a new photo every day for a year.

Enter Project 52.

52 weeks, and 4523 photographs later, my first Project 52 comes to an end. Although I still have a lot to learn, I'd like to think that my photography skills have improved since. Overall, that is, there are still some shots that I've posted that don't really do much for me.

On to this week's photo.

I have to thank my wife for the inspiration. I was wandering around my house, searching for something interesting and thought aloud, "I need something 52 to take a picture of..."

My daughter left the room and returned to place a small scrap of paper on the table in front of me. '52' was written on it. "Thanks, but I don't think that's gonna cut it..." :)

My wife said, "What about a deck of cards?"

Bingo.

I fired off about fifteen shots from different angles and narrowed my choices down to two. I tweaked the contrast and color and then cropped it a little. That's it, that's all.

Will I begin another Project 52? I don't know yet. One of my friends thinks I should go for 365.

I think what I'll do is shoot and post when I feel like it. Rather than wait for Sunday to make my weekly post, I'll just post whenever I feel that I've taken a good shot worthy of attention.

Let's see how that goes. :)

If you're reading this on my Posterous site, you can click on the Project 52 tab along the top to see all of the shots I've taken for the project.

Screw Yer Buddy

If you try to access my pool rules site, ScrewYerBuddy.com, and get a Connection Timed Out error, it's due to the DOS attack issues that Posterous was having. They’re working on fixing it.

Week 51 - Three x 2

Oops. A day late.

This was a really easy choice for this week.

It turned out surprisingly better than I expected. One of the comments pointed out the two different areas of focus in the photo: the furthest pin and the closest reflection. I have a few different shots of the pins and that's the only one like that. It was completely unintentional and a cool surprise.

Week 50 - Angled Steps

The pickings for this week were very slim. I've got photographer's block, even with the help from The Daily Shoot to try and inspire me.

Another of my DailyShoots gets picked for the project. These are our blog-famous reno'd stairs:

Two weeks left of Project 52. Unfortunately, the really good possible shots will come the week after the last posting when we take a trip to Toronto and visit the zoo and other sights. That's a bit unfortunate. I'm sure I would have a great shot to finish it off with.

I'm still debating whether to start up another Project 52 or go for a 365.

Hello from Posterous

I am debating on moving my blog over to Posterous. I really like the way it handles my photographs as well as Flickr sets.
All of the entries have been imported into my Posterous blog. For the time being I'll keep both locations and have Posterous auto-post over to the Blogspot location to keep them in sync. If you're reading this on Posterous, click on the Project 52 or Daily Post tabs and have a look at the Flickr sets. If you're not reading this on Posterous, or you're not sure, click here: http:/scottpaterson.posterous.com

Week 49 - Hot Dog

Week 49 - Hot Dog, originally uploaded by Twister65.

I threw this shot together quickly for The DailyShoot earlier this week. The assignment was to take a picture of food (duh). I nearly forgot until after we were finished eating supper. As luck would have it, there was a lone hot dog left in the pot.

It was barely warm, but good enough to use for the shot. I don't normally dress my hot dogs up this much; I tend to keep it simple and just put mustard on them. But, as I noted in the comments of the photo, I needed more colour.

I fired off four of five shots before putting the hot dog out of its misery (I ate it) :)

Apparently this month is National Hot Dog Month in the U.S. and tomorrow is National Hot Dog Day.

It is/was a coincidence.

Week 48 - Marbl(u)es

Marbl(u)es, originally uploaded by Twister65.

This weeks pick was easy and was from another DailyShoot.com assignment.

The theme was "blue". I first started with taking close-up shots of my daughter's eyes. By definition, they are blue, but I wasn't able to get them to "pop" and look as blue as I would have liked them to be.

My son suggested his marbles. He got a selection of blue ones, I grabbed a sheet of white paper from my printer, and we went out to the front patio to see what we could do.

After leveling the table, we placed them on the sheet of paper in whatever layout would keep them from rolling around. I fired off various shots with my 18-200mm lens, switched to the 100mm for a few more, and then back to the 18-200mm.

In the end, the best shots came from the 18-200mm. Had I taken the time to use a tripod with the 100mm, I'm sure I could have gotten some good ones.

This was all natural lighting from a somewhat cloudy and hazy sky. The only adjustments I made to the image was a crop and a slight boost to the saturation to bring out the blue a little more, all done in Picasa. :)

I'm very pleased with the results. It's one of those photos that makes you want to keep looking at it.

More than a pretty face

The other week, Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” was on one of the free movie channels. We decided to watch it and see what the big deal was about.

I have to admit, it was a pretty decent show. But that’s not what I’m writing about.

The guitarist was really good; her name was Orianthi Panagaris. She really kicked ass. My wife questioned whether it was the same “Orianthi” that sings a pop song that she happens to like.

Out came he laptop and my daughter did a search.

Sure enough, they were one and the same.

I’m more of a “rock’n’roll” kinda guy, but I don’t mind most pop songs. I had to find out what else she sings and/or plays.

I found out some really cool facts about her as well as some videos of her playing less pop-like material. To quote Santana from that linked web site:

"It's not cute any more. It's seriously ass-whupping. If I was going to pass the baton to somebody, she would be my first choice."

I had to add her album to my collection. Having recently acquired an iPod Nano, I picked up “Believe (II)” from iTunes. On it, she also does a instrumental guitar duel with Steve Vai.

I love this one listener review from iTunes:

As a fan of heavier music (generally screamo and metal), I was impressed by the skills of Ori, from the first album “Violet Journey”, up until Believe (II), her music is continuously high on my playlist.

She’s like a bridge between the pop and rock gap.

Look ‘er up and give ‘er a listen.

Week 47 - Wax Monkey Frog

Wax Monkey Frog (47/52), originally uploaded by Twister65.

We visited the Canadian Museum of Nature on Monday, along with my sister and her family. It was the first time I've been to see the exhibits. I did go once for a wedding a long time ago. It was the first time for all of us since they renovated the museum and built the large glass structure – now named the "Queen's Lantern" – to replace the stone tower that was sinking.

One of the exhibits was frogs. These little guys are Wax Monkey Frogs and look so laid back. The second coolest frogs were the Poison Dart Frogs, but I messed up the exposure settings on my camera so the photos didn't turn out very well. :(

Week 46 - Beach at Voyageur

Beach at Voyageur, originally uploaded by Twister65.

An ending to a great week of camping with my family and friends.

Week 45 - Colour Depth

Colour Depth, originally uploaded by Twister65.

Although my choices for this week are very few, this was an easy one. Again, I chose from one of my DailyShoot.com shots.

It's is a colour cube that sits on my cabinet at work, mostly collecting dust. After blowing the dust off it, I sat it on my desk and placed a white sheet of paper behind it. I tried a couple of shots with my 100mm lens before switching to my 18-200mm which is ultimately what gave me the best shots. Before uploading it, I gave a nudge to the saturation to brighten the colours a little.

If I could convince my wife to let me hang it on one of our walls, I'd get it printed on canvas like the flower in last week's photo. However, I don't think it's going to happen because she doesn't see it the same way that I do. Maybe I'll find a spot on my den wall...

Relay for Life – The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

After sleeping away most of Saturday, catching up on a sleep and fighting off whatever cold bug I caught between Friday night and Saturday morning, and now feel rested and pretty good.

The good

Our team goal was blown away this year!  “Lassiter Walks to Fight – Team WTF” raised $6,660, achieving the “Bronze” level status. That is incredible!

Great job team!

The experience, once again, was amazing. There seemed to be a lot more people on the track in the wee hours of the morning than I recall in previous years.

The bad

I didn’t reach the goal of $1,500 that I set this year. In fact, I didn’t even make it half way, leaving me below last year’s total. I raised $730; nothing to be ashamed of, just not what I would have liked. It happens, I guess.

Once again, a HUGE thanks to everyone who did donate toward my participation! I got to see some of the people that your donations help and they are indeed grateful.

The ugly

It was disappointing to hear that due to complaints in previous years from some residents in Orleans, they were going to shut down or turn down the DJ music at 11:00pm. The music plays throughout the night to help give people energy to keep walking.

This is a once-a-year charitable event for a good cause. A cause that will likely help you or a member of your family at some point in the future. It’s not some kind of profit-making carnival or concert. What’s wrong with some people?

Thankfully, the music did NOT turn off. I think they did turn it down a few notches though. Or perhaps they decided to continue until someone complained? I don’t know, but I’m glad it kept going.

Sure, it’s easy for me to say because I don’t live out there, but if I did live out there I still wouldn’t complain because I’d be participating.

If you’re one of those people who complain about it, why don’t you drop by next year at around 10:00pm for the Luminary ceremony and see if it changes your view. I think everyone should experience that at least once in their lives.

Big corporations DO care – go figure

I arrived home from work today to a surprise: a plastic-wrapped package sitting on my dining room table, from UPS.

It was my Xbox power supply.

So, it would appear that the manager I spoke with was right, it could arrive today – and it did.

So, yes, I did get all worked up over nothing. However… had a few things been done differently by Xbox support and the repair process, this blog post and the other two wouldn’t exist.

This is where things make a  change for the better.

Just over an hour ago, as I was typing an update saying that I got my power supply, the phone rang. My wife answered it and handed me the phone.

It was another surprise. A surprise that restores my faith in big corporations, like Microsoft and reassures me that there are indeed people out there fixing the wrongs rather than simply ignoring them.

The surprise was a man by the name of Anthony, who was calling from Microsoft. He had received a “heads up” about my problems, and my earlier blog post. I honestly don’t know how he was made aware of it, nor does it really matter. What matters is that he called to make an effort to fix my problem and make me a happy customer. If someone out there took it upon themselves to escalate the issue up the corporate ladder at Microsoft, thank you very much.

I won’t go into the small details of the call, but I will say that we had a great conversation. He apologized for the experience. He explained the hows and whys that lead to the problem.  He didn’t try to deny that there were areas that needed improvement. He didn’t make any excuses. He was well aware of XboxSupport on Twitter. :) He listened to my suggestions on how to improve the service.

He also told me that he was sending me a new power supply for my Xbox, to arrive tomorrow. That was before I had a chance to explain that I did in fact receive the original one today. They actually thought that it got lost in transit, so he took it upon himself to send me a new one. Now I will have a spare.

He also asked me if I had any trouble setting up the replacement Xbox. We talked a little about that, and he asked me for my email address so he could send me his personal contact info so I can let him know how it goes and if I have any problems.

There’s not much else to say, except that I am still somewhat shocked that I received a call, and so quickly. A lot of people, including myself, often bash Microsoft. My earlier blog posts are proof of that. All it took was one call to change my view of the company.  They are listening and doing something.

Kudos to Microsoft and kudos to Anthony.

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• It must really suck to work for Xbox support (scottpaterson.org)
• Canned responses (scottpaterson.org)

Canned responses

I sent the Xbox email support a message last night using their support submission form. I chose the “Other” option from the drop down list, thereby eliminating all of the more common issues they help with the hope that I’d get a human to read my message.

Because the form is limited to 1000 character, I suggested that they visit my blog where all of the details are posted, or forward my message to a manager or someone higher up as I had already dealt with support.

Seemed simple enough. Or so I thought.

This was in my email this morning:

Hello Scott,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft online support for XBOX. I am Kody and I will be assisting you today with this issue.

I understand that you are encountering problems with your Xbox 360 console.

As our dear customer we are committed on giving the best possible service. We know how unsatisfactory your situation is when your console is not performing correctly.

In order to check what is causing the problem and give you the correct steps to resolve the issue, please provide us further with more specific details such as:

• Exact error message or error code as seen on the screen (if there are any).
• Games (Original Xbox games or Xbox 360 games) that are affected.
• The number of red lights flashing on the Ring of Light (surrounds the power button light), if any.
• The color of the indicator light on the power supply unit while the console is turned on.
• Please include other details that can help identify the issue.

You may also include other details that can help identify the issue.  I look forward to hearing from you again and helping you resolve your problem.

If you need to reply to this e-mail, please reply 'with history' (include any previous e-mail) or reference to Service Request Number 1133432296 so we can expedite our service to you.

Thank you for visiting Xbox.com. We hope that we were able to assist you, and that your experience with our customer service was positive - something we constantly strive to improve. If you should have future questions on Xbox products or services, please be sure to revisit our Web site as we are continually adding information to enhance our service.

Best Regards, 

Kody
Microsoft XBOX Support Services
http://support.microsoft.com

That’s a canned response if I ever saw one. And based on the time I received it (6:19am) in comparison to when I sent it late last night, it’s not an automated canned message. A human, whether it really was a “Kody” or someone else, had to click a button to send it to me. Do I assume they simply didn’t read my message and just blasted through a bunch of “Other” flagged messages with the same canned response, or did someone actually read it, not give a damn, and then send the canned message in hopes that I’ll go away?

Is it any wonder why Tech Support gets a bad rap, often being compare to monkeys, when all they’re told to do is act like monkeys?

I was originally going to reply with a simple one-liner pointing to my original request, but the more I read this canned response, the more it bothered me. The temptation was too great, so this is what I sent:

Hello Kody,

Thank you for replying to my online support request for XBOX. I am Scott and I will be replying to you today with more details on this issue.

I understand that you are encountering problems with reading my original support request pertaining to my Xbox 360 console.

As the the dear customer you say I am, I am committed to giving you the best possible reply. I know how unsatisfying your job must be when upset customers, like myself, send long-winded support requests with very little detail.

In order be as clear as possible about what my problem is, I will again provide you with a link containing all of the information necessary so that you can provide me with the best possible service. I know, that you know, how unsatisfactory my situatuon is when my console is not functional.

Here, once again, is the link containing the information about my issue:

http://blog.scottpaterson.org/2010/06/it-must-really-suck-to-work-for-xbox.html

Thank you for visiting my blog containing all of the details you need. I hope that you are able to assist me, and that my experience with your customer service will be positive - something I'm sure you constantly strive to improve. If you should have future questions on my problem, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Best Regards, 

Scott
Microsoft XBOX Customer
http://blog.scottpaterson.org

Hey, if they can do it, so can I. :)

I’m still chuckling.

It must really suck to work for Xbox support

I don’t even know where to begin.

This might come out all jumbled because it was one of the most frustrating experiences with customer service I have ever experienced; and I have experienced them from both the customer side and the support provider side many times in my life (more so on the provider side)

As mentioned in previous blog entries, my Xbox Elite died and I sent it off to be repaired or replaced. It wasn’t a warranty repair, so I paid about $123 Cdn for the “service”.

Much to my surprise, once I finally sent it off, I received it back today. Amazing four business day turn-around. I was happy.

Until I opened the box.

There sat a nice, plastic-wrapped, refurbished Xbox Elite with a 30-day Xbox Live Gold card taped to it to add onto my existing account (for my troubles, I assume)… and no power supply brick.

Now, before anyone says “WTF? You sent the power supply too? You’re not supposed to send accessories!”, let me explain something.

In a brief chat with @XboxSupport on Twitter, I specifically asked if I should send the power supply with the Xbox console.

To which they replied…

I am well aware of the “no accessories” rule, but the reason I asked was because my Xbox did absolutely nothing when turned on. No power at all. By sending the power supply, I was hoping to ward off any bad experiences with a refurb Xbox and a faulty power supply.

So much for that idea.

So, I decided I would call up Xbox support and have a chat. Surely this can be resolved quickly, and to my satisfaction.

First off, their support line seemed to throw me into a loop. I guess it detected my phone number, saw I had a repair incident and decided I should need to know the status.

Ok, thanks, but I want to talk to someone.

For some reason, it kept telling me that for repairs, visit support.xbox.com online and submit the repair request and then just left me hanging to go back to the main menu. It may very well have been my own mistake, but I couldn’t seem to find an option to speak with a real human being.

I hung up and swore a few times.

I called back. I decided I would try Tech Support. If anything, I’m sure they could tell me who I should speak with.

I lucked out and got through to an option to speak with a person.

I really don’t recall his name, but the guy was polite and had a slight accent. It’s nothing personal, but I rarely listen to names. Bad habit. My mind is so preoccupied with what I want to say, that it goes in one ear and out the other.

So I explained what the problem was. After a few misunderstandings, he asked if he could place me on hold to look for my power supply. Yep, look for my power supply.

He came back, thanked me for holding, and proceeded to explain that it would be 9-12 days for it to be returned to me.

Umm… wait a minute… 9-12 days???

I asked him how this was possible. It took 4-5 days for my dead console to be shipped to them, be replaced, and shipped back to me… yet it’s going to take 9-12 days for them to return a power supply to me?

He actually interrupted me and began to explain that for “accidentally returned” accessories, this was the norm.

I then proceeded to clarify that this was not an “accidentally returned” accessory. (Never mind the fact that I don’t consider a crucial part for the operation of an Xbox, like a power supply, to be an accessory) I told him that had asked @XboxSupport if I should send the power supply with the console and I was told yes (or “yeah” as the case may be)

This is where we got stuck in a loop. The support rep stuck with the corporate policy of 9-12 … me explaining that this was not my mistake… him giving more apologies… me poking and prodding for some kind of compensation… more apologies… more corporate policy… and then me thanking him for his help, assuring him that I appreciated his help, and then asking to speak with a manager.

When I worked in support, I hated that. But it happens, and you comply with the customer’s request.

I got some resistance, as expected. It was explained to me that the manager would tell me the same thing. I thanked him and insisted. He asked if he could put me on hold while he found a manager. I thanked him.

{Insert annoying hold music here}

I don’t know how long I waited… 2 or 3 minutes perhaps?

He came back and explained that he was still looking for a manager. I thanked him. He thanked me again for holding.

{Insert same annoying hold song here}

More waiting.

He came back again and explained that he was still looking for a manager. I thanked him again. He thanked me again for holding.

Repeat that once or twice more. I actually thought that maybe they were hoping I’d just hang up.

Supper was ready. I was getting hungry.

Finally, he returned to say that a manager was found and told me his name. Again… bad with names. See above. He let me go and left me with the “manager” who asked me how he could help me.

He seemed a little uncertain of what to expect from me. Nervous perhaps. I know that feeling well. I asked him if he was aware of what the problem was, and so it began.

More of the same corporate policy, and apologies (a little more apologetic actually), and now it seems that it was going to be 5-10 days. In fact, my power supply might arrived tomorrow since it has already been 4-5 days since I sent it to them(???)

I explained that 5-10 days was unacceptable, especially considering that it only took 4-5 days for the entire exchange of dead Xbox for a refurbished Xbox. How could it possibly take 5-10 days to send me a simple power supply?

From what I gather, I’m lucky that it was an exchange, because that’s fast. Had it required a repair, I could be waiting 2-3 weeks and my power supply would arrive before my Xbox.

Again, it was implied that I made the error in sending them the “accessory”. Again, I corrected him.

And then something shocking happened. He asked me for more information about @XboxSupport on Twitter. He paused. He then began to explain that corporate policy forbids employees from using Twitter in any official capacity.

I told him that it is indeed official support. He repeated the policy. This went on back and forth for a few minutes. I said “So you’re telling me that there is no official Xbox support on Twitter?” He said he stood by his comments.

I had to laugh. And I did. Sorry, but it was funny.

I went on to explain that Xbox Live’s own “Major Nelson” recommends @XboxSupport on Twitter and that the Twitter account is even listed the Xbox.com support page. He asked me where. I frantically searched for the page. I had seen it earlier, but now I couldn’t find it.

In the meantime he assured me that he was well aware of the support available in their department. I told him that I believed him, but that he was obviously unaware of the support available outside of his department.

I then found the link. I read it out to him and he went there. There was silence. I asked him if he could see it.

He then tried to tell me that they don’t do hardware support. (I was later assured by @XboxSupport, during a rather humerous exchange when I told them they don’t exist, that they do indeed do hardware support) I also explained to him that I never went looking for help from @XboxSupport in the first place. They asked ME how they could help after I made a comment about waiting for a box. I then asked them about the power supply.

I told him that he should be upset that they are not made aware of their support offerings. I sure as hell would be. I’d be pissed if I just finished debating with a customer, and betting the farm that I was right, only to have them prove me wrong.

When then got stuck, once again, in the loop of apologies, corporate policy of 5-10 days, etc. I’ll give the guy credit, he sure was stubborn.

I had enough. I thanked him for his help and then asked to speak to someone higher up.

He kindly explained that there is nobody higher. Everyone higher doesn’t take calls. I then got a little sarcastic. I said “Surely they have a phone, and surely they speak to people on a daily basis!” I used to hate when customers did that to me. He said they don’t speak with customers.

I said “So they aren’t customer focused people… they don’t care about customer service?” I then went onto explain that when I was in support, there was always someone higher to speak with. If I, as a manager, couldn’t make a customer happy, there was my boss… or his boss… or the CEO. SOMEONE in the company had the power to turn an unhappy customer into a happy one. It was rare that someone would not go away happy and it was very rare that they had to go above me.

I told him flat out that I was looking for some form of compensation for what was not my error… anything… 30-days of Xbox Live Gold… anything.

He didn’t budge. They don’t have that power, unlike the refurb centre and their 30-day Xbox Live Gold cards.

I explained that’s why I would like to speak with someone higher.

Again with the “they don’t accept calls” stuff… more apologies… and so on.

I interrupted him and politely asked him when I would receive my power supply. 5-10 days was the response. I said “Fine, thanks for the help, and be sure to let your boss know that I will be calling them… or someone else there, because I am not finished” and then I hung up.

This actually seems much shorter than our conversations, believe it or not. There was far more repetition from him, and me.

I really do feel sorry for the guy, in a way. To be kept out of the loop like that… that’s embarrassing and a shining example of how not to run a support department (or any department for that matter).

But then again, he’s probably working for peanuts at an outsource centre. The corporate mother ship doesn’t really care about them. Do your job and nothing more. You can be replaced.

So now what? I don’t know. Yet. I’ll figure something out.

In the meantime, if you’re a Microsoft / Xbox employee and you have any power in you to make even a half-assed attempt at making me happy, feel free to give ‘er a go. You certainly can’t do any worse than your hand-cuffed, out-of-the-loop support people. I really feel sorry for them.

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• Big corporations DO care - go figure (scottpaterson.org)

Week 44 - Mounted Flower

Mounted Flower, originally uploaded by Twister65.

This is my first photo printed and mounted on canvas. I built the frame this afternoon and mounted it myself. It was my first try and there's room for improvement, but I'm pleased with the results. Oddly enough, this photo never made my Project 52 before because it was taken prior to starting the project. I'm glad it made it this way. :)

Fast!

As of this afternoon, the status of my Xbox 360 repair is now set to Device shipped to customer – Your console has been repaired or replaced. We are shipping it back to you.

I realize that it shouldn’t take long to ship a refurb, but it surprised me to see it happen so quick.

If it’s as quick in transit as it was to send to them, I’m assuming it’ll arrive on Monday or Tuesday.

My Xbox status

Because this is why you are here…

Yesterday, I received a notification from UPS that my Xbox had been delivered to the service center.

The status on Xbox.com had not been updated; it was still in Waiting for device at service center mode.

As of this morning, it is now in Device received at service center mode. :)

On completely unrelated note, I am still waiting for the 16GB iPod Nano that I won from Dove via Twitter. I was told that the minimum wait was 10 business days. This is the 11th day. Yes, I’m impatient. I’d be less impatient if the rep handling the prize had replied confirming receipt of my email that I sent with the signed release form, as I requested.

Bon voyage, Xbox 360!

I dropped off my Xbox at the UPS Store on the way home from work today. It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes to receive the refurb replacement.

As a side note, I really dislike UPS for their crappy brokerage fee practices when getting something from across the border. But the guy working in the UPS Store really makes it difficult to dislike them. He was nice and friendly, and chipper. He printed off a drop-off receipt quickly and explained how I can track my package even though it isn’t rocket science. You don’t often find someone in as good of a mood after a long day at work.

My Dad

My Dad in Scouts in Scotland (back row on the right):

I’m really not sure when this was taken; before I was born, I assume:

This is my sister, my Dad, and I, after we arrived in Canada in 1967. This is somewhere in Montreal, I think. No idea what kind of pose I’m doing or why:

Most of the photos I have of my Dad are really old ones, like those. We never were big on taking pictures. I have a few more recent ones, like when my Dad was my best man at my wedding in 1993. One day I’ll scan those in.

My Dad is no longer with us because he died of cancer in 1998.

Here’s some thought provoking stats from the Canadian Cancer Society:

• The number of new cancer cases will increase by approximately 60% over the next 20 years due to our aging and growing population.
• Cancer is the leading cause of premature death in Canada.
• Nearly 1 of every 2 men is expected to develop cancer during his lifetime and slightly more than 1 of every 3 women will develop cancer during her lifetime.   Approximately 1 out of every 4 Canadians will die from cancer.

1 out of 4 will die from cancer.

Take a look around you and think about that for a minute. Ignoring it won’t make it go away.

No amount of money in the world will ever bring my Dad back, but every dollar that you donate to the Canadian Cancer Society’s Relay for Life will go toward fighting this disease.

There’s about a week and a half left before the Relay for Life on June 18th and I am still $820 away from reaching the goal I set this year.

My 45th Birthday is on June 16th. It sure would be an awesome Birthday if I reached my goal by then.

Click. Give. Make a difference.

http://convio.cancer.ca/goto/scottpaterson

Yes, this is the last time I’ll ask for donations for this year.

To everyone who has taken the time to read this and my other posts on the topic, to everyone who shares these pleas on my behalf, and especially to everyone who has donated any amount toward my goal this year and the last two years – THANK YOU. You are making a difference.

 

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• It started as a Tweet... (scottpaterson.org)

No box for Xbox?

It’s been a day over a week since I logged the repair ticket on my Xbox Elite and still no sign of a box being mailed to me to ship it for repairs.

Out of curiosity, I sent a message to @XboxSupport on Twitter and asked how long it usually takes, at the same time as sending a friend an email asking how long it took for him to receive the box.

My friend replied: 2 days.

@XboxSupport replied: In most cases a box is not sent.

Well that certainly explains why I haven’t received one.

I told @XboxSupport that people I know have all received boxes, which is why I have been waiting. They replied: You will want to find a box to safely ship it in and use the shipping label provided. Umm… yeh, I kinda figured that.

I told them I would use the box it came in, and they said: You will want to use a box other than the 360 box and be sure to keep your hard drive and any other accessories.

The box it came in is suitable for buying it in, but not for shipping it in? Not too surprised.

Anyway, when I got home I found a good box that our DVD player came in, and modified the foam supports that it used to suit my Xbox. Samsung sure knows how to pack their hardware.

My Xbox is now packed, labeled as per the UPS instructions, and ready to be sent. We’ll swing by the UPS store on the way home tomorrow and send it on its way.

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• My Xbox Elite - R.I.P. (scottpaterson.org)

How I made someone’s day

I’ve complained about this before. Up until today, I’ve never had the opportunity to confront any of the offenders, other than give them the hairy eyeball.

At around 7:30 this morning I got my chance.

As I approached the median, to turn left across it and into the Esso/Tim Horton’s parking lot, a grey Dodge Neon crept out of the exit, crossing the lane, to make a left turn into the lane that I’m leaving. This is illegal between 7:00am and 9:00am.

I slowed down and stopped on the median, waiting for an opening to continue. She continued to creep across her lane to break the law.

I had no opening, and my chance of finding an opening was diminishing quickly. Why? Because stupid in the Dodge Neon was now blocking the traffic on that side, to make her illegal left turn.

This is the very reason why there are signs indicating NO LEFT TURNS between 7:00am and 9:00am, Monday to Friday. There are two on the median, and one at eye level at the end of the Tim Horton’s drive-thru. You can’t miss them. (This is the location as seen on Google Street View, before the two signs went up on the median; you can see the one sign at the exit from the Esso/Tim Horton’s.)

We were at a stalemate. I couldn’t cross because she was blocking the traffic, which was blocking me, and she couldn’t continue to break the law because I was blocking her.

She then made a really bad decision; she gestured with her hands and mouthed something at me like I was the one at fault. Her window was up, so I couldn’t hear anything she said.

My window was down. I yelled back and pointed at one of the two signs on the median, “Look at the sign! No left turns!”

She gestured again as if to say Pffft… who cares…

The traffic continued to build up. I yelled back, and pointed to her right, “Go that way!”

Seriously, it’s not that difficult. Turn right and then make a legal U-turn where the median breaks 5 seconds down the road.

She mouthed something that looked like “I can’t” and shook her head.

I yelled again, “GO THAT WAY!” I don’t know why I bothered; clearly her Dodge Neon was not capable of turning right. My bad?

Again, she said “I can’t.”

Traffic started to build up behind me. A few cars drove around her, leaving an opening for me, so I continued across.

As I passed her window, I took the opportunity to express my displeasure and yelled, “You’re breaking the fuckin’ law!”

I sincerely hope their day continues to be as bright and cheery as it began. :)

Week 43 - Hot Wheels!

Hot Wheels!, originally uploaded by Twister65.

Another DailyShoot.com entry makes it into my Project 52. That's kinda like cheating... or is it? :)

This one had to do with choosing something that was nostalgic... a childhood sport, game or activity. I chose Hot Wheels because I used to play with them as a kid. It's something I don't see many kids doing these days, at least not in the same way that I did when I was young.

Every spring, someone's parents would receive a truckload of topsoil, or sand, or dirt dumped onto their drive way. For a few days, it became our playground, and we'd build intricate roads and tunnels on this "island" and drive our cars for hours. Kids just don't do that anymore. The don't have the same imagination that we did.

With this entry, I’m also trying a different layout that Flickr’s integration publishes. I think I like the larger photo.

Name change? WTF?

Yep, I changed the name of my blog. And I added a fancy new graphic that took all of two or three minutes to throw together (subject to change). It took longer trying to figure out what code in the blog template forced it to be centered. *sigh*

So now the name matches the domain name.

I recently started digging into my family ancestry and figured that naming it with my own name might make it easier to find, should I ever decided to break off with some family tree stuff here as well.

Incidentally, you can also get here using www.scottpaterson.org. I thought that scottpaterson.org would also work, but apparently it doesn’t. I must have messed it up.