OK, so I'm in the mood ...

I've been out and about with my camera phone, and was coming to the conclusion that it didn't take such great pictures. Yeah, old news to techy types, but rather disappointing to me.

So, I thought I'd do an experiment. I'd stage a scene, something trivial. that I could shoot a few times, and f$%& with the camera between shots. One image, one Tullamore Dew. See how the series came out.

First picture, "The Scene" ... On the desk in my office at home, early afternoon sun just coming into the windows, illuminating one of my 2 Cateye bike computers, an empty box of test strips (prescription needed refilling), and of course, one of my favorite things, a book, about writing formula and functions in Excel 2007,.

That's for automating my own pension plan, but that's another story. None of us can wait for that to happen ...

Second image, "The Scene, take 2" ... Oddly enough, it's the same scene (about 2 minutes later), but this time, the camera phone lens has been subjected to an attack with a Q-tip. Plain, old, ordinary - the kind I buy in lots of 1000 because I've got 3 daughters and a wife who apparently consume these things like methadone thru an inner city clinic ... but, I digress.

A little more clarity, less haze, a bit sharper ... better, but not too great.

And, that's when I turn to alcohol.

As some of you may have noticed, I tend to play with computer hardware. Pretty strange, all things considered (like, I wrote a directory / file walker so I could send Erin a text file of all of my mp3 collection by artist / album / song). Software geek. I sent her the code too, C# for God's sake, just to show off (Visual Studio wouldn't fit in an email). Anyhow, I've removed and inserted my CPU into my socket more times than ... well, all of the analogies are obvious. The CPU needs cleaning during each operation (thermal paste, you know), and to do that, you need Q-tips (how fortunate), and Alcohol - isoPropyl type, stock drug store $1/qt stuff. Wetting a Q-tip from a quart bottle is a bad idea. After having done that, and lots of other variations on the theme, I FINALLY found a travel sized drop bottle - 5 ounces, in kind of a sport bottle cap configuration, in which I poured about 2 ounces of alcohol. Works better a drop at a time. It's been sitting on my desk forever, and now ...

I wet a fresh Q-tip, and cleaned the lens again, and got scene #3 ...

By the way, if you cannot tell the difference, well, thanks for playing. Have a nice day ...


So, I've got a bunch more images - some good, some less good - with stories to tell. Hopefully, the images will be better in the future.

Hugs,

rr