I have heard that toilets swirl in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere. Everything else seems to be the same.
It sounds like something my wife might have written. . . . except for the unhelpful hubby part. :) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tanya Mayer Photography Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 7:13 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: ramblings... WARNING- LONG POST! Omg, I have had a biiiiiiiiiiiig week! But firstly, I would like to say that all of the images posted this week have been nothing short of exceptional. I have been able to view most and enjoy them but unfortunately I've just been way too busy to sit and comment. I do love to view them though and really appreciate being able to study them. Last week ended with me selling alot of my film gear on Ebay. I no longer own any PZ-20s, and in fact the only film body that I have is the MZ-6 (ZX-L), what a sad, sad day that was! So, my week started on Saturday with a Wedding that was 2 hours drive away. Biiiig day, and I didn't get home until 2am in the morning. Sang very loudly all the way home whilst driving to stop me from falling asleep! Sunday - portrait session with a family with EIGHT kids! *eek* Boy did I earn my money that day! Monday - kids to school, amidst the usual tantrum throwing and the "I don't want to wear those shoes!", "I don't want that on my lunch!", and of course the obligatory "I want to sit in the front seat cause he sat there yesterday!". Go to the school and do "reading" with the Grade 1s for two hours! Go over to the preschoolers where we make Easter Bonnets for another two hours. Come home and try to squeeze in an hour of editing of the wedding pics from Saturday, and then back to school to pick up two very tired and grumpy little boys. Of course didn't get any work done that night cause I was forced to sit in front of the tv and watch CSI! lol. Tuesday - kids to school, more tantrums, as usual. Second day of "Easter Bonnets" - this time with my son in Grade 1. Groceries, housework, and still no "work" done today... Wednesday - HUGE day. Jaimyn (my eldest son) turned six! Amazingly, we got to school sans tantrums (probably cause Jaimyn was told that he had to wait until the afternoon for his birthday gifts cause his dad wanted to give the main one to him after work, so Jaimyn wasn't game enough to put a foot wrong for fear of missing out on his pressies! lol). Spent the morning at the school watching the Easter Bonnet Parade, and a poor Grade 7 student dressed as Easter Bunny trying in vain to convince the Preschoolers and the Grade 1s that she was in fact the "real deal". Of course, she kind of got "found out" when some cheeky little brat pulled her cotton ball tail off! lol. Went home, rushed to paint Jaimyn's birthday present and set it up in his bedroom, baked a birthday cake, and headed back to the school, for an afternoon of "Happy Birthday To You" and serving cake to 24 5 year olds (his class at School), all of whom wanted the "bit with the icing" of course! Head home to present Jaimyn with his birthday presents - a scooter that my hubby has slaved over for the past 4 weeks - he has "motorized" it by attaching the motor from our old whipper snipper (I think you americans call them "hedge trimmers"?) on the back of it. It goes like a rocket! lol. I built him a desk, which he has been begging for and on which the paint was still wet when he arrived home from school! lol. Madly make and eat our dinner and then head BACK to school for our very first "school disco". On the way, Tanja receives her first ever speeding ticket (I was going 82kms in a 60km zone, VERY naughty!). So, this had to have been the most expensive school disco ever for me, cause a $250 fine and 4 points off my licence, was a great thing to receive when I am madly trying to save $$$ for GFM! Home at 10pm, and we all collapse in an exhausted heap! lol. Thursday - another HUGE day! Spent the entire day blowing up balloons, making a Bob The Builder birthday cake, making a pinata and decorating our dining room in preparation for the 30 5-6 year olds that we had invited over to celebrate Jaimyn's birthday party! Thankfully for me, only about 16 turned up due to many having left for their Easter Holidays already, and boy was I glad, cause 16 was handful enough! Pinata big success. Bob the Builder cake, big success. Motorized scooter, HUGE success (Jaimyn will be toast of the school when they go back after the holidays!). 5 year olds all safely home - Tanja left to restore some resemblence of order to my house that now resembles a bomb site that has been decorated with streamers and balloons! So, I clean up and do dishes, bath kids, cook dinner, when I realise that my hubby is "missing". I find him ASLEEP and his explanation is that he has had a "big day". Har! He won't know what's hit him when I am in the US for two full weeks! lol. Too exhausted to work, knowing that I'd end up falling asleep in front of the PC (which I seem to be doing alot lately, I wonder why?!?), so I instead sit up late watching Average Joe Hawaii, a weird and wonderful episode of Angel (my favourite show, gonna cry for sure when it finishes this year - No Buffy, and No Angel, what IS the world coming to?!!?) and an even WEIRDER episode of Dark Angel! That brings me to today - it is now 9.40 am, and I STILL have not done any work! I am planting myself in front of this computer though for the next 12 hours and do not plan to move at all, (well, except when the kids need like, food and stuff! hehe.). I have another wedding tomorrow (Easter Saturday), Easter bunny Saturday night, will be hunting for eggs and then dealing with kids who have gorged themselves on chocolate all day Sunday, and two portrait sessions on Easter Monday. Phew, it just never seems to end around here at the moment! The hardest part is though that my hubby (Bless him! lol), is not exactly helpful in the kid department, and is pretty clueless really, AND will be working from 6am to 8pm everyday through Easter (including Easter Sunday), so I have to "organise" the kid myself in between shoots, and getting them to my Aunty's (the best babysitter in the world!) etc. He is working so hard in a bid to get me to GFM, I wish I had more money to spend over there so that I could bring him back some really great pressies. Ok, so what does all this have to do with Pentax or photography even?!? Well, I am proud to say that on Wednesday afternoon, as I chased my son around the back yard with my *IstD, I finally started to receive some predictable results - exposure wise. I purposely placed the white wall of our brightly lit house behind him as he rode his scooter through the shade, trying to get the exposure problems that I have been having with back lit situations (eg the wedding that was on the beach), worked out, and I seem to have found a pretty consistent method of approach. I have found that by shooting in M mode, spot metering the background to over expose it by no more than one stop, staying as close to the subject as possible, and setting the AF360fgz on P-TTL with +1.0 exposure compensation (set on the flash gun, not the camera), it SEEMS to be working ok. I had to use all manner of different settings before I found anything consistent though, and boy you should have heard the language come out of me in the meantime! lol. And so, after 1 wedding, 1 portrait sitting, 1 Easter bonnet parade, 2 birthday cakes, 1 birthday cake, 1 birthday party and 1 afternoon of chasing children around my back yard on a motorized scooter, I have, this week, clocked up exactly 791 exposures. My *istD now sits at exposure number 3030, after precisely 8 weeks in my possession. I am finally feeling as though I "know" my camera. And, although I am still disappointed at the way that it handles over exposure, I guess that this is just something that I will learn to work with as it is really a "digital" thing, rather than an "*istD" thing. I actually totally overexposed a shot (too much flash, too wide open aperture), and didn't have time to delete it in field, but when I got home and viewed the image, it was actually a very cool effect, much like the cross processing that I once enjoyed achieving with film. So, there may be a silver lining after all, and if I learn to work with it properly, I should be actually able to manipulate this overexposure/blown highlights phenomena to my own advantage. The Hitachi 4gb microdrive has had a thorough workout, and has performed wonderfully. I meant to say too, that I don't use a card reader with my PC, I just plug the *istD directly into the USB port and download this way, which I guess is why the download time is so slow being that the *istD is only USB 1.1. I can handle it though, I just set it up to download and walk away. Anyways, I have exactly 791 images that need my immediate attention, lots of stuff to list on Ebay (nothing photographic, don't get excited!), and heaps of sewing to do so I must get my head down and bum up and make for some productivity around here. Might go and get some chocolate first though (so much for the big health kick, I am supposed to be on as I try to get fit for GFM. I think I'll just sit and eat chocolate, adding to my no longer bony butt, and watch you all jog around the mountain! Plus, I'll be suffering jet lag anyways so that can be my excuse! lol)... tan.
