One of the most positive of those things is the reason behind this post. Back in July of 2010, Lisa moved back to Knoxville to continue her education. I knew I wanted to get to know her better this time around. I’ll spare the details for now (you can ask me privately if you want to know), but we struck up a great friendship that has developed into a serious dating relationship. Now for a little background… Lisa was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when she was a child.  She has also been eating a GFCF (gluten-free, casein-free) diet that focuses on eating natural foods.  It has had really good results for her.  Of course, I am a little biased when I say she’s HOT, but others have noticed a “glow” about her and the diet probably has a bit to do with it. While I haven’t completely cut out gluten from my diet, I have significantly reduced it and can say that I can feel a difference. I know several friends that have pledged to do Gluten-Free January. Thus I want to share this recipe for them. This is just a recipe I modified from another I found on the internet to make it more diabetic friendly.

This is a really easy recipe to make.  They taste pretty good and are a more healthy alternative to regular brownies. It takes about 5 minutes to prep and 30 minutes to bake.  I get most all my groceries from Earth Fare or the natural selection area at Kroger, in case you are wondering where you can find these items.

Ingredients:

• 1 can of Eden Organic Black Beans (15.5 oz)
• 3 farm fresh eggs
• 4 tablespoons of raw organic cocoa powder
• 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of Simply Organic Vanilla Extract
• 1/2 cup of Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Blue Agave
• a pinch of sea salt
• 1 cup of crushed walnuts (can be omitted if considering a nut allergy)

Directions:

Pre-heat over to 350 degrees.
Rinse and drain the black beans and put them in a blender with the eggs, cocoa powder, oil, vanilla, agave, and salt.
Blend until the batter is nice and smooth.
Mix in the crushed walnuts and pour into an 8″x8″ pan.
Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Yield: 16 brownies

This work was to be completed under a Highway Trust Fund.  Today was supposed to be the first day the road was completely closed to traffic so workers could being work on it.  However, there is a funding shortfall as a result of KY Senator Jim Bunning who blocked legislation last week that included the Highway Trust Fund.  Thus, there was an ordered furlough today of over 2,000 federal employees… including the federal inspectors that are overseeing the Cades Cove Loop repaving. No inspectors… no work can be done. So while today was supposed to be the first full day of work on the Cades Cove Loop road, the work has stopped and the road remains closed.  I just gotta wonder how long this funding issue will keep the road closed.  Hopefully we don’t have another Road to Nowhere brewing. Cades Cove is just too popular to be left closed.  In the meantime, enjoy this nice picture of a deer and the traffic that goes along with it.

EDIT: The bill passed the next day and work resumed on March 3. Hopefully the work can still be completed by May 21, 2010 if not sooner.

A deer jam occurs when motorists on the Cades Cove Loop road stop in the middle of the road instead of using one of the numerous pull off areas available.

I was part of the house band called “The What” aka “The Mark Smith Band”.  Mark Smith was on keys and vocals, Len Causey on vocals and acoustic guitar, John Truan on lead guitar, I was on rhythm guitar, Jason Payton on drums, Anna Caroline Causey on backing vocals, and Becca Payton on backing vocals.  We started out the show with a Motown classic “Reach Out (I’ll Be There)” and lead immediately to another Motown classic “Baby I Need Your Lovin’”.  Halfway through the show we did another set of songs that consisted of “Boondocks” and “Sweet Home Alabama”.  Unfortunately during this set the G-string of John’s guitar got de-tuned one and half steps so those songs sounded kinda rough sounding until he got the string tuned back up.  To close out the show we did “Born to Be Wild” and “Twist and Shout”.  “Twist and Shout” turned out to be really funny because a lot of the kids got up on the mini-stage and started twisting.

It was a fun night that raised a bit of money, but I am glad it is out of the way.  We had been preparing for it for several weeks.  As usual I keep a pretty busy schedule.  Finding time to practice was the hardest part.  We recorded it, so I might be able to get a hold of the recording and put up some videos, but I’m not sure about that.

OK, I’ve had a few people ask me about strobing basketball and I haven’t updated this blog in ages, so I thought I’d show a couple of sample setups with some sample images. Real quickly here is what is involved in each setup.  The typical setup is a Canon 1D Mark III with the EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS attached and a Canon 1D Mark II with the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L attached.

Setup 1: Studio Strobes

Elinchrom BX500Ri x2 or alternatively you can buy the To Go Kit which includes 2 lights, 2 light stands, 2 softboxes, as well as a Skyport Transmitter.
Elinchrom Wide Angle Reflector x2
PocketWizard FlexTT5 x2 (These aren’t needed, but I use a Two Camera setup and since I already have them, I use them.  You could get another Skyport Transmitter instead if you wanted to use two cameras and don’t want to switch transmitters back and forth.)
PocketWizardMini TT1
Manfrotto Super Clamp x2 (You could use light stands, but they tend to get in the way and you’ll need to make sure they don’t get knocked over by somebody on accident.)
Extension Cords and Gaffer’s Tape
Miniphone to Miniphone Cable (Only needed if using the PocketWizards)

Setup 2: Speedlites

PocketWizard FlexTT5 x2
PocketWizardMini TT1
Canon CP-E4 Battery Pack x2 (You can do without them, but they really do help to speed up recycling of the flashes.)
Canon 580EX II Speedlite x2 (I actually use a 580EXII and 550EX.)
Manfrotto Super Clamp x2 (You could use light stands, but they tend to get in the way and you’ll need to make sure they don’t get knocked over by somebody on accident.)
Universal Umbrella Bracket with Swivel Mount x2

Ok the first setup, is the setup I used Monday night at Farragut High School. I had an Elinchrom BX 500 Ri on each side of one half of the court and was bouncing of the ceiling. The biggest advantage to this setup in the power and action stopping capability of these lights.  The biggest disadvantage is the time it takes to setup and take down and having to wait for the lights to recycle. This setup allows me to shoot ISO 400, 1/250th, and between f/2.8 and f/4.5 depending on the location of the player.  The first image you see shows the placement of the strobes and the second image is how one of them is mounted.  I bounce them off the ceiling and have the pointed towards the center of the court.  I have experimented with having the strobes at different power settings (full, 3/4, and 1/2) and have found that bouncing at full power gives the best results.  Even at full power, these lights have a recycle time around 1.5 seconds, which is still pretty decent.

Setup 1-1: Opposite end of the court showing the placement of the strobes.

Setup 1-2: How the strobe is mounted.

In the next two examples (1-1 and 1-2) you can see that it does a good job of providing even lighting towards the middle of the court.  However, in example 1-3 you can see that the downfall to this setup is when getting players around the three-point line close to the baseline, their backs will be a little hot (backlighting) from the strobe closest to them.  Of course with the Skyport setup, I have 1 light in group one and 1 light in group 2.  I can fire both by setting the transmitter to All or I can fire an individual group.  Of course changing on the fly isn’t the most practical, but it’s an option if you need to get a shot of a particular player from the three point line near the baselines.

Example 1-1: Webb Lady Spartan Kelsey Brown gets around Farragut's Alex Newby and takes to the air for the layup.

Example 1-2: Webb's Dwight Tarwater collides with Farragut's Landon Hunley while Webb's Donovan Whiteside attempts to block the shot.

Example 1-3: Landon Hunley looks for an open teammate to pass the ball to.

The second setup is the setup I used on Tuesday night at Catholic High School.  I had both setups with me, but opted to use the Speedlites.  The advantage to using Speedlites are in the fact that they are smaller, require less setup and take down time, and have faster recycle times.  The biggest disadvantage is  that there isn’t enough power to bounce them, so the shots are more direct and also more susceptible to hot spots from a strong back light.  Typically my shots where ISO 800, 1/250, and between f/2.8 and f/5.6 depending on the location of the player.  I also experimented with different power settings for the flashes, but since I am using the PocketWizard TT1/TT5 setup, I found that using E-TTL II with the camera using the Averaging algorithm (instead of Evaluative) and FEC set to +2/3 works the best.  Again I’ll follow the same examples as above.  The first two images will show the setup followed by three example shots.  Two will be near the basket and one from the three point line near the baseline.

Setup 2-1: Opposite end of the court showing the placement of the flashes.

Setup 2-2: How the flash is mounted.

Example 2-1: Bianca Andre drives the ball to the hoop.

Example 2-2: West's JuJuan Williams gets over top of Knoxville Catholic's Philip Stephens.

Example 2-3: West's Moore puts up a 3 pointer.

When I originally started this post, I had planned to go back to Knoxville Catholic for their game against Webb on Friday night since my assignments were all earlier in the week and use my strobes so you could see a comparison of strobes vs speedlites in the same gym.  Well a line of snow and freezing rain storms came in, thus the game was canceled.  I do prefer to shoot with my strobes over speedlites, so I’d rather go back to Catholic and shoot strobes than to shoot at Farragut or any of the other schools I’ve shot at before and shoot Speedlites.  Webb vs Catholic is a big rivalry game too, so I’d rather go on one of the less crowded nights.  I’ll probably update this post when I make it back to KCHS.

It has made me reflect on one thing though. How much better off would I be if I had that dedication in my prayer/spiritual life? A couple of years ago, I had made a New Year’s resolution to read through the entire Bible. It was going good until I got to Numbers. Genesis, Exodus, and even Leviticus were easy to read, but man… not Numbers. Until I got to Psalms, I was struggling to keep on schedule. It wasn’t until I got to the New Testament that I was able to catch up to the schedule and keep with it until I finished.

The rules are simple. Every day I will commit to taking one photograph and sharing it. The camera does not matter. It may be one of my digital SLRs, one of my point and shoots, or even with my camera phone. I may not get around to posting each image every day, but I will commit to taking an image everyday. I know there are just going to be some days that I am unable to get to a computer. I’ll try to get no more than a week behind. Some photo’s may have commentary, others may just be the image itself. All photos posted are eligible for critique and/or praise.

I signed up to be one of the firsts to be moved. Really I only have two things that may break. This blog and gallery. The fix is real simple, so I am not concerned about it. If it breaks at least I know what needs to be done. I’ve also got two other accounts with Dreamhost. One for work and one for Laurel and the CSC. Both of those sites pretty much are static sites only, so I’m not even concerned that they might break. However, the offer of unlimited bandwidth and unlimited disk space is too hard to pass up… so I signed them up too.

If you’re a Dreamhost customer, just go to https://panel.dreamhost.com/index.cgi?tree=billing.accounts& and volunteer to be one of the firsts to be moved and they upgrade your plan to the Unlimited Plan for FREE.

Technorati Tags: dreamhost, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space

I’d say the majority of the spam this blog gets is probably due to that class of pharmaceuticals, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen it using BibleGateway as the place to find it. And in case your curious…

Technorati Tags: BibleGateway

Technorati Tags: Cades Cove, Hyatt Lane, HDR, photography

Technorati Tags: knoxville gas prices, gas shortage, pilot gas, bp gas

So yes, I contributed to the mass hysteria involving gas supply in Knoxville which has caused gas prices to rise today. Truthfully, even though I live just on the edge of the Knoxville/Powell border, it’s not too far to ride a bicycle from. However, the main roads I would have to ride to get to work are not very bicycle friendly. In addition to drivers not being used to bicycles, there is just no shoulder room. Believe it or not, I felt safer riding in the road when I lived off Broadway than any of my current choices. Hopefully more expensive gas will mean fewer cars on the road thus making it safer for bicycles.

On my way home, it seems that the current price is $4.49/gallon. Needless to say, I’m glad I topped of my tank this morning when it was “just” $3.59/gallon.

Technorati Tags: knoxville gas prices, gas shortage, bicycle, bike

Technorati Tags: justinacuffphotography.com, justinacuff photography

Since the full moon fell on a Friday, I figured I would plan to go up then. First I asked if any of the other photographers from church wanted to go. Only Anthony F. was able to go. Since I still had room for a couple of people in my car, I sent a message out to the CSC summer list. Calvin was the only one to respond. He probably didn’t know what all was going to be involved. For those that might be reading this and wondering if hiking is involved, there is none. We meet up at Laurel at 5:30 to make the drive. It only takes about 1.5 hours to get there from Knoxville, but since I had never been there, I wanted to get there a little bit early to scope it out.

When we arrived, it wasn’t crowded just yet. We walked around to the different overlooks and took some photographs of the falls. For one of the overlooks, we had to wait because a wedding was going on. After looking at the different overlooks, it appeared that the first main overlook would probably give you the best view. Anthony and I setup our tripods and waited and waited and waited and waited some more. The rangers had said that the moon would probably clear the ridge after 11:00 or so. When the moon clears the ridge, the way it signs down on the mist, it creates the moonbow. The moonbow is pretty faint to the naked eye. Truthfully, its not all that impressive. However, when recorded on camera, you can see amazing detail. People were wowing as I would finish my exposure. I got a few email addresses of people that wanted a copy of my pictures. Unfortunately for them, I’m no longer a photographer that just gives away work. I now sell prints. If the prints make me too much money, then I’ll need to register as a business. I figure I’ll cross that bridge when I get close to that amount. I’ll probably go through them in the next week and really clean them up before I email them address in the gallery.

Moonbows only occur in two places in the world pretty predictably. The other place is at Victoria Falls on the Zambia and Zimbabwe border in Southern Africa. There are some other places it occurs if several conditions are right, but at Cumberland Falls, the main condition that needs to be meet is the full moon. Anyways, I bet right now you want to see the rest of the pictures. I have them posted to my gallery under: http://gallery2.justinacuff.net/v/Misc/Cumberland_Falls_Moonbow_2008-07-18/.

Tips for Photographing the Moonbow

• You need to use a manual camera that has a bulb exposure.
• You need to use a tripod.
• Flash does not work.
• Point and shoot cameras will not work. Really, if you try to take a picture with your point and shoot in the night landscape mode, it’s not going to work. You’re just being rude and blinding everyone else around you. You need a camera that you can do an exposure greater than 30 seconds.
• The exposure on the picture in this post was ISO 200, 4 minutes @f/4.0. Next time I think I will shoot ISO 400, 4 minutes @f/8.0 for a little bit greater depth of field.

Technorati Tags: Cumberland Falls, Moonbow, Big Ridge State Park, Cumberland Falls State Park

Unfortunately, pretty much every view around my house is going to involve powerlines. Here’s a sampling of what we could see. All the while, there were fireworks going off behind ya, and to both sides. This is one of those times a full frame camera with a fisheye lens could show just how many fireworks displays were going on at once. All this despite fireworks being illegal in Knox County. They say you can get a $50 fine if caught and a $200 fine if someone is harmed or if property is damaged. Since everybody is doing it, I would assume its too much for cops to go around fining people for shooting fireworks, so just make sure your safe and you should be fine.

This final picture just gives you an idea of what the fireworks display at World’s Fair Park looked like from my house. Not too bad, but if you really want to photograph them, you’re better off getting closer by going to World’s Fair Park.

Here’s the rest of the pictures: Link

Technorati Tags: Fireworks, Illegal Fireworks, July 4th, Knoxville, Knox County, World’s Fair Park

Well it finally happened. My cable modem bit the dust. It just wouldn’t stay connected. I could be watching something on YouTube, or downloading something and all of a sudden my connection would freeze. This had been happening since last week. I finally got around to calling Knology to confirm that they weren’t doing anything to the data traffic. Once it was confirmed, the reality set in. It was time to replace my cable modem.

The downside of owning your own cable modem is that you have to do all the troubleshooting and are responsible for any repairs or replacement. Seeing that I didn’t have an internet connection it was kind of hard to locate the best deal on a modem so I kind of just settled for what was available. I found a Linksys CM100 for a reasonable price and came home and called Knology up to add it to my account. The new modem is DOCSIS 2.0 so I’m already seeing a little bit faster speed increase. The connection is stable, so that pretty much confirms that it was just the modem biting the dust.

So as long as $4.95*(12+x) is less than $99 + $70 + $cost to replace new modem after x months have past, then it’s still cheaper to buy.

Oh yeah… I’ve now officially been a homeowner for 1 year! Really, just looking for a way to update this blog.

Technorati Tags: cable modem, rca dcm245, linksys cm100, knology, buy, rent

This first image is of the Middle Prong of the Little River. To get there, you take the road to Tremont and continue past Tremont. This is shot near the end. I took this shot on the first Nature and Travel field trip.

This shot was part of our second shooting assignment for the class. Since the assignments aren’t mandatory and I already knew the techniques he wanted us to learn in the assignments, I only selected the assignments that might be fun to do. I didn’t turn this one in, so it should be new to him and the class. For this shot, I was able to get access to the roof of where I work and take several pictures of downtown Knoxville at night.

I took this shot during the second Nature and Travel field trip to the Knoxville Zoo. I selected it because its falls into the category of actually being able to remove the fence from the picture. Most of the animals were close to the fence, so it was impossible to eliminate the fence. The snow leopard was perched up on her platform which was just far enough so that the fence could be eliminated.

The forth picture was the most difficult to select. I had lots to choose from by they were either too similar to the first picture or also shot at the Knoxville Zoo. I wanted something different for my fourth shot. Since I was going to be in the park on Saturday, I took my camera and was determined to get something. Since we finished the hike pretty quickly, we had all sorts of time. I knew Mingus Mill was nearby, so I said lets go check it out. It was neat, but not the best time of day to photograph it, plus there were just too many people that would walk into the shot. The park employee that was there started talking to us. Since we were in the area, he told us we might want to check out Mingo Falls. I had heard of it, but didn’t where it was. Luckily he gave us directions. To get to it, take Newfound Gap Road toward Cherokee, NC. You’ll pass the Blue Ridge Parkway. Turn left on the next road past the Blue Ridge Parkway. You’ll come to a T intersection. Turn left and follow the road for about 4.5 miles. Look for a small sign that says Mingo Falls Next Right. Park there and climb about 150 stairs and hike a little less than half a mile and you’re there.

Technorati Tags: Knoxville, Knoxville Zoo, Snow Leopard, Middle Prong of the Little River, Tremont, Great Smoky Mountains, Mingo Falls, Cityscape, Nightscape

My plan was to leave around 8:00 in the morning since I needed to get ready for the Nature and Travel Photography Field trip later in the afternoon. Derek and Ann also had to go back to Nashville and be there in time for a Habitat for Humanity Dedication for a house their group had worked on. When I saw Derek walking around, I went down to see when they had planned on leaving… if soon I’d hike out with them, if not, I’d just hike out alone. Came to find out he had gotten sick. We originally had planned to have a church service, but in Derek’s condition, it was decided that the best thing was to get him back to the car. I helped him pack up his stuff and then went to check on Ann. She had just gotten up and was starting to pack up. However, she really didn’t have a backpack that was big enough for her stuff. On the way in Dale had helped her carry her stuff (I assume), but since Dale wasn’t camping, he left after dinner. What we decided to do was I’d hike out with Derek and carry some of Ann’s stuff and Bryan would hike out with Ann and carry some of Ann and Derek’s stuff. Then Bryan would go back to camp and hike out with Meredith and Justin later.

So that was a long story, with no pictures… but the moral of it is, it helps to have the right gear, whether it be a rain jacket or a large backpack.

Ok we now for the part of this entry that doesn’t require much writing. A few of us meet up at UT before and drove to Townsend. We then meet up with everyone else at the parking lot just before you get to the Y. As part of the field trip, we only went to two places. The first was Middle Prong on the road past Treemont. The second place was one of the first parking areas you come to after you pass the road to Treemont on the way to Cades Cove. Through work, I have access to a couple of pieces of equipment that I probably won’t ever buy. One is a Canon 40D that has been converted to Infrared and the other is a 600mm f4L lens.

http://gallery2.justinacuff.net/v/photography_certificate/nature_and_travel_photography/field_trip_1/

Technorati Tags: Big South Fork, Great Smoky Mountains, Nature and Travel Photography, photography, photography class, field trip

This past weekend, I had some free time on Saturday morning, so I decided I was going to start it off real early and make some photographs just for the fun of it. It had rained the night before and wasn’t supposed to rain on Saturday, which means the day will be pretty clear. My first destination was the Miller’s Cove Overlook on Foothills Parkway West (the road up to Look Rock). Miller’s Cove is the first overlook you come to, so it really isn’t that far of a drive from Knoxville. I got there around 5:30 and just kind of waited. About 10 minutes before sunrise, a group of about 8 people on a workshop showed up as well. One of the first shots I got before they showed up, happens to be one of my more favorite shots from all day. It may be a dark picture, but that’s part of what I like about it. The next picture is one of the better sunrise shots. There really wasn’t a whole lot of red in the sky that morning, so I really had to push it to get this picture.

After that, I headed into Cades Cove. Cades Cove is one of those place that I usually prefer to go to either really early in the day or really late at night. If you go outside of those times, you are probably going to be stuck in a traffic jam that rivals some of the worst traffic jams in Knoxville. The cause of these traffic jams are often stupidity with a side of selfishness. Cades Cove is an 11 mile loop that once you get on, is difficult to get off. If people would just follow the rules, it wouldn’t be so bad. The main rule is, don’t stop in the middle of the road, use pull-offs. There are lots of pull offs to accommodate people, but they seldom use them. Instead they stop in the middle of the road and it is usually to take a picture of a deer. Deer are really abundant in Cades Cove, so you can just imagine how this is. The two things that really get me is people who stop in the middle of the road when there is a pull-off 10 feet in front of them and those that stop in the middle of the road and use the pull-off to take their picture. Anyways, enough with my Cades Cove rant. I got there just before 8:00 and wanted to get my pictures in while the light was still good. They were all typical shots that I’m happy with, but I’ll get better shots on a different day.

This next image is definitely a place I will go back to in the fall. I’m happy with the shot as it is, but I’m certain it will look 20 times better with the fall colors. It’s also an area of the park that really doesn’t get busy like Cades Cove does. To get here, you turn down the road that heads to Tremont.

The last picture in this post is Meigs Falls. Its almost kind of sad how many times I’ve past this and never noticed it. It on Little River Road between the Townsend Y and Elkmont. After going to Tremont, I decided that I would have enough time to go to the Sinks. We had scheduled a band practice for later that day, so I wanted to get home in enough time to load up the musical gear and clean up beforehand. On my way to the sinks, I saw this waterfall and even though the light wasn’t the best, I decided to photograph it anyways. I later looked it up and found out it is called Meigs Falls. It’s so far off to the road, it is kind of easy to miss (especially when you are paying attention to the curves in the road). I have a Nature and Travel Field trip on Sunday afternoon, and we are probably going to stop here.

Technorati Tags: Photography, Great Smoky Mountains, Foothills Parkway, Miller Cove, Cades Cove, Tremont, Meigs Falls, The Sinks, Sunrise, Waterfall, Little River Road

Well I’ve decided that I am not happy with WordPress’s gallery. I’ve removed those pictures and instead here’s a link to it in my gallery.

Technorati Tags: Photography, photography class, haw ridge, worlds fair park, sunsphere, fundamentals of digital photography

As with most of the classes I am taking, this assignment was very informal. It was to pick a subject and photograph it many different ways. I actually picked two subjects, but that was just because they are in the same area. On April 13th, we are taking the youth group hiking. I know the Smoky Mountains the best and I am familiar with Big South Fork, but both of those areas are kind of far away and the Smoky Mountains will be crowded. I know there are hiking trails at Norris Dam State Park, so I loaded up my camera gear to run by Norris and pick up a trail map and hope there was something to photograph. In the southeastern part of the park, there is a Rice Grist Mill and the Crosby Threshing Barn in the same area. I chose these as my subjects. Also that weekend, I had a 40D we had modified to make it sensitive to infrared. I’m still trying to learn infrared. These were my first attempts. It was very cloudy and overcast that day, so the infrared pictures aren’t quite as good as they could have been.

Well, I’ve decided I’m not happy with the WordPress Gallery, so I’ve removed the pictures and instead will give you a link to it in my gallery.

Technorati Tags: Nature and Travel Photography, photography, photography class, travel, Norris Dam, Norris Dam State Park, Rice Grist Mill, Grist Mill, Crosby Threshing Barn

The first three images you will see are Panoramas that I have created in the past. The first is from the Brown’s cabin in North Carolina, the second is at the Grand Canyon, and the third is from Cataloochee. The next two are also from Cataloochee. The final two are from Norris Dam State Park. Unfortunately, this weekend isn’t the best weekend to do this assignment because of weather, but as you can see from the last two images, sometimes you just have to make do with what you’ve got.

Assignment 4

Technorati Tags: Contemporary Art Photography, photography, contemporary art, photography class, nature, Cataloochee, Norris Dam, Grand Canyon

1) Compose and photograph a formulaic narrative composition – subject’s face is hidden or turned away from the viewer.
2) Compose and photograph a closed narrative composition.
3) Compose and photograph an open narrative composition.

The order in which they appear isn’t exactly the same order of the assignment, so to clarify:
1-7 are the closed narratives. It is part of a series I call “Urban Legends, Myths, and Internet Hoaxes”.
8 and 9 are the formulaic narratives.
10 and 11 are the open narratives.

Assignment 3

Technorati Tags: Contemporary Art Photography, photography, contemporary art, photography class, narrative, open narrative, closed narrative, formulaic narrative, urban legend, internet hoax, myth, WPG2

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion:   You have medium extroversion. You’re not the life of the party, but you do show up for the party. Sometimes you are full of energy and open to new social experiences. But you also need to hibernate and enjoy your “down time.”   Conscientiousness:   You have high conscientiousness. Intelligent and reliable, you tend to succeed in life. Most things in your life are organized and planned well. But you borderline on being a total perfectionist.   Agreeableness:   You have high agreeableness. You are easy to get along with, and you value harmony highly. Helpful and generous, you are willing to compromise with almost anyone. You give people the benefit of the doubt and don’t mind giving someone a second chance.   Neuroticism:   You have low neuroticism. You are very emotionally stable and mentally together. Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly. Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed – making others feel secure.   Openness to experience:   Your openness to new experiences is high. In life, you tend to be an early adopter of all new things and ideas. You’ll try almost anything interesting, and you’re constantly pushing your own limits. A great connoisseir of art and beauty, you can find the positive side of almost anything.

Technorati Tags: blogthings, Five Factor Personality Profile

I queued up Road Trip, October Sky, and Box of Moon Light in my Netflix account and waited for them to come. As they came, I tried to locate the scenes that were filmed in and around Knoxville. Road Trip was the easiest. It says they come to The University of Tennessee. In it, they visit a fraternity house which I think is the Sigma Chi house. The next movie I watched was October Sky. The only scene I photographed was the Jacob Building in Chilhowee Park. The science fair scene was filmed there. The Tennessee Theater was also used in the film, but since I did that in assignment 1, I decided to skip that.

The final movie was Box of Moon Light. I really recognized a lot of the scenes from that movie, but just decided to focus on 4. The first was a random burning couch. I immediately recognized that as being on Central Ave. The second scene had Knox Jewelry and Loan. I wasn’t quite sure about this one, so I googled it. Based on its exterior, the only results that would seem to fit were Broadway and Magnolia. Since the one on Broadway was also really close to my old house, I knew it wasn’t the one on Broadway. Since I was going to go to the Jacob Building, I figured I would look out for it on Magnolia. Sure enough, it was on Magnolia. The next scene was a little tricky. It had the obvious Quality Inn sign, but none of the locations seemed to have that antenna tower you could see in the background. I used Google Earth to verify before traveling out. Then I remembered, there used to be a Quality Inn over by West Town Mall. Sure enough, the Quality Inn is now a Howard Johnson Inn. The last scene, was just a little bit further than the rest. The 411 Motel is on Highway 411 just south of Maryville. To get the shot I needed, I really need to be there an hour and a half later, but I just couldn’t stay that long.

Assignment 2

Technorati Tags: Contemporary Art Photography, photography, contemporary art, Cindy Bernard, October Sky, Box of Moon Light, Knoxville, Lee Friedlander

Since I registered the day after classes started, I had missed the first class and assignment. That was also the day of the crazy ice storm so several other people missed it as well. The second class was just a review of the first class and she postponed the due date for the assignment until last night. The assignment was as follows:

Pick two:
1) Photographic “flatness” creates relationships between things that did not exist before. Select a scene a photograph it form different vantage points to create different relationships between the subjects.
2) Focus can produce a hierarchy of importance in a photograph by creating one plane of focus which seperates the main subject from the remaining content. Take a series of photographs that explore this use of focus.
3) There are two people on the street. They are completely unlrelated, but they happen at one instant to be next to each other. By taking a photograph of them in the same frame a relationship is created. Produce two or more images exploring this.
4) Explore the notion of time in photographs. Find a scene which includes movement and take photographs of increasingly longer duration, ranging from 1/1000th of a second to minutes. About five or six photos in all.

Since I had been sick, I really didn’t get to get out much. Even though she said two, I went for three. The following images are what I showed in class. They are a mixture of images that I shot specifically for this assignment and previous images that I thought would qualify as examples.

Assignment 1

Technorati Tags: Contemporary Art Photography, photography, contemporary art, photographic flatness, focus, photography class

Since all the action was in the first quarter and the forth quarter, it really was up to the advertisers to keep the audience entertained. For me, they just didn’t come through. Several of us had gathered at Ed and Wendy’s to watch the game. The ad that had us all laughing the most and got my vote for favorite ad was the E*Trade baby with Bobo the Clown.

Finally, I’m going to go through and clean out my Blogroll. I have a feeling it will be much smaller. My main criteria will be if it looks like you are still using your blog or if you have abandoned it. If I remove ya and you start posting again, I’ll probably add ya back.

So what exactly is the 30 hour fast? Well as it sounds, we will be going 30 hours without eating any food. We’ll only be drinking water. Did you know that every day 29,000 children die because of hunger, disease, and poverty. Of those, 15,500 die as a result of malnutrition. Around the world, more than 850 million people are hungry – including over 300 million children. Besides donating money, another way you can participate is to pray for the LYF group as we do the 30 Hour Famine.

Technorati Tags: 30 hour famine, laurel youth fellowship, lyf, world vision

Anyways, this year the concert was by a group called Building 429. The crowd really got into it and so did they. They were a really nice group and down to earth. I’d heard of them before and knew a few of their songs, but after meeting them, I’d definitely consider buying their albums off iTunes in the near future. In an effort to update this often neglected but not forgotten about blog, I thought I’d post a picture from this weekend. If I were to give titles to my pictures I would probably call this one "Can You Believe This is a CoC Conference?" During the regular (A Capella) singing, I never saw so many hands lifted up.

Technorati Tags: Gulf Coast Getaway, Building 429, Justin Acuff, Church of Christ

Today started out as any normal day. I got to work around 8:15 and parked in the area I normally park at. It’s a small parking area right behind my building. Even though it is staff lot 7, students like to try and park there since they think it is somewhat hidden and won’t get a ticket. Compounding the parking problem we have, is they have closed off the portion of the Estabrook Road since they are doing construction on the new Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building. This probably causes a loss of about 50 parking spaces.

From 10:00-11:00, I was in a meeting for a project I am working on for Y-12. After I got done with the meeting and went back to my office I saw that I had a phonemail message waiting. I checked it and it was one of the ladies that works up in the main office. She said that while she and another lady that work’s up there was on their smoke break, they saw a car hit my car. He had tried to park up in the area but it was full. Instead of just backing down like most normal people would have done, he attempted to do a three point turn. (This area is on a very steep hill with a drop off on one side… making a three point is really more like a 5 point turn.) While making the turn, he hits my car. Once he is straightened out, they said he got out of his car to check on his car to see if it was OK, he doesn’t even check on mine. By this time the two ladies had already gotten his license plate number down. When they walked to check on my car, the guy must have finally seen them. They said the guy rushed back into his car and took off, spinning out a little since it rained a lot last night and this morning.

I went and checked on the car and it’s nothing like the big dent I have on the driver’s side of my car. I talked to the ladies upstairs to get a feel for just how well they saw it. They sounded pretty certain they got the license plate down right. They said they would be willing to tell the police what happened. Even though there wasn’t a whole lot of damage, since the guy hit and ran, I decided I would call in the police. Within 10 minutes, the police officer showed up and took down my information. He talked with the two witnesses and then gave me the information that I would need to file a report with my insurance company.

On a side note, when he was asking for information, driver’s license, vehicle registration, address, etc. I am lucky he didn’t ask for proof of insurance. Not that I don’t have insurance, but I discovered today that I don’t have my most recent insurance ID card in the vehicle. This is something I should have done back in September. Whoops!!!! I can at least print a temporary card that will be good until I find my real card or until I renew my policy soon. Should something else happen that needs me to show proof of insurance.

I’m going to wait until I see the report. If the license plate matches up, I will definitely file a claim with my insurance company. The guy deserves to get charged with hit and run. He should have left some information on my vehicle or when he saw the two ladies, fess up to them and ask if they knew who the vehicle belongs to. Instead the guy ran away. If he would have left information, I probably wouldn’t have asked for anything more than a replacement bumper sticker (~$5.00). Now this guy stands to get charged by the police with hit and run, his insurance deductible going up for repair work that I will get done or maybe a fine if he doesn’t have insurance. I’ll let my insurance company tell me what I should do when I file my claim. Hopefully he’ll learn his lesson to not run away if he hits something or somebody again.

And now for pictures of the damage. Just click on a picture to see it larger.

Technorati Tags: hit and run, insurance

Technorati Tags: blogthings, quiz, reindeer

malware – n. Malicious computer software that interferes with normal computer functions or sends personal data about the user to unauthorized parties over the Internet.
 
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

After spending a good part of the weekend helping a friend out, I figured I should post about this as a general warning to other people out there. Thanks to the growing number of Web Applications and Cross Site Scripting vulnerabilities, it seems that anyone could be at risk of getting some kind of infection. In the past few weeks, I have seen a particularly dangerous one appear, just by using MySpace. Given that she was logged into MySpace and based on what she told me, this is probably what happened to her.

First, a Malware Alarm popup appears. It uses JavaScript to reduce your window to a size smaller than this popup and moves that window so that it is hidden under the popup. As you can see, you are presented with two choices: OK and Cancel. I don’t know what happens if you click OK, but I just clicked Cancel. (When presented with popups like this, make sure you read what it says. Some might reverse is so the proper answer is OK. Remember this is Malware we are talking about.)

Next, after pressing Cancel, it will restore your browser window to close to full-screen and bring up a page that looks like it is Scanning. This is the screen shot of the result. To you Macintosh people, this will be plainly obvious. As you can see, it is made to look like it is Windows XP. XP being the majority operating system that people are using. I have recently switched to Vista, which has a different look, so it is obvious to me as well. But for the unsuspecting XP user, they might click OK and allow the software to be installed if it even has to ask being installed. My friend probably got infected because her system still had IE 6 on it. Even though she was using Firefox, the JavaScript was able to inject code on her machine because she had a vulnerable version of Internet Explorer on her machine.

Another thing that helped her get infected was she did not have a current/running version of VirusScan. She had McAfee installed on her machine, but it kept asking for her to verify her subscription before it would turn on and protect her. I had her log in to verify her subscription and sure enough, her subscription had expired. Had she kept her subscription current, she may have been able to prevent this.

Steps You Should Take
Never ever click on any pop up without first reading it. It’s a pain, but it’s even more of a pain to recover if you click the wrong thing.

Always keep your system up to date. If you have Windows, turn on automatic updates. Visit update.microsoft.com to check for updates.

Always keep your Virus Scanning software up to date. If you need to renew your subscription, just pay for it and renew it. In the end, it could save you a lot of money. Most places would charge you a couple hundred dollars to do the kind of cleaning that was needed to clean the system. They will also probably recommend a clean install, but this is primarily because they are lazy and/or they don’t really know how to clean a system.

Check Add/Remove Programs (XP) or Programs and Features (Vista) for Malware. Some aren’t quite as malicious as others and actually allow themself to be uninstalled from a computer.

Tools that I use in cleaning system (running windows)
This next section is a list of some of the tools that I use in cleaning a system. Many of them are free or can be acquired for free for personal use. With some of these tools, however, it takes a little bit of knowledge to use properly.

Stinger: If you don’t have any Anti-Virus software, this is a good place to start. It will clean your system of several known popular viruses. It doesn’t provide any protection, but can help in removing certain virus infections.

Anti-Virus Software: I don’t want to recommend any one specific product, because frankly, I haven’t used them all. However, if you are a part of the UT Community, you can download McAfee Anti-Virus for free. If you are not part of the UT Community and want a free solution, AVG seems to be the solution many people use.

Spybot Search & Destroy: This program will help to identify the malware programs that are on your machine. It can attempt to remove them as well. You might need a little bit of knowledge to run this.

Spyware Blaster: This program helps to immunize your system (More thorough than Spybot S&D) against many common exploits malware uses to get itself installed on your machine.

HiJack This: This program is definitely useful for removing Browser Help Objects that are malware. This program also definitely takes a good bit of knowledge to run. You must be able to identify what hooks belong, and those that don’t.

CWShredder: This is the CoolWeb Shredder application. If Spybot identifies CoolWeb on your system, you may need to use this to properly remove it.

RootKitRevealer: This application definitely requires some advanced knowledge to use, but can really help you identify files and registry entries that are hiding. Malware is often in the form of a trojan or hidden rootkit. An example registry entry might be a hidden exception for the firewall that will allow the malware traffic.

Unlocker: This program will help you delete files that are in use. Often times after running Spybot, it would hang when it was trying to delete a file. The malware may attach itself to several running programs thus making it unable to be deleted. As with any time you are deleting files, you need to know that what you are deleting really isn’t needed.

Ad-Aware or Microsoft Windows Defender: Once the system is clean, install something like Ad-Aware or Defender (Defender is installed on turned on by default in Vista). This will help catch any future infections or attempts at malware being installed on your machine.

Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool: This program is included in the automatic updates from Microsoft. It is silent if it doesn’t detect any of the programs it can detect.

Winsock XP Fix: Finally after removing all the malware, you may find that your Internet Connection does not work. This program is definitely one of my secret programs. It basically simplies Microsoft KB Article 811259 by performing all the tasks automatically. This program is no longer in development, so I’ve just linked to the top site that is providing it. I would not recommend running this under any operating systems but Microsoft XP. I’ve successfully run it on many different XP machines, just not sure how well it would run in Vista.

Repair Install (XP): If all else fails, this is the last step you could try before resorting to a Clean Install or buying a new computer. You will need your original Windows install disc. Follow method 2 in this article.

Note: These programs are “tried and true” methods for repairing an XP machine. By now, if you are running Windows, you should be running at least XP Service Pack 2 or Vista. If you are not, you should definitely upgrade to XP SP2. I have only been using Vista for a couple of months now. I am still learning the ins and outs of it (like I know XP). While some of these methods will work under Vista, I have not had to fix a Vista machine yet. Even though UAC (user access control) may be kind of annoying, it will definitely help in intercepting malware programs before they get installed on your system.

Technorati Tags: mal-ware, malware, malware alarm, myspace

After my last experience with a Dell Contracted Technician working on my laptop, I decided to take my computer apart to get to the fan. Unfortunately, to get to the fan, I pretty much had to take my computer completely apart. Again, I don’t recommend this. Laptop parts are very fragile and are often held together by a hidden screw, so if you try to open it, don’t force anything. After a good 10 minutes or so, I was finally to the fan. I first checked to see that its cable looked good and was plugged in. Although the last guy should have never gotten to this step in disassembly, I almost expected that he did and forgot to plug the fan back up. When I took the fan top off, I found the source of the problem… a big ball of dust. I wonder just how many other people have run into this problem that has a fairly simple solution.

Technorati Tags: dell 700m, cooling fan, tech support, dust

Honey Creek Trail is probably one of the funnest trails you will encounter in Big South Fork. Yesterday I meet up with Bryan and some others from Brentwood Hills to do Honey Creek. This trail offers a wide variety of things to see and things to do. First off, there are 4 waterfalls along the trail, though being under a level D4 drought at this time, the waterfalls were nonexistent. This trail also offers a few rock caves that are very accessible. There is an overlook which gives you a good view of one of the most violent portions (class IV rapids) of the Cumberland River, but because of the drought it didn’t look all that particularly violent. Also this trail features some of Tennessee’s finest slot canyons. These slot canyons aren’t very big, nor or they all that difficult, especially if you compare them to the slot canyons you’d find in Utah. Tennessee isn’t exactly known for its canyons, so that makes this kind of unique.

The rock caves is one of the other features that make this trail so fun. Some are accessible just by climbing just a few feet, while others a ladder is already in place for you to climb. These caves don’t go underground and aren’t that deep. Most are just single chamber, so you don’t have to worry about getting lost. Several were probably used by the Native American’s as shelter. For example, this picture was taken from Indian Rock House Cave.

A word of warning though, this trail isn’t the best marked trail. The best way to hike this loop is to take the trailhead that is just up the road and end at the parking area. If you look at the elevation profile image above, ignore the distances. My program gives it as linear distance (aka, as the crow flies). The true distance is going to be terrain distance + climbing distance. Around the third mile, you will encounter a sign that says follow creek. This is where you could lose the trail if you aren’t careful. Make sure you don’t go too long without seeing the red trail blazes. This is the most dangerous part of the trail. Not only because you could get lost if you aren’t paying attention, but also because you are hiking along or in the creek. It is very slippery. This time the water was way down, but the last time I can remember the water being up and flowing pretty good. It was a tricky section of the trail to hike. This is definitely a trail you will want to avoid if it has recently rained or if rain is forecasted. You will also run into signs that are kind of ambiguous about where the main trail goes. This trail has a number of spur trails that either require turning around at the destination or rejoining the trail. When you encounter this sign, you want to take the trail that goes up. It is a little more difficult, but affords more scenery.

While most books and websites will tell you the elevation change on this trail is only 500 ft, I am going to give a way different number. This trail has a whole lot of up and down, there isn’t very many “flat” areas on this trail. Consequently, the total elevation gain is somewhere closer to 2500 ft.

The directions on how to get there I have found are usually pretty vague, so the last thing I want to do is give good directions on how to get to Honey Creek from Knoxville or anyplace you find yourself taking I-75. Take I-75 to exit 141. Turn left off the exit and head west on Highway 53. Stay on Highway 53 through Huntsville until it ends at a light at Highway 27. Turn left onto Highway 27 south. After a few miles you will cross over the New River Bridge. A little less than .5 mile from the bridge you will see a sign on the right hand side of the road that says Burnt Mill Bridge River Access 4.1 miles. Follow the signs to Burnt Mill Bridge. These are well marked, much better than trying to give road names. If you look in the guidebooks, some will say this bridge is closed to traffic, while others say it is open but 2 tons is the weight limit. I wasn’t sure if I should risk taking it and it being closed, but I did… And I’m very glad that I did. They have constructed a new bridge, so you can view the old one for its historic value, but pass using the new bridge. A little over 3 miles past the bridge, you will see the road split. At this split, go right. This takes you to the parking area or you can drive it all the way to the end at the overlook mentioned earlier.

Technorati Tags: honey creek, big south fork, slot canyon, indian rock house

So this morning, before work, I was gonna swing by and vote. At my previous residence, it always took so long because of the long lines, having too few booths, people still uncomfortable with the machines, and workers who didn’t seem to know much of what they were doing in the first place. I was expecting the same thing to happen this time too. I would rather them eat into my morning than my evening though. So I drive all the way out to Karns Middle but I don’t see any signs that say vote here. I eventually find my way to the office and ask where the voting booths are at. They then tell me that voting is only going on in the city not in the county so I don’t have to vote today or I have gone to the wrong location. I show them my card that shows that I am in the city and that Karns Middle School is my voting location. They try calling up the election commission to figure out what to do with me. After about 10 minutes, they ask to speak to me on the phone. They ask for my name and tell me that I should be voting in the 42nd Precinct location at Pleasant Ridge Elementary (MUCH closer to my house).

So I travel back to Pleasant Ridge Elementary and vote. When I arrived, there was one other person there to vote. He was registering right as I arrived. There was 4 booths there, but when I arrived, they were all empty. After I registered, I got my access number and was immediately able to vote.

Today’s election for the most part is an uninteresting election. There are only four city council seats that need to be selected. Three of those are uncontested. It just so happens that the one seat that is contested has Joe Bailey (from Laurel) running for that seat.

Technorati Tags: election day, woes, joe bailey, laurel church of christ

One thing I noticed this year was the the attendance seemed lower than usual. They were fewer college kids, fewer Laurel members, and also fewer youth group kids. In past years the cookout had been in the afternoon or the evening, so I had usually scheduled a trip to get some hiking in before the cookout. This year, since it was at 12:30, there wasn’t time to head up to the mountains before the cookout. I figured I wouldn’t be able to get any hiking in after the cookout either, but I decided I was going to try and take some pictures with my dSLR. Speaking of my dSLR, towards the ends of the cookout, some of the LYF group kids wanted to take some pictures with it themselves. I was a little nervous, but I figured they would be careful because they knew they were handling something expensive. You can view the rest of my pictures, as well as some of Philip’s, Lydia’s, Connor’s, Alex’s, and Sean’s pictures here.

I hadn’t made any plans to go with anybody else, I was just going to stay in the front country and not go much into the back country. I figured I might have some time to head up to Clingman’s Dome. Technically to get to Clingman’s Dome you have to “hike” half a mile to the tower, so I would be heading into the back country, but not really, since Clingman’s Dome is usually populated by lots of people. After taking some shots at Clingman’s, on my way back I would stop at Morton Overlook for some sunset pictures.

I was a little bit late leaving the cookout, but I thought I should still have time to do what I wanted to do. Sunset on Saturday was going to be right around 7:00. To get to where I wanted to go from the cookout, there were a few options. I could head to Townsend and take 321 through Wear Valley and end up in Pigeon Forge, or I could Turn left at the Townsend Wye and take Little River Road to Sugarlands and head up to Newfound Gap from there. The way I ended up taking was to go out to Chapman Highway and then take Veterans Boulevard to bypass as much of Pigeon Forge as I can and then take the Gatlinburg Bypass to get to Sugarlands and head up to Newfound Gap.

I was wrong about the amount of time I would actually have. I figured there would be a lot of traffic leaving the Smokey Mountains, but I hadn’t expected as many people heading into them, since it was later in the day. It took almost 2 hours from the time I left Caroline’s house until I got up to Morton Overlook. That was about 25 minutes before sunset. Figuring I would have no time to get much of anything if I went up to Clingman’s Dome, I decided to just go ahead and get a spot at Morton Overlook. Morton Overlook is a popular place to photograph sunsets since it looks west. The Chimney Tops are also very prominent when looking out from Morton Overlook. Not only did it take a long time to get up to Newfound Gap, it took a long time to get back down. Traffic was backed up all the way to the Chimney’s picnic area from Gatlinburg. I guess my average speed was 5 miles per hour since it took just about an hour to get from the Chimney’s picnic area to Sugarlands (which is about 5 miles apart). After Sugarlands, I was able to get on the bypass. I got home later than I wanted, but all in all, I got some really good pictures that I am happy with, so it was definitely worth the hassle. You can view the rest of my pictures here.

Technorati Tags: christian student center, laurel church of christ, cookout, smoky mountains, fall colors, chimney tops, morton overlook, sunset, photography

You can view the rest of my pictures from the retreat at: http://gallery2.justinacuff.net/v/Church/Fall_Retreat_2007-10-12/

Technorati Tags: fall retreat, laurel church of christ, lyf group, camp smokey christian

A while ago someone passed this video onto me and I watched all 26 minutes or so of it. I never thought I would find myself in that situation, but today I did. Here’s the story… Thursday is about the only day that I watch TV. I also usually bring my laptop downstairs so I can do some other things while watching TV. But this time, it could not connect to my network. I go through some standard things to see if I can get it to connect (scan for networks, disable and enable the card, turn off wi-fi and then turn it back on) but none of those works. Since I had also been having some intermittent problems with my speakers, I figured I would check the cables that are in the hinge of the LCD. Sure enough the wireless antenna cable had been cut. Extended warranties are usually a rip off, but in the case of laptop computers, I’m all for getting as long of a warranty as you can. So back when I bought this computer, I got a 4 year warranty.

So on Thursday evening I called up Dell Support. In 95% of the times I’ve had to call Dell Support, I already know what the problem and solution is, however they are usually required to walk you through different diagnostic things. This time I was sure to specify that the problem is a broken cable so any diagnostic regarding the wireless is sure to fail since the antenna cable is broken. Surprisingly, the guy decided within 30 seconds that a replacement LCD assembly needed to be shipped (he was correct and that’s the outcome I expected before I called). However, he didn’t want it to be user serviceable, so he was going to ship it to a Dell Certified Technician who would preform the work on the laptop.

So this morning, the Dell Certified Technician showed up and began working on my laptop. I was busy with other things at work so I left the technician to work on his own. Normally, I would expect that the technician should have been able to replace the LCD screen and verify that all is working within 10 minutes of beginning. Well about 20 minutes pass and the guy is still “working” on it. I walk in and the guy is doing stuff to my hard drive and proceeds to tell me that I have a major software problem (I don’t). At this point I get a little mad. The guy was supposed to be fixing a hardware issue, but is browsing around my hard drive to find what he says is a software problem. (I realize I should have logged out before I gave it to him, this way, I would have to type in my password before he could have done anything.) I told him it absolutely isn’t a software problem and that I am pretty competent when it comes to computers so he should double check his work. I press Function+F2 which is the hotkey to enable the wireless on my computer and it doesn’t do anything. I tell him at the least, that light should turn on and off. The guy then says it won’t do anything unless there is a wireless signal detected (also a lie the guy just made up). I said I can get another laptop and show him that there is a wireless signal in this room. He doesn’t believe me until I get another laptop and show him that there is a signal and that it can connect to the network. Then I show him that pressing Function+F2 should turn on and off the Wi-Fi status light on the laptop regardless of presence of a signal. He tells me that I should call Dell and report the problem. I tell him that I won’t do that because it is supposed to be the technician to report any additional problems that did not get fixed on the service call. I tell him that he needs to double check his work. At this point the guy gets mad at me and says to give him 5 minutes and he will fix it.

Well about 10 minutes later he comes in and asks me to log in. (He has called up Dell Support.) So I go to type my password and nothing happens. The keyboard is total unresponsive. The guy then proceeds to tell me that I have a bad keyboard. I’m like, it worked this morning, so I seriously doubt its the keyboard. At this point the guy has proved to me that he wasn’t all that competent to be working on my system. I turn the system off and say lets check that you reconnected the keyboard. Well it turns out he did not. This is the most probable explanation to why the first time I tried Fn+F2 the wireless did not enable. I hadn’t tried typing anything else so I wouldn’t have caught it then.

Well the moral of the story is that after watching that video and having first hand experience, I don’t think I can trust anybody but myself to work on computers. I can only imagine how somebody who doesn’t know much about computers getting taking advantage of or their solution taking a lot longer than it should take to get resolved. What’s crazy is that this guy really had no reason to do that. He wasn’t getting paid by me (maybe Dell pays him more for each additional trip he has to make to get a problem resolved, I don’t know). For example if he said the problem was with the motherboard or the wireless card, Dell would just send a replacement one at no charge to me since the machine is still under warranty. So it would seem pointless for him to do anything but fix the problem.

In the end, I told the guy I was sorry if it seemed I was angry at him. The system is now working the way it should, so its pointless to stay angry. (Though the next time I have Dell work that they say they need to send a technician for, I will probably request that they not send this guy.) Dell also usually sends a follow up survey, which I usually ignore, but to protect other people, I will be honest about how I felt this guy was not competent enough to be performing this work. Anybody else have any good or bad stories about their experiences with computer support like Geek Squad?

Technorati Tags: dell, 700m wireless problem, 700m speaker problem, broken antenna

I did this hike with Matt Troxler and was going to meet up with Bryan and a group from Brentwood Hills. It is a pretty basic Big South Fork hike. What I mean by that is that you start out by losing elevation and at the end you gain that elevation again. You will see lots of rock formations along the way.

Since Matt and I ended up going at a faster pace, we ended up getting to see a few things that the rest of the group missed out on. As we were about to cross Laurel Fork for about the 9th or 10th time, I heard something come romping through the trees. I also vaguely made it out to be a boar, which Matt saw. A little later on, there was a nice snake just off the trail. The last little unique thing I saw along the way was a tree that a beaver had been working on.

Technorati Tags: hiking, big south fork, sawmill, laurel fork

Actually…. I am not done removing the old faucet yet, but I know it won’t take me long to install the new one. Under the kitchen sink doesn’t have the best ventilation for working with Liquid Wrench. (Had to take a break, the fumes were just too much.) The bolts are now loose, so it will just take probably about 5 more minutes with a deep socket wrench and the old faucet will be free. Then I’ll just have to clean up the area a bit and put the new faucet (which shouldn’t leak) in.

Another recent project that I meant to get to when I first moved in was changing the locks. You never know who all previously had keys to the house. I opted to go for Kwikset locks with Smart Key. The advantage is that it is pretty easy for you to change the locks on your own if you have the key that it is currently keyed too. Yesterday, I discovered a disadvantage. It is possible for you to make it learn a key wrong. I had changed them all to one of the new keys and the last door I had to do was the knob on the front door. I think as it was learning it, the key slipped a little bit. This effectively set the tumblers for a key that I didn’t have. I couldn’t get the door to unlock. The original keys didn’t work for it either. Thankfully, Home Depot (i.e. the place were most of my left over money goes to) opens at 7:00 AM. I took it to the guy and he just gave me a new knob since I had my receipt and it was purchased within the last few days.

Well, I think I’ve gotten enough fresh air. Time to finish up this sink. Oh yeah… if you’ve read this far and you are interested in helping with MediaShout on Sunday Mornings at Laurel, you are desperately needed. You’ll probably notice this Sunday that we won’t have it because we have a lack of workers. (Currently just 2 of us and both of us are busy this weekend.)

Technorati Tags: kwikset, liquid wrench, home improvements, home repairs, mediashout, laurel church of christ

I suppose you’ll get it free even if you “forgot” the ad. Don’t try anything silly like saving a bunch of Daily Beacons and using that coupon every week.

Technorati Tags: daily beacon, csc, christian student center, wednesday lunch

So a few weeks ago, I got one of those clocks that has a sensor that you put outside and it will give you information such as the temperature and what the barometric pressure is doing. Anyways when I came home from work today, it was a nice cool 108 degrees!!!!!

Technorati Tags: hot, 108 degrees, la crosse clock

So why did things change? While cell phone only definitely has its advantages in money saving, there are also some disadvantages to it too. First, you really have to monitor how long you use it. I’m sure you know somebody that had an outrageous phone bill because they went over their minutes. Most all land lines here in the US have unlimited local calling. You don’t have to keep up with how many minutes you have used up. At my new house, I decided to go with Knology as my Cable/Internet/Phone provider. Included in my phone plan is also unlimited long distance. For at least the first year, I will be keeping this plan. After a year, the plan goes up because I am at a New Customer Promotional pricing. (Unlike Comcast, which does the same thing, Knology at least mentioned up front that the plan would go up to $XX at the end of the first year. I can’t even begin to count the number of people that got some pricing from Comcast that only lasts 3 months, but they thought it was the actual price.) Anyways, back to the phone stuff again.

One of the disadvantages to Cell Phones is that at times, the network gets flooded. You probably know what I am talking about. The message that tells you that all circuits are busy. It doesn’t happen often, but when you get it, its usually at a time you really want/need to call out. Usually some big event/tragedy has happened and everybody wants to call everybody else. With more and more people becoming cell phone only, they land line circuits are being freed up even more. However, I don’t see this as being a reason enough to come back to a land line phone.

The main reason I came back to a land line is that the home security system in my house needs a land line. There are home security systems that will use cellular, but that would require a new install (can’t use the existing system) and they also cost more to monitor. Doing the calculations, it would take a while for a cellular system to catch up to the land line system. Also, a cellular system doesn’t do a lot of good if it loses signal. At my house, while I’m mostly always at 4 bars, I’ve seen it drop to 1 or 2 from time to time for whatever reason.

There are a couple of things to be aware of, since they don’t behave exactly like your standard incandescent light bulb. First off, it can take a couple of minutes before the bulb fully lights up. I have bulbs from two brands. GE and Philips. The GE bulbs are pretty good about providing a lot of light when they first get turned on. The warm-up time is most noticeable in the bulbs from Philips. Also, you can’t just use any CFL bulbs with a dimmer. You have to find a special bulb that is made for dimmer circuits. Also you’ll want to be careful to not break them. They contain a small amount of mercury. If one breaks, you can’t just vacuum it up. (In fact, you shouldn’t vacuum it at all.) It also means, that 7-10 years down the road when you need to replace a bulb, you can’t just throw them in the trash can. You have to take them to a recycling center or to a place that accepts recyclable goods.

Technorati Tags: compact fluorescent light bulb, cfl, carbon footprint

15 of us from João Pessoa loaded up on the van to drive to Patos. Joyce went to Recife to spend time with Juliana since she was having surgery. In her place, Ediclar came. The others that came were Mike, Sheridan, Hunter, Lori, Hunter, Mathias, Sabrina, Mark and Carolyn (Hunter’s parents), Nilson, Raniere Vieira, Bea, Julian, and Mara. When we arrived, we did not know how many kids to expect. We were initially told about 30-40 kids. Their plan was to start advertising on that Saturday morning. (EBF was only two days, Saturday and Sunday.) A few of the kids were familiar from last year, but most were a brand new face to me. On Saturday, we had 46 kids, but not many of the church members stayed around to observe. Sunday, we had even more kids… close to 70!!!! A few more of the church members stayed on Sunday to observe, but I think more were desired. Next year, I don’t think we’ll be going to Patos.

For those of you at Laurel, you’ll probably get to hear a more detailed report soon. Also… if you would like to go next year, please start praying about it now. We are hoping to start planning next years trip in December instead of like May. Also… if you haven’t check out the pictures, they are here: http://gallery2.justinacuff.net/v/mission_trips/Brazil_EBF_2007-06-28/

Technorati Tags: brazil, patos, ebf, mission trip, paraiba, joao pessoa