Yeah, so this post will be about my new A/V receiver, and maybe some more about the Playstation 4. If neither of those things interests you, feel free to skip and you will miss nothing. :)

So yeah, the receiver. The retailer came through, despite the delay and my doubts, and it's a genuine and factory-fresh Yamaha RX-V681, no concerns there. And it's awesome! Now and then a piece of equipment comes into my grubby hands which makes me say, "This is how this SHOULD work, how did I never know that before?!" And this thing is one of them. Coming from a non-HDMI, audio-only, dumb receiver, I really had no idea how thoroughly devices could communicate over an HDMI connection these days. The Yamaha can identify the devices I connect, turn them on and off, tell the TV when it should mute its internal speakers, and even pass along remote-control commands. I was amazed that I could use the receiver remote OR the TV remote to control the PS4 menus. And when the receiver is on, any remote that can send volume control to the TV gets seamlessly passed along to the receiver. I power up a device like the PS4, and the TV turns on automagically. And the on-screen display to configure things is lovely. It's like a whole new world and it's just awesome how it serves as the nerve center to make all these devices behave like one organic whole. Color me impressed, for sure. Oh yeah, and it sounds pretty decent, too. I still need to finish running a couple more speaker wires for the surround back channels, and make sure the subwoofer connection is clean, and then run the speaker calibration routine and find the processing modes that I like best. I also haven't even tried the network functionality yet, I'm looking forward to that. Generally though, yes. Very cool.

The girls and I decided to head over to GameStop last night to look around. Kind of a mistake, because the closest GameStop to us is pretty small, and it was packed (not that it takes a lot of people to achieve that). So we ended up not getting anything, but got to spend some time looking at the PS4 games to get an idea of what we might want to get. I have my list, of course, and it's already too long. Hallie was very interested in the horror games, because that's kinda her thing. On one hand I dig it because hey, that's one of my things too! But on the other hand, she's a bit young for a lot of the games along those lines (pretty much all of which, of course, are rated M), and of course I don't want to warp her little mind too much! The wife's main complaint would be the language, though of course she's not a big fan of the violent blood-and-guts stuff either. She's indulged it thus far, and I think we've slipped a little under her radar when she plays on her PC, like the Telltale Walking Dead games, since Hallie usually plays games with the sound turned way down. But since the PS4 is right out in the TV room, Heather will definitely notice what we're playing on there. :) So I'll have to stick with T-rated stuff, at least for now. Aside from maybe Diablo III, which is rated M but I think mainly because of the imagery (which is smaller in scale to begin with). Or am I just a terrible parent for encouraging an interest in this type of thing? I'm not sure what age I was when I started reading Stephen King, but it couldn't have been much older than Hallie is now. And I'm.. well, not exactly okay, but not THAT bad. :)

Okay, enough for now. Gotta get some more work done before I can call it a day!

For those of you who expressed interest in my experience with Canon Price Watch, here's your quick follow-up: Big Thumbs Up. The 7D2 arrived yesterday, a day ahead of when I was expecting it (and, I hasten to add, a day sooner than even Amazon said they could get it to me--and this from Canada!), and is indeed the real McCoy. New in box with all included accessories, Canon warranty cards, and though I only had time to configure a few settings and fire off a few indoor test shots, it seems to work just fine. I didn't actually try the battery grip yet, but it's impressive too: I bought relatively cheap aftermarket grips for my other dSLRs, and there's a definite look-and-feel quality difference in the genuine Canon grip (which makes sense given the price difference).

ETA: Just to be sure, I found a little application which grabs the shutter count from Canon dSLRs to verify the 7D2 was truly brand new, and it checked out. Around 99,500 actuations on my trusty old 7D, which sounds about right. It's rated for 150k (the Mk II is rated for 200k), so it should be good as a backup for some time.

So anyway, definitely give CPW a try if you're in the market for Canon gear (looks like they offer deals on some third-party lenses as well). I'm a believer!

Now back to hunkering down for this oncoming storm. But more about that in a bit.

Hm, that title sounds kind of ominous. It implies there's something going on. But really? Nah, same stuff, different day. Some highlights lately:

I had 3 photoshoots in 8 days last week! And all repeat business, which was kinda nice. I did a maternity shoot out at the Polynesian for a couple I know (we used to work together and I shot their wedding a year or two back). Then a Massachusetts family I shot out at WDW a couple years ago were back down for a cruise, and we met out at Cocoa Beach last weekend before they set sail. And then last Monday, a family I'd shot twice before hit me up for Round 3--EPCOT this time. Pretty nice weather for all, thankfully, though the beach was über-windy. We made the best of it, anyway. I have the first two sets all done, just need to plow through editing the last one and I'll be all caught up. Then I have another maternity shoot in early May, and a family down on vacation later in the month. And whenever the aforementioned couple's new baby arrives I'll be doing a newborn session with them. Keeping busy, kinda nice! The extra money is certainly helpful, and has already paid for some new toys. Observe:

( Cut for those who don't care! )
In other musical news, I've been playing more--practicing more, I should say. Trying to polish up some areas of my playing that I've always neglected, while also trying to cram more musical theory knowledge into my aging brain, especially as it pertains to the guitar. Helps to know the rules before you trash them, right?

Oh, and one more recent purchase with my gig money: I'd been wanting a new tablet, since my aging first-gen Nexus 7 was getting more and more clunky. Given my musical aspirations I wanted one that could serve as a mobile music-making platform, so I decided to go to the dark side and get an Apple. I prefer the smaller form factor for tablets, so I decided on an iPad Mini, and had just about talked myself into going for a refurbed Mini 2 for $250 when I got an e-mail from Best Buy that they had new ones on sale for $200. Nice! So I grabbed one of those Friday, and spent a little time over the weekend setting it up. So far I really like it. Performance is snappy, screen is a good size and looks amazing, battery life seems quite good. My only real complaint so far is that a couple apps I have and use on my iPhone aren't available in iPad versions, for no good reason I can see. But there are workarounds and alternatives, so I guess that's not too terrible.

Now to actually indulge my creative side more often. And stay off of Facebook more, I've been getting unduly annoyed by stupid people on there lately, especially with this whole bathroom-bill fiasco. Win-win if I skip FB and go to tinkering with music instead. :)

Otherwise.. Work is work, though we got a treat Friday in the form of a fun team event, bowling at Downtown Disney. I hadn't been bowling for a few years--I should do that more often, it is fun. I should take the girls sometime too, see if they take to it.

Speaking of the girls, I started taking Amy to a karate class we found at a neighborhood rec center not too far from home. She likes it, and I think I might start doing it with her. That should be fun. I'm waiting for the instructor to send me the e-mail he promised, and I'll ask him if I could join in too. I'll look silly doing it, of course, but it's been on my wanna-do list for ages and would be good for me.

This past weekend we didn't roam too far from home. Saturday we headed out to a park or two up towards Sanford, and yesterday Heather had to take Hermione to a concert at a church for the morning. After that we went for a hike in the woods and found a geocache, something else I've been meaning to get back into. That reminds me, I need to log that find.

Okay, better get some work done today, even if it's just submitting an expense report for my work-related road trips last week. Hope everyone is having a fine day!

WARNING: Guitarist Nonsense ahead, skip if you don't care or have no idea what I'm on about. :)

( Clicky! )

Just things going on, and floating around my brain, bullet-point style:

• Just pulled the trigger on buying a microscope. I mentioned to the wife that with my upcoming annual bonus I'd like to get some good optics: a decent microscope and telescope. We have a little beginner's reflector telescope, and a kiddie digital microscope, but neither are all that good, and frankly I've never been a fan of kiddie and dumbed-down stuff like that. The idea is to pique an interest without spending a lot of money, sure, but if the result is frustration because you immediately run into the limitations of the thing.. that can have the opposite effect, you know? So the microscope is a nice, sturdy metal one, trinocular so I can slap a camera on the top eyepiece and leave the pair of binocular eyepieces available. So I ordered the camera adapter as well, and a set of prepared slides so we'll have stuff to look at immediately, and blank slides for stuff the girls find. Should be a hit. Now to research the telescopes!
• We've been getting into spring cleaning early this year! With the new year our county (finally) rolled out automated garbage and recycling collection, and provided huuuuge 95-gallon bins for each. We've been taking advantage to fill those suckers to the brim with boxes and other big things we've had stashed in the garage and around the house. Not that we couldn't have gotten rid of the stuff before, but having the big containers really makes it easy. And now that I've cleared a few spots outside, I'm inspired to do some landscaping. I'm hoping to use some bonus money to replace some of our wooden fencing as well, it looks ragged. Maybe even get some sod replaced, that's never looked great. I guess we'll see. If nothing else, I have some notions of adding pavers to some spots, and maybe adding some new plants here and there. And I should finally sand and seal the arbor bench thing I built a few years back. And there's always the Library Project. I should make a list.
• Speaking of projects, a while back I had to replace our pool pump motor--again. The one I replaced was less than a year old, but the pump itself had been sporting a small leak--it's a salt water pool, so a few months of leaking was enough to rust out the motor housing. Grr. The new motor I got a good deal on as an open-box, and it does work--but it's way (WAY) louder than it should be. So I also ordered a new set of bearings to swap in, I'm hoping that and maybe some other lubrication will quiet the thing down a bit.
• How 'bout that Sanders campaign, huh? If you follow me on FB you already know my joy, but things are really looking good for ol' Bernie. The first polls of 2016 show him widening his lead over Hillary in NH, starting to surpass her in Iowa, bringing the national (national!) gap to within the margin of error, and--perhaps most importantly--outperforming HC in every poll of hypothetical general-election matchups. It's amazing to see, and really very encouraging. If he pulls off wins in IA and NH, no matter how small, I think the momentum will be even more on his side than it already is, the media will finally have to say okay, maybe he's not the no-hoper we've been portraying him as, and all those fence-sitters and people who haven't paid him much attention so far will start thinking maybe he's worth voting for after all. And if all that happens, it won't make a bit of difference what happens on the GOP side. The only question at that point will be whether the Dems can recapture the House along with the Senate, which is unlikely, but we can hope. :)
• I had a number of photo sessions over the past few weeks (two of which I still need to finish editing, oops). There was the family in Oviedo right after Christmas, an extended-family thing in Kissimmee after New Year's, and later that week a short family session at one of the Disney hotels. In a couple weeks I have an engagement shoot with a couple whose wedding I'm shooting in July. I had an inquiry for a June wedding that I was actually pretty excited about because the location looked great, but they ditched me. I haven't even been advertising lately, really--I should do that since now I don't have much booked. And the weather is finally nice!
• Poor Hallie. When she was 2 or so, she had an incident that knocked out one of her top front teeth, so she's had that gap ever since. When she started going to the dentist he kept an eye on it, and said when the other front tooth fell out and started growing back we'd see if the adult tooth under the knocked-out incisor would also start coming in--if not, it would need a little help to get through the gum. As you might guess, it didn't, so in a couple weeks she goes in for a quick procedure to make an incision for that tooth to start coming through. Hopefully it will be no big deal, but being a huge dentist-phobe for no good reason, I'm anxious on her behalf. :)
• Like half of America, I sped through Making a Murderer on Netflix over the past week or two. Quite a show, that. I am loath to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it but wants to, so I will restrain myself. But it's all pretty infuriating, the stuff in that show. I didn't come away from it convinced of the innocence of the two men on trial, but utterly convinced that the legal system did not perform well during the entire process. To say the least.
• As part of my goal to be more musical this year, I was learning a few new songs to play on the guitar, so I'm pleased with that. If I'm not too embarrassed I should record myself as I get good at some of these songs, maybe share them here. But I'll probably be embarrassed. :)
• This weekend my mother-in-law is down for a visit, so she and my sister-in-law will be staying at a nearby hotel and we'll likely roam around the area doing fun stuff, weather permitting. And her foot permitting too, apparently she injured it recently and has been having trouble walking. Hopefully it will be feeling a bit better in a few days! Then I get Monday off for MLK Day, and that happens to coincide with the arrival of the tour of WWII-era aircraft that swings through the area each year. The nearest stop is Melbourne, so I'm hoping to drive over there, probably just me and Hallie since she's interested in climbing around in airplanes. Weather permitting, again.
• Yesterday I was over in St. Pete for our staff meeting, and on the way back the weather was glorious so I stopped by Weedon Island Preserve for a walk. There were almost no crabs this time, though--last time I visited little fiddler crabs were all over the boardwalk and in the mangroves, it was awesome. But at least it was a great day for a little walk. On the way out I noticed a little memorial along the side of the road--apparently nearby was the site of a 2000 helicopter crash, wherein 3 crewmembers died when their Bayflite medical chopper hit a radio tower and crashed. Hadn't heard about that one.

Okay, enough for now. Better get some work done before calling it a day!

Score! There was a deal over the weekend for a Logitech USB gamepad for $7.99 at Best Buy. It's not wireless, but for $8, who can complain? But the store near me was out of stock, and when I checked today the deal had ended and the gamepad was back to its normal price of $24.99. But today was a St. Pete day for work, so on the way home I figured what the heck and stopped at the BB in Lakeland just to see if maybe I could get lucky. And I did! First I found the only one of the gamepad left in stock--but it wasn't where it belonged in the game controllers, instead it was hanging out on a random cart of PC accessories over in that department, and with no price tag whatsoever. Then I found the spot where it was supposed to go--and the $7.99 shelf tag was still there! So I took them both up to checkout, and sure enough it rang up at $24.99 but since the shelf tag was out they honored the sale price for me. Nice! I have no doubt they'd have been cleaned out if the thing had been stocked in the right spot. Pressing my luck, I stopped at another BB along the way, and they had plenty of stock but the shelf tag had been changed back to the $24.99 price. Oh well, at least I scored one! I've wanted to get a couple controllers like that so we can do some family gaming on the home theater PC, which isn't a high-end machine but should be good enough for some stuff.

Speaking of gaming, a while back I mentioned looking for PC games for the girls, and got some good suggestions. They play Terraria and Don't Starve pretty frequently, and have gotten quite good at both. The Sims 2 is still a hit, as are the Scribblenauts games. Recently I introduced them to Goat Simulator, which they love because it's so silly (though it doesn't run too well on Hallie's underpowered laptop, unfortunately). Now I'm looking for a game-design software package that isn't too complex for them. I picked up a Humble Bundle with several (RPG Maker, Axis Game Factory and GameGuru), but I think they might all be just a bit too deep and quirky for their ages. Though I haven't really tried them too much myself, so I guess I should do that. I see a few geared more for beginners and kids like Stencyl and Scratch, maybe I'll check those out too. Though if any of you have suggestions, please do share. :)

Amy still plays the Wii U every chance she gets, and still prefers Super Mario 3D World. And is pretty good at it, for a 4-year-old!

We haven't played D&D much lately, I should remedy that. I also got Exploding Kittens, the card game that was a Kickstarter from the guy who writes the Oatmeal webcomic. Looks pretty fun, I think we'll try that tonight while Heather is at band practice.

Just killing time, really--I was a little too early coming back from St. Pete to go straight home, but there's not really enough time to actually accomplish anything here at the office either. Hope everyone is having a good week out there in LJ Land!

So the Steam Summer Sale kicked off today. This is a bad thing, because I am way too tempted to buy more games to add to my already-insurmountable backlog. But the few I've been tempted to buy so far today.. I'll see the game, see the price, and say to myself, "Hm, that looks pretty good for the money!" Then I click through to the store page, and.. "This game is already in your Steam library." Heh. I think if I don't even have a clue what I already own, I probably don't need to buy more, right?

Especially since I'll be picking up my copy of LEGO Jurassic World tomorrow. Exciting!

In other news, my shiny new home theater PC was waiting for me when I got home from work yesterday, so I spent much of the evening getting it set up with Kodi (the HTPC interface formerly known as XBMC), VLC player, media server software, etc., and getting it set up in place of the little nettop it's replacing. About the only thing I didn't do was actually test video playback, but it seems like a pretty zippy little box so I don't see that being an issue. Overall I'm very pleased so far--it's much more responsive than the nettop, and I can already see the benefits of utilizing a USB 3.0 port to connect to the external HDD where my media files live. MUCH faster access times.

And I got to thinking.. with a decent little PC attached to the tv, finally, there's a great opportunity to get it set up as a little emulation machine for playing the classics. NES, SNES, Sega Master System and Genesis, even the Commodore 64 games which so defined my adolescence. So I ordered a pair of USB gamepads that look like SNES controllers, and those should arrive today. I think I'll try firing up some Super Mario Brothers to educate the girls with this evening. :)

Hey look, bullet points!

• Still convalescing. Christmas Day I felt worse, ended up taking a couple-hour nap with Amy. Luckily we were just planning to stay home all day, open presents, etc., so it worked out anyway. Since then it's been on-and-off, headache, runny nose, gook in the throat, endless throat-clearing and coughing, gravelly voice.. blech. I think I'm past being contagious and into the clearing-out phase, but I still only feel about 80%.

• It is too damn hot here. It cooled off for Christmas, down into the 60Fs, which was nice. But really just for that one day--since then it's been mid-70Fs and low 80Fs, and a bit muggy. Feels more like April. This coming weekend projected highs are 85F both days. NO THANKS. If the pool was warm enough, the girls would be in there every day. The extended forecast shows a nice dip in a week or two, can't come soon enough. I'd settle for some seasonal average temperatures, even!

• Christmas was pretty decent. There were no really big presents this year, nothing that was really a dream-come-true for any of us. The girls asked for some particular toys, which we were happy to provide. Heather and I stayed pretty low-key with our gifts to each other. I got her some books (sheet music, gardening, and the new novel by one of her favorite authors), a little vacuum chamber for her homeschool science lessons, and (very exciting!) a laminating machine since I read that those come in very handy for homeschoolers. She got me a couple geeky t-shirts, some Doctor Who-related stuff, and a LEGO set. Oh, and this weekend she let me go out and get myself a new toy.

• Specifically, this: Canon's new 24mm pancake lens. I've had the 40mm pancake lens since it was released, and really like it--it's a great lens to throw on when I want to travel light; even my big dSLR with that lens mounted feels small and light. But 40mm is a little long as a walkaround lens on an APS-C camera, so when I heard about the 24mm coming out I was interested. When reviews and MTF charts indicated it's even sharper than the 40mm (and, at some apertures, even Canon's 24mm f/1.4L) I was VERY interested. And then when I saw that it can focus as close as 6 inches, giving it a better than 1:4 ratio for macro, I was sold. So now my conundrum is just whether to sell the 40mm, since the 24mm is superior optically and, I think, better for my purposes.

• Speaking of selling stuff, I'm going to try to sell off our antique piano. Long-time readers (are there any left?) might remember when I got it, way back in 2008. I worked on it for a while, got it into a more presentable and playable condition, and then (as is my wont) have neglected it ever since. Since we picked up a nice digital piano, it's really just a huge waste of space. So while I suspect the market for antique fixer-upper baby grand pianos is not a large one, I'm gonna post it and see if I get any bites. It would free up some room, and maybe I can even turn a profit on it. Though frankly I'd give the thing away to whomever is willing to haul it off!

• Day after Christmas I felt a bit better, so we headed over to my Mom's for a visit, as was our plan. We had lunch with her, and my sister and her husband tagged along. I hadn't seen my sister for some time--she looked good, but reminded me so much of our grandmother, both in her appearance and speech. It was a little uncanny, actually. Anyway, she seems to be doing well.

• Back to work today--wow, almost quitting time already! And then I'm off for the next 3 days, burning my last 2 vacation days plus the New Year's holiday. I debated taking Friday off to give myself a 6-day weekend, but with the weather looking too hot to enjoy, I figured I might as well save the day and use it for nicer weather and/or when we have something fun on the agenda. Hoping for lots of travel this year!

Okay, enough for now, gonna shut down and head home shortly. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, and something festive on deck to welcome 2015. May it treat us all kindly.

Well hmf, I was excited but got let down. This year is the 20th anniversary of the release of my all-time favorite film, The Shawshank Redemption. So I keep seeing things on Facebook, 20 Things You Didn't Know About Shawshank, etc. So yesterday one of those reminded me that it was filmed around Mansfield, Ohio, with the old Ohio State Reformatory standing in as Shawshank Prison. And I would absolutely love to visit that place, both for its own history as well as the Shawshank connection. So I got to thinking.. with my Detroit business trip coming up, how difficult would it be to work in a visit to Mansfield? I looked, and it's about a 2.5-hour drive between there and Detroit, and in my mind that's not unreasonable if I were to fly into Akron or Cleveland and visit Mansfield on the way to Detroit. So I got excited! This can happen, and on the 20th anniversary year no less! Whoo-hoo!

But then I looked into it more, and the prison is only open for tours from April 1 to September 1 each year. So I might be able to see the exterior, but wouldn't be able to get inside. There's an overnight ghost tour thing--and how groovy would that be?--but it's on a night I don't curremtly plan to be in town, and appears to be sold out anyway. So I'm thinking this is a no-go this time around, and I should hold off until my next visit in the spring, when it will be open for daytime tours. Kind of a bummer, but if it makes more sense to hold off, that's that. I could go this time and then do it again next time when the prison is open, but that seems like a waste. I'm sure I can figure something else to do this time around!

My Indianapolis trip last week went well. The weather was a bit gloomy with frequent light rain, but I headed down to Nashville (Indiana, that is) and Brown County State Park, and was utterly dumbfounded by how gorgeous it was. The trees were ablaze with fall color, yellows and oranges and reds, and the road through the park wound through one amazing landscape after another, with occasional pull-offs with breathtaking vistas over hills and forests splashed with color. Definitely something I'm not used to, and it was amazing. I did one 2-mile hike through the woods--an old 1930s CCC-built trail, with some very cool stone stairways and bridges and lookout towers. I love that stuff. And chipmunks everywhere! I would probably despise chipmunks the same as I sorta despise squirrels if we had them here in Florida, but as it is they're still novel and adorable for me, so I dig seeing them. I'll have to post some photos when I have more time.

So this week I'm at work all week, then I have trips each of the next 3 weeks. And no solid plans yet, so I need to get on that!

Okay, I should probably pay attention in this meeting. Hope your week is going well!

Oh, also: http://istodaythedaymartymcflyarriveswhenhetravelstothefuture.com/