.: What’s Bruin :.

During church last night, the pastor mentioned a verse in his sermon; it’s also used in the book that Pourpa and I are reading together: “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). Basically, if you’re walking with God, I believe what it says is that your desires will be what God desires. After thinking about that, I realized that part of my passion in life is no longer leading worship music. I’d much rather use my gifts in photography and other skills I have instead.

After talking with our home group bible study leader leader last week, I learned that the entry point for leading music at church would be working with kids and young people. And I know that I really don’t want to be leading music for kids (whether it’s 3rd grade or 10th grade). I did that a long time ago and I think that part of my life is pretty much over. I think that if leading worship was going to be a part of my life again, I would definitely have to sense God leading me that way. I would have a heart to use my musical talents where they are most needed. And I don’t.

So I decided to sell my baby. I think my initial feelings about leading worship again some day were really based on some strong emotions that I felt after Todd’s memorial service. But since that time, I’ve only played once or twice.

What I’d love to do with the money I make from this beautiful guitar is to buy the photography equipment I’ve been dreaming about. I’d love to go on travels with Andy to faraway places, shooting pictures for CRM on a short-term missions trip, sharing the story of what God is doing all over the world via photography. Our church goes on regular missions trip. And it seems that there is always a regular photography/video/media crew that goes along to document the trip for sharing it with the congregation afterwards. I’d love to do that too.

And so I think I’m following this passion for photography that God has given me at this stage in my life; hence, goodbye Takamine.

It was kind of strange going into the Guitar Center today to get my guitar appraised. That’s where I originally bought the guitar in 1996 in La Mesa. The salesperson could not stop admiring and praising the guitar, saying how beautiful it looked and sounded. I felt kind of sad hearing that since the guitar has so many special memories for me. But the money I get from the guitar will be used to further God’s kingdom in a different way. That’s my prayer. And I’m sure there will be many good memories that I will be capturing on digital sensor.

Tags: Announcements, church, eBay, guitar, Photography, Spiritual, Takamine, Worship

I uploaded the rest of the Miramar Air Show 2005 pictures I took. I’m not going to finish processing them in Photoshop, but rather leave them as is. Many of the sky shots have spots in the sky because my sensor was dirty and only recently cleaned. My reason for not finishing the Miramr photos: There is too much photo work to be done. I still have not worked on the photos and video footage from my birthday party. And now I have all the shots that I took from our anniversary.

Tags: aircraft, Announcements, Blue-Angels, Events, jets, Marines, military, Miramar-Air-Show, Photography, quick_links

I finally got tired of this. So the other day I went to the local photography store to buy a sensor cleaning kit. When I arrived, they were sold out despite my earlier phone call to the store with someone telling me that they had the kits. But they were kind enough to tell me that Scott at the Rental Desk would clean my sensor for me.

And so I returned to the store with my camera body. Scott showed me how to clean the sensor by doing it and demonstrating it to me. I bought all the supplies for it too. He said that it should be done once a week.

Supplies needed:
1 - Sensor swabs (tailored to the size of the sensor - mine are Type 2)
2 - Air blower (compressed in a can, like the ones they sell in a computer store to blow away dust from components)
3 - Eclipse Optic Cleaning System (cleaning fluid)
4 - Pro-pads or Pec*Pad
5 - Rubber blower (big one)

Directions:
1 - Ensure that you have enough battery power.
The mirror will flip up and lock, giving you access to the sensor. If the batteries run out during the cleaning process, the sensor and mirror may get damaged.
2 - Wrap pad around used sensor swab and secure with tape. Of course if the sensor swab is brand new, you don’t need the pads.
3 - With body lens cap off, use rubber blower to blow out any dust from the lens rim, mirror, and sensor area.
4 - Turn on the cleaning routine from the digital camera.
5 - Use rubber blower to blow dust particles and debris off of the sensor.
6 - Put a drop or two onto the sensor swab or pad.
7 - Using the edge of the swab, wipe the sensor in a single, straight motion. Use the other side of the swab edge to wipe the remaining part of the sensor. Be careful to clean the corners. DO NOT REUSE A USED SWAB OR PAD.
8 - Deactivate the cleaning routine on the camera.
9 - Attach a lens.
10 - Go outside and focus on something in the foreground.
11 - Set the dial to aperture priority (preferably f/22).
12 - Take a picture of the blue sky.
13 - Download the picture and look for spots.
14 - Repeat as needed until spots are gone.

Tags: cleaning, digital-camera, Photography, sensor, spots

For the past month I’ve noticed that my PowerBook was running much slower than what I was used to. I thought it was because I had installed Photoshop CS2. But after photography class last night I checked the memory properties just for the heck of it and the display said that I only had 512 MB of RAM. No wonder it’s been running slow.

I was pretty mad. I initially thought that after I sent my PowerBook in the first time for the other repair back in October that Apple had swiped the RAM chip out from my laptop (it’s supposed to have 1 GB of RAM). But upon further examination of the properties display, I read that there was a memory failure.

So I did an Extended Hardware Test to confirm that fault and the error code.

Thank goodness for AppleCare. They are sending me a box tomorrow and should have my memory problem repaired within a week. It will be difficult to be without my laptop. I guess I will have to stoop to using Windows XP . . . lame.

Now comes the fun part of making a list of all the software I have installed plus backing up all my data and the entire hard drive. I have to do this just in case they find some other faults and decide to swap out the hard drive or motherboard again. They said they would run a complete diagnostic and fix whatever else was wrong.

Hopefully, my data and programs will be in tact because I don’t want to reinstall a bunch of stuff and restore my data.

Update 4/28/06: The box did not arrive at Josephine’s work today, so I did not have to back anything up and will probably have the use of my computer for the weekend. Hopefully, the box will arrive on Monday so I can ship it off to Apple by Tuesday.

Update 5/1/06: The box did arrive at Josephine’s work. So I backed up my data and made a list of the software that’s on my machine. Off to Apple tomorrow.

Tags: Apple, Computers, memory, PowerBook, RAM, repairs, warranty

Arches on The Prado, Balboa Park

This is a composite of two shots, one that was overexposed and one that was underexposed. I selected the highlights from the underexposed shot and pasted them into the overexposed shot.

Tags: Balboa-Park, CoolPix , downtown, low-light, Palomar-College, PHOTO-150, Photography, Photoshop, Prado, San-Diego

Taken on an anniversary getaway to Little Italy.

I took this picture on our little 24-hour getaway to downtown San Diego. This particular place was in Little Italy. We waited until it was dark. I think a bus drove by in the background while the shutter was open, which is what I believe caused the multiple reflected images in the striped blurred background.

I think this is one of my most awesome pictures ever.

I’m gonna turn this one for one of my required pieces for the low light photography assignment.

Tags: anniversary, CoolPix , downtown, education_and_training, Josephine_Bruin, Little-Italy, low-light, Palomar-College, PHOTO-150, Photography, Photoshop, San-Diego

A shot I’ve always wanted to do - timed exposure of car lights

Ever since I’ve been about 12 years old, I’ve wanted to shoot a picture like this. I never did do it until now. It’s much easier with digital photography. The lack of film actually makes this an easy shot to produce because you can shoot as many pictures as you want without having to worry about running out of film and then worrying about color processing or producing the shot in the darkroom.

I was originally going to turn this print in as part of my assignment on low light photography, but this past weekend I was able to take a better picture of something more interesting that will hopefully show up better on paper after I print it.

Tags: CoolPix , education_and_training, freeway, low-light, Palomar-College, PHOTO-150, Photography, Photoshop

Sample picture taken with Canon EF 100mm Macro f/2.8

I went to a free Canon macro lens “workshop” at the Carlbad Flower Fields. For the price of admission ($7 with AAA discount), I got to try various Canon cameras and lenses. The one I was especially interested in was the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens for Canon SLR Cameras.

Although I had my camera with me, it wasn’t necessary for the workshop. I took my compact flash card out and then just inserted it into the camera I wanted to try. So for the macro lens I took four pictures. You can see them, as well as the other seven pictures I took, here.

Tags: Canon, Carlsbad-Flower-Fields, CoolPix , EF-100mm-f/2.8-macro, lens, macro, Photography

At about 10:00 AM this morning, Josephine called me at my work desk. I knew right away something was wrong because she called me by my real name. “I got a voice mail from my parents at 10:00 AM. Yia-yiá died this morning.”

Goodbye Yia-Yiá

Josephine said that she was glad to have had the opportunity to see her again and thanked me for our trip to Greece last May (it’s almost been a year ago already). I was too choked up and couldn’t say anything, so I just hung up the phone.

As we reflected on Yia-yiá in the evening, I marveled at how the whole trip to Greece came about. The idea of going on vacation so that Josephine could see Yia-yiá one last time popped into my head around Christmas time in 2004. A few weeks later, I had already secured the vacation time with the respective managers, passports, and airfare tickets.

Yia-yiá was at least 96 years old. Nobody really knows exactly how old she was since she had lived in Turkey during the very early years of her life to escape oppression. She lived a long and full life. From what Josephine tells me and from my own personal observations, she was a very loving mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. I feel like I lost my own grandma today, though I had only met Yia-yiá for a very brief time last year.

Tags: Announcements, family, Greece

So I bought Pourpa a Motorola RAZR on eBay from this clown.

At the top of his ad is the following in bold:

You are looking at a 2 week old Verizon Wireless V3c. I would return this device to the store but it is after the return period. The phone is too small for me so i am selling it. The phone is in perfect condition. Never dropped. No scratches on the screen. It was in the holster whenever charging or not in use. My loss is your gain. Please email me with any questions. Thank you.

I had three complaints about the transaction, though I must say the price was satisfactory given that the phone would have cost $400 retail since it was not time to upgrade.

1. He advertised $22 for USPS Priority Mail with insurance. I asked about getting it changed to Express Mail (overnight), but he never answered my emails regarding that topic. So basically I paid $22 for something that could have been shipped at the regular speed for under $10.
2. The phone had a “click” in the hinge when you opened that clamshell , despite the advertisement of being “in perfect condition. Never dropped.”
3. The so-called holster that he “threw in” (see “Question and Answer” quote below) as a bonus was burned. The plastic on one corner was all corroded from heat damage.

Q: So there are no scratches or nicks anywhere on the phone what so ever, and if it was in the holster does that come with it?
A: I will throw the holster in. i purchased it after i bought the phone but i will throw it in.

So Pourpa gets tired of the clicking and I suggest that he bring it into the Verizon store for an exchange. They looked up the info and gave him a new phone! Sweet deal. Apparently, they thought the phone was purchased from Verizon recently (less than a year so still under warranty).

P.S. I had to give that eBay bozo a positive rating… because I did not want a negative one in return as well as because it was advertised for the shipping, just not very accommodating to my wishes. I just love the other Q & A quote (note italics - my emphasis):

Q: would you consider a buy it now option and if so, how much? thanks a lot…
A: I am looking to get at least 200 for it. Everyone on ebay wants more. I just have no use for it since i got my treo 700. Im not here to scam people. I want someone else to get a good deal at a good price.

Tags: cell_phones, eBay, Motorola, Pourpa, Rants, RAZR, Verizon

О мой Бог. Троюродный брат Джозефины из Нью-Джерси - все еще в нашем доме для Пасхи. Он был здесь, с тех пор 2:00 Премьер-министр и он не будут уезжать.

I wrote that in a different language to avoid serious scrutiny. It’s one thing to complain about strangers, but if it’s family, you never know who might be reading this thing. Ever had a guest that would NOT leave? Multiply that annoyance by 1000 if it’s a family member that you haven’t seen in a long time.

Tags: Humor, Josephine_Bruin

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”

Luke 24:1-7

Tags: Announcements, Spiritual

Contemplative Josephine

For this one, I used the healing brush to take away some lines, wrinkles, and skin blemishes. I erased the picture from behind her head and cloned her hair to cover up the ersure. Then I inserted the picture from Greece (Byazntine Museum painting) and blurred it to imply suggestion and to match the depth of field. I also decreased the red and decreased the exposure. Compare to the original photo.

Tags: CoolPix , education_and_training, Josephine_Bruin, Palomar-College, PHOTO-150, Photography, Photoshop, portrait

Yia-Yia in Pyrgí

I used my best photograph from Greece as one shot for my portrait assignment. I took some of the red out of the background tiles and her face. I blurred the edges around her blouse. And I did a gradient Gaussian glur on the background to match the depth of field and bring more attention to her face. I like it. It’s better than the original photo.

Tags: CoolPix , education_and_training, Palomar-College, PHOTO-150, Photography, Photoshop, portrait

The Parthenon

Tags: Acropolis, CoolPix , Greece, Parthenon, Photography, Travels