Las Cruces #1!

Farmers Insurance has named Las Cruces the number one most secure place to live for a mid-size city with a population of 150,000 to 500,000. The population number is based on the metropolitan area of Las Cruces.

The ranking was compiled by www.bestplaces.net, based on crime statistics, extreme weather, risk for natural disasters, environmental hazards, terrorist threats and job loss numbers. The study looked at 379 U.S. cities. The rankings were divided into groups of large metropolitan areas, mid-size cities and small towns.

(From an employee newsletter. The population figure is for the entire Mesilla Valley.)

Ogden Nash was a fantastic humorist!

I got this out of a SQL Server blog entry! I might have some of the verse breaks wrong, apologies if that's the case.

In Baltimore there lived a boy.
He wasn’t anybody’s joy.
Although his name was Jabez Dawes,
His character was full of flaws.

In school he never led his classes,
He hid old ladies’ reading glasses,
His mouth was open when he chewed,
And elbows to the table glued.
He stole the milk of hungry kittens,
And walked through doors marked NO ADMITTANCE.
He said he acted thus because
There wasn’t any Santa Claus.

Another trick that tickled Jabez
Was crying ’Boo’ at little babies.
He brushed his teeth, they said in town,
Sideways instead of up and down.
Yet people pardoned every sin,
And viewed his antics with a grin,
Till they were told by Jabez Dawes,
‘There isn’t any Santa Claus!’

Deploring how he did behave,
His parents swiftly sought their grave.
They hurried through the portals pearly,
And Jabez left the funeral early.

Like whooping cough, from child to child,
He sped to spread the rumor wild:
‘Sure as my name is Jabez Dawes
There isn’t any Santa Claus!’
Slunk like a weasel of a marten
Through nursery and kindergarten,
Whispering low to every tot,
‘There isn’t any, no there’s not!’

The children wept all Christmas eve
And Jabez chortled up his sleeve.
No infant dared hang up his stocking
For fear of Jabez’ ribald mocking.

He sprawled on his untidy bed,
Fresh malice dancing in his head,
When presently with scalp-a-tingling,
Jabez heard a distant jingling;
He heard the crunch of sleigh and hoof
Crisply alighting on the roof.
What good to rise and bar the door?
A shower of soot was on the floor.

What was beheld by Jabez Dawes?
The fireplace full of Santa Claus!
Then Jabez fell upon his knees
With cries of ’Don’t,’ and ’Pretty Please.’
He howled, ’I don’t know where you read it,
But anyhow, I never said it!’
‘Jabez’ replied the angry saint,
‘It isn’t I, it’s you that ain’t.
Although there is a Santa Claus,
There isn’t any Jabez Dawes!’

Said Jabez then with impudent vim,
‘Oh, yes there is, and I am him!
Your magic don’t scare me, it doesn’t’
And suddenly he found he wasn’t!

From grimy feet to grimy locks,
Jabez became a Jack-in-the-box,
An ugly toy with springs unsprung,
Forever sticking out his tongue.

The neighbors heard his mournful squeal;
They searched for him, but not with zeal.
No trace was found of Jabez Dawes,
Which led to thunderous applause,
And people drank a loving cup
And went and hung their stockings up.

All you who sneer at Santa Claus,
Beware the fate of Jabez Dawes,
The saucy boy who mocked the saint.
Donner and Blitzen licked off his paint.


--Odgen Nash

A Streetwise Pimp With A Hybrid Pimpmobile

(edited 2017-01-14: apparently this was a picture from Wil Wheaton's blog that didn't come across when I copied my blog. c'est la vie)

Love it!

(Yes, I stole it from Wil Wheaton.)

I think I have my wireless networking straightened out

It pretty well demonstrates that the DSL modem/wireless router that Qwest provided (2Wire is the manufacturer) either is defective or doesn't work well with Macs. I renamed the SSID on the wireless to xxx2 (no, I'm not telling you my wireless config), and plugged in my little DLink 524 and named it to my original SSID. So my DSL router has a second wireless router plugged in to it. My laptop has been pretty stable in terms of wireless access while using the DLink. Now I just have to see about getting Qwest to replace the 2Wire unit.

I just received a heck of a compliment!

When I started taking photography classes after I'd moved to Alamogordo Fall of '05, I did it for two reasons. One was to get access to a darkroom again. The other was to fill in some gaps in my knowledge and skills. I've now been shooting for about 30 years and I've always had a good eye for composition. The instructor, Sarah, is extremely good. She has a Masters in Fine Arts and has been shooting for as long or longer as I have. And she's infinitely better, largely due to training and more consistent application of that knowledge. At heart I'm still more of a computer geek than photographer (and more lazy bum than either), but photography is something that I really enjoy.

Back in March I had to withdraw from the university when I took the job in Las Cruces, and it really vexed me. I was in Photo II, Advanced Black & White, and we were getting into some great technology: split-filter printing and large format photography. And I had to withdraw just after I'd completed calibrating my equipment and paper and had just begun split-filter printing. I was not happy, but I needed the job.

Tonight I just got off the phone with Bobby. He was in my first class, Photo I (I decided to start from the bottom up to re-hone my skills), and he also has a very good eye. It's been amazingly cool to watch his skill improve as the classes went by.

Well, the compliment that I received was that Sarah told him that she considered Bobby and me to be professional-quality photographers.

That's just so cool.

I was planning on continuing and going for a BFA in Photography, but the job came up and now I'm enrolled in the College of Engineering for a degree in Information and Communications Technology. The latter will help for future computer jobs, the former will not. Perhaps when we're settled somewhere and I have the ICT degree I'll resume the BFA and start shooting a lot more.


ANYWAY, in the course of the conversation we were discussing what the difference was between pro and amateur when it came to photography. The obvious one is that you make your living at shooting, it basically is your full-time job: if you're good, your work sells and you eat. But what if you don't have the competitive drive to be a professional photographer? It's an extremely tough field and you have to really push yourself to make a living at it, and as I said, I'm a lazy bum. Not for me.

So what is the narrow dividing line between professional and amateur?

I think a lot of it is satisfaction with your work. It's easy to be satisfied with your work when you don't know what you're doing wrong, with education comes an end of innocence and you begin understanding what is wrong with what you do. It's the old "you don't know what you don't know", then as you learn, "you know what you don't know", etc. The more you learn, the more you see the flaws in your own work. But you also know why they are flaws and you can begin self-correction and improvement.

Bobby recently shot an event and did a hundred frames or more, out of that he got ten or so that he was satisfied with. The rest he put into a "junk" pile for anyone who wanted them. His wife picked one print up and asked what was wrong with it, he replied that it was too blue. She couldn't see the color shift, but having spent a few months in the darkroom printing and re-printing negatives while adjusting color balance, you pick up subtleties of perception that most people don't have.


Back to the satisfaction thing, I remember one print that I was working on during lab. I took it out to show Sarah to get her opinion on an adjustment that I was going to make for it. I knew what I was going to do, I just wanted to bounce it off her to make sure that I was on the right track. She confirmed that I was doing the right thing, but then commented that what I was working on wouldn't fulfill the requirements of the current assignment. I told her that didn't matter because this print was for me, I had others for the assignment. It kind of stunned her momentarily.

And that's what I've always done: I shoot to please myself. If others like what I think is good, then that's just bonus.

Joke

From Scott Adams' Dilbert blog, slightly strong language in the punch line.
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