The coffee that led to getting cayenne powder in my eyes!

So I was making our usual Friday night coffee so we can stay up after Sophie goes to sleep, watching a movie, organizing pictures(yeah, we need that much time for that haha), watching youtube videos, playing cards, or whatever. But we stay up later than usual, and since we are weak sauce, we need some help staying up now. So caffeine is how we do that.

Today, all was going as usual. As soon as I was off of work, I started preparing the coffees(and chocolate soymilk for Sophie!). But, then something went terribly wrong. And not for the first time. I confused the cayenne pepper for the cinnamon, and put cayenne pepper in my coffee.

Look similar? Probably not if you care to look longer than a second. Today, I didn't.

This was before adding the hot water, so the entire coffee was not ruined. But I did have to redo the powdered coffee(I couldn't think of a way to separate cayenne from coffee). I should probably tell you we use instant coffee, because we have a kettle, and not a coffee maker. And we are not going to buy another appliance that we are just going to leave behind later this year, or have to move somewhere. Anyway, I like cinnamon in my coffee. And I did Geli's with cocoa powder. This had happened to me with pancakes before too. I added cayenne to the flour, instead of cinnamon...you would think I would learn by now!

So this is all fine, but how did cayenne powder end up in my eyes you ask?! Let me tell you. I am a genius. I couldn't come up with a better story if I tried. So I took out the coffee + cayenne pepper out and had to throw it out(I felt bad, I can't stand throwing food away, so wasteful). And there was a tiny tiny bit left in the cup. And what does this genius do. Blow it out! And it was in a cup, so where did it go? right back at my face and in my eyes! And cayenne pepper is pretty hot. I ran for the faucet and rinsed, but it still burned massively!

And that is how I got cayenne pepper in my eyes while making coffee!

Spices!

So we use a lot of them. Not necessarily at the same time, but definitely a lot of them. Part of it because we are always trying new things(Geli browses vegan recipe blogs and has to try 1-2 NEW recipes each week!). Another part because we try a lot of diverse cuisines, and another because I put a lot of extra things that most people wouldn't in food(I call them secret ingredients haha).

I am feeling the need to nest now(lol!). We need a houuuuuuusssseeee!!! So I can order or make or figure out a way to store our massive spice collection in a more orderly way! haha Okay, that is not why I want a house, but it is certainly something that I cannot do until we have a house. Because as most of you know, moving things is not fun.

And having to move them across the ocean, is well, pretty much impossible...as we will most likely have to do in the coming months :(

Just an idea of what we use. Ask me what we use it for, and I will tell you. They were all bought for a recipe, or are used regularly.

Sea Salt
Black Salt!! 
Seasoned Salt
Peppercorns
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Cumin
Paprika
Cayenne Pepper
Chili Powder
Crushed Chili
Oregano
Thyme
Basil
Marjoram
Turmeric
Cloves
Allspice
Garam Masala
Curry Powder
Parsley
Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Ginger
Mustard Seeds
Coriander

Sage
Nutritional yeast

Along with these, which are also part of our cooking arsenal:
White wine vinegar
Apple Cyder vinegar
Maple Vingar(A revelation since we moved to the UK!)
Sriracha(Cock sauce)
Various hot sauces
Soy Sauce
Sunflower oil
Toasted Sesame Oil
Olive oil
Liquid seasoning(the weak Bragg's substitute we found over here)

So there you go...we like spices. And food. Very much!

Clever Malware!

So I get a malware/Infected PC ticket assigned to me that sounds like a pain. Actually, I shouldn't say that. I don't mind those tickets really, I like cleaning up PCs. What I hate is that it takes a while, and makes me fall behind on the rest of the tickets that I have to follow up on. Like today, I left like 4 or 5 tickets untouched that were assigned to me...which is bad. We're supposed to call every ticket back, touch everything in our queue. But today, that was just not possible, unless I wanted to work an extra hour or more.

Anyway, this is not even about that. I just ran into a virus/malware I had not seen before. This one, made the computer look empty when you removed it! lol A last cry of "I got you!" before being eliminated! This was a second level ticket, and the previous tech ran the scan, found the infected objects, and removed them. After the reboot everything was empty. So this tech assumed it was still infected and escalated(poor troubleshooting skills, I know). I call the client back, get on the PC, and expect a messy long call. To my surprise, the PC was running fast, I could remote to it without issues(even 5,000 miles away! Technology ftw!).

And then I see everything is indeed missing from her desktop. Even the C: drive was empty, but the computer was running well, so I knew it wasn't empty. I decided to show hidden files, and viola! They were all there, just hidden. Next step, un-hide them. So open up the root of C:\, highlight all files and folders, right click | Properties | Uncheck "Hidden" | Select apply to this and all subfolders and files, wait for the file attributes to be applied and bam!! Done!

Take that "Ran scan, removed malware, rebooted, It's still infected, escalating ticket"! haha Weak troubleshooting skills like that are likely to keep you at tech 1 for a while ;)

Jesus(me) saves!(This PC) from certain doom(or re-image, whatever happens to be cheaper lol)!

I just thought this was a more clever than usual piece of malware. Changing the attribute of ALL FILES AND FOLDERS upon removal...It was odd. You go to Start | Programs | Empty!
Your desktop = empty!
My Computer | C: | Empty!

I always wonder who has time to write these kinds of programs? I mean, I get the scam ones. "Your PC is infected! Give us your CC info and we will remove it!". I also wonder what the success rate for those is haha. But these, relatively harmless ones? Who does them? What is the point of hiding all the files on some stranger's computer? Why?

Flickr

So I got a Flickr account today...not sure what to do with it exactly. Looks like a photo place, so I thought I would give it a try.

Geli pointed me to a 550d group(the model of camera we have) on flickr, and there were some really sweet photos there, and discussion boards and what not. So it might be a cool place to get a little more insight and tips on what to do with the camera.

I am at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ruizj/

In case any of you have a flickr account and want to add me, although I am pretty sure you can browse pics without having an account, which is pretty cool too.

Before/After

So I said I would have some more before/after RAW file edit examples.  And I may have gone overboard haha

This shot of Geli is probably my favorite example. The after is on the left!(long story) So this is an after/before shot lol It was almost unusable the way I took it. And totally my fault too. I had set the ISO to 1600 the last time I used it because I was shooting indoors and then we went outside and forgot to bring it back down, so it was way over exposed.  And yet, I was able to rescue the shot. If you only saw the one on the left, I don't think you would be able to tell, or think that it was an unusable shot initially.

1. Rescued shot of Geli!

The rest, are just "livened" up pics. Cutting through the haze with some contrast and saturation, and what not. If  you think any are overdone, let me know, Because that is what I am trying to stay away from. I numbered them in case you want to point something out.(the rest of the shots, the before is on the left, the after on the right).

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14. Vegan Nachos!! (Yes, there are some tortilla chips under all that!)

We are gods!!!

Okay, I don't have to tell you we aren't haha But Sophie thinks we are. Yesterday, as she was overheating at the park, she asked us to turn off the sun! She literally thought we could do that! Isn't that awesome?! That someone in this world sees you as such a powerful person?! To me, it is :) She also asked us this morning, to make it snow, so she could play in the snow. I'm telling you, in her eyes, we are gods!

Sophie, overheating at the park!

So I keep trying to take pics of Geli with the new lens, and this is face she gives me:

"Are you taking a picture of me?!"

And this one, I just love it! I think it looks better with the England flag, instead of the UK flag. They change it sometimes, not sure why. Oh, and we live less than a mile from the castle. Isn't that cool? I would have never guessed that one point in my life, we would live within a mile from a castle!

Colchester castle!

And here is the top of the castle with the UK Flag:

Same castle, different flag.

RAW files!!

I was of the idea that unedited photos is true photography, as if I knew anything really. But getting this camera has definitely changed my opinion on that. I still prefer "natural" looking photos(where the editing is not overdone, or obvious), but a touch up here and there to make them nicer is fine with me now.

So this camera, amongst its gazillion options, shoots in RAW mode. Which basically means a much larger file, because a JPEG, for example, has 8 bits to a color, per pixel. RAW has 14(some RAW formats, even 16 bits). So obviously, a lot more information. And at first, we wrestled with "is it worth it to shoot in RAW?" You can even shoot in RAW + JPEG at the same time, for easy and quick uploading or use of the pics and still have the flexibility to change them if you wish in 14 bits. But as we are getting familiar with the RAW files, and what you can do with them, I have to say that RAW is totally worth it. In an 8GB memory card, we can only fit like 300 pics, which in Large(18MP) JPG would be like 1000. So it is a significant loss in storage, but you can do so much with it. You can almost choose every camera setting over, as if you were taking the pic again(the shooting mode: portrait, landspace, standard, or the White Balance setting: Auto, Sunlight, Cloudy, White Flourescent, etc, the exposure compensation(EV)). Here is a quick example(I don't have any other before/after comparisons because we delete the RAW files after we are happy with the way they look and converting to JPG. And I wrote this after having done that.

If you think the difference is dramatic here, you should see some of the landscapes, and what not. You can salvage otherwise unusable shots(too dark or too bright), it is quite impressive! So, is this cheating? I honestly don't care anymore. The pics look better, and why leave them like that if I can improve them? I still took them :) I will post more examples later.

So this does take more time, and is more labor intensive. And yes, you have to then convert to JPG(which is not instant). And yes, you lose storage capacity. But if you want better photos(and that we certainly do), then it is totally worth it!

Panoramics!

These are our first attempts at doing panoramics. And I must say, it is not as simple as it looks. Granted, i didn't look into it before trying it, and I also didn't sit down and think much about it. But we did a lot of things wrong...

Golden rules:
1) Overlap!! At least a third of each photo.
2) Manual exposure!! If you use anything auto, the sky, buildings, or anything in it could come out different shades from one pic to the other
3) Stay level. Sounds like an obvious one. But Out hands are not very good instruments for that. Tripod is best, or a really really stable hand.

The "back" of the Arche de la Défense. Notice the different shade of sky in the middle from not using manual exposure.

Panoramic from the steps of the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur. This one, I totally didn't overlap. Couple that with the not straight hand. Leads to a pretty bad panoramic. Different shades of sky, buildings that don't line up lol. Lesson learned....

View from the Eiffel tower, looking north. Same mistakes, we did overlap. But not manual exposure, so some shots were darker than others. And the skies are different shades. We tried to fix that in Picasa, which is why the sky looks almost white to the left!

There are many many more guidelines, but if we had done those 3, it would have been waaaaay easier to stitch these mediocre panoramics! Hope to report with an improvement soon!

Overall, I am glad we were even able to rescue these from the terrible shots we took! lol We still have more to do, but since the shots are far from ideal, they require a lot of post processing work...soon hopefully.

Pikmin!

I figured I should join the video game talk.... except I haven't played games recently. That doesn't make Pikmin any less cool though! Geli suggested I play it, many months ago, when I was looking for a new game to play and had no new ones, so i was looking through her GameCube games that I had never played.

Okay, so I didn't take this, or make this, but isn't it awesome?!

I would be so sad to have to eat this!! Okay, maybe not sad, but I would take a lot of pictures of it!

So I gave it a try, and I really really liked it! I passed the whole getting $10,000, but now I am trying to get ALL the treasure. I am like at 170/201 or something like that. Any of you finish Pikmin 2 for GC? I am rather picky with games, and especially now that I don't have a lot of time to play, can't even fathom getting into a demanding game. So this was a nice compromise between not too difficult, yet engaging and entertaining.

P.S. @Sergio, Bomberman blasted or whatever was kinda crappy lol or maybe we just don't get bomberman. And the computers are impossible!

I need you to right click "My Computer"...

I wonder how many times I say that a day...
Also, if I had a dollar(or a £, that would be better lol), for every "There's nothing on my screen" when clearly there is, I would have enough money for all the lenses I want!

Anyway, enough about that. Today was a great food day! Baked Beans on toast + hash browns + veggie sausage for breakfast, no pic, sorry. Potstickers for lunch!

Potstickers!

And fantastic portobello mushroom burgers + broccoli/yellow pepper quinoa for dinner!

Portobello mushroom burgers!

And then, just some random pics throughout the day with the awesome 50mm f/1.8 lens! 

Sophie, being serious.

Looking at the sky :)

The road after ours, during our nightly walk.

This night, Sophie and I went for our walk, to get replacement donuts. Last night, in all the trauma, she went to bed and did not eat her donut. And Geli and I ate them, thinking she was not going to remember. But in the morning, she found the empty bag and was sad that we ate her donut. So today, we went looking for donuts again, but they were out. So she opted for a Rhubarb pie instead, but she wasn't too much into it. So what did we learn? Sophie will remember the donut she was supposed to get in the morning!!!

New lens + accident

We got a new lens today! It is a prime lens, which means it does not zoom. It is fixed at 50mm, which makes it a portrait lens. The nifty thing about this lens, is how wide it opens up, the aperture. At f/1.8, it opens pretty wide(the smaller the bottom number, the bigger the opening), so it lets plenty of light in, allowing for good low light photography, and a really shallow depth of field, ideal for portrait, and isolating your subject, as you can see in these first shots we took with it...

This shot is mainly to illustrate the shallow depth of field this lens can achieve(depth of field is the area of the image in sharp focus). This makes it really cool for that blurry(bokeh) effect that makes your subject pop!

The subway here, is the pedestrian tunnel, so you don't have wait for cross walks at a busy turnaround.

At lunch, I had to go get some groceries, while Geli and Sophie were at the doctor. Sophie had to go for her shots, she got 2 shots, one in each arm. Poor Sophie...

Just the handrail as you head into the subway...this lens can make ANYTHING an interesting subject!(This is at full aperture, so f/1.8)

On my way to the grocery store, I took the chance to test out the lens outdoors....I love it!! We will have to get better with the manual focus, but it comes in very handy, since you can shift the focus where you want it, instead of where the camera chooses. In this shot, bananas!

This lens makes it easier to isolate your subject in "noisy" environments. You can really make the bananas pop, despite them being surrounded by other fruits...

As usual now, Sophie and I headed out for our nightly walk. Mainly to give Geli some peace and quiet so she can study....

Fairfax road...our street. The lights are very yellow here...

On our way to the store(vegan donuts!), I took the opportunity to test the night shots :) and I am pleased...

No noise at all, despite an ISO of 1600...and it grabs so much light, that it doesn't risk camera shake with shots like this. Able to do it with a shutter speed of 1/60sec.

Manual focus ftw!!! Purposely blurred shot :)

It wasn't all awesome though...on the way back. Sophie insisted on running back home. And it was all going well, but about a block from the house, she tripped and scraped her knees :( Needless to say, I had to carry her home, and she cried. It was a rough day got her...The doctors, 2 shots, falling and scraping her knees. She went on to say "I am not gonna walk, ever!" And of course as soon as we got home, she needed mommy to comfort her...apparently, that is not my forte.

When looking at this picture, she said: "My 'owie' is a letter 'P'!" haha

Rhubarb!

I totally should have taken a picture of the Rhubarb and I did not...it s a giant leaf with red stems. As you can see in this picture not taken by me and stolen from google. They were given to us by the vegan couple that invited us for tea last night. They have a lot in their garden. So Geli looked up a recipe, and I made some Rhubarb crumble while she studied.

It came out pretty good. An odd thing about Rhubarb, the green leaves are poisonous, but the stems are not. Odd isn't it?

As it is becoming usual, Sophie and I went for a nightly walk. We went to dropp off the LoveFilm movie rental and headed back.

Took this nondescript pic of the roundabout...

And this sign is on our street. It has bugged me since I first saw it. But not enough for me to go look it up.

What is a fly tipper?!!?!!?!?