Christmas Arrives

Christmas isn’t just a day, it’s a season. And we’ve been busy. I’ve never understood the deriding of common Christmas traditions as being “too commercial” or inappropriate for one reason or another. After all, what better tradition in the season of remembering our Savior’s birth, than to gather with family and friends? And how blessed we must be to have so many families to gather around!

First we were welcomed into the Smiths’ fresh new home. Not quite all the way moved in, the exquisite interior was still inviting and friendly as family and friends gathered around the tree. Elizabeth and Emory crashed almost right after our arrival, but I know they will know many fun trips to see their Great Aunt & Uncle!

For Christmas Eve morning we arrived on the Janvier’s doorstep bearing gifts of food as we prepared a breakfast complete with homemade cinnamon rolls. It was a big hit indeed, there are no photos of the freshly baked rolls because they were devoured so quickly!

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Trigger Flash

Christmas round one is in the can. Jenny and I made our way over to her mother’s house with the twins for some dinner and some nice family time. The twins had a blast opening their first Christmas presents ever. Well, they had some help getting them unwrapped, but they did a lot of smiling on their own!

When I unpacked the camera, expecting to take some quick shots with on camera ETTL + bounce card at 45 degrees (no, I could not have planned to be more lazy!) My wife then informed me she wanted some nicer shots in front of the Christmas tree. I am slowly dreading shots in front of a Christmas tree. My hands are steady, but not that steady. Shutter drag to expose the lights on the tree is taking it’s toll!

I had left my radio triggers at home so I was somewhat dismayed at finding out she wanted something halfway presentable. I was just there for “the moment” and family goodness. Inspiration struck as I realized my LP-160′s make excellent optical slave flashes and happened to be stashed in my bag. How smart was that? (It wasn’t. It was just dumb luck they were in there.)

Why the expensive 580exII doesn’t have optical slave functionality will always mystify me. Anyhow, using the 580 as an on camera trigger into the ceiling, I strategically placed LP-160 flashes around the room also more or less aimed at the ceiling. There is still some direction to the light, but I admit it is very diffused and soft.

The result was an entire room of adequate lighting. No small feat as I’ve yet to see a living room with sufficient lighting. If I ever build a dream house, it is going to have an artificial sun in main gathering areas! Or wireless flash tubes embedded in the ceiling LOL!

Nativity FigurinesI was able to roam around and collect snapshots for the family archives that were pretty good considering I shot on manual and never bothered to change my exposure throughout the night even as I moved around the room. Not very happy with the white balance, but I’m tired and don’t feel like getting that perfect. It’s just a family gathering for pete’s sake!

As an extra, while a diaper changing session was going on, I grabbed this shot of the nativity figurines. Click to explore on Flickr.

Christmas Gift Giving Brought to You by Amazon

I am now a proud supporter of Amazon. I generally like to patronize small local businesses, but let’s face it, a lot of times I can’t even find what I’m looking for at local stores. Not even national or regional chains, which don’t really qualify as small businesses in my book. I don’t feel bad about skipping over Macy’s, Target or Sears. And when the mighty Ritz Camera fell to a shadow of it’s former glory, it became unusable for camera gear shopping. With Best Buy a first rate ripoff, there is literally nowhere in Placer County, CA for me to shop for camera gear.

I’ll still stop by small shops during the regular season for everyday needs. When I need my car serviced, I’ll use my local mechanic. If there is a specialty shop nearby, you’ll find me there if I can make use of it. Tasty eats from a small local eatery? You bet! But when serious shopping needs to be accomplished on a large scale, I’m moving online.

I support Amazon’s resistance to collecting sales tax, as I believe it is a complete sham to force them to collect it on shipments to states in which they have no physical presence. If consumers are ripping of the state by not filing and paying use tax at the end of the year, that is between the citizen and the Franchise Tax Board and/or Board of Equalization.

It is not an unfair advantage as many a brick and mortar retailer claim, because Amazon is not here. It’s that simple. And we don’t have an interstate import tariff in California! (We do have a use tax, but again, that’s between you and the FTB) Be that as it may, Amazon caved and time is running out for their sales tax holiday so many people are taking advantage of. (And I do hear from a lot of friends, people are taking advantage.)

I have enjoyed the lack of bloodthirsty parking space hunting this season as I do my Christmas shopping on my lunch break, in my slippers on the couch, or while working in my home office with my wife. The only negative experience I’ve had this year is an item I inadvertently bought from a third party via Amazon. I generally try to avoid that experience as I don’t like being at the mercy of businesses thousands of miles away that are sometimes ill equipped to provide excellent customer service.

My third party item via Amazon was promptly lost in transit. I think UPS still is claiming it is “about to be shipped” and Amazon’s website assures me it will be arriving “last Tuesday.” All was not lost however, as a simple phone call connected me to an English speaking customer service rep for Amazon, no phone tree required, who solved everything. She tracked down the problem (package was lost, UPS even admits it) and issued a refund, applied a shipping discount to my account, and alerted me that the item was also available directly from Amazon and it was on sale! Success!

This was just one experience this season, I also made many other purchases do check off my Christmas friends and family list trouble free. Packages arrive on my doorstep like clockwork, including the occasional surprise for my wife which I routed to my office to keep from spoiling the surprise. When people tell me they are afraid to shop online, I chuckle. I’m afraid to shop in person, I’d rather avoid the mall, traffic, parking, lines and near riots!

Finally, a break from work!

After having to go back to work when the twins were just barely 2 months old, I’ve been longing to spend more than just a weekend with them.  Now the twins are 5 and 1/2 months old and I’m so grateful that this Thanksgiving I got to spend an entire week with them.  They’ve grown so much both physically and mentally.  Emory rolls over (one direction only) and Elizabeth can pivot on her back and stomach a full 360 (very funny to watch!).  They both hold their toys and reach for them too.  They also just started eating solids this week – carrots and peas.  So… here is what we did this week:

  • Sunday - Sunday school at Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church.  Later in the day, babies ate some mushed up carrots for the first time!
  • Monday - A visit to my colleague and her husband’s house for coffee (for mommy) and tummy time on the floor at their house.  In the evening, a former student stopped by my house just to visit and play with the babies.
  • Tuesday - Shopping with Grandma Carol at Baby’s R Us for new baby girl Sweet (on her way) and a few Christmas gifts for the twins
  • Wednesday - A day with “GG” (great-grandma Janvier)…  We had lunch at the soda shop in the Eskaton where she stays and we were stopped by every old lady and man that we strolled past.  By the way, babies in a stroller serve as a great walker for any elderly person who might need one.  Babies get pushed around, Great-grandma gets to gaze on them while pushing them and brag about them to her friends, and GG also gets added stability to her walking – a great combination!  We also stopped by Aunt Jean’s on the way to Grandma’s hair appointment.
  • Thursday - Thanksgiving Day!  It began early (as every morning does) with a walk to the nearby park with the twins and Romeo.  It was a cold rainy morning, but I put hats and blankets on the babies and covered the car-seats with rain-jackets.  Then, in the afternoon, we headed to Nana and Grandpa’s house for a family gathering and turkey feast.
  • Friday - A relaxing morning at home followed by a Bible study lunch and movie at cousin Kim’s house.  Babies just loved all the attention!
  • Saturday - A day at home with Mommy.  What a great way to end the week! I honestly don’t remember the last time I spent an entire day in my house… not even a single trip to the grocery.  And, yes, although the babies got dressed, I stayed in my pajamas all day long.  (Yay for me!)

Operation Christmas Child

Today we dropped off Elizabeth & Emory’s christmas boxes at Church. These are filled with Christmas Gifts and are sent to children in need along with the Good News as part of Operation Christmas Child by Samaritan’s Purse, a worthwhile non-denominational international humanitarian organization.

Elizabeth and Emory will be making a box every year, as there is no better time to start teaching them about the importance of giving. Even if it’s just a small thing to do — for a kid, toys/presents/etc are a big deal!

The twins admittedly won’t remember this Christmas’ boxes, but there will be many more to come.

Napa Wine Train Trip

Yep, that's an iPhone photo composite.

For my birthday, Jennifer took me to Napa to ride the Wine Train. This trip was no small feat as it was our first away from our babies since they were born. Grandmas shared the duties of watching them over the weekend, though we suspect they enjoyed it considerably!

The wine train was fantastic! We dined in a 1952 Vista Dome car, with a delicious assortment of several courses and variety of wines. The train took a leisurely pace up from Napa to St. Helena and then back again.  The service was superb, which is an important consideration from the most lavish affair to the most simple of eateries. Without quality service, you’ve got nothing. But fear not, should you chose to ride the wine train, we think you will agree that the service is friendly and attentive. We both had a great time and recommend the train to anyone who might be interested in a comfortable and satisfying trip up and down the Napa Valley.

During the days, we visited several wineries, including William Harrison, an American owned operation with dynamite selection of wines. We did some tasting, purchased some wine, grabbed some photos and moved on.

We also stopped by Domaine Chandon, makers of sparkling wine, but were assaulted by a massive tide of tourists streaming in from cars, buses and limousines. Not a very friendly atmosphere, more one of chaos. Still, it was fun to visit. We will try again at a better time of day in the future!

Eagle eye Jennifer spotted two Starfleet officers milling about the grounds of Domaine Chandon: Command division officers circa 2360 and 2260 respectively. Must be the season!

Also present on the ground of Domaine Chandon was an odd sculpture that caught Jenn’s attention. She stopped to ponder/pose by it.

Downtown Napa provided additional distractions in the form of a myriad of shops and stores. Additionally a small army of children trick-or-treated the downtown businesses during the day. We took the opportunity to fit in a little Christmas shopping. So if you know us, you might just be getting something from Napa this year!

We held our noses as we passed by several Occupy Napa protestors setting up camp in a small park. They were already gone the following day, having run out of enthusiasm, or allowance money, we aren’t sure which. We continued to stimulate the economy and moved on.

On our last day, we made sure to top things off with a visit to Mustards Grill for a light lunch and a final glass of wine before we made our trek back to civilization and our babies. While at the grill, Jennifer (being an “on duty” Spanish teacher at all times) made sure to photograph their display for Day of the Dead. She also seemed to be interested in an amusing fountain/statue out front, so she borrowed my camera and grabbed a photo of that as well.

All in all, a great birthday celebration. Thanks to my lovely wonderful wife who came up with the idea!


Fixing CMYK Black Text in PDF’s for Printing

It’s been a while since I made an entry in this category. In fact there has only been one simple entry so far. But I only intend to write about these topics as I stumble across them. Consequently they may be few and far between. They may be obvious to some and cryptic to others. Hopefully they are useful to at least one person.

For this excercise, we are solving the problem of PDF files generated by MS Word and other programs. They tend to be RGB color files. When converting these files for printing on a four color press, you need to be careful not to convert RGB black text to CMYK rich black. If you print lots of small (normal body text) size text in rich black, colors that are even slightly off will look strange. You can end up with blue or pink shadows on the edges of the letters and that won’t look good at all!

The solution? Exporting a proper CMYK PDF from Word is not an option. You need to run Convert Colors in Acrobat to get that black RGB text to 0% Cyan, 0% Magenta, 0% Yellow and 100% Black to avoid problems at press time.

It is very simple to open your PDF in Acrobat, open the tools menu and run Convert Colors. If you don’t have “Print Production” in your tools list, you can add it by clicking on the small “Show or Hide Panels” button indicated in the screen capture.

In Convert Colors dialog, just select the “Preserve Black” option and you are all set. Once completed, you can save the PDF as a new file, or overwrite the old one.

You may check your work by clicking Output Preview, and un-checking the Black color. If your text disappears or turns white, you have accomplished the conversion and your file is ready to send to your printer. If you still see text when black is turned off, you have not yet converted the colors and Cyan/Magenta/Yellow are being used to render the text.

Your printer should be able to do this for you, but if you receive a lot of PDF’s from users who are not using professional design software, specifically if they are saving PDF’s from Word and expecting those to go on press, this is a convenient shortcut to ensure your text prints crisp sharp and black!

This example uses a PDF file created in MS Word and opened in Acrobat 10 for preparation to print.

Baptism

This Sunday Emory and Elizabeth were baptized at Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church. Pastor Emeritus Henry Wells performed the Baptism and both brother and sister did wonderfully with no crying!

Afterwards we had a pleasant picnic in the park with family. Nana Lori took these photos of her cute grandkids. I was too busy manning the grill!

Greg takes a stab at photographing the stars

No not celebrities, big balls of nuclear fusion churning gas. Back as a wee lad, I earned the astronomy merit badge while in the Boy Scouts (Carmichael Troop 55!) Then at UC Davis, I took Astronomy courses. Jennifer and I even got checked out on the university observatory where we did some amateur stargazing.

Still, until now, I hadn’t bothered to make a serious effort to point my camera at the sky to capture some pictures of stars, planets or constellations. I’m still learning the ropes but I made my first go of it with my EOS 500D and an 85mm 1.8 USM lens. Probably not the best lens due to the long focal length limiting my exposure time, but it’s the nicest piece of glass I own. In better lighting, I think my kit lens at 18mm would work just fine.

The photos were taken at 1600 ISO. I did a test with the lens cap on and determined this noise floor to be surprisingly acceptable. I was not planning on brightening my images, in fact I cranked up the black slider to minimize any noise that crept in. I set my aperture to 2.0 to avoid shooting wide open, though this is admittedly fairly close to wide open. I’m trying to overcome some crappy lighting conditions here! I focused on Jupiter by hand to set my focus.

With an effective focal length of 136mm (85mm x 1.6 due to crop factor) I had roughly 4.4 seconds to photograph stars before point sources became star trails. (If anyone is interested, I am using the rule of thumb: 600/focal length = max exposure time) While I’m sure I’ll dabble in that overdone effect someday, tonight I shot at 4 second exposure with mirror lockup on time delay.

The results surprised and impressed me, not due to their overwhelming quality, but just that I wasn’t expecting much. Light pollution in the Sacramento Valley and surrounding foothills isn’t very conducive to stargazing. I’ve got the mind to go take a trip to the other side of the Sierra Nevada, maybe around Mono and do some serious work!

But here are my results, such as they are.

Jupiter
Jupiter! The fourth brightest thing in our sky after the sun, moon and Venus! Yeah, that’s one massive bright planet! At the moment I captured it, Jupiter was between Aries and Cetus constellations.  Not sure if that spot on the right of Jupiter is a Galilean moon, distant star, or just digital noise.

Seven Sisters
M45, or the “Seven Sisters” also known as Pleiades. This open cluster of fairly young (100 million years old or so) hot stars is about 8 light years across. Feel small yet? It is located in the constellation Taurus.

Cassiopeia
The constellation Cassiopeia. β Cas (Caph) is in the upper left. Not sure how much of this image is noise or stars, but it turned out better than I had hoped.