Saturday, November 15, 2003

Today was United States Figure Skating Association (USFSA) testing for Lindsey.  She tests when she is ready to move up a level.  Today she tested moves in the field which is a set of specified footwork sequences.  This is as close as skaters get to the figures that skated used to do.  She also tested Freestyle which is the traditional choreographed routine to music.  I took some captures from the camcorder and posted those. 11:33:16 PM

I also posted a few more analog photos from a while back, and a few from the other night.  One of the other complaints I have about analog photography is you have to finish the roll before you take it in to get prints.  With digital I just shoot a few and post/print a few. 4:28:28 PM

They are analog, and I just did quick scans, but here are the photos from the show last night.  The actual photos don't look too bad.  For the most part they are almost properly exposed, a little over exposed if anything, and most all are in focus, that is something in the frame is in focus.  This is way to painful to do very often, and rather expensive too.  It is still cheaper in my mind to take a bazillion digital photos, pick out the best shots and print those, either on the printer here at home or one of the online photo sites.  I looked at some digicams today and more and more I'm leaning to getting a compact digital camera like the Canon S400, or one of the Olympus Stylus digitals, that would fit very comfortable in a pants pocket. 4:26:31 PM

Grieving is such a unique experience.  No two people grieve in the same way.  That said everyone seems to go through the same phases at one point or another.  One of these is the process of saying goodbye.  See my earlier post about Jackie Kennedy to see her comments on this phase. I wonder, if for those who have no children, the saying goodbye phase is easier.  For me it seems impossible.  How can I say goodbye to my daughters' mother?  There is a feeling of having to sever ties to the past before being able to move forward.  See the movie "Always" for scenes on this experience.  How can I possible say goodbye to their mother.  She will always be such an important part of our lives.  This can be so hard.  You want to progress, move forward, into the future, and yet I am so tied to the past, what is gone. 11:13:57 AM

This is one of the strange paradoxes I've expierenced in the grieving process.  I've learned that the things that I so wanted to last forever don't, but at the same time they do.  It is this conflict that makes going forward so difficult.  You have to acknowledge that she's gone before you can live life again but you can't let go. If what they say is 'nothing is forever,' Then what makes (What makes? What makes?) Love the exception? "Hey Ya" Outkast Things are really getting wierd if I find the lyrics of Outkast insightful, oh and by the way, why did I just now realize that the Outkast video for "Hey Ya" has a casket in the center of the stage as if the scene is a funeral? 10:55:13 AM

"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don't give up." Anne Lamott via Adam Curry's Weblog Previously hope in my life was a different emotion.  It wasn't hope of making it through this day to the next, it was hope for things to come.  I sometimes wonder if the magnitude of the expierience that we have been through will change our lives so fundamentally that this will be our existence forever, or over time will things slowly return to something like before. 10:32:48 AM

My brother in law and my sister worked on the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) project.  I finally found something that explains some of the theory behind this search for gravity waves as predicted by Einstein.  "Albert Einstein predicted the existence of these gravitational waves in his 1916 general theory of relativity, but only now in the 21st Century has technology advanced to enable their detection and study by science."  The series is actually about the unified theory and string theory but there are some descriptions that even a mere mortal like me could understand. 9:48:33 AM

Not so sure that this new PC is exactly working correctly.  It keeps going into standby mode and when it starts back up there are messages about low batteries and plug in to AC before I lose data.  That and it is going nuts trying to enough allocate virtual memory.  I may end up having to re-install Windows to get things running smoothly again.  12:17:35 AM

I ordered a bunch of new cheeses from Carr Valley Cheese. I made the mistake of calling after I got home from work and before I ate anything.  I asked for recommendations and everything sounded so good.  I can't remember exactly what I ordered, but I did get some aged cheddar, cave aged Marisa (named for the 15 year old daughter of the cheese maker) and some Virgin Pine Native Blue, oh and some sort of hickory nut cheese.  I can still remember the hickory nuts that we got from the trees at the house in Deerfield, as well as Cindy's grandmother's hickory nut cookies at Christmas time.  I'm having the cheese sent to Uncle Larry's house so it will have a shorter trip and hopefully stay cooler.  12:15:12 AM

Just got back from the Catch 22 concert at the State Theater in St. Pete.  It was a good show with opening acts Chubby Tuff, Boys Night Out and Worthless United.  With the digital camera out of action you'll have to wait and see if any of the photos came out.  I bought a cheap flash to put on my old manual Minolta, and I haven't used a flash on my manual camera for a very long time.  We'll have to see if any of the pictures are properly exposed, and if they are whether I was anywhere close to focusing in the darkness of the theater.  We had a good time and I was able to listen to the hockey game on the radio between sets.  Lightning 5 Caps 2. 12:09:53 AM

© Copyright 2006 Rod Kratochwill.