Thank you

On this day each year, we stop to formally thank those who have stood in the breech and defended this country.

Every Veteran is a hero.  Thank you for your service.


In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

-Lt. Col. John McCrae

Blinded by insanity

Why would you put someone in charge who has no clue of current policies and procedures?

Incomptence breeds the same.  Is it quitting time yet?

How to deal with a bully?

Matthew came home on Monday and asked me what a "Faggot" was.  Last week he said he was being harrassed by some 8th graders on the bus. Apparently they are picking on him because he reads on the way home.

After last week's incident, he said he would talk to the bus driver and that we should not get involved.  On Monday, before I left for work, I sent off a email to the principal, advising him of the problem.  I received an immediate response, with a promise to investigate the matter today (Tuesday) and get back to me.

I told Matthew to sit at the front of the bus from now on, since personal experience shows that the kids in front are better behaved.

My wife and I have to control our parental instincts and desires to beat some sense into these 8th graders. Hopefully "the system" will take care of the problem.

Opening Day - AZ State Fair

On Friday, we up-armored ourselves and headed out to the State Fair. It was the opening day, and the entry price was right ($1). A LOT of walking, and a LOT of people after dark. Here are some pictures I snapped.

Now what?

Since I work the night shift, I have a bit of quiet time during the early morning hours. This is when I catch up on Twitter and Facebook.

On September 21st, Western Pinal County was hammered by a fast moving storm. Lots of rain and wind.

Early the next morning, I noticed a Facebook post from someone who lives down in Hidden Valley. She was reporting power outages for most of the night, and storm damage in her area.

After work I went down and took some photos. After submitting them to media outlets in the area, Hidden Valley was deluged with media types looking to report on the damage.

Apparently, my photos were picked up and used on most of the TV stations during the afternoon news. I don't watch the news, but several people at work reported that they saw the pictures and heard my name mentioned.

I'm famous. For a minute or two, at least. Now what?

Hi There

In all the movies, you look over the side and the shark/monster/whatever grabs you off the boat and you're fish food. Well, that's not always the case. Sometimes, the eye looking back at you is harmless and just wants to have fun.

While on vacation down here in San Carlos, Mexico, we took a Sunset Cruise with the boys last night (Wednesday).

About halfway through the cruise, our escort showed up. We picked up two dolphins who paced the boat just under the bow. Two became four which eventually became eight or nine before we had to turn back toward the marina and sunset.

To me, the best part was how they would turn about 45 degrees onto their side so they could watch us while they swam. It was awesome.

When is it good enough?

I set up a WordPress.org blog, but it is so detailed and intricate that I need a book just to get the basic settings right.

I think I'm coming back to Blogger.com.

Moving On...

For no good reason that I can think of at the moment, I am moving this blog to WordPress.

I want to see what other options are out there.

The new blog address is http://copadave.wordpress.com

New Title

I have changed the title of my blog. My family tells me that I am no longer insane. Now I just don't remember anything anymore. So... What was I talking about?

The Smugmug/Flickr/Picasa Saga

I am back playing with Flickr again. I really like their ability to assign a picture to multiple interest groups. I'm not really fond of Picasa for bulk picture storage and use. I find there are too many hoops to jump through for my tastes.

I'm thinking that I'll go back to Flickr when my Smugmug subscription expires.

What to do? SmugMug vs Picasa

I started out photo sharing on Flickr. It was fine, but I had to pay to upload more than 200 pictures. I liked that I could take one photo upload and designate it to several albums/topics/galleries/etc.

And then my year was up. Do I pay again or find something better/different? Some photographer friends in the area use SmugMug, so I looked them over. Using a 50% discount, I signed up for a year and imported all my pictures from Flickr. That was a minor disaster. The import software (Smugglr) banjaxed a bunch of the descriptions and tags in the photos. After 8 months, I still have some pictures that I need to re-edit, or delete.

I agree that SmugMug is not really good for general upload and display of daily, routine, pictures. But, I'm turned off from Flickr, too.

So, I'm looking at PicasaWeb. I've had Picasa for a while and love it for tagging and noting pictures. I like the plug-ins for uploading to FaceBook and SmugMug, too. However, the PicasaWeb user interface feels a bit clunky to me. As a uploader, there are way too many option buttons to contend with.

However, when you use Picasa and PicasaWeb together, it is powerful for ongoing events. You can sync a folder in Picasa and it will automagically update the contents online in a like-named folder. And vice-versa.

I had never played with this Sync option until yesterday. We are having our carpet ripped out of the common areas of the house, and replacing it with 18" tile. I am at home babysitting the installation, and my wife is at work. She keeps badgering me for photos of the work.

I am snapping several pictures, transferring them from the SD card to Picasa, and tagging/notating them. They are automatically uploaded to the web, where she can show all her friends at work. I used to have a Eye-Fi card, which would have made it seamless, but it went missing a couple of months ago.

I guess this ramble is not really a "this or them" post. Maybe it's more of a "this AND them" type of thing. SmugMug works great for photos of events and such, and Picasa for right-now, constant update stuff. Although, I'm not sure which I would use on a crime scene, or fire scene, accident, etc, shoot.

All I know is that I miss my eye-fi card. Maybe during the tile install, it'll turn up. I hope so.

What's up with church?

I attended a Catholic Mass this morning, and I was a bit disturbed by the apparent dress code.

In the service I observed girls (10-12 years old) going for Communion in mini skirts and other clothing that is more appropriate on a street hooker.

Adults wearing sports jerseys. Adults wearing moderately offensive attire. Shirts with totally inappropriate phrases, slogans and logos on them. The tamest example is, "I'm grumpy because you're dopey." Cute, but inappropriate in a religious setting.

I don't advocate 3 piece suits in church, but the other end of the clothing spectrum (short shorts and mid-riff tops) is just as bad, if not worse. We come together to worship, not to "style and profile."