Incidents and accidents

At some point this month, I took my 10,000th digital photo. This is since I first started way back in 2001! I thought I’d take a look at all of the cameras I’ve had over the years.

Olympus D510 Zoom - 2MP Camera. Christmas present from Mom and Dad, 2000. Great camera, only drawbacks were the sliding lens cover in front, the batteries, and an inability to withstand shocks. Justin dropped the first one and broke it, the second died when I ran my car off the road at 45mph. #2 crashed into the back of the passenger seat and the buttons in back no longer worked. The front sliding lens cover had a bad habit of popping off or breaking as well. It ran on 4AA batteries, which were constantly running out, were always heavy, and got a bit $$$. Took good photos for a 2MP camera though. Sample shot: here.

Canon Powershot S400 - 4MP Camera. I was saving up for it, but them Mom bought it for mr in Sep. 2003. Stunning camera. Loved almost every aspect about this camera. It’s small, it’s light, it’s fast, and it took great macro pictures from about 3cm away from the object. It also withstood shocks well. Bad points: short battery life, inability to do a true lavender, lack of manual controls, have to use Canon’s software. Sold to Dad in Dec 2004, still in great condition. Sample shot: here.

Sony DSC-V1 - 5MP Camera. Saved up for and bought in December 2004 after seeing one in action. Great camera, but not as sharp in output as the S400. Good points: nightshot and nightvision modes, hologram autofocus assist, fast, hotshoe, withstands shocks well. Bad points: trouble focusing through glass, small range of manual controls, photos not super-sharp through glass, not as small/light/ easy to carry, short battery life. Still have now, considering selling to buy something smaller for daily use. Sample shot: here.

Canon Digital Rebel XT - 8MP Camera. Saved up and bought October 21 2005. Fully manual DSLR. Good points: interchangeable lenses, long battery life, manual focus, great autofocus, ease of use. Bad points: too large for daily use, trouble focusing when using self-timer, have to use Canon’s software. Sample shot: here.

I can’t believe I’ve taken over 10,000 photos in just 5 years. More than half of those have been in just the last year and a half. I wonder how many I’ll be up to in another year.

I dreamed last night that i was on a bus full of my kids. My ’students’, that is. Some psycho crazy woman had hijacked the bus and was driving us around town to take us somewhere and presumably kill us all or something. One of the brave kids (who surprisingly is one of the more insecure kids in real life) gets up an climbs out a window as the bus is rocketing by some bushes. The crazy driver sees him, and shimmies the bus so he falls out onto the road and not the bushes. He dissapears, but I jump up and yell “You heartless BITCH! That was a child!” and I stumble up to the front of the bus. I then procede to bite her to surrendering. As in, little bloody chunks out of her fingers and arms, which I spit back out in her face. I woke up thinking “Eeew!”.

On a whim, i decided to grab the XT and take a photo-stroll today. The sky was a bit overcast, but the weather was warmer than anything I was likely to get for another week, so I wandered around for the better part of two hours. I went through a costruction sit and saw some fun mud. I stalked some butterflies in a field. I strolled up to the local nursery and shot a bunch of their flowers. While I was there, I happened upon a bunch of cloisonne hummingbird ornaments. They were only $10, but I had all of 80 cents to my name, so they’ll have to wait. But I plan on going back up there for one. Or a few… Overall, it was a nice time just strolling about.

I came home from my fun trip and talked to my computer for a while. I just installed Dragon Naturally Speaking so I can get my graphic novel from handwritten format into digital. I could type it all out, but talking at the computer is so much more fun. Plus, I can use it for anything that has a text box. LiveJournal, Wordpress, e-mail, google, Word docs.. everything. Oh, it’s not 100% accurate, but It get smost of what I say right. Then there’s the handy advantage of not having to worry about spilling Diet Coke all over it.

When I got bored with talking at the computer, I grabbed the XT again and went to go bother my local photo geek friend, DavidB. He lives four doors down from me, and he also happens to be Larken’s stepdad, which we didn’t know when we moved in! He’s been geeking out with me over the XT since I first begun to plan on buying one, but he’s been busy every weekend since I bought it. We took it out and played around with it, mainly shooting the dog, Peaches. I shot a few of him with her as well, but she’s a bit hard to shoot because she’s deaf. You can’t get her to look at the camera unless you wave it in the air. Stumpy loves to go toture Peaches by standing outside the glass door and watching poor Peaches crash into it. On the way back in to check out what we’d shot, I caught a Katydid
I came back in a goofed off for a while and I still haven’t gotten done what I needed to get done!

Things you may know:
I work at a pre-school. All of my ’students’ are two years old. I have 10 of them daily.
Things you may not know:
Two year olds still eat with their fingers unless you remind them not to. Rice is the worst thing for a two year old to imagine getting on his or her spoon.

Thus, it ends up everywhere. On the child, on the table, on the wall behind the child, under the table, in the child’s clothes, in the child’s diaper.. etc. Couple that with extra dry cornbread (it’s tasty, just crumbles easily) and it was a disaster on my floor on Thursday. The menu was pinto beans, rice, cornbread, peaches and ’slaw’. Any of the above is a disater by itself, but combining them made some sort of diabolical food explosion in which I had rice and cornbread in a 15 foot radius surrounding the table. I began cleaning up before snapping the picture, but I did get the mess under the table. Should have gotten the whole thing though. You don’t want to know what the slaw and pinto beans did to the diapers later.

Step One
- Make a post (public, friends locked, filtered…whatever you’re comfortable with) to your LJ. The post should contain your list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple and fandom-related (”I’d love a Snape/Hermione icon that’s just for me”) to medium (”I wish for _____ on DVD”) to really big (”All I want for Christmas is a new car/computer/house/TV.”) The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.

- If you wish for real-life things (not fics or icons), make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it’s your address or just your email address where Santa (or one of his elves) could get in touch with you.

Step Two
- Surf around your friends list (or friends friends, or just random journals) to see who has posted their list. And now here’s the important part:

- If you see a wish you can grant, and it’s in your heart to do so, make someone’s wish come true. Sometimes someone’s trash is another’s treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don’t want or a gift certificate you won’t use–or even know where you could get someone’s dream purebred Basset Hound for free–do it.

- You needn’t spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn’t to put people out, it’s to provide everyone a chance to be someone else’s holiday elf–to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not–it’s your call.

- There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just…wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you’ll have the joy of knowing you made someone’s holiday special.

My List
No Particular order

1. NB-2LH Batteries for my new XT. The more, the merrier. 1200mah is about the best, but these are quite cheap on ebay.

2. Hummingbird feathers or nests. I have only one feather.

3. Seeds (or whole plants) for hummingbird attracting plants. Cardinal vines, Four-o-clocks, Butterfly Bush, Hibiscus, Weigelia, Trumpet Creeper, Monarda (Bee Balm), Milkweed, Hosta… etc.

4. Frontline Plus for cats. The Stump needs some more flea crap soon.

5. Sigma 70-300mm telephoto lens for the XT.

6. Postcards or stationary from around the world! It’s not fun just getting bills all the time.

7. New Car. Has to be a Honda or a Prius.

8. Peach roses.

9. Amber Jewelry. I LOVE amber.

10. Microdrive for my XT. They come in 6 gig sizes even.

Contact:
Heather Lickliter
900 Maison Dr #169
Athens, GA 30605

BTW: Go see The Holiday Wishes Community and see how many you can grant! I already have a list of spare stuff to send out to people.

For the second night in a row, I woke up from a dream in which a Rufous Hummingbird was at one of my feeders. I’ve never had a winter hummingbird before, so this is pretty big stuff. A bander would come out and everything.. etc. I keep imagining my sugar water levels in the feeders are going down too, which totally doesn’t help. I’m such a dork.

So, last night was finally seXXXy halloween. I’ve been looking forward to this for months. I couldn’t build a new costume since finances have been really tight for a while, so I wore the french maid getup I built for Atari’s graduation party. I won first place that party for the costume, so I wasn’t expecting to win a thing this year, as the judges had seen it already. John and I got up early here, and went out to pick up soem last minute costume bits. He needed leather wrist cuffs and some fake fur for boot coverings. Kleef was lending him his kilt for the night, so we packed up and left Athens at about 2pm.

We got to the party venue at about 3pm to help out with the setup. I was put to work stuffing the nasty guy in the morge wheelchair while John got to work cutting the eyes out of the porno in the eyeball room. One I was done stuffing the dude and zip-tying him to the wheelchair, Atari and I took him outside and dumped fake blood all over him and the guts he was trying to hold in. It was so gross we scared a few of the people walking by for the Tech game that afternoon. After the guy was done, I sort-of took over the dungeon as Atari wanted some decent photos of people using the Esse for his bosses. The Liberator crew had graciouly donated a Scoop, a Ramp and a Wedge to be given away as prizes, plus they added an Esse and a Scoop to the dungeon for the night for people to play on. I made sure that the lighting was bright enough for some decent photos, which was a real bitch because we only had one working outlet in that room. It took me a good 2 hours to get some light in there and to get it cleaned up and somewhat decorated. By the time I fisished in there, it was time to get dressed. I made sure to get some quick photos of me on the Esse, just in case no one else played with it.

The party started off quite slowly, so I spent a lot of time just sitting down and chatting with people. Heels are a bitch to walk in for me, because I never wear them. I somehow developed a migrane halfway throught the night, so John walked 3 blocks to a gas station (in costume) to buy me some Aleve. I love him. After that, the party was much better. We had some great costumes too. Unfortunantly, instead of the 3 batteries I usually have for my camera, I was stuck with 1.5. I just didn’t get as many photos as I wanted to. There were two more photographers there, so I don’t feel quite as bad, but I do feel like I wasn’t doing my (self-appointed and surely obnoxious) job. The costume contest finally got started at about 12:30am, and by that time the crowd had swelled to about 200 people. The three judges opted for a more fair point-based system and also included to option of some honorable mentions. There were about 15 male entrants and 15 female entrants, so the actual contest took quite a while. Each contestant walked on stage and answered questions from the judges, then walked off.

Right before I was set to go up, I was fretting about what to do when I got up there. Just standing there wasn’t going to turn heads. Right then, John walks up out of nowhere, grabs me and says "Hey. Go up there and pretend to dust the drumset. Make sure you show off your ass too." I was so thankful he’d had an idea. I walked up, showed off my ass and answered some questions ("Hey, do those legs go all the way up?"). I sat back down for the judging, because my feet were really killing me. It was about 2:30am by that time. I was hoping to actually win a cash prize this time, but I wasn’t really counting on it. I did win an Honorable Mention for Best Effort, which was great. I do put a lot of effort into my costumes. Third place went to a monkey and his handler, second to Bender and first to The Prince and Katamari. The Liberator crew stepped up to give their prizes, and I looked around for John. They were giving one girl pick, one male pick and one extra pick. I was about to leave, because I’d heard another girl telling her boyfriend that she’d been told she’d won the girl pick. She had a great satyr costume, complete with horns, fur legs and a tail! I figured that I wasn’t going to get away with anything but the Best Effort (still totally awesome). I couldn’t find him though, so I watched the picks anyway. Slinky won the male pick, snagging the Scoop. I was watching the girl who was to win the other pick, but to my total shock… I was called! My hand went involuntarily up to my mouth in surprise, and I stepped up to get my prize, the Ramp. I was feeling really sorry for the other girl, but I was happy to actualy win something so awesome (and useful!). The Wedge did in fact go to the other girl, so I felt much better. Afterwards, I thanked the Liberator crew, who told me that I got the Ramp because I’m way too tall. Heh.

After that, I changed clothes, got some cars moved, and left. It was 3am. We made it back up here at 4:30am and crashed. I woke up today at 10am, but I caught a 3 hour nap this afternoon, totally screwing my sleep schedule for work tomorrow. All in all. a great party, and I hope we can do it again next year.

Testing. This post should not only show up on www.crickie.com, but also LiveJournal.

Last night I dreamed that I was at work (note: I have never dreamed of a place I’ve ever actually been, so when I say ‘work’, what I mean is a place that my head recognized as ‘work’ but looks nothing like anywhere I’ve ever been). A lady came in with a small package of something, and asked me if I could keep an eye on it. I said sure, and she left. I ignore it for a while, and she comes back. She says that I’ve done such a good job watching it for her that she’ll let me fly with her for a while. Naturally, I’m thrilled. She hold out her hand to me, and we just fly off, like Superman and Lois Lane or something. Just flying through the air. She lands and takes a bit of the stuff in the box (it’s a powder) and throws it on me. It’s flying dust (Peter Pan anyone?), and I can fly by myself! I zoom around the sky for hours and it’s wonderful. I land and go back to work, hoping that the dust will last long enough to do it again. One of my co-workers decides to steal the box of powder, so I run after her to head her off, knowing that if she takes it, I’ll never fly again. I get there just in time, and I decide to steal the powder for myself (Meggie, where were you in this dream? You always stop me from doing bad things!). I need some magic to make it permanant, so I steal that too (WTF?). It’ll take a while to process, so I head back to work, content in the knowledge that I’ve foiled a would-be thief and I’ll be able to fly for the rest for my life. While I’m busy being happy, my boss comes in and tells me about the stolen powder. I pretend to be surprised and outraged. She asks to shake my hand, then says my handshake is nervous and unnatural (yeah, huh?). She asks me again about the powder, and I lie again (though I almost told the truth). Just as the magic is ready, the police come and handcuff me for stealing!

This is where I woke up, sweating like a pig (wait, pigs don’t sweat!) and scared out of my mind that I was being hauled to jail and I’d never fly again. Once I calmed down enough to realize that I wasn’t going to jail, it hits me that I’ll actualy never actually fly.. ever. *sigh* I hate mornings like that. I always just want to cry myself back to sleep. Though, being able to fly would be worth stealing just about anything. Too bad it’s not that easy.

My Meggie is gone again. John and I squished into the cab of the pickup truck and took her to the airport this morning. She was flying to New York, then getting on another plane at another airport and flying into London. At the time of this writing, she’s still in the air, likely over the ocean. She’ll land in about three hours at 6am there. It wasn’t to hard saying goodbye again this time. For one thing, this is like.. the third or fourth time… second, she’ll be back in two months for Christmas anyway. It does get easier to see her off though. I cried for a week the first time she left, but now I just feel shitty for a few hours and I’m done with it. I guess we’ve grown apart a little.. or maybe I’ve just grown up a little.

I also shipped off my Pixietails today. $300 and two years worth of collecting,thy are going to another collector. It makes me sad to know that they’re going, but glad to know that they’ll make someone else happy too. All 187 of them fit into a Ziplock freezer bag. I happily mailed them away, knowing that I now have a shiny new camera to go in their place. I just need to figure out what to put on the wall now.