Before and After with The Nik Collection

As we all know Google is pulling the plug on Google Reader. Nobody was particularly happy with that, nor was I. But thanks to Florinda and others I am now happily using Feedly and working on getting used to it.

When Google announced shutting down Reader I was nervous about their recent acquisition of Nik software. I only use one of their plug-ins for photography right now, but I planned on buying others. Or, all of them really at some point. The same day Google announced the Reader shutdown they also stated they are not going to update Snapseed for PC or Mac. I became doubly nervous then. I figured they were going to shutter all the Nik software stuff and replace it with something worse.

Well, today Google announced they are reducing the price for the entire bundle to $149, which is a great deal. They also said that if you had purchased any of the other plug-ins already you would receive an email telling you how to get the whole collection for free. That pretty much made my day. Now, I want to say this is not any sort of sponsored post. I was just really excited about this. Do I think Google will still keep this alive? I hope, butI don't know. I'm not sure how Topaz or onOne is going to respond to this. It's not too cool for them, that's for sure.

Anyway, since I downloaded it I thought I'd try them all out with a before and after photo. This was just a test and not a great photo, but it shows what the software can do. I really do recommend the new Nik Collection. Though I'm not a fan of the icons they use, but what can you do about that.

Before

After

Now, again, this isn't perfect, but just a quick tweaking I did with Viveza 2, Color Efex Pro 4 and Dfine 2. Although, the second photo is much closer to what Akaka Falls looked like in real life. So, go, buy, if you are into photography that is. If not, it's cheap enough to buy for a gift for someone you love, or just kind of tolerate.

What kind of lame blog am I running here?

I can't believe it took me more than a month to come back here. Actually, I can. I have a short attention span. I'm surprised I kept this thing going as long as it has.

I haven't been around much here, but I'm still on Twitter, Tumblr and Google+. Mostly I've been posting pictures there and I'll probably end up doing the same here. It's what I like to do know, so I should probably put it here. I hope I don't bore you all too much.

Speaking of pictures, here are the last batch from Hawaii.

This is the helicopter that the family rode in to see the sights. How did I get this picture, you ask? Well, I wasn't in there. Our daughter was afraid, so someone had to stay. I took one for the team. What?! I'm not getting in one of those things.

This is Mauna Loa from the helicopter place, Blue Hawaii. I originally thought it was Mauna Kea but was corrected on Google+.

These are some palm trees at The Place of Refuge. My wife and I went by ourselves here. It was a neat place to walk around. Yes, those are people. The trees were TALL! 

This is from our last night. Some damn good sunsets in Hawaii.

This is also from The Place of Refuge. Blogger wants this picture here and will not let me put it in order. Anyway, you see a lot of little things like this around. Right near here was a sign saying not to do this. It's considered graffiti and since this is sacred ground it's not cool. Though I don't think the person who put this here meant any harm. 

Putting these up so late really make me want to go back to Hawaii. I knew I'd love it, but I didn't think I would this much. I really want to go back. Hopefully in a couple of years we can. 

Before I move on I want to thank Dreamybee (not her real name). She lives in Hawaii and was a great source of information and was especially helpful through Twitter when we were stuck in Honolulu. This is why the Internet is great. 

On to new business. Jenn just left for India for 10 days. I just looked and her flight is in Dubai now and she heads out to Mumbai next. That's a lot of flying. So, I'm home alone with the kids and getting some work around the house done. You know, painting, fixing up stuff, re-wiring the family room (220-221, whatever it takes).

Right now I'm working on the painting and I'm at the, "Oh shit, this may not work," stage. I'm hoping it's okay, but I have my doubts. I'm painting the fireplace. It was really dark before and I'm worried the lighter color is not going to work. I'm working on priming it now and it just looks like it's going to look like crap. I think I'm doing it wrong. I'm taking before, during and after photos so you can see what I'm talking about. My plan is to have all this stuff done before Jenn gets home. Won't that be a nice surprise? Actually, it will be a surprise if the house is in one piece. 

Our Summer Vacation Part 2: No, I'm not going to say it

It's kind of sad that it is taking me this long to post part two of our trip. Does anyone even care? Well, too bad. Here it is anyway.

Okay, so I left off on the second full day in Kona and how tired we were. Sunday was the next day and a little better in the sleep department. This day Jenn and I took the kids out geocaching around the area. We found one out of three that we tried. Some were really hard! This is also where we ran into our first gecko. They are all over the place, but I didn't mind them. I'd rather see these guys walking around than rats.

After a driving around and not finding anything for a couple of hours, as well as some hiking to the locations, we went to lunch with the kids. It was a little hole-in-the-wall place, but it was good. That afternoon the "downtown" area had a little festival of sorts where they closed the street off and had display areas where the local residents and shops could sell stuff. We bought some homemade jewelry and awesome kettle corn for back at the house. We also saw a guy jamming on his homemade guitar-ukulele double neck thing. I make fun, but he was really good.

Then it was time for some shaved ice and more geckos. This guy was eating some of the syrup that spilled on table. It probably tastes better than bugs.

That night we went to the Luau. The mai-tais were good, the food was just okay, but the show was really good. The performers really were into it. One of the guys was pretty funny, too. Everybody enjoyed the show.

Monday was the big deal day for the kids. They were going to swim with dolphins. They were looking forward to this ever since we told them about it back in December when they opened their gift of the dolphin ride. That day, of course, our daughter was a little nervous about it, but she was much less shy about it once she was in the water. They only let parents get so close so you have to buy their pictures, but I managed to get a few to work since I had my zoom lens. Of course, we ended up buying a couple of pictures anyway. Yes, we are suckers.

The kids didn't get a long time in the water with the dolphins, but we ended up spending most of the day at the hotel that contained Dolphin Quest. I think by the time we go home it was almost 3pm  and we left at 9am.

I think all we did was go to eat after the kids changed. We went out to eat way more than we said we were before we left. Isn't that always the way? So much for buying food and cooking it at the house.

Tuesday was the "Big Drive." We went all the way around the island, for the most part. The main plan was to go to Volcano National Park, which was on the opposite of the island, but we were going to make some stops on the way.

The first was actually unplanned. We were driving and saw a sign for a tsunami memorial and we decided to go see what it was. After some very narrow and twisty roads we ended up in a place that reminded us some place right out of "Lost." Actually it was Laupahoehoe Park, but look at this, doesn't seem like the others would live here?

The tsunami memorial was off to the side and marked the site where 20+ people, many children, were killed when one hit in 1946. I didn't take a picture because I felt weird taking one of a memeorial. I don't know why.

There were also a lot of these big concrete things along the water. I don't know what they are for, but they reminded me of something for a WW II movie.

We left there and continued on to Akaka Falls. Actually, we stopped for lunch first, but everyone agreed it wasn't very good, so I won't mention the place here. The falls were...wet. I mean rainy wet. Yes, I know were were in the rain forest, but it makes it hard to take photos when it is raining so much. Jenn was nice enough to hold the umbrella over me as I took a few photos. It's a Hell of a drop, no?

We moved on to the volcano park. Due to recent activity a good section of crater rim drive was closed off so we didn't get to drive about as much as we'd like. But we did see a rainbow over the caldera!

We also went to the Thurston Lava tube. It was much larger than the one Jenn and I went in on Maui years ago. We could actually walk upright, which is good since I'm an old man now. I guess we could have walked down in one of the old calderas, but we didn't. See those white dots, they are people.

We continued our journey around the south end of the island, which was had a lot more twists and turns, and made it home just as the sun was setting. We were pretty wiped out after that day.

This is getting long, so I'll stop now. I thought I could finish in two posts, but I'm too wordy.

Our Summer Vacation Part 1: The Beginning

Like I promised in my last post, I'm back to talk about our vacation. I hope you can contain your excitement!

Some time last year, I can't remember exactly when, I was at work and Jenn had gone to her parents with the kids and when she came back we somehow had plans to all go to Hawaii this summer. Don't get me wrong, I didn't complain at all, I was more surprised than anything. After a year of figuring out where, and exactly when to go, we decided on renting a house in Kailua-Kona. By this point Jenn's sister and boyfriend dropped out, but we found a great place to stay on the water. Okay, Jenn found it, are you happy?

Seriously though, this place was perfect. There were three bedrooms and a nice patio (lanai) to look out on the water. Check out the view to the East:

And to the West:

You can't get much better than that. And, since we were splitting the cost, we didn't spend anymore than we would have on a hotel. Our plan was to save a bunch of money on food since we were at a house where we could cook. Well, we did eat breakfast over there, but that is about it. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. 

See, the vacation didn't start off so well. Before the vacation even started we had medical problems. From the beginning of July until we left either my mom, stepmom or dad were in the hospital at some points. All with different illnesses with various degrees of severity. Everyone is out now, but my mom got out two days before we left and my stepmom got out about two days after we were in Hawaii. Then, to top it all off our flight to San Francisco was cancelled the night before we left. 

Since I work in the airline business, we planned to fly stand-by all the way out to Kona. Well, once that flight cancelled it threw a wrench into everything. To make it short, we bought tickets to get to San Francisco. We were supposed to be there about 11am, but ended up getting there around dinner time. And with a lot less money. But, hey, we were halfway there! 

The next morning was better, we got out on the flight we wanted. We were split up on the plane, but it was no big deal. I got to sit next to a very nice guy who had a house out on the Big Island where he spends most of the summer. He gave us some nice tips about the island and was probably the nicest person I've ever sat next to on a plane. 

Anyway, we got to the Kona airport, which is an awesome open-air small airport around 1pm to start off our vacation. I tried to wait at the bottom of the stairs (no jet ways here, people) to take Jenn's and the kid's picture coming off the plane, but I was told I couldn't wait around down there if I wasn't waiting for a stroller.  It may seem like a laid back airport since it is wide open, but they still follow their security procedures. 

After we shoved 47 days worth of luggage into the rental minivan, we headed out to town to get something to eat on the water. We ended up at Huggo's, a nice causal place on the water. We spent about 45 minutes there and I got sunburn on the side of my neck. I took the one little spot with no shade to spare the kids. After lunch we headed to the beach to wait about an hour until we could get into the house. This was the first time the kids had been in the ocean and they loved it, once they got used to the waves that is. 

Finally, we headed to the house to unpack and get some groceries. This little (actually big) guy greeted us in the kitchen. I assume this guy promotes good eating and digestion. 

I was a little worried about how warm the house was when we first got there since there was no central air. But, once we had the a/c units running in the bedrooms and opened the windows to let the ocean breeze in, it wan't too bad. 

We got to watch the first sunset on the water and plan our attack for the week. Our first full day was a casual plan of hitting the beach. We knew we'd be tired because of the time change. And boy, were we. The kids were probably the worst, but we all were dragging by about 6pm. We grilled up some food, and hit the sack early. 

I'll stop here for now, but stay tuned for dolphins, helicopters and volcanoes! 

weekend Assignment #286: Far Away.

Karen wants to know where we want to go? At least she not telling me where to go.

Anyway:

Weekend Assignment: #286: What is the #1 place you'd like to visit that you haven't been to yet? Do you think it's likely that you'll ever get there?

I've been trying to think about the number one place I want to go. For some reason I've been having trouble coming up with the numero uno place. For a while it was Hawaii, but we went there about nine years ago. Then it was Australia, but not so much anymore. I still want to go, but I'm not looking forward to two days traveling. That is a long time in an airplane.

I'd like to go to Japan some time. Jenn and I were just talking about that the other night. Not that we are planning to go soon. We were just talking about if we'd like go sometime. The verdict was yes, we would. I might need to pack a big lunch, though. I don't know how much food I'll like there. Jenn will eat sushi all day, so she'll be fine. Can I get some Chicago style pizza delivered out there?

I'd like to go to Europe as well. We could hit England, Italy, then go up to hit Sweden, Norway, Denmark; that might be a long trip. I'll wait for the Euro to lose some value so it's a little cheaper. If that ever happens.

So my answer is Australjapaeurope. I just made that up.

Is it likely that I'll make it to all those places? It's tough to say. Depends on the economy, jobs, kids, way too many things to calculate right now. But, I certainly hope so.

Extra Credit: What is the farthest place from home that you've ever been?

The farthest place I've ever been is Maui. We are planning on getting back to Hawaii in 2011. I'm already planning where I want to play golf. You need to have priorities.