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.

Chicago Architecture Tour

Two weeks ago Jenn and I stayed in downtown Chicago to get away from it all. In other words, spend some time without the kids. While we were down there we went on a tour to see the architecture along the Chicago River. There are some cool old, and new, buildings down there that I tried my best to do justice to with my camera. It turns out it is not all that easy to take a good picture from a moving boat. Who knew?


Here is the Wrigley Building with the Tribune Tower behind it.

Another view of the Wrigley building. The color is slightly off due to the clouds and white balance. My bad on that. 

I don't remember the name of this place but I thought it look cool. Like a condo building from Cloud City or the Jetsons. 

The gigantic Merchandise Mart. This picture does not due justice to the size of this place. 

This is looking down the river and the Sears Tower now known as the Willis Tower, but that is tough for a life-long Chicago suburban person to say. 

This didn't turn out as well as I wanted, again, moving boat, but I liked the old look of the sign that is about to fall into the water. 

This is a look down the river to the old Montgomery Ward building. I forgot what is all in there now. Again, it is much bigger than this looks. 

I just like that this said "Sponge" on the old water tank on top. 

This wasn't on the boat tour, but this is the City Hall building. Imposing. 

I took more pictures but these were the ones that turned out the best. I highly recommend taking a tour like this if you ever come to Chicago. We took the one through the Chicago Architecture Foundation, which I highly recommend, but there are others as well. If you do go, don't be like me and not pay close enough attention. When I got home the next day I had to ask Jenn and look up which buildings were in the pictures I took. 

Weekend Assignment 324: The year 2062

In honor of Carly's upcoming birthday we are imagining what America might be like in the year 2062 for this week's assignement. I decided to do this a little differently and have some fun with it.

Next Tuesday is my birthday, I am not quite 50 yet, but when I was a little girl I liked to sit and imagine what the world, more specifically, America, would be like when I reached 50! Having nearly arrived at my goal age, I am now aiming for another 50 years! So, in honor of my 48th birthday, I want you to search your imaginations, and tell what I can expect in the year... 2062!

Hi, Welcome to the year 2062. Did you have a nice cryo-sleep? Good. Oh yes, the facilities are this way. Follow me.

Feel better? Good. Pardon the flicker of my holo, I need to get that fixed. I guess I should explain. About 20 years ago a company designed the holo-projector for business meetings. It was a better option than traveling and videoconferencing. If it seems like the person is right next to you it's much harder to ignore their ideas, or to put it down. It turned out to work really well, so people started using it for everything. Now, nobody leaves the safety and comfort of their house anymore.

Oh, food? Yes, it's delivered automatically. Our refrigerators and cabinets are all hooked up to the local food suppliers and gets sent to our houses automatically by auto-piloted vehicles when something runs low. We never run out of food.

Hmm. Okay, the toilet you just used reports you are a little deficient in calcium and slightly dehydrated. Pretty good, considering. You should see how some people come out of cryo-sleep. If you aren't healthy going in, how are you going to be when you come out. So many people do this thinking they can be cured of their diseases when they wake in the future. They watch too much TV.

What? No, that's not gross. The toilets are a good way to see what we might be lacking. Vitamins and medicines are all automatically ordered when needed. I can't imagine going to the doctor all the time. I don't want someone prodding me like you had to go through 50 years ago. Give me a cold, unfeeling robot hand any day, I say. Besides, the average life expectancy is 110 years old right now. Not a bad improvement in such a short time.

Here, come over to the table by the window. This machine here will take you vital signs. Just sit, it's okay. I know it looks a little scary, but it is quite gentle, if a bit on the cold side. Take a peek out the window while the robo-doc does it's work. Nice day, no? Yep, just as planned. We get rain when we want it and sun when we don't. We can't change the temperature too much, the sun and earth move the way they want. We can't control differential heating, but we can work with moisture to a degree. No pun intended. Yes, we still get tornadoes and hurricanes. Again, we can't control everything. Yet.

Notice anything else? Yes, not many cars out there. The ones you see are all robo-cars that are sending food, materials or other goods to people and places where they are needed. Since nobody goes out anymore, except for emergencies, there is little traffic and the air is much cleaner than back in 2010.

Okay, the doc says you are good to go. A car will be by to take you to your home. Enjoy your time here in 2062. If you feel you can't live here, let us know. We have ways to get you back.

***

Okay, obviously I went a little overboard. But, so what? It's all for fun, right?

Extra Credit: Tell me, is the world anything like you imagined it would be when you grew up? What's different? What's the same?

No, I guess it's not the way I imagined it. I really thought I'd have my Corvette by now. Or my Porsche.

Oh, did you mean the world, or my world?

No, No, NaNo, NaNo, No!

I couldn't come up with a better title than that. This isn't really an update since I haven't done any NaNoWriMo updates through the course of the month. One would think that my absence from here would mean that I have succeeded in accomplishing the 50,000 word goal. One would be wrong. Now I'm going to go on and list all the people I want to blame for my failure. Okay?

Me.

You really didn't think I was going to lay blame on anyone else did you? I'm not saying I didn't try, or that I gave up, I just don't think I had the resolve to get it done in the one month time frame. I had more things to do than I thought I would this month. Not to mention, the midnights I had to do in the beginning, me getting sick, and the kids getting sick.

I'm a total waste of space when I work midnights, just ask Jenn. I thought I could get some stuff done in my waking hours, but I couldn't get myself to do that. I'm sure Jabba the Hut would call me a weak minded fool.

I did pound out some words when Jenn was out of town in the middle of the month. Although, by the end of that week I was pretty tired of being on duty all the time and took a break one day. I did get to do one day of writing sprints with Mr. Unfocused when he was on a business trip. See, that man has the willpower and dedication that I don't. And, he won by writing over 50,000 words. Go congratulate him. Tell him I said so.

So how far did I get? (I just realized I should have told you Mr. Unfocused's numbers after mine so I don't look so weak.) I got up to over 17,000. But, you know what, I'm not too mad at myself. I'm sure if I tried a little harder I could have made it halfway to the milestone, but still, that is 17,000 more than I had before, right?

I think I'll keep going with it though. Why not finish what I started, right? There is always next year!

This April is Script Frenzy month. Who wants to do it with me?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go for a run. I have a Santa 5K to run this weekend and I haven't done a whole lot since my race last month. I'm not sure if my legs remember what to do.

We didn't win The Great Urban Race, but we had fun

This past weekend Jenn and I participated in The Great Urban Race in Chicago. It was a a lot of fun, a little frustrating and a tad tiring as well.

As you can see here, there were a lot of people in Cubby Bear where we met up. We were told there were over 500 two-man teams. It seemed like a lot more as we were trying to fight our way to get the clues.

I should explain a bit about the race, in case you are too lazy to click the above link. That's okay, I would be too. It's basically a giant scavenger hunt. We got a list of 12 clues that were either tasks we had to complete, riddles to unravel, or things to find. Many of them required photographs to prove that the particular task was completed. No honor system when money is on the line. Also, that means you'll actually see pictures of me and Jenn here. Amazing!

This was a team event so you had to have a team name as well as a costume or same shirt. We didn't want to do a costume, though we came close. Our team name was The Greatest American Heroes, as you may recall, that had something to do with our shirts we (meaning me) chose for the event. There were quite a few in costumes; we saw some Smurfs, Doc and Marty from Back to the Future, and some chefs. It was fun to see the innocent bystanders on the streets looking at all of us as we ran up and down the streets of Chicago. Many would point, and many asked what the hell we were doing. Though, as can be expected, some people found it annoying. At least they seemed annoyed. Those people were probably a blast at parties.

After we got our clues we ran over to the Taco Bell next door to plan our attack. We were armed with pens, my iPhone, a laminated sheet to put the clue sheet in, and we read through the clues to find where everything was located. We found all the ones closest to where we were, numbered them in order that we should do them, then headed out. Looking back on it later we realized we should have done it a bit differently, but I'll get to that later.

I'll just hit some highlights for you. I don't want to bore you to death.

The first thing we hit was the tattoo shop. No, we didn't have to get a tattoo, well not a permanent one at least. I had to put on of those temporary tattoos the kids get in cereal boxes on my face. It wasn't difficult, but we didn't have water to get it wet so we ran to the Walgreen's on the corner to buy a bottle to get it wet. The first one didn't work, that's why it looks like I have dirt on one side of my face.

We had to play charades at Comedy Sportz down the road from the tattoo shop. Jenn made me act it out, she thinks I'm better at acting the things out. I think she just wanted me to make a fool out of myself in front of the other people. Luckily, there weren't too many people there besides us racers. The answer was horse, by the way. It wasn't too hard. I'm glad it wasn't a Pictionary contest. I suck at drawing.

At Chicago's Dog House Jenn had to feed me a hot dog. Not a big deal. It was a good char-dog too. I only put ketchup on it. I'm a bad Chicago native.

While we were there some customers asked us what we were doing. So we told them a little about the race. The thought it was interesting, then I happened to notice the lady's shirt. It was a tie-dye shirt. One of our clues was to take a picture of a real person wearing a real tie-dye shirt. In other words, someone not in the race. What a stroke of luck. She was very nice and let us take a picture of her. I'm not going to put it here since I didn't ask her, plus it was pretty blurry.

This clue we had a problem with. It was a riddle and we just didn't get it. Luckily some other team helped us out. Here's the riddle:

Mr. Reynolds is odd. He likes balloons but doesn't like parties. He likes books but doesn't like reading. He likes weeds but doesn't like flowers. He likes swimming but doesn't like water. He likes letters but doesn't like words. He likes noodles but doesn't like pasta sauce. He likes apples but doesn't like plums. He likes coffee but doesn't like tea.

According to the pattern in the riddle, take a picture of all teammates in front of a street sign the Mr. Reynolds would Like.

I'll put the answer at the end. It seems obvious to me now, at probably to you too, but in the heat of the battle, it was over our heads.

After a few more clues in the Lincoln Park and Wrigley area, we had to head to the loop on the 'L'. Neither Jenn or I are well versed in the use of the 'L' so this was the most stressful part of it. Especially when some nice person had us go on the wrong train to head downtown. Luckily we realized that after the first stop, but it still slowed us down. I'm pretty sure she was paid off by one of the other teams. I think we were a big threat out there.

Nothing too exciting happened downtown, for the most part. We had to count the flags at The Palmer House Hilton, then head to Daley Plaza to take a picture in front of this statue. We had a little trouble figuring out where to go. We got all turned around for some reason. Luckily two other teams were there heading the same way. We helped each other out.

The finale, for us, was to head to Daley Bicentennial Plaza and complete three challenges. We had to do a crab walk, leap frog and wheelbarrow across three (yes, three!) tennis courts. I haven't done any of these activities since grade school! The crab walk went okay, though my abs were a little tight by the end, the leap frog was a little better, but the wheelbarrow was the killer. Jenn was holding my legs while I walked on my hands. Let me tell you, I have muscles that hurt that I didn't remember I had. Like the muscle under my shoulder blade and my fingers. I was pretty wiped after that. Not to mention that we had already walked and jogged a few miles by this point.

We made our way back to the 'L' to go to the finish line at Cubby Beat. This was about 3 pm, or so. Not too late since the game ended at 5pm. Well, it wasn't our day. It turned out that there was construction going on this week on the 'L', so we sat for about 30-40 minutes on one train, not going anywhere, then we had to wait at least 20 minutes, of not longer, for our transfer. It kind sucked the fun out of the whole game. There were plenty of other teams in the same predicament as us, and nobody was very happy. I hate construction season!

We did make it back before 5:00pm, but not by much. All we had time to do was check in, get or pictures checked and head to the car so we could pick up Quincy. Then we headed to Jenn's parents to get the kids and go home and have a take out dinner at 8:00pm. We were quite tired after all that, but it was a lot of fun. I recommend it to anyone who lives near one of those towns that have this race. We will probably do it next year. Maybe next time we'll win. Watch out suckers!

Also, next year we are going to do the parts in the Loop first, I think it would have been quicker.

The answer to the riddle was any name that had double letters. Ugh, we are stupid.

Dinos and Airplanes, oh my!

We had an exciting weekend. I guess that is the way it should be when it is the last weekend before schools starts. For the kids, not me.

Saturday my son and I went to Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience. It was really neat! I was a little worried about it for a few reasons. 1). It was downtown at the United Center, and I had to get there on my own. I'm not good at getting around in the city and I get very stressed. Luckily, it is right of the expressway. Phew! 2). I knew it was going to be loud. My son does not like loud noises. At all. He was fine, though. He just covered his ears.

They really did a great job with the show. There was a paleontologist on stage, I forgot his name, who told the story of the dinosaurs as each new period was discussed. The actor was very good. It was like he was sitting down with you telling you a story. Very personable, but at the same time, very informative.

Obviously, the dinosaurs were the main attraction. They had a good variety; Utahraptors, Stegasaurus, Brachiosarus, and the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The smaller dinos had people inside controlling the puppets. You could see their feet, but you hardly noticed. They really had the movements down. They were very life-like. Well, as far as we know.

The very large dinos were operated a little differently. I could see a capsule, for lack of a better term, underneath where someone was sitting. I know that is how they moved the puppet around, but I'm not sure how they controlled the head, arm and tail movements. Unless there were controls in the capsule to do that. Either way, it was a lot of fun.

I forgot my camera in the car. (I'm still very annoyed by that). Here are a few cell phone shots.


Pretty bad, huh? I had to share, though.

Sunday we went to see the Chicago Air and Water Show. We really only saw the air show portion but I had to give you the full name. I think it is a law or something. We didn't go down to the lakefront since it is always a mob of people. Usually we go a little farther north, you can still see everything, and you won't step on someone's torso if you move around a little.

This year, though, we went to Jenn's sister-in-law's place and went on the roof. While it wasn't really close, we could still see plenty. Not to mention we had easy access to a private bathroom. Plus, like I mentioned before, our kids don't like loud noises. Being further away from the jets made that much more tolerable. Except when they flew right over us, which they did several times.

We didn't get down there until about 2 o'clock, so we missed some airplanes, but we did get to see the Blue Angels, and a few other jets. I always like to see the B-2 bomber because it looks like something Batman would fly, but we missed it. We saw it last year though.




I like this shot since you can read the "US Navy" under the wings. I had to zoom in on Photoshop to get it to show up since my camera only had a 3x zoom. They were closer than this picture makes it look.



Here was three different airplanes from different eras. They kept buzzing us as an F-22 Raptor was over the lakefront.



Here they are together as they leave to go home. Wherever that was.

It was a fun day. The kids got bored after awhile so it was good we were at a place they could go inside and mellow out. Or, just go up and down the stairs multiple times. For no apparent reason.

They were pooped by the end of the night, but my son had problems going to sleep. He was afraid of having a dream about tornadoes. I told him to think about the Blue Angels flying around instead. It didn't work. He came back to tell me that he was thinking about the Blue Angels, but the pilots were dinosaurs. How do you fix that one?

I have a few more pictures over at Flickr if you want to check them out.

Today? Most of today was spent nursing a monster headache. Then swimming lessons for the kids and some last minute school supply shopping. Exciting, I know.

It's my Rock and Roll Fantasy (camp)

I went to see Extreme and King's X last night at the House of Blues in Chicago. Both bands put on a good show and I enjoyed myself, though I was pretty tired of standing by the end. I told my friend, Roger, that we are getting too old to stand for 5 hours. Well, at least I am.

Anyway, the night started with Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp bands taking the stage. This is a very cool thing. You get put in a band with other people that sign up and an actual professional musician works with you. Then, you get to go on stage and rock out in front of a crowd. I think that would be a lot of fun. If you are ready for it, that is. And you have a fair sum of money laying around that you don't need. It is quite pricey.

I felt bad for a few of the guys out there. One guy was not very proficient at the guitar and barley played any of the three songs. Another guy did play, but it wasn't very good. I'm not entirely sure he was in tune. There was one guy, who was having a great time, but he only played the maracas. That seems like a lot to pay to play the maracas. Sure he was with a famous musician (I think he was with Elliot Easton of the Cars), but still.

Remember Kip Winger of Winger? He was the emcee and one of the band leaders as well. To be honest, they had the best performance, and everyone was involved. They did a good job with some hard songs (Queen!).

So, yes, I think it would be a lot of fun, but would I end up being the maraca guy? Would I get stuck with Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple who clearly only cared about himself? Or, would I have a great time? Who knows? It's too expensive to find out. I was thinking about putting a donation button to see if people would donate to let me go. I figure after a year I'd have 50 cents donated, I could put that in some interest bearing account, then my great-great grandkids could go. I'll have my body frozen so I could be thawed out to watch them play. Sound like a good idea?

Some interesting things from the last week or so

Great title, huh? I think I'm trying to say that this is going to be a random sort of post, but you knew that I'm sure.

Yesterday after my daughter ate dinner she showed me how big her tummy was. Based on how much she ate I don't see how that could be the case. Anyway, she kept showing me it and said, "It's getting big because I have a baby in there." Yeah, she's four. And after that comment she is never going to leave the house again. At least not with out me, or a bodyguard. And I mean "body"guard. I had her talk to Jenn on the phone and tell her, Jenn found it funny. I figured I'd let her explain some things to her. Have I said that my daughter always says she wishes we had a real baby? I guess this is her way of making it happen. Ugh.

My sister called me the other day. Well not really. See, the phone rang and I saw it was her on the caller ID, but when we picked up the phone (Jenn and I picked up at the same time) nobody was there. Well, that's not right either. We could hear talking, but none of it was directed at us. After listening harder we could hear my brother and sister-in-law talking to my sister. I kept yelling in the phone trying to get her to hear me, but it was no use. I tried hanging up, but since she initiated the call I couldn't disconnect. Finally I called my brother from my cell phone and told him that we could hear all them talking. It took me a minute to explain to him what I was talking about, then I heard them all laugh and the phone disconnected.

My sister has a small problem with her cell phones. I get many text messages not meant for me; so far nothing weird thank goodness. I've received calls from her that she meant to call someone else, too. Part of the problem is her new phone. She got a Balckberry Pearl and she hates it. The buttons are too small to e-mail, not to mention using the phone normally. My wife has one too and hates it as well. So there is a tip for you, don't get the Pearl, get the regular Blackberry; unless you have tiny fingers.

Oh, the best used to be when my sister would call the house, leave a message, and then you would hear her drive around town for 15 minutes. Good thing we had voice mail through AT&T and not a tape machine. We'd only have one message a day!

(How's that Lori?)

The last thing. Go check out Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog. It's a really fun story from Joss Whedon and company. I'm not sure where I heard about it first, it was either through Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog, or Mary Robinette Kowal's blog. Either way, I'm glad I did. It's fun! Really go see for yourself.

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