This weekend I get to play with the LCD. Also, I think I need to make a trip to Fry’s. It’s been too long since I did a project like this. Gonna be fun.

A while ago, Sandisk and Adorama had some great prices on their Extreme IV CF cards. They required rebates, but I generally don’t mind those and don’t have problems with them. So far, this time seems no different. This rebate, though, was in the form of a Visa debit card, that expires 3/09. That’s really not too much of a problem for me. I immediately used it to buy myself an Amazon gift certificate which will just sit in my account until I decide to spend it. Amazon credit is as good as cash for me. I placed two orders with these rebates, so I should have another $160 card coming, too.

Maybe I’ll spend some of that money on a new pair of sunglasses. Dammit.

On the way back from the bay area yesterday, I was able to watch the sunset through the smoke from the wildfires. I don’t usually get to see much of anything on this stretch of highway because usually I’m the one driving, and I usually do it at night. The sunset was incredible, and I felt like I had to go back while there was still some smoke to shoot it. So I did.

I couldn’t find a place to stop on the side of the road where I really wanted to, but the place I ended up worked out just great.

There’s a few more from today, as well as some older sunset shots, in my Sunset Flickr set.

Woot has a Blu-ray player for only $140. Only blu-ray 1.1, but so tempting. Dammit.

Yesterday, went to the bay area. Played some board games, Rock Band 2, Gears of War 2. It was fun.

Yeah, really nothing to say. Maybe it’ll be more interesting tomorrow.

Early post for me today. In about an hour, I’m carpooling up to the bay area for a friend’s housewarming. He left my company earlier this year to go work at Google. I expect I won’t have much time later to just sit around at a computer to post, so I figured I’d get it out of the way now. Aside from driving, today will likely be spent playing a bunch of board games and probably some Rock Band. He has RB2, so I’ll finally get to see and try out the new drum kit.

Last night, I beat Gears of War 2, playing co-op with my brother. I was playing on the Hardcore difficulty level. Afterwards, I tried playing on Insane for a little while. It’s really hard, but I expect I will eventually work my way through the game playing it. Already looking forward to GoW3.

That’s all I’ve got for you today. I should finish getting ready to go, and eat some breakfast.

My reaction summed up on twitter: Holy crap big fire about 20 hours ago from TwitterBerry

I wasn’t the only one twittering about it. Twist is a website that will graph word usage on twitter, and track trends:

Got to the softball field, and unsurprisingly, the game was being postponed. Drove like a maniac home to get my camera, and then back towards downtown Santa Barbara to do some shooting. Taking pictures of a fire at night is hard. Even harder when you’re not really terribly close to it, though I suppose it’s a lot safer that way. Getting the exposures right is tricky. I got a few good shots.

About 10 minutes after I took this one, a police car drove by and announced that the area I was in was being evacuated. I wasn’t all that close to the fire, and didn’t feel like I was in any danger. I moved only about three blocks away, and stayed there for the next several hours.

The white line in there is a helicopter coming in for more water. This one was taken from the top of a parking garage. There were at least 5 other people up there with tripods and cameras doing the same thing.

You can see the rest in the flickr set: Tea Fire. I may go shoot more tonight.

Also, Citi Field home opener!
(Hopefully, StubHub seller confirms the order, unlike the first time I tried to buy World Series tickets this year. On the other hand, that got me a $54 coupon that I applied to this order.)

Ordered a bunch of other random electronics to get me going on my intervalometer project. I think the first step needs to be cleaning my office so I can actually work in it. This will give me an excuse to actually get that done. I’m looking forward to getting all the parts, so I can get started on it. The more I look at what I need to do, the more fun it seems like it will be.

I figured out what my first Arduino project is going to be: an intervalometer for my camera. Similar to this, but the 40D has a different connector than the Rebel line, so it’ll have to be slightly different. Shouldn’t be too hard, though. I ordered a few generic cable releases on eBay… four for $21 here. That should give me enough room to screw up one or two of them. I’m really not sure what I’ll do with it, but it’ll be a fun project that will at least have some chance of getting used.

Tubes seem to be unclogged, now.