My GPS Camera Phone

Nancy and I received a late Christmas gift to ourselves on Tuesday – cell phone data transfer software! I know, how exciting!

This is a big deal because our phones do not have removable memory or Bluetooth. (For what it’s worth, they will survive submersion for up to 20 minutes and are indestructible.) What this means is that trying to get pictures over ~300K off the phone was impossible (more on that later). Needless to say, there’s a handful of photos that I’ve been waiting to post, but couldn’t for this reason. Today’s is the first of that batch.

This was taken in October 2007 in my front yard. The photo is a long shadow of my youngest daughter, who is holding out her skirt for maximum dramatic effect. I tweaked the levels and cropped out her legs, just to the point of her feet. For extra-super-mega dramatic effect, I flipped the canvas 180 degrees. Yes, this photo is upside-down. Neato, huh? You’ve got to click the image and view the larger size to get the best view.

The Datapilot Universal Pro Kit is what I’m using now to retrieve my pictures off the phone without having to use cumbersome pix messaging. It took a few false starts to get this software running, but I’m pretty satisfied with the product. The user interface could use some work and their online knowledge base could be better, but I did have a good experience with their e-mail support. In addition to data transfer, I can also make my own ringtones! WOOO!

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When Nancy and I moved from Clearwater to a small town called Anthony, we thought that a year on a 120 acre cattle farm would be a nice change.

Change is an understatement.

I had never lived on a farm and the farthest I had ever been from civilization was about 100 feet (about 30 meters for my metric friends). Nancy had been there, done that, so this was nothing new for her. We lived in a little house on wheels that had an opossum family living underneath it and many giant spiders living all around it. We’re talking spiders the size of your hand. Yeah.

Among the oaks, pasture fences, misty mornings and manure, we found ourselves in a place where you could do something that wasn’t allowed in the city. You could burn stuff. With this revelation, we immediately set out to install a custom fire pit in the back yard (which could have been the front yard because the trailer had a door on each side). Since I like passing on valuable tips to my readers, here’s the way to make a fire pit:

1. Tools: rake, shovel, a few beers
2. Locate spot away from house
3. Rake away debris from the installation area
4. Dig a pit about 6 inches deep by 4 feet wide
5. Line inside edges of hole with cool rocks, bricks and other fire-resistant stuff
6. Cut some green logs and place them around the perimeter
7. Build a huge pyramid of seasoned firewood
8. Light fire, open beers and enjoy the conflagration

You’re probably asking yourself what this has to do with rust. Well, we got to enjoying the fire pit so much that we practically cleared the farm of dead wood, which is a fire hazard if allowed to accumulate too much. Dry oak burns quite efficiently. (Un)fortunately, the day quickly came to move into our current house (without wheels), so we had to say farewell to our beloved fire pit.

After moving in, a good friend purchased us a city-approved outdoor fireplace. This is basically a metal cage that you can burn fires in, without having to worry about burning down your neighborhood. We have had it ever since we moved in and as you can see from the photo, the ash pan has seen better days. It still works, but probably not for too much longer. Ash and rain makes for a wonderfully corrosive environment. A little bit of morning sunlight makes for a great photo. It works, but is nothing compared to the open pit we had on the farm.

With the freezing weather quickly approaching, the old fire pit will be remembered as the family gathers around the rusty one in the back yard, huddled in blankets and lawn furniture, only steps away from civilization. Beer will still be on hand.

I captured this right before I left work for the day. The light was good, the shadows long and the desk had an empty spot. This moment was ripe for photoey-camera-phone goodness. Any guess what I was working on in the notebook? It’s not that hard to guess if you run a website. Happy Friday!

No guessing this time as to what this is, because I got served on the last shadow photo. This is most obviously a chair. Now, on to the post.

With the arrival of the fall/winter seasons, the sun travels overhead at a lower angle, thereby turning my office into an Easy Bake oven by the end of the day. The window blinds don’t help and neither does fiddling with the thermostat. The benefit to this infernal suffering is that we get some nice late afternoon shadows. I wish the carpet wasn’t so ugly, but at least it’s not the old burnt orange stuff.

Yes, I know it’s a shadow. What is making this shadow? Any idea? You’ll get some prime-time, 100% pure, grade-A linkage if you guess correctly! Or just leave a comment and you’ll get some link love anyway.