All posts by Keith Garner

Dinah makes the media

Today Dinah and I went to C2E2 for about 5 hours.  We had a great time, and what made it better was Dinah being in costume. Lots of people wanted to take their picture with her and she loved it.

For a good idea of what the day was like (and to see Dinah at the 7:22 mark) check out http://www.chicago3media.com/events/kevin-grace-at-chicago-comic-entertainment-expo-c2e2-2012 (the video is non-embeddable, deal with it.)

(I’ll update this post later with some images, just too wiped out right now.)

[Update 4/16: As promised, images!
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Your life has ended in the Wasteland

Back when I lived in Kohler, WI, my buddy Joe Cline and I played hours upon hours of RPGs on our C=64/C=128.  One of the favorite games we played was Wasteland. This caused us 32 points of geekery and exploded our minds like a blood sausage.

Many of the original Wasteland guys worked on the Fallout series, the “spiritual successor” to Wasteland.  However, its always been a dream of fans and the designers to do a direct sequel. Thanks to the stuff that’s popped up on the modern internet, specifically Kickstarter, they are raising funds to do just that.

For just $15 in backing, based on current funding, you’ll get a copy of the game on Linux, Mac, and/or Windows.  The more they raise, the better they can make the game.  I’m excited enough about the game that I’m writing a blog post.  DO IT!

Nest in my nest

Last year the Nest Learning Thermostat came out and sold out pretty damn quickly. At the time I wasn’t really in a position to purchase one anyway. They recently came back into stock and Nest e-mailed me that it was available to be ordered again. I jumped on it right away.

In case you’re not familiar with the Nest: its a thermostat created by some ex-Apple folks that attempts to learn its schedule from you so it can save energy. (Its interesting to note, that most people don’t end up programming their programmable thermostats because its too hard.  Most of your standard ones have interfaces not unlike VCR programming. We all know how that went.) Even if you don’t remember to set the thermostat down when you leave, it’ll start to learn when you’re “away” and use its away temperature to build the schedule.  The Nest also hooks into your wireless network so you can remotely control your thermostat through their webpage or an app on your mobile device. The wifi also lets it do things like look up the external temperature, so it can use that as a factor into your heading or cooling.

Needless to say, I’m excited about such a device. Its weird to be excited by something like a thermostat, but its a thermostat made for today.  I had tweeted about my excitement that it was on the way, and had a nice interaction with Nest over twitter where they asked for pictures. That leads to this blog post… I thought I’d take the chance to do an unboxing video, which I’ve never done before, and post some photos of the install of the Nest.

Continue reading Nest in my nest

“Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop” — Ansel Adams

I’ve come to the end of doing a photo a day in the year 2011 and I feel like I largely succeed in following my rules and meeting my goals.  I did either cheat or just plain old fail on a few days, but for a voluntary program like this, a 2% failure rate (which is roughly what happened) is okay in my book.

I think I’ve become a much much better photographer through the process.  You clearly see a big change after April 9th when I took the class at the Chicago Photography Center. The other part of it was the constant practice and repetition of shooting and editing. I still have a long road to go in terms of skill and eye, but its been an amazing year of growth.

Some things I’ve learned:

  1. Doing something every day is HARD, no matter what it is except necessary bodily functions. Its more of a time commitment than one would think.
  2. It’s very difficult to keep coming up with fresh ideas if you feel the need to have every day be a little bit different. There were days when I didn’t shoot anything all day and wanted to go to bed and ended up shooting stuff in the house. By the end of the year, I ran out stuff in the house. Also, I ended up doing accidental themes for days at a time because I couldn’t think of anything new.
  3. There are days when things don’t work out or you just shot all crap…but if you are gonna stay on the daily mission, you post it.
  4. I have a hard time asking people I don’t know if I can take their picture, or just taking a picture of unknown people. Hence, you got a lot of landscapes and buildings and whatnot.
Per the Ansel Adams quote I used for a subject, I think I got over 12 good photographs. I’m not sure if they are significant to anyone  but me, but I’m going to take that I had a good crop.

Here’s links to 23 of my favorites through the year in no particular order:

Here’s the top 5 most visited photos on the blog:

  1. Ice skating in flight – I’d like to reshoot this, I could do better now. Its very search engine friendly
  2. Any skirt in a storm – The Marilyn statue is still a big deal, and this shot got around to a bunch of blogs
  3. Food Porn: Matzo Softball – Search Engine friendly
  4. Will you be my date for life? – I pointed out it was Sarah’s and my 10 year anniversary
  5. Blue wall: Half-way done! – I think I talked this one up when I painted it. It’s just a nice blue

I really enjoy photography, so I’ll still continue to shoot. Hey, I gotta learn to use the backdrops more.  That said, the frequency of photo posts will be going down.  I might just hide for a month and take no pictures. I need a break.