War Photography

We just watched a stunning documentary about the war photographer James Nachtwey. His work is incredibly moving - check it out!

Health Plans

I know my way around a 401(k). ROTH IRAs are a piece of cake to me. Thanks to several good books, NPR, and Vanguard, investing is not something even remotely threatening to me. But health insurance is something I know absolutely nothing about. It's made unnecessarily complicated for a variety of reasons. And when it's needed most for catastrophic problems, us middle class are screwed.

Tomorrow I have a simple eye exam. It probably won't take more than 30 minutes. But I spent at least that much time trying to figure out what exactly my vision plan covers and if my selected doctor is in the network. It turns out my coverage offers a whopping $5 for eye exams. The benefits for prescription lenses and frames are a little more generous. Luckily it turns out I was able to use Bonnie's plan (a rarity now that most working spouses must use their own coverage exclusively). So I'm pretty sure, thanks to VSP, my exam should be covered.

But 4 phone calls and 30 minutes of my time for a silly eye exam is ridiculous. Thankfully we're in good health as I sympathize with those who have more complex medical questions.

Supposedly, this country has the best health care available in the world. But it's only available if you have the cash and or time to battle the system. Hopefully Hillary's plan will point us in the right direction.

Smash and Grab

Bonnie woke me about 5am the day after Halloween to inform me that her car window had been smashed and her iPod was gone. Yes, we were burgled! We called the police and Progressive to make a claim. Of course, rain started to fall so we had to quickly swap cars around in the garage. Progressive was actually quite useless at that hour. Bonnie was told someone would call her back around 10 am. The police officer on the other hand, was as helpful as he could be. Most cops have a lousy reputation for a reason, but this guy was quite pleasant. Bonnie and I joked about making him dust the car for prints. But he actually offered to do so. Although we agreed that the benefits would not be worth inking up the interior.

Her iPod was the one recent purchase that I hadn't archived a copy of the receipt. So we feared that finding the serial number would be futile. But I discovered there is a way to extract the last iPod synced to iTunes. With the serial number in hand, I gave the police another call to add it to the report. We were advised that if the careless vandal decided to pawn off the device, it might be flagged. We'll see.

No claim was made since the cost to replace the window was under the deductible. Bonnie picked up a new iPod last night. We tried to have the window replaced today, but it wasn't quite the right size. Luckily, the technician was able to rig the window shut. So it's all sealed up now. We'll have to wait until Monday for a window of the right size.

in talking to the neighbors, Bonnie discovered that we weren't the only victims. At least 2 other cars in the vicinity were also hit. Apparently, this kind of activity is all too common, regardless of the neighborhood. Gated communities appear just as likely to be hit, according to her coworkers. Gotta love Florida...

Sure, it could've been a lot worse. But I'm starting to understand the reasoning behind a concealed carry permit...

Next year, we're boycotting Halloween.

Aperture's Share of the Market

Come on Apple... You can do better than this. Where's Aperture version 2.0?

Leopard Impressions

Leopard is up and running on both my Mac Pro and trusty old PowerBook G4. Installation went very smoothly on both machines. Remember when you'd have to budget an entire weekend for a Windows upgrade? Oh, maybe you still do with Windows? Just be on the safe side, I did make a fresh bootable backup with SuperDuper prior to pulling the trigger.

With Leopard running since Saturday, there's still much to learn, but here are my initial observations:

The MacPro is noticeably faster, particularly while running Photoshop and Aperture. I guess all the Multicore technology is really starting to mature. And the laptop certainly isn't suffering from a slowdown. Typically, an OS upgrade just doesn't run as swiftly on an older machine. Sure the eye candy features aren't as punchy, but all in all, the PowerBook is running just fine. No slower than before.

Mail and iChat are much improved! To Do and Notes are built in to Mail. And it even recognizes appointments and phone numbers within a message - very intelligent.

I was interested to give Time Machine a try, but it appears Apple has got some work to do yet with Aperture's compatibility with the new feature. So I'm going to hold off for now.

Spaces has taken me all weekend to get the feel of, but now it's starting to click. Perhaps the best way to think of it is as separate configurable desktops. Select the applications you want viewable in each space and go back to work. So I might have Aperture in it's own space with Mail and Safari in another space. With Aperture in it's own space, I can focus solely on the images without distracting windows in the background. If I need to flip back to Safari or send a message, then I slide back to the other space with a key stroke. I think I'll really find this feature handy. One odd thing I've noticed is that I can't seem to shut it off - maybe a bug...

Screen Sharing is one of the more radical changes in the OS. I can connect to the MacPro via the PowerBook with complete control over the entire system. It's almost spooky. If I need an image out of Aperture while sitting on the couch, I just call it up, export the image, and then pull it back to the laptop. All without getting up. Apparently this also works over the Internet with a dot mac subscription.

In my opinion, the upgrade is more than worth the price. I'll save you the full review and just point to two solid reviews.

David Pogue of the NY TImes

Andy Ihnatko of MacWorld

A Weekend of Rest

This busy October has finally started to settle down for me. I returned from Idaho on Friday. I spent the week out west traveling for work. Boise, Twin Falls, and Sun Valley were among the stops. Unfortunately there was little time for any sightseeing. My point and shoot only found its way from the case a few times. We traveled hard and ate well. Now I get to look forward to catching up on Monday.


Prior to the Idaho visit, I was down in Port St. Lucie, Florida for a photography workshop. We spent a great four days shooting and having loads of fun. I figured southern Florida couldn't be much more humid than north Florida - so much for that theory. The humidity was intense and the rain fierce. But fortunately, the weather didn't impact our schedule. This was the fourth workshop Chris put on the United States. It was also one of the smaller gatherings. But that kept the schedule flexible and the level of personal attention high. I was one of the more experienced shutterbugs in the group. A few the attendees were just discovering the world of DLSR photography.

Having gone through some of the workshop photos, I've finally had a chance just to relax.

Oh, and I had to pick up a copy of Apple's latest OS X upgrade... More on that later.

Another Busy Weekend

The busy month continues... The in-laws were in town this weekend and Bonnie wasn't feeling well. She was actually considering not going in to work - so she must not be in good shape. We passed the time with a sampling of Wii Sports and Wii Play. While we don't play the Wii that often, it's always so easy to just pick up and play with some rookies. Nintendo is on their game!

It's another short week for me. On Thursday morning I'm heading down to Port St. Lucie for a photography workshop. I'm really looking forward to a great experience! I'll return from the workshop with barely 24 hours to turn around and head out to Idaho for work. After that trip I should finally have a weekend to myself.