Kids Galore

June 27, 2007 at 6:51 am · Filed under Just Stuff

Last Saturday we had a big 4th birthday bash for Grady. It had a little bit of everything: two cakes, scavenger hunt, tons of presents, a bbq, beer and face painting. Mercy did an incredible job of taking care of everything. About the only thing I did was do a couple of runs to the store, bbq the food, and of course the traditional “put in some baseboards while you rearrange the furniture” that happens at all 4 year old birthday parties.

From 11am to 2pm we had something like 20 kids over for games and cake. Most of them were from Grady’s preschool. Grady wanted to invite most (all?) of his classmates, and at this age we thought it would be somewhat cruel to start excluding kids so we invited everyone. Downstairs Mercy set up space for crafts, face painting, and a scavenger hunt. Along with the cake and presents and the kids were pretty busy for the full 3 hours.

Then around 4 – 5pm people started trickling in for a bbq. We served some veggies and salads and I barbequed salmon on cedar planks. Mercy’s parents also brought over 10kg of oysters which I put on the barbeque. I think we about 15 adults over for dinner. I ended up passing out with the kids around 10 or 10:30. Mercy stayed up a bit later with the last of the guests.

Whereas Mercy did most of the work leading up to the party, I spent almost a full day cleaning. Saturday evening I cleaned for about 2 hours. Then starting Sunday morning around 8am I started cleaning again and finished around 5pm. A lot of work was needed in re-organizing the toys because Grady had received so many new ones, it was crazy.

Click on the pictures below to see the whole album from the bday party!

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Keeping the Nikon S500

June 10, 2007 at 12:53 pm · Filed under Photos

I guess we decided to keep the Nikon Coolpix S500. It is easier to carry around and the picture quality is quite good. Here are a couple of photos to demonstrate the size:

I was sort of confused about what Nikon calls the “BSS”, but I got it sorted out. If you press the “anti-shake” button the camera does four things. First, it makes sure VR is enabled. Secondly, it makes sure ISO sensitivity is enabled (which I try to keep turned off because any ISO above 400 is crap). Thirdly, it enables BSS. What BSS does is that when you press the shutter the camera automatically takes a bunch of photos at once. It then calculates what the sharpest picture is. The fourth thing the camera does in “anti-shake” mode is turn off the flash. The result of this is that “anti-shake” is suitable for outdoors, long focal length shots in lower light. For low light shots indoors you’re typically better off using the flash.

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Digital camera comparison and Nikon S500 review

June 7, 2007 at 8:19 pm · Filed under Photos

Here are a few photos and review that compare a Nikon D50 dslr with a Nikon Coolpix S500 compact digital with a Canon SD100 compact digital. Hover your mouse over each thumbnail to see which photo it is. Click on the thumbnails to see full sized pictures, you may need to be a bit patient the first time you try to view the photo.

My overall impression of the Nikon S500 is fairly positive. In the camera shops I was comparing it to the likes of the Casio EX-V7, the Canon SD800is, Canon SD1000, Pentax A30, Sony W55, etc. The selling points for me was the size of the S500, the cost, and the fact that it has mechanical image stabilization.

A lot of cameras are claiming image stabilization these days, but in fact all they are doing is pumping up the ISO setting of the camera. This results in horrible photos in my opinion. A photo taken with an ISO of 800 or higher is going to be graining as hell, and no one will care if it is blurred or not. The Casio, Canon SD800is, Pentax and Canon SD800is all have true image stabilization. However, the Canon was significantly more expensive. The Pentax was priced similarly but I am under the impression that the optics in the Nikon may be better. The Pentax feels a bit more comfortable in the hand though. I also really liked the Canon SD1000, even though it didn’t have image stabilization. The SD1000 was about the same size as the S500. Size was definitely a high priority for me. This is where the Casio fell down as well, I just wasn’t happy with its size despite that it is a small camera. The Casio comes with a 7X zoom though, so if you like shooting at higher telephoto ranges then definitely take a look at the Casio.

The D50 produced the most accurate colors than the S500, but in this photo the S500 is sharper! I’m not sure why, I think I was fooled by the red-eye reduction on the D50 (I usually don’t use red-eye flash) and I probably moved the camera while the shutter went. Below is another picture of Emma with the D50, and this one looks a lot sharper.

Here a few more photos using the S500. The one with dials was shot at 1/7s using the image stabilization! Very sharp for such a low shutter speed… This is a large file (so you can see how sharp it is), so please be patient with it loading.

I’m not sure if we’ll keep the camera. Although the sharpness and increased resolution from the SD100 to the S500 is appreciated (7MP vs. 2.1MP), I’m not sure if it’s worth the $390 price tag. The S500 isn’t that much smaller than the SD100, so that isn’t much of an incentive. However, I recall that when we made a bunch of prints of the kids recently, I was quite disappointed with the photo quality of the SD100. I’ve always been critical of the quality because of the low resolution. It’s this improvement that may make the S500 worth every penny.

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Beer Review #3

June 3, 2007 at 2:38 pm · Filed under Just Stuff

Now seems to be the perfect time to do another beer roundup because I’m happily enjoying a cool one as I type this. Some of these beers I drank almost 2 months ago, so i’ll see how well I can remember them.

Okay, so on the far left we have Red Stripe out of Jamaica. This is a light and refreshing beer not unlike the typical labatts/moslon product. As you may have read from my beer reviews I tend to compare beers to the labatts/molson flavour. I use it as my benchmark for comparison. A beer is either worse, similar or better than the L&M. If you’re looking to try a new beer you want to pick beers that are better than L&M, since L&M is usually only “good” when drunk ice cold on a hot day (in which case the L&M are actually really quite good imo). Anyways, Red Stripe is a bit better than L&M.
Next there La Binchoise Brune from Belgium. I’ve had this beer a few times and I don’t really like it. I can’t remember why, but I won’t buy it again. I think I find it too malty for my taste.
As it happens I am right now drinking Schneider Weisse Original from Germany. I love this beer, it is everything a wheat beer should be. Okay, maybe it’s a bit sweet but who cares. It tastes good, it has a bit of snap to it, good aroma, head, colour and good aftertaste. We have a winna.
Chimay Blue from Belgium was a bit different from most of the beers I’ve tried because it is a strong brew. In fact, its alcohol content is 9%. Obviously one would drink this beer for different reasons than a lager. Overall the taste was quite nice, and I’d recommend it if you were looking for a strong beer – it certainly does a good job. I wouldn’t get it again because I don’t really like strong beers.
Duckstein from Germany was pretty good. I don’t remember much about it, so i’m going to have to guess a bit here. It was a slighter darker beer that was still able to refresh. Give it a shot eh.
Chimay Red is a pilsner malt beer that handles itself quite nicely. It is also a bit stronger, but at 7% it is not as strong as it’s blue brother. I preferred the red to the blue and would buy it again if I wanted a malt beer.
St-Ambroise is a pale ale from Quebec. Ales aren’t my favorite and the St-Ambroise didn’t do anything to change my thinking. If you like Ales you should try this I guess, but it’s nothing special. I prefer the L&M.
Steinlager, despite its Germanic name, is from New Zealand. You’d think that NZ would export a pretty good beer, but that’s not the case with Steinlager. I’d rate it as similar to Bud. ie a watered-down L&M.
Finally, to wrap up today’s ratings there is the Tree Rebel from BC. They seem to be marketing it as a Canadian version of Becks or Heineken. It’s kind of like L&M but with a bit more hop taste. I haven’t decided if it’s an improvement or not. I think that if you prefer Becks, Heineken or Stella to L&M then you should buy the imports. If you prefer an L&M you might as well buy a Kokanee or NatureLand Organic.

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Beer Review #2

June 3, 2007 at 2:07 pm · Filed under Just Stuff

I screwed this review up because it’s been several months since I drank the beers. I’ll give it a shot though.

First up is Okocim, a Polish beer. Basically I thought it tasted a lot like a Labatts/Molson product, and maybe it was a bit worse. Entirely forgettable.
Paulaner Salvator from Germany was next up. To be honest, I don’t really remember much about it. I know that I wasn’t crazy about it, but it wasn’t too bad. You could give it a shot but there’s other beers that you’re likely to want to try first.
Naturaland Organic Lager is a local beer (ie made in BC) from Pacific Brewing. In many ways it is your typical Canadian lager. However, it has two things going for it. First, it’s supposedly organic which isn’t a bad thing. Secondly, it has a hint of the euro/becks type flavor which maybe sets it a bit above the likes of the typical kokanee/canadian beers. I recommend it with that in mind.
Finally there was Wittekerke, a Belgium wheat beer. It was okay and a typical wheat beer. I liked it and would drink it again. There’s probably better beers like this out there though.

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Playing with my dob

June 2, 2007 at 12:08 am · Filed under Technology

So I carried my telescope down the porch and into the park a little while ago. Despite being in a light polluted city, the fact that we live 15′ from a park means that I can get fairly unobstructed views facing south and east. Anyways, I pointed it towards Jupiter, not expected much. As it turns out I had a really good look at it! This was my first time trying to see Jupiter and didn’t know what I’d see. To my amazement I could see some strips across the planet as well as what were obviously two moons. A little while later I could only see one moon (Ganymede) and thought the other one was behind the planet. I noticed a black dot on the planet too. Now that I’ve returned back inside the house and looking at cartes du ciel, I now realize that the other moon was Io, and that it moved in front of Jupiter and created the black spot. I think I also saw Europa, although I didn’t pay much attention to it. I used my 25mm elite plossl and 9mm star splitter, the SS (135x) worked really well. There was a “cross” of diffracted light on Jupiter, I think that was caused by the atmosphere / haze / seeing / whatever.

All in all, it was very cool

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