:: In a Small Dark Room ::

:: Sunday, August 31, 2003 ::

Last Weekend (August 23/24) there was a Big Blow on over a lot of New South Wales & even down to Victoria. Some people's power was cut off for several days (I think by now it's mostly restored). Not that long after a major blackout in the USA & part of Canada next door, and also a power outage in London during an afternoon peak hour that caused a lot of disruption.
Some parts of Sydney Harbour saw a fair bit of destruction of moored boats. I deliberately caught a ferry from a different wharf to get to work so it would go past a few marinas that my usual ferry trip doesn't. Wanted to take photos if there were any spectacular images. Luckily (?) that section survived pretty well - a deeply sheltered inlet.
On the way, though, I did take a few general scenic shots and passed 5,000 images.

Also, while tidying, sorting, cleaning out the house of my late partner, I found a camera with film in it. Got it developed & printed. Includes pictures of some of our trips together. Will put a couple of the images up on Chris' Memorial Site when I can. It was his birthday a couple of weeks back.

:: Mez 04:09 [+] ::
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As the old Chinese curse was said to wish, we're in interesting times. This tiny patch has undergone a few upheavals itself. Not as spectacular as the recent multi-city, two-country blackout in north-eastern North America.
The nice blogger support staff re-loaded (very Matrixspeak) an old copy of my Hello Cruel World template (good), but they loaded it into this blog instead (ungood in newspeak). Did create an interesting effect, since this "dark room" became quite light really.

Had to save the HCW template from here to my machine & then try to re-load the darkroom template from an original saved copy. First few times it didn't work, but now looks OK, except that it's the old darkroom template. The only major changes in the new one was experimentation with different colours, so no huge loss of time, effort, functions & beauty.

Old HCW template is, however, missing a lot of the extra features & stuff I'd added in. Am not sure whether to spend time bringing it back up, or whether to just work on the new template (which would no longer then be temporary new one). Hello Cruel World is still presently in the new style. They both have good parts, am hoping to preserve as much as possible of them.

:: Mez 16:28 [+] ::
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Sigh. If 'tain't one thing, it's another.
Now have lost/deleted Hello Cruel World template after spending mucho time modifying it to my liking.
Naturally, I had a backup saved of the original unmodified version, but don't think there's one of the new improved one :(

I've substituted one of the NewBlogger templates temporarily, as without one at all, you can't publish any new posts.
So, if you're looking at Hello Cruel World , just admire the content ("personality"), rather than trying to be swept away by the colour & movement & general gorgeousness of the thing :)

:: Mez 03:20 [+] ::
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Yay! Archiving now works! After trying many different things, was only able to get it to find the archive files by putting them in the same folder/directory as the main archive files (use different names to distinguish blogs). A pain. May mean the 'permalinks' (see earlier post) are working, since they can now find the files, so I've re-instituted them.

Number of digital images is now nearly 5,000. Apparently the digital cameras tend to wear out, especially the charge-coupled device (CCD) that captures the image. Unlike analogue film cameras, where ones over a hundred years old can still be working. Hoping this one holds out a fair bit longer, but you _do_ tend to take quite a few more images than when using film.
Trying to use rechargeable batteries, but they're lasting a very short time, and at the moment, I don't seem to e able to charge them back up enough to make the camera work, even at full charge. Am using newer types that aren't supposed to have that 'memory' effect the Nickel-Cadmium ones do, but that doesn't seem to make a difference.

Altho' I'm a little sloppy with other backups, I'm making sure that very soon after downloading from the camera to the computer, I burn the images to a CD. So many people who lost their homes & belongings in the bushfires tried to save their photos. Building up a fair collection now. The size of the archive now does make it tricky to select ones for uploading to web (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it).

:: Mez 01:45 [+] ::
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OK. Yuh.
It's looking for the right file now, but I think it's looking in the wrong place. I told it where to look in the "Settings" section of the "editing your blog". I made sure using the separate FTP program that the directories/folders and files were there in the right place.
So, what is the problem!?! Sigh. There are rather more important things I should be doing - even if it's just knitting up a square for the cold & poor.

:: Mez 01:03 [+] ::
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"That trick never works!"
Well, done some tweaking on Archive part of Main Template. Am hopeful.

Happy Birthday to Christopher
He would have been 50 years old on August 3rd.

There is nothing. There is no God and no universe, there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And I am that thought.
And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination of that same Thought.
     Mark Twain (after his wife's death) - letter to Joseph Twichell

Archive that, mate.

:: Mez 00:56 [+] ::
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Looks like archiving is still problematical. Will have to investigate. Not right now, tho'.

:: Mez 13:27 [+] ::
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There are some quite lovely pictures in these. I have one in the Autumn Gallery and one in The Big Wet, other photo galleries on the www.smh.com.au site.

Winter Wonderland
SMH Readers' photos of winter, not just in Sydney, but around the State of New South Wales
www.smh.com.au/photogallery/2003/07/28/1059244543291.html

Winter's Tale
A gallery of images from The Sydney Morning Herald's award-winning photographers.
smh.com.au/photogallery/2003/07/18/1058035193595.html

:: Mez 13:39 [+] ::
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