…::: NJ Brideau :::…

Back but sans technology

We have been doing a bit of traveling lately, including a whirlwind trip back to the US.  I have plenty of material to catch up posting on, but it might be a few weeks before I get to it.  The reasons for the delay are that we are busy working and traveling again next weekend, but also, I don’t have a computer.  While home in the US, I sent my computer back to be repaired via warranty, and have no idea how long it will take to get back to me.  I do the majority of my posts in the evening on my little laptop, so not having one probably makes those go away.

According to comedian Adam Carolla,  the internet is like chapstick, lotion and sunglasses – you don’t really need them until you get used to them and are then forced to go without them.  It probably isn’t a stretch to say that this statement is true for me, and I would even say that my computer could be substituted for the internet.  Even if I don’t have an internet connection, I can find ways to kill time on my computer.

I just got a computer at work that has been collecting dust but will now be my “work only” computer, and I’ll see how long I can go without one at home.  I like to think of it as a chance to get in touch with other non-computer parts of my life, so hopefully I’ll be back with an enlightened outlook on life.  Perhaps I’ll have read a book, spent quality time with my wife and cat, started my new workout plan, or cooked some fantastic recipes.  Or maybe I’ll just use my work computer.  Or the Wordpress App for my Android phone.  Either way, I’ll be sure to report.

Through The Wire

The title of this post is actually the first Kanye West song I heard in college, back when his jaw was wired shut following a car accident, check it out if you aren’t familiar with it.  However, the real wire this post is about is something entirely different: the HBO TV series “The Wire”.

Originally running from 2002-2008, I had only heard of the show because it followed my previous favorite TV series (The Sopranos), and I had a few friends that raved about it.  Fast forward to 2010, Chelsea and I were looking for a new series to get in to, so I convinced her to try it out.  We started watching occasionally back in May, and finished the very last episode this weekend.  I think I can speak for the two of us when I say that it is definitely an amazing series, and one we would recommend watching.

The show is set in Baltimore, Maryland and follows the Baltimore police department around through various investigations and wire-taps.  But it is so much more than that.  It isn’t your typical cop drama with a series of self-contained episodes and a general theme.  Each season in centered on, and tackles, a particular theme ranging from drugs to shipping to schools to politics to media.  Pictured above are two of the main characters, and two of our favorites.  And for a fun fact, at least two of the major characters in the series are British, (one of them above) but you might not be able to tell because their accents are so good.

Many critics agree that the writing on the show is outstanding, not only for its character development and storytelling, but also because of the realism it portrays and the issues it addresses.  They even managed to make shotgun-toting gangster Omar pictured above, and the drug kingpin Prop Joe below, likable guys.

I have two basic criteria for what makes for a good TV series.  The first is that when watching, I lose track of time.  Each episode actually goes by so quickly, that when I get around to looking up on the display of the DVD player, there are only 5 minutes left.  This is a testament to the writing really drawing me in.  I only remember this happening with two other series: The X-files, which I made Chelsea watch with me, and The Sopranos, which I’ll make her watch in the future.  Actually, the moment with the X-files always happened during the last commercial break, right as each episode really heated up.

The second basic criterion is that you get so involved with each of the characters, that you feel like you know them.  Another example of excellent writing.  This happened with The Sopranos in college to the point where one of my roomates started smoking cigarettes like Silvio, and we started calling him Bohmassio instead of Bohm.  Well it has happened again with “The Wire”.  Knowing that we only had one episode left, we were still curious how they would handle the rest of the storylines.  I’m happy how everything tied together in the end, but a little sad because Jimmy McNulty and crew won’t be around anymore.

The good news is that we have plenty of other series to fill the void.  Next on our list are: Dexter, Mad Med, and Breaking Bad in no particular order, along with some “girly” series to lighten the mood a little.  If you have any other suggestions, please leave them in the comments.

Photoshop magic

Adobe’s Photoshop program is one powerful piece of software, and has been for the past 10+ years.  Although I use the software, I barely scratch the surface for knowing how to use it correctly.  I’m sure there are way more features than I use or even know about.  Fast forward to their newest release, Photoshop CS5.  Included with the new 3-dimensional warping and brush tools, is a feature called “content-aware fill”.  Basically, the software will allow you to delete an object, and it will automatically fill it in based on the rest of the image around it.  Or in other words, magic.

Before the software was officially released, this new content-aware feature was very much hyped and parodied.  Naturally, once I got the program for myself, it was one of the first things I tried out.  Let me tell you, it is magic.

For example, check out this picture below.  Notice anything funny about it?  This is the beach in Barcelona, it looks like the beach in Barcelona.

Now, take a look at the original image.  There is a giant sign in the way.  If you look close enough at the first picture, you might be able to convince yourself that the “filled in” part is darker.  But if I just showed it to you alone, you might not right?

The coolest part is, I deleted that sign with 4 clicks through menus.  I just had to highlight it, and then tell the program to fill that area in using its content-aware engine.  Not bad huh?

That picture worked out well, but it should be easy to make water and blue sky blend with water and blue sky.  So I thought I’d try a more difficult image.  As with the first set of images, here is the aftermath.  Looks like a trail looking down on a city and sea right?

Well this is one of our many pictures of Edinburgh (more coming soon).  We hiked up an inactive volcano for some amazing views of the city.  The only problem was, many people had the same idea, so it was hard to take a picture without a fellow tourist in it.  Not a problem for Photoshop CS5, I just removed the people in the image below.

Now for another example from the same hike.  Here in this picture you can see two people that actually take up much more space than I would have liked when I snapped it.  This might be more difficult to handle, since the software has to handle many aspects in order to “delete” them.

And the results are:

Not bad.  It’s not a perfect way to delete unwanted tourists, but I am pretty satisfied with how well it turned out.

OK, now for the overkill test.  Since I was able to remove a sign, and some random people successfully, I thought I’d try something more extreme.  Again, I’ll Tarantino it, here is the end result first.  See if you can find areas that don’t quite look right.  Its sort of like photo hunt we played as kids at the dentist or in the bar as adults.

And here is the original:

As I hope you can see, I removed three people and two trees.  That is a lot of stuff to edit out of a picture and still have it look semi-normal.  While I don’t doubt that these capabilities were present in the previous versions of Photoshop or other image editing software, I am quite sure this process was never this easy.  Our vacations will  never look the same again.

manual or automatic?

The question above pops into my head whenever I think about driving a car – and I’m never quite sure which to pick.  Every man should be able to drive a manual transmission vehicle.  Its sort of a right of passage, and I think if you polled most guys they would be able to.  Ladies on the other hand, I am indifferent about.  If they can, its a bonus, but I’m not too concerned if not.

Here in England, the majority of cars are manual transmission – or what they call “standard”.  Similar to buying a car, you pay a premium to rent a car that has an automatic transmission.  So being poor, and a man, I opted to rent the cheapest van possible a few weeks back when we moved.

I took this picture right when I got into the van.  I was worried because in addition to driving on the other side of the road, and sitting on the other side of the car, I had to learn to shift with my other hand.  Determined to prove to Chelsea I am all that is man, I took it for a test run in the parking lot across the street from the rental place before picking her up from work.  I found it surprisingly easy to drive.  I suppose it helps that the pedals and the gear positions on the shifter are in the same orientation as back home in the US.  And having the wheel on the other side of the car actually made it EASIER to drive on the other side of the road.  I just had to remember that as a driver I am always in the middle of the road, and I only punched the door with my right hand once or twice.

Which brings me back to my original point.  Manual or automatic?  After driving this van, I’m now pushing that our next car be a manual transmission.  Why?  It just feels more like driving when you have to change gears by hand.  I could go into the benefits behind it too, but because we will be moving somewhere warm, I’m not so worried about slowing down a car in the snow/ice by downshifting rather than braking.  Of course I could go with another alternative:

The semi-automatic transmission.  This is a manual transmission of sorts, but is built on torque rather than a clutch.  This means that you can drive it like a manual, and shift on your own, but don’t have to deal with any extra pedals and getting the balance between the clutch and the accelerator correct.  All you have to do when the car is ready to shift, is bump the shifter up toward the “+”.  And these types of transmissions even have a built in failsafe, that will shift for you if you redline too long, or forget to shift.

There also happens to be a more expensive version of the semi-automatic transmission above:

Paddle shifters.  I’ll call your attention to the two little buttons positioned for your thumbs to press on the steering wheel above.  I have never used paddle shifters, but what I can gather from Top Gear, they are the hot new accessory to any high end sports car.  Essentially the manufacturer wants the everyday driver to feel more like a racecar driver, and put shift buttons on the steering wheel, allowing the driver to have video game like control.  (Bonus points if you can guess the emblem on the wheel above).

And now we have our last category, the automatic transmission.  I have only owned an automatic transmission car.  My family only drives automatics.  Why?  Convenience.  I’m guessing Mom and Dad got sick of shifting all the time, and wanted to go with a much more simple way to drive.  I can’t blame them.  Unless of course they decide to buy a car with a gear shift that looks like this:

I think this is what many Toyota’s are set up like, and boy do I dislike this design.  I’m sure it is designed so that you can’t accidentally knock the car from one gear to the next by hitting it with something, but I find it annoying to get the car in gear and make it go.  So annoying that I meant to post on it last time I rented a Toyota, but got sidetracked with moving to another country and lost most of my vitriol.

Well thanks if you have made it this far.  And if you have, why not drop a line in the comments regarding your thoughts or preferences for manual or automatic transmissions.

Dublin, Ireland

Well I’m about a month or so behind on posting, but I figured I should put up at least one post about our trip to Dublin, before sharing our most recent adventures.

Our trip to the capital city of Ireland started as a birthday surprise to Chelsea.  Because of all the stress and trouble here in Oxford, I wanted to get Chels out of town for a few days to clear our minds and hopefully help her enjoy a birthday weekend.  She knew we were going out of town, but didn’t know the destination.  I tried my best to convince her that we were going to France, until one evening after a few pints, one of our friends asked her: “You are going to Dooooblin?” (try to say that with a French accent).  Well, she figured it out a few seconds later, but that didn’t stop us from having a good time.

I created an online gallery through Google, that is complete with photo captions.  Click here to check it out.

Otherwise, here are a few other pictures that should summarize our trip.

And a trip to new city wouldn’t be complete without a panorama from a high vantage point.  Here are two, taken from the bar on top of the Guinness brewery (click to enlarge).