Reggie Thomson's Diary

I’ve received another quote for repairing the screen on the camera – £146. I wonder what’s so complicated with the screen connection?

Although I now have some paper, I haven’t done any more printing of the photos. I didn’t really do much during the day.

I was on hosting duty at the Barn. It seemed to go better than the previous time. I chatted with a Japanese lady from near Nagoya, who was quite surprised that I could guess she lived in Toyohashi. This time, the musician turned up, so we had some great, live background music. After the announcements, I assisted with taking the tea down to the bible study groups. Later, I chatted with some Korean ladies.

I worked on the photos for the book, for a while. In the afternoon, I telephoned Canon. Apparently, there is an extortionate fixed price for the repair of my camera of £180. There seem to be no options. I will wait until I receive the letter, but I think I will ask them to send the camera back. Maybe I can fix the loose connection myself, or take it to a local camera dealer.

I was depressed afterwards. I’m thinking about letting out my small room, and living under the stairs – or in the living room. Adrian spends most of his time in his room, as does Tim, though he is only here three nights a week, and is currently away for three weeks. Perhaps I’ll advertise tomorrow.

Just think – this time one year ago, I was desparately trying to make a CD of the Canada photos.

I finally got round to making a CD of the photos of the golden wedding. I also printed out a set of thumbnails. However, Word refused to print all the photos on the first pass. I had to put each sheet in three times to get it properly printed.

I’ve purchased some more A3 paper and some A4 matte. In the post office, I started to bundle up the envelopes on the floor, not realising there was a small shelf for that purpose. So, I sent off seven letters.

I’ve decided on my choice of photos for this year’s calendar, if I can find some money to print and send them. May was difficult – I was in Korea then.

Another day, spent mostly on the internet. I’ve been hunting round the web, but not looking for anything in particular. I browsed through some photography websites. The cable connection helps. I guess sites such as www.fredmiranda.com are meant for broadband connections. The photos are at much higher quality than on my website. I’ve even put one of my own on – in the section on candids. I wonder if I’ll get any response?

I didn’t go to the Cambridge Camera Club meeting. £29 is rather a lot for someone with very little income.

The extra hour didn’t benefit me much. It was a blustery day, so I didn’t venture beyond the kitchen. Adrian had spent the night in London, and had to take a bus back today as the train services are disrupted. I didn’t do much. I’ve started looking through some of the photos again.

It was another beautiful morning for cycling into town. I did some window shopping, browsing through the bookshelves. I guess I was supposed to be looking for book style ideas. Actually, I was just looking at the pictures.

The Times reports that if you lose one hour of sleep, it can take your IQ down by one the following day. Maybe I should talk to Adrian about opening and closing the door quietly instead of with a loud clunk, as he did at 6.45 this morning.

I couldn’t settle to do any work today. Instead, I spend most of the day surfing the web, learning about Canon’s latest camera with 11 megapixels. Also, it seems I should shoot in RAW mode and convert to JPEG as the results are much better. Still, I usually choose between 30-50 photos to convert out of 400 taken on a photography day. Just changing the JPEGs into the right size for the CD and internet takes ages. There are lots of photography websites that are far better than my complicated affair.

Canon repairs hasn’t telephoned. It may be a Japanese company, but the English repairs section will be staffed by English people, whose attitudes to time are not so pressing as they are in Japan. I wonder how many weeks it will be before I get my camera back?

My website traffic seems to be shooting up. www.reggie.net gets about 42 visits (772 hits) per day, while www.reggie.thinkhost.com, which is where the search engines currently point to, still gets 116 visits (14712 hits) per day. It means that I am using about half of my bandwidth (1.5Gbytes/month out of 3Gbytes limit). It also indicates that every five minutes someone walks into my web. I’ll have to figure some way of catching them – or at least some of their money!

I looked at a great photography website yesterday www.fredmiranda.com.

I did some more printing this morning, but the results were mixed. I seem to get streaks of black on many of the photos. It costs a pound a sheet for the paper, and I can print only 13 A3 sheets per colour cartridge. Later in the afternoon, though, the printer seemed to be behaving itself. Maybe it was having an off morning.

I’ve decided to put the family photos onto the Canada CD. I’ll just have to figure out how to number Hamish’s and Rona’s photos.

Office World has got in another batch of A3 plastic sleeves, and 40×50 clip mounts. I was tempted, but I prefer the cheaper (£1.09) sleeves, into which I can fit two pictures and swap them round when my mood changes. I’ve currently got the Aomori Nebuta and the Koyasan red ogre flanking the doorway opposite the settee. Adrian needed a mains cable, so I picked one up for him at Computer World.

Andrew called round with my missing disks this evening. He looked through the photos, suggesting I ought to put on some form of exhibition.

I was late for the barn. Still, I chatted with two nice Koreans, who would like to visit Scotland in Spring. I took the large prints, but only showed them to a few people.

The JetTec inkjet cartridges arrived this morning – four colour and two black ones for £31 including V.A.T. I pay more than that for a set of Epson original cartridges. So, I printed out lots of the photos of Japan at A3 size. I popped them in the backs of the sleeves that I use as photo frames. Now I can change the mood of my sitting room just by turning the photos round.

I had several problems when printing – some stripes, and two photos ruined by black ink spillage and colour cut out for a few lines. I looked on the web for known problems with the JetTec cartridges, but there didn’t seem to be any. One suggestion is to pause between sheets – the printer or parts may overheat.

I’ve put the camera in the post to Canon to be repaired. I chose the insurance at £5.15 for up to £250 coverage. It seemed worth the extra two pounds or so.

It’s still just about warm enough to cycle in a shirt without a sweater or coat. After the P.O., I started walking round town in the light rain, but had no real reason to go into any of the shops. The homeless person tried to accost me: “I really AM homeless.” It’s not that I disbelieve him. I really AM unemployed – with no paid income. It’s the presumption that just because I have walked close by, he has some automatic right to my thoughts. What has programmed people to believe this? Reporters expect people to answer their every question. I guess it is part of the “Speak when you’re spoken to” rule, which I do not subscribe to.

I happened to walk past the Guildhall and noticed that there was a Cambridge Camera Club exhibition on. So, I wandered round. There were lots of great photos. Maybe my photos are just ordinary. What right have I to expect that anyone would want to pay for a print? The couple on the door seemed interested in my little namecards, and encouraged me to come along to the meetings.

After the cloud had passed, there was such beautiful light around town, I wish I had my camera. The autumn leaves seem to be at their best.

I received a card from my parents this morning. I still haven’t sent out the CD of the photos.

I sorted out the other photos of Longleat and Bath, labelled them, and put them onto the web. I’m also reducing some of the albums – I’ve put all these under England, with the Cambridge photos in a single ablum. This meant that the original Cambridge album numbers no longer work. I had to sort out the PHP program to correct the bug.

My WinProxy software has been put to use again – blocking my access to the two websites that I have been wasting my time on recently – the 3dblox game and the pac game. I can still access them directly on the IBM, but they run so slowly, that it is painful.

I looked for Equitable Life on the web and found lost of news and comments. Many people are pulling out. I am tempted to do so myself, only it would be hard on those people who have invested for many years in the hope of a pension, if the company went into liquidation. If I leave, it is for the benefit of myself – if I stay it is maybe for the benefit of others, provided that the company managers have learnt their lesson about honesty, and never making false or foolish promises to gain business.

Andrew phoned. He was about to drive round with my CDs, but managed to lock them in his car boot – with the keys!

I sometimes sit in my lounge with my computer, or read books there. The latest book is “Return of the Native” by Thomas Hardy. I like looking at the A3 photos on the walls. I have an idea for selling them. I could offer them at £20 for the first ten copies printed, rising by £5 for each 10 copies. Thus, if I ever sold 100, they would be going for £70 each.

I’ve had another idea for arranging the photos in the book. I put all the namecards on the floor in the lounge in four sections – cool (blue/white), mellow (yellow/brown), vivid (green) and bright (red/pink). It might work.