indyz

Take a look at Fotki. Their premium gallery comes with unlimited storage, selling photos with custom pricing, and custom themeing of your galleries. I think it's $50/year for a premium membership. There is a free two-week trial (don't even have to give them your credit card number to sign up), so it's probably worth checking out. Fotki's very extensive help pages are here. You need to be a little bit more of a geek to get things set up than with Shutterfly, but somehow I think you can handle it

My first car was a late-90s Dodge Stratus. I was driving home from the DZ three years ago and some drunk pedestrian decided to take a shortcut across the limited-access highway that I was on. Totalled my car, he was in a coma for a while. Tried to sue me, didn't go anywhere.

1st - 1996 Dodge Stratus - Totalled (I hit a pedestrian at 50mph. Not my fault) 2nd - 1998 Chevy Cavalier - Hated it. Underpowered, too small for me. 3rd - 2001 Ford Focus - Not my dream car, but it's good enough.

The occasional twister, and a minor possibility of earthquake if the New Madrid fault really lets on go. Plenty of people around here live in floodplains, but I'm on a hill so, unless things get biblical, no worries.

I can see my house!

I cut my expenses to the bare minimum. Eliminating fast food from my diet is saving me close to $30 a week, and I'm loosing weight. I have a job close to home, so I'm only burning a quarter-tank of gas a week to get there and back (I'd ride my bike if I could just to save another $6 a week). I'm working on Saturdays because it pays overtime and I can still jump Friday or Sunday. I'm taking little side jobs that I used to turn down even though they suck. Most of us spend money on a lot of little things that we don't really need. They might not seem like they cost much individually, but add it all up and it's a significant chunk of change. Find what you can cut, and cut it.

I have something almost done floating around my projects directory somewhere. And for the sake of buzzword completeness, I also have some Greasemonkey scripts for DZ.com.

Do you want fixed or zoom? Do you need low-light performance? Sigma makes an 18-50mm f/3.5-5.6 with an EF-S mount for about $120. I've heard thjat it outperforms the similar Canon kit lens (although that isn't saying a whole lot), and it's cheaper too. It also has a real focus ring, something that the Canon kit lens is inexplicably missing.

0:0:0 Rode in the Chicago Critical Mass on Friday. Good fun, except for at the end when it got stupid.

I've been using it for a while now. Works pretty well for me. I only have a couple of complaints. 1. It doesn't have "expert" levels and curves controls. You have to rely on simplified controls that aren't as powerful. 2. I love the gift CD feature, but I can't figure out how to export only part of an album as a gift CD.

You can drop $700 on a Matrox RT.X100. That should fix ya right up.

Great video. Are we going to see you at SDC this weekend for meet 4?

Inspect the card slot and the card itself to make sure that no pins are bent or broken. If everything looks good, try the card in a different reader or camera. Try a different card in your camera. If there is no physical problem (damaged pins) and the card works in a computer or a different camera, then your camera might be borked. If a different card works in the camera, or your card doesn't work in another camera, then the card is probably shot.

Two and a half hours. Not even enough enough cash for the gas and entry fee.

I was just trying to give an example that illustrated that capturing from a DV camera is real-time operation. I was not trying to imply that most video people shoot 15 minutes of tape per tandem (although I'm sure some do). I'm a newbie at tandem video and I tend to shoot more video than most of the other people on the DZ, but you're right, it's still not near 15 minutes.

First and foremost, an experienced editor on a linear system (what your DZ is using) will always get the customer their video faster than an experienced editor on a non-linear system (what you want to do). But that doesn't mean that it isn't a workable solution. You will need to design and practice your workflow until you have it nailed, then decide if the improved quality is worth the trade in time. It might be, it might not be. Capturing the video from your camera is a realtime operation. If you record 15 minutes of video, it will take 15 minutes to get it into the computer. After that, you will need at least 10-15 minutes to edit. After all that you run into the real time killer: rendering the final product, authoring, and burning the DVD. The exact process depends on what software and hardware you are using. Premiere Elements, for example, can do the whole bit from start to finish within the program. After the edit is finished you just mark the chapters, click Burn, and walk away. Pentium Ms are not the fastest processors on the planet. On my 1.5Ghz Pentium M laptop, rendering and burning a tandem-length video is significantly slower than realtime (so a 20 minute video will take much more than 20 minutes to render and burn).

Did anybody else notice that if you put something that looks like an N-number into Google, it gives you a link staight to the FAA database? Try it with 77 Yankee or N10EA.

holy shit, I'm on my back

Having jumped three of the four at roughly smilar wingloadings, my preference in order would be Sabre2, Pilot, Nitro. I have the least jumps on the Nitro (3) and the most (15-20) on the Sabre2, with about 6 on the Pilot. My windloading was probably quite a bit higher than what you are planning on (1.4-1.5). They are all fine canopies. They all open well, fly well, and land well. I felt that the Nitro opened the best (softest and on-heading) but with only 2 terminal jumps on the canopy, it could be a fluke. The Pilot seems to snivel much less than the other two, but doesn't open hard. I've had heading issues on the Sabre2, but nothing major and it opened plenty softly. I would be happy to jump any of these canopies full-time. If money were no object I'd buy a Sabre2. If I was on a budget, the Pilot would be the easy choice. The Nitron is fine but nothing exceptional (although I'm sure others will disagree with me).

Rig tied down or not, the canopy will slide around unless you are really careful. I can pack easily on carpet, but the hardwood floor in my living room drove me nuts until I bought a cheap rug with a non-slip backing to put the canopy on.

40:0:0 40 miles on the bicycle. I haven't ridden that far in years, and now I have a whole list of things I want to buy. Better saddle, handlebar bag, second water bottle holder, gloves, proper biking clothes, better cyclometer, clipless pedals/shoes. Really, I might as well buy whole new bike. Anyway, it's a great fun, free workout while I don't have enough money to jump. I think I'll do another 20 before work tommorrow.

Which airport?

I lived in the dorms and I hated it. I just can't live in that close proximity with somebody (or in my case, two somebodies). I really need my own bedroom, or anywhere I can shut the door and be alone for an hour or two a day, and so that at night Alex "The Human Chainsaw" and Carlos "He's Got To Be Hurting Himself" won't bother me with their snoring.

Usually not, but several times a year it comes out in spectacular fashion.

Agreed. The vertical stab shape is totally different, and it has a radial engine.