My weblog has been languishing somewhat since the advent of Twitter and Instagram and the like, and I’ve decided that’s just wrong. To fix this, I’ve updated the theme to make it more Tumblr-bloggy and life-streamy.

Part of my new toolkit includes the handy “Express” iPhone app by the good folks who create Woothemes (which are pretty neat). This is my first (non-test) post using that app and the new theme. Let’s see how this all goes.

Yep, it’s that time again. Got sick to death of looking at my old theme so started digging around for something new and shiny. Found this. It’s a little more…brown than I’d normally go for, but maybe I’ll spruce that up into a nice purple or burnt orange sometime. Going to continue looking for themes because this is what I do and I might get sick of this one in a day. It happens.

[05:50:32] <dria> i’m facing sunrise right in the _face_
[05:50:45] <dria> the question stands: make coffee, or hope to catch an hour of zzs?
[05:51:55] <phik> hah
[05:52:02] <phik> I just had my coworker shut the blinds
[05:52:07] <phik> because every night, the sunset blinds me
[05:52:17] <phik> THAT IS THE SAME SUN!

My friend phil lives on pretty much the opposite side of the planet. I talk to him a lot more (like daily) than I speak to most people who live in the same city. This is one of the reasons I really love the internet.

Update: I made coffee.

I changed my Twitter password a few days ago and for whatever reason that seems to have broken the Twitter plugin I used to have over in the right column here. I’ve removed it for the time being, but you can follow my twitters over here in the meantime.

toothpastefordinner.com

Rob and I just got back from a two week vacation in the south of France where we drank wine, ate cheese, and spent a bunch of time hanging out with Zab and Alice. Being the photo nerds we are, of course, we took a bunch of pictures. You can see Rob’s at his Flickr set, and mine are in my Flickr set.

Part of my vacation was getting away from the computers as much as I could (seriously, I was offline for 14 days, more on that later when I’ve had a chance to reflect), so I took a decidedly minimalist stance regarding what gadgetry I packed. I had to take a camera, of course, but I took a very, very stripped down kit that included only:

• Nikon D80 body
• Nikon 20mm f2.8 prime lens
• Nikon 35mm f2.0 prime lens
• 2 8gb memory cards (of which I used one)
• An extra battery, a lens brush, and a microfiber cloth

This all fit nicely into my de-badged Domke F-5x shoulder bag, which is about 1/3rd the size of my regular camera bag. The kit was a little limiting, but the limitations were challenging in a fun way. (More than once I did find myself very much wishing I had 85mm and 135mm lenses with me, a few instances where a tripod would have been good, and I really should have included a polarizer filter.) I ended up taking around 650 pictures over the course of two weeks, of which I’ve posted around 190. I’ll write more about the trip later on sometime, but it should be said that a good time was had by all, although I may be ruined for cheap wines and not-French butter now.

From John and Ben and Rob…:

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.