Timelapse Tripod
I’ve been playing with some time lapse and would love to take on some hyperlapse projects so I decided to invest in a tripod with the cash Mom gave me for Xmas —Thanks Mom!
I visited the local purveyors of gear and narrowed it dow to two. One was carbon fiber with a boom and the other had a good head with quick release plate and a monopod option. In the end the light weight of the carbon fiber option won out, so I ordered it and it should be here on Thursday. Check it out:
Work, work work…
I have been cleaning up old drafts of posts that I apparently didn’t publish. Here is one dated September 15, 2012. I added some jobs based on my updated resume. At the bottom, I decided to add a few things from past careers (just in case I ever need to do that book jacket bio).
It occurs to me that I, like many others, have no idea what my job is (was). So I will attempt, here, to enumerate the many things that are, and have been, my work life at Hole’s for the past 15 (Ed. Note: now make that 16+ years in total) years or so.
Enjoy…
Hole’s & the Enjoy Centre
Graphic Designer: logos, word marks, ads, signage, signage systems, product packaging, flyers, tv ads, video graphics
Writer, Editor
Photographer, Videographer
Video editor
Web designer
Production Manager
Artistic Director
Department Manager
Publisher, Book
Publisher, Magazine
Community Relations
Communications Consultant
Business Manager
Brand Manager
PR person
Social Media expert
Marketing Manager
Visual Presentation
Researcher
Ad buyer
Transplanter
Swamper
Delivery person
Events setup
Audio system designer
Audio Technician
AV technician
Speaker repairman
CIO
IT consultant
Technology purchaser
IT support
Database programmer
Web programmer
Forensic IT investigator
IP Telephony support
Help Desk
Data Entry
Archivist
Customer service
Ecommerce manager
Interior designer
HR consultant
Mediator
Otherwhere
Note: I am generally limiting this to specific things people have paid/hired me for as a job description unlike the above list which were all in the context of a single job description. Jobs listed in roughly reverse chronological order.
Communications Consultant
Magazine Designer
Web Developer/Designer
Ebook Producer
Freelance writer
Freelance Graphic Designer
Illustrator (published!)
Book Designer
Book Production assistant
Production Manager
Newspaper Typesetter
Non Profit association board member
Night school teacher
College Instructor
Advertising salesperson
Basement construction
Department store renovations (labourer)
Stagehand
Theatre electrician
Followspot operator
Lighting Designer
Theatre carpenter
Theatre Prop Master
Costume seamster
Stage Manager
Sound Board operator
Waiter
Farm Hand
Wireline Hand (my short oilfield stint)
Straw bale truck loader (technically a swamper but a whole different skill set)
Cowpoke: chasing, branding, vaccinating and counting and counting and counting. (Also includes fence repair, bobcat driving, and truck driving.)
General Labourer in a feed mill
Fast food cook
Retail labourer
Vegetable Plant labourer
Swamper
Paperboy
And of course, the obligatory babysitter.
Can I see some ID please?
I moved on to another element that has characterized my working life these last 20 years; ink. C mentioned colour and printing the other day and I realized the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow & black) standard was a recognizable and suggestive element I could use. For those of you not in-the-know, mixing cyan, magenta and yellow gives you a muddy black, so printers add the 4th ink to sharpen up the blacks. These 4 inks are what all traditional colour printing uses. The black in the stacked bk rope is actually CMY…
Previous versions can be seen here.
Another ID-ea or Two
A few more concepts, this time sticking closer to my long-term habit of using my 3 initials. (Ignore the bad fills in the ropes; I was too lazy to do it right until I commit.)
Previous versions for reference
A Call for Comments
I restarted my Google analytics because the tracking code had gotten lost in my redesigns. So far I have peaked at 13 visitors in a day (and they were probably all me) but I need more data for any more significant figures. Last year I had slightly over 1000 unique visitors with about 55% of them returning at least once.
I need more feedback people, so I am going to post a picture of me and all of you readers are going to comment on it…
Right?
Suggested topics: the haircut; the cars, Dale’s shirt, Dale’s Keds, my mother’s cruelty in giving the leash to my brothers, the look on my face, make up your own! Hell, comment on past posts if you must, but comment. Even if you have no idea who I am…I like mysterious strangers too.
An old picture of us boys in what I suspect was the Steinberg’s parking lot.
ID 2… now it’s personal!
Some further explorations. Thanks for the comments (hint-hint!) The previous versions are here.
Fruit Basket
Fruit Basket
Life in the country
Melon collie faces
Straw buried toys
Ban Anna’s teasing
Breakfast was bread
fruit, juice and scones
Mornings in the barn
Time to come in boy
Ya Papa ya
Crossing the troughs
Of black current depths
Distracted by helping
Man Darren’s chores
Sun sets on a farmer’s day
Greeting the twilight
watching that old man go
Thinking of my piglet
And her sister Honey suckle
And another day
To begin après cot
A draft from Aug 7, 2011. I have no idea why I didn’t publish it, so I added a few lines and voila!
Personal Brand
I added an About page.
As a part of that, I’ve been doing some thinking of personal branding. Visually, I have had a lot of ideas and sketches for ‘macblaze’ over the years but nothing for me personally. I am currently toying with the idea of incorporating unraveling/raveling strands and rope (which those of you who know me I find infinitely fascinating). Nothing that I find overly innovative yet but…
Some quick ideas…
Comments welcome…
Gal-LLery
I have been playing with Gallery (Gallery 3 to be exact) software since I moved to the new host. I am not sure I will leave it installed but it’s interesting to play with. For now you can visit it here macblaze.ca/gallery.
At this point, I have a public album and a private one. If you want to see the private one you have to sign in:
User: test
Password: album
This mean I could set up private albums and control the permissions via viewing. There are also supposed to be shopping basket modules and ecommerce integrations which I will be playing with next. It will also automatically watermark the images for me.
One of the things I am supposed to be able to do is integrate images from the gallery into my WP posts. See the example below:
Smooth Gallery
Doesn’t work at all
[hgallery3 id=”4,6″ render=”smoothgallery”]
Jcarousel
[hgallery3 id=”3″ render=”jcarousel”]
Seems to skip all over the place
Dir Table
I can make this work.
[hgallery3 id=”14,16″ render=”dir_table”]
Single Image
Why?
[hgallery3 id=”14″ render=”single_img”]
Dir
Again, why?
[hgallery3 id=”4,14,16″ render=”dir”]