Well,

I’ve got to say, one thing I’ve had a slow time with is getting our TV mounted above our fireplace. I guess it’s been a combination of building up the nerve to follow through with, building the confidence to trust my own work, and getting the right tools for the job (ie: a mitre saw.)

Anywho, I’ve included a couple of pics of what I managed to get accomplished so far (as of yesterday). To summarize, I pulled the old framing out (it was garbage for structure) and installed new 2×4 studs that have been tied into the joists above. That ain’t coming down! I then attached 2×6 jack studs to both shift the mounting right a bit (to centre the installation) and to flush up the new framing with the old at the far edges. All in all I’m very happy with the strength of what I have built.

I also installed ABS pipe, 2 inch, to act as conduit for the speaker wires (rear surrounds) as well as the power and HDMI cables for the TV. The cables will pop into the inwall mount from beneath before plugging into the TV.

The holes in the conduit are to help pull the cables. I have now learned (through trial and error) that placing a T-intersection (even a downstream bending one) causes problems for pulling wire. I won’t be repeating that mistake again. Learning experience this was. I will close it all in, but should one need to pull new wires and run into trouble, we won’t have to pull the whole wall apart later, just a section.

… Thank you Mr. Reid Walley!

I’ve been getting some problems and / off since getting the blogging platform WordPress up. WordPress would give me intermittent errors when uploading pictures. And the problem is that it wouldn’t be consistent. The smaller the picture (resolution wise) the more likely it would take, but even for multiple pictures of the exact same resolution, I’d run into some having problems and some others not!

This is a known issue with WordPress to which there is no consistent answer. After putzing around with different plug-ins and edits to the “.htaccess” file I decided to dog some searching for solutions specific to 1and1.com, andI ran into the following, by Mr. Reid Walley.

I completely replaced the contents of the .htaccess file (to keep my life simple) with the following…

AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php

… and voilà! Fixed! Working with WordPress v2.8.1

Thank you Sir!

RadMan

Hi All!

We’ve finally received the tripod collar for our newly acquired Sigma 170-500mm lens. Unfortunately the sun hasn’t been cooperating since so I don’t have any good shots taken with that lens to share. So I thought it might be nice to take a few shots of the lens itself mounted on my K20D on our tripod. That way you all can see what it actually looks like. I used Christine’s K10D to take the shots.

It is quite self-evident that the lens is a monster, and for proper photography I feel one really does need to place on a tripod. Hand holding it can be OK in good light, but the arms get tired quick!

Anywho, here are the pics!

… this time!

Actually, these are a couple of sample shots with our new (second hand) Sigma 170-500mm lens. So far I think I’ll be happy with it! Both sets of shots have been post processed, with some cropping each. As well, a 100% crop is included for each to show how much detail is being resolved.

The first shot is of a training aircraft that was flying above our heads, between 1,000 and 1,500 feet AGL I estimate. I was somewhat careless with the sharpening so it looks grainy. However, you can see how much detail I can bring out in that shot. As it turns out, ZLE is one of the aircraft that belongs to Christine’s school.

The other is obviously of the moon. Chris and I were out in the back yard (otherwise known as a small patch of grass!) and Chris showed me her shot of the moon. I thought it was a great idea and took one myself. Now this is handheld, so I’ll try to improve on it once we get the tripod collar for it.

I was looking outside my window today and I saw “Patches” make herself comfortable on Christine’s fabric chair on the front balcony. I couldn’t resist taking a few shots. The first 2 are with the DA 12-24mm, the other 2 with the DA* 50-135mm. Sorry if this is a bit repetitive, but too bad. I work with what I got, and right now I got cats!