Cruise 10/11/2003 Part 2

[Viking]

No way, Shari!!
I just forwarded you the PDF. I ussually have it sent to my AOL- and to my office-adress - Just in case....

 

[Viking]

Originally posted by padisneyfan
Yesterday, sandals and sleeveless top. Today, tutleneck and sweater. I realize it is spring but a 50 degree temperature change in one day is a bit much. Yesterday, I had opened the window up in my office and forgot to close it before I left. Needless to say the office was freezing this morning.

I always walk every morning 2 to 3 miles around deck 4. However, it is so boring with no hills. So I might try the treadmills this time. Where I walk at home, I can vary the intensity of the walk depending on which way I go. Plus, I live at the top of a hill so the walk always ends going up that hill. I hope I can remember a headset. I think I need to start to make a list now.

Since I will be doing a cruise in May, maybe I will just keep everything in the suitcases and not have to repack for the Oct cruise.

Rosemary-- I agree I love the summer months so don't want them to go by too fast. It is just so nice not to have to deal with anymore snow.

I don't have a digital camera or scanner, so I don't know what I am going to do about getting a picture to you Eric. I have to see if I can find someone who has a digital and take Norm and my picture.

Well, got to get ready to leave work. Both sons are home 3 days for the Easter break. There is no food in the house, so need to stop at the store.

Talk to you all soon.

Nancy

Perhaps some of the CruiseEars cruisers have digital pics of you- How about trying that approach?

 

[taswira]

Originally posted by Viking
No way, Shari!!
I just forwarded you the PDF. I usually have it sent to my AOL- and to my office-adress - Just in case....

Thanks, Eric. That worked fine. I don't know what happened with the Word doc, as it was always great in the past. This last time, when I clicked on it, it had even tried to open it as a ".txt" and I had to force it to open in Word, then saw the mangled doc. I guess it just wasn't up to the long journey!

 

[papa]

Shari do you save your digital pictures in the raw format or jpeg? Also do you lug your laptop or have a digital wallet type of portable hard drive to download your compact flash cards to?

Mary Jo hope that you girls can get together for another meet.

I guess we will have to get together with Hope at Opry Mills when she is in town. Mike

 

[scootersmom]

Good morning!
I'm really rushed for time today... getting the house ready for a guest and Easter and packing for the weekend. We leave this afternoon.
Just wanted to pop in and wish everyone a Happy Easter and a great weekend!

Oh, also...

Mary Jo--- I did get your email and will send you our phone number. We're wrapping up our Williamsburg vacation with a few days at Virginia Beach. Would that still work out to meet with you? Maybe somewhere in between? They don't look very far apart, but you would have a better idea of that than I do, I'm sure. We're leaving for home on Saturday the 14th, but could maybe even meet for breakfast before we hit the road or something. I'll get in touch with you next week sometime.

I'll try for chat on Sunday. Is it at 6:00 EDT?

Take care all and have a great weekend!
Colleen

PS- Mike-- Hope Eric's eye is feeling better. I know first-hand how much that hurts. When Josh was little he was sitting on my lap and I made the mistake of letting him hold the comb after I combed his hair. Scratched my eye with the teeth of the comb. They could see the scars on it for several years at my eye checkups, but now there's no trace of them.

 

[taswira]

Originally posted by papa
Shari do you save your digital pictures in the raw format or jpeg? Also do you lug your laptop or have a digital wallet type of portable hard drive to download your compact flash cards to?

I can choose to save the pictures in raw format, but I almost never do because the file sizes then are huge. If I'm shooting for the Web, that would be pointless because I would need to convert them to compressed jpeg, which reduces file size AND quality. The ONLY time I save them in raw format is if they are photos I will be selling. Otherwise, I shoot in fine jpeg mode, then edit them later as needed.

So far I have not taken my laptop cruising. That is one of the few times I get away from a computer! I have a few 512MB Ridata (from Australia) CF cards. They are the fastest I've found. The cheaper CF cards can increase time between shots even if one has a fast camera, because their write time is slower. On Cruisetoberfest II, I will also be carrying one of my 35mm SLR with maybe just a 75-300 zoom. So I'm not too concerned about filling up the CF cards anyway.

 

[Viking]

Shari,
I own about 500Megs worth of SmartMediaCards, which I will bring to the cruise. I think about getting me an Archos Multimedia Jukebox, a portable 20 Gigabyte harddisk with a card-reader for SmartMedia and CF to download the pics and clean the chips. It also has a small screen to show the pics, plays videos and can be used as an Mp3-Player.
But perhaps I'll just buy a new camera: There's a Sony Digicam available with a built-in CD-writer (I think CheesePlease got one, too), which costs only half as much in the USA than in Europe. I intended to give a boost to the American economy anyway

 

[taswira]

Sounds great, Eric. For myself, cruising DCL is my "escape." The things I do at home - computers, accessing the Internet, listening to CDs, watching DVDs - I force myself to leave behind. Of course I shoot photos on the cruise, but I'm going to be very selective about it and not shoot everything in sight as I did on the first few. My one technology exception is that I bring my PDA and its micro-keyboard on which I write my journal. I save it to the SD card and transfer it to my computer/laptop after the cruise.

For many years I was so "tech addicted" that I always had the latest, greatest of everything and carried much of it with me wherever I went. No more. I'm working VERY hard to resist upgrading my cell phone to a built-in camera model. I am <I>not</I> going to let myself do it (Yeah, right!).

By the way, the reason I have not submitted my cell number yet is because I will have a new number in a month or two.

 

[Viking]

Originally posted by taswira
Sounds great, Eric. For myself, cruising DCL is my "escape." The things I do at home - computers, accessing the Internet, listening to CDs, watching DVDs - I force myself to leave behind. Of course I shoot photos on the cruise, but I'm going to be very selective about it and not shoot everything in sight as I did on the first few. My one technology exception is that I bring my PDA and its micro-keyboard on which I write my journal. I save it to the SD card and transfer it to my computer/laptop after the cruise.

For many years I was so "tech addicted" that I always had the latest, greatest of everything and carried much of it with me wherever I went. No more. I'm working VERY hard to resist upgrading my cell phone to a built-in camera model. I am <I>not</I> going to let myself do it (Yeah, right!).

By the way, the reason I have not submitted my cell number yet is because I will have a new number in a month or two.

Shari,
I just bought a brandnew Nokia 3650 with a built-in digicam (Also shhoots small videos), resolution 640x480 (VGA). The phone has about 4megs memory plus a 16meg extension card. It also is a Tri-Band, meaning that it works in all European nets and in the USA. It is so much fun to use it to take snapshots from unsuspecting victims I drove my colleages already crazy with it
In Germany you get a subsidized phone with a new contract or each time you renew your contract. So I only had to pay €149 for the phone ($160), the original price is about €550.

The pics are of an acceptable quality, over here sending them costs about €.39 each.

 

[taswira]

Originally posted by Viking
The pics are of an acceptable quality, over here sending them costs about €.39 each.

The cost of sending the pics is one of the <I>main</I> reasons I hope to resist buying a digicam phone. I can see where it would be very easy to run up outrageous expenses using such a fun "techie toy." I don't think I would have the willpower not to shoot and send WAY too many pics!

 

[Windermere]

ok, I can't take it anymore. I have to join in on the digicam talk. Last year we went digital right before the last cruise and I'm having lots of fun with it. ( Although I'm still trying to deal with the white balance - ie grey snow ).
Bought the Olympus E-20N 5 megapixels. DH even bought wide angle and telephoto lens as a surprise. Have a 1 gig microdrive, 96meg CF and 32meg SM. Huge files and battery hog but also got the external battery so I don't run out of power just energy from lugging it around.
My favorite shots so far are still life - great for up close flowers/plants and snow (if I could only get white to show up white - but maybe I can get help for that ). Even have pictures of drops falling from mounds of melting snow.

 

[Windermere]

so did anyone get to see the travel channel - disney cruise program this week?

Saw it tuesday and going to tape the whole week's worth tomorrow (11am -4pm) so I can see if I can add additional weeks of vacation to go on other cruises. You know I can't give up my DCL. Just have to add more weeks of vacation per year.

 

[taswira]

Windermere - Digicams differ as to how to handle white balance. I don't have Olympus, so can't help you there, but your manual should have all the details. Some cameras make it easy with simple program settings for various conditions, including snow. Others are more complicated. If your camera did not come with much of a printed manual (as is the trend nowadays), there should be a complete one in the included software.

Yes - I've been watching all of "Cruise Week." I also watched the hour about WDW that was on this week before one of the cruise episodes - I think it was last night or the night before. I'm losing track of time lately. I taped the DCL and WDW features.

 

[Windermere]

Shari,

There's actually a WB button on the camera but I must be doing something wrong anyway. I know it was overcast but some of the pictures are very grey.

Nancy

 

[Windermere]

At least I can take comfort in the fact that colorful pictures turn out fabulous

Maybe I'm just too colorful as a person to take plain black and white type photos.

 

[papa]

Do you post process them with adobe photo-shop or elements Nancy? I shoot my photo's in raw format and then convert them into jpeg that I process with adobe elements. Shooting them in the raw format allows you to change the white balance after the fact. There is an Olympus forum on: Digital Camera's

I have a canon digital slr myself. Just got a new 70-200mm f4 L for it. Takes great pictures of the grand-baby Also have a mindstor 5 gig portable hard drive to download my 512 meg and 256 meg compact flash cards to.

Cathy, Stacey's new catfish is being sponsored by the cedar creek yacht club. Isn't that hoddy toddy. Mike

 

[taswira]

Mike - I think the DPReview site is probably the BEST available site for digital camera info . . . I was just thinking maybe Nancy's camera <I>might</I> have a program mode selection for shooting snow/winter scenes, and if it worked then that would save her from some of the additional editing. Unless it's only a few shots, it gets to be <I>so</I> time-consuming. As I mentioned, I am not at all familiar with the Olympus digicams. I do know that so many cameras nowadays come with a skimpy manual, and if you want to explore all the features you have to get into the online or software "complete" manual.

I also use Photoshop Elements and prefer it over the full Photoshop (although my full version is two versions old now). Prior to Elements I loved Adobe Image Ready for editing for the Web, but I <I>think</I> now they have made it a component of full Photoshop and it is unavailable separately.

How many photos do <I>you</I> usually shoot on a 7-day cruise (with any/all cameras, not just digital)? Do you photograph everything again that you've shot in the past, or are you selective?

 

[taswira]

Hey Eric - I think when I win the lottery I will buy <B><a href="http://www.fly-in.com/tropical_paradise.html" target="index">this place</A></B> in Spruce Creek! Naw . . . think how many DCL cruises THAT much would buy, and in Walt's suite no less!

 

[Viking]

Shari,

you can have the house: I just checked our lottery-receipt and we only won €2.50

 

[Viking]

Hey Folks,

I was in the chat-room til 0610pm EST but nobody showed up Perhaps tomorrow
I call it a night now, we have a Badminton-court for tomorrow morning at 10:30am and want to run 6 miles for warm-up before it.