Out of this world!? (and a few Other things)

... and Off to Mars ... and the next mission to Mars is scheduled to launch on Nov 26 (Australian time ... probably still Nov 25 in America,where it is being launched from ... but will be about 3am on the 26th here in Canberra ;-)  there is some info about it here - http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html
... and why am I blogging about yet another spacecraft being sent off to explore Other plantes/Our universe?
well ... not only is it cool that "we" are exploring other planets and stuff ... but ... they are having a tweetup at the launch site in America ( http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23NASAtweetup ) ... and there is another tweetup here at the Canberra Deep Space Comminication Complex ( http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23CSIROTweetup ) ... and ... I  ( http://twitter.com/#!/UTLAU )  am going to be there! ;-)

... which means I get to sneak off from work an hour or 2 early (boss said that was ok ... as long as my work is done when it needs to be done, it doesn't really matter if I stay late one (or more) day and sneak off early another day ;-) and dash (keeping to the speed limit of course ;-) out to Tidbinbilla to the CDSCC (Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex) where we all get to meet the other "tweeps" and have a "behind the scenes" type tour of the place, and a free meal, and listen to a talk or 2 ... and then ... at a rather late hour of night (like that is a problem, how? - surely you have read the title of this blog? - lol) they do a live hook up to the other "tweeps" at the Kennedy Space Centre ... and then link up to watch the launch (sceduled for "stupid o'clock" in the morning Australian time) ... then we go just down the road for bed and breakfast ... then in the middle of the next morning we head back in to CSIRO Discovery Centre for some more talks and stuff ... and go home in time to take the dog for a wak before tea on Saturday (unless DH wants to leave early and go out somewhere- lol)

Am I excited? well ... yes ... I am "Over the moon" LOL  ... it sounds like it is going to be really interesting, and a whole lot of fun!

Actually I can't remember exactly how I found out about it ... probably from reading an e-mail newsletter thingy I get from CSIRO (one tends to subscribe to odd things like that when one works as a High School Science Assistant) ... but I noticed that people with a twitter account could sign up to go to the tweetup and they would randomly select 50 "tweeps" to go ... and I just happen to have a twitter account (which I sometimes fiddle around with) ... so I followed the link and put my name down ... and I am one of the 50 they selected ... how cool is that? LOL

... the fact that I (a 40 something year old Mum) am going to join a mob of people (who are all into the sort of technology that was only "science fiction" back when I was a kid) watching the launch of a mission to Mars is kind of weird actually ... seeing that when I was at school, my nickname used to be "Martian" - LOL
(I guess it had something to do with me deciding that Uncle Martin from the TV show "My Favourite Mattian" was my hero - becuase I didn't seem to fit in with the crowd at school so I figured maybe I was from Mars too - so, for a week or more in grade 6, I wore a pair of wire antennae to school ... lol)

Ok ... not enough O stuff for an ABC Wednesday letter O post?

[andrea heads Off to bed ... was meant to go that way ages ago - OOOOOps!?]
 ... I will see what O photos, Or Other O stuff I can think of/find, when I come back to finish writing this ... whenever that might be ;-) 

before I go ... just thought of something I read somewhere - "if you have a whole pile of "Odds and sodds" and you take away all but one of them - what do you call the thing that is left?"

[later]

Ok ... I scribbled a coupleof words in here before I went ... some O ideas I thought Of ... just in case I couldn't think of any when I came back ...

orangutans?
old?
offal?
Orange?
Odd?

Other stuff? (Zooniverse)

ok ... Orangutans?! ... er ... cute, engangered, and their name means "people of the forest" ... I am sure "aunty google" can tell you more about them ... so I don't need to ;-)
(besides - I have not taken any photos of any ... that would require me having been to a zoo lately ... sigh)

Old? ... OK ... yes I am getting Older ... and I found out recently that I am going to be a grandma next year sometime (kind of scary when your kids start having kids - lol) ... but I am still hoping taht I have at least a bit more than half a lifetime left (I want to live until at least 100 ... although I would need to live to 1000 to finish making all the quilts/crochet items/other weird creative stuff I have ideas for, and do all the other stuff i want to do before i die ... sigh)

Offal ... yes I DO have photos of what one could call Offal - photos I have taken at work - of left over half disected eyes and kidneys and liver and stuff ... I proably should spare you from those?

... not sure I really want to spend the next 2 hours looking through folders Of photos for things that are Orange, Or Other Odd stuff either ... (I am tired, and have to do stuff/go places in the morning, and it is already later than I was intending on still being up)

(and the "Zooniverse" thing can go in my R post, if I Remember)

I should post some recent photos ... which I guess i should put Onto the computer? lol

[andrea goes and finds camera cord (camera is already in here - in my pocket, as usual ;-)  ... found some wine in the fridge too ;-]




Ok ... maybe it is time I mowed the back lawn?! (actually I did that just after I took this photo ;-)

closeup of some of the grass on the back lawn ... see - grass does have flowers - lol



A very close up of a microscope slide on my desk (taken as an experiment to see what sort of stuff I actually can take photos of with this new camera



while I was messing around taking that last photo (and a couple others) I heard a buzzing noise over in the direction of the window - and saw this spider dragging it's freshly caught lunch across the web and into a crack in the window frame ...

one of the hazards of owning a Golden Retriever - they tend to drool all over your leg while you try to eat stuff!

a little while after the last photo - the drool has dried, and my lap has been invaded by a cat ;-)

... a lap full of cat fur was another handy thing to use to experiment with the camera.



I like taking Odd photos ... at Odd angles ...




more colours ... I keep seeing interesting colours ... lol





a redback spider ... that doesn't actually have the red back! (some don't - but to someome like me, who has grown up with these things and seen as many as I have, and likes spiders, the shape/etc is still instantly recognisable ;-)
... it was also in a usual place to find redbacks - in/under something that was lying around Outside in the garden.




this bit of fabric, and the wire that is now in the bucket beside it, is what I had picked up from the garden - the spider crawled out of it while I was untangling it from all the bits of wire/etc - which I had wrapped up in it in order to "rust dye" the fabric ... I was only going to leave it a few days ... but I forgot ... so it was more than a few weeks! ... so it is also a bit rotten - oops!  the water on the ground is because I also rinsed the dirt/etc out of it after I untangled it from the bits of rusty wire and stuff.



yellow flower in the garden - with some Orange in the middle ...
(well - I am still sort of trying to keep this post at least slightly O related ;-)



a flowering bush catching the evening light ...

I was going to add more photos ... in fact i did ... but the uploader thingy kind of crashed/froze and only some made it here ... so I started again with some of the others ... and it died again after a couple more ... so I went to bed, got up, went out, came home, went out again, then came back in here and tried again ... still not working that well, and it is now bed time again and I still have not walked the dog, or done anything else that useful ... except read a pile of stuff on Twitter - LOL  ... and mess around with a few silly colour websites ...


... someone blogged about one - http://www.palettefx.com/ - where you can upload a photo and it picks some colours from it, so I went and had a play ... actually the thingys it did, that I saved, are small enough that they might upload ok/quickly ...


oh good - they only took a few seconds!

In fact it took longer to fix up the silly formatting it did, that stuffed things up so I could not type down here without the text being in the middle like the captions on the photos ...
(actually ... looking at the preview and being reminded what the photo captions lool llike once this is posted - it probably was trying to be the caption on the bottom photo ... which is not what I wanted - lol)
The photos I uploaded to that colour website were a lot smaller than the other photos on this blog, and are even smaller in these things it gave me back - with the photos are on the left and the colours it chose beside them ... I am sure I can see more colours in the blue photo! LOL (yes - there is a couple different yellows for a start) ... I guess this just picks a few main ones ... might be handy for website colour schemes/etc ... but for choosing what fabric/yarn/thread to use in something I might want to make - I would rather just use the photo (and whatever else might be floating around in my brain?) to inspire me as to what colours to use ... or just start digging things out of my stash and see what bits of fabric/thread/yarn tell me they want to play with each other ;-)


I also did a quick search to see what other similar things I could find (while waiting for those other photos to upload, or not ... ) and I fell over a whole list of colour picker/etc websites - http://www.smashingapps.com/2011/05/24/45-color-tools-and-resources-for-choosing-the-best-color-palette-for-your-designs.html  ... I had some fun playing with a few of them too - LOL




Ok ... this post is definitely Odd ... and anyone who actually read it probably thinks I am Off the planet ... so On that note ... goodnight ...

I Have A Nice Nifty New Camera

... Not that I Needed it ... well ... I probably do, or would soon - the other one is getting older, and was Not going to last forever - although it is still working fine for Now, except that the shutter button was getting a bit temperamental sometimes ... which is Not what one Needs ...

[Note: there are some (hopefully) Nice photos in this post ... so if you don't want to read all this stuff I am Nattering on about just scroll down Nearer to the bottom]

Isn't it Neat how DH just happened to have gone to the shop and bought it just in time for me to be able to use it for my letter N post for ABC Wednesday? LOL
(It was ordered ages ago, after DH found out it online and went and asked the shop if they had one to look at - they didn't so they said they would get one or 2 in and contact us when it arrived, a few weeks passed and he went in and asked and the order had been cancelled by person(s) unknown - so they ordered it again ... aparently it arrived a while back but stupid shop forgot to tell us it was here! I thought we were going to look at it before buying, but I was away for the weekend, and he liked it so he bought it - after that stuffing around I asked why he didn't go and buy it elsewhere, but it turns out that was the only shop where one can buy that particular camera ... although he might have been able to find one online - I found them here - Pentax Optio WG-1 14 MP Waterproof Digital Camera with GPS and 5xOptical Zoom - Gray ... that particular listing says they don't ship them outside the USA ... not much use to me here, but fine if you are there, and I am sure there would have been a listing where they do ship to Australia, but I just decided to stop looking and just link to this one because it has all the info about it and I did have fun reading the reviews (both good and bad) that people had written about the camera on this particular listing ;-)

What I do Need (for this blog post) is some Nice photos ... which I will first Need to take ...

(I am starting this Now, while I am here doing my Late M post, just in the Nick of time ;-)

? (well ... you Never know - I might get half organised ... or I might not ... reminds me of something someone posted on FB:



10 Reasons why I procrastinate.


1.













[later]


(when I have taken photos, but not put them on computer yet)


Now that I have a Nice New camera - I have to work out how to USE the darn thing! ... one almost needs a pilots licence to "fly" the old camera ... for this one I think i need certification to fly a Jet plane as well!
... and I still have not got the hang of how to do all the stuff I can do on my Nearly New mobile phone!
(I got that about 3 months ago - DH took me shopping to "have a look at what sort of phone I might want later/when my old one dies ... I had some cold/flu bug, but figured I may as well go out and do stuff rather than stay home feeling miserable ... so maybe that is why I ended up coming home with the fancy new phone, and a phone plan with calls and data and stuff, that HE likes - LOL  
Mind you - it IS a nice phone - it has a better camera than our first digital camera was, also takes HD movies, lets me do stuff like google/etc if I need to, lets me do Facebook and Twitter for free (it is free if I use the "Tribe" app, but that only does the basic stuff ... but that does include posting photos to FB ;-) and i can dowload Android apps ... oh - and it also does text messages and phone calls - lol


Anyway ... I have been having a bit of a fiddle ... including some silly stuff involving 2 cameras and a phone ... now I just have to put the phone photos and the new camera photos onto the computer ... I did the other ones last night ... well ... early hours of this morning actually ("this morning" being the morning before I wrote this bit of the blog post ... which I will not be finishing and posting tonight because I kind of need some sleep ... I was going to have an early night ... and I was also going to walk the dog ... and, seeing it is after 11pm, I am not sure there is enough of this evening left to do either, let alone both!


... so I will put the photos in here later ... and rather than trying to make everything line up/etc I might do what I did for my last post - and put whatever I want to say about the photos in as captions (pity the captions don't show up in that new thingy - having the caption on the bottom of each photo... or at least the first line or 2 if it was a long one ... could be a good thing .. )


b4 I go - for Now I do have one or 2 pictures already on the computer that I can/want to include in here - so I decided to stick one here Now, and do what I have Normally been doing in my blog posts and Not do a caption using the thingy for it in the post editor thingy.


This photo was taken with the Now Not so New camera - which actually can take quite Nice pictures ... as long as they are not messed up by the Nut on the back of the camera ... who tends to choose really weird subject matter, and/or do silly things like change settings and forget to change them back and take scenery shots with the camera in macro mode or something stupid like that ;-)






hmmm ... I don't think I ever got around to taking a photo of the iPad ... or did I? [goes and looks at blog posts for about July sometime] no ... the photo I was thinking about was one I took WITH the iPad (a photo of DH's laptop and a whole pile of cords and chargers and phones and stuff in a hotel room in Tasmania) ... the iPad is another New thing we got this year - LOL
... I think I have just realised one reason why the computer is full of folders of photos (and once I put a whole pile more on here, from my phone and the iPad, it will be even worse!) - the iPad takes photos - it has 2 cameras in it - one on the back for taking photos of stuff, and one on the front for taking photos/video for chat/Facebook/etc. My phone takes photos/movies - actually my phone has 2 cameras too (same idea as iPad- front and back ones) ... and there is my old phone (which had one camera, but wasn't a very good one - but better than no camera so it did get used to take a few photos/movies the few times I had the phone but had forgotten the camera ... which only really happened if I had been putting photos on the computer and left it in here by mistake) I am not sure I even know how many cameras/things with cameras in them we have in the house - there is also DH's laptop and iphone, and his digital SLR camera (bought second hand from eBay several years ago) ... and one or both of the 2 almost dead old laptops might have cameras (but I can't be stuffed looking) and if DD's laptop is not off somewhere with her - there is another camera ... this computer doesn't have a camera, nor do the other old desktop computers we have hanging around
btw, we still have the original digital camera we bought about 10 years ago (still works but is a bit dodgy) ... but I don't still have the second digital camera we got (the not quite an SLR but almost as fancy one that I took overseas and used for scenic pictures because it had wide angle - the one I have been using also went with me, and when it wasn't in (almost constant) use it usually lived in my pocket ;-)


yikes ... I am getting confused just trying to count all those things - let alone remembering/learning how to USE them all!!!


Btw ... you may have Noticed that Blogger seems to have something New too - the "Lightbox" thingy to look at the photos in blog posts (unless the person blogging has gone in to their settings and said no to it) which means if you click on any one of my photos you see that, and thumbnails of all the others below it, so you can look at them all in the same place. The only thing I wasn't sure I liked is that they don't show up as the original size of the image, like they used to when they just came up as a .jpg on a page - but I decided to try something and found a way to look at them that old way if you want a really close look at something in my photo - rather than doing a normal left click on the photo - do a right click and then click on "open in new tab" - and it comes up as just the photo (like it used to for a left click)

[even later]


I reall Need to put those photos in and post this - so that all 5 of you who read this will actually have some photos to look at using Bloggers New thingy ;-)




the new camera (taken with older one ;-)




leaves - on plant next to my desk at work - taken with phone




more leaves, also taken with phone - works quite well actually ...




I uploaded this one by mistake (was in wrong folder and didn't notice) but will leave it here - was a photo (of what I spent my $100 quilt shop voucher on ;-)  that I took with my phone, so I could post it to Facebook using my phone rather than waiting until I get around to putting photos onto the computer - one of at least a few reasons why having a camera phone is handy ;-)



those leaves near my desk at work - taken with new camera (at the same time as I took the phone photos)



another photo of the leaves at work (with new camera)




a bee ... and me discovering one problem with the super duper macro settings on the camera - not much use if one can't get your subject to stay still, or get close enough to it without if flying away - most bees tend to fly away from something coming as close as 1cm away from them!



a bee bum ;-)



and ... still messing around with new camera - the dog and cat just happened to stand in the right spot ... or is that the wrong spot - seeing the dog has a car wheel on his head - LOL (I tend to take the photo first, then try and frame a better shot if the subject is still where it was/needs to be ... which in most cases it isn't, where dogs and/or cats are involved ...




testing out the macro lights on a spider at night - has several LEDs around the lens so I don't get the weird shadows I got with the other camera ;-)




my trusty not so new camera ... and the crochet "sock" I made for it after someone borrowed the case ... I only really used the case, or the sock, to keep it in when in my bag ... but most of the time I am out and about the camera lives in my pocket, ready to whip it out and take a photo ;-)



taking the dog for a walk, while fiddling with the new camera ... I think I was also fiddling with the phone too - posting weird stuff to twitter actually ;-)



silly photo time? - using new camera to take a photo of using phone to take a photo of old camera ... except I didn't bother to actually take the photo with the phone, because I had just taken a photo of the old camera with the new one ;-)




I knew I made that crochet "pencil case" for something ... not that good for pencils (they wou.ld poke out) or my crocheting (the hooks would poke out, and probably totally escape) ... but just the perfect size for all the cords and charger and stuff that came with the new camera (and still has enough room for the spare battery DH has ordered online ;-)




the stuff laid out on the desk for the previous photo - I decided to take one of the mess/stuff I had ready for uploading photos etc ... there are memory cards from the old camera in the little fabric thingy I sewed to keep them in, and the phone cord and phone (and a few other weird things, like a bit of old telephone cable that I grabbed and tied some knots in when I found a "how to" video about those knots on Youtube ;-) ... and a few other odd things all over the desk, including the other keyboard for the other computer that is connected to this monitor, and a nifty little photo printer that we got for free a couple years ago (I don't actually use it, but I might one day - could come in handy if I am travelling and want to make a print to give to someone I meet or something ... if I get to travel again and IF I remember to take the thing - LOL)


OK ... that is probably more than enough photos, and probably more stuff in the captions than anyone wanted to know - LOL

... time I went and did something useful ... the stuff I was going to do a couple hours ago but this took longer than planned (B$%^%$& windows or something - found all the  photos and got them half uploaded and the browser crashed and I had to start again ...grrrr) ... I have some weeding to do in the garden, and a lawn to mow ... a lawn that looks more like a jungle than a lawn, because it has got rather long - the dog almost gets lost in there and the cat probably does!

Many Marvelous Mixtures of Colours

I was going to post about "Lots of Lovely Colours" for my L post for ABC Wednesday ... but I kind of Lost the plot and Left it a Lot too Late ... and then came in here to do it and got Lost following Lots of Links (from Facebook) and ended up reading Lots of posts on one or 2 Lovely blogs ... then realised that I had Lost all of my evening and it was so Late at night that it was actually early - and I had yet again Lived up to my blog name ... and I was either going to still be awake finishing off the blog post when it gets Light ... or if I wait until Later I will have missed the chance to add my Link to the Linky thingy ...

so ... I had a Little think ...

and realised I could think of another name for it and Make the same thing become My M post instead ... which Means I still have a day or 2 to write it and Maybe I can share it at the same time as Most of the other ABC Wednesday M posts get shared :-)

So why was I going to post about colours anyway? ... well - someone Mentioned some Methods of choosing colours for their crochet projects, on the Australiacrochet yahoogroup - in fact one person Mentioned his rather interesting Method - he works as a nurse and is inspred by the colours of all the pills he has to give to patients! ... of course that got My Mind wandering ... and I ended up Madly taking photos of all sorts of odd things - just because they had interesting Mixtures/combinations of colours, and I figured I Might have to put them in a blog post ;-)

... of course it Might be a point to Move said photos from the Memory card to the computer (actually I usually copy them onto 2 different external hard drives - one is where the photos belong and the other is the backup for anything important (like photos ;-) then once I have got organised and made sure all the photos are happily living in both of those 2 places then I delete them from the memory cards) ... putting those photos on the computer was one of the things I came in here to do ... the other being writing my Late L post (which has now become this M post ;-) but Mucking about putting photos onto the computer takes ages, and so does uploading them all to blogger and writing captions or whatever ... and it Might be a good idea to actually go to bed before the sun comes up and/or DH gets home from night shift (good chance to get a few hours sleep without someone snoring beside me ... except the dog sometimes snores too, and he will probably sleep beside me ... possibly even ON the bed - LOL)

[a day or 2 goes by ... ]

... and another day or 5 go by as well - oops?

I Might just be able to sneak this in before it it too late to add my link - I have just put Most of the photos onto the computer (there are still some on the memory card that is still in the camera, but I think I have More than enough to put in here now, so they can stay there until later)

ok ... I think 30 photos might be enough! LOL



red bark chips and green grass etc.



wet fence - rain brings out the colours in things

green, red, blue, grey, brown, etc



blackberries - pretty greens and reds and stuff



green and pink grass ... with a bit of yellow and brown



more green/brown/yellow/red/etc



soft greens/greys/browns/etc



red/green/white/grey




food can be colourful too, so can cats and dogs
(the plate of food was on my lap ... it was yummy roast chicken (wrapped in bacon ;-)  and spud and vegetables and gravy ... and the dog and cat wanted it!)




brown, green, and yellow flowers




more browns and greens




er ... brown green grey yellow(ish) red ...




grey/blue/green/white/purple ... wisteria is pretty ;-)



brown/white/grey/green ... I love the heart shaped seed pods on this weed!



more browns/greys/greens




pinks and blue and more ...




more green/grey/brown - with a dash of yellow and red



lovely lavender - soft greyish greens and purples



a couple of cars adding some colour - lol




bits of buildings (I was actually trying to take photos of the cracks in the stuff on the windows ;-)




more building bits




and almost the same colours in bricks and ... water



blacks and greys in an old birds nest in a half dead banksia bush

lavender (again - but this time with a bee)



my stash often tells me what colours I am using - I just start digging stuff out and end up with something




... but I was actually digging that lot of yarn out for this!




these colours just sort of happened ... I started with the greener one, and then decided the "eyes" did not go (they were going to be another row around the edge of that rug) so they became the edge of another rug ... and a third one - lol




I was taking photos of spider webs under the pergola - but just noticed the bright colours




fruit, and shop signs - lol
btw - gee fruit is getting dear?! - no - actually this is a new supermarket near here - this was taken a few days before it opened, so they had not actually put the prices on everything yet, but it looked funny so I took a photo ;-)
The other funny thing is - this fruit is already in the shop, getting old, at least 2 days before it even opened - and they call themselves "the fresh food people" in their adverts! LOL




lovely lichen ;-)



... and last, but not least, a sunrise.
yes - I did say sunRISE ... I know - I don't blame people for assuming it is a sunSET - I see a lot more of those - usually the only time I am up at sunrise is if I have not been to bed yet ... but that day I was out at a quilt retreat and when one of my room mate's alarm went off (she wanted to get up early and do some sewing before breakfast!) I got up and went for a walk - and got to see a sundog! (that is what the bright dot to the left of the sun is)

I am not sure those colours will look that bright or eye catching in this post ... clicking to see them bigger might help ... but there does not have to be much of a colour in a photo to use it for ideas for a crochet/quilting/etc project ;-)

most (but not all) of those photos were taken just because I saw colours and I wanted to use them in this blog post ... I also took a whole pile that are not in here (at least twice as many more!) ... but I think 30 is enough!!! (a few were very similar to each other, and a few didn't actually look so good as a photo, but I probably could have added another 30 that I liked if I had wanted to ... and I could have taken dozens more, with even brighter colours, if I had gone to Floriade (the flower festival we have at this time every year here in Canberra - the one that has now finished/closed ... but they are leaving it set up for the Queen to come and see it on Thursday) .

er ... I had better post this and go to bed before I see another sunrise!!!
(it is after 3am, and I have to get up for work in the morning - oops?)

btw, I was going to add some links to a few good/interesting websites where I have played with colours ... but I didn't get to that - I might do that some other time - it will take a little while to dig them up - I have a couple in one of my older posts, and one I know about but might need to go hunting around for it on the blog/website I originally got the link from ...  maybe I could post about colour for the letter C?   (if I remember - lol)