My horrible hitting technique

So I've been trying to post a video of my hitting the volleyball for a while so I could get some critique about what I'm doing wrong. I know my form is a complete mess, but by soliciting criticism over at volleyballforums.com, I'm hoping to improve.



Anyway, if you've got any comments on how I could improve what I'm doing, please go over to the proper thread and post them. Just saying my form is a mess isn't really helpful as I know that, I'd like some advice on how to improve it.

thanks.

A Day in the Life (11-7-08)

So Pound has been after me for the longest time to do one of those "A Day in the Life of ___" blog postings where I document everything I do one day. I finally got around to doing it over a month ago, but never got any further than taking the pictures. The day I chose was November 7, an auspicious day because it was my wife Debbie's birthday, and I was supposed to have a phone interview for a possible job that day. So without further ado, here's 11/7/08 in the life of Paul:



Mmm...cereal for breakfast, yummy.



It was a bit more difficult to get around during those couple of weeks as we'd already started packing up for the big move to boston.





Since neither of us had appointments during the month of November (mine ended in August, Debbie's in October) we were (and I still am) using public transportation to get to work. Kind of a pain as it adds an extra hour and a half onto our day, but not much choice in the matter.







It was another beautiful late fall day on MSU's campus.



Ah yes, my bench where all that sciency-looking stuff is used to make the world a better place (or something like that).



And yes, my desk is messy, but I know where everything is and have everything I need close at hand.



For lunch I joined Debbie's lab in going out to celebrate her birthday and that of a labmate who had the same birthday at Sultan's a local middle eastern restuarant.



I had the salad



and baked kibbee and baba ghanoush.



Debbie's labmate, Shoko, drove.







Then back to work labeling and oligonucleotide probes with 32P and purifying them. And yes, that means I was using radioactivity, but no, it wasn't strong enough to do me any damage even had I not been as careful as I was and always am (that one visit from the police and fire department aside--hey I wasn't even using radioactivity that time).



I also spent a significant portion trying to get in contact with the person with whom I was supposed to have the phone interview, but unfortunately, we weren't able to connect that day (and my chances of getting that job don't really look so hot either).



It wasn't a total waste though as I got to listen to some good tunes.







Then off to our regular Friday night of volleyball.



Kind of a pain because, as usual, every time we took a break to get some water between games, all the basketball hordes would try taking over the court and we'd have to kick them off again.



After the volleyball, I took Debbie out to her fabulous birthday dinner at Georgio's Pizza. Actually, I forgot to take a picture of my food, so this is from a more recent visit (hence no plates of her food on the table), but I still got the same food, a slice each of eggplant parmesan and mediterranean pizza. Also, I did take her out to a theoretically nice dinner for her birthday the next night at Ai Fusion. Unfortunately, her dinner of veggie tempura wasn't all that good that night either. My sushi there was awesome, though. Our dumpling appetizer was quite good, so, even though she doesn't eat seafood and wouldn't take some of my sushi, at least she got some good food for her birthday dinner.







Then it was back on the bus and home to our apartment where there were a few presents waiting for her.

Yup, that's it, a day in my life, and not at all exciting, but overall it was a pretty good day (at least I didn't have to use my AK). Aren't you glad you wanted me to post it, Pound?

Playing around with old photos and photoshop

So over at the Pioneer Woman Photography blog that I read, they've posted a new set of photoshop actions and I wanted to try them out on an old picture I have of my grandfather. He died when my dad was 4 so I've never met him and, as far as I know, this is the only photo of him that I have. When my mom sent it to me, it was all faded and he was just as small part of the overall composition of this photo that was quite small in and of itself. You didn't really get a good feel of him from the picture, so I played around with PW's actions and tried to get a different feel of a picture that was all about him. First, the original picture:


The first thing I did was use the Dim The Lights action from her second set to try and get rid of some of the washed out feeling and bring in some more contrast:
Then I used the 4x6 crop in photoshop to get a picture that was mainly him (because I want to print it out on a normal 4x6 print at a photodeveloper).

Then I used the Define and Sharpen action from PW's first action set to bring out a few more details:

Finally, I used the Quick Edge Burn action (also from PW's first set of actions), to get sort of a haloed effect around him. Overall, I kind of like how it turned out:

I also tried it without the Define and Sharpen action to see if there would be much difference and you can see with that action some of the shadows are a bit crisper than without (but I'm still debating which way I like better):


I sent all of the steps I've tried here (and a few others) to be printed and I'm excited to see how they turn out when actually printed when I pick them up tonight or tomorrow night. I'm a bit worried about pixelation from trying to blow up a small part of a small photo (less than 3x5, maybe 2x3.5?) into a 4x6, but after Debbie finally did find the photo (all of our pictures were in various boxes after the move to Boston), she very kindly scanned it at 2400 dpi before sending it to me, so I'm hopefull it won't be too grainy.


Next up, I'm finally going to post my Day in the Life pictures I took over a month ago.

I love sparklers

Yes, this post is 4 weeks old, but I really like the effects of taking pictures of moving sparklers at night:

The commute on my bicycle

I'm such a fan of the interurban pathway even though there's nothing urban about either side.
It makes my commute so much nicer than riding through a subdivision or dealing with the traffic on grand river. Plus, the little extra distance is good for me.
Sometimes I even get to see nice animals, like the two fawns with spots on the other day or the great blue heron, I tried to capture here.
Overall, it makes for a pleasant ride.
And this is my ride.
Isn't she a beauty?
Works very well to get me where I'm going, but when loaded up, it's a bear to get up and down stairs at the apartment.
My control panel:
And this is how I had to make things fit in order for my brake light (yes that's right, it lights up when I press my rear break and has turn signals and everything) work.

Another try at the photoshopped pictures

So, I'm trying again to post the pictures I used to play around with in photoshop. After having been told that I can't move them after posting them if I want them to be openable, I'm going to try that instead. This first picture is the one from which I stole Dezire's head. She's the little girl in the pink shirt behind the girl in the green dress.
This next picture (below) is the one that I used as the base that I then added people into.

The above picture is the one from which I took Britta's head (blonde back row peaking in near the left side).

And this is my final product.

This was just a fun picture I took of the fauz stained glass in the church when all the lights were off. I just thought it looked neat to have the window so bright against the black surroundings.