Not Much To Say Today

Disappointed with my telescope photos of the eclipse. The scope actually reduces the amount of light, I would have done better with a wider view and a 300mm lens. At totality I was shooting ISO 1600 at 3, 4, 5 seconds per exposure.
The best of the set:
ISO 1600 2 seconds


That was at 2014:04:15 00:50:55

Slept as late as I could, Domino jumped up on the bed and yelled & head-butted me. No rush getting to work, I was running a test which could go as long as I wanted. Kind of fun, making text crawls across the video feed, and scheduling two different sources to trigger at different times. And while that was going on, changing between several builds to see i it breaks in one of them.

Lunch at Denny's. I wanted grilled cheese, but was hungrier than that so I had the senior version, and added the senior waffle plate. and a piece of apple pie. Service was glacial, and I was ignored until well past the time I was done eating. Minimal tip.

Home, no stops. Decided not to go to Costco because I had brought chicken wings for lunch in case it was warm enough to eat outdoors (it wasn't), so that was dinner. Watered the newly planted stuff, but didn't do any more gardening.

During the day I finally remembered to call the manager's office, and was told that all the plants on my property were totally mine. So whoever messed with my garden hose is going to get slapped if I catch him/her/it Saturday morning.

 Found the song I keep hearing on the Phuket Navy internet station. I'll try to embed it here.
http://youtu.be/mVkMDcjSpMQ

English translation:
I know full well why the sky, in the morning,
Ends up seeming darker every day that passes
I understand why the light of the moon tonight
Is colder than I once felt

I never wondered why, when I listen to love songs today,
I end up sadder every time that I hear them
It’s no surprise the feelings I’m facing now

But I still have one question that I don’t understand
It’s the one question that I still can’t answer
Because of what did you have to go?
When did our beautiful love fade away?
Because of what? The question still remains in my heart
Can I ask just once?
Come back and answer the question that only you know

I still keep all the bright memories
When you were still here
I just understood how lonely being alone is
When you disappeared

But I still have one question that I don’t understand
It’s the one question that I still can’t answer
Because of what did you have to go?
When did our beautiful love fade away?
Because of what? The question still remains in my heart
Can I ask just once?
Come back and answer the question that only you know

Because of what did you have to go?
When did our beautiful love fade away?
Because of what? The question still remains in my heart
Can I ask just once?
Come back and answer the question that only you know

Transliteration:
Chun roo dee tummai taung fah yahm chao
Glup doo meut mon gwah took wun tee loey pahn
Chun kao jai tummai saeng jun keun nee
Nep nao gwah tee chun koey roo seuk

Mai kit song sai tummai por fung pleng ruk wun nee
Glup sao wah took tee tee dai yin
Mai bplaek jai gup kwahm roo seuk tee chun pachern yoo dtaun nee

Dtae yung mee neung kum tahm tee chun mai kao jai
Bpen neung kum tahm tee chun yung dtaup mai dai

Pror arai het dai tur dtaung bpai
Ruk kaung rao tee suay ngahm jahng hai bpai dtaun nai
Pror arai kum tahm yung kahng nai jai
Yahk kor suk krung dai mai
Glup mah dtaup kum tahm tee mee dtae tur tee roo

Yung gep wai kwahm jum tee koey sot sai
Meua dtaun tee tur yung kong yoo
Perng kao jai wah kwahm diao dai mun ngai piang dai
Meua tur hai bpai

Dtae yung mee neung kum tahm tee chun mai kao jai
Bpen neung kum tahm tee chun yung dtaup mai dai

Pror arai het dai tur dtaung bpai
Ruk kaung rao tee suay ngahm jahng hai bpai dtaun nai
Pror arai kum tahm yung kahng nai jai
Yahk kor suk krung dai mai
Glup mah dtaup kum tahm tee mee dtae tur tee roo

Pror arai het dai tur dtaung bpai
Ruk kaung rao tee suay ngahm jahng hai bpai dtaun nai
Pror arai kum tahm yung kahng nai jai
Yahk kor suk krung dai mai
Glup mah dtaup kum tahm tee mee dtae tur tee roo

Thai:
ฉันรู้ดี ทำไมท้องฟ้ายามเช้า
กลับดูมืดมนกว่าทุกวัน ที่เลยผ่าน
ฉันเข้าใจ ทำไมแสงจันทร์คืนนี้
เหน็บหนาวกว่าที่ฉันเคยรู้สึก
ไม่คิดสงสัย ทำไมพอฟังเพลงรักวันนี้
กลับเศร้ากว่าทุกที ที่ได้ยิน

ไม่แปลกใจ กับความรู้สึกที่ฉันเผชิญอยู่ตอนนี้
(*) แต่ยังมีหนึ่งคำถาม ที่ฉันไม่เข้าใจ
เป็นหนึ่งคำถาม ที่ฉันยังตอบไม่ได้
(**) เพราะอะไร เหตุใดเธอต้องไป
รักของเราที่สวยงาม จางหายไปตอนไหน
เพราะอะไร คำถามยังค้างในใจ
อยากขอสักครั้งได้ไหม
กลับมาตอบคำถามที่มีแต่เธอที่รู้
ยังเก็บไว้ ความจำที่เคยสดใส
เมื่อตอนที่เธอยังคงอยู่
เพิ่งเข้าใจ ว่าความเดียวดายมันเหงาเพียงใด
เมื่อเธอหายไป

Quite a beautiful torch song. The Thai is more poignant than English allows.

Caught up on FB, did 2 loads of laundry, and that's about it.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Manicure?

Assessed

County assessor's letter arrived today, looks like they are doubling my property tax. Boo. Hiss. Turns out they re-assess any time it is sold.

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Got to work just in time for what was billed as a hands-on demo of a very complicated video analyzer. It was nothing of the sort, partly thanks to the two bozoids from upstairs interrupting the sales engineering rep before he even showed his first slide.

It was a disjointed, scattershot presentation with a lot of interruptions. No actual hands-on, and the presenter talked so softly and with a thick accent it was mostly useless. His marketing rep (identified easily by her Apple laptop) spoke louder and more clearly, but it is apparent this is an amateur company and we are using their product strictly because of a low price point compared to the professionals.

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Finished my digital signal processing project and wrote it up. Customer description of the issue was wrong, much worse than the actual issue. In short, some versions of the product pretended to allow you to add a text crawl or overlays or change the resolution of the video on a trigger or a schedule, but when you looked at the output it wasn't there. But any pre-existing ones continued to work. Most of our customers don't change those after they put them in place.

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Got my nails done. Had to wait 10 minutes for the owner to get back from dialysis. Would rather have it done by her little sister, but she was booked. No time for lunch but a snack at the bakery a few doors down.

Back at work, not much to work on, so I researched telescopes, and ordered one which looks much better for photography than the one I have. Two main points" f/5 compared to f/12.1, eyepiece is at the top on the side, not at the bottom middle.  Also has a unique tripod built for scopes.

Meanwhile I need to organize all my lenses and put everything in the carrying bag, and think about putting it on eBay or Craig's list.

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Costco on the way home. Spent almost $150 and am pretty sure I'd have done better at Safeway. Prices at Costco are skyrocketing, but the requirement to buy in bulk remains.

Home, heated some canned dolmathes from the produce store and three pork buns from Costco. Watched two episodes of TMZ. I am soooo behind on my Tivo watching.

Took the second load out of the laundry, could only find 5 of 6 socks. These are my black socks for the show. #6 showed up on the floor as I was hanging up my shirts.

Email from baby sister, she will be here Saturday. We may have time to do lunch. Pissed because she is flying into SFO not SJC, and wants to go to the farmer's market, as if she will be able to bring anything back home with her. Original plan was a bike ride. Looking forward to seeing her & her husband, they are both acoustical engineers with lots of Navy experience, and I am eager to pick their brains about the search for the Malaysian airliner. Due to the nature of her work, we can't mention stuff like that in email, let alone FB.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Leave at 5
Show at 7:30