daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
こんばんは！How’s it going?
Today our son’s band had their final concert before they head off to Chicago to perform at the Midwest Clinic. They sounded great! I am so proud of him.
Have a good evening!
おやすみなさい！
– B 
こんばんは！How’s it going?
Today Bay had a piano recital in North Austin. 🎹 His piano teacher has a large number of students, so the recital is split into two parts, and each part starts with the beginning piano students and ends with the advanced students. I’m proud to say that Bay performed in the last slot of the first recital! 😄
He’s really come a long way since he first began several years ago… time flies… I remember when he was one of the first students in the recital line up.
Since we’ve been going to recitals for a while now, we’ve become old hats at it. I always set up my tripod and make a video of Bay’s performance, and I notice a lot things that newbie photographers do. I guess since I’m a photo enthusiast, and take photos sometimes for work, so I operate in a more discreet way, but I find some of the beginner “mistakes” interesting. For instance not setting the camera’s audio cues to silent. I hear the auto-focus beep go off multiple times before a shot is taken. The beep is annoying since you can hear it on the audio recordings.
Another thing is that people have their tripods set up in the middle aisle, which is fine, but you shouldn’t leave it there for the whole recital. Just put it there for when your child performs, then move it out of the way afterwards.
Also, don’t walk down the middle aisle during the performances. Use the side aisles, or at least wait until the song is over. And it’s nice if you keep your kids from constantly running down the aisle. And also, don’t give little kids in the audience bags of chips! Those things are loud.
Today there was a teenager with her dSLR sitting in the audience, taking photos of her young sisters or cousins who were also sitting in the audience. That is ok for one or two snaps, but not 20 or 30 photos, especially using flash + AF-assist flash, and pointing towards other audience members since your sibling subjects are sitting far across the room. Rude! People are trying to watch/listen to their kids perform, and then someone is firing her flash towards you and making a loud dSLR click noise. Plus, the flash is distracting to the performers.
Anyways, these are just minor annoyances… it’s not like we’re at Carnegie Hall! But I do find it interesting that some people don’t think it is rude, or is it that I am ultra-sensitive to these things? Probably a bit of both. 😋
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Today’s photo is of our cats, resting comfortably together on the sofa. There’s a word in Japanese that describes them perfectly: “Nakayoshi”, which means friendship, or closeness, often when snuggling.
I hope you had a nice Saturday!
おやすみなさい！
– B
こんばんは！How’s it going?
It’s another cold one here in Austin and tonight it will get down to just above freezing. I think next week it will warm back up with Wednesday’s high back into the mid-70s! I’ll be happy to have the warm temperatures again since I can’t stand too much cold.
The other day I started up my old Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet, which is a device that I don’t use much anymore since I got my Chromebook. For a while I used the tablet thinking it would be a great blogging device but it’s just too small, and even with a bluetooth keyboard, the typing experience was lacking. It’s a nice tool for consuming information, but not creating.
A while back I upgraded the OS from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, and while successful, there were a few problems. The battery life suffered and the performance wasn’t so great as compared to Windows 8.1. Also, Windows 10 took up so much space that it only left me with about 1.5 GB free on the 32 GB internal drive. This is not enough space to apply the regular Windows maintenance updates!
So, I decided to downgrade the OS back to Windows 8.1 and I am so glad I did. The speed is back, and the tablet experience of 8.1 is much better than 10. I have to admit that on of this little tablet’s best features is that the lockscreen can display saved photos. It’s a pretty sweet-looking digital photo frame!
Honestly, though, my other devices are much better for the type of things I do, for instance, my Chromebook for blogging/typing, the Kindle Paperwhite for reading, and the phone for browsing Instagram. I think it may be good for Netflix since the screen is so nice, but it’s a shame that I don’t have much more use for it.
Have a good evening!
おやすみなさい！
– B
こんばんは！How’s it going?
Here in Austin the weather has gotten even colder! Temperatures barely made it into the 40s today, and tonight it will drop below freezing. ❄️
My oldest son likes to keep his door closed and so the heat doesn’t flow into his room. It’s like an icebox in there! So tonight we bought him a new oil heater and now his room is nice and toasty. 😄 I joked with him that I should sleep in there with him and he just rolled his eyes like teenagers do…
Speaking of temperatures, my office is always so cold and today was extra chilly. I noticed that more people were wearing jackets and scarves while working. Eventually it warmed up a bit, but for myself, it’s a constant battle. My body temperature is so low it seems.
In a bit of good news, the TV near our desks is showing a nice fireplace scene with Christmas stockings. It looks warm, but I feel like it’s mocking me! 😩
Well, I hope you had a nice day, and stay warm wherever you are!
おやすみなさい！
– B
“There’s a lot happening in the world right now that would lead us to believe how disconnected we are from each other — but if this map says anything, I believe it’s that connection is real, alive, and important to us all.” Candace Rose Rardon illustrates a map of her readers’ travel stories.
