Day in Nottinghamshire (Part 3)

At last, the pictures I selected from our recent visit to my grandparents in Nottinghamshire; all were taken with my phone (though I wished I had brought my main camera with me!), with the exception of the last three pictures as they were taken by my brother with his camera:

I was experimenting with the panoramic mode on my phone and decided to take a picture vertically. This is of a tree in my grandparents' backyard, and I think this image, despite a couple of bugs in the stitching, turned out well! I like the way the stitching has made the tree appear as though it is in three different seasons.

One of the many local trails in the area: while the paths here in Northamptonshire are fairly hilly, the ones in Nottinghamshire are a bit more steep and I do miss that.

We found a path that briefly took us off the main trail and right up to the Trent (the local river) itself. Notice the ash pile in the bottom right? Looks like someone had a fire!

Back on the main trail again. The last time I went on this particular path was during our first month back in the United Kingdom: Dad, my grandfather, and brother were with me, and the trail was overgrown with all sorts of weeds when we took that walk. I was pleased to see it had all now been trimmed back.

A view across the Trent, with what appears to be a pub and some houses on the other side.

Those are sheep in the distance: we did not approach them any further from this point shown in the picture as there were lambs about.

A set of stairs that take you down to the Trent. These stairs are not the aforementioned offshoot-path down to the Trent, and I will note that we came down these, not going up.

Continuing down the stairs will take you to this path, which ultimately leads to the Trent. I love the look of fence-paths like these.

Back down at the Trent again, this time near one of its many weirs. Knowing how more difficult it is to take a picture with my phone than my main camera, I did my best to ensure that I would have some excellent pictures of the weir.

Another picture of the weir, this time looking more in the upstream direction.

A third picture of the weir, now looking downstream.

One of the many paths down by the river banks. I like the contrast of the green grass with the light-coloured brush around it.

The first of three of my brother's images I chose for this post. This is back on the path that leads to the field where the sheep and their lambs were located.

The sheep again! I liked this picture and wanted to include, even though I have a similar one above.

A patch of daffodils up by the weir. This is an excellent picture that my brother took, and I am really impressed by it. He took two other images like this one, and when I saw them for the first time I knew that I had to include one of the three in this post.

That comes to the end of these pictures. I am sure I will have more in future visits with family.

Day in Nottinghamshire (Part 2)

It seems I will not have the time this evening to post all the images I have selected for the blog and write up something for each of them. However, in not wanting to spoil things I shall show one picture as a "taster" for what I will post tomorrow:

This is a panoramic image of a memorial park not far from where my grandparents live. The park contains a diverse selection of trees, including one similar to the Madrones we had in Oregon. The picture was taken with my phone during the morning.

Day in Nottinghamshire

My Dad, brother, and myself spent the day in Nottinghamshire at my grandparents' house. We went up there to take our car in for its scheduled maintenance, but our trip doubled as a visit to family. I took a countless amount of pictures on a lengthy walk my brother and I went on...I will upload some of them tomorrow!

Panoramic images

During our recent barbecue I discovered something that the camera on my phone is better at than my main camera: panoramic images.

I was messing around with the camera settings on my phone when I found the "panoramic" mode and switched the camera to that particular setting. I proceeded to take a picture in the panoramic mode: my camera let me take the first picture in the panoramic, but then it directed me to where the camera should be aimed once that first picture was taken, and then it would automatically take the picture once I pointed it to its target. Even better, once six pictures had been taken, the camera would merge them all into one and crop the uneven parts of the images accordingly. Hardly any effort is required!

In contrast, my main camera does take panoramic images, but it requires a photo-stitching software to merge any pictures it takes in its panoramic mode. However, this has not been an issue since I have not had any reason to use any panoramic features.

What amuses me the most is that I thought I had discovered all of my phone's abilities. Evidently, I have not...but I think it is good to keep learning more about something you thought you already did know everything about!

Gotye's chart reign

It seems I time it well to write about Gotye and Kimbra being number one on The Vodafone Big Top 40 when I did: this past weekend he was knocked down into fourth place.

It is kind of a shame, but not unexpected: a week at number one is good for that particular chart, but six weeks up there is almost an eternity by its standards. I look forward to when someone lasts for more than three weeks on the countdown again!

The bird house

In the last month we have been tidying up the back garden: this has consisted of picking weeds, trimming overgrown trees/bushes, and removing dead plants. During the cutting back of the trees overgrowing the fence, we found this bird house buried within the branches and hooked onto the fence itself:

You can imagine our surprise to find both a bird house, and the words "U.S. Mail" written on it! I wonder how the bird house came to be here, and I do find it being in our yard interesting considering our background (in regards to the "U.S. Mail part" of the bird house).

First barbecue for 2012 (again)

As promised, here are some pictures from yesterday's barbecue. Not all are of the barbecue itself, but rather are of a few things around the garden as the barbecue was in progress. Still, I hope you will appreciate the pictures! All of them were taken with my main camera.

This is a flower from the magnolia tree we have in our back garden. It has been blossoming for the past couple of weeks or so thanks to the good weather. Not all of its flowers have open yet, so we can expect to see quite a bit more from the tree.

Ah! This is the chicken cooking on the barbecue. I really like the way the optical zoom on my camera enhances the colour of any pictures taken near maximum zoom.

The sausages barbecuing nicely, with Dad turning them over to ensure all sides are cooked properly. Notice how shiny the sausages are?

A group of flowers growing in our garden. I was sat quite a distance away from the flowers, so this is another image taken with optical zoom.

The burgers were the last pieces of food Dad barbecued. This is another optically zoomed image.

This is a ladybug who survived being caught in a spider's web. As Dad did the barbecuing, we watched an interesting sequence of events: the spider catch the ladybug, the spider and ladybug "duel", then the spider returning into the hole where it came from (bear in mind that the spider was three or four times the size of the bug). The ladybug then spent an hour getting itself out of the web, and then it climbed up the wall to the top of the house. We called it "The One That Got Away".

First barbecue for 2012

We had our first barbecue for 2012 during this afternoon and evening! I took several pictures of the food as it was being barbecued, as well as some pictures of a few things around our back garden as the barbecue was in progress. I will upload some images and include them in tomorrow's post.

The weather has been perfect all day, and from what I have heard there have been barbecues taking place all over the country as it has been such a nice day. Currently I am waiting to eat dinner...it smells great!

Short Stories: The Junk Salesman

There was a salesman who had a particular talent for convincing people to buy his made-up, useless products by passing them off as worthwhile items; he travelled from place to place in his van, duping the city-folk into purchasing his junk. He had amazed himself with his ability to sell almost anything, and among the objects he had sold so far were wooden camera holders, shoes made out of newspaper, and "Halloween cloaks" (a toilet seat with a bed sheet attached to it, sold as a costume). He found his work to be easy money, with the only drawback of the job being him not able to remain in any place for too long.

His current project was getting people to buy "gold dirt spheres", which in reality were balls of dried mud wrapped up in gold-coloured foil with a weight in the centre to simulate them being made partially of gold. He had set up shop at a busy market in a large city; the bright colours of his van set him apart from the dull-looking stands that surrounded his position. The salesman soon had a person come to view what he had for sale.

"Hello!" the salesman said to his first client. "How can I help you?" One thing that always helped his business was that he was calm in his demeanour; he found that sellers who behaved in an overly happy, creepy, or aggressive manner sold fewer products than those who gently talked their customers into buying something. If anything, he found that confusing customers and making fake promises sold more than coming across as too emotional or too interested in the customer's money.

"Yes," the client said. "Exactly what do you sell?"

"I sell these beautiful, hand-made gold dirt spheres," the salesman replied. "They are balls of dried mud, covered in a shell of gold. The ones I have for sale here are a special batch, as I have engraved them with the local symbol of this city. With the amount of work I have to put into these, normally these cost anywhere between £500-£700, but these are at a reduced price of £325."

"Why would anyone want to buy a lump of dirt wrapped in gold, even for a reduced price?" the client asked as they picked up one of the balls and examined it.

"Why do people buy anything at all, why not just steal?" the salesman responded. "Tell me, are you visiting or do you live here, and are you happy with your time in this city?"

"On holiday," the client replied, bemused at the questions. "It has been a blast coming here for the summer...the people here have been so nice."

"Ah! Well, then I have some perfect reasons for you to buy one of my hand-crafted gold dirt spheres!" the salesman said, only getting slightly excited as to appear human rather than robotic. "Think of having one of these as a souvenir for the wonderful time you have had on your holiday here. On top of that, remember that these are made of gold, so if you pay £325 for it now, you'll be able to sell if for more later as gold value increases!"

"Well, I''m not sure..." the client began.

"Besides, a portion...10%...of the sale goes to helping other people," the salesman then added. "Surely you don't want to miss out on a way to be charitable as a token of your appreciation for this city and its people for their hospitality?"

"Of course, you're right," the client said with a smile as they began to pull out some money. "You know what, I'll even round it up and pay £350 if it ensures a little more goes to charity...as a token of my appreciation."

"That's good to hear," the salesman replied as he successfully completed the sell. "You've made someone really happy today. I hope you have a lovely rest of the day and holiday."

After his client walked off with their gold dirt sphere, the salesman congratulated himself on breaking his own record on selling useless items to people, and laughed that he had made over £300 in profit on this venture already. As he replaced the previous gold dirt sphere's hold with another ball, two policemen approached him.

"Hello officers," the salesman said nonchalantly. "Can I interest you in any of my products?"

"Yes, you can," one of the policemen replied, placing handcuffs on the salesman. "All of these items are to be confiscated, and you are under arrest on numerous accounts of fraud including claiming that a portion of your profits go to charity. We have been searching for you all over the country for the last three weeks. Your little operation is, as of this moment, permanently shut down."

"Oh well, I suppose it had to happen someday," the salesman said as he was escorted away by the police.

Sometime later, after the salesman had been tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison for his crimes, he managed to continue his work in selling junk items to people. His current project? Selling a type of origami made from the foil of food trays to his fellow inmates, claiming his pieces to be made of silver.

Alternate version of "The Lazy Song"

I found a hilarious alternate version to "The Lazy Song" by Bruno Mars. It features Leonard Nimoy, and is apparently the "official alternate version":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dULOjT9GYdQ

Mars does appear briefly in this version, but if you blink you will miss him. I wonder how Nimoy was chosen to star in the video...he certainly seems like an interesting choice for an appearance in a parody for something like "The Lazy Song"! Somebody else makes an appearance in the video, but I will not spoil it for those who have not watched it yet.

This is the second parody of "The Lazy Song" that I have seen. The other one is Bad Lip Reading's "Morning Dew" (credited as "Bruno Mars featuring Lady Gaga and Jay-Z).

Bad ways to break up

The other evening there was a short segment on the radio about bad ways someone can end a relationship with another person (or as I prefer to call it, "Breaking Up: The Douchebag Method"). Over the years I have heard of several poor ways to break up with someone, and I thought I would begin to list some of them; some would be quite creative if they were not so heartbreaking to the person on the receiving end:

1. Very short telephone call
I remember when listening to Dawson McAllister Live on the radio how Dawson McAllister strongly recommended to people looking to end a relationship to do it in person, rather than through other methods such as texting, e-mails, or even phoning (although this did assume a "good" relationship, rather than abusive ones where he suggested to just leave). I once heard an instance of someone being dumped via a phone call lasting less than 30 seconds (I did not hear it on the show, however).

2. Re-arranging magnets on a refrigerator
One woman was informed by her boyfriend that she had been dumped via his re-arrangement of magnets on either his or her fridge (I do not know what the exact wording of the letters was). He was not in the vicinity of the fridge when she saw it. This one gets points for being clever, but it is still cowardly!

3. On a social website
This is one I read about, rather than heard on the radio: there was a guy who phoned his girlfriend after a date, and she told him to check Facebook: when he did he could not see anything wrong with it, but then she told him to refresh his page, and voila! She had just changed her status from "in a relationship with (such and such)" to "looking for someone". Dumping someone over any social networking site is a bad idea, but the way this particular break-up was carried out was especially "evil".

4. Cheating on someone, and getting the person you cheated with to tell the person you cheated on that they have been dumped
It is bad enough getting someone else to inform your soon-to-be-ex that they are being dumped, but nothing adds icing to the cake more than telling the person you cheated with to tell the person you cheated on that the relationship is over!

These four are the most notable to spring that my mind for the moment. If I come up with more I shall create new posts for them and link back to this one. Feel free to recommend other bad break-up methods.

For the record, I agree with McAllister that it is best to end a relationship in person, assuming the relationship has been relatively amicable, not abusive, and you are not looking to get away from the other individual for your own safety. Certain things really do need to be told face-to-face, not over any other medium. As funny as these all sound, the person being dumped was likely really hurt by what happened to them.

The Swiss Colony tin

As promised in yesterday's post, here is a picture of one of my Swiss Colony tins:

That is a sticker on the top of it: in addition to putting stickers on our clothes drawer, I also placed some on tins. Aside from some dents and the sticker, this tin is in good condition.

The Swiss Colony

Out of sheer curiosity I decided to look up The Swiss Colony, and I was surprised to see that on June 1st, 2010, it had been renamed to Colony Brands.

The Swiss Colony, or Colony Brands now, is a company in Wisconsin specializing in foods such as cakes, sausages, cheeses, various candies, and box sets containing a wide selection of the aforementioned food items. They did sell other products too, such as clothing, furniture, decorations, and electronic items, but it was their foods that interested me the most.

We received a catalog from them every year we lived in the United States, and I even kept the last one we received there. I always loved looking through each catalog, wondering what the chocolate tortes, brownies, and petit fours tasted like. We did order some of it too, and we have several storage tins with "The Swiss Colony" on them (I will see if I can get a picture of one).

I have to admit that I do prefer the name "The Swiss Colony" to "Colony Brands", but it is still the same company anyhow. We will have to keep our tins labeled with "The Swiss Colony"!

Six weeks at number one

My brother and I listened to the American Top 40 and Hollywood Hamilton's Weekend Top 30 when we lived in Oregon, and we heard them every weekend. Since we have been back in the United Kingdom, the radio countdown show we have followed has been The Vodafone Big Top 40.

We have been listening to this radio show for over a year and a half, and it has been rare for any song on that countdown to remain at number one for more than three weeks. As such, it has been a nice surprise for "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye featuring Kimbra (whom I have written about before and am now pleased to hear on the radio here) to have been at the top position for the past six weeks, including today's episode.

I remember when Mariah Carey was number one for twelve weeks in 2005 on the American Top 40 with "We Belong Together" and when Fergie was on the top for eight weeks with "Big Girls Don't Cry" on Hollywood Hamilton's Weekend Top 30 in 2007. With Gotye and Kimbra's success here, it has been great to hear someone at number one again for such an extended period of time. I know this is insignificant in the long run, but it is a small pleasure!

Another one of my jokes (13)

I only have time for a joke for today's post, though I hope to have some more substantial posts soon. This one was written for Christmas 2005:

"What’s a parrot that works in the government? A pollytician"