Matt O’ Rama

Ack! Snow

Man, we just had our second big snow storm in 2 weeks. There’s probably
a foot of snow outside, more than I’ve ever seen in my life. Pictures to
follow.

300 Posts?

Man, I just noticed that the previous post was my 300th on Matt O’ Rama. I’ve actually done a lot more than that but I used to split my posts up to different blogs. I started the original Matt O’ Rama website is probably 1997 in college at New Mexico Tech. On it I had a proto-blog I called Brain Radiation, which was just part of that website before people just starting having their blog be the whole site. Then I started collecting links on a Blogger blog called Research Can Be Fun. I also had a wedding blog I didn’t post to as much as I should have, and finally I started Matt O’ Rama at some point long ago. The recent switch to using the WordPress system turned out to happen at just the right time: 300 posts, almost the new year, etc. Here’s to 300 more!

Woohoo! New camera

I had my eye on a Panasonic Lumix digital camera for awhile after it was recommended on the (awesome) Cool Tools mailing list. The problem was the camera he talked about was discontinued. Luckily, a new version of the same unit was released and once I saw it favorably reviewed both by Kevin Kelly on the Cool Tools list but by Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing, I knew I had to get it. Our old Toshiba was great but it was getting old and the extreme slowness of it’s shutter was really bugging me. You wouldn’t believe the number of shots I deleted in Picasa before uploading to Flickr. So my new Lumix TZ1 was delivered today and the battery is charging as I write this. It’s a great little camera. 5 megapixels, fast shutter, numerous helpful “modes” to help my photography-challenged self take better pictures. But the big thing is the 10X optical zoom, using some kind of folding mirror system. The big zoom is the main feature for me, I like to take pictures of plants and things on my walks and of stuff I find riding my bike. Plus it was only $240 with a free 1GB memory card and carrying case at Newegg.com, my favorite online computer store.

So the moral of the story is that there will be tons more pictures in my Flickr account soon. I might make 2007 the year I upgrade to a Flickr pro account and really start learning more about how to take good pictures.