Have a safe and happy All Hallows Eve!

Yesterday is ashes, tomorrow is wood.
Only today does the fire burn brightly.
-Old Inuit Proverb

My copy of Widdershins arrived today. Widdershins, by Charles de Lint, is the sequel to The Onion Girl, which I read recently and loved. This quote was on the inside, next to the table of contents, and when I read it I felt my eyes fill with tears. I’m not quite sure why. I think there’s just something about living in the moment, remembering that today is the only reality that we have, that makes me feel nostalgic. It seems like that’s the opposite of the reaction I should have, I should want to seize the day, but instead I get a sense of how precious this very moment is, and a strange sadness that we never truly get to experience anything twice.

Yesterday morning it snowed, the first snowfall of the year. The temperatures plunged below zero, and in one night some trees dropped all their leaves in a panicked attempt to keep up with the temperature change. It was amazing to see the blankets of green leaves covering the grass and snow and gathering in the street. My planned trip to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum took on a new twist, as I had to gear up for winter hiking, but I got some nice shots of fall of color with a bit of snow on it.

It was my first trip to the arboretum, so I didn’t really know what to expect. It was a lot of fun tromping though the trails, making first tracks on the first snow of the season, photographing flowers and trees with little snow caps and catching droplets of snowmelt in the sunlight. We saw little waterfalls, quick-moving streams and even quicker-moving wild turkeys (maybe the snow made them think it was November). We got a little lost, but it was nice to just explore without having to worry about direction. We went where the interesting photos were and it worked out just fine.

It seems wild to me that only a few weeks ago I was eating at Lucia’s outside patio in a tank and shorts. Yesterday’s snow had melted by lunchtime, but we got some light flurries today, and tomorrow we’re expected to get up to a few inches of accumulation, so it looks like winter is here. For me, I’ve got a log burning in the fireplace and a whole chicken roasting in the oven. Winter, bring it on.

This short, created by Olympus, tells the story of the Olympus PEN camera, which lives on in the new micro four-thirds digital camera, the Olympus EP-1. As you probably know, I’m a Canon girl, but I’m finding very hard to resist the pull of this cute little camera.

The video above was created entirely with stop motion, no video camera involved, just stills! As per the creators, they took all the photographs, developed them, and then arranged them frame by frame for the video, which is compiled of 1800 individual stills (outside of the stills IN the video!). To me, part of the beauty of stop-motion is the simplicity, but what really impresses me is the patience and time that goes into each individual frame. In a time where most everything we see is about time-saving and flash, I like the idea that a company is willing to take the time to sell a still camera with just that, the stills.

This phenomenal video was shot entirely with a brand new Canon 7D by filmmaker Dan Chung, just hours after he purchased the camera at a local retailer in Beijing. Chung used some top notch L lenses and a professional video setup to make the film, but because of the low light most of the video was shot in the ISO range of 1600 – 6400! I have to say I’m very impressed.

To read more about Chung’s experience making the video and working with the 7D, and to learn about the equipment he used check out his website, DSLR News Shooter. You can also view the video in HD and read Chung’s write-up on Vimeo.

The first year I lived in Minnesota, I heard a lot of talk about the state fair. It seemed like the Minnesotan event of the summer, the one thing that everyone seemed to go to. I was intrigued. I’d never been to a state fair before. Oh, sure, Michigan has one, and New York has one too. New Jersey even has a state fair (although I didn’t know until I looked it up just now)! And yet I’d never been to any of them.

Growing up, I thought only people who raised livestock went to the fair. I was slightly disturbed by the whole idea, having grown up reading and watching Charlotte’s Web. I didn’t want to see cute little(!) pigs and cows that would be eaten when they got home. My parents weren’t interested in going to the fair either, but for different reasons. It seems the Michigan State Fair is held in a somewhat sketchy part of town. Neither of my parents grew up going to fair; it just wasn’t the thing to do there. So I was pretty surprised to find out that it IS the thing to do here in Minnesota. So that first year, Jim and I hopped in the car and drove out to the fair to see what it was all about.

On that first visit we didn’t really check a map and headed north to see what there was to see.  It seems the northern part of the state fair is where the farm equipment is displayed.  I’d never seen so many tractors in my life, and was in awe of the size and variety of tractors and tillers available.  Being a city girl, I didn’t even know what a lot of the stuff was used for!  It was a real eye-opener for me, knowing that I truly was in the heart of farm country.  We also got to see some of of the logging equipment in use, classic cars and tractors and the dog show.  It wasn’t until we started to get hungry that we ventured over to the south end of the fair.

The south end is the busy end, with the midway, the farm animals and everything you can possibly imagine available to eat, most of it on a stick.  It seems that “on a stick” is the way to go for fair food.  You can go with the usual, shish-kabobs and corndogs, or be a little more experimental, with belgian waffles, pasta with meatballs  and even turkey dinner on a stick.  If it’s edible, the state fair food vendors can put it on a stick for you!  Off the stick, you can always find sausage and peppers, deep fried cheese curds (which I’d never even heard of before moving to MN) and corn on the cob.  Minnesotans argue over which stands have the best food, and whether the new “on the stick” outrageous options are good or not.  I definitely have my favorites – I love the corn stand, and the milk stand near the pig house with all the chocolate milk you can drink!

We go to the fair every year now.  Each year is a little bit different for us, since we explore different areas each time.  We always have lunch there, but then we branch out to see what there is to see.  Two years ago we spent a bit of time with the goats and chickens, and last year we discovered the horses and found the stand that had the elephant ears.  This year was the midway.  This year was also the first year I went with a good camera, and the first time I even photographed carnival rides and games.  We weren’t there for long as the day was chillier than expected, and our plans to head back later in the week for night shots didn’t work out, but I still got a few decent photographs.  I’m already looking forward to next year’s fair.

To see my fair photographs from last year and this year, view the State Fair set on flickr or flickriver.

From November 2007 to November 2008, Christoph Rehage trekked across China, taking video as he went. But this was not your typical tourist video. Before he left he shaved his head and his face, and then recorded himself as he went along on his journey. The final edited project is an amazing time-lapse film showing scenes and people he passed along the route, but showcasing the way his hair and beard grew throughout the trip. It’s a wild ride, and definitely worthy of watching at least twice to catch all the background scenery and captions.

Christoph has posted more information about the video at vimeo. He also has a website, thelongestway.com, with a travel diary of his trek, but the site has been down the couple of times I’ve checked in. Hopefully he’ll be able to get it back up and running. Christoph – great video and amazing trek, you have my respect!

If you’re not watching this show yet, why not? True Blood is gaining in popularity every week, so check out this great fan video and tune in to HBO for the next episode on Sunday!

This awesome fan video posted by saroufim93 (youtube) features the song Timebomb by Beck, which was the ending credits song for the episode with the same name.  If you like the video and want to thank the author, click through to comment directly on youtube.

This past Friday I went to see the newest Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which was fantastic. But I was just as excited about the previews. I got to see the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are on the big screen, and it looked so good it almost brought tears to my eyes.

Another film that I’ve been impatiently waiting for is Sherlock Holmes, and I saw the full trailer for the first time on Friday. It looks fantastic!

Note: If you have the internet connection to support it, make sure to click the HD button to watch the trailer in HD. It makes a big difference.

Dell has recently released the Mini10, the newest addition to its line of netbooks. There are two versions, the Mini 10 and the Mini 10v, the 10v being the slightly economized version with fewer ports and a few different options. I chose the Mini 10v as it was available with a solid state drive on a Windows XP platform, whereas the Mini 10 options only include a solid state drive with Ubuntu, and I wanted to be able to install software that I already owned onto the machine.

The SSD option with the Mini 10v is a 16gb drive, which seems small compared to what most of us are used to, but it’s perfect for my needs. I already have a 13-inch Vaio SZ, so I wasn’t looking for a laptop to meet all of my computing needs. I wanted a second machine that I could take just about anywhere and that would fit into just about any bag, and that wasn’t so expensive that I would drive myself crazy worrying about it (the way I do about the Vaio). I planned to use it for surfing the internet and writing. I wasn’t looking for a computer that I could use for photography as I prefer a larger monitor for post-production. The 16gb hard drive prevents me from installing too many applications (which means a quick startup) and keeps me from storing my files on two different computers (I put any local files onto a flash drive or online storage and transfer them to my Vaio when I get home).

In the last month I’ve taken the Mini 10v to the lake, for tacos at the Tin Fish, shopping at the swanky local mall, out for coffee at various Starbucks and Dunn Brothers and book hunting at Barnes and Noble. It fits nicely into my little Timbuk2 Eula bag that looks like it couldn’t possibly have a laptop in it. It boots up quickly and runs smoothly, and with its candy pink casing it’s a great conversation-starter.

Outside of portability I really wanted a nice monitor, a keyboard that would be comfortable to type on and an easy-to-use touch pad. The monitor is wonderful – it’s crisp and clear, with nice contrast and accurate color. I would have preferred a higher resolution, but the 1024 x 600 resolution is in line with other netbooks, and is perfectly acceptable for my needs.

When considering netbooks, I paid close attention to the keyboards on the different models. I wanted to make sure the keys would be comfortable for typing as I hoped to be able to do quite a bit of blogging and writing on them. A standard keyboard layout was a must. This ruled out the Dell Mini 9 as some of the keys on the Mini 9 are not in their usual locations. The Mini 10 keyboard is actually really nice to type on. Dell states that the Mini 10 keyboard is 92% of the size of a full-size keyboard, but I can hardly tell the difference in key position from my Vaio – visually it looks quite a bit smaller, but I hardly ever miss a keystroke when typing. The keys feel a bit cheap compared to the Vaio, but feel solid and well-constructed in comparison to other netbooks I tried, so no complaints there.

The only place where I feel the Mini 10 falls short is the touch pad. I knew some of the issues with it from reading a number of reviews before purchase, and I’ve seen those issues myself. Probably the biggest issue is that the right and left clicks are placed on the actual pad, not on separate buttons. Consequently the cursor will sometimes move during the click. I’ve gotten around this by using the tap-to-click functionality for all single and double left clicks, and pressing down on the very corner of the pad when I need to click and drag or right click, but still sometimes the cursor moves off the intended target. But my main disappointment is with the scrolling. I’ve been spoiled by the smooth scrolling on my Vaio. The Mini 10 scrolling is jumpy; it seems to click into place rather than having a smooth and accurate scroll. I’d love to see some improvement here from Dell in a future model. That said, none of the touch pad issues have bothered me enough to convince me to carry a mouse.

The Mini 10v has three USB ports and an SD card slot, which makes it possible to add on quite a bit of storage through SD cards and flash drives. It’s important to note that the SD card slot does not fit the entire card, the card sticks out! Dell does not mention this in their marketing, and they should. I purchased a large capacity SD card to go with my Mini, thinking that I could just leave the card in all the time, but as it sticks out that’s not a possibility. The slot is nice though, and works with SDHC cards, so it’s great for transferring files from cameras and other devices that use these cards.

My Mini 10 also has a wireless b/g/n card and 1.3mp webcam. The images from the webcam seem to be par for the course for built-in laptop cameras, though I haven’t had the occasion to use it as I haven’t yet installed skype on the Mini. The wireless card works well too; I haven’t had any issues. I haven’t had a chance to try out the wireless-N connection yet as most wifi hotspots use wireless-G, and we have wireless G at home, but I’m confident it will work as smoothly as the G connection.

Overall I’m really happy with the Mini 10. The build of the machine looks and feels really nice, and feels very solid in comparison to its competition. It’s met all my needs for portability and functionality with a price tag that’s nice on my wallet, and there are only a couple of things I’d ask Dell to change on future versions. Most of all, it’s allowed me to write while out of the house without constantly worrying about theft or damage to my machine. I’ve learned I really like writing down by the lake and in coffee houses, and that, to me, makes the Mini 10 just about perfect.