dean

We Have To Call Her Sergeant Numpty Now

Back in the old days, things were different.

Promotions above LAC were strictly on merit. The squadron had a fixed number of NCO positions. I don’t remember the numbers, but they were something like 1 corporal for every 4 cadets, 1 sergeant for every 10, one flight sergeant for every 15, one Warrant Officer 2nd Class for 25, one Warrant Officer 1st Class for every 50. The only way you got promoted was 1. there had been a spot vacated and 2. you were good enough. There were plenty of people who aged out at LAC or Corporal. And it wasn’t unheard of for people to be busted back down – I went to summer camp with a Corporal whose tunic showed the threadmarks of Flight Sergeant.

Now, they promote everybody. All of them. You’ve been there a year, you get promoted to Corporal. Another year, you’re a Sergeant. So promotions, instead of being called up one at a time, come up in big lines. You’re one of 15 going to Sergeant, say. It means less.

It’s also limiting. Recognizing everybody means actually recognizing nobody. HouseApe 1.0 is an Air Cadet of pretty high ability – in the old days she would have been promoted, and her rank would have meant something. She’d have been one of 10 Sergeants, deputy NCO of a flight.

Still, it’s a big deal. HA 1.0 is justifiably proud – she’s earned it like it was the old days, and if it was the good ol’ days, she’d still have been a Sergeant.

The River, and Wide Angle Lenses

In the last but one post I talked about wide-angle lenses and their usefulness in landscape work.

Here is an example. I shot this Saturday morning about 8:30 AM. ISO 200, 1/60s at f11, if memory serves. The near edge of the image is the water about 8 feet from my feet. So you can see that, at f11, everything from infinity to at least 8′ in front of me is in focus.

This is in part how cell cameras work. Most of them don’t have any focus mechanism – their sensors are so small and the focal length of their lenses so short that even at moderate apertures like 4 and 5.6 everything from a couple of feet out is in focus.

I’m not completely happy with this image – I think I should have included a line of shore to give some context, and the tones particularly in the foreground aren’t where I want them yet, but it illustrates the point. The little tree is presented in contrast to the vast expanse of river and the trees on the far shore..

The river is also rising – that little tree probably rooted last summer after the flood.

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Published by dean on May 13, 2013 | 2 Responses

Today is my birthday. I am some more years old than I was. The number is getting biggish now. My best present is that my beloved will be home from California tonight.

I Rented A Lens

This weekend I rented a lens.

I’ve been needing (well, not needing) wanting a wider lens for landscape work. For example, when I made this photo, I was desperately wishing that I had something in the 24mm range. For landscapes, short focal lengths have a couple of advantages. First, they take in (as you would expect…) a wider view of the scene. And second, they have greater (at really short lengths, much greater) depth-of-field than normal focal lengths.

They also have a few drawbacks – because they jam more than a ‘normal’ view into a given frame, they distort. Foreshortening, in particular, gets stronger the wider the view. Also, because the depth-0f-field is so much greater, selective focus is less useful.

They work well whenever you want a big sweep, or where you are close to things. Like in a city.

They’re not so great for portraits.

 

Some Rocks

I have posted some of these before. But I like them and I am posting them again.

These are all about 2′ across. They are lying on a stony beach in Campbell River, BC, near where HouseApe 1.0 used to live. There are heavy tidal currents here, probably a couple of knots at the peak, and there is violent wave action during the winter. The stones are smoothed and softened by this – their hides are sensuous under the fingers.

I spent a wonderful morning photographing these in 2008. Who knows when I will get up there again?

 

Thematic Photograph #241 – Pairs 2

Perhaps I should only post two shots for this one?

I finished this one yesterday morning, and I have another one in the queue, which I worked on this morning but am not totally happy with yet.

This was shot at the PNE in August, 2012, and processed by me, yesterday. This is a detail of a performing drum troupe.

 

This is part of Carmi’s Thematic series.

Production And Problems

I am now a full-fledged operational DBA.

The transition is a nearly-inevitable one. First, most operational DBAs started as something else. Sometimes they started as server/network techs, and sometimes they started as software developers. In most cases, they started doing DBA type work because there was nobody else to do it.

Second, there is a shortage of good operational DBAs. You realize this when you hang the labels ‘DBA’, ‘SQL Server’, ‘DB2′ and ‘Oracle’ on your LinkedIn profile. Since I first put the DBA label up, I have gotten regular (even in slow periods, 1-2 month) inquiries about availability. I just got my first one after starting this job three weeks ago.

Anyway, as a full-fledged operational DBA, I get hit with things coming from the left and the right and right up the middle like a locomotive. Even here, where I’ve been on the job three weeks, I get people stacked up to talk to me on a bad morning.

One of the things developers have learned is that if you invoke the magical ‘production problem’, you will move up the queue.

I am currently working on rebuilding a test environment prior to some software being rolled out to production next week. They’re getting fairly frantic to have it running, but there have been a series of problems all revolving around the facts that 1. this hasn’t been done in over a year and 2. there isn’t anybody around who has done it before. Nor did they leave any instructions or scripts or what have you.

So I’m working on this and an annoying developer walks up. Do you have a minute? he asks. No, I say, I don’t. This is with regard to a production problem, he says. I still don’t have a minute right now, I say, give me two minutes to finish the email I’m writing and I’ll talk to you.

Two minutes later, I go get him.

We sit down at my machine, and I pull up the production system and run a query or two. All looks fine. About that time, another co-worker wanders in and gestures towards the door. You coming? he asks.

Yeah, the developer says, and gets up.

Wait a minute, I said, what’s your production problem?

Well, he says, there’s no actual problem, I just wanted to see this data in relation to the problem, to see if it is fixed. Can you send it to me? I have to go for lunch.

So that particular developer has burned his ‘production problem’ credit with me.

My Dad

My dad has been gone so long now – I think I’ve now lived the majority of my life without him.

It’s funny – I don’t miss him much any more, but sometimes I just remember him with his dark brown square glasses frames and his checked shirts (the yellow and brown and white one, or the blue one) and his receding hairline and what was left of his hair straight back – just remember, out of nowhere, as if I’d seen him just yesterday.

It’s more than 25 years now. It is strange how the mind works. Because other days I can’t remember him much at all, just this dim figure. Today I am remembering him clearly – these ghosts seem to come and go in my mind, each coming forward to take their turn. Being the second hoariest of my ghosts, he doesn’t get his turn as often as the others.