How To

Custom-built bathroom shelves

This summer, I built a few custom shelves for our bathroom, and only now got around to writing about them.

There’s a certain quality, a character, to objects made by hand, that you just won’t find in mass-produced items. There’s also the fact that if you make something yourself, to the exact measurements of the place where you want to put it, you won’t be able to find a better fit anywhere else, no matter how many stores you visit. And there’s also the little matter of money — chances are, it’ll cost more to buy it than it will to make it yourself.

In my case, I already had the wood lying around from other projects, and I had the tools and other materials as well, so all I needed was some time. I’d estimate the total time used up for this project at around 10-12 hours, spread over several days.

There’s a quick video you can watch, where I talk about how I made the shelves. It’s going to be useful if you want to undertake this project yourself.

I hope this (along with some of my other projects) helps inspire you to create something instead of buying it. There’s nothing wrong with buying something that’s well-made, but most of the stuff you find in stores today is made in a third-world country, with third-world standards, out of cheap materials, and will likely break in a few months. That’s not good enough for me, and I hope it’s not good enough for you, either.

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Thoughts

File corruption rears its ugly head

During the last few weeks, I’ve seen the following error in Adobe Lightroom 3.

There I am, editing photos, minding my own business, and when I try to view a photo for editing, I get the error message you see above: “The file appears to be unsupported or damaged.”

When I try to view the file in the finder, I get the same error message, this time directly from the OS: “The file […] could not be opened. It may be damaged…”

Here’s my workflow:

  1. Shoot RAW
  2. Import RAW files as DNG into Lightroom (LR converts them on the fly)
  3. Process in LR
  4. Export as JPG or as needed
  5. Back up the catalog and check its integrity weekly

It’s pretty straightforward, and that’s the way I like it. I currently have about 85,000 photos in my LR library, whose catalog is stored locally on my MBP, with the files (DNG, RAW, JPG and TIF) residing on a Firewire Drobo.

Fortunately, the file corruption is only temporary, meaning there’s an error somewhere along the way:

  • It could be Lightroom
  • It could be the DNG file format (because I haven’t gotten the error with RAW or JPG files)
  • It could be OS X: I wonder how much testing Apple did for 10.6.5 with volumes greater than 4TB
  • It could be the Drobo: it’s a big volume (4.4TB) with lots of data that’s constantly being updated, lots of I/O traffic

I don’t know, and I hope someone reading this has an answer.

What fixes the error every time is quitting LR, ejecting the Drobo, cycling its power, mounting it, and starting LR. I’ve also tried just restarting LR, or just ejecting the Drobo, but those methods didn’t work.

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Places

On the road in Moldova

We traveled to the province of Moldova recently (not the Republic of Moldova, the province of Moldova, which is part of Romania, as was the Republic of Moldova at one time), and while on the road, I recorded these videos.

The first is of the sunrise somewhere between Iasi and Piatra Neamt. I processed this to give it an old-time feel, with film grain, scratches and an appropriate soundtrack.

The second, filmed a little later that same morning, is of an historic piazza in Piatra Neamt.

The third, filmed that same day, is of a mountain brook in Cheile Bicazului, as we crossed the Carpathian Mountains from Moldova into Transilvania.

I hope you enjoy them! (They’re all in HD, so if you can’t see them at full res on my site, click through to YouTube and make sure to select 720p.)

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Events, Places

First snowfall of 2010 in Medias

We woke up this morning with a puffy white blanket of snow covering the town. It was the first snowfall of the 2010-11 winter, and while it didn’t cover the ground, it did manage to stay on trees and rooftops, providing a welcome change in the scenery. (It’s been ugly weather most of this week, with cold, rainy days and mud everywhere.)

Continue reading →

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Places

Inside the fortifications of St. Margaret’s Church in Medias

Built in 1488, St. Margaret’s Church in Medias, Romania, is the town’s most recognizable landmark, thanks to its leaning clock tower, which can be seen from miles away. Its tower dates from 1460, and left its originally vertical position due to some soil shifting. The photos shown below are from the church’s interior courtyard, inside its fortified walls.

A primary school is housed in its courtyard. I attended that school as a child, and have fond memories of playing in the courtyard, underneath a chestnut tree which is still there today.

Three other landmarks are inside the courtyard:

  • The birthplace of S. L. Roth, one of the town’s most famous citizens
  • Turnul Funarilor (the Rope-Makers’ Tower)
  • A chapel with beautiful frescoes (located outside the church, inside one of the defense towers) — I plan to photograph it in the future, but you can see it from the outside in one of the photos below.

This is the main passageway that leads into the interior courtyard.

This is Turnul Funarilor (Rope-Makers’ Tower) and S. L. Roth’s place of birth (next to the tower).  Continue reading →

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