Greg In The Desert

I really like the image quality from my first generation Canon Digital Rebel but I quickly got tired of caring around a big SLR. I have a Canon G9 but it stopped working when it became out of warrantee. I’ve been looking at the 4:3 mini-SLR types cameras but they are expensive and still seem to have issues.

After my Canon G9 died, I vowed to never buy another Canon camera again. Then the G10 and G11 came out with positive reviews, I considered them but they were lacking enough features to reconsider my anti-Canon stance.

At CES last week, Sony annouced the DSC-HX5V camera loaded with nearly every feature I have been wishing for.

• First and foremost, It includes an SD slot. Being forced to use a Memory Stick was enough to keep me from even considering a Sony camera.
• It includes a GPS and Compass. I often carry around a GPS recorder so I can geotag photos later with the coordinates. It’s been a pain and sometimes the GPS doesn’t record. It’s yet to be seen if Sony uses some weird formatting of the GPS data.
• Auto HDR. I don’t have to annoy my friends by making them stay still for those multi shot pictures.
• It records full HD movies in the AVCHD format in 1080i. Why Canon didn’t include this in the G11 is beyond me but it’s something I will use often. It won’t do the 24fps mode of my dedicated HD camera, but i can live with it.

It’s not a SLR but I expect the image quality to be very good. The only missing feature I haven’t read about is if it will shoot in RAW file format. For $350 I will find out unfortunately I will have to wait until March.

Weird.

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This thing has been making news around here. The chupacabra is a little gargoyle type creature that exists in Latin American folklore, it was even on a episode of the X-Files.

Someone found a skeleton out on the west mesa that looks weird and since it’s just the bones it must be a chupacabra, turns out it’s a “ocean skate“. You got to admit, with it’s face all smashed down and all, it looks pretty freaky. Its even stranger that it ended up out in the middle of the desert but people dump all kinds of crap out there including couches, car bodies, human bodies, hot water tanks and now sea creatures.

Because if there is, I have a ton of it in my garden. Crab grass and this weird little “milk weed” that stays low to the ground and is hard to pull up. Everyday I go out and pull as much of the crab grass as I can and everyday there is more. Not to mention that the sod we put down is 80% brown and the crab grass as started to move over there.. I guess I didn’t water it enough but I have been watering it more and it looks like its starting to recover.

Next year I have some plans to rectify this.

For the vegetable garden, over the winter I will put a clear plastic cover it which should produce a green house effect. But I wont vent it and let the heat build up, which should be enough to kill everything that tries to grow there. Next I will try Compost Tea after I plant stuff next year. There is a guy in Alaska that grows huge edible vegetables and attributes it to Compost Tea. In fact I may try it this year if I have time.

As for the grass, I’ve already taken steps to revive it. One thing I did find is the parts of the grass that were in shade are still alive. So I re-seeded the yard with a shade/sun mixture. I have been watering it every night as well. We will see how it looks in the next few weeks. If I can get that seeded well it will (hopefully) not give the crab grass room to grow. Oh and I will get some basic “weed-n-feed” to put out there too.