Lifecruiser

Our newest photos is published now, the ones we shot the other day, winter day scenes. We throw away a lot of them, we’re always experimenting with the shots and not all come out good…

Not all the photos is shot with Sammie, my new baby, there are shots from our other camera too. Olympus Camedia C-765 UltraZoom. Pretty good to be in that size and priceclass. 10 X optical zoom is the best feature of it.

If you’re the least bit curious, go ahead and click on the menu choice Photo below the top picture and then take a peek in the Photoset (folder) called Winterday.

TIP: Some of the close up photos is better viewed in a bigger size (if you have a Flickr account) - and don’t miss the slideshow alternative.

I guess you’re curious about our new baby, the Samsung Digi-Max Pro815 camera. This is one of my very first photos with it, without any special settings.

There is some flaws with it, as it always is, but I’m satisfied with it because I knew about them before I decided to buy it. I was comparing the benefits with the drawbacks and established that it (for me) was more benefits than drawbacks. We’ll see if I change my mind after using the camera for a while!

The main reasons why I did choose this camera was:

- The world’s longest built in zoom: 15 x optical
- The largest display on a digital camera, 3.5 inches
- The extra (smaller) display on the top
- The 450-shot Lithium-Ion battery
- 8 megapixels

With a focal length of 28-420mm I can shoot from wide angle to telephoto with one lens. I’m lazy and don’t feel like changing lenses (or battery) all the time… And think about all the fuss I could make loosing the lenses! *smiling*

The extra (smaller) display on the top was a big reason because with that I can shoot from my hip like a real cowboy ;-) without bending down in certain situations. I have problems with my back, so this is an important feature for me.

Now I need a solution to be able to attach the camera to my belt…

Bob Atkins about Samsung DigiMax Pro 815
dpreview’s facts about Samsung DigiMax Pro 815

We’re on our way out to congratulate Mr Lifecruisers niece and her girlfriend. There will be some drinking (coffee) and eating birthday cake involved here, which makes Mr Lifecruiser happy. He likes sweats which I don’t, so he never gets any at home the poor one.

Come to think about it: I wonder what use he actually has of me…..? (No, don’t answer… Or yes do that!)

I hope they will like their birthday presents, it was difficult finding something suitable and some of them are a little bit strange….

Schhh, don’t tell them, but it is:

- Toiletpaper who looks like 1000-swedish crowns bills
- A comic book to keep on the toilet for reading there
- A little book with scottish tea recipes
- A little heartshaped frie pan
- Candles that put out themselves
- Two cuffs with red glass hearts for candles
- Napkins with a heart on it + nice text
- Heartshaped nougat chocolates

The heavy baby, now named Sam, did his work properly! At least for me, I’m just an amateur on such babies. I must say that I prefer this kind, because there is no need of changing the diaper.

Oh, boy, there is a lot of things to learn with a new baby!!!

I was wearing him (must be a him, he is so heavy) at my chest inside my jacket most of the time, so he shouldn’t get cold. It was a pleasure taken him out, I must admit that. My other baby, well, it’s not a baby anymore and rather worned out, was allowed to play too, but only for 3 short sessions. It’s good for her to rest a bit now.

I don’t know what exactly I expected to see up in the air somewhere at the photo above, maybe the Swedish Royal Family climbing the trees….?

The only thing that got me a little bit irritated, was the fact that I couldn’t find the lens adapter, so I couldn’t use the lens hood, which had been good in the sunlight. I assumed that I left it at home, clumsy as I am, but was I up for a suprise when we came home and there was no adapter. What a disappointment, had I already lost it, the first time I took the baby out? There was not nice words I called myself!

That made us believe that I must have dropped it out at The Drottningholm Palace at The Chinese Pavilion where we went to take the photos. So poor Mr Lifecruiser did go back there searching for the adapter as the true gentleman he is. He didn’t find it, but when he came back we started to investigate the lens hood a little bit closer…

Mumbling with very low voice: Of course, there it was hidden on the inside of it…! *ashamed*

So Mr Lifecruiser had a nice (not) repeat trip totally unnecessarily because of his clumsy wife. It’s a hard life being a photographer’s husband obviously…

I’ll write a more detailed report of the camera and put up some of the photos later.

You can click on the menu choice photo above to see our photos so far.

“If you have many wifes, you shall not argue with them. Because the wifes will win”.

[ Poul, 9 year ]

Even if you’re only having one wife, that’s still true. *smiling big*

That’s why I’ve convinced Mr Lifecruiser to go out today, despite the fact of all the minus degrees we have here and that we have to break the hibernation of ours temporarily.

We have to test my new camera, you see. I think we shall take our other cameras with us to do some comparing between them of the shots we get! Could be interesting to see how much better the photos get.

So, if you’re out too, you’d better smile, because the paparazzis are everywhere…

Here comes the other shitty story I was mentioning in our earlier post “Picking up interesting shit”. I can see the funny in almost everything, don’t know about you, but I going to tell you this anyway.

My old dog Billy Boy was freezing a lot in the winter time, so I was thinking that I should knit him a sweater. There was a lot of thinking involved before I could begin. What colors to use, what model and so on. I had a hard time deciding what colors to use. I couldn’t decide, so it went as it did. Black and yellow stripes…

He looked like a wasp in his sweater! Especially when he was running around like a maniac.

I remember the first time I should put it on him, it was hard work because I couldn’t stop laughing. I was giggling so much that I had problems to do anything, even to breathe.

At first he thought it was strange to have it on, but I actually think that he liked it - except from the fact that he didn’t like that I was laughing at him all the time.

I couldn’t resist to take a photo of him when he was doing his poo duty - oh, boy was he grumpy on me for that! His face expression said it all, throwing very angry eyes at me.

Once I saw something very interesting in his poo. It’s true, honest. I saw something black. Yes, I took a wooden stick to poke around in it. I’m a icky person, I know, but also very curious. So are you, so I’m sure that you want to know what it was. It was a black plastic bag for dog poo! He had swallow a whole bag without my notice. Probably because I also used to have dog candy in it…

Poor dog, having such an awful owner. He had to live through a lot of strange stuff that dog…. But he also had a good life I can assure you. Never alone at home, always with us.

It was not just me that did laugh at him - every one that was passing us did laugh at us or smile, so I guess I did a good deed there, making people happy…

Ahhh, how nice it is with a working car…. Our car is working properly again at last, hurray! This car repairshop did it! They found several fault with it and dealt with it.

The only irritating thing is that they also told us that it was, in their eyes, basic investigations that was needed to find the problems. No special tricky knowledge. The other car repairshop hadn’t put it together and done proper adjustments when they were repairing the cars first problems. The following times we were there they had tried to adjust a lot of other things instead of finding the real cause of it.

That was making more job for this good car repairshop, it’s no fun to get things after some ones have been there and screwed up everything.

The worst thing is that because of their poor job, it could have caused the engine to break down AGAIN, we were just lucky to get the car into the other car repairshop in time!!!

Bah! Crappy “professionals”, they are everywhere now a days, not only at the car repairshop.

- Where has the pride to do a good job gone?
- Why does people think that no education/experience is needed?
- Why take on a job that you can’t handle?
- Why is it so hard to confess that you can’t fix it?
- Why come up with wild guesses instead of proper advices?
- How can they return a car that don’t work? Several times!

We’re going to tell them this, of course!!!

The good guys that fixed it, on the other hand, restored our believe that it still exists some people around that is truly professional.

So now we have to go out for rides every day just to enjoy a normal working car….?

To new adventures, step on it Mr Lifecruiser!

Wrrrrroooooam…..!!!! *leaving in a big dust cloud*

We’re going out all day today, testing our car (!), shopping and visiting Mom Lifecruiser. So I will share another blog with you so you get something totally different to read in the meantime.

I don’t normally do this, but as it runs in the family, I would like to introduce you to my old mothers blog, Lifelessions.

There should be a lot more of older bloggers out there, it’s so educational to read!

Go to Lifelessions, the old chick blogger

I can’t resist to write about my long gone dog, Billy Boy. He was a mixed breed between Labrador and Boxer and he certainly had the spirit of a Boxer. He was an extremely lively, healthy and happy dog with a lot of personality.

I got him when he was only eight and a half week old, full of life energy, which actually lasted until his death fourteen and a half year later. Full speed to the last moment! That’s why it was so hard to get any decent photos of him, I had to actually order him to sit or lay down to keep him still and when I did that, the lively “glow” he had just disappeared so the photos never showed his true energy.

He loved all man kind and they seemed to love him back, probably because of his happiness, it was so contagious. You couldn’t help laughing at him, when he was so playful and creative in his ways to get your attention. Sometimes he looked almost human in his face expressions. You could talk to him as he was a human, he understood so much of the words, voice and body signals. Sometimes too much, so you had to camouflage your sentences, so he didn’t get too excited for things we mentioned… But he seemed to learn that too so we had to shift the expressions used all the time.

He really kept me in a good shape, as it were on my responsibility to activate him. He could easily be running around for three hours or more and still have a lot of energy left when we came home! Then just before we went inside, he had this really crazy “running around like a maniac outburst” just to make sure that the last drop of energy were coming out.

He always was shining black, people always asked me what I was giving the dog because he had such a shiny fur. A lot of them asked if I was giving him raw eggs, they should only know that the once time I did, he was farting so heavily that we had needed gas masks! And the dog was the first one to stick his head outside the window to get some fresh air!

He was a smart dog when it came to certain things - he could tell the difference in the recipes of freshly baked bread, if they changed the amount of butter in it and so on. Then he just spitted it out… Of course I made him ate it anyway, but still, it was fun seeing his expression when he noticed the difference!

He was a good guardian dog too, I could feel safe around him. He defended me above all - even when we, my ex-man and me, was pretending (testing the dog) that we’re having some kind of fight, he always protected me before the ex-man. When I were out walking he never reacted about normal behaving people, just the strange ones or if I told him to. He never barked at the door - unless it was some strange noises there after we had gone to bed.

Actually it was hard to get him to bark, but we trained him to by giving him a pankake as a reward. It only took 2 pancakes for him to learn that, he was a fast learner. He always tried to cheat because he didn’t like to bark. He had a lot of other funny noises he did instead, he was talking with us that way and he was actually screaming sometimes when he tought that we were treating him unfair. Like the times we went swimming without him… He just loved to play in the water, making bubbles with his nose below the surface.

I remember that he always came with his toys to cheer me up the times I was ill and laying in bed. Sometimes when having a fever or something more bad, he could wait really long times before he was drawing my attention to that he has go out and do his business. That’s the big respect he showed me.

When he was about 12 years old, he got deaf, but it took me a while before I could tell. He was so smart so he read my body signals and figured out what I wanted from him, so how could I tell that he didn’t hear anything? I did noticed a slightly insubordination when we were out walking and he didn’t listen to me when I called him. That was of course because he had his back turned to me so he couldn’t read my lips or see my body signals. So he got some scolding reminders from me until I figured it out and oh boy, was I ashamed then….

Well, I shall not bore you with all the details, there is a lot of stuff to tell about his lifetime.

Just let me finished with:

For me a pet is a family member and just as important. They are extremely lojal to you an gives you their love without any hesitation. The lost of a pet is a great sorrow and I miss them for a very long time.

Billy Boy at work (or farting?)

This is an event that happened when I was a dog owner a while ago, but it’s still in my memory.

I was visiting my mothers home and she were having guest from abroad. When she started to prepare the dinner, I was heading out with my dog to be able to rest in piece and quiet after the dinner. Two of the guests wanted to come with me for the walk to see a bit of the surroundings, so off we went. This was two elderly women which almost didn’t speak any english at all. I couldn’t speak their language and they couldn’t speak swedish.

I took them to see a small castle nearby, it has really beutiful surroundings too. After we had been out for a while I let my dog loose on a more appropriate place so he could do what he was supposed to do… He was running around a lot and at last he sat down and made his poo duty, but this was at a distance from us of course. My dog was very well behaved.

When he was ready I picked up my plastic bag because I’m very well behaved too and went forward to the poo pile. I put the bag on my hand, bent down to pick it up and realize that I have some one right at my side, very close. There was one of the ladys, leaning down really close to see the poo pile better, probably thinking that it must be something really interesting because I was picking it up…..

How do you explain to an old lady what you’re doing, when you don’t even speaking the same language? Yeah, you’re right, you don’t!

She was asking something about it before she realized what it was that I’ve done, but for a moment there I thought that she should ask to be allowed to see the so very interesting content in the bag…. Pheeewww! When she realized what I’ve just done, she turned a little bit red - you should have seen her face expression -and there was an awful silent moment. I couldn’t even say to her that it didn’t matter because she wouldn’t understand and she was too embarressed.

I tried to laugh away the awkward in the situation, but the two ladys never did laugh… I even tried to explain the situation to the others when we came back, but no one thought it was any funny.

I have a very strange humor, obviously!

Now I remember another interesting shitty story….

- Nah, I think I save that one for some other time!