Where Did The Summer Go?
With just a few days left until the unofficial, official end of summer, I’m now taking stock of what I did with my summer vacation. It’s a carryover notion, my summer vacation, from childhood, but I like it. First off, I’d say that I’m just a bit cheesed off that we never had a proper heat wave here in New York, something I was looking forward to after the series of polar vortex weeks we endured this past winter. Without a week (two, ideally) of 100+ degree-days, it just doesn’t feel like summer to me. Well, can’t do much about that, so I’ll move along.
Nothing says summer like websites! Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to catch on as a bumper sticker either. I did some work these past two months for both Ztrack and for AZL, which was good. It’s amazing how time slips away from you when you’re configuring extensions, plug-ins, modules, etc. With the value of websites to model railroading today, this is just one of those things that has to get done and honestly, overall I do enjoy the process.
The other big project I tackled (still tackling) this summer was more tech stuff… no, not DCC, but close. I had a new computer sitting on my shelf, still in its shrink-wrap, for longer than I’d like to admit. I kept putting off the grand shrink-wrap removal because I knew this was going to mean I’d be ordering a new bank of monitors, hard drives, back-up hard drives, RAM, you get the picture. Of course, with a shiny new Mac Mini and all the trappings, I’d also need a new camera… of course I would!
After going bleary-eyed reading reviews and watching sample YouTube videos on the wonders of this model and that model, I settled in on a reasonably safe bet, the entry-level Canon t5i DSLR. It takes a good picture and as important, it does nice video too. One thing I’ve wanted to do for a long time is to get video up on this site. It will be a great way to communicate ideas and entertain our visitors here at Raildig. Now of course the slightly dry stuff for me, learning how to properly use all these goodies.
I have my manuals, cheat sheets and Google at the ready to tackle this late-summer (early-autumn) education and in a couple of weeks I’ll start producing some good material that I’ll be showing here on Raildig.
So while my summer wasn’t filled with model railroad work (damn!), ultimately it will yield better photos and video for this site, and isn’t that really what’s important?
Category: Blog
