Fun With my Camera

In my spare time I've been having some fun with my new $10 camera.

Since my last entry about the camera I've taken another 100 still shots and about 200 or 300 more action shots for gif movies.

Mostly goofing around stuff. I haven't come up with any plans yet. One thing I did learn is I should not be far from a computer with this camera. The camera eats batteries. Keep a battery in the camera longer than 12 hours and it's time to replace the darn thing. Take the battery out of the camera, lose all the pictures. As a result, I've learned to take pictures and upload it to the lappy ASAP.

Last week I was on CNM campus with my camera and took some pics:

On the way home I used the action sequence feature to make a little GIF movie:

That light took FOREVER to change!

BSoD

On Sunday I discovered why the driver for the camera wasn't certified by Microsoft: the dreaded Blue screen of Death! I took a really cool picture of the Sandia mountain with the last golden rays of the sun hitting the peak. I remember that the battery had to be replaced first but the shot went off without problems. I took the camera to my laptop and, as the pictures uploaded to the computer, the dreaded BSoD appeared. That sucked. I decided to try to upload the pictures to my Windows 2K machine, thinking it might just be a glitch. Nope. Instead of the BSoD, the Win2K box rebooted. I did notice, before the reboot, that there were more than just the two or three pictures I took of the mountains. I guess not all the pictures were erased when I swapped batteries and maybe the pictures were corrupted somehow and that is what caused the BSoD.

Doesn't matter. I completely lost confidence with my new camera. I'll still use it but I think I'll just upload pictures to the Win2K box. Getting a BSoD on my lappy is too unsettling. At the very least, the next time I have to put a new battery in the camera, I got to make sure I erase any pictures still on the camera.

Water Heater Maintenance

Last week, shortly after I got the camera, I did some water heater maintenance.

What you are seeing above is the drain valve for my water heater. What every water heater owner is supposed to do every six months is connect a hose to that valve, open the valve and drain the water from the heater until it runs clear. Sediment sits on the bottom of the water heater and draining out the sediment will extend the life of your water heater. I bought a new water heater about five years ago and last week I drained the thing for the first time ever. It only took a gallon of water to clear out sediment so I don't feel too bad for the delay.

If you haven't done so already, I urge you to do the same. The reason you want to clear out the sediment is that it forms a thermal blanket on the bottom of the heater and, since most heaters are heated from the bottom, super heated water is trapped under the sediment, it becomes water vapor and escapes from the sediment explosively. These miniature explosions can form micro cracks in the glass lining and shorten the life of your water heater. If you hear your water heater making rumbling noises periodically, it's because you have sediment in your water heater and you need to drain it to clear it out. If I knew this twenty years ago I might still have my old water heater installed. Live and learn.