British Armed Forces and Veterans Day Parade

Yesterday’s parade in some more detail. Faces, caps, badges and medals.

Some more photographs are across at Flickr.

British Armed Forces and Veterans Day Parade

Just a taster of some photos from the British Armed Forces and Veterans Day parade along Union Street in Aberdeen.

Canon 40d with Canon EF 50 mm f/1.8 II Lens. JPGs resized via Windows.

Cricket on the Links

On the way back from the beach, I stopped to watch the cricket. I just couldn’t find a combination that worked for me, and not being able to see the results of the shots on the lcd plate was a problem. Something to sort out for next time.

Aberdeen Beach

After a trip up town (unsuccessfully trying to get a couple of padded lens cases), I dined and then went down to the beach. I was on the prowl for surfers, taking my 55-200mm Tamron lens, but only saw some fast-moving jet ski-ers. Too fast for my limited skills. I took a few shots, including the one of pebbles – which seems to hang on some people’s walls. Peculiar. I must get round to replacing some of my faded prints with some of my own photos.

Music to edit by

Editing some of today’s photos and just had to dig out this:

Carnie Wood, near Elrick

An evening with the midges in Carnie Wood, getting to grips with my newly arrived Canon EF 50 mm f/1.8 II Lens. I didn’t spot any squirrels, but plenty of flying things, big and small. A very well looked after piece of woodland. [maplink]

Next time, I make sure there’s midge-repellent in the car.

Fleeting sadness

The fleeting height of being a sad git. Becoming Mayor of my work through foursquare. Oooh yah.

The phone is my HTC Desire in a skin.

Auld Reekie

The alarm goes off early. I hit snooze. I then thing “did I hit snooze, or did I just switch the alarm off?” So I get out of bed, so I don’t fall asleep and miss my train. The alarm goes off when I’m shaving.

The trip down is good, and I listen to 2 1/2 albums on my HTC Desire, and the battery only goes down a wee notch.

As the train nears Montrose, I recall that it was the TGO Challenge dinner last night, and text Darren (he’d have been awake anyway), and say I’ll keep an eye out. I see one chap with rucksack on the platform, as he moves, there’s a flash of a t-shirt. He gets into the same carriage, and  sits near me. I don’t recognise him, and leave him to stare at the beautiful Scottish scenery. Thinking that he’s thinking “I walked across that”, resolves me to my Summer plans of getting out to the ‘Gorms. But I’ve been there before. As the train nears the end of the line at Edinburgh, I say a few words to him. It’s JH on his way back to Taunton. We’d had chats on forums in times past. Hand shakes hand, and he’s off to wait for his train, while I wait for an old University pal.

The rest of the morning/afternoon is spent chewing the fat and buying books. I’ve a cold and he’s got things on his mind, but it’s fun to catch up again. Waterstones is raided, and I apologise to the lass at the till for leaving big gaps in their Scots poetry section:

• “Gair nan Clarsach/The Harps’ Cry”, ed by Colm O Baoill, translated by Meg Bateman [Birlinn]
• “Duanaire na Sracaire/Songbook of the Pillagers”, ed Wilson McLeod and Meg Bateman [Birlinn]
• “Chuckies fir the Cairn”, ed Rab Wilson [Luath] – purely for the title

At the nearby gallery I get Walter Benjamin’s “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction”, and Elisabeth Couturier’s “Talk about design”. I have a hankering for something new to get me motivated.

On the way back, I switch on GPS (for 5-10 minutes) and wifi and download app updates on 3g and reply to emails … and watch the battery life drain down to the orange warning. Switching off the power-hungry apps, I settle into 30 minutes of an audiobook on MortPlayer, and reading a PDF book. The battery life remains steady.

I do notice that the image above appears much sharper on the HTC Desire’s AMOLED screen than it does on the LG LCD monitor at home. I looked at file sizes and ruled out a quality difference, as the file on the phone and the file on the pc were identical copies. All I can think of is the difference in screen quality. Or maybe it is something else.

Resupply Drop

I went through to Braemar to deliver a resupply pack for George.

With all the weather, I made sure that George had some sun-lotion as it was a blistering 23’c, but I needn’t have worried as he was ready of our mixed weather.

Soon after reaching the quiet lounge of the “Fife Arms”, Andy Howell and Humphrey arrived. Shirley soon joined us and toys were brought out. Walking 2/3rd across Scotland and people are just having fun, enjoying themselves.

Err, it wisnae me, Shirl.

‘king Summer

As the clouds opened and the rain came straight down, the day was brightened by a double rainbow (leprechaun-nav?) lighting the way home from work. As I rounded the corner, I quickly moved out of the way of Mr & Mrs Drunken Chav, as he screamed at her “It’s supposed to be ‘king Summer!”. My guffaw was stifled in case I got beaten up.

Shot through built-in app on HTC Desire (Android).

Earworm: Fruity Oaty Bar

I managed to get a passable “Jayne” hat last week, and have been humming the Fruity Oaty Bar jingle from Whedon’s excellent work: Firefly/Serenity. Having the “Firefly/Serenity” soundboard on my phone is probably to blame too.

If you’ve ever played “Traveller”, and not seen “Firefly”, then shame on you.