The Johnson Blog

Ramblings of a geek with a few hobbies…

  • Number Form Synesthesia

    Today as I was doing my morning sweep of news and social networks I ran across a post on Google+ where someone mentioned they had Synesthesia – a form of which allows them to hear colors.  That’s right, hear colors.

    This caught my attention so I began reading about synesthesia on the wiki page linked above.  As I’m scrolling through the page, I run into:

    Number line, courtesy Wikipedia

    If you know me, in the past I may have mentioned that several years ago I learned that how I see numbers apparently isn’t typical.  I see them on a path – one that is and always has been the same.  What shocked me about the image above is that it’s nearly identical to how I see numbers. The circle from 1-12 (although mine tends to take a slight horseshoe-shape), the peaks and valleys in-between each decade, a repeat of the circle at 100-112, 200-212, etc.. The only real difference is that my path keeps rising up to the left (the 200s are higher than the 300s) and the circle/horseshoe thing with 1-12.

    If I’m counting, I sort of zoom-in on the particular number I’m on (each number on the path is written in a space like a board game), with my point of view, or camera angle, changes based on where I’m at on the number path.

    After further reading, I also found that not everyone has a path for the days of the week, the months of the year, or years in general.  Strange.

    I’ve never had a way of naming or describing this, but now I do.  It’s called Number Form Synesthesia, and apparently I have it.

    The brain is a fascinating thing.

     

  • Pike County Fall Color Drive

    This morning we left the house and headed over to Pike County, Illinois for their annual Fall Color Drive.  The drive consists of a collection of small towns in western Illinois playing host to the travelers, with a variety of activities.

    The trees have only begun changing colors, so it wasn’t much of a Color Drive.  But it was still fantastic weather and we all had a good time.

    The first place we planned on visiting was Time, IL.  A town so small that Motion-X GPS didn’t recognize it (no worries, Google Maps on the iPhone stepped up).  En route to Time, we passed an intersection in Milton, IL which we just couldn’t pass up.

    Tractors, old tractors, antique tractors, and more tractors!  We didn’t count but I’d estimate there were at least two and a half dozen on the lot and packed into a couple buildings.

    David could hardly contain himself.  I think he sat in a dozen, his butt barely able to stay in a seat for five seconds before seeing the next one he wanted to experience.

    And there was a combine he just couldn’t get enough of.  When we told him he had five more minutes and could pick one more to sit on, he immediately went back to it.  I think this picture sums it up.

    Here’s what his hands looked like after the tractor jungle.

    After starting a day with a bunch of tractors, the rest is sure to be a let-down for a three year old  boy.  But he was a good sport and had a very fun day regardless.

    Our next few stops included seeing a set of blacksmiths, a knife maker, plenty of bonfires, and much more.  We ended our westward journey in Hannibal, MO which was having their annual Fall Festival.

    After lunch, our trip up too many stairs to count, and the lighthouse, we headed back to Springfield with root beer, cajun roasted peanuts, and a bag full of fudge in hand.

    Good times.

    I’ve got plenty of photos, which I’ll get edited and posted soon.

  • Well That Didn’t Take Long

    It was under a year ago, on the TSA scanners/pat-downs, I wrote:

    How long before you need to go through one of these before going into the DMV? The grocery store? Ballgames? Theaters? Just use your imagination. Before you know it, in any given day you’ll be violated by any number of “officials”. And it will be considered normal. And OK.

    And what headline do I see today?

    NFL wants pat-downs from ankles up at all stadiums

    That’s right, random creepy stadium gate guard will be patting you down.

  • That’s Really Pretty

    Last night as we were leaving David’s YMCA swim class, the sun was setting behind some clouds and it was already starting to get dark outside. A few blocks away, nestled among other buildings, the tower of the Cathedral caugh my eye; it was lit with several lights shining up on its sides which really made it stand out from dusk. I kept my eye on it for a few seconds as we started walking, but didn’t bother saying to Ana or David about how it looked to me.

    I really wish I would have been prepared with a camera, but that’s beside the point.

    Just a moments after I stopped looking at it, I hear “Ooooh, that’s really pretty”. It was David. He had noticed it too.

    Ana and I try to point things like that out to him as often as we can; trying to teach him to stop and take note of how things look. All the times we are out together, and I have my camera, I try to explain why I’m taking certain pictures. I don’t know why I’m surprised, but it’s rubbing off on him.

  • Back to Monticello

    Saturday we went back over to Monticello for their monthly running of their “Southern 401” steam engine. David enjoys trains period, but particularly likes the sights and sounds of the big steam engines. Between runs I got to take David up to the engine cabin so he could see everything, including the fire.

    On our ride from the station to downtown Monticello we rode in “the green car” at David’s request, and on the way back we rode on the wooden open-air car so we could really see and hear everything. If you decide to try it out, the timing of everything works out well for a ride into town, lunch at the Brown Bag Deli, and a ride back.

    There are plenty more photos available, have a look.

    And finally, here’s a video of our ride.

  • Monticello Railway Museum

    On Saturday we visited the Monticello Railway Museum in Monticello, IL. David had a blast around all of the trains and really enjoyed the rides we took.  At one point he shouted “I LOVE this place!”

    We’re hoping to make it back over there at the end of this month or next to ride on the steam engine they run once a month or so.  Should be fun!

  • Canon 30D Shutter Button Repair

    A few weeks ago I noticed that I was having a higher frequency of images coming out with signs of camera shake.  I didn’t think much of it, until one evening I realized I was fully pressing my camera’s shutter release button and it wasn’t firing.  Without thinking, I had been rolling my finger around to make it fire, while introducing the shake at the same time.

    After some searching, this is a common problem with the Canon 30D, 40D and 50D cameras.  Mine started failing right around 50,000 photos – apparently right on schedule.  I had brief thoughts of making the repair myself, until I ran across this video – and promptly broke out into a sweat.

    So I sent the camera in for repair.  It took a week, came back fully functional and clean, and the bill was $201.

  • Sharing iPhone Wallpapers

    I have created a page here where I will be sharing images I’ve cropped and re-sized to be used as iPhone wallpapers.  Navigate to Wallpapers -> iPhone Wallpapers on the menu above (or go directly to the page here).

    I won’t be noting new uploads here, so you’ll need to just check back periodically.

  • How I Use Lightroom: Collect and Share

    This post is part of an ongoing series related to how I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.  If you haven’t read them yet, check out How I use Lightroom: Getting Photos In, How I use Lightroom: Taking Out the Trash, and How I use Lightroom: Getting Photos Out.

    Collections, Quick Collections and Smart Collections

    In the first post in this series I discussed importing your photos into Lightroom and explained how I have Lightroom configured to import into a nicely organized, folder structure based on the import date.  So you’d think I’d use this all the time, right?

    Not as much as you may think.   And the reason is becuase the primary organizational unit in Lightroom is the Collection.

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  • How I Use Lightroom: Getting Photos Out

    How I Use Lightroom: Getting Photos Out

    This post is part of an ongoing series related to how I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.  If you haven’t read them yet, check out How I use Lightroom: Getting Photos In and How I use Lightroom: Taking Out the Trash.

    First Some Background

    One of the first hurdles users new to Lightroom run into is how to get to the images they have edited.  It’s common to think I imported them to the My Pictures folder, so I’ll just use Windows Explorer to grab a copy.

    Wrong.

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