Electrical Storm in Canberra 29 Nov 2011
I’ve never uploaded a video to my blog before so I have no idea if this is going to work or not. I held my iPhone up to the window and just hit ‘record’, hoping to get a few good, bright flashes. Yeah, I got a few. It wasn’t hard.
Here’s the radar image from 10.40pm last night; the storm lasted until about 2am. I know, because I was wide awake, writing my First Crappy Draft. 1500 words to go! Whoot!
POTUS was in Canberra two weeks ago. I picked Madi up from school (Ella went to a friend’s house) and we rushed down to Parkes Way to see the motorcade go past.
I had the 70-200m lens on, but still couldn’t get very close.
There he is! In the back seat! Waving! (or does he just have his hand up like that all the time, so it looks like he’s waving in every single one of the 1000s of photos that get taken of him at times like these?
There was a woman standing next to me who thought that THIS guy was Obama. No, he’s Secret Service. This car was behind the two ‘Beasts’. I’m not sure why the window is open. I didn’t see an enormous gun sticking out of it or anything.
And then… he was gone.
Just to let you know that I have not not been posting on purpose. I’m not ignoring you. I DO have photos of President Obama. Problem is, we are having ongoing technical issues here with our network, blah blah technical stuff that I don’t understand blah blah… PJ is working on it, but in the meantime my computer is only good for typing word documents; I can’t access the internet and I can’t access my email. I’m getting around some of these issues with my iPhone and iPad but I can’t, for example, upload a picture of the President because blah blah technical stuff blah.
Meanwhile, I’ve passed 36K on my NaNoNovel so that’s a bit exciting. For me, anyway.
Thanks for your patience. We shall return to our regular programming shortly.
This is Darcy, by the way (Ella’s puppy). I was shooting in f4.0 at 1/40 and just happened to get her when she was sitting very still. Every single other picture I took during this little session is blurred on account of the slow shutter speed (I was shooting in Aperture Priority and wanted the depth of field).
Photo by me. Not by PJ. Just wanted to make that distinction clear.
PJ took these today. The puppies have started doing this thing where they come and lie under the table where we’re sitting and they just fall asleep. Even if they’ve just had a big nap. I’ve had them lying at my feet while I’ve been typing my NaNo Novel in my study. They’re so cute.
So, just to be clear, photos and post-processing by PJ. Click on each image to enlarge.
I spent the past twelve months wondering how on earth to get started on Chapter 23, and last night it came to me. I just had to skip over that bit in the middle that wasn’t particularly novel-worthy and get to the next bit that would be more exciting. I actually wrote the words “Three years later…” at the top of the page, and cringed a little to myself because I have only seen that device used in movies. I’ll spend the next five or so chapters subtley refering to some events that took place over those missing years (aka “ten boring chapters”) but for the most part I’m ploughing on. It’s like when you look back on the last twenty years of your life and realise that there were entire career paths that you took that were almost a complete and utter waste of time.
Or is that just me?
Over to you…