2104

Another new year is starting and the more life seems to be a repetition.
Unless one is rich enough to try new things all the time, we all seem to go around in a weekly cycle. Work for 5 days, more work at home for the next two. With the odd week thrown in for something different - vacation. For 2014, we are all a year older and probably still dumb.

On the Cayman side, everything is till the same - same wife, kids, home, hobbies, job, friends, parents and relatives.

I have come to realize that as one gets older, one begins to appreciate the fragility of life. 3 friends have lost family members in the past two weeks. As my good friend Judith told me on Jan 2, the holidays were spent consoling those who had lost family, visiting those who were sick and running around trying to assist those more unfortunate.
There is a certain satisfaction one gets from these activities - a feeling that makes you feel really good about yourselves, not the feeling good that you got something effect that me mainly get.

I do not know what 2014 holds for me nor my family, but I believe that if we can appreciate the life we have been blessed with, the good friends that we have and the opportunities that are placed our benefit, we will all be better off.

Over the Christmas holidays, I did something that I had not done in many a year - build something out of metal. The project was a replacement bumper/trailer hitch for my Land Cruiser. It brought out in me the satisfaction of making something useful. It might have cost more than buying a unit, but I can say that "I did it'!
Of course, one project leads to another and a new expedition trailer is being hatched in my mind. Useful for hauling items to the beach for that party, carrying photography items around, or even for survival use in case another hurricane hits. They are expensive to buy and even more expensive to ship overseas. Plus, the DIY bug means that I can get what I want in the unit. Still working out the details but more to come.

All the best to you and your family is 2014!

Cheers
Mike

Same old, same old

Life goes on as the clock slowly tick to our final minute on this earth. When that is, we do not know. As you grow older, you become very aware that there is an end to our time here.
We continue to live in Cayman and the next major goal in our lives slowly draws near - retirement!
It's coming but I am surprised how many people do not plan for it and continue to carry on a normal up to the end.
One of my co-workers turns 60 this year and when we were discussing preparations, I was surprised to learn that he never planned for it. He know it is coming but did nothing!
Perhaps the wife and I are ultra cautious, but we were making plans since we were in our 40's. Will we be finished the mortgage before we reach retirement age? Will the kids be through school? Any major bills we can expect? Will the retirement funds be enough? And on and on.
There is no doubt that Cayman is an expensive place to retire but the choices are few. If we were in Canada and in your 60s, I do not want to have to get up early in the mornings and shovel snow? Or stay inside because it is -40F outside for days on end. In Cayman, we will always be able to go outside all year, even when it is raining. I might have to cut and wet the grass, trim the trees and pick fruit but it really does not take that long. 4 - 6 hours per month if I take my time, 3 hours if we have help.
Well, in local news, mango trees have blossomed. Our big carrie mango has blossomed all over this year. Usually it only produces mangoes on the east side but this year for the first time in 15 years, the west is laden and the east side is following.
There are so many green ones that we are planning to freeze some and I will be trying my hand at dehydrating the fruits. Many plans online for a solar dyhydrator so I will be making a small one to test.
Chickens are OK and so are the politicians.
This year is election year and for the first time, I am a registered voter - along with about 2500 others. The voting ranks grew by about 20% as more people seem to getting fed up with the current system. Two parties, that sound almost the same.
There were a few independents last election but many more this time around. The two months of campaigning has begun with the elections slated for Wednesday May 22. Interesting times to come.

Bye for now!

2013 - what will it bring?

Welcome to  another year by the western hemisphere reckoning. We survive the Mayan end of the world on Dec 21, another Christmas shopping season adn most of us are here to continue on.
I do not make resolutions any more because in the end, I end up doing what I wanted to anyways.
Island life continues on its daily progression - work , eat sleep, repeat for 5 days straight. On the weekends, house work, yard work or just doing something constructive is the name of the game.
Over Christmas, the wife and youngest daughter decided to sped the holiday with the in-laws in Canada. Great idea and off we went on the afternoon Dec 20th. 4 hours later, the temp was below freezing and we were seeing snow on the drive from the airport in Toronto.
I am used to the cold, and usually 2 or 3 days after we arrive in Canada, I am fine. But this time it was different. Don't know if it was the flu that everyone picked up and had for most of the trip or if I am just getting older, but it was not as enjoyable. Maybe never seeing the sun for the whole 11 days we were their contributed to it? Don't know.
But it was nice to come back home and thaw out. I felt sluggish for the first couple weeks as I continued to battle the flu but everything is back to "normal" now.
Nothing has changed. From chickens to gardening, cutting the grass or small projects, island life continues.
We can look at 2013 as a chance to continue as we are or we can take steps to better ourselves - whether through education, charity or personal development. I have come to realize that life is what we make of it.
Wishing everyone a late happy new year and let us become better persons!

'nother update and politrics

There was stormy weather in October but now things have cooled down and the AC units are off as we prepare for the "cold" weather. This is also the start of the dry period that goes until May to June - unless we get a steady flow of nor'westers.
Life continues as normal. Pirates week is finished and the next big thing is American thanksgiving then Christmas.
It was interesting to watch the stores once Halloween was over. They very next morning, the Halloween stuff was gone and the Christmas goodies were on display. I have remarked that by the time Christmas comes here, we are tired of the whole concept and just want it to be over! The desire for materialism that society currently chases is amazing.
One of the most interesting items is politics. We have our first Premier -Mr. McKeever Bush - who seems to think that if you are not agreeing with him, you are against him.
The Cayman Islands Government collects money, lots of money for an island this size due to the fees charged to companies and the duty placed on items shipped in. The biggest problem is Government wastage. For example, our local airlines, Cayman Airways opened up a route to Panama. The airfare for all the dignitaries and the hanger-ons was over $19K. Not including hotel, food and other expenses. The end result, was that the route was open for a couple months and then closed due to lack of interest. It makes one wonder about research and costing? Was it done? If so, the person/firm was not doing their job. I do not think that the money spent in launching the idea will ever be recovered.
Then we have missed opportunities to collect overdue fees. The Ritz Carlton was given certain concessions including a deferred payment of 6 million dollars for stamp duty. The owner defaulted on his payments and the building was put up for sale. Before the sale, the parent company contacted the Premier's office about the outstanding fees. 5 weeks later, after no response from the Preemier, the building was sold to a new owner. Our smart premier then says that the new owners are still responsible for the outstanding stamp duty and he is in negotiations with them. The new owners have responded that they have not heard from the premier at all. Who do we the populace believe? The report can be read at http://caymannewsservice.com/politics/2012/11/15/mac-denies-blowing-ritz-duty
Elections will be held in Cayman in May 2013. It will be interesting to see if  the opposition (who are almost the same as  the current party in power) will be given another go at the continuing screwing up these islands or if they will elect people who have some common sense and realize that you need to live within your means.
Another item is the police force. They are continually hiring more and more officers - increase of 12% over the last year bringing the total to 408 offices. One for every 136 people on the island. You would think that is a good thing - more officers out on patrol and a more visible presence everywhere.
BUT (or is it YET), during morning and evening rush hours and well as during the day, I have driven from one end of the island to the next and you cannot and will not find one office patrolling! Not one police car visible! Everyone is knowledgeable to that aspect and continue to speed, drive dangerously turn without signals, and break every other one can think of. Not to mention cars with straight pipe mufflers, tinting so dark that you cannot see inside the car at midday, people not wearing seat belts, etc. What is the use of paying them without having them work for their money? I need one of those jobs in addition to my regular one!
But for us normal, 9-5 job holders, life continues with its challenges and happy moments.

Getting behind again

I have been a bit busy the past couple months, and add to that the fact that I could not get into my blog because the local internet provider was blocking it somehow. But that is all in the past.

August came and went without much ado. Life continues as normal with work, photography, picture framing and tinkering using up much of my time.

I have been dabbling in lenses again - this time with  3 FD lenses (35mmF2, a 20mm F2.8 and a 17mmF4). They will be converted to EF mount at a later date. I have to finish the Vivitar 28mm F2.5 and the 20mm F2.8 that I started a couple months ago.
I also made the foray into Zeiss lenses with an 85mm F1.4, a 50mm F2 makro and a 35mm F2. Not their most expensive lenses (I would be sleeping in the chicken coop and alone if I did that) but enough to be able to try them out and see if it is addictive as they say.
My personal comparison between the Zeiss 85mm 1.4 and the Canon 84mm 1.8 places the Zeiss above the Canon. Same for the Zeiss 50mm make against the Canon 50mm F2.5. They might be manual focus, but the Zeiss images just plain look better right out of the camera.
If I was to keep the images under 8x10, their is mainly a difference in the colors and that can be readily rectified by a saturation increase in Photoshop. But go larger, and the Zeiss just plain looks better by my in-house testing family.

I also did a bit of traveling - the island fever thing. I went back to Grenada for  almost 3 weeks in September taking lots of pictures. The one thing I noticed in that when comparing Cayman to Grenada (both are similar in size), there is so much variety down there and lots more photo opportunities - whether in the towns for the old French and early British architecture to the wildlife, flowers, birds, rivers and landscape. Living in a flat place is not always good!

I was also in Mexico this week for a seminar and took a few photos. Mainly of the ruins at Tulum. When you are in workshops from 8AM to 6PM, it leaves little opportunity to explore. But such is life!

Hurricane Sandy affected Cayman and Miami while I was away. I did catch the tail end of it in Miami but it was mainly rain and clouds. While it is not affecting us much, I am still monitoring it as it heads north wondering how it will affect the northeastern US.

The usual chickens, fruits and lawn care continue.

For gardening, I managed to get two shoots of a root crop called dasheen which a relative of taro. The leaves (which are quite large) are used to make callaloo soup which the wife likes and it tastes good too. They like water so I am keeping them moist and they are growing. The plant is considered toxic if eaten raw but edible when cooked.
Bye for now

Full frame DSLR?

I am doing a bit of dabbling in the full photography to see if it is worth getting into. In many online reviews, they come across that if you have a full frame sensor, your images will be brighter, more contrast., nice depth of field, etc. I always wondered if it was just hype or real so when an older full frame camera became available locally, I bought it. For a total of $450, I managed to get a nice looking Canon 1DS Mk1. I knew the seller as I had bought a few items before from him as he upgraded to the newest and best. He could afford it while I have the budget goddess looking over my shoulder .... sometimes!
The 1DS originally sold for approx US$8K in late 2002. It had an 11 million pixel (MP) sensor which was the  rage of that period. About 2 years later (and for the same price) one could get the 1DSMK2 which has a 16 MP sensor. These days, Nikon offers a 36 MP sensor for about $2K less money.
It came with everything that was bought with it including the original box, instruction manuals and CDs plus an additional battery. Some of the accessories had never been opened, like the AC adapter to power the camera from mains power. A shutter count revealed that the camera only had 5570 shots on it. These days, that is like a short test drive. Lots of life left in it.
The first thing that struck me upon lifting the camera is the weight. It's about double my 30D camera. The next thing was to charge up the batteries and start reading the manual. The major differences were how to access the functions and the location of the buttons to press.
I also ordered two replacement batteries from overseas as backups (no name brand) and began to take pictures. So far, I have added about 100 images and you can be sure more will come soon.
Overall impressions - the images are similar to the 30D. Yes, you get a wider image view due to the larger sensor but if you have the 10-22 lens (which is for the crop sensors and cannot be used on the 1D without modifications), you get the same coverage as a 16mm full frame lens. Pixel peeping, there is less noise at 100-400 ISO with the 1DS but this only shows up during low light imaging.
It is a better camera for portraits and landscapes but nothing earth shattering. Would I get a full frame - absolutely YES! I would love to get  a 5DMk3...... but do I really need it?
Based on online reports, an 8MP camera will allow one to print an A3 image (11.5"x16.5"). I can agree with that as my 30D has done up to 13x19 with no visible loss in resolution. The 1DS should easily get to 13x19. To print anything larger, one can use a panorama mode. I recently took an image created with the 30D to Canada to get it printed on 40" wide paper (the cost was about 1/4 of what they charge down here). It was comprised of 9 raw images merged together (about 130Mb). The guy at the camera shop said he could print it about 14' wide with good image quality. Total final image size in jpg was about 10Mb.
In real life, it all boils down to the  photographer - a professional could take a great image with the cheapest digital camera available while an amateur could have the top of the line everything and have nothing worth looking at.
I am starting a new blog on photography and picture framing to get information out to potential clients for my picture framing business. I am getting questions on why I do certain things and it is easier to direct  them to a good explanation than try to condense 10 minutes into 1. It will be called "In the Frame" and the link is............ Aug 25 - still working on this. It seems that I can do all y normal blog posting and editing but cannot create a new blog! Checking in the blog forum and I find that another person from Norway is experiencing the same thing! Hmmmmmm!!!! What's going on Google?
Sept 8- finally got it figured out. You need to create a blog address name at the same time! In the create box, it said that you can add a blogspot address later and I was thinking that I could have left it blank. Well, live and learn.
So, the new picture framing blog address is.....http://intheframecayman.blogspot.com/. Have a look and see what I am up to!

Summer time and OMOV

It is hot! And did I mention humid? And also hot and humid!
In 4 days time, the registered voters will have the opportunity of trying to change the voting system in Cayman. The current system allows voters in two districts to vote for 4 candidates, another gets three choices, one gets to vote for 2 and two get to vote for only 1 person. The current debate is whether this is a fair system or not? At one time, the number of votes was based on the voting population in the district (i.e. if a district had 4000 voters, they voted for 4 persons at once while another district with 1000 only got to cast one vote) - representation by population. It seems fair but there are some perceived problems about fairness by the single voters against the multi voters. The new propose system is that everyone gets one vote (One Man One Vote) and we go from 15 parliament members from 6 districts to 18 members from 18 districts!
The current Government has said that they will not accept that there is to be a change unless the votes against the current system are 50%+1. A strange way of doing things since in most voting systems, the majority is the winner whether everyone voted or not! Needless to say, the current Government is against the new system.
The other thing is that this small community will have one parliament member for every approximately every 900 voters. Way to high in my books.
But then I am no politician so let the people choose! Time will tell what the result is.
In my books, it a day off work with things to do around the house and other duties to attend to.

I have reverted back from the plastic bike panniers to my old nylon ones. It seems that the vibrations from the rack and riding are causing stress cracks on the pannier mounting points. I had anticipated something like this happening and used large fender washers when doing the original installation but the cracks are around the larger washers. The old panniers will last until later this year when hope to get some new Arkel Metropolitan panniers. They are bigger than my current bags, have a reinforced bottom (unlike my single layer unit) and hold a bit more.

Bye for now!