Moving Forward

Today's shot for the "Photo a Day" project is called Moving Forward. I took this shot earlier this year in the summer, but only got around to playing with it now.


Exif Data
Camera: Canon 5D mkII
Aperture: f/20.0
Exposure: 1/320
Focal Length: 28mm
Flash: Not-Fired
ISO: 640
Post processing included contrast adjustment, vibrance adjustment, healing tool, and unsharp-mask

Unwelcome Friend

I found a new friend today. Unfortunately, my wife did not approve so I had to show him the door. Poor little guy, it's cold out!

Lemieux Island Water Purification Plant

Earlier this year I got a chance to visit the Lemieux Island Water Purification Plant during Door's Open Ottawa. From the first look of things when you step inside, you would wonder how this place could ever be a water treatment plant. It is absolutely gorgeous inside with it's high vaulted ceilings, marble throughout, and accented with solid brass everywhere. It was at one point in time the "in" place to use as a banquet hall by city officials when it was built in 1931. It's still a fully functioning water purification plant, however it's banquet days are over. Enjoy!

Canadian Space Services Ltd.

Earlier this year during Door's Open Ottawa I visited the Canadian Space Services Limited building. I thought this would be a great place to visit since the building used to be a former NATO SATCOM site, and it still contained the huge 68 foot diameter metal space frame radar dome on the roof that provides environmental protection to the 50 foot diameter SATCOM antenna inside. I'm a sucker for technology, even old technology, and this is about as big as they get anywhere around here! Enjoy!

Unboxing - MSI Special Edition Military Class 4GB USB Flash Drive

A short while ago I kindly received an MSI Special Edition Military Class 4GB Flash Drive from a company I regularly do business with. Not only was it a very nice gesture, but it's also a very useful device for me to transfer my data from place to place. I figured since it was a special edition item, I should capture a short unboxing of it. So here it is... the MSI SE Military Class 4GB.


The case is actually quite nice, full metal case with a plastic window. It's a little bigger than it needed to be, but still quite nice.


Popping off the top reveals everything that comes with the drive. The drive itself is inside the little rubber military guy, and it comes with two types of rope attachments, one with a quick release, the other a screw on cap.



Here we see the front and back of the rubber protective military guy. To access the drive you need to slide it down and out the bottom using the hole in the back.


To give you a sense of scale, the 4GB drive is actually about the size of a Tonnie, as seen in the following front and back photos.



It really is amazing how small these things have gotten over the years. Here's a shot of it plugged into my laptop.


It's a nice little drive, but it has it's problems as well. It can be a little difficult at first to actually insert it into a USB port since it is so tiny and does not have the usual metal bracket. I've learnt that you really have to squeeze the rubber military guy while putting it into a slot so that the drive does not just slide back up into the holder. It's also not the fastest drive in the world. I get only around 4Mb/s write speed to the drive, which is terribly slow, and an average of 14Mb/s read speed, which is in the slow-regular range of speed.
Either way, it will come in handy!

Krista & Vanessa at Mackenzie King's Estate - Part 2

Here are a few more shots from the photo session of Krista and Vanessa at MacKenzie King's Estate from October 11th 2010.
Enjoy!