I’d be more excited about a new non stick frying pan if I wasn’t quite so sleepy.

It’s been a while since I crammed all my sleep into 6 hours. Heard the alarm and had a 15 minute dream. It involved a tollway, a crane, fly swatting, and a phone call from someone I know at work. Yes, it was a WEIRD dream.

Made an omelette with my new frying pan. It’s more a skillet though. Completely metal, you can chuck the entire thing into an oven for cooking. It’s 10 inches and deep, so it definitely holds your food in. Heat dissipation is slightly different from the stainless steel pan I’ve been using, but I’d probably need to observe a little more before I can figure out how both pans work.

The stainless steel pan has been giving me nothing but trouble, and the first test was to try and fry an egg. I couldn’t even get that right as the egg cooked but stuck to the bottom. Annoyingly, the top wasn’t even cooked yet! So I decided to buy a pan and I’m happy with the new pan.

Usually with a post like this I’d have a picture of food to show. No such luck today, was too hungry I just wolfed down my dinner. Okay, now the 6 hour sleeping period is catching up with me, time to turn in. I’m really getting old.

It’s not a reason to pout, but I didn’t manage to get my rice cooker today. Went to the K Mart near my workplace, and they were sold out! Can you imagine rice cookers being sold out? It’s just not supposed to happen.

Now I have commentary on various items. There aren’t any games that excite me at the moment. Used to be able to sit down for hours just going through a game. These days, unless someone else I know is playing the same game, and unless there is a multiplayer to it, I’m not quite interested.

Okay, I should retrace and mark something more important. Vyanne found a job with Citigroup. Yay! She started yesterday and it’s definitely something memorable for her (and her colleagues). Heh, if you are curious, ask her about it one day.

Just downloaded ViewNX, software by Nikon for viewing photos from their cameras. It’s pretty quick, and has all the handy information ready. ISO on the D70 is not set to the industry standard, so it’s one of those info bits that don’t quite show up when I click on the properties. Heh, thinking of my ideal camera equipment setup for travelling. I’ve sort of outgrown the camera bag that Vyanne gave me as a gift a few years back when I just got my D70. The Lowepro Photorunner is good for a camera and one other lens at most, and the 70-200 f/2.8 is not one of those lenses. I’m thinking that an ideal travelling kit would include one body, a 12-24mm, 17-55mm and the 70-200mm. They all use 77mm filters so one stack of them would be fine (UV, Circular polariser and a warming filter). All this inside a padded bag with a tripod attached to it. I like my Manfrotto tripod in Melbourne, but at 3kgs, it’s not the most ideal travelling companion. Looking at some cheap Slik tripods now, which at under $100USD and lighter than 1kg, would make ideal travelling companions. Load on the tripods are around 2kg, which would just work for the wide to mid zoom lenses. The entire kit above would probably weigh in at 4kgs. It’s still quite manageable, and if you really wanted to travel light, you’d just bring the 18-200 do-it-all lens. Personally, I’m not a big fan of the slow aperture on the tele end, so if I really wanted the 200mm range, I’m very happy to lug the 1.3kg lens around to use it.

No macro lens for travelling? Not quite useful unless you are travelling on the nature scene. Find that when you are travelling you don’t tend to have too much time to loiter around to slowly setup and take shots. Besides, the 17-55mm focuses quite closely, so you can get pretty decent closeups of most things.

Okay, moving on from my camera obsession, I’d rather be able to travel to exotic places to take photos. Was discussing with a friend that we should go on a safari in South Africa and to the frozen regions of Alaska. However, the equipment required for both places generally cost more than the trip itself. I’d still like to be able to improve my skills, and do an exhibition one day. Well, at least for now, I will continue to dream, or at the very least, travel to Queenstown in New Zealand, which seems to be a more accessible travelling region.

Back to daydreaming…

Weather seems to have creeped up on me. It’s currently mid September and the temperature has cooled quite a bit without warning. Took a quick trip down to the coastline for some sunset shots of Manhattan last night. It was quite chilly, so I didn’t stay out too long.

These two photos are from the Jersey side looking at Manhattan. On the top picture you can see the Empire State Building just sticking out of the crowd.

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It was a slow weekend and I probably didn’t do too much of anything productive. I will try and rectify that down the road. Since going back to Melbourne, I’ve had a little reset on my state of mind and have found out how to take pictures again. Due to weight constraints, decided to leave all my lenses except one at my apartment in Melbourne. Heh, dragging 2.5kgs of camera gear halfway across the globe wasn’t my idea of fun.

All recharged and ready to head into the next week. Heh, below is what it feels like these days, cool and tranquil.