Been a month. First off, books I've been doing...

I finished Hawaii, then watched the movie. Interesting contrast, the movie makers tried to capture on film what they thought would be the most compelling aspects of the book. They left out the leper colony, that would have been good movie material, but probably not for the time. They only took it to the preacher's wife's death. The book brings it to what was then closer to present day. I might do another Mitchner, he's on my list, but it might be a while.

Another book my wife suggested was The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullough. I've finished that one. Much better than Hawaii. Less history than Hawaii, but written better. Along with that I've finished The #1 Ladies Detective Agency, and the Sunday Philosophy club by Alexander McCall Smith. That was in the car, and now The Blind Assassin is there, it's next on the list for the book gathering. At home on the MP3 player I have The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Similar to Black Boy, but fiction. It is interesting for the most part, but drones on at times, unnecessarily in my opinion.

Lately I've been recovering from my school days. It is nice to be able to come home and have fewer responsibilities. I've been hitting the PS3 more often, as well as working with the computers in the house. There is also Librivox.org, been doing some of that and it's much more time consuming than it would seem.

Then there is the digital camera. Can't remember if I've mentioned that, I bought a Canon Rebel before going to Hawaii, and I've been experimenting. There is a post-processing technique called High Dynamic Range, or HDR for short, which is interesting. It is a method for taking 3 or more exposures of a scene at various exposures, then combining them with software dedicated to these types of files and coming up with some interesting effects. It is what compelled me to get the SLR in the first place, only I've just discovered the technique. The pictures are popular, for good reason, and I use them as desktop backgrounds. More about this later, maybe.