Failure is the Key to Success

When I got home last night, I found that our washing machine had stopped working. I was able to persude it to start by shutting the door very firmly, but it looks like the interlock is probably not working properly.

So we went out looking for a replacement machine. We ended up desciding on a discounted Bosch one in Curry’s, but by the time we got back there they were just shutting. I put my name against the machine to get back there tomorrow to buy it.

We had a late Christmas this afternoon. We normally finish work at 13:00 on a Friday and work had arranged to take us all 10 pin bowling at Xscape in Milton Keynes and then for a meal afterwards.

The first game didn’t go too bad. I am not a bowler; I bowl at most a couple of times a year, but its the taking part that counts. (That’s what you say when you’re not very good at something) This first game was ok, with 3 strikes and a couple of spares to total 129, but the second game was a disaster, with strike followed by double blank for a total of 74.

Afterwards we had a Christmas dinner, complete with crackers and Christmas music.

I was sent a link today to an online petition to reduce the classified period for census data from 100 years to 70 years. http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/CensusInfoFreed/

This is actually on the E-Petitions section of the 10 Downing Street website. Petitions can be signed by British citizens or residents

I have signed the petition, which now has over 1500 signatures. I am not sure if it will have any impact, but it has to be worth trying. Another 3 censuses worth of information now would be well worth having.

Tags:petition,uk census

Today was a day that could be summed up as ‘not according to plan’.

It started raining early this morning and hasn’t stopped all day. That put pay to my plan to get out and take some photos.

So I decided to make a start moving my video recordings over to DVD. We got a DVD recorder at Christmas, so the thought was to connect the video recorder that we had borrowed from Mum and move some of our aikido and other tapes onto DVD. Well, I plugged the video in and turned it on and nothing happened, no display, nothing. Oh well, maybe it’s the fuse I thought, but no. This is the same video that was working fine until I unplugged it last Saturday to install the DVD recorder in its place.

At least the next plan worked. I set up my film scanner and have made good progress scanning in my 35mm negatives. When I have scanned a film, I am now storing the negatives in ClearFile Archive storage pages. My plan is to scan the film and then make 2 DVD copies of the the images including parity files so that it gives me the best redundancy. The 2 copies will be on different brand media as well.

Tags:film scanner,zoo visit

I intend, along with several other things, to spend more time on photography this year. About 2 years ago, I bought a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite II film scanner with the plan to digitise all of my 35mm negatives and my dad’s slides. I have scanned new films when I have had then developed, but haven’t made much headway on the historical ones. This year I mean to change this.

I thought about how I planned to store the negatives long term, (they are all in a box at the moment). I have decided on using Clearfile 10B negative pages in their oversize binders to give the best protection. After searching around, I found 7DayShop, based in Guernsey, who offered the best price and ordered what I needed late on 28th December. It was delivered on 2nd January, very impressed.

I also intend to take more photos this year. I discovered Kodak Royal Supra film a few years ago and was pleased with the results. However I have finally used all of my stock up and so as it hasn’t been made for a couple of years it is time to find a new stock film. I have samples of Fuji Superia 200, Kodak Portra 160NC, Kodak Portra 160VC, Kodak Portra 400NC, Kodak Portra 400VC, Kodak Elite 200 and Kodak Elite 400 to try. The Kodak Elite is a new film as a replacement for the Supra, so I will see how similar it is. I had just loaded my camera with a roll of the Fuji last Friday when it started to rain and continued for the rest of the day, so fair weather photograher that I am, I didn’t get out. Lets see what tomorrow brings.

Tags:35mm film,film scanner,storing negatives

Well that’s it! Christmas is officially over for another year. It’s 12th night and we have just taken the decorations down. I have changed the website back to normal from the ‘Christmas’ theme.

It was an enjoyable break, but over too soon. I went back to work on Tuesday, but have been on a training course for the last two days, so I’m still not sure what day of the week I’m on yet.