Fun with a Camera Phone

The following was originally published on my old blog. It’s worth posting here and has been edited for content and presentation.

I’ve had this Virgin Mobile cell phone since December 2005, and the fact that it has a camera was the overriding reason I bought it. At first I did a series of self portraits (which I’ll post later) just to see how the thing worked and took pictures. Not the best but it does the job and I’ve taken several candid snapshots around town. Most of my stored photos are of my niece Ella. She is 23 months old now, walking — running now! — all over the place and desperately trying to speak real words. She’s almost there, folks. I think she’s a late bloomer. Didn’t really walk until 17 months, so I believe by her 2nd birthday the speech will explode.

Here is a candid shot I took of her while my sister and I shopped in Walmart.

She was knocked out, slumped over the cart seat, totally oblivious to the world. I had to take the pic as she looked so cute. Ella didn’t remain asleep for long; not ten minutes went by when she woke up full force. She chattered and kept us entertained the entire shopping trip.

I took this back in April while taking a short cut through the ‘hood. I walk everywhere in the area. It is not uncommon for me to walk from my house to the bank or CVS and back � a good 10 to 15 block stretch. When the weather is nice I’ll take a scenic route, away from busy 38th Street. On this day, I detoured down Watson Road, a gorgeous stretch of stately homes and gardens. I passed this house which caught my eye. I call it the Violet House. Yep, the house is painted a lovely shade of purple. See for yourself:

Not only did the house’s color catch my eye, but the redbud and lilacs were in full bloom. Even the flowers followed the color scheme! Not the best shot as it was midday and the sun was not behind me, but I couldn’t resist.

WISH-less in Indy

The following entry was originally published on my old blog.

It is now Week 4 of going without our local WISH-TV (Channel and WNDY (Channel 23). That means no watching CSI or Dave Letterman. No watching my favorite weather broadcaster and her dead-on forecasts. No Colts games or Young and the Restless. Why?

LIN TV, the parent company of WISH and WNDY, is asking our cable provider to pay a fee to carry it’s broadcast signal. Almost all local broadcast channels charge a nominal fee to cable providers in exchange for carrying their signals. However, LIN wants to charge more and as of last week pulled all their channels from Brighthouse’s lineup.

Not only are 125,000 Indianapolis Brighthouse customers going without these two local stations (unless they’ve acquired alternative means to pull in the signals), more than 2 million cable customers in several states are now deprived of all channels owned by LIN.

It’s rather frustrating for people to do without so long. WISH has offered a $50 discount coupon for those Brighthouse customers to switch to DISH Network. That is hardly the solution at my house where we’re on limited income. Even buying an antenna is not doable now; we simply cannot afford it. My elderly mother is going without her morning shows such as Price is Right and Martha Stewart. I don’t get to watch Letterman or CSI or 60 Minutes. And we can kiss the Colts games goodbye.

You know, LIN and its stations can kiss loads of advertising revenue goodbye. If 125,000 local cable subscribers are not watching Channels 8 or 23, that means that many the stations’ advertisements are not reaching. More than 2 million Brighthouse customers nationwide are presently not reached by advertising. Ad revenue fuels a TV station’s virtual existence. Right now frustrated cable subscribers are calling and emailing WISH in protest, but the most effective way is venting to the advertisers. Maybe refusing to watch LIN’s stations altogether, thus not viewing the ads, will force LIN to pull in its horns.

So far LIN is not backing down, and it’s increasingly unfair to Brighthouse customers. Granted, Brighthouse is being wonderful to its customers, offering alternative means to watch LIN’s stations free of charge. The majority of Brighthouse’s subscribers here live in the old city limits, and I’m sure several of these families are on fixed or limited income. No way could they afford to switch to another provider, not in these uncertain economic times.
No other local broadcast station is doing this to its viewers, knowing the potential financial fallout that could result if signals are pulled from Brighthouse. I know it’s not very good of me to wish it, but I hope LIN’s stations feel this very deep in the wallet. LIN has to come around sometime and stop this nonsense. In my opinion, Brighthouse is not the big villain in this mess; it’s all LIN’s fault.

Welcome to the Whatever Blog!

Okay, so I have an all-purpose blog hosted elsewhere, but as of now, I’m not that all satisfied with that host. I signed on to wordpress a few months ago but never used the thing until recently. The first WP blog I created has recently transformed into a “guest teacher’s” diary. Yes, I substitute teach and I have some fantastic – or not so fantastic – stories to share.

This blog will be about anything, hence the title “Whatever.” Right now I’m in process of setting up links and exporting entries from my existing blog host. By the way, if anyone knows an easy way to export entries from Blogstream other than “copy & paste” (though I think that’s an option I’ll have to take) please let me know. So far I don’t see Blogstream on WP’s list of “blogs we can import.” In a future post – make that really near future ­ I’ll post again about the headaches of finding a good blog host. See, though I’m on PC, I also use that old dinosaur (like Triassic!) WebTV/MSNTV for some routine online tasks. If I need to make a quickie blog post from my webtv, in the quiet of my bedroom, I could do it with Blogstream. But BS hasn’t the bells and whistles I want, and I don’t need those cutesy smilies, thank you very much. No tags, no where to put a webring navcode, no categories. And only those who are BS members can post comments. Bummer.

So here I am at WP, happy at last. I’ll get cracking and get those older posts from my existing blog here ASAP.