For now my blog is going to be self hosted here

It is a great suggestion, design something daily. When I first started ‘designing’ I used to make up projects as a way of developing skills. The bottom line is that I like designing, and taking photographs, and playing the guitar, and learning, (the list could continue). The reality is that the guitar hasn’t been picked up for a while and I have just taken the bicycle wheel to be sorted but although I am (rather sporadically) trying to maintain a swimming regime I couldn’t honestly say that I couldn’t squeeze a bit more in.

I have set myself a bit of a learning target with ”online / social” stuff. I’m sure there is a neat way to group all of this but time is short.

I don’t write enough, I have started writing these “blog ramblings” (that’s how Malcolm described them anyway), it is enjoyable, not terribly focussed and currently tainted with a sense of, ‘could be betterness’. I find I want to maintain it daily and feel some self induced guilt if I don’t, there is a fair dollop of that kicking around just now.

As well as that I have started trying to read more, I have set up a number of RSS feeds that are currently bombarding me with a huge amount of information that is both genuinely interesting and useful. I do again have a bit of anxiety about the feeds that I haven’t read, was there something of pivotal value and importance there?

And Twitter? On the face of it this is just a bit of fun,

That Ryan Air plane that slid off the runway today- they’ll probably charge extra for that……(Dom Jolly’s tweet).

Of course Twitter is so much more than that and there is a wealth of understanding, information and knowledge out there. I don’t know David Ansett or for that matter how he came to follow my Tweets but I have already learnt a huge amount by exploring his pages. I wrote to say so, he said “thanks for the Kudos”. I imagine, like me, he probably had a number of ideas about Kudos the brand.

I need to take a break, buy chestnuts, beetroot and nutcrackers, laters…

Andrew Butler is a surprisingly common name, there are a lot of us about. In the UK there are a number of Andrew Butlers who are involved in different forms of photography. There is another, called Andrew Butler, who runs is a company of Chartered Surveyors in the Midlands. I know because he has the .co.uk domain, I wanted it. He also has the .com, but not the .net (I have that).

So to the stats.

This blog is ‘early days’ for me, ‘just a bit of fun’. WordPress blogs generate stats and  one record that I have is of the following search terms used to find my blog ‘andrew butler let and managed’. Sure enough, throw these words back into Google  and you will be lead to my blog, a tad annoying if you are trying to rent a house in Nottingham. (Note to self remember that there are other search engines out there).

The bottom line here is that if you understand how the search engines work your websites will work better. I suspect there are many in the property business who would love to rank fourth in Google for a simple four word search. Looking to see how it happens is the start to controlling the process.

That said I have just bought a tree from the charity shop (aka. my tailor). It’s quite a nice little tree and currently sits in my kitchen awaiting festive adornment.  It will shortly be united with decorations bought recently in Barcelona and, being faux, will hopefully live to carry many memories on it over coming years. I don’t really get the tree snobbery thing either, ‘oh, it’s not real…oh?’ Well if it’s not real what exactly are we looking at, that would be an interesting shared experience. Last weekend someone told me that she had gone for an ‘adult’ tree this year. having had many years of trees dressed with the creations of her young children she admitted to being a victim to the pressures of her sophisticated friends, and so she had created a colour coordinated tree.

I must admit I do understand this reference point. I look at my abode and can’t really classify it as fully adult. Recently though I took a step towards this state by having pictures (with frames) on the walls. Of course it is the frames that makes the difference here.

Little boy in cafe has just come up to me waving a Christmas card, (happily).

Last weekend again I had an interesting shared experience with the children. On a trip to the local Habitat shop we all seemed to decide that we wanted to live there. It is unusual for them to share an understanding. Anyway we all wanted to live there, we wondered whether we could use the shop in the down-time. This would possibly offer a more adult living experience than my home?

I came close to getting a little Mac Mini earlier today but backed out. it was a neat little old thing and probably would have done the job. All I need is something to work as an FTP server which to be honest I don’t really need. The old Digital Audio is doing the job but is annoyingly noisy. The Mini came with some potentially useful little bits, Bluetooth keyboard & mouse etc. Anyway it didn’t happen.

A friend phoned up out of the blue with a PC failure. I don’t really ‘do’ PC’s but fortunately her’s seemed to  be on the way to rewinding itself to the point when  it went naughty on her. If only all life were as easy.

I seem to be suffering a bit of a more you know – less you know moment.

(Yesterday has turned into today, soon to be tomorrow).

Went for a coffee with Mark, he said everyone is wiped out, thinks it’s the weather (grey & damp). I don’t know. I suspect that at some level I am learning which is tiring. My sleep apnoea  is clearly not good at the moment. There seems nothing worse than waking up feeling like you haven’t been to sleep. Clearly there are worse things, but it’s not good, neither is the dull hangover like headache. The bottom line is tiredness with a sense of guilt.

I swam this evening though, not a bad swim as it goes. It’s a funny thing swimming lanes, you share a space with a number of people, at fairly close proximity. There is a shared etiquette that helps. Occasionally people fail to adhere to the etiquette which is annoying, but when it works it works well, sharing space, activity, but not impinging on others.

I seem to have created a new category which is ’1′. This has appeared, I imagine through a mistaken key-stroke or something, I now need to work out how to get rid of it but Frankly, I can’t be asked (don’t call me Frankly).

I suspect it is time for sleep.

As ever I have in my mind the relatively short time that this technology has been around. A quick look here for an interesting reminder?

As I sit typing I am listening to The Clash, London Calling, having been reminded of it by Zane Lowe recently. This again pre-dates the technology by considerable time..

Anyway first problem for a newbee, no email address. My 9 year old has at least one, possibly many. While we were buying the MacBook she bought another Puffle using one of the AppleStore iMacs. Surely everyone has an email address? Well no, of course not. But it helps if you have one before you even turn the computer on.

So as we progress, unwrapping the Mac (respect the packaging) , turning it on, I am aware that I hold so many preconceptions about peoples’ understanding of computers. Email, what is it where is it, clients, servers, Pop, IMAP, etc. How do you start to explain this? Then the web, possibly the most interesting reality check, navigation. What is the point of explaining navigation to someone who hasn’t used a website.

So to the interesting part, let’s go to Google and search for Norvins. Ah-ha, “you what?” many will be thinking (assuming anyone ever reads this). Just in case you were wondering, any excuse to show one…

Norvin

Some time ago I went into my friend’s garage/workshop, and sat on a small wooden stand on castors was a Norvin. In truth it wasn’t any more, it was a Vincent engine wrapped in a Reynolds frame that my friend had fabricated himself to replace the Norton frame that he had previously clad the engine in. There were some ancillary parts sourced from a Laverda many of which would be replaced as the project develops. Here I suppose is “the rub”. I don’t know many people who could fabricate a motorcycle frame by hand from scratch, and I feel a sense of respect for someone who can.

My son Ollie (15) has joined me in office/bedroom/warm-coz-it’s-small-room and is doing homework on MyMaths. I am pleased (and a tad surprised) that he recognises London Calling.

Ros Ailither

Recently I had a cup of tea on The Ros Ailither with Dave and Hazel. Dave explained the work that had gone into this boat, much of it can be seen on the Blog. This boat has been radically altered, most notably by the addition of sail-power. The wood for the mast was sourced, delivered to Topsham, towed across to The Turf to be crafted by hand, towed back and applied to said trawler. It would appear that the decision as to where to apply the large bits of timber arose from a real-seat-of-the-pants understanding of who things work. I might add that the trawler now benefits from a lovely Gardner diesel which sits in a totally different position to the original.

We have now been joined by Dom, my other son, carrying my old (and now slow) Pismo laptop. London CallIng has finished. I suppose we ought to talk but they are now both playing Line Rider.

So, to return to navigation. With this technology you can travel the world in minutes, you can look at road crossings on Fifth Avenue and then nip down to a beach at Rio or maybe a water Cooler somewhere in Aus? This is good, really good, but I till think that the journey would be better on a bike or in a boat that you had made yourself.

For now though I am afraid it’s off to The Vue to pick up Fee, the technologically precocious little one, who has attended a morning cinema party.

At last some sun, some light and a chance to get out with the camera

There is something about photography that is very pleasing and whilst I try not to be too wrapped up with technology, the tactile nature of cameras cannot be denied.

The Leica M9 certainly pushes many of my buttons. For a long time digital photography seems to have been returning to a level once enjoyed by film based technology. This Leica seems to have at last regained lost ground. Ken Rockwell’s various articles are illuminating. Recently the pixel war has turned with cameras such as the Canon G11 superceding the G10 but with a much lower pixel count although Rockell points to the S90 as the choice of the pack here.

Technology will always be an undeniable aspect of the process of photography. In the case of modern compacts it affects the intimacy that we have with our cameras, objects that are now held at arms length and observed.

I try to remind myself that the 35mm camera was in truth an artefact of another film technology and as such many of the aspects of this form were accidental rather than archetypal

So, when we refer to ‘full frame’ sensors, yes I would agree that this is a good thing, I miss the control over depth of field that a larger contact area offers. However it should be remembered that this format isn’t an absolute any more that 6×6, 6×7, 6×4.5 are, they are just reference points.

The Leica? Well if you need a reference point this seems as good as it gets for me. I feel somewhat comforted by the knowledge that I still can’t afford a Leica, but once again there is one there that I yearn for and has a meaningful place in photography.

Twitter seems to tell me that I am not alone.

Anyway a quick hit of the InDesign PDF button and the job was ready and sent via email at 12.39.

At 15.25 I received a further email to say that the print was ready, and you know it is rather good. A simple enough job, but with a large solid festive red that did alarm the printer. Even coverage though, nice 350gsm board, looks pukka.

All this isn’t rocket science of course but, sometimes I like to enjoy the ‘wow’ moment of it all working. This is probably another one for the ‘What Would Grandpa Make of This?’ test, I don’t know.

Now the difficult bit, signing and sending…

The kids didn’t really get the drinking wine and not looking at the art thing, to the point of outrage. Probably a bit silly of me to insist that a nine year old should drink wine though. Another visit to look at the prints will be welcome of course.

Fish and chips in Budliegh pretty good.

Just been shown an image in Dom’s art homework book, he has just mashed a couple of images together to make a large fish emerging from a fireplace. Pretty strong image as it goes.