Figuring out Night Mode and other tales

[gurdymonkey]

I finally figured out WHY my night photos with this camera were always so blurry there didn't seem much point without a tripod. There's a "hand shake" minimization mode on the thing which has to be engaged, otherwise the camera knows you're breathing, which matters when the shutter takes several seconds to do its thing. The above was shot while leaning up against a building. It's actually the second "insurance" shot as I wasn't confident of how steadily I was holding it the first time I pressed the shutter button.

It's not as crisp as daytime shots and I did tweak the exposure and contrast a lot more than I normally would. Still, this experiment paid off and I'll be more likely to try night shots again. 

As ladycelia  is moving away next week, I'd messaged her about getting together before Her Grand Adventure, so we decided to do dinner last night. I met her at her place. She had some rose petal syrup she wanted to drop off to a friend, so off we went. To a speakeasy. (Please to be clickying the linkie!) After consultation with one of the period-attired bartenders about my drinking tastes (I admitted my go-to mixed drink is gin and tonic, lime, of course lime!) , he mixed me a basil gimlet (with fresh basil), the palest jade green in the glass. It was insanely good. I also tried a Sidecar - mostly because I liked the name and it's SO Prohibition, also delicious. At which point it was obvious my feet had been drinking and food was of the utmost. (Fast Friday, remember? I hadn't eaten all day.)

Fortunately for my blood alcohol level, Original Joe's was a short walk away, and a big plate of pasta and garlic bread set me to rights.  Best Italian I've had since moving from New Jersey, and I'll be eating fettucine for days on the leftovers. 

We had a lovely time. Having had my own Grand Adventure (uprooting oneself to live across the country without being sure it's going to work out), I wish her all the best - and am really sorry she's going to be so far away.

Earlier this week, Her Highness announced that she wanted to head over to the Fettburg Championship event and do a little fighting and could anyone make it. Now, honestly, I had been sorta planning on maybe actually shoveling out the third floor closet and doing some spring cleaning, but as the court and guard RSVPs rolled in along the lines of "I'm already committed to X" this weekend, I agreed to go. It's a pretty good thing I did, because it was just me and Shishio in attendance and he spent much of the day keeping an eye on Their Highnesses' three children and did the heavy lifting bits. Sora-joo is actually pretty low maintenance, so I dragged out one of my camp stools and the lid from the sugoroku box as a temporary table, put her cup on it (and kept it filled), and made her up a plate from the lunch board so she could graze between melees and bye fights. (For those not in the SCA, sometimes there's not an even number of fighters for tourney rounds - someone who is not competing to win the tourney can fill in and give the odd fighter someone to win or lose against in that round.) I ran a few errands for her, took her daughter to the restroom in the church hall, stuff like that. It was a nice event, I even got a little sewing done here and there.