Fractal Zoom

Apophysis flame fractal...zoomed in a bit.

Mini Vacation

I just finished working six 9-hour days, and yesterday would have made 7 days. I opted to take one day of leave and tack it onto my regularly scheduled 4 days off...so, five days off will do the trick I think! Not doing much during this mini vacation...although I would love to head to Portland for a day, gas prices won't let me do it for now. I may try in a few months. So just sticking close to home, running errands and doing house chores...how fun.

Summer

I have finally updated Firefox to version 3, and all add-ons are current and work with this version. My fave skins, macfox and macfox II, have yet to be updated. I'm not alone in hoping the author is actually working on it, as there are a lot of comments asking for an update since 3 was released. Fingers crossed. Now I can blissfully use both IE7 and FF3, about half and half between the two.

It's been either hot or very warm, and on top of that very smokey and/or just hazy. I don't mind the heat, in fact I don't mind working out in the field in this heat. I just don't like battling with the wasps and yellow jackets, ugh! Been pretty busy at work, ever since Jim left. Sometimes I feel like I'm climbing that giant sand dune...keep sliding back down. I'm hoping they hurry and select someone for the HMT vacancy, especially with Co-op experience, major plus!

Going to Hawaii again next month! woohoo! It won't be for as long as last year's trip, just couldn't get myself to fork out the extra bucks this time. Prices have gone up across the board...airfare, hotel, rental/gas. :o/ I'm looking forward to seeing Cyn, Mariellen, Jess, and the rest of the gang! I'm also looking forward to checking out the Made In Hawaii (MIH) Festival and the Aloha Stadium Swapmeet. :oD Oh, mental note...gotta remember to hit the Costco while I'm there, lots of local goodies and great prices. Oh darn, forgot that the airlines are charging for checked baggage, and overweight baggage. I'll probably mail stuff to myself again.

Haven't had a chance to play with Apophysis lately, but I did manage to render one from my June parameters...

linear variation

Taken from a random batch using linear variation, and tweaked to bring out details and clarity. Not sure what to name this...maybe something like "Thatched". :)

Tiled flame

Added a few more flames to my Picasa album, mainly traditional spirals. This one is a tiled flame...

been busy

Work has been sort of getting in the way of my off time, so I haven't made very many new fractals. Taking projects home to work on was bad enough, but now my most favorite OPL is leaving at the end of April. :o( I've worked for/with Jim ever since I got here, 12 years! He has always been a fountain of knowledge, a great manager, and a friend. Mixed emotions here, as I am so happy for him and Lisa...they'll be going to the east coast close to family, and he's getting a promotion out of this! But at the same time, it's going to tough to get used to him not being there. Needless to say, we are scrambling to get whatever he can pass to us (info-wise) before he leaves. He tells me I should bid on his position. :o dunno.

Anyhoo, here is another flame fractal
(btw there are more in my Picasa albums) ...

More script goodness

Same script, used on a different flame, and tweaked to bring out the woven basket-like frame. Script provided by Daniel Eaton.

Busy Time

Haven't posted in a while...and haven't been doing fractals in a while either. Just been busy with work, travel, and now all the frenzy normally associated with the holidays.

Simple flame fractal, containing mostly linear variation transforms.

wavy flame

Started in Gimp, imported to Apophysis, and tweaked and re-colored. One of my favorites...

Strands

More catching up, as work gets in the way. Going on a day-trip in a couple of days...taking my friend Patty to Portland for a trip to our favorite asian grocery "superstore", Uwajimaya...then to a nearby Trader Joe's! Shopping bliss here we come!

Summer is here...

107 degrees in the shade on the 5th. Glad I didn't have to be outside for work. Meanwhile, it was a little "warm" down at my old stomping grounds, Phoenix...checking in at 116. But it's a dry heat. Saw Transformers the other day, and though it has gotten mixed reviews, I found it to be a lot of fun. CG animation rocked, and so did the soundtrack.

Catching up on some flames. New version out, 2.06...actually now 2.06c. Things change quickly, don't blink like I did, otherwise you'll be pulling your hair out trying to figure what went wrong.

Upgrading

I've been a little behind on this...been busy getting things installed, one program at a time. I took out both of my old drives, the original 20 gig that came with the Gateway, and my 120 gig master. I put in a 300 gig SATA, then installed Vista HP-32. Waiting for the external enclosure to arrive, so I can transfer some files and apps from the 120.

It certainly wasn't a smooth and headache-free experience so far. My mobo apparently sucks rocks...or at least parts of it, as I had a hell of a time getting the new drive installed. Installing the new SATA in conjunction with the new OS probably wasn't *the* smartest thing I've done in a long time, but oh well. So it's done, and this next phase is long and grueling...almost like beta testing. Through this, though, I'm finding some good apps and some pretty crappy ones. I'm just glad that I can finally say I am Symantec-Free. No more AV bloat-ware...no more bringing my poor system to its knees. It feels lighter and happier (same goes with my laptop).

Unfortunately, for every smart move I make, I invariably make another move or decision that sets me back a little. I've used Nero (5 and 6) with XP for a few years, and actually like it a lot. It's easy to use, and is NOT bloatware. I especially like the backup utility...to the point where I actually was backing up my data on a semi-regular basis. Okay, so Nero 5 or 6 does not support Vista, which bites, as I really didn't want to have to upgrade. Nero 7 was "made for Vista", in fact it is certified, so it can't be that bad can it? Ugh. I installed it using Custom install, explicitly directing it to only install 5 of the dozen "modules", and definitely NOT install any toolbars, be it Google, Ask.com, or whatever. Anyway, couple days later BitDefender finds a baddy in Nero's directory, something from ask.com. I hope that is a one-time thing.

So, not all of my XP programs will be reinstalled, but I'm finding that a lot of the old ones actually do install and work just fine. I had a small problem with Apophysis when first installed. It would not run most of the included scripts. I finally uninstalled it, then reinstalled it, but to a different directory. I have been reading that some programs have problems running from the Program Files directory in Vista...so I installed it in my user directory. Cool, now it works, and so do the scripts and the hack versions (JF's and Zeuk's). Hopefully, I'll have a few new ones to post here....soon.

Scripting

Scripts are fun to use, as long as it's done in moderation. I have yet to learn to create scripts. For now, I rely on those that have grasped the fundamentals of script-writing. I just got this one from Liz's site (thank you!) and I'm liking it already. :)

The Gimp

The Gimp has a plug-in that generates flame fractals. This plug-in was written by Scott Draves, although I don't think it's been updated in a long time. The flame "editor" is somewhat limited, but it's best to use Apophysis to import the Gimp flame, and make edits there.