sonja | johnson

I’ve always been interested in photography, but with my recent (well, recent-ish… it’s been a couple of years now) interest in scrapbooking, my desire for higher quality and more artistic images has been growing.  Thanks to my lovely husband, I recently became the excited and proud owner of a Nikon D5000 and two NIKKOR lenses.  To date, I’ve owned point and shoot cameras, so I’m not very familiar with all of the features a DSLR provides - nor their proper use.

I hear the best learning method is to just play around with the features, but due to the lovely weather South Dakota has been having since Christmas, I have not really had the chance.  I did watch the Nikon School educational DVD that came with my camera; it covers setting up your camera, LCD monitor settings, automatic shooting modes, menu features, in-camera editing and D-movie mode.  I also received a $20 off coupon for any photography class offered by Harold’s Photo, so I plan to take their Digital SLR 1 class in February.  More to come.

For now, I figured I could focus on some of the in-camera editing features.  The beauty of this is that the camera makes a copy of your image prior to any edits you save to the file.  Some of the in-camera options include: distortion control, image overlay, color balance, filter effects, quick retouch, red-eye correction, color outline, etc.  The one I chose to play/blog about today was fisheye.  I don’t have a lot of things to photograph in my house, so I used a Christmas tree ornament as my subject.

Fun huh?  And yes, I know, I need to take these decorations down!!

For those whom are unaware of what I do (do meaning my job), I train clinical hospital personnel (i.e. physicians, nurses, radiology techs, therapists, etc.) how to use an electronic medical record (EMR) for patient documentation, placing orders, reviewing results, documenting medications, etc.  I also assist in customizing the build of this software, but that’s not really the point of my post.

With the implementation of the EMR at our clinics and hospitals, physicians are now documenting electronically.  To assist with their documentation needs, we are implementing DRAGON® (voice recognition software)  to be used for dictation.  I have been assigned to the team that will role out this program, though it’s only implemented at the request of a provider.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been playing around with the program (in an attempt to become proficient before training begins) and I have to say, it is really fun to use.  It’s been amusing because it’s so unorthodox to think of verbal speech in the form of a sentence.  You have to know what you want to say, and exactly how it should be punctuated, before you begin speaking.  One thing I find myself struggling with is to not correct my verbal errors.  With voice recognition software, if a person misspeaks or stumbles over a word, they need to stop talking, erase the incorrect portion of the sentence and restart - otherwise the system just keeps typing it out.  So weird.

Another aspect I have been playing with is commands.  DRAGON® comes pre-loaded with certain voice commands, for example there are commands for punctuation, editing and moving the cursor, but the system also allows a user to create commands.  These commands can be used to insert a body of text, or to take the place of certain keystrokes.  This function is quite useful for the providers when they are writing notes.

At this very moment, I am concentrating on training the software to recognize my speech and how I pronounce words.  I have been told that the best way to train the system is to read a book aloud, but I don’t have any books handy at work, so I’ve decided to dictate this blog post instead.  Ha!

I just finished the second week of The Intellectual Devotional, and am enjoying myself thus far.  The book is styled after daily devotionals, which are typically used for religious growth.  This book however, is a secular version meant to “stimulate the mind” and “complete your education”.  The readings cover seven fields of knowledge:

• History: A survey of people and events that shaped the development of Western civilization.
• Literature: A look at great writers and a synopsis of their most important works - poems and novels that continue to inspire readers today.
• Visual Arts: An introduction to the artists and artistic movements that yielded the world’s most influential paintings, sculptures, and works for architecture.
• Science: From the origin of black holes to a description of how batteries work, the wonders of science are simplified and revealed.
• Music: What inspired our greatest composers, how to read a sheet of notes, and why Mozart is so revered - a comprehensive review of our musical heritage.
• Philosophy: From ancient Greece to the twentieth century, the efforts of humankind’s greatest thinkers to explain the meaning of life and the universe.
• Religion: An overview of the world’s major religions and their beliefs.

It caught my eye in the bookstore because I’m always looking to broaden my knowledge base.  I’m hoping that I’ll retain some of what I learn over the next 365 days and become like the Bones character Vincent Nigel-Murray; spouting random facts every 20 seconds.  Some of the more interesting topics I’ve covered to date include 1) the invention of the Alphabet, 2) Lascaux cave paintings, 3) Cloning, 4) Socrates and 5) the Torah.

Fun fact number 1: the letter B derives from the Egyptian character for the word house.  If you’re a Bones fan, imagine I said that with an English accent.  Hehe.

Merry Christmas!!  It’s certainly a white one here in Eastern South Dakota.  We are officially snowed in!

The weather put a damper on our original Christmas plan, so Mike and I enjoyed some time to ourselves this morning.  We started off by sleeping in and then opened the gifts from our stockings and the remaining ones from under the tree.  I was certainly spoiled this year!  I got a cute little ornament, The Intellectual Devotional (2006), which I’m excited to begin reading because it looks rather fascinating, a beautiful diamond snowflake necklace that made me cry when I opened it, and a Nikon D5000!  I’m certain you can expect future posts on this as I begin to play with it.

Later in the afternoon we were joined by our friends Dan and Carl, who trudged through the snow (they live a couple streets away) for an evening of movies, games and pot roast!  Dan’s Christmas movie of choice is Die Hard (1988), so we watched that and then moved on to several rounds of Pass the Popcorn!, a game Mike received from his parents.  It was quite fun; very similar to Scene It?, but without the visual component.

The snow may have interfered with our family plans, but we were glad to enjoy some time with friends on the holiday.

Happy Christmas Eve everyone!  Tonight Mike and I hosted our 2nd holiday gathering.  Traditionally, Mike’s family gets together for a holiday feast, present opening and church service.  Our evening service was canceled due to the weather, but his family fought their way through the snow to so we could have some time together.  Luckily we were the hosts because we’re the only clan without a truck!

I felt like a master chef preparing our meal.  I don’t think I’ve ever had so many pots going at once; thankfully most didn’t need tending to.  We served shrimp in a garlic butter sauce, pasta with a choice of alfredo or marinara and steamed snap peas, which I love!!  Everyone really enjoyed the meal and we quickly moved on to presents.  I’m happy everyone seemed to enjoy what we got them and we certainly enjoyed our gifts.  The items I received were a BOSU ball, snow boots, board games (Battle Ship and Last Word), a wine cork holder, beauty products and a penguin necklace.  Unfortunately, everyone had to skedaddle afterward, but we arethankful for the brief time we had.