Ok, so over at the iO Group, one of my colleagues (Anna) is in design school right now, and it turns out has quite a few tricks up her sleave.

On Monday, she called Jay and I over to her desk and said “check this out.” She proceeded to take low quality, blurry photo, and drastically improve the level of detail.

I am blogging “remotely” right now, so I can’t do screen shots and show you what I’m talking about, but I promise it will make sense. I will also try to get back here later to edit this post to include some “pics” so you can see what I’m talking about.

Ok -
So over in your layers area, duplicate your background layer (whatever layer the image is currently on).

Next, go up to ‘Filter’, then to ‘other’, then to ‘high pass’.

With the high pass filter enabled, move the ’slider’ from left to right until you see only the lines of the image showing through.
Click ‘ok’.

Finally, in your layers area, select the new layer, and in the filter options, set it to ‘overlay’.

If done correctly, you will see all of the edges in the photograph improve in detail.

Of course now that I’m sitting here reading through this, it all seems to be wrong. Everything you’ve just read might be totally incorrect - my apologies. I will check later though, and edit this as necessary.
Really, this is more of an exercise in writing for me, than it is an exercise in Photoshop for you.

Where the heck did it go?

I have absolutely no idea. It seems like yesterday I was trying to decide whether or not to drive to Wyoming and purchase fireworks, or just go watch them at the local show.
As I think I told you all IN JUNE Anna and I were putting an offer on a house. Geeeez… I’m so sorry for not updating since then.

Anyway, we closed, everything worked out, and we are officially homeowners! This house needed a bit of work (don’t they all?).
Anna had the rest of the week after our closing to begin prepping and painting. I got in that week and tore out all the old carpet. The next couple weeks have been a total blur, but something like the following happened:
We had lots of friends and family stop in to help us, which was priceless. We repainted just about everything inside - the bedrooms, our office, our living room, and our family room. We also painted all of our banisters and spindles white, leaving just the wooden railing on top.
The monday after closing (the week following) Anna started her new job, and had to go to work during the day (though to her credit she was still there every night working).
That week I began my list of projects that I wanted to complete prior to moving in. I probably bit off more than I could chew, but now that we’re on the other side of it all I’m glad we did what we did then, and won’t be sorry we didn’t for the next 10 years.
We decided to recarpet the upstairs and downstairs areas, leaving the main level to be covered in laminate (this pic is not of our house, but is the same material/finish we went with). Laminate is something many of us are familiar with, under the name Pergo. We really wanted to go with bamboo, but we ultimately decided against it due to the wear we are expecting with some kiddies and a large dog running around on our floor, and our lack of desire to maintain a large wood floor (periodic sanding and refinishing).
So, I ordered carpet from a wholesale place in Georgia, and was sure I got a great deal. What I was NOT sure of, was if we ordered enough. Not yet having an installer lined up, we had to do the measurements ourselves, and we weren’t sure how well we did.
Monday morning our shipment arrived from GA, containing our carpet, and our laminate flooring, and several rolls of padding, and several rolls of foam underlayment for the flooring. My Dad and I drove down in his behemoth with our piano trailer attached to pick it all up. Phew… what a workout right before going to dialysis!
Wednesday the carpet installers came (yeah, we finally found some), and did an awesome job installing our carpet upstairs and down.
Well, no more excuses, it was time to get busy on the floor. I had begun on Tuesday, but due to some bad luck I decided to tear out what we had done, and start over. Thursday I really hit it, and thanks to tons of help from Jay, and Barth (both close family friends), we were ready to move in on Sunday. That being said, I didn’t get the last pieces in until just yesterday - one week after moving in. I hear from my Brother that this will be the story of my life as I continue to find projects to tackle around the house.

I will try to get some pics up in the next few days, but rest assured we are in, and are absolutely loving it. We love our green kitchen, our new washer/dryer, smooth top stove (oh yeah!), huge deck, and every other blessing that has come with this house.
Thanks so much to those of you involved in helping us:

Mom
Dad
Momma
Papa
Kim
Dan
Andrew
Andrei
Jacque
Al
Jay
Regina
Barth
Julie
Jeremy

and anyone else who helped us out. This is the worst because I feel like I’m forgetting someone really obvious, but I am afterall sitting at dialysis. So I apologize if I did in fact forget someone, and if I didn’t, then I apologize for this brief dialysis moment, brought to you by the letter F.

Again, I will try to get some pics up, so check back soon (or just subscribe to the rss feed you n00b!)

Thanks again to all for their help - we both (Anna and I) feel very blessed righ tnow.

From a story seen on digg

“In a trendy nightclub in New York City, the bartender tells guests they can only be served bottled water, which costs $5 for each tiny half-pint container. One outraged clubber is
stopped by the restroom attendant as she tries to refill the bottle from the
tap. “You can’t do that,” says the attendant. “New York’s tap water isn’t
safe.”

Interesting read - apparently the bottled water industry is not held to a very high standard. Bottled water is controlled by the FDA, whereas our tap water is held to the EPA’s higher standards.
Regardless - Colorado’s tap water has got to be better than what this “clubber” was going to get in NYC! *grin*
The only bottled water I really drink here is from Eldorado Springs, which is natural Colorado spring water anyway.

I’ve always thought it was odd to pay for bottled water when fresh tap water was at hand.
After reading this article I think I will move beyond thinking it odd, and progress to pointing and laughing.

Oh I’ve been busy - don’t even get me started.

Ok, here goes (I know, I require very little motivation to vent).
Anna and Jonathan (that’s me) are purchasing a house! I haven’t blogged about it because I’ve wanted to make sure everything seemed very definite before making a big deal about it. Well, I’ve never been good at waiting - so now you know. We close on Tuesday, and begin work immediately. We’re not doing anything major, but we are going to paint just about everything inside, lay new carpet, and a laminate floor on the main level.

So now I will inevitably become one of those Home Depot guys (Lowes in my case) who spends weekends purchasing tools and beginning home projects which never reach the finish line. We’ve already walked through more than once oogling new fixtures for outlets and plugs, or looking at new refrigerators we can’t possibly afford (ever). It’s quite a bit of fun actually, but at some point Jonathan (that’s me) is going to want to spend a few bucks on some tools.

Of course there will be the obligatory house warming party once we are up and running, so I’m sure there will be an announcement about that in the next couple of weeks. Until then - I have some other stuff on my mind which will pop up on the intrawebs shortly (if you don’t find humor in me saying “intrawebs” then some of what I write may seem confusing - ignore it - if you snorted…. welcome).

All birdies have flown the coop!

That’s right, the nest is empty. So now we have to get everything cleaned up and back to normal before mama decides it’s time for her next brood.

Supposedly they only give it a go twice a year, but I’m not willing to take any chances.

… Though being an enabler for a young start-up house finch family was pretty cool.