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.

So some of you may know who Tom Martino is - he’s a local “advocate” who stands up for the little guy.
He has a radio show which I believe is syndicated nationally, and he spends a couple of hours taking calls from irresponsible people who’ve made bad decisions which he tries to rectify through his “troubleshooter network”.

For the most part I think Tom’s an OK guy. He tries to help people out, and I think in many cases does. He’s also right on in a lot of what he says - but sometimes I just don’t get him.

Take today for example. He’s asking people “what makes you crazy?”, and putting them on the air. One person complains about how people drive, and another about the legal system. Then some woman comes on because what makes her crazy is … now get this … that people were donating “too much” money to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and not enough to some wildlife refuge in Colorado. That’s right, this woman was in tears over the fact that the general populous valued troubled and underprivileged humans, over troubled and underprivileged animals.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m an advocate for animals. I love em, they’re cute, and they’re hilarious entertainment after a couple of vodka tonics. I don’t however see how any sane person can value the life of an animal in need over the life of a human in need.

In the movie Equilibrium there is a scene where the bad guys are ordered by their leader to kill a bunch of dogs that they’ve found (in this future place dogs and all other sources of emotion are outlawed). The movie makes a point not to show the “ratta-tat-tat” mow down of the helpless puppies, and rather shows the face of the main character while you hear the assault taking place in the background. It’s a very powerful display, and makes its point very well.
In numerous other parts of the movie however, our fearless main character mows down humans left and right not only with his high-tech pistols (and his high-tech way of wielding them), but also with the butts of his guns, and anything else he happens to get his hands on.
We as a movie going audience have no problem watching these “bad guys” get annihilated in the most violent ways. In fact we have a sense of justice seeing these puppy killers get taken out in such violent fashion.
No puppy violence though please - that’s too much.

So after this woman describes how this refuge is going under (which is really disheartening), Tom Martino goes off on this rant wherein he not only agrees with her, but puts forth that too much money was sent to Katrina victims - who were losers in the first place, and who are still losers now.
Tom and I would probably agree that many irresponsible people received very generous donations from people trying to do right by their fellow man.
We would disagree however, that because these people are irresponsible their potential value to society is now less than that of a large cat.

Perhaps Tom can divert some of the advertising money he gets pushing reverse mortgages on the elderly into this cherished refuge - or maybe we’ll just have some large albino tigers roaming the front range experiencing “survival of the fittest” first hand.

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.

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).

No.
The health care they receive is very very expensive, and you and I are paying for it.

Forgive me to not referring to these people as “undocumented workers” - they clearly are, but they’re also here against the law, making them illegal.

This issue seems so multi-faceted, it’s hard to find a “side” that makes sense isn’t it?

No, it isn’t.

I do however understand the people arguing for immigrant’s rights and such. Lots of great points are made about denying children vaccines and the helpless people affected by such actions. Throw in the fact that the country they’re coming from is doing nothing for them, and it seems so clear that they should be welcome here.

They ARE welcome here!
Nobody is arguing that Mexicans shouldn’t be allowed into the country. We’re saying that they should commit to becoming U.S. Citizens, and come in legally.
Almost all of us come from an immigrant family - my family arrived here only 60 years ago.

I’m PRO-Immigrant.
I’m also of the mindset that some sort of rules need apply to who comes into the country, and how.
People speak of the economic burden we will all incur if we no longer have such cheap labor. I’m sorry - more of an economic burden than we are currently carrying due to increased education and medical costs?

The medical part of this really gets me.
Should I be blessed with children, I will have to vaccinate them. I will also have to pay for it. As a dialysis patient dealing with chronic illness, I’m all to familiar with health care costs and the rate at which they can destroy someone.
Being chronically ill makes me uninsurable. Thankfully Medicare picks up a part of the tab, and with help from some other organizations, the rest of the tab gets picked up — for dialysis costs anyway.
I qualified for Medicare though, because I had already paid into Social Security for a predetermined amount of time. Otherwise I would most likely have Medicaid, and would still be “taken care of”.
As it is, I pay out of pocket for everything not dialysis related. If my wife becomes pregnant, or if I break my leg, we will have to pay for the care we receive.
Before someone yells “but you can afford it!” - no, we can’t.
It’s not really about who can afford it though. If American citizens regardless of their economic status aren’t privy to socialistic health care, why should illegal immigrants living here receive such treatment? Are we that enamored with cheap Big Mac’s and cheap produce that we’re willing to make such obvious, and glaring sacrifices?

Speaking economically, wouldn’t Mexico’s economy greatly improve if all their workers weren’t being encouraged by their government to leave? If their government were more proactive in encouraging people to stay and work, wouldn’t it give opportunity for economic growth?

Come here
Come here if you’re willing to be an American, and help to make America a better place, rather than taking advantage of it.
Otherwise you are insulting every single person who read The New Colossus on the base of the Statue of Liberty as they first arrived in this country.