Phone Scams continue...

Recieved a phone call at 10 Oct. 2009 at 10:18 hrs asking to talk to Richard (no last name). The caller identified himself as a detective that is investigating people that have receive calls asking for them to send money to Jamaica in order to receive a large amount of money in return. I indicated that I have not receive any. The caller asked me to call him back so they can get these guys.

The caller then indicated that his name is Mr. Mathews and that he would like me to call him back. I indicated that I understood. He then indicated that he was Detective Mr. Mathews and that he would like me to call him back if I receive a call asking for me to send money. I indicated that he had already said that.
He then gave me his phone number 1-876-864-4253. I asked if he was in Jamaica, and he indicated that he was. I told him that I have received a couple of calls asking me to call them about a delivery. He asked if I had called, I told them that I had not, since I have not done any business in Jamaica.

I said that I have reported this call to my security office and that they are investigating it. He again asked me to call him. I asked him what department he is with, and the call was disconnected...

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I called my phone company (dialed 0) to explain that we've been receiving several phone calls from 876 area code, and that they didn't seem right and that I suspected them to be the type that and talked to the operator to see if these calls were somehow charged to the home phone number - she indicated that without going through an operator, that it could be charged to me, and that the call was on them.


Not surprising, Received a second phone call on 10 Oct 2009 at 1100 Hrs asking to talk to Richard. I indicated that I was he - the caller identified him as Marc Burns and that I have won $750,000 (darn, I forgot to ask how is that
that I won?... SInce I don't sign-up for those type os things...) - and am I interested in claiming this.
I asked what was his name again, he said:
Marc Burns

I asked what I had to do, he indicated that I needed to send $250 to:
Devon Ainsley
Montigo Bay Jamaica WI

I asked what was his number he stumbled around and said it was 1-876- 470-6282
He indicated that I should send payment Via Western Union. He asked if I wanted to take care of this, I replied that I would call the authorities and hung up.

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Did I mention there was NO WAY I was going to cal back the "detective"

I once again called my phone company (by dialing 0) and talked with an operator to
ask if we can block phone calls from the 876 area code due to these fishing calls we have been receiving - she didn't know and transferred me to another person, he suggested calling the local business office and explain what is happening to them, and that they could take it to a higher level in their legal offices.

I once again I asked if there is a way for these calls to somehow charge me without going through the operator as in a collect call (which neither were) Again he indicated that I needed to talk with the local business office.

Needless to say, I'm calling first things on Monday!

Not sure how they got my phone number as our house phone is in my wife's name... Yet these were not the first phone call scams we have received. We received a different variant last month...

Phone Scam Calls from Jamiaca New Varient - Beware!!!

Over the last two weeks, I've received a couple of phone calls indicating that the caller would like me to call back to discuss delivery of a package.

The strange thing was that these message called me by my first name. The second indicated it was Mr. David and that he wanted to talk with me about the delivery of a package and to call him at his office at 876-283-0759. Since I was not expecting a package, nor have I sent a package to Jamaica nor to the Dominican Republic - I am/was suspicious... Thus I did a reverse phone look-up and was not able to find any (free) information about the number. I then did a check on the area code and found that Jamaica and the Dominican Republic share this area code.

This sounded like a phone scam that I remembered hearing about awhile ago, yet with a different twist - instead of calling to either claim a lottery, or that one has won a large amount of $$$, yet to claim need to send some money via Western Union,
This one was to call about a delivery of a package.

If one is curious about finding out more about scams check out fraud.org

Day Trip to San Francisco

Day trip to San Francisco - San Francisco Viewed From Ciot Tower in San Francisco down Greenwich St Near turn around.
Alcatraz Island Viewed From Leaverworth n Francisco St
St Peter n Paul Church
Golden Gate Bridge n the fog

Large Spider in "his" web

A shot of a spider that caught my attention as I was driving out of my son's High School's Parking lot this morning. shows the spider from the sid
The Spider's body is Approximately the size of a quarter. While I was photographing it, one of the security guards came up to me and asked if he could help me - of course he noticed the camera... I told him that ihad just dropped off my son, and noticed the spider so I thought I'd take a few shots of it. The security guard looked and said that there were two of them - I looked to the right, and sure enough there was a second spider about three feet away. Both spiders had a web that was eight feet tall, and three feet across. I thanked him, and he walked off. It is nice to see that one can actually take an image in public.

Two Peregrine Falcons standing on a light pole

Saturday 2009-09-11, as I was returning home from a quick trip to Los Angeles International Airport, there were two Peregrine Falcon's standing on a light pole in a parking lot! Of course, I turned into the parking lot and slowly drove over to the light pole with my trusty camera (Canon G2) in hand to take a couple of quick shots before the Peregrine Falcons decided to fly off...

CF Card Collection now at 88 unique cards

CF collection now at 88 different CF Cards ranging in size/manufacturer from 2 MB to 16 GB - with an additional 5 different sub-types cards... One subtype http://bit.ly/3XiVzV has 5 different CF cards.

Latest addition includes a SanDisk 10 MB White & 512 Sandard Grade; Kodak 8 MB Red Picture Card

The collection can be seen at: http://bit.ly/C3lC6

examiner.com uses images without permission

Very disappointing that a web site, let alone this one, will tolerate an "author" that uses an image that was not taken, produced, purchased or even had ask permission to use prior to the image actually being used (ref Grilled Flatbread Pizza with Gorgonzola Figs - dated Apr. 2).
As this image (albeit it a larger size) was used in an article "published" on October 29, 2008 as seen at Fig Apple and Gorgonzola Flatbread - Also refer to FigAppleFlatbread where a series of photos illustrate how the image in question was taken...
Ms. Lovier also didn't give credit to the person that actually created the image (Ms. Jaden Hair), who is a TV Personality, Author, and photographer.
Was the original created under creative commons - doubtful, as the web page above didn't explicitly indicate it as such...

Actions like this tarnish the credibility of the web page, in this case examiner.com... If left unchanged, what message does this send to others that create content? To those who actually do will be less apt to create it, and to those who use content without permission/payment reinforce the notion that it is o.k. to steal.

Ms. Hair also posted a comment on the subject article (Grilled Flatbread Pizza with Gorgonzola Figs) asking that the web site/"journalist" to take down her image...

Please note I'm not affiliated with Ms. Hair - I'm just a photographer that is very disappointed and dismayed at the increasing number of "journalists" and web sites that feel that it is o.k. to steal someone work with out compensation / credit. Let alone the moral issue of stealing...

I certainly hope that the web site takes down the image, give Credit to Ms. Jaden Hair, and at least write a letter of apology - her twitter page is at: steamykitchen

Photography Tips and Information

I've been following multiple blogs and podcasts on Photography. The best ones are:
Photofocus
My Digital Life

After playing with the 30 day free trial of both Topaz Adjust and DeNoise, I purchased the Topaz Photoshop Bundle (contains Topaz Adjust, Simplify, DeNoise, Detail, Clean, DeJPEG. On a recient trip to Savannah, GA I was on a Trolley tour, and took a quick snap of the City Hall looking North on Bull Street at around 1325 hours. It was an overcast day, so I decided to play with Topaz Adjust with my shinny new license. I must say I really like the results... See the resultant image on my flickr account at:
Savannah City Hall
Shortly after I posted the image, I received a comment from another flickr user indicating "This scene holds special memories for me." They even marked it as one of their favorites!!!
THANK-YOU Rick Sammon for bringing these filters to my attention!!!

Crow tempting fate with a Peregrine Falcon

Yesterday while going to work, I noticed a couple of birds, one was on top of a telephone/power=line pole, while the second was flying by ans swooping down on the first. As I drove by I noticed the bird sitting on the pole was a Peregrine Falcon, and a Crow was flying by and diving at the Falcon. The Falcon wasn't flinching - just watching. I posted some images on my flicker account, and thy can be seen at:
Tempting Fate #1; #2 and #3.

I also took a hand held video of the action, and it can be seen at:
Crow Swooping by a Peregrine Falcon.

You Don't See This Everyday...

My son told me that there was a fence a block away from his middle school that had a large number of bees on one of the boards. I went over and was amazed to see a large number of bees. It appears as if a new Queen was searching for a new place to start a new hive. I posted four different images on my flickr account in a new set, of course called Bees. This set is located at Bees

2 Partitions on a CF ?

On a trip to Denver last November, I went to Circuit City to purchase a new 2 GB Compact Flash card for my G2 (as I didn't bring enough CF cards with me and the largest CF card that can be written to is 2GB...) To my surprise the 4GB card was less then the 2GB, so I purchased it. 4GB CF was subsequently formatted in my Canon G2, resulting in two partitions - one 2.00 GB and one 1.82 GB Unallocated or basically unusable. After downloading (and backing up) the images, I tried to reformat the CF card a couple of ways in the windows world to try to get back the unused partition. Unfortunately the format operation just formatted the 2GB partition; using Disk Management to format only allows me to format the 2.00 GB partition and results in the same - any ideas on how to remove the partition and subsequently format the entire 4GB Compact Flash?

Numismatic Enclopedia

NGC has a Numismatic Encyclopedia section up on their web site - check it out if you are interested in Numismatics!

The reason I was looking for this information, is my son is collecting both the State Quarters (both Mint Marks "P" and "D") as well as the Presidential Dollars (from both Mint Marks), thus I was looking for why the Presidential $1 coins have two different designations for the two different orientations of the edge text orientation (i.e. Date, Mint Mark & Motto is incused in the edge of the piece). PCGS Price Guide for Presidential Dollars refers to these two orientation as "Position A" and "Position B", while other references refer to the different orientations as "Type 2" and "Type 1" respectively.

I've posted two images of the James Monroe $1 Coin, one of each of the two different edge text orientations; each image has been annotated with both designations to help make this clear Position B or Type 1 and Position A or Type 2 up on my flickr account (they are in the Macro set)

My Digital Life blog / podcast

Found another web site that My Digital Life that is a blog and also produces podcasts about digital equipment and also addresses questions about to use them. As of May 1st, they have produced four Episodes.

Eight images from USAF 60th Anniv show

Added eight images taken at the 60th Anniv Air Show at the Nellis AFB held in 2007.

The images range from a Heritage Flight consisting of a P-51, FA-22, F-4 and an A-10, to a stunt helicopter! This helicopter was at altitude when four sky divers jumped with smoke.
Later this Helicopter started doing things that I thought only the Apache and Comanche Helicopters could do - it flew a loop!!! and flew at another circle with the rotors vertical to the ground!!! AMAZING!!!

Five more CF cards!

Added five more CF Cards to my CF collection...

High speed continuous shooting mode - Five Shot s in five seconds on a Canon G2!?!

Normally in the high speed continuous shooting mode, three shots can be taken within 1.5 Seconds.
I stumbled on a realization that one can actually take (at least) five images when using the SanDisk Extreme III Compact Flash Card - I used the 1 GB Extreme III card and was amazed to see a series of five shots taken had been taken of a wave breaking over the breakwater in King Harbor (Redondo Beach) - With a Ultra or Standard CF card, normally the Canon G2 takes three (in a second an a half) before the buffer / CF write delays the sequence.

This sequence was hand held - a Tripod would have helped...

I'll have to try another "sequence" of shots to see just how many shots I can get before the buffer/CF write delay pauses he series of images

From the more properties field (reading the EXIF data) the "Date and
Time" for each of the images is as follows:

2009:04:15 18:26:59-07:00
2009:04:15 18:27:00-07:00
2009:04:15 18:27:01-07:00
2009:04:15 18:27:01-07:00
2009:04:15 18:27:02-07:00

11 Images added of Big Waves in Manhattan Beach

Finally added 11 images taken April 11 of some big waves in Manhattan Beach in my flickr account

Added more images from Knott's Berry Farm - two are from the Silver Bullet Roller Coaster - different lightings

More CF cards added to the collection...

Added two more CF cards the the Collection, SanDisk 10 MB and 32 MB Shoot & Share

Knott's Berry Farm - four images uploaded

Four images from the 2009-04-24 trip to Knott's Berry Farm (after the Music Festival in Irvine) on flickr in a new set "Amusement Parks". One was of Ghost Rider Roller Coaster, the other three were of a bird... Not sure the species...

Macro test using an Exakta 400mm

This weekend I plan on seeing what I can do with my Exakta 400mm lens mounted on my Canon G2... This should be interesting...
Additional test shots will include adding an extension tubes and even a bellows...

10MB Sandisk Compact Flash

Received my latest addition to my Compact Flash Card Collection - a 10MB SanDisk Compact Flash Card in it's original box!!! I'll add a photo to my flickr CF Set in the next day or two...

Exakta 135mm Lens mounted on a Canon G2

Finally added the images of the Exakta 135mm mounted to one of my Canon G2s set-up used to take the IBM ThinkPad macro image

Step Down Adapters arrived!!!

Received the two step down adapters to allow me to connect my Primary Exakta Lens to my Canon G2. I'll post some images on my flickr account of the set up and images taken with the set-up.

TWIPPhoto is now Photofocus & TWiPlog

Great Photography webpage with netcasts (podcasts and videocasts) This Week in Photography has changed it's name to TWiPlog (This Week in Photography Log)

Photofocus is a blog/website by Scott Bourne (also a contributor to TWiPlog).
Photofocus and is an amazing web site.

Check them both out for some great interviews, and photography tips!!!

Photography - Panoramas

Added multiple panoramas and landscape images to my flickr account in the
Panorama Sets