(no subject)

Following up with the auction I posted about yesterday, it gets even more ridiculous. The high bidder with zero feedback? Bid Cancelled:

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=160101722360

And yet eBay insists that they are doing everything to stop the fraud. They have a blocked bidders list, I wish ebay would also have a "do not buy from this seller" list, cause this guy is a permanent skip-over.

On a more positive note, I did find this bit of VBA code to automatically import an ASCII file into Excel. I have to tweak it a bit for what I need, but I think I can do that with the record Macro feature and cut-n-paste what I need. If anyone reading has any similar VBA they can share and/or point me toward, that would be greatly appreciated.

And today I signed-up for an adult Ed. class as the high school in Concord to learn German. I want to travel to Germany some day; it would be nice if I could understand the people once I got there. The class starts tomorrow evening, so I will soon find out how much or little apptitude I have for it.

"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body"

art, photography, and coins

I'm not an artist, but I have a definite appreciation for art. Occasionally I get to combine my coin collecting with some of that appreciation. Except I need a better camera.

My camera, a Nikon Cool Pics 775, is almost 10 years old. It was a decent mid-level camera when it came out, but it's got some severe short-comings. The 4" macro-range combined with only 2.1 megapixel resolution makes taking close-ups of coins hard. Plus I have the added challenge that my hands shake. With some coins I get the top of the coin in focus, and the bottom of the coin isn't. Like this one, which isn't a coin, it's a 1 ounce silver "round". The color is fairly representative, but the legends at the bottom aren't as crisp as the ones at the top.

I also need to spring for PhotoShop. The software I have now has a very easy to use interface. I can crop, gamma ajust, resize and save and just a few clicks. Except it sometimes loses the color saturation and gives the nickel and silver coins a greenish cast like the reverse-side of this Buffalo nickel. At least that one is in focus.