Commentary

Canon Speedlite 430EX III-RT

Tyla and I usually go for some bigger family gift at Christmas instead of exchanging gifts with each other. Our first gifts like this was the camera and that has gotten a lot of good use. This year we decided to add a nice flash to the camera.

I chose the Speedlite 430 EX III-RT. As the name implies, this is the third version of this model. It has way more features than we’ll ever need but it also means that I probably won’t ever feel the need to buy a different one.

It’s a fully automatic flash so it gets all the info it needs from the settings on the camera. The RT means it supports radio triggering. My camera doesn’t have a built in radio trigger but I could add one on and have the flash fire even if it’s not attached to the camera.

I really enjoy the ability to rotate the flash in two directions to bounce the flash off a nearby wall, etc. It gives a much more natural looking photo instead of the traditional on-camera flash look. I have a LOT to learn about how to use a flash but here’s one of my first tests.

Here’s the baseline. This is the built-in flash on the camera.

This is the new flash with the diffuser attached (it comes in the box with the flash.) It’s a little better but it’s still obviously a picture with a flash.

And finally here’s what it looks like with the new flash bouncing off the side wall. This one looks a lot more natural.

I’m excited to do some reading and really learn how to make good use of this gadget!

benmartens December 29, 2015 Commentary

Merry Christmas!

Luke 2

The Birth of Jesus

¹ In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ² (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³ And everyone went to their own town to register.

⁴ So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. ⁵ He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, ⁷ and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

benmartens December 25, 2015 Commentary

Wise Men Timing

For as l can remember, I’ve thought that it was silly to have the three wise men in the nativity scenes. They didn’t show up until Jesus was at least a few months (maybe a year or two) old. So I sat down to do a blog post explaining how we know this and… NOPE. I was wrong.

Ok, well we can’t technically say for sure exactly when they arrived, but most of the evidence does indicate that they probably arrived the day (or a couple days) after Jesus was born. This site has a great explanation of how we know this and what a possible timeline looks like. I ran it by Pastor Herrmann and he gave it the thumbs up.

So where did I get this notion in my head that Jesus was quite a bit older? The Bible says that King Herod ordered all of the babies under two years old killed to try and wipe out what he perceived as a threat to his throne. Why would he do this if he knew that Jesus’s birth was very recent? We don’t know. Herod was an angry, mean guy so maybe he could have just been covering all his bases. Or maybe he expanded the time range to make sure that his guards got the message and didn’t have to try and figure out how many days old a Baby looked. Or maybe he wanted to send a message to the population that he was the man in charge. We don’t know and it doesn’t really matter.

I guess the nativities still are incorrect. The shepherds and the wise men probably weren’t there at the same time, but I’ll let that slide.

In fact, none of this really matters or changes the story. The important part is that on that night in Bethlehem, the Almighty God came to earth in the form of a baby and started on the journey to the cross. Because of our faith in his life, death and resurrection, we’ll get to meet him in heaven and ask him all these questions!

benmartens December 24, 2015 Commentary

What is Advent?

Religions have a lot of seasons and celebrations. I readily admit that I don’t know most of the non-Christian ones and even some of the lesser known Christian ones are hard to remember. I won’t do this for every single Church season or special day, but I thought that for some of them I would do a little write up about what it means for Christians and why I celebrate it. It just so happens that the Christian “liturgical year” starts in December.

The church year starts with the season of Advent. Advent starts four Sundays before Christmas and runs up to Christmas. So for most years it starts the Sunday after Thanksgiving. These four Sundays are sometimes represented by four candles. One more candle gets lit each week. Some Advent wreaths have a fifth candle in the middle and that one gets lit on Christmas Day.

Advent is a season of waiting. We’re not just staring at our watches, waiting for Christmas to come. We are joyfully anticipating Christmas and reflecting on why we need Him and what His birth meant for us. Believers in the Old Testament waited thousands of years of Jesus to come. We only wait a few weeks and we get to celebrate it each year. But in addition to preparing and focusing on the birth of Jesus at Christmas, we also expectantly wait for his return at the end of the world when those who believe that Jesus died for their sins will be taken to heaven.

Want to know more? Check out this article about Advent from our church body.

I’ve already written a post about why I celebrate Christmas so it will be a little while before there’s another post in this series.

benmartens December 15, 2015 Commentary

Christmas Lights

Do you remember voting for what color lights I should use around the garage doors this year? I took your advice and went all-white. You can see the end result below. I think it looks pretty nice. I might toy around with making the center door be all-red or something like that but for now, I’m happy. Next year I think I’ll focus on adding some smaller lights to the bushes and/or the little tree next to the driveway.

benmartens December 11, 2015 Commentary

Parks And Recreation Review

I finished watching all seven seasons of Parks and Recreation. This show came out a few years after The Office and I skipped it because the promos made it look like a knock off of The Office. After watching the whole show, I suppose there are a lot of similarites in the styile and the content matter, but I have to say that Parks and Rec is superior. While there are loveable characters in both, the cast of Parks and Rec is stronger and the story line held up better. Chris Pratt and Nick Offerman were incredible throughout.

Trivia: The series finale features Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) paddling the “Lucky Boy” canoe across a lake. He actually built that canoe himself. In fact, all of the shots of him in his woodshop were actually his woodshop and he built many of the props for the show. The canoe was one of two big canoe projects. He kept one for himself and the Lucky Boy was recently delivered to his friend Jimmy Diresta. Jimmy is a woodworker as well and now has a successful YouTube channel that I enjoy and he’s also host of the Making It podcast which I recommend if you like to make stuff.

Parks and Rec gets two thumbs up from me. It’s easy to flip on, chuckle, and burn through a few episodes. It was available for free to Prime members but now you need a Hulu subscription to watch it (assuming you don’t want to pay ~$25/season to buy it.)

benmartens December 7, 2015 Commentary

Dos Tios Glass Break

It has been almost eight years since Tim and I ordered 144 custom beer glasses. It was a goofy project but still one that I enjoy to this day. They have held up amazingly well. I reuse the same two or three glasses every week and even through countless dishwasher cycles, they look as good as the day we bought them.

Well, most of them look good. Last week I had one break in a crazy way. When I came down to the kitchen one morning, I picked up one of the glasses to rinse it out and put it in the dishwasher. The glass was about half full with water and I had whiskey stones (rum stones?) soaking in it to sort of clean them a bit. When I picked up the glass. the top part came off and the base stayed on the counter. The water and stones poured out.

It was a very clean break. Maybe it had cracked when I set it down on the counter the night before, but it was so perfect that the water didn’t leak out? I couldn’t figure it out, but I guess this means I’m down one glass. At this rate I should have enough glasses for the next half a millennia or so.

benmartens December 3, 2015 Commentary

Broken Window Theory

Everybody has their own mental bar denoting what a “clean” house looks like. If you’re happy with the state of your house and the amount of stuff you have in it, then you can probably skip this post. But if you’re not, there are a bazillion different books, websites, and videos giving you ideas about how to improve the state of your home. I’ll make it a bazillion and one by sharing my own thoughts.

I hate cleaning, but even more than that, I hate looking at a mess and knowing that I have to “waste” my time and clean it. So my basic approach is to ABC: Always Be Cleaning. (Every self-help article like this needs a cheesy acronym, right?) For example, when I finish making dinner, I don’t leave the dishes in the sink to greet me the following morning, I take 5 minutes and clean them up. Doing little bits of cleaning here and there feels a lot less painful than ruining two hours of my Saturday because the kitchen turned into a nightmare.

Coupled with that, I also force myself to clean up the area before starting any project. Even if I clean up at the end of a task, the area slowly gets messy again. This is especially true out in the garage. So before I start that next big project, I pick up all my tools, clean off my bench, and organize the piles of wood. Then I’m excited to work in that nice clean area instead of tripping over stuff on the floor and never having room on the bench.

My approach can be neatly summed up by the Broken Window Theory. If you read that linked Wikipedia article, you’ll see the theory summed up like this:

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

Or consider a pavement. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of refuse from take-out restaurants there or even break into cars.

It’s pretty easy to tell when an area is clean. I feel an emotional response to setting that first piece of junk in the nice clean area. But then I get used to seeing it there and it doesn’t bother me so much. In fact, it gets easier and easier to just throw more junk in that area because hey, I have to clean it out anyway, right? Pretty soon it’s a huge mess and now I have to do one of those big huge cleanouts and my quality of life is negatively impacted because I’m annoyed by the thought of that big cleaning event coming up.

It’s surprising how often this theory applies. For example, we talk about it regularly at work when someone proposes a less than beautiful piece of code. Just take the time to fix it now because your hack will open the floodgates for more hacks until we’re left with a nightmare that we don’t have time to re-architect. If you want to get a little geekier about it, you might propose that messes grow exponentially.

If you’ve already got a system that works for you, then stick with it! But if you need a little more encouragement, remember the broken window theory.

benmartens November 16, 2015 Commentary

Zion School Fire

My brother-in-law, LukeS, is the principal and upper grades teacher at Zion Lutheran School in Toledo, OH. He had a rude awakening around midnight Monday night. The school was on fire! The boiler room is a complete loss and there is water damage throughout the school. The local news has two video segments (1 and 2) showing the result of the fire and there is a LOT of work to do to get the building back into shape.

It’s going to take a long time to get the building fixed, but this is obviously the middle of the school year. They are hoping to get some portable buildings in place for a temporary school location, but their insurance will only cover $10K toward that. To help cover the large price gap, they have started a Go Fund Me page. Please consider helping them out with a donation, and whether you donate or not, please keep them in your prayers.

benmartens November 12, 2015 Commentary

Hulu Plus Review

I was happily enjoying all the Parks and Recreation episodes (great show!) on Amazon Prime Instant Video when suddenly that stopped being available as part of Prime. I was about halfway through the fifth of seven seasons. What to do?

I didn’t really love it enough to pay ~$25/season to watch the rest of it, but it was available as part of Hulu Plus for only ~$10/month. I found a coupon for a two week trial instead of the normal one week and fired it up.

It was my first experience with Hulu Plus, and, while it was nice that it worked on all my devices (Amazon Fire TV, Xbox360, Xbox One, and Windows Phone), I wasn’t impressed. First of all, the ads are annoying. Yes, it’s less than normal TV, but I don’t watch ads in normal TV because I DVR it. Here I’m forced to sit through a small selection of commercials over and over again. They do have a new price tier that lets you get rid of commercials for a few extra bucks. That would definitely be worth it.

The commercials were annoying but I knew I could pay money to get rid of them when the trial was up so it wasn’t horrible. What really annoyed me was the failure to remember not only where I was in an episode when I stopped watching but even what episode I was watching. I switched from device to device regularly and it seemed like it worked properly only about half the time. The other half of the time I’d have to flip through all of the episodes, figure out which one I was on, and then fast forward through the episode until I got to the point where I stopped before.

In a world where we are talking about 4K high dynamic range content coming soon, Hulu still streams their content in stereo like it’s 1950. Where’s the 5.1 that every other streaming service offers?

And finally, when I watched from a desktop PC, the video would stutter every few seconds. This PC is a beast and it easily handles YouTube, Netflix or Amazon Instant Video. Why does Hulu have to stink?

Hulu was around before Netflix or Amazon Instant Video and what do they have to show for themselves? It’s the same story they’ve always had: it’s almost something awesome, but it’s still not there yet.

I cancelled my subscription before the trial ran out. Thanks for letting me watch Parks and Rec.

benmartens November 10, 2015 Commentary

Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Just trying to get through life without looking stupid, so far it's not going very well.