A Pig in Shinola

Despite their still being snow covering the Ochils and avalanches occuring up to the end of last week, we managed a bit of time sitting in the garden today.

Of course, this was after dusting down and washing the furniture, clearing up the leaves and other junk blown in on last week's storms, sweeping and sieving the stone chips, putting the swing back together and then power-washing the buggery out of the patio. Euan and I deserved a bit of R&R after all that, and I had a nice wee session of alfresco editing to myself.

I settled down to play with the new graphics tablet that arrived this morning. I had a bigger A5 sized one way back but it's got some archaic serial connector (pre-USB) and is looking the worse for wear, so thought I'd give this Pen and Touch device a go. As well as working as a graphics tablet it also kind of replicates the multi-touch gestures on the MacBook track pads. I say kind of as it's not quite as full featured or even as intuitive, but it may prove useful.

This image was 'enhanced' using it; it's great for some nice selective dodging and burning.

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After posting late last night I'd mentioned there that my wife and daughter had had a bit of an adventure getting into the United States yesterday.

When they were being checked in through passport control the desk clerk withheld their passports and called over airport security. They were then taken to an interview area where Samantha was given the third degree about her daughter; eye colour, weight, height, place of birth, etc. By this point Heather was getting a bit freaked out and even Samantha was getting a bit agitated too.

Eventually, after security were convinced everything was as it should be, they explained that a 16 year old with the same name and date of birth as our daughter was missing, possibly kidnapped, and this had set off an alert.

A bit of a scary experience, especially as this was Heather's first experience of America and the other two people travelling with them were completely in the dark as to what had happened other than they'd just disappeared.

A nice walk through Central Park and a visit to the Apple Store seems to have calmed them down a bit today though.

I'm off for some Ginger Beer to celebrate Friday now. Have a good one!