Having spent a long day thinking about Physics, fourteen of the weary panel members went for dinner at the fine restaurant “Fire” in downtown Dublin. After a lovely dinner, with excellent conversation, we trekked back through the cold and rain (quite lovely
actually) to our hotel, to find that the lobby was alive with activity! A fellow wearing whites and a chef’s hat came up to us and offered us hot chocolate -with whipped cream and sprinkles! How could we say no? We sat for a while in the fun atmosphere of the lobby (I think maybe two or three conferences had collided nicely to chill out in the lobby, spilling out of the bar, etc)
I took a few snaps. [Sorry they’re a bit dark…. wanted them spontaneous and hate to use flash…. did not have time to re-expose as well as I wanted to avoid being fooled by extraneous lighting]. Here’s Astrophysicist Luca Amendola (Roma), and Mathematical Physicist Anne Taormina (Durham):
… and Christina Lacey (USC - the other one…University of South Carolina).
Christina, planning to go exploring the area in and around Dublin after her panel work, put her head together with area Astrophysicist (always wanted to say that), Anthony Murphy (N.U.I., Maynooth) to consult over detailed maps on the local geography.
Then off to my room to blog and then to bed …. Yay!
-cvj
March 7th, 2006 at 6:46 am
Yes, that sounds like Dublin, hot chocolate served with whipped cream! Are you staying long enough to see the St Patrick’s Day parade?
March 7th, 2006 at 6:58 am
Have to get back to my day job. See the earlier post.
-cvj
March 7th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Dr. Johnson, while we are all suffering back at USC with rain and unusual lectures, you’re sitting in Dublin drinking hot chocolate with sprinkles? I’m slightly jealous. Your “day job” wants you back…
March 8th, 2006 at 7:32 pm
Um….. if it’s any consolation….It was raining there too. Oh, and the cups were not pre-heated before putting in the chocolate.
Wait “suffering”? I thought you guys would be happy to get a rest from me for a day or two.
Cheers,
-cvj
March 9th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
Re\: Dark Photos
Go to photoshop
Clik on image
click on adjustments
Auto Levels/Color will sometimes do the job
If not, click on Curves
Experiement a bit with dragging the curve around and see if you can drag some information out of the darkness. You can put multiple inflection points on the curve if necessary but I find that just dragging the curve in the middle just a bit upwards does the trick.
Good Luck
March 9th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
thanks…. I know how to do that….. but it takes time, which I don’t have…
But also, seeing them again now on a better lit screen, they’re actually only slightly darker than where I wanted them in terms of lighting…… reflecting the actual lighting condtions at the time…. (I try to do most of my photo-processing on-camera to minimize the production of overly artificial photos…..)
Cheers,
-cvj