I still exist. Things have happened, but I’ve been less interested in writing about them and more interested in just doing them. However, my photojournal has been updated through today and photos has a couple new galleries, so you can hit them for all the details.

The last few days have involved new toys. Last Wednesday, work upgraded my old Blackberry (bleh) to an iPhone 5 (meh?). This was a decent thing, except I quickly found that the iPhone fails at its namesake… that is, it’s a pretty terrible phone. My first day of using it involved lots of “huh?” and “what?” comments from both ends of the conversation, whereas I’d never really had issues with my Blackberry. I suppose the iPhone is better for things like GPS (but not maps? well, at least it has maps…) and apps, but that’s not what I use my work phone for. Both of my primary usages of the phone (email, which was better with a physical keyboard, and the phone itself) have actually been downgraded. As such, that “upgrade” has been a large disappointment.

However, I was recently convinced by Greg to (finally) purchase the 35mm f/1.8 lens I’ve been wanting for several years. It arrived just before Thursday games, which gave it a perfect opportunity to be broken in, and it worked pretty awesomely (for low-light, indoor photography), and continued to be useful every day since (as there have been events every day since). In fact, since I took my first photo with the lens at 5 PM on Thursday, I have taken 1050 photos with it. It’s super fast, it’s super light, it’s wider angle than my 50mm f/1.8, and it’s also super quiet (since it’s a SWM lens).
My only real problem with is not an issue with the lens but with how I use my camera… I always shoot in single-area focus mode, and I tend to leave the selected area in the center and reframe rather than moving the focus point. As a result, when I’m shooting wide enough to get more than peoples’ faces, I tend to focus on the person’s torso rather than their face. Which worked fine with my old (f/3.5 and up) lenses, but fails with my f/1.8 lens since the depth of field is often too narrow to get their face and torso both in focus. (This wasn’t an issue with my 50mm f/1.8 because I can’t frame much more than someone’s face with it.)
So, overall, I’m extremely happy with my new lens. It literally has not left my camera since I first mounted it (even when I had taken my 18-200mm lens along as a backup).

Besides that, as I mentioned in my last post, I reactivated my Facebook account with the goal of using it as a contact directory (and not actually updating it or checking it), and it’s actually working out well for that purpose. However, in even the brief time I spend on it to click through to someone’s profile, I discovered that Facebook now logs (and shows in your history) every search you make (including click-throughs to profiles where applicable). On the one hand, I’m sure they kept this information before, so at least they’re showing it now. But on the other hand, WTF, guys. I’m tempted to once again deactivate my account, but instead I’ve been wiping all information from my wall (“Timeline”), removing all uploaded content, leaving all groups, and wiping my messages inbox. If I’m going to be forced to use you to be able to contact certain people, you’re going to get as little information as possible from me.

Anyway, boo walls of text, so here are some photos with my sexy new lens.

Edit: Okay, Facebook, what the hell?! It’s bad enough that it’s difficult to untag yourself (has to be from the activity log and not from the original post item), but you track when you untag yourself too?! I swear, you’re logging every single click I make *somewhere* and you’re going to regurgitate that information at some point in the worst way possible. :\
Also I can’t find any way to untag myself from recent tags (like in photo album descriptions).
Time to deactivate again? The creepiness of Facebook is seriously overwhelming its usefulness as a contact information directory for me.