Puzzle Pirates

I really enjoy puzzles. There's something I find rewarding about completing a puzzle. I like the traditional, 1000+ piece puzzles. I'm currently working on a puzzle of the Titantic. However, the photo on the box doesn't depict the actual puzzle. So it's been extremely difficult to put together.

I also enjoy puzzle-style video games, like Snood and Tetris.

I was reading tv.com's Terminator: Sarah Conner Chronicles message board to see if TSCC had been renewed for a second season. I don't normally pay attention to ads, but one for PuzzlePirates.com caught my eye.

It's a Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game. Conflict and task resolution is resolved by completing puzzles. The better the score on the puzzle, the better the outcome for your pirate. The flash widget above shows my particular pirate. She's in the clothing she started with. Commissioning a new portrait will cost me 15,000 pieces of eight (the game money). 've spent all the money I pillaging on new clothing, a house and various storage items and weapons. I've purchased everything I need (except a ship) so I can now start spending money on conspicuous stuff, like a new portrait.

The game really revolves around playing an actual pirate. You carouse, play cards, drink, brawl and sword fight. Then set sail and pillage and explore new lands.

It's a really fun game to play when you have the time for it. It's also a very deep game. There are special events, monster hunts and all of the elements of a traditional MMORPG.

The game is free to play. But, you have to subscribe to have access to all of the puzzles on a daily basis as well as own specific items. If you don't want to subscribe, most of the puzzles are free to play on certain days.

Overall, this is a pretty fun game. But, like any MMORPG, it can be a massive time sink. I used to play FFXI and completed the quest for Lu Shang's Rod. So I know what a time sink is.

The nice thing about this game is that there are puzzle tournaments and tables where you can issue puzzle challenges.

So, when I've got some free time, I log on and issue a challenge or join a tournament. When the game starts, you get a nice little whistle sound. So you don't have to stay glued to your computer.

March 23, 2008: Brundidge to Greenville

I went home for Easter and decided to take the long way back home — Brundidge-Troy-Goshen-Glenwood-Luverne-Greenville. All in all, it was a pretty disappointing trip. I found a few nice structures to shoot, but they were all facing east and back lit so bad I was getting glare on the front element of my lenses.

The most interesting structures I could find were churches. Unfortunately, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, so there wasn't really anything dramatic about the shots. I went ahead and shot the buildings for reference and marked them on my map. On an afternoon when I have decent cloud cover, I'm planning to head back east and shoot those buildings. I can make it to Luverne and Glenwood in 25-30 minutes.

Since I wasn't getting anywhere photographically wise, I decided to head back to Greenville and shoot some wildflowers. I had covered all the wildflowers I could find earlier in the week, but they were wet and the sun had come out, so I got really bad burned our areas in some of the droplets. I decided to shoot the flowers dry, but the wind was blowing so bad I had to abandon that as well.

I ended up just going in to work to get get a jump on Monday's workload. Overall, it was a really frustrating trip. But, sometimes it goes that way.

March 15-16, 2008: Road to Cheaha

I'm finally settled in at my new apartment for the most part. But, I still have a lot of unpacking to do. I've really put that on the back burner though. I have a roof over my head and food to eat. I don't really care if it's cluttered with unopened boxes.

I have better things to do right now. It's spring and the weather is warming up and the days are getting longer. I made an excursion to north Alabama to Cheaha State Park this past weekend. I really wanted some new scenery.

I took a long route to get to Cheaha because I wanted to go through downtown Montgomery to check it out for photo opportunities. You never know what lies along a road until you travel it.

I took these two images in Rockford on the way to Cheaha:









I was working on doing realistic HDR as opposed to all of the cartoonish/drawing style post processing I've been working on so far this year.

The first image was of waterfalls along the Highfalls Trail in Cheaha State Park. The next two are as described. All three are three images are HDR bracketed at -2/0/+2 EV.

The waterfall shot is all HDR. The cemetery and church shot are HDR masked over a tonemapped middle image in the bracket. There was some bad haloing caused by FDR tools. So I had to do a lot of masking to remove those halos.

The other photos I posted on Flickr have the North Alabama tag.

Overall, I was pretty happy with the trip. Some Flickr members liked the photos and others have been critical of them. But, I like the criticism. Most of it has been very helpful. If I want to keep expanding and improving my skills, I have to be open to criticism, whether it be positive or negative.