RantWoman is not sure who in her network might appreciate this information but is posting it here.
Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety
Monday, April 27, 2026
Sunday, April 26, 2026
Bad photographer cred?
 |
| Again with the tree photo this time basically at the crack of dawn |
Still a few days left to enter the IcelandAir "Really bad photographer" contest, and RantWoman is trying to demonstrate quirky skills.
RantWoman again encourages everyone who might be intrigued or even just slightly interested to read the contest guidelines.
Really bad photographer | Icelandair US
The contest does not want anyone who has ever done professional photography. Do the following comments mean RantWoman might be over-qualified?
Part of the instructions ask for a one-minute video about a bad photography experience that still turned out well. There is also the part about other skills. One of RantWoman's skills is going on at length. Hence the multiple blog posts.
First Prize in the 4H photography category at the county fair: there were no other entries.
This happened decades ago at an age when RantWoman officially could see enough with glasses to maybe do decent photos. RantWoman remembers giving a speech about sewing. RantWoman may have entered some baked goods. But the blue ribbon went to an album of black and white photos. RantWoman has long since lost the actual album but remembers that it was in black and white. Some of the composition was less than perfect, though RantWoman also remembers at least one shot of one of the town mountains that she really liked
The fambly reunions:
RantMom, may she rest in peace, and her siblings had a tradition, after their kids were grown and everyone was on less tenuous financial footing. of getting together every couple years with at least a few at a time of the cousin generation. So there RantWoman was recently looking at photos ahead of RantMom's memorial. Quite a bit of the time, RantWoman found herself thinking "who are theese people and why can't anyone take decent photographs? RantWoman can tell that photographs of people standing with light behind them in front of various forms of scenery do not do justice either to the people or to the scenery. Does that observation already make her overqualified for the contest? The memories are FUN regardless.
The cat and the disposable camera.
While RantWoman was trying to land on her feet after her midlife vision-related DNA kicked in, RantWoman signed up for a workshop series called "Getting involved in your Neighborhood." Part of the project involved handing RantWoman a disposable camera with instructions to document one's surroundings. Very funny. RantWoman really could not even locate the camera viewfinder and took a few pictures just by framing the camera based on externam things she used to orient the camera. The Queen of Meow, RantWoman's cat overlord at the time liked to jump up onto the railing of the balcony across from RantWoman's apartment. To RantWoman's surprise, a couple of RantWoman's cat photos showed the Queen of Meow proudly strolling along the railing, oblivious to the 4-floor drop to the patio.
The incision at the bottom of RantWoman's neck.
Scroll forward a couple decades. Add a smartphone so theoretically RantWoman can better use her limited vision to frame the photos at least a little better. Oh, but wait: a new task. Recently RantWoman had a surgery related to a different strand of DNA lotto. The surgery involved a small incision at the base of RantWoman's neck, sealed up with surgical glue and steri strips. RantWoman lives alone and cannot really see into the mirror to monitor healing. RantWoman an also has a smart phone that attempts to tell her how to capture her face. RantWoman did not want to capture her face. RantWoman wanted to capture her incision as it healed. To do that RantWoman basically had to ignore the instructions offered. RantWoman probably would have been able to tell if she were developing a raging infection without photos. Luckily, RantWoman has a coupe people in her life willing to receive daily photos and comment on the evolving color palette. The doctor was impressed at the follow-up visit.
The daily tree motif
RantWoman's apartment looks out on a tree, actually more than one tree. RantWoman does daily tree photos more or less just for fun. RantWoman is not preoccupied about the quality, composition, contrast of the photos. RantWoman's task is to write alt text for the photos. Alt text is description used by screen reader users to describe content of photos. Nowadays, a lot of platforms have AI which automatically does a mediocre job. RantWoman's efforts are also possibly inadequate. Sometimes the descriptions include details like the building in the background or the plants growing on the window ledge or some observation about weather conditions. There is some dance of messing with AI, attempting to improve on AI, and meditation about how much description is just right for different situations. Does RantWoman just have weird ideas of fun?
Saturday, April 25, 2026
FIFA travel advisory
#FIFA #FAFO
Probably if RantWoman posts vids like this, YouTube will send RantWoman more FIFA content.
Readers can search on #FIFA or #FIFAWorldCup for other previous posts cataloguing previous videos
RantWoman would SO like to have a president who does not generate the kinds of warnings and boycott threats that President #StableGenius is ginning up.
RantWoman is firing up her transit knowledge bank preparing to have as normal a life as possible. RantWoman is glad to know some other conversations are taking place and is has full confidence in very articulate voices involved. Stay tuned.
The World Cup Ban ⚽🔥 They Tried to Stop Iran - YouTube
If we are VERY lucky RantWoman will also manage enough soccer literacy to at least hold her own for conversations with far more rabid fans. Maybe
Vocabulary in case one winds up in a Russian prison
RantWoman posts this purely for lexicographic interest. If Russian prison jargon has no appeal, please feel free to skip the video below..
Friday, April 24, 2026
Trevor Noah speaks "American"
RantWoman is out of town for a few days and leaving clips to make people smile.
Icelandair bad Photographer Contest
 |
| One of RantWoman's daily tree(s) photos |
There are only a few days left to enter the IcelandAir "Really bad photographer" contest.
RantWoman encourages everyone who might be intrigued or even just slightly interested to read the contest guidelines.
Really bad photographer | Icelandair US
The only small accessibility blip: Must be able to interact and choose one of 5 emojis to respond to one of the questions.
Need some tips?
Just be yourself, no script needed.
Share any other skills you have other than being bad at photography.
What excites you most about this opportunity?
Got a memorable photography fail? Tell us about it!
So there RantWoman was one night watching volcanic eruption videos, one of RantWoman's fave diversions from other horrors of the current timeline. There was a volcano erupting in Grundjavik for several days. The eruption was the kind of slow meltdown that opened wide features and crept closer and closer to a village until part of the village had to be evacuated.
That eruption has faded from RantWoman's media streams, but along with the eruption videos YouTube sent RantWoman several videos of things one might do while visiting Iceland. The videos featured a certain amount of rugged hiking, sometimes in rainstorms, as well as ordinary daylife activities such as going to the grocery store or swimming in a completely non-chlorinated geothermally heated pool.
The rugged hiking sometimes in pouring rain sounds like maybe not the biggest sell, but a possible trip to Iceland in June when days are longest still intrigues RantWoman enough to do a couple posts turning over the idea of entering the contest.
And why the tree motif? STAY TUNED.
Mind wandering again to the Metro fare enforcement report.
RantWoman, as has already been established, is a bit of a nerd who spends a lot of time on the bus.
During today's bus travels RantWoman's mind wandered again to the recent King County fare enforcement officer report and to RantWoman's own experience riding around for more than a month with a demagnetized ORCA card, a card that only very occasionally produced the beep indicating that the card read properly when tapped.
Adventures of RantWoman: Reporting on the Metro Fare Enforcement misses a number of points.
(Please do not tell RantWoman about paying her fare on her phone. Between a white cane, a purse, and whatever baggage RantWoman is carrying, taking out a phone and waking it up to pay a fare is more than RantWoman even wants to attempt.)
RantWoman currently has a small couch on a cord around her neck but the whole time her card was not beeping, RantWoman was pulling the card out of somewhere and trying to tap it. RantWoman is white and bathes regularly so maybe drivers just believed her when she said she had a pass. Or sometimes, the imperatives to stay on schedule outweigh more detailed inquiry.
That entire time, RantWoman had in fact paid for avalid pass, online through the MyORCA app. At some point, possibly after RantWoman encounterd a fare enforcement officer, RantWoman followed directions on the back of the card and called an 800 number. RantWoman was referred to her local transit agency. The person RantWoman spoke to looked up the number of transactions which had registered for the previous month. It was substantially lower than RantWoman's estimate of the number of her trips. Then it registered with RantWoman that she just needed to get her disabled pass replaced.
RantWoman imagines that her situation is probably a small minority of situations that look to drivers like someone has not paid a fare. RantWoman has no idea whether these comments are helpful in deciding what the report actually means, but here the info is anyway.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
