Digital SLR

I love the website dpreview.com, I'm constantly there checking out the digital SLR's. I was so excited when I got my little digital camera and it has served me well but I've got SLR camera envy! I just love my old Canon AE1, I love the weight of it, how it feels in my hand, the sound of the shutter when I capture a photo. I know it's not the camera that makes the photographer but it just seems that the little point and shoot can't get the job done. It feels foolish in my hands, has too much lag time when I press the button to when it captures a picture and I have too little control over things like f-stop and focus. I guess at some point the tool does impact the outcome. I'm no da Vinci with the camera but I imagin that bad oils and a tattered canvas would have been an inhibitor to a great painting. The real problem, however, is the price, the damn things cost about $1000. I don't have that kind of money to throw around. I told my self I'd set a camera fund jar up on my dresser and dump change and small bills in there. I haven't done this. Today I shall! The people sitting next to me in the cafe are playing with a new Canon Rebel and I can't take it!

Too my fellow bloggers:

I'm experimenting with a new program by Microsoft called windows Live Writer. It's a desktop tool that is is supposed to be a more elegant interface to writing on blogs. It's more like using MS word and then hitting the publish button instead of using the limited text editor provided by blogger. I'll keep you posted on how good or bad it is.

Potato....

You may be thinking "Wow! what an interesting plant what a beautiful color." Or perhaps like me your thinking "How long has that sweet potato been laying unnoticed in the veggie basket." You'd think from this photo that we may not even eat vegetables. We actually love sweet potatoes. I tend to throw them out if they get like this. Can you still eat them?

Thanks Mr.B.

It's been over one week since we put our dog to sleep. I thought I was going to have a nice tribute to him on the blog. The CEO put a nice one up on her blog....

I really do miss him.

Ever since the kids came it really knocked him down a peg and I don't think he ever really recovered from that. When I look back at all the good times most of them came in L.A. That's when he was the king. We lavished so much attention on him back then, birthday parties, walks, hikes we even wrote some great songs about him.

It's still hard to write about him with out getting choked up.

He wagged his tail at me till the very end. I held his paw as he passed then kissed him goodbye.

Pizza?

...and they call this pizza.

This is what we are up against out here, tons of cheese, thick undercooked crust, toppings a mile high and bad service and yet some how these places remain open. It is a complete mystery. I think this picture makes it quite obvious why I spend so much time complaining about not being able to find a good slice west of NY. I shall say no more.

Gray Hair

I know I'm not getting any younger, it's obvious. One of the most visible signs is my gray hair, let's not even get into the thinning and receding. I've got gray hair all in my beard and my sideburns. The Kid says "Just like Papa." Now I have found a gray hair in my nose! It's bad enough having a hairy Italian nose that I need to trim to keep in line, now their growing in gray! I guess it could be worse it could have been a gray hair growing on the outside of my nose. When that happens I'm calling the nursing home.

Languishing.

Languishing. That is what the CEO said about my blog and she is right, it has been languishing, I haven't been giving it enough attention. I think the good thing about that comment is that it shows that she likes to read my blog, I don't want to loose a loyal reader, so I need to have a routine for posting. It seems like I don't post because I don't have time, or this is what I tell myself. This simply is not true. If I analyze my day there are plenty of hours that are just wasted. The problem is, I enjoy the wasting of time during these hours. What I really want is a longer day. Well maybe not really.

Things that just shouldn't be.

You may be asking yourself what is this. Well, it is a diaper (unsoiled) and currently it is our method of choice for keeping the mud room door closed. Although, it did just fall off and hasn't been replaced yet. Perhaps it will find its way back up there. Or perhaps I may someday fix the door and install a proper knob.

These are the CEO's toy horses from her childhood and they are tucked away in the closet. You can see from the cobwebs how often they are cleaned, played with etc...Nice.

This is a fridge magnet cowboy that I've had since I was probably about eight. Once I thought I dropped it out the car window and both I and my little sister started to cry. Hers was more of a sympathy cry for my sake. This little thing is around thirty years old. I just recently found it on top of the clothes dryer. Apparently he just was washed. How and why has this little thing remained with me for thirty something years?

T-Ball the good and the bad.

I don't know.......
I just don't know.....
I'm tired damn it!
I need a walk just as bad as the dogs but I'll probably clean the kitchen and eat some ice cream instead.

So we are coaching T-ball. I don't think we'll do that again, it is just too much work. I'm actually really enjoying my time with the kids but getting involved in the league, not so much. We've got fund raising (candy sales, plant sales) and we have to work the snack shack. Enough already, I can barely manage coaching, why throw all this other crap at us! The Kid is doing great, she's really smacking the ball and she's got a pretty good throw too. The Z of course does her best impression and I think she may be as fast as some of the kids on our team when it comes to running the bases. Although I complain about the coaching I think it has been a good experience. Maybe I'll assistant coach some of her teams in the future. We'll see.

Christmas Tree

I just cut up the Christmas tree and left it out for yard debris pickup. I think this is sooner than the last two years. I'm improving!

(Don't worry, the tree wasn't still standing in the house until today, it was just tucked away outside next to it.)

Sleep driving.

I've always been amazed at how easy it would be to fall asleep while driving. My brain knows that if I fall asleep I very well may die. You'd think that the body would have a natural tendency to up the adrenaline level when your tired at the wheel. However it seems quite the opposite. Today I had to crank up the AC blast it at my face and jiggle my head around to keep awake on the ride home. When I used to commute 50 miles one way in L.A. I did fall asleep, once, just long enough to switch lanes. As my body lilted and woke up it sure delivered a shot of adrenaline then. But why not before? Do I have a subliminal death wish or do we all?