Jack is the newest member of our family:
He’s a four year old Australian Shepherd whose owners moved into too-small of an apartment. It must have been awful to give him up, because Jack is a terrific dog. He can catch a tennis ball in the air, and he knows “cookie on the nose,” though he doesn’t quite do that one for us (not yet, anyway).
Jack may look a little morose in the picture (I don’t think he liked the flash) but you haven’t seen exuberance until you’ve seen him jump in the air while chasing a tennis ball.
I’ve been using the Canon Rebel XSi for about a year and a half now, and it’s definitely THE camera for aging yuppies. I need reading glasses, and that makes many cameras hard to use.
The Rebel Xsi is a classic single lens reflex – SLR. The viewfinder shows you what the lens sees. It has an eyepiece adjustment so I can use the viewfinder without glasses. In addition, the XSi has an extra large display screen on the back. While I can’t use it to carefully judge an exposure, it does display the camera settings in really large type. Yuppie sized type.
[Update: there's a newer model: the Canon Rebel T1i
. This one boasts 15 megapixels and built-in High Def video capture. I haven't seen one of these in the flesh, but the PR suggests it has a comparably large dispay on the back, and the essential eyepiece adjustment]
Continue reading 'A camera for aging yuppies'»
Real Winter has arrived at our home today. The Weather Service calls it ‘blizzard conditions’ so I skipped the rush-hour trip to a volunteer breakfast in St. Paul.
There is an honest-to-gosh snow drift in the driveway. Next door, I hear Mark running his snowblower. No doubt that’s my exercise for today.
I think chain saws gain mythic proportions in any safety-conscious household. My dad grew up on a rural farm in the early 1900s, and statistically, a farm is about the most dangerous “natural” workplace there is.
I don’t think we ever owned a chain saw. I remember my dad “borrowing” one, maybe once, or maybe it was a friend or neighbor using it. In any case, I have a stronger memory of Dad’s countless horror stories than I do of actually seeing the saw in use.
Anyway, it seemed fitting to buy Biscuit her very own chain saw for Mother’s Day several years back. An intentionally Amazonian gift. In practice, we rarely use it, but it’s there.
Continue reading 'Dangerous Yardwork'»
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