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I've decided to give the photo hosting service Flickr a try. I've put up a bunch of pictures there, and I'd appreciate your feedback on the move.
You can either see all my pictures, or:
Hopefully this is a more convenient way to share photos for both me and for you.
The picture is Nate's from Marymoor Park. The pun is mine.
Nate's in from London for about a week, so he's crashing at my place for the next few days. Come Thursday, a bunch of my old high school cohorts will descend upon Seattle for our friend Steve's bachelor party (which is actually just a bunch of us going to the four-game Indians / Mariners series this weekend, plus beer and hot dogs).
Anyhow, I was showing Nate my pictures from Alaska, which led him to ask about the camera I bought because he liked the quality of the pictures it took. (Note that he didn't consider me, the photgrapher, to be an important component in the quality of said pictures. This is an assessment I agree with.)
Well, I bought a Nikon Coolpix 5900 (which I am extremely pleased with). So Nate, not being one to resist his more impulsive tendencies, decided that we should go to the camera store so he too could get one. To make a long story short, Nate walked out of the store with a new Nikon D50, a telephoto lens, and an SD memory card. The D50, being a rather nice digital SLR camera (compared to my idiot-proof 5900), was also rather more expensive.
I did feel compelled to point out to Nate that he could have spent the same amount of money and gotten four of my cameras and still had enough left over for a couple really, really nice bottles of bourbon. To this, Nate replied, "shut up, this is your fault anyhow" (I'm paraphrasing).
So, home we went. After a long charge, we played with the camera for a while.
No notable pictures yet, but we're planning on heading downtown tomorrow so I think we'll be able to find some subjects far lovlier and more worth of being photographed.
I've discovered a fatal flaw in my clever plan to have a mobile phone as my only phone: When your mobile phone goes on the fritz, it's hard to call technical support.
Long story short: A few days ago, phone workey. Sometime after that, phone no workey. (For making calls, workey. For receiving calls, no workey.) Joe wonder why nobody call him back. Joe discover phone broken. Joe visit Cingular store. Joe explain problem. Cingular give Joe new phone. New phone no workey. Try new SIM card. Also no workey. Joe get angry. JOE SMASH. Cingular say "We are working on it." Joe cry.
Hopefully things will be resolved tonight but until then, if you've been trying to get in touch with me, I haven't been ignoring you. Please try email.
[Update: phone works again.]
Between Allison and myself, I returned from Alaska with nearly 1,000 photographs. I spent part of this weekend sifting through them and picking about 400 which merit some closer attention.
My goal is to end up with 150 or thereabouts, clean them up, and make a nice booklet out of them (with witty commentary, of course).
I haven't gotten that far yet, but I did pick out 50 pictures that are my favorites (so far, at least).
Here you go: Ruckus in Alaska
(The moose picture from July 3 is a late addition, for those of you who have already seen these.)
I have a terrible track record with digital cameras. Terrible, in that I have an uncanny knack for destroying them. Actually, my knack isn't limited to digital cameras; of the last four cameras I've owned (two of them digital), one was stepped on, one was slammed in a car door, one was lost, and one was dropped into a lake.
So, having demonstrated conclusively that buying a camera is not only a poor investment but also a stupendously bad idea, I bought myself a shiny new digital camera before embarking on my trip to Alaska. (I'll remind you at this point that my trip involved three commercial flights, twelve hours of driving, four days of camping and hiking, and two days of kayaking.)
The future did not look bright for my new camera.
Ah, but fool me five times and shame on me. This time, I would get a replacement plan. Normally, I'd tell you that if you buy any sort of electronics you should steer far clear of any of those so-called "service plans". I'd tell you that they are a scam, because they are. They provide essentially zero additional protection above and beyond the manufacturer's warranty. They're completely useless to you as a consumer, and they are almost 100% profit to the store (and more importantly, the saleperson) who cons you into buying one.
I shopped around at all of the major area stores that deal in cameras, and I had one question which served as my litmus test for purchasing a camera from them:
"Would your service plan cover accidentally running over this camera with a car?"
As you might expect, the answer was always in the negative. One salesman thought I was kidding, and when I assured him I was not, his expression became one of despair. A couple of times I just got stunned looks, but usually they'd just say, "Um, no." And so I moved on to the next store.
At one local camera shop, though, my experience was different. I didn't even have to ask my litmus question. When I asked for a brochure on their replacement plan, the salesman handed me a handout titled "Expanded Service Plan" which, on the cover, had a picture of a camera that had been run over by a car. The caption read "Has this happened to you?" I briefly considered applying for a job right then and there. At first, I thought my discovery was too good to be true, and then I read this clause in their service plan agreement:
"...no claim may be made unless the covered equipment or parts thereof suitable for its positive identification, are presented at the time of the claim." (emphasis mine) Done and done.
And off I went, boldy defying my own disasterous track record, carrying some hundreds of dollars worth of camera, batteries, memory cards, etc. Secure in the knowledge that I needed only to scavenge some smoking bits of plastic in order to have the camera replaced upon my return. (You might think that having such a replacement plan would make me more reckless, but I think I've already demonstrated that I'm already quite reckless without even trying.)
Okay, I don't have a very funny way to end this story; I'm sorry for that. Suffice it to say that I did not lose, step on, crush, or submerge my new camera. It still works. For now.
I got back today from a ten-day trip to Alaska. My cousin Allison and I flew up to Fairbanks to visit our cousin Mike. I can't begin to tell about the wonderful time we all had all at once. I did keep a rudimentary journal, and we took many, many photographs.
A few things I learned while away:
More details (and pictures) as time permits.