Iced Tea Forever

Here I am with two of my Oregon friends at BMA, Beth and Kevin.

Beth is my cousin. I’ve know Kev since he was maybe 4 or 5. Heidi wasn’t around when we took this picture.

I’m happy to report that they are behaving! I researched their behavior when I was down there, I had been planning it for awhile. It seems to me that in the last few years there have been some behavioral and attitudinal problems (probably because I’m not around anymore) at BMA. I was trusting that my friends were taking the high ground in such situations, and I’m glad to know they are.

Well done, keep up the high-ground-taking.

Years and years ago, maybe 7 or 8, it was Byran’s birthday on a Sunday afternoon. AHQ got together at his house for a little birthday party, and then we went out singing. As my feeble mind struggles to recall the details, it seems we took along our buddy Jon to have devotions, then we went and sang for several elderly people from church. We went to their houses and warbled away.

Now it just so happens that David had company that Sunday afternoon. Three guys, I think. So he brought them along to By’s place, and then singing with us. I remember talking later about how we felt kinda sorry for those poor guys stuck with us the whole afternoon trailing around and listening to the same songs over and over.

Fast foward many years. Here I am, visiting at BMABI. I crash in a room with several BMA students, including my bud Peter, in whose room I stayed in last year when I visited. I start talking to one of the other dudes in the room, and what do you know. Here he was one of the poor saps in the story I just told you from ages past!

The other day I wrote about tools that I used at work and such. I forgot my favorite one, the one I use many, many times throughout every day.

It is the Craftsman19.2-volt Cordless Drill/Driver. Now this is a man’s tool! It’s a two-speed, with high range having an rpm of 0-1400. Powerful, battrey’s (NOT a misspelling. Haven’t you certain people say something like ‘My battrey is flat’?) last a while, economical, quick charge.

It would get heavy if you did much overhead work. And they have some weak spots. There have been up to 5 or so guys in at work that all had this model (all at the same time, it was pretty common for a guy to pick up the wrong one!), and some of them have went bad. But the great thing about Craftsman is that you just take it back in to Sears and they give you a brand new one!

But we use them long and hard too, much more than an average person would around the garage. We’ve had the variable-speed triggers go bad the most, and some of the 2-speed gearboxes have failed too.

I just took mine in for a new one a few weeks ago, the trigger had gone bad. That was after maybe 9 months or so of use 7-8 hours a day five days a week.

They come in a bunch of different packages too, there are many other 19.2v tools. Three or so different saws, coupla different lights, a stapler, etc.

Great guns, I haven’t found another one yet I’d rather use.

This week. . . .man. Gone every single evening, a lot of the afternoons, going to be away the entire weekend. I don’t like it at all. I hate being busy, I like to stay home. I’m just not a party animal anymore.

Anyway, we were in the mall tonight headed for the tux shop when we saw

Christopher & Banks and of course had to stop!

I was bored

but I found a chair.

Going down to BMABI this weekend. Friday afternoon. It’s an abysmally long drive down there. But I will get to see a couple kids from Utopia that I really like. They’d better be behaving, if they aren’t I’m going to give them a talking to.

Here’s a yay-hoo chat session Kon and I were just having about the latest controversy on ITF:

Kon : Tom, Tom, has (name deleted to protect the guilty) counted the cost ?

Tom: Evidently not senor!!

Kon : Goodness, I’ve taken somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,052 pictures on my digicam. Guess how many I’ve developed. That’s right, I’ve developed pry less than 100 different pics of those. Not that they’re bad pics, it’s just that it’s not necessary. For on the go, my laptop is a virtual photo album containing thousands of pictures. For sending someone else, I just e-mail it. If they want a print, they can request it, or print it out themselves.

Kon : And how many pictures fit a frame perfectly. I’ve doctored them and printed them out EXACTLY the size and way I needed to fit the frame, do that with an analog?

Kon : No way.

Kon : If I’d have had an analog I would have had to buy enough rolls for 10,052 pictures.

Tom: No, you wouldn’t have taken those pics, and would be now short of voluminous memories

Kon : Then I would have had to develop each one of those 10,052 pictures…just to see if they were any good or not.

Kon : Si, Si Senor!!!

Tom: Oh, that’s true!

Kon : How much would’ve that cost me

Tom: a lot senor

Kon : Goodness sake, I’d be in the poorhouse, Senor!

Tom: Even more than you are now!

Kon : Si, Oh, Si Senor.

Kon : Goodness, do they not realize you are not constrained to print every last single pic?

Kon : Unlike an analog, by the way.

Kon : I can make my sister-in-law tear up from 2,004 miles away with my digicam. Can your analog do that?

Tom: I don’t have an analog

Kon : She watched her little niece crawling the other day, can your analog do that?

Tom: I don’t have one senor!

Tom: You’re preaching to the choir!!!!!!

Kon : Oh, Si, Senor, and I’m being rhetorical.

Tom: I know senor

Years ago on an AHQ tour to California, we were introduced to digital photography by our buds the Denton Brothers via their Sony Mavica FD91. We thought it was so cool we went home and bought one just like it!

These were great cameras in their day. Low resolution, but a monster optical zoom and floppy disk film!

Then when I moved away I didn’t have access to a digicam anymore, so I bought one. One thing I got tired of with the old Mavica was its size, it was enormous. My boss in at the computer lab (I worked at LBCC at the time) had recently purchased a Pentax Optio S, and that sucker was so small it fit into an Altoids tin! And she was really happy with it. I liked the looks of it, so I bought one on eBay.

The next model had come out by then, the Optio S40 (4 mega-pixel), but the Optio S (3.2 mega-pixel) was cheaper.

And it is a fantastic little camera. Very small, you can slip it into a pocket and not be bothered by it at all. It performs very well and has a lot of great features. One drawback is the small 3x optical zoom, that’s not much. It has 11MB of onboard memory, and I got a 256MB SD card with it so I have plenty of “film.” I don’t think I’ve ever come close to filling up the card. Got a spare battrey (NOT a misspelling) too, and a nice case. The benefits of buying used on eBay!

If you’re interested in an in-depth review, there is one here.

By now the next model is out, the Optio S5i (link at right). Same size and stuff but this baby is 5 mega-pixel!

These are great little cameras. It’s a given that you need a digicam, and if you want a compact model the Optio S is a great place to start.

As I said, I bought mine on eBay, another great place to get new or used cameras is Amazon.

Digital photography has irrevocably revolutionalized our world today. Photos are now much cheaper, more accessible, and have the potential of doing so much more!

In yesteryear you had to buy film, take a few pictures, then pay through the nose again to have the film (that you already paid for once!) developed. Then you wondered “what was I thinking?” when looking at shots taken a month ago you didn’t even remember taking!

With a digital camera the feedback is instantaneous. You can delete bad shots right on the camera. Download the pictures to your computer and sort and organize seconds and minutes after taking the shots. Never worry about only having 24 exposures! And forget about paying those ridiculous film and development costs.

“Oh, but I want prints!” No problem, print them out! Decent photo printers can be had quite readily, and any competant photo developer today will print out your digital pictures for a very nominal fee. In fact, I’m soon going to try out the “upload” option that WalMart offers. The prints aren’t for me, they’re at the request of someone else.

Often you hear analog nuts talking about prints and quality and longevity and who knows what else. It’s like saying, “But I don’t want to burn this music to a CD, I want it on a record!” Sure, prints are a nostalgic novelty that about anyone can appreciate (just like my old Blackwood Brothers LP’s!), but in this digital day and age what can you DO with them?

Take one and magnet it to the fridge, yes, and even I participate in that particular activity. But with an image encoded in the digital format the possibilities are endless! You can edit it (from enhancements to absurdity), you can email it to family and friends, you can post it on the web (can anyone say “Iced Tea Forever “) for the world to appreciate, you can create slide shows or any other type of memory album on your computer, burn them to CD’s and share with others, the list never ends!

Basically stated, the digital picture’s circle of influence and opportunity is increased a thousand fold from its predecessor! Digital photography is surely one of the greatest of many, many blessings we enjoy living in the digital age.

I was going to talk about my camera specifically, but I got wound up and sidetracked. Next post.

I live in Middlebury, IN, close to Essenhaus. I work at Coachmen RV.

This is one of the units I build in Plant 103 (we build anywhere from 13 to 18 units a day). I am a highly trained and highly skilled electrician. Not only do I work with 12 volt wiring, I also do 110 volt! I use up to four (4) different sizes of wire nuts (once in a great while expanding to five), and am amazingly proficient with a single wiring tool. Other objects commonly found in my formidable arsenal include a utility knife, electrical tape, plastic conduit, and many screws and wire looms. I’m an expert with each item. It’s taken me many years to reach this level of expertise, but now that I’m here the world is mine!

Hmm, should I go to the heavy metal show tonight or not?

Guess not. After listening to some classic Speers recordings this afternoon, that would be just too much of a shock!