Thursday. December 6, 2001

test shot, Macro mode, Canon S110

"There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision."

William James, The Principles of Psychology

I'm not off to a good start this morning. I have to listen to a call about technical things that are very near and dear to some groups but far from my most immediate concerns. It begins at 8AM. Remind me to get a phone with a speaker and a MUTE button for home. Instead I listen on my cell which has a mute button because I'm too lazy to go into work by that hour. I had one beer last night. Why am I so tired?

When I finally drive in, I decide to make a quick half hour stop at Sam's to get food for the ASA food drive. I pick up a few things for Mom as well. (Pecan halves, sparkling juice for New Year's Eve, black olives.) Oh, and a book with foam punch out shapes for the bath tub for my great nephew. I'm always thinking about buying him things. But he will have enough toys. Not to worry about that. But I get soup, peanut butter, ravioli, chili, macaroni and cheese, toothpaste, soap and stuff for the food bank. I buy some of those little canned hams and some canned Mandarin oranges. Just because you get food from the food bank, why can't there be a nice surprise now and then? I also by two 300-count tubs of small individually-wrapped candy canes. Every year they have a cookie drive and give the clients a 'treat' plate the week before Christmas. I figure they can give all the kids a candy cane. Does this charity on a credit card make me feel better about myself? Not particularly. It's just something you do. It doesn't change the world.

I worked on my current projects. I was in this haphazard ADD mode all day. Moving from one thing to another to stay engaged.

At lunch, I rushed off to the camera store and bought the camera I'd finally decided on for my niece. And a couple of memory cards. I stopped by the house and had lunch with FFP and the bookkeeper. So I have this Canon PowerShot S110 to send them and hope they can put to good use.

At home, I'm relieved we don't have anywhere to go. I almost finish the printing on the family calendars. (There is still the mailing to do. Ugh.)

I test out the camera. I don't install the software, but I install a parallel port reader on my WIN95 machine which is what I'm going to recommend they initially do. That process renders the Jazz drive unseen. The Jazz drive is never used anymore but I'd like to be able to read the cartridges. It's on a SCSI chain and it was a bitch to install. Not to worry. An activity for some rainy day when I have lots of free time. Yeah, right. So the drive works fine on the parallel port, though. I try using Adobe Image Ready on the WIN95 machine to optimize them but have memory difficulties. See, I'm trying to simulate the problems they might have. Anyway, when I'm done, the WIN95 machine is still fulfilling its role as a printer and scanner server. I only run the scan software on it and print from other machines to the color printer. So, yeah I should buy a new scanner and a new color printer that are USB and, of course, a new machine, too. But this scanner and printer work well as yet and the scanner scans slides which is nice.

After I've tested a lot of features of the camera, I remove the battery and recharge it fully and pack it up. It's a cool, ultra-lite camera. I think I like my S20 better. Of course, it is 3 megapixel where this one is two. This camera is so amazingly small, though. What will they think of next?

I try to read the papers. But I'm feeling a little distracted. FFP is watching ER and I join in that. The one doctor has a brain tumor. Inoperable. I then watch some sappy movie on what I think is called the LOVE channel on cable. The LOVE channel? I'm impossibly lame in the way I spend my time.

JUST TYPING
The simplest thing.
Done over and over.
Becomes enormous.