Through a glass, lightly.

I spent a long weekend playing with the office's Nikon D50 and debating the merits of purchasing an SLR, two years after I gave away my Nikon 6006 (my last SLR). While I love the immediacy of my point and shoot (witness the sunroof series), there's no comparison to the joy of perfectly framing a shot and knowing exactly what it's going to look like before pulling the trigger and lifting the mirror.



In addition, I had forgotten how much better my old Nikkor glass was than the little shards used in my cheapo p&s. I took the above pictures with my Nikkor 50mm f1.4 lens, which is my all-time favorite chunk of glass. There's jut no comparison.

Unfortunately, the entry level Nikon no longer elegantly handles older lenses. So it's either save my pennies for the D300 (very drool worthy, and you pay for every drop) or go completely old school and back to focusing manually with the D40. The sad fact of the matter is all digital cameras are now to be considered disposable after three years, I don't have a lot of money to blow, and I guess I'm just going to have to get used to spinning a focus ring again.

Of course, if I'm going to buy a new camera I probably need an updated computer too (I'm already asking far too much of my old Pismo).

The upshot of all this pipe dreaming is that expensive thinking is enough to send me running back to my garage to go back to twiddling wrenches, since my next project (flushing the transmission in the Volvo) was only going to cost me for ATF and a few feet of clear tube.

Kick the tires...

I am convinced Facebook is like the crappiest company car ever.

Hype.

"The moon landing was just a lot of hype. Once we got up there we realized the only thing worth looking at was the earth." -Lloyd Kahn

A question...

Why is Facebook the only website that actively dissuades you from lurking? Do they really want to be overrun with poorly-behaved yayhoos?

You think you got it bad?

You lookin' at me, punk?

This is Susie. She's a three legged box turtle who hangs around my yard. She's either the bravest frickin' turtle on the planet, or a bit off in the head, I'm not sure which.



She's quite content to let me bug her with my camera, and she shows absolutely no fear of either myself or the dog. In fact, the following video may be the cutest thing I've ever posted on the internet. May God have mercy on my soul.

When the magic wears off...

I found the above photo here, in a great collection of vintage motorcycle photographs, and it completely summed up the frustration of what happens when vintage motorcycle parts stop working for some unknown reason. Lights flicker out and forward motion ceases and you are left all alone with the gods of physics. Sometimes all you can do is stare and hope for a sign from the heavens to bonk you on your thick skull and tell you what connector to wiggle to continue on.

Why yes, I was rebuilding my electrical system on the bike again, why do you ask?

Virtual travel.

Have you read my story about finding Hernandez, NM for my parents and wanted to try it out but don't have the time for a road trip? Google Maps to the rescue!

What goes around...

Remember the old motorcycle tank I bought with the neat painting on the side:

The nephew of the original artist contacted me through my flickr page recently. How cool is that?

If you just smile...

So in all the media hoopla surrounding the passing of MJ I did learn one interesting fact: That he and I share a favorite song.

It's a rarely disputed that Charlie Chaplin was an excellent comedian, but he turned out to be a pretty good composer too. His song, Smile, is definitely one of my all time favorites, one of the few songs that always manages to make me do just what the title says. However, I'm going to eschew MJ's version in favor of a very restrained version by Madeleine Peyroux with excellent muted trumpet by Till Bronner.