The Saga of the Camera Slut

After chocolate, dark if you please, I’m a sucker for cameras. Always have been since the first time, I slid a black & white negative into an enlarger in a dark room and made my first 8″x10″ print. I was a goner. My last film camera was a relatively inexpensive Nikon SLR with a few lenses and filters.

Then came the digital age. I have lost count of how many digital cameras I have owned, between 8 and 10 conservatively, probably more. I am one of those seekers who is constantly in search of the perfect camera that I can afford. This causes a huge discrepancy as you can imagine between mind and matter and I always spend more than I intend.

For the last five or six years, I have faithfully carried a small pocket camera with me in my bag everywhere I go. My first weapon of choice was a tiny Canon Elph SD1000 with a fairly short zoom. Honestly, it was a gem and never, ever took a bad shot that was not my fault.  It was easy to use with a few easily accessible features such as selective color, B&W and sepia choices, pretty good compared to the competition that long ago.

The one basic feature the Canon lacked was a more powerful zoom which was really my only complaint and was, at times, frustrating when I wanted to shoot, say, a bird or other far away object. At the time, there wasn’t much on the market with that larger zoom in a pocket camera.

I decided instead to replace my old Olympus “bridge” camera with a newer model with a 8x zoom. Total piece of crap. It didn’t seem to have any kind of image stabilization so therefore, about every other shot was blurry. After about a year of frustration, I chose a Panasonic-Lumix bridge camera with a 10x zoom that was sweet and I loved it. Again, it had great glass and nearly every shot was superb.

Bridge cameras with their fixed lenses are great for travel since most of them fit nicely into a bag without the need for carrying around lenses and all the other camera gear a DSLR requires. When DH and I went to Las Vegas I took the little Canon and the Panasonic-Lumix and was pretty happy that I had covered nearly everything I wanted to shoot.

But, I still felt lost without a more powerful zoom in what I call my “bang-around” camera. So, enter the Nikon S9100 with an 18x zoom and touted as a great low light camera. This was slightly larger than the Canon but not so much I couldn’t carry it with me everyday. So, I signed up for one.  I thought the shots were a little soft but not a deal breaker. I knew anything larger than a 5″x7″, maybe an 8″x10″ would be out of the question.  What did turn me off was that its low light capabilities were a major disappointment. I learned this when I took the camera to a concert and every shot was horrible. I felt worse when I put the cam away and started shooting with my iPhone and all the shots were very good. I sold the Nikon.

After some research and reading every review I could find, next I settled on another Panasonic-Lumix about the same size as the Nikon with an 18x zoom. Great glass, better low-light than the Nikon. A keeper. Well, DH, who has been inexplicably generous in a thousand different ways for reasons I will never understand asked me if I had an “extra” digital camera I wasn’t using. A friend has taken a photograph of a car DH had restored. They took the media card to the local drug store and in 10 minutes walked out with photographs. That impressed the hell out of DH. How could I say no? He is now the proud owner of my new Panasonic-Lumix and I was thrilled I could finally do something for him.

I then decided to take all my old cameras and sell them to get what I could out of them. Between Amazon and EBay, surprisingly, I sold all but one for more than I thought I could. I always keep every box and whatever comes with the camera and that is a real plus when selling electronics. This left me with some funds for one of the newest and most feature packed small cameras to come out this year, the SONY DSC HX-90V. Reviews were very good though no true manual settings like Aperture and Priority mode. I’ve learned that all cameras are a compromise. I love that it has sweep panorama that is the best in the industry plus an HDR mode that takes three shots in milliseconds and averages them resulting in a photograph that is more balanced with less shadow and/or over-exposed areas. It also has several creative filters like selective color, sepia, monochrome (B&W) and others. The best thing about the camera is that, compared to the Nikon and Panasonic-Lumix, its low light capabilities are much, much better as is the flash, which, when used, gives a much more natural look to the photograph.

My route to a great camera to carry with me has been circuitous to say the least. Lots of money, frustration and disappointment. The big box stores rarely carry the most advanced, feature-rich models so trying them out is impossible. Reviews by trusted camera enthusiasts not beholden to the manufacturer are very useful but also often confusing with erroneous information. What puzzles me most are the manufacturer’s websites that never give complete information on any of their cameras and their features. They really dumb down the information for consumers, something I find insulting frankly. If I am going to invest in an advanced camera, whether it be a DSLR costing thousands or a fully-featured point & shoot for a few hundred, I think consumers deserve to know everything there is to know about what I am considering.

Until the next best thing happens in camera-land, I’m very happy (so far) with my new SONY.

Memorial Day 2012

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American Troops, Louie Zamperini, Memorial Day, veterans, World War II, Wounded Warriors

Memorial Day is probably the one holiday that means more to me than any other. By turns, I both mourn the horrific price those who served and their families have paid and celebrate all those heroes whose bravery and courage and sacrifice saved the lives of so many others.

I just finished reading Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. This is the incredible true story of Louis Zamperini, a 1936 Olympic runner, and a World War II Army Air Force who became a Japanese POW barely surviving after over 40 days in a raft with two other men in the Pacific Ocean when their B24 crashed on a search and rescue mission for other downed airmen. Zamperini and the pilot, Russell Allen “Phil” Phillip survived; the third airman eventually perished in the raft.  Once in the hands of their Japanese captors, the two men were subjected to every kind of human degradation and torture imaginable until the Japanese surrendered in 1945. The men returned to the mainland heroes, but Zamperini had serious PTSD and was in a downward spiral of despair and alcoholism until his wife persuaded him to go hear the young preacher, Billy Graham, speak. This experience turned his life around and he dedicated the rest of his life to God and to helping others and telling his inspiring story. The pilot went on to become a public school teacher. I enjoyed this book very much and having learned the story of these two American heroes makes my feelings about Memorial Day even more poignant.

Yesterday afternoon, I took my mother to the country cemetery where my father is buried. We placed flowers and flags on his grave and spent a few moments in reflection. Never one to speak of his experiences during his time in serving in the U.S. Army in the Pacific, I know very little except that he won the Silver Star and a battlefield commission promoting him to the rank to 2^nd Lieutenant. He was wounded in the campaign for the Philippines, shipped back to the states and spent at least one year in a hotel-turned-hospital in Atlantic City, NJ. I have always suspected the reason for his extended stay had more to do with psychological than physical wounds. Like many veterans who have remained silent, it is sad to know my father probably spent his whole life being haunted by his war-time experiences.

On my way back to Connecticut from Northern New York State very early this beautiful morning, I stopped by a small Civil War Veterans Cemetery in the country outside of Little Falls, NY. I have passed by this place countless times without stopping but I felt, because of the upcoming holiday, something compelled me to turn in the driveway and spend a few minutes.  There was not a sound to be heard, not a bird or the rustle of leaves and the absolute silence cast a spell over me that is difficult to explain. In my mind, I heard Taps played on a distant hill for these army and naval soldiers whose remains were laid to rest forever in the ground here. I thought of all the loved ones and comrades they left behind.  It was a moving experience.

These three mentions are my personal reflections of Memorial Day 2012. I am not a religious person at all, but I hope that all of our troops wherever they may be in the world keep safe and come home to their families and friends unharmed. My thoughts go out to all those veterans who have served and especially to our wounded warriors.  May you find peace and healing. Thank you all for your service and your sacrifices.

Big Y Grocery Stores-A Breath of Fresh Air

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Big Y

I avoid grocery stores like the plague. I have spent my whole life staying away and out of them mostly because I am simply a bad shopper. I usually make a list but never use coupons. I put off shopping until just about the only thing left is some flour and a can of green beans whose age I shudder to even think about…or…I’ve asked friends to dinner.  I think my main issue is that my nature is to be impulsive and so the, say $40 worth of food on my list ends up with a very long receipt usually in the $100+ range. Mea culpa entirely.

Well, I seem to have had a change of heart in recent months. A new Big Y market opened in the same site one of the other depressing and dirty grocery stores here in Connecticut vacated. In this area of the state Big Y, a US owned Massachusetts chain, is the closest thing to Wegman’s (in NYS) we have. Those of you who are familiar with Wegman’s know what I am talking about.

Walking into a Big Y is like taking a breath of fresh air. Every store in this chain that I have been in is bright and sparkling clean. Produce is fresh, meats are high quality with a very good selection all across the board. Prices tend to be higher compared to other stores not unlike Wegman’s but Big Y has great sales. In additio,n there is a coin system where customers “spin” a computerized game when they check-out and, if they win, they receive either gold or silver coins that reduce the price drastically of a list of items in all categories that change monthly.

What really sets Big Y apart from other grocery stores is the people who work there. Many have worked for the chain for a long time while others are high school or college students. I have never met one employee who wasn’t friendly and efficient. In addition, compared to other grocery stores where there are never enough check-outs open and the lines are impossibly long, Big Y manages their check-outs like a Swiss watch. Unless we are under some kind of major storm warning where everyone here goes grocery shopping as if the apocalypse is nigh, I have never had to wait for more than one person in front of me to finish up, even at the busiest times.

I just had to write about this bright spot in my life. Honestly, I have more than a few stresses right now but earlier today, when I walked into Big Y to pick up a few things, instead of my stress level spiking off the charts as it does when I walk into the local MF-ing Walmart, I felt like I was in a good place to spend my money. Works for me.  I just wanted to give a shout out to a one of the good guys in the grocery business. Thanks Big Y!

ILL-GOTTEN GAINS

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Downton Abbey, From Time to Time

Funny story about getting bitten in the ass over some “ill-gotten gains:”

A few months ago during my Downton Abbey period, I simply could not…would not…wait for all of the Sunday nights of Edwardian angst, Maggie Smith wisecracks and downstairs dramas to play out. Instead, I ordered a lovely box set of Seasons 1 and 2 and from Amazon.UK where it had been aired earlier finishing up at Christmastime and released on DVD. What a smart cookie I am, I thought, and even better the price was very good pound for dollar. I also ordered From Time to Time, a magical little drama that has not been shown here. Did I mention how smug I felt? Ahead of the curve?

Amazon.UK ships these things Royal Mail International which I think is where the term “snail mail” originated. There is no tracking function  After ten days, when the DVDs didn’t arrive, I wrote to Amazon.UK and they were “so terribly sorry and would henceforth dispatch” them again. What polite blokes they were. Two more weeks, then three passed. Nothing. By this time Season 2 was well underway so I was surviving.

All of a sudden over two consecutive days almost a month after the initial order, the postman delivered four DVD shaped boxes. Cool! Feeling guilty, I wrote to Amazon.UK three times telling them my tale of duplication (if not, now, duplicity) inquiring how they wanted me to return the second copies, postage on me. They never replied so, with only a little guilt, I decided to sell them.

These DVDs are Region 2(PAL) which is the format used in Great Britain and some other places. The U.S. is Region 1 and, unless one owns a multi-region DVD player, nothing but Region 1 will play on our DVD players. The solution came from a good friend who recommended I purchase a multi-regional player for $40 on Amazon. Done, and now I can play anything from anywhere in the world and get my BBC fix when I view those often juicy series we have never seen there.

I posted my duplicates on both EBay and Amazon (US) clearly explaining the region issue and requirements. I would withdraw the listing from EBay if the Amazon one sold and vice versa. What a stupendous strategy, I thought!

Downton Abbey sold first. Packed it up using EBay’s on-line Priority Mail headed for Los Angeles and physically took the box to my local post office which was busy so I just handed it to one of counter employees without waiting for a receipt.Huge mistake! I did have the tracking number that USPS generated during the EBay transaction.  Well, a week later, I got a message from the buyer that she hadn’t received it. Checked the tracking number and it appeared to have never left the local P.O. or entered the system from there. Well, to make a very long story short. I spoke with many people in the USPS including the Postal Inspectors and the package apparently vaporized. I refunded the buyer’s money.

While this mess was going on, I sold the other DVD on Amazon to a woman I’m thinking has never been able to find her way out of a paper bag. She didn’t read the Region restrictions that were very clear in the listing and admitted this when she asked for a refund. Well, okay, even idiots need a break once in a while. I cannot tell you what I went through with messages back and forth with this woman to walk her through sending the damned DVD back. Holy shit! There was no way I could reconcile in my mind how someone so obviously challenged could possibly understand anything more sophisticated than say, the lamest of network sitcom reruns on TVLand. Finally, after two weeks, she wrote and said she had mailed the DVD. Amen sistah!

The time I put into mailing and arranging returns of these DVDs…well, I am ashamed to admit how much I put into it.

Well, here’s the punchline. I stopped to get my mail today on the way to run some errands. In my postbox were two packages. Yep, you got it!  The Downton Abbey box with a handwritten note from my local post office whose rep swore up and down that they never had it, or if they did, lost it, that I had underpaid the postage by 2 freaking ounces, or, about 40 cents! WTF??? I went through all this crap for 40 cents?

Also in my postbox was the other DVD that the ditz finally managed to mail back to me.

The moral of the story:

I just sat in my car and roared with laughter over my “Ill-gotten gains” from across the pond that landed right back in my lap. Now, I have to figure out what to do with them. I should be kind of gun-shy about trying to sell them again, ya think?

So, dear readers, if you know anyone who meets the following criteria, I will give them one hell of a deal:

1. Must have multi-regional DVD player or be willing to buy one.
2. Must understand or be willing to learn differences between DVD regions.
3. Once in your hands,you  must watch and enjoy and, please, I beg you, never, ever, ever contact me about these sodding DVDs again.

“The Giant Mechanical Man”

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Jenna Fischer, The Giant Mechanical Man, Tribeca Film Festival

Feeling lost, alienated? Can’t figure “it” out? Can’t even define what “it” is?  Plodding through your days, your life in the middle of your own existential fugue state? Want 90 minutes of relief? Then you need to sit your but right down, spend the best $6 you’ve spent on a movie in a long while and watch Jenna Fischer’s (The Office) film The Giant Mechanical Man recently shown at the Tribeca Film Festival and available on iTunes and Amazon on-demand.

Jenna Fischer, the film-maker also stars with Chris Messina. I found they created a believable yet gently evolving chemistry as they tentatively discovered through each other that, as stated in the film, “it takes only one person to make you feel important.”

The film will be released in about two theaters nationwide this month. What a pity.  Watch the trailer here.

When a door opens…

I have dabbled in my personal genealogy for the past few years. As most of us who embark on this journey know well, dead ends abound. My father’s side of the family presented me with a particularly frustrating dead-end. Family lore held that my great-grandfather and his siblings were abandoned by their parents in upstate New York and then “adopted” by a family with the surname of “Fults,” my maiden name. I figured that this adoptive “Fults” family, being no blood kin of mine, was not worth pursuing.

My cousin’s husband, D., who is much more devoted and tenacious than me at this genealogical endeavor, had traced his own family tree back many generations.  I am grateful that he has also taken on my “Fults” family line even though his wife and I have only a grandmother in common. Our grandmother was married twice, the first time to a French emigre who came into this country through Canada, the second time into the “Fults” family. Her first husband, who died at a very young age, is my cousin’s grandfather. Got that?

Anyway, this week, D. shocked me by sending a copy of an article he happened to find (note the underlined section) noting the 50th wedding anniversary of my great-grandmother and great-grandfather:

Mr. and Mrs. William Fults Celebrate Golden Wedding

Mr. and Mrs. William Fults of 1320 Salt Springs Road were married 50 years ago yesterday. They observed their golden wedding at their home, a farm which is within the city limits. Mr. Fults and Miss Katie Hills were married at East Syracuse when she was 18 and he was 22. She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Hills and was born on a farm on the old Brewerton Plank Road. Mr. Fults was born at Chittenango Station. His parents died when he was a boy and he lived with Theodore Walrath and family at Manlius Center. When a boy of 12 he used to plow with a yoke of oxen, and when 14 he worked as a mule driver on the old Erie Canal, between Buffalo and New York. ,They have three sons, Curtiss, Myron and Earl, of Syracuse; two daughters, Mrs. Mabel White of Onondaga Hill, and Mrs. Mildred Brennan of Syracuse. Of nine grandchildren, one, Donald Fults, son of Myron,  304 Myrtle Street, is in service. They have two great grandchildren.

 Syracuse Journal 1943.

This completely refutes the long-standing family story that my great-grandfather and his siblings were abandoned!  This was exciting news to say the least. To make a long story short, with the help of my cousin and my boss, both of whom are really savvy at ferreting out information via Ancestry.com as well as other sources, I was able to confirm via the U.S. Censuses taken in 1850 and 1870 my great-grandfather’s parents and grandparents, the latter of whom came to America from Prussia (or Germany). I am currently in the process of trying to find out when, from and to where this oldest generation came here. In addition, there seems to be links to other “Fults” families both in Northern New York, Texas, Louisiana and Southern Illinois that I will look into to see if there are common ancestors there.

Interestingly but not surprisingly,according to census records there are several spellings of my surname: Fults, Fultz, Foltz, Folts, Fuld. As with so many others who emigrated to America, many of whom were poor and illiterate, one’s last name was only as good as the way it was pronounced and the way the listener heard it and wrote it down.

There is also a strain of wheat named “Fults” that I am interested in researching.  Who might have named it and what was that person’s connection to my family? The Illinois connection perhaps? There are so many more questions than answers.

In a larger sense, no matter how far this story goes or how it turns out, I feel a great sense of wonder that my family was part of that great American adventure of westward expansion in search of a better life.

Again, I thank profusely D. and my boss for their encouragement and help in opening this new door to my past.

The “Woolies” Have Landed!

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Etsy, laundry products, wool dryer balls

WOOLIES!

At the urging of a good and very wise friend, in this post I am announcing a very tiny joint venture another good and wise friend, Rhonda, and I have embarked upon. We are hand-crafting 100% Wool Dryer Balls that take the place of expensive and chemical-laden dryer sheets. They retail for $18.95 for a set of four which will work fine in most home dryers. Here’s the description and some photos below:

More Winter?

During a rare day of work…and, sadly and scarily, they are getting fewer and fewer, I took a break to get some fresh air. Today is yet another mild, un-winter day. As I surveyed the immediate area of the small office park where my company is located, I noticed a couple of signs of spring, perhaps coming too early. There seemed to be quite a bit of bird-song, albeit the usual winter suspects. I am hoping the migratory birds are smart enough to stay put in their winter habitats for a while. Even more interesting, when spring emerges from winter, the wild cherry trees, and they are everywhere, take on a pink hue as buds develop. There are hints of this early spring tree top development everywhere.

The irony is that we who live in the Northeast where this winter has been non-existent snow-wise are waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop. If we can get 8″-12″ of snow on Halloween, there is no telling what cataclysmic winter event might befall us over the next six weeks. Why, wouldn’t a Nor’easter on April Fool’s Day be just what Mother Nature ordered to send us into spring proper not to the sweet songs of thrushes and robins but rather the metallic rasping and grating of snow-plows and ice scrapers?

We hear the meteorologists prognosticate about hurricane season and, to a lesser extent, about upticks in tornadic activity but rarely do they acknowledge with any certainty months in advance the severity of the winter season for those of us who either endure it or revel in it but, either way, would really like to know.

So,

 

Plan B

Despite what my friends and family believe, I’m not all that crafty or artistic. Nothing stops me in my tracks more than trying some new technique, especially when I’ve (stupidly) invested in the bits and pieces to try to do it successfully. On top of that, I must have my head right to even get moving on it. (Read: neurotic procrastination). On top of that, I have a cat.

I was moving some things around in my guest/art/junk room and some of the parts of a partially worked and imagined but as yet unrealized project fell to the floor at my feet. A sign…perhaps.

Briefly, this was…or is…to be a rather large piece of wall art that was…or is…intended to be hung above my sofa. It is (let’s be optimistic and stay in the present tense)based on a framed square 24″ x 24″ canvas that I bought bare in an art store. On the canvas I would adhere three representations made out of “something” of women that were originally separate wall hangings I saw in a catalog. I enlarged the 2″ images to 12″ and cast them in terra cotta colored polymer clay and the result sucked. Let me just say that I have a lot to learn about polymer clay and I will leave working with that nasty stuff to my betters.  These failed attempts are what fell at my feet and so I decided to find another medium to render them remaining committed to getting at least  this one project done.

For the three women, I finally decided on a rich brown antique leather that was part of a group of scraps I bought on EBay. This would also enable me to embellish the them with beads and symbols close to what the catalog showed. Last night I traced my three original patterns and cut them out. I was very pleased at the result.

The canvas has been another matter. After I removed the simple wood frame, I applied two coats of black gesso. And then, I procrastinated because brown leather on black would be lost but I wanted to preserve at least some of the black. I then thought about a crackle effect with off-white on black that would allow just a hint of black to show through in a random manner.  I started researching exactly how to do that.

I chose the cheapskate no-brainer technique:

1. Allow the base coat to thoroughly dry. Got it.
2. Slather on a thick layer of white Elmer’s Glue on base coat.  Allow to slightly to tack up. Pretty easy.
3. Recall that you have $40 in this damned canvas and frame. Take several deep breaths and calm the hell down.
4. Stare at your only large tube of Golden Titanium Buff and talk yourself into the possibility that you do not have enough to cover the entire 24″ x 24″ canvas. Decide that since it’s snowing so hard you can’t see ten feet outside your window, that you just need to get over that, so you start squeezing globs of paint all over the canvas.
5. Pick up cheap bristle brush and start spreading paint over the tacky glue. Become overconfident that this is going well until you discover that said cheap brush is shedding its bristles. Pick them out of wet paint/glue goop. Throw brush in trash and pick up foam brush that is still wet from putting glue on. Screw it…keep moving. Recall that price again.
6. Finish paint layer, take a deep breath, step back and admire my work.
7. Warm up that great pasta fagioli soup (YUM!) I made yesterday while I wait for canvas to be dry enough to move off dining room table. Sit on sofa and watch a little TV loving soup and feeling pretty damned good that soup is wonderful and project isn’t as bad as I imagined.
8. AND THEN DISASTER STRUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DWC decided to take a stroll on the dining room table where the canvas was sitting on newspaper. I yelled, “STOP!!” and leaped up to shoo him away, grab him, or get him away from said canvas. He turned his head toward me, panicked and walked across the canvas. Now, with wet paint on three of his four paws he jumped down on the carpet and ran down the hall into my bedroom, leaving titanium buff paw prints behind him.  Shit! I didn’t know whether to try to fix the $40 canvas and screw the rug…. or grab Windex to saturate the carpet to keep the paint from drying while I tried to fix the canvas…or go find the freaking cat and clean his feet in case licking Elmer’s Glue and Titanium Buff paint would be deleterious to DWC’s health, screw the canvas and rug.   Sooooo, I spent 30 seconds pouring Windex, and then dug the cat out from under the bed, wet washcloth in hand, and manhandled him while I cleaned most of the paint from his paws…sort of.  After he got all squirming arms and legs, he skulked away completely pissed off at me.  I returned to the table to assess the damage.  By this time, the canvas, paw prints and paint smudges and all, was drying nicely and there was nothing I could do but come up with Plan B which is….
9. Pour large glass of Pinot Grigio and redo Step 1.

Starry, Starry Night

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GlowStone

What do you think of when the term “landscaping whimsy” comes to mind?

• Gnomes peeking out of the bushes?
• An old-fashioned mirrored gazing ball sparkling in the sunlight as it sits atop its concrete pillar?
• A lovely bird bath?
• A Koi pond?
• How about some kind of wrought iron hanging lanterns?
• The ubiquitous bathtub Madonna?
• Solar powered lights along a meandering stone walkway?

Well, the times are changing and, if you’re tired of the run-of-the-mill lawn and garden novelties, you can now literally dazzle your neighborhood with your very own luminescent driveway by using a product called GlowStone!

This material, a polymer, is non-toxic and environmentally safe. On exposure to as little as 15 minutes of bright sun, the manufacturer claims when the sun goes down, wherever you have placed it, your installation will luminesce  past your bedtime and into the wee hours. Applications can utilize the product that come in small pebbles to large rocks. The above driveway, which to me looks like the Milky Way turned up-side-down, is a huge installation and probably enormously expensive. For the more budget minded, GlowStone can be laid along the edges of walks or patios or even used  to surround plants in large patio pots.

GlowStone is a novelty for sure, but imagine how much fun it would be to create your own starry, starry night even on a miniature scale.