A quick note on the Title Block

Here's a quick comment about my Title Block photo which I just recently added. I noticed other people have photos in their title blocks and it seemed like a good idea. I remembered a photograph I took of myself in the mirror which I thought conveyed the image of "cameraguyd" rather well. I like it for several reasons:

1) It has one of my favorite cameras in it (which of course took the picture), the Nikkormat EL.

2) It is in black & white.

3) The bathroom mirror lights made for very nice, even lighting.

4) The irony of a photograph of a camera at the moment it captures itself on film is intriguing.

5) It has very fine detail, contrast and tonality.

6) And most importantly, you can hardly see my face!

INCENSED !&%$#@*&!!??*&%$

Just a quick comment about the 2010 census, seeing as it is that time of year to render unto Caesar. Whenever I am asked to fill out a survey or respond to a poll I never answer the question regarding my race or ethnic origin. If we are to believe, as I do, that a person's race should not be a relevant factor to almost anything except race itself or perhaps a person's physical description in the same way that hair color or stature is why are we being asked what our race is on the census? Out of only 10 questions 2 of them have to do with race. So much for a color blind society. I was going to try and stick to my guns on this and not answer 20% of the ten minute census but according to the government all the questions must be answered fully and truthfully under penalty of law. I checked the law and the census people appear to be right. Neglecting to answer any of the mere 10 questions can be punishable by a $100 fine. A deliberate wrong answer will earn you a $500 penalty. The law does not specify if the fine is for each question in violation or for the entire "test". Misleading answers can possibly amount to a price tag of $5,000 per person. If there are 10 people in one household and the respondent lies about every one of them that could potentially amount to $50,000! I thought the government just wanted to know how many people there are. I doubt that the law which enacts a fine for failure to answer a census question would hold up against the Supreme Court, well let me take that back, at least Antonin Scalia would probably agree with me that it is unconstitutional. The Constitution only requires an enumeration once every 10 years. It does not require anyone to answer any questions. Although I believe this to be true I am not a lawyer or a gambler either for that matter, and I am not willing to bet possibly as much as $600 plus legal fees, etc., to see if I could take this matter to the Supreme Court. Besides, that would take a lot longer than the 10 minutes that the census people say it should take to fill out the form! There's a whole lot of other problems and issues with the census that have stirred up a bunch of controversy. For example the hand held computer devices for the census takers to use do not work with the central computer system, so the people finders will be roaming the streets with a pad and pencil instead. (http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20080403_9574.php)Being a nostalgic kind of guy, I actually kind of like that....the pad and pencil that is, not the waste of 2 billion $$$$. Closer to home in Connecticut there was a problem with people in East Haven being lumped in with New Haven. (http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/new_haven_cty/east-haven-census-confusion) Even closer to home, my home in fact, I would have mistakenly counted my college student son had I not read the census instructions first. I almost never read the instructions for anything whether it is fixing a garage door opener or filing my tax return, but this time something told me I should give the form a precursory glance before filling it out. It actually said not to count a household member who is away at college. Somehow I doubt that my son will be filling out his own census while away at college. This one item alone has a potential to screw things up by double counting college students or not counting them at all. Why not just count people by their primary residence? By the way, what happened to all the people in South Haven? Maybe they all went to jail for not filling out their census forms!

You're Only As Old As You Look !

Sally Field has been seen on TV a lot lately doing commercials. Patty Duke, not so much. Sally Field looks pretty, youngish and healthy. Patty Duke, not so much. Both of these women have a few things in common. For one thing they were very popular teenage actresses back in the early 1960s. They also managed to continue their acting careers beyond their teens. And they are both the same age, 63. My wife and I did happen to see Patty Duke on TV recently doing a commercial for an Irish music CD collection. I was suprised at how old she looked. "Hey wait a minute! Isn't she about the same age as Sally Field?", I asked my wife. "They were both popular teen stars at about the same time", I explained. I did a quick fact check in Wikipedia verifying their age and also "Googled" some recent photos of the two actresses as seen below:

Here's one more picture of Patty Duke:

Polaroid Paparazzied Puppy

Dexter tried to hide when he saw me coming at him with an odd looking camera thing! Photo taken with a Polaroid One camera purchased at a Goodwill store for $5 with film, scanned, enhanced and converted to black and white.

Canine GPS

Dogs have had a GPS system long before we humans invented one of our own. When they are out and about and walking around they sniff at a lot of things but mostly they are sniffing out where other dogs have been. Dogs leave a scent by urinating in any given area usually on a tree, a rock, a fire hydrant if it is a city dog or just about any, preferably, upright object. A dog will sniff this scent left by a previous dog and will then leave his own. Sometimes he will try to “raise the bar” as it were by aiming higher on the tree or other vertical object as if to out do the previous canine visitor. If the dog is real smart he can pee upwards, higher than he normally would as if to suggest that he is bigger than his mark might suggest. I don’t know if this is really true but I have heard of this theory before. I keep saying “he” because I don’t know if female dogs do this and I certainly doubt that girl dogs can aim high. Dogs also seem to leave their scent in more places if they are somewhere they have never been before. I wonder if they also do this in case they need to find their way back or they are leaving a trail for others to follow, kind of like a navigation system, hence doggie GPS. Dogs can even claim the term GPS as their own. For them it stands for Good Pee Spot!!!

All photos by cameraguyd

Simply Irresistible !!

Canon SD780 with a Rollei E110 leather case

(photo taken with the slightly less capable Olympus Stylus 1040)

This is simply an irresistible little camera. Just when you think Canon couldn't possibly out do itself they surprise you with a nice little gem like this SD780. The camera is exceedingly small, yet if you look at the specs for the dimensions it pretty much sizes up with a lot of other tiny digital point and shoots. But the smooth rounded styling and lack of any protrusions make it look and feel even smaller than its stats would suggest. It almost has the feel of a well worn, but very dry!, bar of soap. I think this is similar to what Walter Zapp had in mind when he made his wooden prototype for the first Minox camera. Personally, I prefer the all black finish. And the best thing is that Canon has still managed to keep the optical viewfinder no matter how small the camera seems to get! I don't really see a big difference, however in the 12.2 megapixels as opposed to "only" 5mp in the older SD400 and SD30 cameras. I like to shoot at ISO 80 whenever possible and especially in black & white, but that's just me. At this speed the picture quality is outstanding. The only real drawback is that noise begins to show up rather quickly at around 200 ISO and pretty much goes downhill from there. If visual noise is a trade off for more pixels, I would rather have fewer pixels and less noise. The HD video quality is also quite remarkable although I only used it a couple of times. Another small bonus is that the old leather case made for the Rollei A110 and E110 cameras fits the SD780 like a glove and looks great on it too! This is a real gem of a pocket camera to take along wherever you go. Its picture quality and performance leave the competition in the dust that even my digital SLR stays home collecting!!

Photo of Dexter taken with the SD780