Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

For a couple years now, I’ve been shooting photos with a Canon S5 IS.  I love the 12x optical zoom, the awesome movie capability, the super-macro mode and a whole lot else about it.  It’s larger than your usual Point and Shoot, but a lot less bulky than a full-on digital SLR.  My only problem with it has been that Canon did not, and will not, make one of their nifty waterproof cases for it.  This puts a serious crimp in my ability to take it along in my kayak.

A while ago, I invested in what I thought would be a reasonable solution, a waterproof “bag” with a long snoot that accommodates the zoom lens.  In practice, the bag has been difficult to use because it’s tough to operate most of the controls on the camera, starting with the on-off switch.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my paddling buddies scored an enviable package on Craigslist - a Canon G7 and a waterproof case for $400.  The G7 (and its successor, the G9) has a 6x optical zoom and a lot of the functionality of my S5 IS, plus the waterproof case.  I started obsessing about trying to find a similar deal.  I bid and lost numerous eBay auctions, and combed the Craigslist landscape frequently, hoping against hope to encounter a deal as good as my buddy stumbled into, either for the G7 or the G9.

At some point, I was reading a user review of the G7, and the review referenced another Canon as a lower-priced alternative, the A720 IS.  As luck would have it, Seattle Craigslist had an A720 available for $175 (the going eBay price for the G7 seemed to be about $425), AND Canon makes a waterproof case for it.

I nailed down the Craigslist offering, passing my trusting currency to a stranger in the parking lot of an AM-PM minimart on the east side.  I then went to eBay and nailed a “buy-it-now” deal for a compatible waterproof case, whose progress westward from New Jersey I track periodically on the UPS website.

The A720 actually has some advantages over the G7 for my purposes.  First and foremost, the price and the eerie instantaneous availability on Craigslist;  plus, it uses AA batteries instead of the G7s proprietary Canon battery.  I learned on our trip to Joshua Tree a couple of years ago that a camera with a proprietary battery can be a problem if you’re out somewhere where you don’t have access to electrical outlets for recharging.  If a camera uses AA batteries, you can carry a supply of commercial batteries to supplant your rechargeables.

So, by the time I get back from Ashland, I will have a sweet setup for kayak photography, as my waterproof case will have completed its cross-country journey (I resisted the temptation to purchase expedited delivery).

Here’s a sample of the A720’s zoom capability:

Of course, embedded in this consumerist bliss is the inevitable worm of desire:  The feature set on the A720, combined with its smaller size, may start to compel me to carry it, instead of the S5 IS, on my peregrinations, rationalizing that the A720’s “good enough” for most applications.  Of course, it’s not “good enough” for all applications, but how much more does the S5 bring to the party?

The logic of which leads me inexorably towards upgrading the S5 with a full-on DSLR.  This juggernaut of rationalization needs to be derailed by the reality that I’m not a professional photographer, that I use only 15% of the capabilities of my middling cameras and, back to the reason I was infatuated with the S5 in the first place, I probably won’t be inclined to carry a DSLR and a coterie of lenses on 95% of the outings that afford me most of my photographing opportunities.

The only positive of this quandary is that I’m having it about cameras, and not cars or houses.

A song you should never hear in a men’s rest room in the Minneapolis airport: Close To You.

I did Friday night, but not in that rest room.  I still had to chuckle.

Two stellar Google searches landed inquisitive pilgrims on these shoals of disappointment:

• one from Turkey: “The perils of fucking a horse”
• while in Maryland they’d like to see “chicken pox on dicks pictures”

As much as I give, it grieves me when I know I’ve failed someone again.

It must have been a dyspeptic season in this household:

Hope they can find some peace after today.

Traveling this week:

Spent the weekend with my mom in Toledo before heading for Milwaukee to work this week.  I’ll be back!

Frustrating end to a week that otherwise went pretty well. After finishing a new project for a long-time client this afternoon, I noted that they were a few ticks behind in their software service packs, and decided to bring them current before knocking off for the weekend. This is usually a 15-minute slam-dunk, but for some reason, the installation crapped out at the very end. I tried a few more times, then got vendor support on the phone. After spending an hour and a half with two different techs, they told me they’d have to schedule a call-back with a “senior analyst”. Which means that I’ll have to be on-site very early on Tuesday morning, instead of easing into what promises to be a frenetic short week anyway. I would just drop it, except that (of course) the process has rendered their accounting system unusable in the meantime. Gah.

Earlier in the week, I attended a kayak paddling skills session on Tuesday. Although I’ve done a lot of kayaking in both fresh and salt water, my Rubicon has been learning to “roll” my boat using a combination of body movements and paddle strokes. This comes in handy if, for some reason, your boat capsizes and you find yourself hanging upside down, with your head pointed toward Davey Jones’ Locker. If you can snap your hips, swipe your paddle and right yourself, you save yourself the lengthy and dangerous process of exiting your boat, flipping it upright, then crawling back into it (if you can) and pumping it out.

I had never really tried it before Tuesday. I’ve never been capsized involuntarily, and it’s an unnatural act to purposefully plunge yourself into frigid Washington waters. Counterintuitively, the fresh water of Lake Washington is as cold or colder than Puget Sound right now, because of the recent snowmelt that has swollen streams that eventually feed the lake. Nonetheless, with the help of a very patient trainer, I finally made myself assay the task of learning this technique, dunking myself between 40 and 50 times and coming close to reliably righting myself without assistance. I have a lot of practicing to do to perfect this technique. And, judging from how my shoulders felt Wednesday morning, there seems to be a way to finesse it, and a way to wrong-headedly try to muscle it.

As much as I fly, I still regard it as the sort of wondrous, transformative experience that it was when I first started climbing into jets in the late 60s. Our house is right under the bad-weather approach to Sea-Tac (which means like 90% of the arrivals), and a lot of planes fly over, but I still find myself looking up every time I hear their engines, noting the airline and the model, and just watching their majestic glide toward the airport.

Lately, though, I regard the idea of air travel as less of a futuristic experience, and more of a doomed anachronism. If fuel prices stay as high as they are, we won’t be flying with impunity to play or commune with friends and relatives as we have for the last 3 decades. Horses and covered wagons, anyone?

So, someone got here last night via the Google string “scrotum gets really tight with caffeine”. Dude ( I assume it was a dude) gets points for spelling both of the hard words correctly, and for raising the very interesting philosophical issue of what constitutes “really tight” vis a vis scrotii (no, I’m not sure, either - look it up for me, will you? I think it’s rare to possess multiples.). I can’t make up my mind whether he was searching for a peril or a benefit.

Beyond my regret that this fellow, or gold-hearted girl doing research, no doubt went away empty-handed, I suddenly feel as if I’ve been missing something. The espresso machine is SO going in for an overhaul. I usually take it here, but I’m considering bringing in a urologist for a consultation.

Maybe it’s not the caffeine in the coffee - maybe it’s the steamer wand.

OK, it’s out of sequence and a week late, but with your kind permission(s), I’d like to post a few photos from my Mother’s Day kayak trip. No mothers in attendance.

We have kind of an odd relationship to Mother’s and Father’s Days here at Chez Perils. While we took it semi-seriously when I lived with my parents, Mrs. Perils always said that her parents considered it a contrived commercial “holiday”, and eschewed its celebration. When we married, I took that and ran with it.

My middle brother (ed: I apparently lost count.  I meant my youngest brother)  had an interesting encounter with a neighbor. Attempting to draw my bro into a shared commiseration, the neighbor asked him what he was doing with my SIL on Mother’s Day. My bro said something like, “probably go out in the boat - she likes to drink beer and fish.” The neighbor, who was probably doomed to do something “girly”, winced and had to venture further up the street in his quest for sympathy.

Since I had just gotten back from a trip to Milwaukee on Friday night, I was fore-armed with what I thought were sufficient gifts: three unopened little packs of airline snacks - including pistachios! I placed them on Mrs. Perils’ keyboard and headed down to Lake Union to meet up with some folks for a fresh-water paddle.

We headed towards Lake Washington and a nifty little area near the Arboretum called Foster Island. Despite its being hard by the busy 520 bridge, it’s fun to just noodle around its myriad channels.

Here’s one of several beaver dams we encountered:

It also must have been turtle hookup day:

The trip there and back took us through the Montlake Cut, and under one of the prettiest little drawbridges:

As I finished up the trip, I began to reckon with the nagging realization that Mrs. Perils does, in fact, like to be recognized at least a little on Mother’s Day and, at the very last possible minute, I stopped on my way up the hill at one of her favorite haunts, Chocolati, and scored a gift certificate. Just in case pistachios were out of favor.

And, yeah, I called my own mom and had a nice conversation with her as well.

As you may have heard, we’ve had a couple of days of August-like heat here on Friday and Saturday - like, 90F. Our meanderings have taken us down to Green Lake:

And encountered more than one friendly neighbor spurred to frenzied acts of landscaping:

We ducked into a favorite southwest-inspired restaurant for nibbles and Mrs. Perils was inspired to try the bartender’s special margarita of the evening, which featured strawberries pureed with some sort of pepper. Very interesting - with each sip, you first tasted the sweet of the strawberry, then finished with a kick from the pepper. The tequila slipped past unnoticed.

Of course, our meanderings took us to Gasworks Park:

I didn’t shove the polypro layers too far back in the drawer, though.  It’s supposed to be rainy and 60-ish by Tuesday.