Lightening the load
It’s the beginning of the New Year and also the new moon. Time for Janus to look both ways, forward and back, some would say. I’ve been thinking the past few years that New Year’s resolutions are not worth the effort and yet here I am making a few.
During decades past, in honor of each New Year, I’ve vowed to keep my weight below a certain number; limit my consumption of sweets, sodium, refined starches and animal protein including dairy, once my comfort food. I never smoked, except for one year in college, and after a brief fling with single malt scotch and soda, I’ve confined my alcohol consumption to the occasional cabernet sauvignon.
Along the way I’ve vowed to limit the smart remarks to those that won’t harm anyone, though I recognize that some people can get offended very easily. (That would seem to exclude writing satire.) And it never hurts to remember to do and say the kindest thing possible without compromising one’s principles.
What’s left, the vice I’ve never conquered, is procrastination, which some say I have developed into an art form. I’m still working on that.
After years of downsizing, I’ve decided this year to go all the way. That means lightening the load of camera equipment I carry around (long lenses, teleconverters, tripod, etc.). I must also stop buying books. Every time I go on a trip, I take at least a half dozen books. Way too heavy.
So a know-it-all Santa left me an electronic reader: Barnes & Noble’s Nook. I guess Santa delivered many of these because making contact with the firm to set up an account was impossible for a few days. Apparently their Web site was overwhelmed. We already have in the family one Kindle and one iPad, but the Nook has the advantage of an agreement with public libraries by which one can download books to rent for two weeks onto the Nook. Titles not yet available from the library system can be purchased from B&N at e-book rates. I can’t wait to try this out, so procrastination isn’t an option.
F-11, our local camera store, has expanded to sell and service all things Mac. This past year I upgraded my PowerBook’s operating system to Snow Leopard, the newest version, and added Aperture, a program for cataloging photos. It also sizes, adjusts color and contrast, basically doing more than iPhoto but not as much as Photoshop. I admit that I haven’t mastered all the features but procrastination took over again. I’ve got to get a handle on this.
Part of this downsizing thing means buying a small camera to keep with me and saving the heavy-duty equipment for special trips. Let’s face it, that stuff weighs way too much for my aging back and shoulders, and my chiropractor is pushing for the change.
The owner of F-11 has offered to let me test drive a few point-and-shoot cameras. They have a huge selection but, again, I can’t make up my mind. Which one would be best for me?
My daughters favor the Fuji for its 10x zoom and quick shutter response. For a couple hundred dollars more, the Panasonic Lumix offers incredible quality, wide-angle and macro capability, and no shutter lag. But the extent of its zoom is only 4x. For wildlife, this is a problem unless one has a spotting scope, but then I’d be carrying more heavy stuff.
On a trip into Yellowstone last year, I discovered what’s called digiscoping. People with point-and-shoot cameras were holding them right up to a spotting scope already focused in on wolves. The resulting shots were amazingly good, and the wolf watchers were very generous about sharing their scopes.
However, this would have been of no use when I saw a grizzly bear about three hundred feet from the road and not a wolf watcher within miles. I’m going to take my time making this decision and will take advantage of the tryout offer. And, no, this is not procrastination.
So while I’m inclined to use the New Year to clean up my act, so to speak, I’ll make another resolution: I will not be intimidated by electronic devices designed to make my life easier. My computer has a couple of glitches but instead of waiting to see if they right themselves, I will take it into F-11 tomorrow and let the tech have a look. While I’m there, I’ll get an Aperture icon on my desktop so it’ll be easier to open the program to catalog photos, and I’ll work with that for at least an hour every day until I master it.
Then there are the three telephones, none of which will take messages. If I can solve that, I intend to find out why the DVD player sometimes refuses to play the movies I rent from Netflix. And I will set up my account with Barnes & Noble so I can start carrying the lightweight Nook instead of heavy hardcovers.
And to help thwart procrastination I’m hanging a sign near the electronic devices: Do It Now.
Happy New Year.