The rising sun chased a waning crescent moon across the Ozarkansas sky Tuesday morning. Ol’ Sol, in his brilliance, won that contest, of course. He always does.
Checking the Arkansas Forestry Division website Monday afternoon, I saw this:
Marion County had gone from green to yellow, from low risk of wildfire to moderate. So early Tuesday morning, I did this:
It’s what we do hereabouts. (It’s what I do, anyway.)
A good friend of mine in Ohio lost half a thumb awhile back, the result of a mishap involving his UTV’s winch. I tell you that to introduce this photo:
To answer your first question — no, I didn’t, but not because I didn’t try. Both of my thumbs are still 100% intact.
As for your second question, I did it Monday while splitting kindling. I tried to set the hatchet in a chunk of wood, and it was dry enough and short enough that it presented no challenge to the blade. My (gloved) thumb stopped it.
The third answer is that I’m treating and dresssing the wound myself.
I bled because I was stupid. I know better. I’ll be using my kindling splitting fixture from now on. That’s what it’s there for.
Today I’ll do one more post catering to photographers and photo-geeks. There are more of y’all out there than I thought, judging by how well-received the last few posts have been.
After almost seven years of hard use, the display on my first digital camera, a Canon PowerShot S230 Digital ELPH, went haywire. I searched the wwWeb for information about the problem and discovered that Canon had issued a recall on that model precisely because of what happened to mine.
The defective camera was out of production by then, so the company sent me the 2008 equivalent — a factory-refurbished PowerShot SD950 IS Digital ELPH. I thought that was more than fair.
In the swap, 12.1MP replaced 3.2MP. I got a much larger display and a bunch of new features. And that titanium case was sexy as hell.
I still have the SD950 IS, as far as I know, but it’d be stowed in the Ohio storage unit. Question is, do I miss it?
Yes and no.
It’s an awesome little camera that produces great images. Compared to the 300 HS I talked about yesterday, the SD950 IS offers the same resolution but has a better lens and a bigger, better sensor, so photographically it’s superior.
The appeal of the 300 HS, however, is its small size, fully a quarter-inch slimmer.
The dimensions of the SD950 IS are almost identical to those of my S95, though its titanium shell makes it lighter. Beyond that, the S95 comes out on top.
Better glass. Larger display. Many more features. Even though its maximum resolution is “only” 10Mp, a bigger and better sensor produces sharper, richer images than the 12.1Mp SD950 IS.
So the thin and compact 300 HS grants my wish for a true pocket camera. And when I’m willing to go a bit bigger in return for better images, the S95 gets the nod.
All seats are taken, then, which is why I don’t often miss the SD950 IS.
That said, I highly recommend it. You can pick one up on the used market for a hundred bucks or less, and it’s worth every penny of that.
I believe I’ll close out this subject with a riddle of sorts. The SD950 IS has a feature that neither my S95 nor my 300 HS does. Even the lowly S230 had it. What would that be?
To help you out, here are pictures of the four cameras again.
This feature, essential on film cameras and once common on compact digital cameras, now is a rarity. What is it?
An optical viewfinder.
Those of us who cut our photographic teeth on fixed-focus and rangefinder cameras (Argus C3 for me) remember composing images by peering through a tiny lensed tube. Often it was fogged or dirty, and what we saw wasn’t necessarily what we’d get.
These days, whether it’s a small digital camera or a mobile phone, we use a big, bright, information-dense display. Some purists balk at that still — and for them, there are larger compacts (my G12, for example), ultra-high-end models (like Leica) and, of course, DSLRs.
Personally, and especially with eyes that ain’t what they used to be, LCD displays work a lot better for me than viewfinders. It’s the difference between looking out of a picture window and peering through a peephole.
For the record, I think there are as many lizards darting about the area around the cabin as there are grasshoppers (and that’s saying something). Probably more. I’m talkin’ hundreds, mostly youngsters.
I won’t complain — lizards are good luck, and I’ll take all of that I can get right now.
Sorry, I have no pictures to back up my claim. You’ll just have to take my word for it.
Tuesday’s sunset, as seen from The Mountain.
This is my paradise. This is my home.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable