Monthly Archives: May 2012

As a carry all the time camera, the Canon ELPH Powershot 300 HS kicks ass.I’ve had this tiny capable camera for a week now, and I am in love with it. I could tell you it is the 12.1 Mega pixels, or the image stabilization or even the 5X Optical zoom. I am not a movie guy, but it does have full 1080p HD video as well. But the truth is the thing I really love about this camera is that I can carry it everywhere! I can slide it into my shirt pocket and not even know it is present. In fact, on more than one occasion I had to search all of my pockets in order to find it! It weights nothing, so you don’t even know it is on your body!

PRICE: Amazon has it for $167 and Best Buy for $130. hhgregg has it still for $99. When first introduced last year it sold for about $250.

This is an inexpensive all automatic camera. No DSLR, and it has limited selections, including no landscape or sport mode, (I use Pet and Kids mode). So, this could not be someone’s main camera. Or even their back up. This is the third camera, the one you have with you 24/7.

The photos so far have been excellent. See my first impressions I posted last week.

Grab one at Hhgregg right away.

This guy was out in our back yard this afternoon. Because I had the 300 HS in my pocket, I caught this image.

My cat Buster had to go to the Vet today. Just a precautionary check-up.   He really, really did not enjoy it.

Driving down Flamingo Road with him howling I tried to tell him that it was going to be OK. I told him he could not possibly comprehend why I was taking him to the Vet, and that it really was a good thing. His tiny furry head does not have a brain capable of such comprehension. So, I told him he just had to trust me. I am his father and I will always be there for him.

Then it dawned on me that if the cat’s brain was incapable of understanding things that my brain could, imagine how great the expanse between my comprehension ability and God’s?  Maybe the rough times I am going through are not really rough at all, but have a good outcome? I replayed everything I told Buster in the truck, and saw how it could just as easily be the words God is telling me.

Interesting.

Buster is fine by the way.

Some Blogging Guy

I guess so.

Some Blogging Guy

Haven’t posted any of these pics in a spell, so here are the latest batch of rush hour driving photographs.

Yep. It is a Monday.

Yep, the fabulous Lexus Lane on I-95 is still working like a charm! Clogging up traffic on the on-ramps, backing cars into the local neighborhoods, and doubling or tripling drive time for those who are not allowed in the special paid lane. But at least that super duper special FDOT lane is doing it’s job, allowing people to pay up to $6 bucks to sail fro Miami to the NW 151 st.

You know, it is so easy to determine what day of the week it is just by looking at people’s faces.

Some people aren’t going to work I guess, and can just chill-out in the traffic.

Some Blogging Guy

I needed a truck camera. A camera that is inexpensive yet can take a good photograph. One I can leave in my truck all the time, including weekends. One that if it blew up due to the summer heat or I dropped it out the window while on I-95 I won’t shed a big tear over it. My Panasonic digital is really too good to be leaving in the truck. My D50 is too big to carry. So, when I was at HHgregg today and saw a very thin and lightweight Canon on sale for $99 bucks, I jumped at it. I had to drive to the Fort Lauderdale store north of Sunrise on Federal Highway, but $99 bucks was a steal. I just checked Amazon, which normally has excellent prices, and it is going for $159. I think $99 is a good deal.

It is indeed a small camera. It is smaller than my Iphone. I have small hands and I can cup it in my palm and no one could see it. I can easily carry it in my shirt pocket and pull it out for a quick shot at something. It has 12 MP, 5X Optical Zoom, and a ton of other features that I will likely never use. It is a true point and shoot. No manual controls, no raw, just a cheap simple small point and shoot. Perfect for a Truck Camera.

I took a few test shots this afternoon around the house. I’ll be posting more as the week progresses.

If you want one of these, the Fort Lauderdale HHGregg has a few. But go quick. (And if the price tag says 137, tell them it should be $99, as that is what the Pines store would be selling them for, if they had any in stock.)

No, this is not a top of the line camera. But it is better to have this than no camera.

Some Blogging Guy

Dictionary.com defines “Love” as:

1  a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2.  a  feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
3.  sexual passion or desire.

The Urbandictionary.com site defines love as:

The most spectacular,indescribable, deep euphoric feeling for someone.

Wrong. All of them.

This is television love. Movie love. Two people get thrown together and despite being at odds with each other and not knowing the slightest thing about the other person, there is this TV Chemistry and before you know  it they are screwing like Gophers. Or Golfers. Take your pick.

Somehow society and the entertainment industry thinks romantic love is copulation.

Wrong.

Do you want to know what love really is? Well, if you are under the age of 35 you may not have the capacity to even understand what I am going to say. Not your fault.

This is love:

Saturday afternoon, raining outside, drops of sparkling water sliding down the new glass windows, and me in bed, on top of the covers, napping. Men know naps. Women do not.  I am at peace,  drifting in that semi-sleep fog that feels so good, dreaming about this and that, and relaxing. Then I hear crashing and yelling coming from the room where my wife is.

Any married man knows that when you hear crashing and yelling, that is a women’s subtle hint to get your ass in there and help her. They will never knock on the bedroom door and ask if you could stop your  nap and help her hang curtains, and oh, by the way, I cut the vacuum cleaner’s cord in half. Nope. They create crashing noises and yell, and this is the man’s cue to get up from his wonderful healing nap and do something he is world renown for his inability to accomplish, namely, hanging curtains.

I have a super powered industrial staple gun. That is how I hung curtains during my ten year hiatus from marriage. Blam, blam, blam, done!

But women, well, they are a tad less practical, and prefer to use actual curtain rods and curtain hardware that must be attached to the wall above the window. Holes must be drilled, plastic anchors inserted, screws screwed into the plastic. Seems easy, right? Sure, not as easy as the staple gun, but not too difficult. Unless of course, you live in a 40 year old house and some previous resident had drilled holes and secured curtain hardware into the exact same spot you need to drill today. In fact, there probably have been a dozen different curtains hung over this window, and the holes patched with putty repeatedly.  Today, I am drilling not into wall, but old putty.

If you need someone to give a speech, teach a class, motivate and manage a group of people, write an annual report with bullshit that ties directly to the bullshit company mission statement that is totally meaningless yet everyone will love – call me. If you need a blog written, short fiction, photos taken or even a poem written, call me. But if you have anything that requires a screw driver, hammer, drill or anything from a toolbox, I am the very last person you want to call. I have difficulty just plugging in a cord. (What’s with that defective extra fat blade anyway?) While I am fairly competent with an industrial powered staple gun, and I can find my way around duct tape just fine, and replacing a hard drive and RAM is a breeze for me, that is it.

Oh, add one more thing, Of all the possible household repair jobs, hanging curtains is absolutely the one I hate with a passion only found in Spanish TV Romances. I hate it deeply.

So….what happened? I got up from my nap and spent the next hour drilling, smacking, screwing, drilling some more, dropping plastic anchors, picking them up and eventually, managed to attach the three brackets to the putty above the window.

I did not curse. I did not yell. I did not do anything but attach the hardware to the wall, so my wife could hang the new curtains she bought over the window above her desk in her small library/office. When I finished, I saw a smile on her face.

That……..is love.

Some Blogging Guy

Wow. I am flabbergasted. We just had our windows and patio door in our home replaced. We had those old fashioned crank awning windows that stopped shutting tightly in 1992. And the handles keep falling off. Pain in my rear. So, we finally upgraded. That meant contacting a contractor in South Florida. As we all know, there are no competent or honest contractors here. I sure have not found one in the last 40 years.

So, I am sitting here shocked and surprised. The company we picked, Florida Home Improvement Associates, did every single thing perfectly. From the salesman to the final inspection, and every step along the way, honest and competent work. Amazing, I did not think it was possible.

Now, if anyone has recommendations for home alarm companies, let me know. We want to go modern, with cellular connections, wireless contacts, smart phone enabled, etc.

Some Blogging Guy

Florida has finally found a way to improve the FCAT scores of students. They have lowered the passing grade for the test. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant! Is it no wonder Florida has some of the best rated schools in the country? Who knew all we had to do was lower the standards on the test until more students passed?

Since I work at a college, this is bad news for me and my team. As it is, the best of Florida’s government schools can barely spell their own name correctly two out of three tries. It isn’t against the law to assign “F”s to students for producing failing work at colleges, so hundreds of them flunk out each year. “What do you mean I flunked? I showed up to class at least half the time!” They yell. Unfortunately, unlike government high schools, college requires more than just showing up to class occasionally. Students are stunned to discover the work required in class and even more stunned by the work required outside of class.  Worse for them, faculty at colleges are not rated on how many students pass their course. They have tenure, so essentially they can’t be fired unless they rape the school’s president’s daughter and their dog on a school night. And even then it is doubtful. They can flunk their entire class just for grins and there is little anyone can do. Tenure protects academic freedom.

But in high school, teachers are rated on how well their students perform on the FCAT and other work. If they get a bunch of retards in their class they have to resort to cheating in order to keep their jobs.  Not so in higher education.

It is shameful that our society allows this to happen. Education is the key to a better life, and a better society. Government schools have been destroying student futures for decades, yet we still support it and still pour more money into a flawed system. Pretty much the definition of stupidity.

Some Blogging Guy