Friday: The Friends of the Provo Library is having a top secret pre-sale tonight for members who attend the business meeting. That means I will be able to enter the book sale room and skim the cream, while leaving the dregs behind for the unwashed rabble who will show up at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. This is the closest I will get to experiencing what it is like to be very wealthy. That, and going to bed each night in a warm, safe home, slightly nauseous from eating too much.
Saturday: My weekend is rich with possibilities this weekend, thanks to the recent acquisition of small objects, including the best garlic press ever:
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When you pick it up, it is so solid it feels like you are holding a Sig Sauer. I will probably bathe in crushed garlic just to test it out.
My son has more merit badge mill at BYU, so I will be attending and also scouring their excellent graphic novel collection, since I acquired a BYU library card last week.
Also, I just put a computer on the bike, so I can track my rides and try to join the 1,000 mile club. Finally, I rented this board game:
and played it last night, and will play it some more. It's like Ticket to Ride, but you buy shares in the railroads and get dividends and it will make your head explode. There is no luck involved and it only takes an hour once you know what you're doing.
G1x is a pretty *** machine too for a point and shoot person. Canon G series p&s started to get really cool at about the G10 and after. I would use the *** out of anything that came after G9. (to be fair, G9s are not bad at all)
I just bought a Canon s95 with only 50 shutter actuations for $270 from some guy on KSL who used it to take short clips of video robotics at his work. It has similar specs to the G12 but no flash shoe and not as much zoom. It will fit in your pocket, however, and is a nice backup to a DSLR (I sold mine to buy this). It'll shoot in RAW and has full manual controls. It's not as powerful as a 50D, but I always have it with me so I can capture the amazing things I run across every day, like the ventilation pipes at UVU, or hazy shots of Utah Lake.
There's quite a difference in size between the s95 and the Sony A230 that I had for a year. The sensor on the s95 is smaller than the A230, but bigger than some point-and-shoots.
It'll shoot time lapse with tilt shift, which is kind of fun. The s100 has better video resolution: 1920 x 1080p
It is unfortunate that we live in a culture where we cannot freely discuss hemorrhoids, because I have so many jokes I want to make about these:
First of all, they're called "Anusol." Think about it. Secondly, they are shaped like little bullets and come in a magazine, so using them is remarkably like loading a gun magazine. Thirdly, they also resemble little missiles, which has earned me the nickname "Rocket Man" from my wife.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
-T.S. Eliot, The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock
I'm trying to not use Facebook. I realize that is a sad, pointless gesture but I have to do something. This summer I turned 45. The neighborhood where I live is filled with the elderly. They are wonderful people, who move and talk slowly and were once 45 too. Seeing them live their lives is like looking into my own future. I look at my hands and can feel the end of my life creeping closer, like a malevolent black snail. Due to a combination of riding my recumbent in the desert of Utah, never wearing sunscreen and probably genetics, my hands look like they could be used to grant three terribly, painfully ironic wishes. They will never look any younger. The writhing hands of lotion commercials are like specialized pornography, promising something you can never have again.
Facebook feels like a lemon squeezer, and the lemon is my life, with the juice being sold to strangers. Social media makes it so easy to share a link to something funny created by strangers, or post a throwaway line that my friends will "like," after which it will quickly be forgotten.
Finally, there is Bernard Gert. He gave a seminar this summer at Utah Valley University. He was a smart, kind man who shared the results of a lifetime of scholarship that addressed the question of normative ethics. Five months later he died of a heart attack, leaving behind family and a lifetime of focused work. If I'm lucky I've got twenty years left to accomplish something meaningful, and quit measuring out my life in status updates and LOLcatz.
Here is a Youtube video of Disneyland from 1957. It is a scud missle of nostalgia and loss. As noted in the comments, those sleeping toddlers are now grandparents.
There are some things I want to write about that really, if I'm honest, don't appeal to anyone I know, including my Facebook friends, and will probably remain unread even after they're published here.
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