April 20, 2008
Rain all day
I'm back in Alexandria after a nice long weekend down in Richmond. I could use more time at home. We're all snuggle deprived, Oz, the cats, and me. Weekends are not enough.
I'm still employed. Oz asked me, "Do the other trainees all talk about the day they get fired?"
"Not out loud."
The place I'm working at has pretty high turnover. It's pretty much a coin toss whether any of us will be here in a year. But everyone in my training group has made it through training and next week we're getting thrown to the wolves. We can hardly wait. I'm kind of bummed about moving out of our current office. We have a panoramic view of a landscaped park-like area and the office is toasty warm (or "hot" as the boys call it). The building we're moving to is rumored to be icy cold and we'll be put in offices on interior corridors. No windows. Just greenish fluorescent light, piles of work, and cold feet.
A recent milestone: my first bifocal prescription. Yeah. You'd think that what with the lupus I could be spared the old age stuff, but no. I get all the regular decrepitude in addition to the special decrepitude. Bonus! After hearing about buying glasses online, I'm thinking I'll try it. If the cheap online glasses don't work out, I've got vision insurance to help pay (in theory) for full price glasses. I don't mind skimping on glasses. I wear contact lenses most of the time, so I only wear glasses for about an hour a day. I've been using the same frames since 1991. I think it's time to get some new ones.
Other optics, however, are irresistible. I got a new lens, 20 glorious millimeters of wide angle fun:
Spring is busting out all over. Alexandria, being an extra hundred miles north, seems to be on a two week time lag from Richmond. Which means, I guess, that the pollen isn't going to hit till mid-May. Though I get to experience the pollen twice, I also get to enjoy the cherry blossoms and red buds for twice as long.
358 words | April 20, 2008 09:55 PM | ShutterbugNice shot.
I haven't posted pictures in a while, but I've got a new toy: my father gave me his Nikon D70 now that he's got a D300. We picked up some starter lenses -- a Nikon 70-300 and a Sigma 18-50 -- and I've been messing with it. It's a little weird getting back to SLR mode.
I really should get my eyes checked, too.
Posted by: Jonathan Dresner at April 21, 2008 02:03 AMOooh, you lucky bean. And one advantage of the SLR is that it won't get lost (and crushed) in the workings of a recliner.
I'm sure you'll find that the quality of the pictures more than makes up for the extra mass you'll be lugging around. She says, her new lens weighing over a pound. Actually, with the 20 mm lens on, the camera doesn't quite fit in its little soft case. I need a new camera bag. And thus my case of Gear Acquisition Syndrome becomes ever more self-perpetuating.
Posted by: 100 word minimum at April 21, 2008 09:49 PMOK, I gotta ask. I've been dipping into your blog for a while now, and can't figure out what this new job actually is! Can you say? Or is it a secret?
- Rick (Formally from Alexandria, Transplanted to RVA)
Posted by: Rick at April 25, 2008 10:41 AMYou're not missing out on anything by not knowing. The thing is, the job title and name of the employer are inextricably linked. If I tell one, I give away the other and I don't want quite that much information out here. Also, there is also a strong online research component to the job. Any specific job-related information I put up here will be found by someone at my workplace. That would be bad. It's best to just maintain the air of mystery.
Posted by: 100 word minimum at April 26, 2008 09:08 AMI haven't done enough with the camera yet to really fell like the picture quality is a big step up -- the black hole of April hasn't left me a lot of time to process and post the pictures I've taken, except for that Flat Stanley series -- but the responsiveness of the SLR and the range of the lenses is definitely fun.
It's nearly impossible to buy proper camera bags on this island, by the way. Nobody on this side sells SLRs, so nobody carries the accessories. I've got a cheap camcorder bag which is enough to carry my second lens (either one) and little stuff, but I can't actually pack the whole collection away neatly.
Posted by: Jonathan Dresner at April 28, 2008 03:33 PMWhen I first started shooting with the D50, my pictures didn't look that much different from what I was getting out of my Olympus point and shoot camera (which is not a bad little camera at all). I had to sort of expand into the capabilities of the D50.
It's nearly impossible to buy camera bags anywhere. The local camera shops never have quite what I want, so I end up shopping online. At least mail-ordering will be more of an option once you're back on the mainland.
Posted by: 100 word minimum at May 2, 2008 02:08 PM