Digital Cameras

It seems like so long ago that we had to take the film out of our cameras to be developed. Often whatever was on the beginning of the roll had been completely forgotten. Oops, that birthday party was six months ago! One didn't take very many shots (unless you were a National Geographic photographer) because of the cost of processing. The worst result of this was that there was no second or third chance if the focus was off or someone blinked or the top of her head was chopped off.

Our digital camera is cute and pocket-sized. I can be profligate and take many shots of the same subject.  It is so easy to download the pictures to the computer; the program keeps everything sorted into events and labeled by date and time. I can add comments, so that down the road we remember the "who" and "where" of our photos. I can alter the exposure if it comes out too dark or light. This came in handy with the snow pictures I have taken the last two winters because the camera averaged everything out, making the snow rather dingy. It is easy to crop the photos or straighten the tilted ones.

Best of all we can print out lovely color photos at any copy center (our home printer doesn't do that). Yesterday I printed a picture from our trip to Glacier National Park in 2006. This is the reference photo for a watercolor painting I am just beginning. Nothing digital about that endeavor!

I have heard it argued that the photographer's art has been debased by easy-to-use cameras. There are high-end digital cameras for those who love to play with depth of field and the other subtleties of photography, but to me the blessing of our little camera is that it requires hardly any twiddling of dials or fuss to do its job.  The "instant" photo above does just a fine job of taking me back in memory to this exquisite vista at the end of an exciting walk across a snowfield, high in a pass. We even saw mountain goats (a pretty big blessing in itself!)

Pocket Watch

I keep a pocket watch that doesn't keep time.

I keep it because this small thing is a link to one of the greatest blessings of my life. My father was a teacher of doctors. He stood at a blackboard most days.

He also taught dissection, that awe-full and essential part of a doctor's training. He knew every bump and fissure and thread and tube of the human body and understood how it worked with as sure a knowledge as you know your own hand. He was approachable and funny. He was a memorable teacher.

 I keep the watch because of the inside:

Zippers

Here is a small blessing - zippers. Elias Howe, in 1851, patented an Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure similar to a zipper. Today they are ubiquitous and we take them entirely for granted until they jam. I bought a kit some years ago for mending zippers. It included an instruction book on common causes of zipper problem and how to fix them. The remedy is often quite simple.

Fixing things depends on having an accurate mental model of how they work and the ability to observe. My brother also taught me two more axioms of fixing things. One was the rule of screws: "Righty tighty, lefty loosey!" and the other was, "Assembly is the reverse of disassembly." In other words, take note of the order in which you take things apart and keeps the bits separate. These axioms don't apply to zippers, but they are useful to bear in mind.

So next time the cold wind bites, operate your automatic, continuous clothing closer and think of Mr. Howe.

Public and Private Thoughts

I have been thinking about why I am writing this blog and whether and how I wish to continue it. Friends have told me they enjoy it and have found it increased their awareness of life's small blessings. Others have pointed out that the blogging is for my own benefit, entirely independent of who reads it and what they think about it. Another suggested I keep a private journal on paper.

I know from several past attempts that I will not keep on with a private journal. (Nowadays my joints aren't up to a lot of writing by hand anyway.) It is the same with music - I simply don't play by myself. However, the activities that I do with others, and have kept up for decades - playing music with friends, singing in choir - are sources of unending satisfaction and renewal.

People blog, tweet and post on facebook; clearly the public expression of thoughts is widely appealing. Are we all exhibitionists? There is some innate need for connection at work, which I do not understand. Is it that we are, at heart, tribal, communal, village creatures condemned to isolation by our modern lifestyle? Or are we all egotists, wanting to strut our own ideas before a larger audience? Or is it just the newest medium of self-expression?

Writing like this certainly feels both productive and satisfying - sometimes humbling, as when I realize I have no idea what I am talking about (eg: batteries). I do like it when someone comments on a post, perhaps because it means there really are people out there and this is not a private journal.

Putting away Christmas

C. S. Lewis felt that "always winter, never Christmas" would be a sad thing, but so would "always Christmas". (We come closer every year with the extended pre-Christmas sales season.) In a way, I enjoy putting away the trappings of Christmas as much as taking them out in mid-December.

The first task is to put away the ornaments from the tree. So many of them are laden with meaning (see Dec. 15th post) that I enjoy handling each one again as I pack them safely away.  Next the lights are untangled, coiled and put away. Now the tree looks plain and out-of-place, so different from the  mountain-scented beauty that first stood by our front window. Tim carries it out, leaving a trail of shed needles. We move the furniture back to its usual places and the living room settles into normalcy.

The door wreath is brought in and disassembled, creating more mess. The remaining holiday foods are gradually nibbled away or discarded. I wash and fold the towels and bedding used by departed guests, not resenting any of the cleaning and tidying up. It is part of the changing of the seasons. Just as the sun, reaching the most southerly point of its seasonal journey, stands for the magical moment of Solstice and begins to swing back north, our hearts stand for a few days in the glow of lights, then turn toward the distant but beckoning Spring.

Batteries

Tim suggested today that batteries are small blessings. We do take them for granted until they give out. Even though I know generally how they work, they are mysterious, locking in all that electricity, just waiting until I press a button to release it. Especially mysterious are the little flat disk ones that look very much like a button or a silver pill.

Our car runs on batteries part of the time - it is a Prius and gets into stealth mode, ghosting along almost silently on battery power alone. It cleverly recharges its own batteries. We leave for the future worrying about what happens when its batteries give out.

Regular car batteries are not so different from those invented by Alessandro Volta in 1800. They are containers with  series of plates of lead and lead dioxide immersed in a sulfuric acid solution. The acid breaks down the metal plates, or electrodes, into positive- and negatively-charged ions, which migrate to the oppositely-charged plates. An electrical potential, in effect a driving force, develops between the negative and positive plates. Connecting them through a device allows a flow of electrons (negatively-charged) toward the positively-charged electrodes. Mind you, the electricity doesn't actually flow out of the battery to the device; the charge provides a push to electrons already in the wire, which move only a tiny distance. Confusing? Yes, well I think I am stating all this correctly, but am not entirely sure!  On top of this, these batteries can be recharged by creating a driving force in the opposite direction with an electric motor (alternator in modern cars). The lead plates eventually corrode away. Then we have to replace our battery.

The small "dry cell" batteries are even more mysterious, although the principle is the same. Alkaline batteries have two metals, usually zinc and manganese dioxide for the negative and positive electrodes, respectively.  They are separated by a gel of strongly alkaline material (as opposed to acid in the car battery). This alkaline material causes the chemical reaction between the metals to take place, causing charged ions to cluster to their oppositely-charged electrode.

Other kinds of batteries use more exotic metals for their electrode and exotic materials for their electrolytes. For instance, we hear about nickle metal hydride batteries and lithium-ion. Battery development is a very high priority for researchers because of the need for long-lived batteries for portable computers and phones and of energy-dense ones (that is, able to produce a lot of electricity for their weight) for electric cars.

Anyone still reading this is a patient soul indeed! Let's appreciate our little batteries for the marvels they really are.

Not the Last

Well, I felt like writing today. As long as you are breathing there is always more, right Gloria?

Tim persuaded me that we should work in the garden while the weather is mild and between rains. It turned out to be very nice outside - pink cheek weather. There were buckets and buckets of rotted leaves and pathetic frozen bits to remove.

But, guess what? The crocus are coming up, as are the snowdrops! I was clearing old brown leaves from around the hellebore, thinking I should cut back last year's leaves in a month or so, but discovered they are already lifting sleek shiny buds above the soil. One plant is already showing the pink promise of flowers opening soon. So I cut back the leaves. That always worries me a bit - doesn't the plant still need those leaves? However, generations of ruthless English gardeners have done it and so do I. It is so nice to be able to see the shy flowers.

The red flowering currant has fat buds, as do many other spring bloomers. The sarcococca hasn't opened it's scented January flowers yet, but they are ready to go.

I think gardening makes one optimistic. Wonderful things always lie ahead.