Taking a camera on a backpacking trip can be a heavy burden, as I discussed in Backpacking with a Camera. But nowadays I take a camera on some of my trips so I can share them with my family, since I usually hike alone.
In June of 2012 Sony released a compact camera named the RX100. In December of the same year, Joyce bought me one for Christmas.
About seven months ago I wrote a post chastising Apple about their new Operating System named Yosemite. I am now running version 10.10.3 of Yosemite. After some upgrades to the original OS X software and many tweaks of my operating system and some programs that created conflicts with OS X, things are back to normal and the computer is lightening fast. Apple, you are vindicated, but it was a painful trip.
Don’t be an early adapter.
Windows updates are worse.
From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
genesis
noun: the beginning of something
Joyce has worked all her adult life. She wanted to reward herself with a luxury car. Our plan is it will be the last car we will own. Since I have been in the car business for over 40 years and Joyce worked at a new car dealership for 13 years, I’d like to share some thoughts on the subject and also provide some tips on how to purchase a new car.
Joyce is always trying to control my diet making me eat all kinds of weird foods. She says it is important to eat healthy food.
Last year, when I bought our Novara Safari bicycles, a priority purchase was a lock or some other security device.
The fact a security device to protect a bicycle is a requirement to keep it from being stolen pisses me off.
This got me to thinking. Almost every person I know, who has owned bikes, has had one or more stolen. In the past I have had three bikes stolen from me and all were locked to prevent theft. So thus began a new research project.
This may not be news to you. There are websites and apps that can search blogs for new posts and notify you or simply assemble the unread new posts of your favorite blogs. Well it was a recent revelation to me.
I try to streamline everything in my life in an effort to save (not waste) time. Surfing the Web can be the largest black hole in the universe of time wasters. I mostly limit my Internet time to a few favorite blogs and occasionally visit one backpacking site and one camper trailer site.
I will be 65 years old in a few months, and apparently don’t know the proper way to hang a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom.
I was enlightened on the subject this past weekend on a camping trip. The source of this awakening wasn’t a roll of toilet paper, but a roll of paper towels. For years we have used a countertop paper towel holder in our campers, which made sense because our tent trailers didn’t have kitchen cabinets due to the fact the roof has to be lowered when traveling. Our current travel trailer has less counter space than our 2006 Niagara tent trailer did, so I suggested to Joyce we buy one of those holders that mount to the bottom of the kitchen cabinet. She agreed, but it took her several weeks to locate one that met her specifications, whatever those were. She did not entrust the paper towel rack procurement process to me, because she knows I would have gone on Amazon and bought the cheapest item available, via my thought process that cost triumphs aesthetics.
In 2013, during a 5 month period, Libby Zangle hiked all 2,663 miles of the 2,663 mile Pacific Crest Trail. In 2014 she published Rabid: The Pacific Crest Tail. ‘Cause Therapy Ain’t Working. There was no endorsement from Oprah; Rabid is not on any best seller list. Libby isn’t famous. She isn’t a hero.
If this paragraph sounds familiar to you, then you read my post Wild, the book, where I wrote:
In 1995, during a 3 month period, Cheryl Strayed hiked 1,100 miles of the 2,663 mile Pacific Crest Trail. In 2012 she published Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. After an endorsement from Oprah, Wild topped the best seller lists. Cheryl became famous. She is a hero to many people.
There is no similarity between either women or either book.
In the 2007 movie, The Bucket List, the main characters, played by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, meet when they are both in the hospital and are diagnosed with terminal cancer. Together they compile a “bucket list” of things to do before they die; a list of things to be accomplished before they “kick the bucket.”
I, like many people who reach their 60’s, occasionally contemplate the fact I will not live forever. It isn’t something healthy to dwell on or fear, but just to be cognizant of the fact we are on the downward slope of living. Today, after that 2007 movie, the term Bucket List has become part of our language.
As you get older, friends and family begin to pass away at a progressive frequency, confirming that time is limited and fleeting.
So, in today’s culture, a bucket list is becoming increasingly popular.