That was the sad note I found on the receipt for my camera this week after it was returned from the Nikon service center. My DSLR, a Nikon D50, was already a few years old when I bought it 2 years ago, but it came highly recommended as one of the best cameras Nikon had made in that generation. Pre-‘bells and whistles’, it was just a good, sturdy little camera, that did what you needed, nothing more. No live-view screen, no video, nothing fancy.

But at the zoo a month or so ago, it started acting up. Suddenly all my pictures were coming out overexposed, and blurred, even in auto mode. I futzed around with it and ended up making most of my shots in manual mode, and got a few good shots, but something was not right that day.  Many of them were coming out looking like this, which is only cool when it’s a bird, not so nice when it’s a bear!

A week or so later I grabbed it and ran outside to take pictures of a spectacular sunset, and they all came out black. Well, that wasn’t a good sign. I searched around on the net for a solution (first I grabbed my old Canon SX10IS and got those sunset pictures) but couldn’t find a solution beyond sending it in for repair. I tried resetting the menu, using the magic button reset on the bottom, things like that. Everything on the camera seemed to be working except the images were black. I boxed it up and sent it away.

Nikon sent me a bill for $150 to take a look at it. I waited a couple weeks until I had the money and paid up, and entirely too quickly it was on it’s way back to me, and the receipt said Beyond Repair! They refunded my money so it cost me nothing, except now I have no DSLR at all! Oh no! So I’m pretty bummed about that.

For the past week I’ve been researching the different Nikon DSLRs available. $500 will get me a newer one with live-view flip out screen on the back, and movie capability, but $200 will get me another old D50. I liked the D50 just fine, it was doing everything I needed. But what if I spend $200 and it only lasts 2 years like this one did? Decisions, decisions! Not what I wanted to worry about in the middle of our moving adventure. I guess I’ll use the Canon for a couple more weeks until we settle down, and then go searching for the D50’s replacement. I’m spoiled by the sharpness of the high quality images I got from the D50, but the Canon is a pretty good little camera too. I’m just going to have to be patient!

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Crazy sunset the other night! I think all the forest fires have put a lot of smoke in the air, which contributed to the intense colors.

I cannot describe my joy and relief last week when I got an offer for a job on this side of the river! My current job was so far away, and the management was pretty poor. They were piling more and more work on us, had us scheduled out for months ahead, and so many things overlapping and getting bumped, I just had no confidence in our being able to keep up and do the jobs well. The last few jobs had gotten particularly rushed and sloppy, and they were just pushing more. I was dreading the upcoming crush of overlapping projects, and suddenly knowing that was all off my plate was an un-describably weight off my shoulders.

Of course there’s also the wasted time every day spent waiting for buses and sitting in traffic. Time I could be home enjoying hobbies, exercising, or just being at home! And the job had a very weird culture. No one was supposed to have anything personal on their desk, not even family pictures. People didn’t talk to each other when they passed in the hallway or on the street. The people were nice, but there was hardly any socializing. I was seated far away from my teammates, which made me feel sort of out in left field. I spent my days with my headphones on (thank goodness they allowed that) chugging my way through project tickets. Then I’d pack up my kindle and head for the long bus ride home.

Walking in Old Town Portland creeped me out. I saw people smoking crack pipes under the parking structure stairwells I had to walk by. I chose to walk that route, because the other side of the block had drug dealers, or people sleeping in doorways. Some days people would be staggering zombie-like along the sidewalk, obviously under the influence. There was a bum who looked like Santa, and he would be on the same corner every morning. An old lady who’s gig was telling people she was diabetic and hadn’t eaten in days. A well dressed bum who worked the food carts I called ‘sharp dressed man’ who always needed 55 cents. You might mistake him for someone who was just short on change, if he wasn’t there working the crowd every day. I didn’t give anyone money, I always just said sorry. My first week down there I was followed for two blocks by an angry screaming lady, and I knew if I gave any of them anything, they would just want more the next time they saw me. The less interaction the better!

Walking up to the bridge was always a nice release. It felt wide open up on the bridge, and I could look back at the city, then choose to go rejoin it when I was ready. Probably the coolest thing that happened while I was down there was the angry bird protecting his nest by the bridge. He divebombed me a few times, then I’d go stand on the corner and watch him divebomb everyone else who went by!

I wonder if I’ll look back at this and wish I’d taken my camera with me more often? Hopefully I’ll remember how scary it felt, and I really didn’t want to lose my camera or have anything happen to it. Maybe I was just paranoid, but I wasn’t comfortable looking through the viewfinder without someone to watch my back.

But it’s all over now. Today I worked all day, stuffed my coffee mug in my backpack, and headed home. Thanks to the ‘no personal items’ rule it was a cinch to pack up and leave no trace. Monday I start my new job, and despite my weird luck with my last couple jobs, I have high hopes this will be a good one I will do well with and enjoy for many years to come – fingers crossed!

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This month’s photo club challenge is ‘triangles’. Of course, I take these things literally, and I’m sure when we show off our pictures some people will have taken it in creative, amazing, artistic ways – but I’m just looking for triangles! It’s the engineer in me!

So I wasted a lot of pixels snapping pictures downtown. It’s hard to take pictures of bridges, they’re just so big. Then I got the idea to reach out over the railing to get this shot of the paddle boat moored at waterfront park, with the Burnside bridge behind it, and those cool Convention Center towers.

 

 

 

I took three exposures, this was the middle one – I also took one two stops above, and another 2 stops below, and combined them in photoshop. I cropped out the junk, and straightened it out.

I like the color of the convention center, and the towers on the bridge, and of course the boat is interesting, but I think it looks a little busy. Lots of triangles, though I don’t think it’s a contest to get the MOST triangles! I like the way the puffy clouds look, it reminds me of an old postcard. So I ran it through a few of Picasa’s filters:

 

This is the Lomo effect, with the effects toned down a bit.

 

This is the Holga effect, it looks like it was taken with a toy camera.

 

I think this looks most like an old postcard, with that orange sort of cast to it. This is the 1960’s effect.

I might go ahead and print this one to use for photo club. I’ll just have to see if I get anything else before the meeting that I like better. It’s fun to play around with this stuff though!

 

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I pulled out our rubber raft and dragged Dave out to Horseshoe Lake in Woodland, WA for a little paddling.

Dave looks pretty happy for being away from his couch and video game!

 

I always wear my lifejacket – it’s not flattering, but it’s safe!

 

Duck and baby duck

 

Some fishermen in a boat just like ours

 

What a pretty and relaxing place

 

Fancy big houses on the lake

 

Local Non-profits had booths setup at Farmer’s Market in downtown Vancouver last week, and Dave went down to man the Magenta Theater booth all afternoon. While he was handing out flyers, I went and had a walk around the market to see what was available.

Fresh Flowers:

 

Fruit from the other side of the mountains, still too cold here.

 

A very cool bike! Recently I’ve become interested in bikes. Not so much because I want to ride one, I just got a crazy idea that they would be kind of fun to work on.

Check out that motor!

 

I wandered over to Turtle Place, a strange little half block of art and environmental displays. The center of it has this fountain.

 

Wandered on down the road, past Willie

 

Saw the old church where we used to hold our plays when it was a performing arts center. Now it’s a church again.

 

Saw this lovely flower blooming against a backdrop of purple hydrangeas. My favorite picture of the day!

 

Heather, look what I found! Just for you!

 

I have been on a mission to try and capture the wind. I thought these flags, with the grass up on the balcony leaning over, illustrated it well.

 

Back around to the clock tower in the park.

 

Yesterday I came home from work and wanted to have some no-money fun, and we found some almost-no-money fun instead – we tossed the dogs in the van, picked up a dinner to-go, and headed out to the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge. Because it’s a refuge the dogs had to stay in the car, so we did the driving loop. We saw many of the usual inhabitants…

 

Ducks! (yes, I know there’s a proper name for these guys other than ‘ducks’)

 

Lots of Red-wing blackbirds.

 

Bunnies!

A big white bird! It’s a Great Egret. First time I’ve seen one during our visits here.

 

Pelicans!

It was a beautiful afternoon.

 

Way off in the distance, I saw something watching us.

 

We continued along the waterway, hoping to see something exciting around every turn.

 

Part of the meadow was mowed, and at the far end of it I saw something, but I couldn’t tell what until I zoomed in…

 

A family of coyotes! Complete with pups! How exciting! That’s a first for our visits to the refuge. We hear coyotes all the time at home, and occasionally see them (and we suspect they ate our cat a few years ago), but I’m much happier to see them here, where they are free to be coyotes.

 

Well, the afternoon wasn’t going to last forever. They close the gates at 9pm, so we had to keep moving.

 

The sun slipped below the treeline, and cast a beautiful golden hue over the landscape.

 

We headed back across Lake River, and felt like we’d had a little adventure. Just the thing I needed after a long day at work.

 

This month we got together for a little meeting, and then headed out to the marina to take some pictures at sunset. It was fun to go out with folks for a change, usually we just get together and talk about photography and show off our photos.

 

Old man fishing off the end of the pier

 

We were hoping to get some of that nice sunset light on Mt Hood, but it just wasn’t cooperating.

 

We did see some lovely clouds. See that in the middle?

 

Heading for a landing at the Portland airport.

 

As it got darker, the fishermen started heading back to the marina

 

I would like to have seen these beautiful sailboats out on the water

 

As we walked back to the car, the sunset had one more surprise for us as the light filteres through a contrail, and made this lovely pattern in the sky

Our club, the Camas Camera Club is having a gallery display in the Camas Library in July. I’m very excited to have three of my pictures on display. It’s not only my first public display, it’s the first time I’ve even had any of my pictures printed out, let alone framed! I’ll post some pictures of it once we have it all set up.

Just some guys working in a hole outside my building.

I went for a walk at lunchtime (with my camera this time), and I started walking up the ramp just as the signal lights came on, so I hurried up to get some pictures as the Morrison Bridge opened.

When it is full open it is positively surreal to see the road going straight up into the sky. The lampposts are what gets me! Crazy!

The hard part is getting up to the bridge lately, because there is a tree growing next to the onramp by the sidewalk, and in that tree is a crow’s nest. That crow has been guarding the area around his tree for weeks! He sits up on the balcony and comes swooping down to attack walkers and bikers passing through his domain. But I risked it to get pictures of the bridge open!

 

Today I spent three hours working in the yard, mostly weed-whacking, while Dave mowed everything that was mow-able.

Before…

 

After!

 

I also got down the side of the house, and around the septic caps, which stick up too much to mow over.

 

And I spent a bunch of time cleaning up around the tree in the front yard. A few years ago it was a little umbrella shaped tree (which was a pain to keep trimmed), but it fell over in a storm, and before we got around to propping it back up, a new tree sprouted up out of the base, so now it looks like a tree and a bush, so I guess we’re just going to leave it alone for now. The new tree is nice because it makes a shady spot on hot days!

 

This is the front pond area. It is the site of an ongoing battle against bamboo that I stupidly planted there a few years ago. it just won’t die, and I can’t really do anything with the area until the bamboo is dead! The bamboo went under the walkway and comes up on either side, plus it went under the pond and walkway in the other direction and comes up under the deck and against the foundation of the house! Nasty stuff! Nothing kills it, all I can do is keep cutting it down until one of us gives up. I’ve been trying to kill it for at least three years now.

This is a project I don’t know what I’m going to do about yet. Our swing chair fabric is falling apart, and needs to be redone. The metal is good, so I hate to throw it away when it just needs fabric. On a sunny day I love dozing off in the swing chair in the shade. I MUST get it fixed before summer is over!

 

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