So.. today I did retire my trusty old powershot.. By way of an epitaph.. this reliable little camera has made 3 times around the world, visted at least 11 countries, at least 15 states and taken g-d knows how many other trips in the 18 months I’ve owned it. It’s taken more than
10,486 photos for this blog which generate an average of 78,300 hits monthly to my photobucket account.

Here’s it’s last successful picture .. it’s of Angus and his family making the donation to Sam’s fund that I described in yesterday’s blog.

Here’s a poem in honor of my old camera.. it’s one I like from Billy Collins called
Consolation that reminds me of our oint journies

Consolation

How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer,

wandering her cities and ascending her torrid hilltowns.

How much better to cruise these local, familiar streets,

fully grasping the meaning of every roadsign and billboard

and all the sudden hand gestures of my compatriots.

There are no abbeys here, no crumbling frescoes or famous

domes and there is no need to memorize a succession

of kings or tour the dripping corners of a dungeon.

No need to stand around a sarcophagus, see Napoleon’s

little bed on Elba, or view the bones of a saint under glass.

How much better to command the simple precinct of home

than be dwarfed by pillar, arch, and basilica.

Why hide my head in phrase books and wrinkled maps?

Why feed scenery into a hungry, one-eyes camera

eager to eat the world one monument at a time?

Instead of slouching in a café ignorant of the word for ice,

I will head down to the coffee shop and the waitress

known as Dot. I will slide into the flow of the morning

paper, all language barriers down,

rivers of idiom running freely, eggs over easy on the way.

And after breakfast, I will not have to find someone

willing to photograph me with my arm around the owner.

I will not puzzle over the bill or record in a journal

what I had to eat and how the sun came in the window.

It is enough to climb back into the car

as if it were the great car of English itself

and sounding my loud vernacular horn, speed off

down a road that will never lead to Rome, not even Bologna.

Good bye old friend.

I bought a new camera today.. much like the old one.. this one is brown.. I promise to carry it in a soft case..and never toss it into my pocket.. or a sandstorm.. or liquid unprotected. … a favor I never extended to it’s predecessor.

I’m thinking of naming my new camera…

.. any suggestion ?

After buying the camera.. my day was pretty unremarkable.. A few house hold repairs. about 80% of them successful.. then a trip to Homer’s to work on the ‘project-x’ monster.. We’re woefully behind schedule.. but it’s coming together to be sooooo cool.. Here ‘he’ is nearly fully standing . The 10 foot ceilings in Homers shop won’t let him rise to full height. . He’ll have a scary costume .. and a head… when he’s done.. He’s pretty scarry when he’s waving those 8 foot arms..

Here’s part of the integration team, Homer. Dave and Jana… Watch these pages for the final assembly.. and wish us luck !..

I drove home around 5 and for the first time with camera rounded the bend where the big red barn used to be.. Another friend gone.. Oh well… As the Buddah taught.. and we’ve learned so fully.. .. earthly attachments only bring dukkha or suffering

Well.. I’m going to go soak in a hot bath tub.. my fever’s back and I feel a more concrete form of dukkha..I ache all over. More tomorrow. Gnite folks.. Gnite Sam
-me