Wondering about a new camera.

Do you use a digital camera? Most everyone does. I like the kind that I can carry in my shirt pocket and one that produces good pictures. A zoom is an added attraction. My first old digital camera, the one that used floppy discs to store the pictures, was a little too big to fit in my shirt pocket but it did have 10X zoom. It needed it, since the resolution of the pictures was not that high. Then a few years ago on a trip to Arizona via northern N.M., it stated giving me trouble, so I bought my first shirt pocket sized camera and was very well pleased with it and I still am. Now have you ever tried to take a shot in the bright sun? If so, you probably have the same problem that I have; the sun washes out the LCD screen and you just have to guess that the camera is pointing at what you want to take a picture of. Have you had that problem? I sure have, lots of times, and I decided to do something about it.



I have been searching for a pocket sized camera that has a view finder along with the LCD screen. Yeah, I know that the big expensive ones do, but I don’t want a “big” camera. Well, I finally found one at Wal*Mart. They had one on display so I got the lady and told her I wanted to buy one. She said they were out of stock and to check the other stores in near by towns. I was disappointed since this camera was only marked at $109.00, would fit in my shirt pocket, and should make quality prints. I went home and searched via internet all the other stores in the surrounding towns and they all had them listed but were all out of stock. A few weeks went by and just the other day I saw that they had one (only one) in stock and for another good surprise, it was now marked at $99.00. Of course I bought it.


It is a Canon PowerShot A1200 that takes 12.1 mega pixel photos AND it has a view finder along with a 2.7” LCD screen. Here are a few pictures of it, and on the last picture you can see the view finder right under the yellow star:

I put the batteries in it (uses double-A which came with it), put in a memory card (had to buy separate), and went outside and took a picture of one of my dogs at about 20 feet from her.  To demonstrate the quality of the picture, and I am sure I didn’t hold it as still as I should have and may not have allowed it to focus properly, I will show you the original and then keep clipping then down.  So the next four pictures are from the original (the first one) down through the close up of her nose.  I think it works rather well, don’t you:

And it has a view finder, too. Hot diggity!!

You all have a good day now, you hear?




It got cold this morning!!

It really got cold this morning. Maybe not as cold as other places, but for this area and time of year, it surprised me. When I got up it was 39 degrees and they are only predicting a high of 77 for this afternoon. The forecast is for a warmer rest of the week with lows in the 60’s and highs in the 80’s. This morning was the first time this fall that it has been in the 30’s. It almost made it yesterday but got hung up on 42 degrees. Kind of refreshing after a summer of the most days in a row over a hundred, and some were way over a hundred.



There is still no rain; lots of wind and dust. Check out Michael Ultra’s blog to get a first hand view of the big dust storm that north west Texas had the other day. I have been in a couple, one a while back when we lived up north of Fort Worth and also got into one while driving into Arizona. Luckily we were just coming up to a rest area and I pulled off and we rode it out. That was back before we had the motor-home and were pulling a travel trailer. Had time to get back and in the trailer before it hit; thought that we and the dogs would be more comfortable riding it out in the trailer. For a while, it seemed like it would upset, it was rocking so bad. But we made it through and continued on our way west. I sure hope we will get some rain soon, but none in the near forecast. I think it would have to rain 40 days and 40 night to catch up around here.



You all have a good day, you hear?

Just a short wonder and wander.

Not much to say today and no time to say it in. I have been reading a lot of other blogs and I learn a lot from some, I get a laugh from some, some make me think, some make me happy, some make me sad, and some just plain piss me off. Of course the latter very seldom happens.



I tried to put something on that I had done in another program and the picture seemed to have zero pixels in it. What happened? Oh yeah, I had linked some of the art work into it and they didn’t show up when I tried to export the file as a bitmap or jpeg. I don’t have time to fix it now since both my wife and I have appointments with a dermatologist for a routine check up. We do that every so often, but this time a lot of years have slipped by. Hermit Jim’s blog listed signs of aging, you must add to that the fact that when you get old years slip by way too fast. . .


Got to run. You all have a good day, you hear?

Wondering about the Red Tide.

I have known about the Red Tide for a long time but up until yesterday on the news I learned it was more dangerous than I thought. OH I knew that it killed fish and that it was possible to get a toxic poisoning from sea food contaminated with it, but I didn’t know that it caused breathing problems from airborne contaminants. It can be particularly dangerous to people with breathing problems like asthma or COPD. Dang, I leaned something new yesterday! Of course, I bet all of you out there knew all about the breathing problems that it caused, right?



It is funny; I was planning on writing about this subject after I heard of it on the news. Then I got an email containing a link of some video made by a fisherman on the Texas coast. It showed a lot dead fish on the beach, all kinds and all sizes. The news also said that this was the worst Red Tide for many years. It is a shame when Nature attacks herself, but the environment was right for this disaster to happen and that could have been caused by man. Who knows, I sure don’t.


Texas has all but dried up and blown away and what didn’t, burned. Now, the coast is messed up. Dang, is there anywhere in Texas you can go and not see death and dying?


You all try to have a good day now, you hear?

Wondering about the age of the universe.

Scientists and astronomers think they have the age of our universe all figured out. I am not too sure about that. Just lately they found some galaxies that they said (according to their red-shift) what they were seeing was only a few million years from the “big bang” and the furthest of any other thing that has ever been seen. I am not so sure that they are right, but just little ole me couldn’t be right, could I? Remember my blog http://dizzydick.blogspot.com/2011/10/wondering-why-this-sounds-familiar.html where I talked about the theory that our universe is a brane (membrane)? That theory may be the answer to the question I am going to pose here today. But for the sake of this blog, let us assume that the “big bang” theory is correct and this universe started from a point where a terrific explosion occurred.



For the sake of this argument, I am going to assume that since everything started from an explosion and that there was nothing around to direct that explosion, that it spewed matter in all directions. Now, I am going to show you a sketch and to keep it simple, it is only in 2D, but the same would apply if I had made it in three dimensions. After you look at this sketch, I am going to explain why they may be wrong in their conclusions of the age of the universe.

The big red circle is where the “big bang” occurred. The blue circle is our own galaxy and the magenta circle is the far away galaxies that they just spotted. This sketch shows distance-1 to be equal to distance-2. That would mean that our galaxy and the far away galaxy are the same age but the direction of their travel was different. So, when the far away galaxy is viewed, it is further away from us than the original point of the “big bang”. Now tell me, how can astronomers tell how old the universe is just by observing another galaxy. In my sketch, the far away galaxy is 1.6 times as far away from us as the “big bang” and therefore would appear older than the beginning. Does this make sense to you? Maybe I just woke up too Dizzy this morning. . .

You all have a good day and a good week, you hear?

Wondering about Origami

You just never know what you are going to find at the flea market.  I have told you about some of the great things I have found from paper cutters to telescopes, but yesterday I just had to purchase a piece of art.  It is, I believe, what you call Origami.  At first I could not figure out how it was made or what it was made out of, but I knew it was beautiful and unusual (at least to me).  The dealer said it was made out of paper and it was origami.  What ever, I just had to take it home with me and when he said it was two dollars, I grabbed it.  Here are some pictures of it.  The first one is of it sitting upright:

In this next picture, I laid it down on its side and took a shot from the bottom of the object:

And this last picture is looking straight down from the top looking down inside of it.  It is just so intricate; I just can not imagine how it was made!

That was my only purchase for the day, my wife of course, found lots of things to bring home. Well, we will be heading back there again in a little while. I wonder what we may find today.

Update on my tooth extraction. I will finish up the anti-biotic today and the swelling to my jaw seems to be subsiding. It is healing as it should.


You all have a great day now, you hear?

Wondering about some traffic signs.

They are everywhere, traffic signs telling you what to do. Actually most all of them tell you what not to do. Of course some do tell you what to do, like STOP or YIELD or KEEP RIGHT, etc. I guess I could turn these around and say that they also tell you not to proceed without stopping or yielding and not to stay in the left lanes. So, in reality, they are also telling us what not to do.



Most, although, tell you not to do something. Speed limits let you know that it is illegal to exceed the speed that is posted on the sign, so they actually tell you not to drive faster than what they have posted. There are many signs that begin with the word “NO”, like NO U-TURNS or NO OUTLET or NO LITTERING or NO TURN ON RED or. . . you get the picture. I am still waiting to see some positive official signs that say “ENJOY YOUR DRIVE” or “HAVE A GOOD DAY” or “SMILE” or . . . you also get the idea, right?


Now I expect signs on the highway, but when I opened the refrigerator this morning, I didn’t expect to see this sign:

I guess I should explain. My wife likes to drink filtered water unlike me who likes the “taste” of well water and all the junk that is in it. Her solution was to purchase two pitcher type filter units. The brand is PUR and this website shows what they look like and tells about them: http://www.purwater.com/pur-products/water-pitcher/2-stage.html  My wife fills the PUR pitchers when they get empty and puts them in the refrigerator so she can have access to cold filtered water when ever shy wants it. The problem is I put things in the refrigerator where she wants to sit the pitchers. So, that is why, when I opened up the refrigerator door this morning, that sign greeted me.  Between the two pitchers is her coffee.  I guess I have to obey the signs. . .


OK, off to the flea market again. It is a simply beautiful cool morning. Hope you all have a great weekend.