The rescue of Bobo

Who is Bobo? We’ll get to that eventually. Along with an explanation of why Bobo is really lucky that I drive a small car.

First, background for those who are just getting to know me. If you know all this stuff already, feel free to skip the next paragraph.

My mom went into the nursing home about two years ago. She lives about 50 miles away. This summer, my wife and I have been cleaning all the possessions out of her house, so we can sell it. It’s been a lot of work for both of us (and we have found a lot of crazy stuff; plenty of photos to come), but we are nearly done now.

Our plan this Wednesday was to take a pair of pole lamps and two typewriters home with us. The thing is, I drive a smallish car, a Mazda Protege, and they don’t have a lot of trunk space. We could only take the lamps home by folding down the rear seat. That was our plan.

But we also planned to visit my mom, and we guessed (correctly) that she would want to go out to supper with us: We normally drive to the Hardee’s in Iron Mountain, about eight miles away, because she loves their chicken sandwiches and strawberry shakes. She is 85 and doesn’t eat too much. So we have them cut in half, and I (and my wife) team up on the other half.

We couldn’t put the lamps in the car right away because when we take her out, my mom goes in the front seat, and my wife sits in the back. That doesn’t work if we have lamps in the trunk, poking into the back seat. Besides, her wheelchair also has to go into the trunk. It’s a lot of wrestling around, but we’re getting fairly adept at squeezing that thing into the trunk and closing the lid.

So, we agreed, we’ll leave the lamps in the house and return after supper to pick them up before driving home. No problem.

Falling into fall

What’s the latest? Today I heard my first from Keith since the efx2 merry-go-round broke down.

If you go to www.efx2.com, it will forward you to a message from Keith (dated today, the 12th) about what is happening and what is going to happen.

Of course, if you had been visiting KingofAnkh’s place at Blogspot all along, you know most of this stuff already.

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Anyway, as for me, geez, the weather has abruptly gotten cold here. Last week, it was in the upper 80s here and humid. Since then, the weather has gone from mid-summer to mid-fall without a minute of transition.

Today, it’s in the upper 50s, with a chance of frost tonight. I’m driving to Ironwood to cover a football game Friday night, and they are predicting widespread frost. Better take along a sweatshirt for that one!

I haven’t been getting many photos with my own camera lately, but I have been busy with the new work camera. (If you remember me writing about that at efx2.) It really does a slick job. Indoor shots and low-light shots are much nicer, the action is frozen, and you don’t have to deal with “shutter lag.”

Shutter lag? Better define that. It’s the interval between when you press the button to take a picture and when the picture is actually taken. For most people taking pictures, it’s not a problem. But I’m taking sports pictures, and every 1/10th of a second of shutter lag is a major concern. The “superzoom” camera I had before had major shutter lag; by its nature, a digital SLR doesn’t. Much more responsive.

I covered volleyball last night, and my major challenge was anticipating the action–pointing the camera in the right direction. But when I fired, I got some great action shots–right at the instant the girl was hitting the ball. With the older camera, I had to “pre-focus” to lock in the focus and exposure settings and then press the shutter button before I wanted the picture taken. That doesn’t sound very effective, and it isn’t.

As I was telling the coach later, my old camera had the decency to die on me just before my vacation trip to Green Bay and Oshkosh in early August, thus giving me a golden opportunity to choose a replacement. We both laughed. She liked the action shots I got, too–I showed her some of them.

I have to wrap this up. My wife and I are going to my mom’s place later this afternoon to get a few things. Not much more needs to be done with the house. Most of the stuff that had to be done has been done … and now we are mainly waiting on the sale.

From another dimension

From tempest tossed shores, please welcome another refugee from a blog service that all of a sudden just sort of vanished into another plane of existence.

My name is drdog, even though I am neither a doctor nor a dog. But that’s been my name first at Modblog and then at efx2. When I first started blogging, it was at Blurty, and then I briefly stayed at Blogger. But things really got going at Modblog. That’s when I first got into it and made a number of internet friends.

Then Modblog started having serious problems. It disappeared due to server problems, and I went back to Blogger for a while. Then Modblog was back but apparently in ill health. I found a new service, efx2, and jumped ship. Just before that ship sank, by the way.

That was late in 2005. Things have been fine at efx2 until about a week ago, when the service suddenly vanished. Something about phishing and servers and things like that. Maybe efx2 will return to life, but I have to be realistic about things like that.

So I am giving WordPress.com a try. First, by posting a few things here (dual posting with Blogger for the time being), and then by checking out the features and seeing how they work. Maybe if it works well, I can be like Moses, leading the ex-efx2ers into a new promised land. Or not. But Blogger doesn’t seem to know the concept of “friends” and won’t send notices of their new posts or comments on your posts. If WordPress.com knows this trick, it could be magic.

I will have an avatar here soon. It’s W.C. Fields. He’s a personal hero of mine. I don’t have many heroes–hey, I’m 57 years old–but I can identify with him and the frustrations he depicted in his films. Right now, I’m reading an excellent biography of him.

Here is a very short bio of myself, in case we have never met. I’m 57, live in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan, married, two grown kids, work at a weekly newspaper, mostly writing sports. But I’m a bit more complicated than most people. And I guess it all boils down to that fact that I want to be that way. There, I said it. Many interests, as you may find out someday