Day At The Park

In this case, the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

Today, robot_grrl, Derrick and I spent most of the day at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. We did a lot, but not quite everything. I did shoot 3 rolls of film using ancient technology, and these photos are available on Picasa at http://picasaweb.google.com/ronboakes/WildAnimalPark20090525?feat=directlink. {I'm mildly impressed that Google automatically mapped "San Diego Wild Animal Park" correctly as the location of the photos in the folder}

We had a pretty good time, and saw a lot of animals and perhaps too many people, and a bit too much sun (even through the sun screen and hats).

A Minolta SLR Doing a seat of my pants calculation, with what I spent on 3 rolls of film and processing, I probably could afford a decent digital SLR body for somewhere in the 10-12 day (30-36 roll) range. Before Australia next year, I'll have to decide if it is worth it.

{Interestingly, in 1999, I got my first digital camera mostly because I wasn't sure I wanted to carry the SLR to Australia. Now I'm thinking that I may want to get a digital SLR before going to Australia next year because I don't like the pictures our digital point-and-shoot take for things like scenery and animals.}

One other thing I decided today is that if I want to be taking good, or at least better, pictures at places like the Wild Animal Park, I'm going to need a better zoom. What I have now is the lens that came with the camera, which is a typical hybrid mostly wild angle and it just could not zoom in well on all of the animals -- especially from the driving tour.

This Morning's Dream Idea

Once again, I awoke with a weird idea, only this one is almost practical: A home freeze-dry unit.

I could see such a thing being both nearly feasible and almost useful. If I remember my physics right, the temperatures involved are comparable with those of a household freezer, so the vacuum would be the tricky part.

In addition to the fun for geeks experimenting, I could see this being sold to people as a way to make their own backpacking food (just freeze dry your own creations), make their own instant coffee or tea, or even as an emergency flood recovery for books.

If such a thing were available and well within the toy budget, I might get one to play with.

Of course I don't think I'd make what I was dreaming about: freeze dried red wine. (I'm pretty sure that the triple point of alcohol is different than water, and might well be hit first depending on exactly which variable was moved first. So I'm not sure you could actually freeze dry wine and get something that would come back, even if you added both enough water and Everclear. And, since I don't drink wine, it wouldn't do me much good.)