New camera

I finally succumbed to the inevitable and got a new camera for my bicycle jersey pocket. As previously reported the old one is gradually giving up functions. We recently shopped for a new camera for Miss Wireless and with what I learned in that process I convinced myself that I should make the upgrade. Here are the old camera and the new camera photographed with yet another of the cameras that I have available (new camera is the slightly darker grey one on the right).Also in the photo is our newest really interesting rock, a largish hematite nodule from near Hibbing, thanks and a tip of the hat to the geology guy.

Yes, after spending most of my life with one camera I now have about six. In my defense I would point out that three of the six are jersey pocket cameras, of which two no longer exhibit all functions. Yet another of the six was my original digital camera and it was too big for the jersey pocket which is how I set off down this path to begin with.

As you can see, I have not strayed too far from what I was using. It is pretty much a newer model of what I had before. I got it on eBay, it is a couple of generations behind the somewhat similar model that we got for Wireless but as outmoded but NOS (new old stock) stuff on eBay I got it for about half the price of what we paid for the new Wireless camera. It is a little smaller than the old one and it differs from the Wireless camera in that this one is the last of that line of cameras to have a view finder. I wanted a view finder because I find that a lot of my photos are taken in bright sunlight and that in those conditions I cannot really see the LCD screen very well making it less than optimal for composition.

It was sunny when I got up this morning (YES, bright and sunny at 6am) but conditions rapidly deteriorated. At one point the weather website I follow reported light rain in Minneapolis but it never actually rained here. Shortly before noon Miss Wireless, reporting from her vantage point more than half way up the tallest building in Minnesota, reported clearing. I went for a ride.

There is a major construction project going on on Como Avenue. The street has been reduced to one lane in each direction for a couple of months now but it was still rideable on the blocked off side by weaving between the cones and roadblock signs. But now they have added an obstacle that clearly changes everything.It is my carefully considered guess that this means that they are going to tear up that side of the street and put those giant pipes under ground. Como is clearly not going to be rideable. This will necessitate the re-routing of several important regular ride routes.

I suppose it is still slightly possible to ride there but during rush hour it would too severely strain the patience of already overwrought car people so I shall pass. Speaking of how wildly different expectations of reasonable interactions between cars and bicycles can be, I had an interesting experience today. An older lady (at least 60) in a mini-van honked at me in irritation. My transgression? I stopped, after she had stopped, at a four-way stop and waited for her to go. This was so clearly not what she expected that she honked to let my know that I was wrong.

I always stop for red lights or stop signs when cars are present. It is my experience that the more like a car I act the more respect I get from the people who are in cars. Full disclosure here, I admit that I blow stop signs and even the occasional red light if no one else is around. I believe that is what we in this house refer to as the Universal Pedestrian Rule.* (Note: With that asterisk * I am declaring a new convention never before used in this blog, the footnote. See * below for the footnote.)

I wanted to get down to the river as I have been over that way quite a few days lately but have not actually photographed the river. Here is upstream from the Marshall Avenue Bridge. Visible is the boat club boathouse, the dredge spoils sand below the bluff on the Minneapolis side and the Franklin Avenue Bridge.Also visible, I suppose, is the skyline of the big city located quite near to where I live. That thin dark colored one, the tallest one farthest to the left, is the workplace of Wireless, the tallest building in Minnesota.

Today I learned something else about the car show that I did not know. These people are deadly serious. The fair grounds are closed and admission is being charged.I am guessing that if you can attract 125,000 people that you can get most of them to pay a few bucks to come in and look at the street rods.

*Okay, footnote, here we go.

The Universal Pedestrian Rule is the rule that we adopted for crossing streets the last time we were in France.We would be standing at the crosswalk waiting for homme vert when we noticed that French people would sometimes start walking on homme rouge. We decided that their knowledge of French traffic signals enabled them to anticipate the upcoming change in a way which we could not. We quickly decided that we could go across the street whenever French people were crossing. We believed that the French people were following the Universal Pedestrian Rule, which formally stated is that "Pedestrians are ALWAYS allowed to cross the street at any time when there are NO CARS coming."