Letter To Byron - May 19, '01

Good Morning Byron, 
I was awake for awhile at 5:00 this morning too, but fortunately I was able to drop off again and got to sleep in for a change. I still envy how close you live to Cooper, I really hope to get to Colorado soon but can't see that happening until the end of summer. Sharon has just returned to the labor pool, working part time at one of her sewing stores, which will probably add complexity to any travel plans. I suspect that her pay will be in cloth, not money - that's not a bad thing. I have been spending money like it was easy to come by, photography is a very expensive mistress, but that is not the reason she went back to work (regardless of what she says!).

In Margo's email she mentioned Rick's camera, it sounds like he has one of the 3.3 MP (megapixel) cameras. They generally have about a 3x zoom telephoto lens. My camera is only 2.1MP, but it has a 10x zoom lens. Like film photography, everything is a trade off. It is interesting that digital photography has it's own language but all of the magazine articles always reference back to film photography lingo when discussing lenses etc. Rick will be able to get better quality from large prints than I will get, but I should be able to take better pictures of distant or small objects. Still, my camera was not good enough to get a good shot of that Greater Blue Heron. So naturally, I just spent a couple hundred $ to get a tele-converter lens to add to my camera, I now have 17x capability, if I have time to install the converter lens when it is needed. (I also got the wide angle converter too, for close ups - I hope it will be helpful on the narrow streets in Spain.)

What did you do to originally injure your rotator cuff, fall out of a tree? The therapy sounds like fun - seems like we all need therapy of one sort or another.

It's drizzling here too, so I will probably work indoors most of the day. But, I have to rebuild the trellises and extend them up a little higher - I been putting them off for weeks now, so today is the day, rain or shine. While I'm inside, I plan to start to work in earnest on a new web site. I have reserved a domain name for a web site on which to chronicle my misadventures. No more "family spam" - once it is up, people can check in to the site if and when they want and they won't have to be bothered by my unsolicited emails. I hope to be able to put up maps of my treks and albums of the pictures I take. I have some fuzzy ideas to let family and friends download them but not the general public. Right now my plans far exceed my talent as a web page designer. 

We have been told that Alex is about to have competition from a brother, due in September. Julie is already concerned about keeping up with the two of them once they both are as mobile as Alex is now. All the early tests are excellent - mother and baby are doing just great. Alex got his 1st hair cut a couple of weeks ago, another milestone that we missed but we did get pictures. I noted your comment about Cooper being a "little pill" and how different it is for grandchildren to act-up as opposed to when their parents did. Well I have a slightly different approach along those lines; I fully intend to provide inspiration and direction to Alex - it is called evening the score!

Damn, its hard to believe that Grant's a sophomore - we haven't seen him, Brian, Rick or Linda in a long time. She sent me an email a long time ago but we haven't written. I wish Rick did the email thing like the rest of us. At one time I thought he would lead the family into cyberspace. Remember the web page that he had done? I never did see it because we were so far behind that we could not even use the internet and by the time we figured out what a browser was, we had lost his URL. Is he doing anything with it or did he let his domain name registration expire? Can you get us an email address for Brian? ( I finally tracked down Linda's address and added her to the "family spam", just as it is about to come to an end - typical of me, huh?)

Well it's time to go do some work, take care of the shoulder. 

Lov from misty Phoenix

Rog and Sharon