I Love My Digital Camera!

I know, I know ... I try really hard not to love things, but there are some things that make me so happy!  If absolutely necessary and with a little effort, I am quite certain that I could live a very simple and technologically-free life:  a life free from a computer, a cell phone, an iPad or even a TV.  Mainly because that was my life growing up - except for the TV part.

As a kid, we didn't have much in the way of gadgets and gizmos.  We had to rent the VCR along with the VHS movie if we wanted to watch something besides what we could get on one of our three channels. And those three channels were a bit "guess-and-by-gosh".  If there were leaves on the trees, one of us would have to go outside and tweak the antenna until it was just right.  In the leafless winter, we almost got a bonus fourth channel ... if you squinted your eyes!  One season, we subscribed to some sort of "cable" service.  We had access to a series of movies that would change once a month.  That was either awesome because you could watch your favorite show over and over and over again.  Or it was lame.

We did have a Commodore 64 growing up.  But I laugh now to think of the time we spent playing those cubic video games:  the summer Olympics with the diver that sometimes froze mid-air requiring us to reboot, the racing game with the little blocks that were supposed to be horses "running" past the furlongs to the finish and the Indiana Jones-type character who leapt over boulders, jumped over rolling logs and swung from digital vines ... and who we regularly fed to the crocodiles.  Pretty simple entertainment.

For music, we had quite a selection of ... records.  The challenge in our 100-year old house was avoiding any jumping, dancing or walking in the sensitive parts of the floor while listening to music.  Which pretty much meant we sat on the couch.  Unless were were listening to Dexy's Midnight Runners in which were were required to jog in place to, "Come on, Eileen".  We just had to do it carefully.

Yes ... it appear that realistically I could get along rather well without all the lovely, techy bits that we enjoy in our home.  It would certainly be weird, but I could do it.  There is one little gadget, however, that you would have to pry from my hands:  my digital camera!

I love the ease of clicking off snapshots of the kids, capturing their personalities and antics on video and chronicling their little lives on the computer.  I love how easy it is to upload birthday parties to SmileBox and keep family and friends "in the loop" with pictures.  But I love more than anything the fact that we can do all this and make sure that the final photo is a good one!

More often than not, the first (and second ... and third ...) snapshot is a bit sketchy when we get the four monkeys in one place.  For whatever reason, they can't all seem to look the same direction, smile and keep their hands off their faces.  At the same time.  At least not until we've "warmed up" and we've taken a half-dozen goofy shots.  What a relief that we can see right away that Lydia ducked or Ashley snuck her thumb in her mouth or Norah made googly-eyes or Aaron grimace-smiled.  And then we can try again.  And again.  And again.

Here's Mother's Day proof that we photogenically challenged at times:

Brett said, "Lydia" ... and I guess they thought he meant,
"LOOK at Lydia".  He didn't.

Now Lydia's peeking.  And Aaron's in agony.

Norah's trying a little too hard and
Lydia popped food in her mouth.

Almost.  Rather than worrying about her own painful
smile, Norah's trying to "help" Aaron.  He doesn't need it.

Ashley wins!

Now I know what you're thinking ... "Those were all a bit screwy.  Didn't they get a good one?"

Nope.

But, at least we know that!  And we aren't going to wait 3 weeks to finish the roll of film and spend good money to get it developed only to discover we were were 100% unsuccessful!

No disappointment here ... just the reality that our children are goofballs.  And we can capture their goofballery to store on the computer.  For all time.

Along with the good snapshots we manage to snag, of course.

These are actually all from the same picture ... success!