A VERY busy day, leads to missing my old DSLR

A busy day begins
It’s been about a year since I sold my old DSLR, and today is the day that I have regretted it most. It’s after 9pm and I’m still feeling the sting right here, man, in my heart.

It was a busy day for me, so let me set the stage a little, m’kay?



The Girl leaves me
It started quickly. I closed shop last night and didn’t get home until 11pm or so. Which isn’t that bad really, I mean I do that regularly, but it got considerably worse in about 4-½ hours, which was about the time I had to get up and take The Girl to her scheduled departure at the airport. They wouldn’t reschedule the flight for us on such short notice; they’re a**holes like that. Yes you read that right: the ‘bob is alone for a week or so, as The Girl leaves for her faux home, visiting relatives in So Cal. It’s off to a peachy start by the way: she’s sick. Not just sick of So Cal, but literally, physically ill. Serves her right, I say. Leave the ‘bob? C’mon…

Anyway. Our airport is more like a small box in a big field where planes occasionally accidentally fall out of the sky, so it was not like it was hard to get in and out in a hurry. Which I did. Which put me back at home – and back in bed – by about 6:15am, allowing me to get about 2 more hours of sleep before the dogs finally roused me to feed them. Shortly after that, I shaved and got cleaned up enough to go and meet my new boss.



I have a new boss at a new place of business. Sort of.
Oh yeah, I should probably mention this as I haven’t before now: I found out a week or so ago that I (along with ALL the managers) are being transferred between stores. I start there next Monday, and today I wanted to stop by and get my actual schedule as well as the door codes & whatnot. Nothing too special, but oh yeah, IT’S BACK IN TOWN, so that driving expense I had to worry about 6-7 months ago? Nixed. Sweet.



Then my day began
So after all of this, it was time to get down & dirty with what I was going to be doing today: taking the dogs out. I decided to go exploring with the pups, along the south spit. We had been there before, but it was a little rainier and we didn’t go as far or explore as much as I would have liked. This time however, with all day to devote and no real other plans (other than the aforementioned & completed tasks!), we set off to go as far down as we could get.

And we did. Go as far as we could, that is, without getting a boat, anyways. And this is about the part where I tell you how badly I miss my DSLR. We followed some paths along the beach and a little bit away from it, and ran into the local Eel river. We stopped at a handful of spots up to our final destination so that the dogs could play a little more intently (rather than just following or riding in a truck), and along each spot there were shots that I could envision, but could just not get with the P&S camera setup I currently have. A landscape of the green, rolling hills butting up against the ocean, a lone, old abandoned house along the river in the flats, and…



The DSLR “Coulda-been” moment
We reached the end of our journey when we reached the mouth of the river. It was a very pretty day all around, and the end was simply awesome. I wish I had had a DSLR with me. We got to the mouth of the river, and when we got out to walk around I spotted what I thought was a pile of driftwood on the opposite bank along the mouth of the river, but later I discovered it was actually a group of Sea Lions huddled together. I noticed this when the pile of driftwood started to move. I whipped out my Point & Shoot, and got the best shots that I could of them. Sadly, no matter what I did, I could not get any shots that really showed them off well. Mostly, my shots seem to show a greyish two bodies of sand, split by a greyish flowing river, with greyish, blurry blobs somewhere in the not-so-visible distance.

So, now I ache. My old Canon rig was old and not all that great, but I could have gotten some good shots instead of some good blur. A long way to explain the opening sentence, but there you have it.

And if you’re brave enough, you can try to find a Sea Lion or 20 in the middle of some blur, here.