New Toys!

I've been saving up my loose change in a big jar for a couple of months, my intention being to use that money to buy a digital camera for the wife (and, well, me) for Christmas. However, last week the photo department at The Store had a digital camera on a big markdown because it was a discontinued product (discontinued in the sense that we weren't going to be carrying that particular model anymore), and after checking out some online reviews of said camera (this camera) that reported it as a decent starter point-and-shoot (which is exactly what we wanted), and noting that the price at The Store was less than Amazon's price for the same camera, I went ahead and bought the thing. Of course, I didn't let the fact that Glenn Reynolds also likes this camera influence my decision. After all, I didn't start eating broccoli just because George H.W. Bush said he didn't like it.

So of course we played around with the thing on Friday night, using up whatever juice was left in the original batteries (Damn, that was quick!), and then yesterday we took advantage of the nice weather to make our annual excursion to Pumpkinville, which is one of those places that I suspect exists nearly anywhere in the United States where autumn actually exists as a season when trees change color and the air gets cooler, a place where you can buy apples and cider and pick your own pumpkins from a patch and wander a cornmaze and ride a hay wagon pulled by a tractor and eat freshly-made pumpkin-flavored donuts (we consumed half a dozen of these things) and buy homemade fudge and maple sugar and maple syrup and just generally enjoy the fall air and colors while giving one's pancreas a pretty major workout.

We really wanted to go last Saturday, but the weather then was too dicey, so we had to postpone a week, thus missing the brief time when the autumn hills are at their peak of stunning color. Now we're in the phase when the brown of leafless trees is starting to become the majority color in the hills, but when there are still enough trees in yellow and orange about that the hillsides look as though they are flecked with small bursts of flame. Plus, it was warm enough to be out in our shirtsleeves.

Back to the camera, we're pretty excited about it. We have no plan to ditch our traditional film camera, but we like the flexibility of the digital one, especially for e-mail and Web purposes. Of course it gives me more flexibility to turn this blog into my very own photoblog, which is the best thing about it. In time perhaps I'll take the thing and get my own photos of places I love around the Buffalo region, but for now, here's the Wife, holding little Quinn in her nifty sling.



And again:



That's us, entering the Digital Era, one gadget at a time. Next up, a couple of cell phones.