Saturday, August 25, 2012

Last Days of Freedom

This was my last week of vacation, and despite my best intentions to unpack the boxes in our loft, it has not come to pass.  We did at least get some much needed cleaning done in the two bathrooms downstairs and the kitchen and living room.  More importantly, we had a lot of time to just veg after two weeks of travelling.  I started reading "All Quiet on the Western Front", and we knocked out some races on "Need for Speed", upgrading to the only Lamborghini I will ever drive.  We even finally made it to the HOA swimming pool for the first time, after living here for a year.  I quite enjoyed the near-perfect combination of hot weather and cooling water, and it's only 4 foot at the deep end, so no fear of drowning.  The only down side is that the shallow depth means that diving is verboten (I can neither confirm nor deny whether I still snuck in a couple of shallow dives).

I thought of my trip home today when I read that Kodak is exiting the film camera business.  I'm sure my dad will be disappointed as he still uses a film camera, which I learned when he came to visit at my brother's house last week.  You can imagine my young nieces' disappointment when he took their picture and they asked if they could see it.  "No, honey, grandpa has to send the film to get it processed before you can see the pictures.  Just be thankful they don't make daguerreotypes any more, or we'd all have to stand still much longer for him to take a picture."  (Note to dad - it's the 21st century!  Tommy Lee Jones is not as cool as you think he is, and technology is moving forward - time to get rid of the VCR and 8 Track player too.)

I may be all for jettisoning outdated technology, but some things should not be discarded, to include classic movies.  Heather and I finally watched "Roots" this week for the first time, which was a pretty good miniseries.  I doubt either of our families watched it when it came out and even if they had, Heather and I were too young to remember it, so we made use of the extra time this week to take it in.    It was a very compelling story, but I must say it was kind of sad watching a young 18 year old Lavar Burton playing the lead role of Kunta Kinte, years before blindness would rob his sight and force him to wear a banana clip visor on Star Trek, The Next Generation.

Next week it's back to the proverbial grindstone.  I wonder if Millers ever actually said "back to the grindstone"?  Anyway, as fate and a little forward planning would have it, I'm returning to two 4 day weeks, thanks to the Labor Day weekend, which should help ease the pain.  This goatee will go the way of the Dodo and sleeping in until 7 will become a distant memory, but it will be good to get back to being a productive member of society again I suppose.