The Penny Chronicles

My name is Penny.

Yesterday the Leader let Kasey and me jump into the wagon.  When that happens, we know it will be a good day.  We only go in the wagon to go to play with other dogs, or to go to a room to wait with other dogs and then visit a nice lady.  Either way, we get to spend time with dogs.  What could be better than that?

Yesterday it turned out that we went to visit the nice lady.  Kasey and I like that.  We always get washed and cleaned.  That is a good thing, too, because after a while Kasey could use a good scrub, if you know what I mean.  Ha ha, Kasey!

Our favorite thing of all comes at the end, when the nice lady ties a scarf around our necks.  The scarves are always pretty and bright.  When we get home we know the other dogs in the neighborhood are jealous.  My favorite scarf of all had little dog bones on it.  When I saw Kasey in that scarf, it always made me hungry.

That reminds me — time to go see if the Leader will give me some more food.  Why not?  I am hungry!

Out, Damned Spot!

I like taking pictures — so much so that my lovely wife gently kids me by making a snapshot button motion and the sound of a shutter closing whenever she knows I’ve seen something I think is photo-worthy. For the last few years, I’ve used a Canon PowerShot SX260HS to give me my photo fix.

It’s been a great, dependable camera, with only one problem.  A few months ago I noticed a small dust spot on the interior of the lens.  Over time, the spot grew and became more noticeable in my photos.  I tried cleaning the outer lens, blowing air into the lens area, and even jarring the camera to try to dislodge the spot.  Nothing worked, so I asked Kish to take the camera to a shop for cleaning.  That night she reported that the shopkeeper said that cleaning the camera would requires shipping it somewhere for at least two months and would cost more than the camera’s original purchase price.  Why not buy a new camera, she said.

Ah ha! I thought.  That’s obviously the camera manufacturers’ planned obsolescence gambit.  They know there is dust in the world, and they design a camera that doesn’t keep out the dust and a lens that can’t be cleaned.  Then they sit back, satisfied, knowing that a noticeable interior dust spot will form on the lens and eventually the camera owner will yield to the inevitable.

Initially, I resisted this latest evidence of our “disposable” world.  We don’t live in the Sahara.  I take reasonably good care of the camera, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t last for more than a few years.  I continued to fiddle with the camera, hoping for improvement.  I specifically framed my photos so that the dust spot smudge would be in a darkened area and therefore less noticeable.  But the spot continued to grow even more distinctive, ruining many an otherwise fine photo — until, like Lady Macbeth, I could abide the spot no more.

So now I’ve got a new Canon PowerShot camera that we picked up through our rewards points program.  I guess I’m going to have to keep it in a hermetically sealed container — and maybe even read the instruction manual, too.