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Sardonic child…

Coming to you live from Barnes and Noble café!

Kirkland

Before the power outage, we’d planned to head up to Kirkland’s Marina Park today for four things:

1. Eating lunch at the Wilde Rover (Irish pub)
2. Feeding the ducks at lakeside
3. Taking photographs of feeding the ducks, lakeside
4. Meeting Joy, who had purchased a pair of Fluevogs from me, to make the handoff.

So, this morning we were a bit worried that Kirkland might still be powerless, but that would only have scotched #1.  We could do the other three items without needing power.  We packed up our gear and headed out.

Despite quite a few downed traffic lights, we made it to downtown Kirkland and discovered they had plenty of power, so we got to do all four things!  Joy brought one of her dogs, which thrilled Alex (he still desperately wants a dog but we won’t get one because you-know-who will end up doing all the work).  The weather was also dry (though overcast).  The worst part was the very stiff breeze!  I crumpled a cracker in my hand and flung the crumbs into the air for the birds, and all the crumbs flew back into my face.  A nearby lady started laughing at me.  It was too cold and windy to stick around and distribute the entire bag of bread, so we zippied it up and came home.

Here’s CP’s best photo of the day:

Taken with a Nokia Lumia 1520.

And mine:

Same kid, different ducks. He’s wearing his Fluevog camo BBC boots. Taken with my HX50V.

Power Outage Triumph

We are in the middle of a power outage!  (Well, hopefully we’re really close to the end of it…)  However, my Surface still has power, and Chris’ cell phone does as well, so he set it up as a wireless hotspot and we are bringing you this post by candlelight.  We went for a walk.  Alex and I got scared of walking around in the total darkness and came home early, but Chris soldiered on, until he ran into a big tree branch blocking his path, whereupon he came home too.

Here’s what the house looks like now.

Taken with the rear Surface camera.

Ranting Again

This one, I just can’t believe nobody’s done it yet.

I want a backpack to carry my camera gear in.  This includes a tripod.  My tripod (I have the purple) is only 15.5″ wide when collapsed.  What I don’t understand is why nobody appears to make a backpack with adjustable gear straps across the bottom where a tripod could be strapped in.  This would also be good for yoga mats, and I spent some time looking for yoga mat backpacks with this kind of feature, but to no avail.  The only bags I can find that have anything like this are the Rickshaw messenger bags.  Even Timbuk2’s messenger redesign has eliminated the bottom-of-the-bag straps.  But I wouldn’t get a messenger anyway; Alex and I went on a photo shoot last weekend with all my gear in a tote and it gave me a headache.  I’m either planning to buy a fun Zuca Sport bag (which has wheels) or buying some webbing and buckles to sew straps onto the Pacsafe backpack we use for travel (and you all know how that sort of thing tends to turn out).

Meanwhile, here is a photo from that shoot on Sunday.

The Young Master feeding the ducks at Bellevue Downtown Park. We were there to take pictures for his Digital Photography assignment on natural light. Click to enlarge.