two thoughts on clothes
1
Every year, when I had my review at work, I'd fill out the space available for comments with the same basic idea:
It would be great if the company business casual a try. A good test could be over the summer and on Fridays only. If people don't abuse it, it could be a permanent Friday thing.
And every year, everyone who saw my review above my boss (directors, vice presidents, various HR staff etc) would ignore it.
Eventually my review form was changed and I no longer had a comments section. (I have no idea if this was a corporate-wide change to the forms or if it was just me. I didn't talk to anyone else about it.)
We got a new CEO in January (after the previous one retired). He's young and full of energy and approved a summer test (starting the Friday before Memorial Day and ending the Friday before Labor Day) of business casual attire. After 10 years it finally has happened.
Except, I sorta have run into a problem: I don't really have any business casual attire. I do have some short-sleeved shirts, but the weather hasn't been quite that warm yet.
The dress code for this test is pretty much: "men can take off their ties and everything else stays the same." But taking off a tie while wearing a dress shirt, to me, just looks like you forgot your tie... You don't look business casual you look business neglectful.
2
Speaking of cool temps...each spring I find it really difficult to stop wearing a coat. I keep walking around thinking I left something or lost something but I just don't know what it is... And then I remember that I'm not wearing a coat and I'm fine for about 10 minutes. Then the feelings start all over again. The first time I sit down in my car to drive to the train station without 2 coats, a hat, gloves, and a sled dog team, I am thrown for a loop.
This long winter and cool spring (save a few days) has reinforced these feelings even more. Not wearing a coat just feels wrong. So on those few warm days that we've been able to gather up, I still have had a spring jacket on. Even if it means carrying it in the heat of the afternoon, I still take one with. I just don't trust Mother Nature. I think she's just waiting to throw a curve ball made of snow...
river of green
Last week, while riding home on the train, I was rather startled to see, well, nothing.
That's not entirely true.
What I saw previously I could no longer see. It was replaced by a wall of green leaves. Buildings, homes, streets, parks, all had "suddenly" become hidden behind trees fully engulfed in leaves.
And as the train passes by, the trees ripple like waves in a river.
Spring is always a surprise for me, I'm not sure why...it just seems like what were small buds just starting out, suddenly burst forth into fully formed leaves. I know this is not the case and I can even watch the trees foliate, but there's something in my brain that seems locked to the winter scene. And then a switch is flipped and I realize that we have shade again and the world has been turned green.
compromises and photography
Photography is always about compromises. Trade-off's such as image quality vs cost vs operational speed vs weight vs size vs etc... are always taking place.
I like our digital point and shoot, especially the rotating screen. It can travel all over with us, uses AA-sized batteries, and has lots of manual control But, because of its design, it's not able to produce the images that I really want to produce right now: those with shallow depth of field.
I want images where the subject is clearly separated from the background and with a digital point and shoot, due to its small sensor and the subsequent wide angle lens (not to be confused with field of view) this is rarely possible (unless the subject is very close to the lens and the background is very far away).
The above is an example of what shallow depth of field can do for a subject. Had I shot this with the point and shoot, everything in the background would have been far more in focus and very distracting.
In the world of photography though, a digital point and shoot that can do this is as rare. And to do so with little expense is non-existent. In part, the lack of such a camera has been with physics. Until someone invents silicone (or a different type of sensor) that can flex and bend, light incident to the sensor needs to be as perpendicular as possible (or exotic designs like off-set micro-lenses above the sensors need to be employed which drives the costs way up). When using a large sensor you also need to use larger lenses (compromising on camera size) or with lenses that have smaller base apertures (compromising on functionality).
The other problem, of course, is that such a camera, even when made, is a boutique item. 99% of consumers couldn't care less about DoF (in fact, shallow DoF runs contrary to the entire direction of the point and shoot market of the past 25 years). So such a camera is immediately more expensive.
To date, only two companies have tried to go after this market:
Sigma released, first, the DP1 and recently the DP2. The DP1 had, by all reports, a stellar lens (albeit at a fixed 24mm-equiv wide) but that the operation was rather slow. The DP2 (I've yet to see a review) has a better field of view for my needs (40mm equiv, still fixed focal length) and may or may not be as slow. This may be fine for some people (and may be fine for me even) but there's nowhere for me to test such a camera and at $550 for the DP1 and $650 for the DP2 I will not be buying one.
Olympus and Panasonic announced (last year)the development of a format called "Micro 4/3rds." It was a rather exciting move as the removal of the mirror box could greatly reduce the size of the camera and yet it could still use interchangeable lenses. [Indeed the shortened registration between mount and sensor has allowed many, many other types of lenses to be adapted to be used on these cameras.] Panasonic released the G1 and most recently the GH1 (expected in June) that are essentially mini-SLR looking cameras. (Olympus has yet to release a product.) While that is fine (they are quite small and handy), the cost of these cameras is really amazing: $700 for the G1 and $1500 (estimated) for the GH1!
Clearly these are not cameras that are built-for or priced-for the consumer. So, for me, for the foreseeable future, if I want a digital camera I can stick in my jacket pocket, I'll be (happily, to be sure) shooting with our A650 and simply dreaming of a day when a point and shoot built just for me comes out. 
the morning so far
- coworker brings my recently printed document to me from the printer.
- discover I'm out of staples. refills as well as new automatic cyborg-like stapler back where printer sits.
- walk out of cube and immediately turn around to grab coffee cup (staples and coffee in adjacent and connected rooms) for first cup of the day.
- walk out of cube without document.
- walk back into cube.
- spot folder I will need for 9 am meeting under some papers. set coffee cup and document down to uncover folder so I don't forget it later.
- walk out of cube without coffee cup.
- walk back into cube and grab coffee cup.
- fill cup with the last of the coffee. start a new pot.
- use cyborg-like stapler to staple document.
- return to cube with stapled document, full coffee cup, and no refills for own stapler.
- go to 9 am meeting.