When I was chopping fig yesterday, I noticed one stalk that still had a bud on it, meaning it’s still alive.  The stalk was about 3 feet long, so I chopped it into three pieces,  planted it in a pot of compost, and put the pot in the back room with Debra’s African Violets, where it’ll stay warm and get plenty of light.  I’m betting that at least one of the pieces will sprout.  I actually took a picture of the thing in case it does sprout, so I can have “before” and “after” images.  Of course, the “after” image will have a fully-leafed plant in a nice new pot, and be taken under optimal lighting conditions.  Kind of like the weight loss or hair growth ads you see in the magazines when you’re waiting for the dentist:  the “before” shot is an informal picture of a person wearing ratty clothes, and the “after” shot is a professionally-posed shot of a person in his or her Sunday Best.  Anything to enhance the contrast, I guess.

Today was actually a pretty nice day.  Clear skies, little wind, and temperature in the 50’s.  Hardly a record-breaker, but a lot nicer than the previous month of Saturdays.  So I spent the day working outside.  Today’s job:  chop down the fig bush.  You see, the weather here in Central Texas is a little too cold for fig trees to last the winter.  So instead of a single tree you end up with fig clumps that die back every winter and form new growth from the roots every spring.  When the fig loses its leaves, it’s one ugly plant:  just a bunch of 12-foot sticks poking out of the ground.  A few times I’ve left the dead sticks over the winter, and in the spring I’ve noticed new growth on a very few existing stalks.  Mostly, though, come winter the stalks are dead.

Any day you get to start the chainsaw is a good day.  So out with the chainsaw, and down with the fig bush.  After chopping both bushes to the ground, I broke out the chipper/shredder (starting that monster after a couple months is chore) and made a dozen bags of fig mulch, which I promptly put around the fig roots.  Not to worry about taking the plants to the ground:  they’ll be 12 feet tall by the end of August.  And good figs, too, if you like that sort of thing.

I’ve never been much of a camera buff.  As a kid I’d take pictures and then forget to have the film developed.  As an adult, I found that I’d take pictures (on vacation, say), look at them once when they come back from being developed, and then never look at them again.  Perhaps the worst thing, though, was I never had a camera with film ready when I needed it.  I resisted buying a digital camera for years just because I couldn’t see needing one.

Three days with the new Canon Digital ELPH has changed my opinion on that.  I can take as many pictures as I want, get them developed instantly, and throw away the ones I don’t like.  No film costs, no reproduction costs:  the cost of the camera is the total cost of ownership.  I’ll perhaps want to buy some photo paper for the color printer, but I doubt I’ll actually print many pictures.

Best of all, the thing takes excellent pictures.  The photo on the left is a close-up of our poodle Tiffany, who weighs about 10 lbs.  I used LView to crop the background.  One day I’ll learn how to use Photoshop or a similar program.  The point, though, is that I probably wouldn’t have even attempted this picture with my old camera (a Canon Sure Shot), because the chances of it coming out at all were pretty slim. 

What with my not feeling well (tooth still causing trouble), five days off, and cold wet weather, we watched a lot of movies over the last week.  We actually went to the theatre twice, and watched maybe 10 movies at home.  At home we do the whole movie thing:  popcorn, cokes, candy, lights off, sit together.  It’s a good way to spend a mini-vacation.  Anyway, some mini-reviews.

At the theatre

What Women Want with Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt.  Mostly a “chick flick,” but very funny until the end, which is typically sappy.  Mel Gibson is still one of my favorite actors, and Helen Hunt is, well, a babe.  But the movie still doesn’t answer the critical question:  Why would anybody do that (wax her legs) more than once?

Cast Away with Tom Hanks.  I really liked this movie, and Helen Hunt’s appearance is just an added bonus.  Tom Hanks is a Federal Express troubleshooter who gets stranded on a South Pacific island (more of a tree-covered rock) after the FedEx airplane he’s riding on crashes.  The movie covers events leading to the crash, his first couple of weeks (months?) on the island, and then skips ahead four years to his escape, rescue, and events that follow his return.  The movie does a reasonably good job of making you care about the character, and understand (as much as that’s possible for people who’ve never been truly alone) what somebody in that situation goes through.  Tom Hanks reportedly lost 55 pounds in order to do the movie—it shows.  He’s almost back to his old self.

On Video

My Dog Skip – Woof.  The Skulls – Ugh!  The Perfect Storm – Decent special effects.  Although in a storm producing 70 foot seas, you can hardly see your hand in front of your face.  You’d never see the wave that killed you.  Not a must-see, but the book is a must-read.  U-571 – Action-packed and very dramatic.  Very good.  Supernova – I thought I’d seen this one before.  The scenario is similar to some other science fiction/horror movie.  It’s better than the one whose title I can’t remember, but not by much.  Entertaining, but forgettable.  Rules of Engagement with Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson – Somewhat entertaining, but forgettable. 

This year we finally got a digital camera.  Since Debra’s the picture buff, I bought her a Canon Powershot S100 digital camera.  I’m still amazed at digital cameras in general, and this little thing is really something.  It’s small enough that I can completely cover it with one hand, and yet it does 2.1 megapixels, has a 2X optical zoom, and more features than I’ll ever be able to use without continual reference to the operator’s manual.  With a 64MB compact flash card and an extra battery (more on that below), I can’t see ever needing film again.  I don’t know that much about digital cameras (or cameras in general, truth to be told), but this one seems to have everything I need.  I figure we’ll play with it for a few years and then maybe buy something better if we find a need.

Canon’s picture software, on the other hand, needs some work.  Beyond having to help Debra with the install, which is one strike against the software, I haven’t actually played with it yet.  But the trouble that Debra’s having with the software and the few strange error messages I’ve seen indicates that it’s still true that hardware manufacturers in general still don’t know how to create software.  Of course, many software manufacturers don’t either, but that’s another story.  Adobe’s PhotoDeluxe Home Edition came with the camera, but we haven’t yet installed that.  I suspect it’ll be a much better software package than the Canon offering.

The one thing that almost prevented me from buying the Canon was the battery.  They use a non-standard battery format rather than rechargeable AA or AAA cells, for size reasons, I assume.  I think I’d rather pay a little in size in order to gain standard batteries.  I tried to buy an extra battery at Best Buy (where I got the camera), but they don’t carry them.  I’ll either have to find it online, or order it directly from Canon.  The thing is expensive, too:  a brief online search revealed a price of about $60.00!  Maybe I can get a better price, but that’s about three times what I was expecting.  Ouch. 

I actually went to the mall today.  Not to buy gifts, but to get a battery and some other parts for my lawn tractor.  With five days off, I was planning to catch up on some yard work:  picking up and composting leaves, making mulch out of the tree branches I’d trimmed last month, and generally cleaning things up.  It looks like I won’t be doing much outside work in the next few days, though:  it’s going to be very cold and wet until Wednesday.

I was surprised at how empty the stores were.  I got a parking place within the first 10 rows, there were no major crowds in the stores, and no long lines at the checkout counters.  News reports had said that sales were down from expectations and that retailers were expecting a big rush on the last weekend before Christmas.  I don’t know about the rest of the country, but it certainly didn’t happen here.  Perhaps the weather (cold and wet) kept people home.  The exception was the grocery store, where yesterday Debra had to park in the very last row and wait in line for a shopping cart.  There were actually empty shelves and signs apologizing for being out of turkeys and other holiday items.  One of our friends went to the same grocery store today and reported similar results.  I just don’t understand the last-minute attitude.