Sunday, November 27, 2022

Black Saturday on Ocean Beach

I was very brave on Black Friday, walking into a Best Buy after my ancient Sony digital cameras from 2001 finally died and batteries from that era were impossible to find.
In what I can only view as a Christmas miracle, there was a young salesman at Best Buy who actually knew something about cameras, and told me the model he was suggesting never went on sale because it was so popular. "It's the vlogger industry standard right now and it's fully automated if you don't want to bother fiddling with things like aperture settings, and also fully adjustable if you do."
So I walked out of the big box store with a tiny box containing a camera with 100 times the memory storage of the old one, along with a steep learning curve.
Unfortunately, I become unreasonably frustrated when confronting a new digital interface, so thank the goddess for YouTube instructional videos, which are helping to ease the unmoored pain.
On Saturday afternoon, we went for a walk on Ocean Beach and saw two boats driving in very close to shore next to a few surfers.
We wondered if they were rescue craft or drug smugglers, but it looked dangerous whoever they were.
The day was warm with a pinch of tartness from the cold ocean, so people were bundled up...
...and also stripped down.
Somebody was stretching in what looked like Tai-Chi exercises, but amusingly at about three times the normal speed.
Somebody else was practicing a classical tune on their horn at a professional skill level.
My favorite sights on Ocean Beach usually involve parents playing with their kids on the shoreline.
The joy of children who love the ocean is infectious and a happy memory for me who grew up on beaches.
Since I now have the equipment to be an industry-standard vlogger at my advanced age, it is time to finally join the New Millenium, so stay tuned.

2 comments:

janinsanfran said...

So this transition has come to you too. My old faithful camera, first the lens (lens mount) and then the body died just as I was finishing up walking the whole city. I've not quite had the heart to do the very considerable work of taking advantage of all the novel possibilities its not-very-high-end replacement offers. Perhaps in the new year ...?

Civic Center said...

Dear Jan: Not sure I bought the right camera for my uses, but it's fun to finally be able to play with video and have something that takes good pics in low light. And yes, do take advantage of the novel possibilities, especially since neither of us are getting any younger.