Consumer Equipment Sucks

I thought I was shooting a nice picture of Cindy against Long's Peak during our groovy mountain bike ride on Sunday, but it wasn't until I downloaded the photo that I realized how outstandingly awful the digital zoom is on my point-and-shoot camera.



Wow. Even if I wasn't a professional snob about camera equipment, I would think that sucks. There's absolutely nothing sharp about that!

For comparison, the wide shots are fine:



Dang, to think that camera, worth probably $150 today, cost me $400 three or four years ago. Oh well. Such is the nature of electronics. I'll make sure to only shoot wide stuff from now on...

Red tea at Amante:



The fantastic Christmas cactus given to me by Zack:



I gave my two weeks' notice at the gym on Saturday. I really need to earn some more money still, but I think I've only got about two weeks of this left in me. I've decided to lay off the two jobs while I can still be relatively cheerful about it... I'll deal with my financial situation as best I can. Maybe the universe will help me out by sending some freelance work my way.

However, I actually will miss that job. It was fun in many ways. Very social, easy, and mostly mellow. I got to meet a lot of cool people and got in several really interesting conversations with the late-night crowd. Plus, I will miss the access to the gym, since I'm too broke to actually be a member there. :) But it's okay, I'll buy an exercise ball and some dumbbells for my house (don't go there with the dumbbell jokes, folks!).