And by, “important,” I mean, “ridiculously and trivially personal,” which is exactly what a blog is for, right?
Anyway, a few days back I lamented being unable to capture images of a frog while it was ensconced within the grooves of the elephant ear stalks, which was enough to stir Fate and all that jazz, because the next day I accomplished it. I put it down to my lucky underwear (which was upstairs in a bureau, but that doesn’t mean it can’t work its magic.) Behold.
Not exactly the best of shots, because I had to turn off autofocus due to it being unable to lock on, perhaps because of the very narrow angle that showed both eyes. At least this time the frog didn’t get alarmed and start backing hurriedly deeper into the nook, as it had twice before.
Part two of the news is that this is the 30,000th frame taken with the Canon 7D, the replacement body after the previous one ran afoul of dihydrogen-monoxide incorporation. Since that purchase took place in early June of 2024, this pegs my rate in the vicinity of 1,000 images/month, average of course, because occasionally I might shoot more than that in an hour. And then we have last month, when it topped out at… well, I was thinking October was a fairly slow month, photography-wise, but the tally comes to over 1,200 images, so not half as slow as I’d believed. Mind you, that’s taken – what will be kept from that (I’m in the middle of sorting right now) will be significantly fewer.
I also must say, there’s a second camera in the mix, the Canon 70D, mostly dedicated to shooting the pond from the upstairs bathroom, so what I actually shoot per month is even higher – more so if I dig out the Canon Pro90 to plat around with infra-red. But neither of those is celebrating their meaningless milestone, so…
Speaking of those, today is another ultra-special day, in that it marks four years since I purchased my workhorse 3D printer, the Voxelab Aquila – this model followed a much more basic printer I’d obtained in March of 2022, which got me hooked. Just taking a look at the ol’ printer stats-a-roonie (retained by the printer itself,) we find that this amounts to extruding 5,823 meters of filament over better than 2,800 print hours, for a total of 2,085 jobs completed (and a little better than ten percent more incomplete, though most of those are jobs stopped early on to change settings.) That’s… really much more than I would have envisioned, and a decent amount of dross within there, knick-knacks and giveaways, to say nothing of failed attempts and designs, but this is underscored by the number of immensely useful designs and tools and accessories that have been produced, many of which are still in routine use. It’s serving its purpose, is what I’m saying. It also looks very little like it originally had, due to countless upgrades.
[I am aware of the arguments over the proliferation of plastics, given the large amount of microplastics in the environment, and agree with them as well. Most of what I (and the majority of hobbyists) print, however, is in PLA, poly-lactic acid, which is corn-based and biodegradable. It also, despite the volume, doesn’t hold a candle to the plastic bags distributed by virtually every retailer in the country, which doesn’t excuse it, but does serve as a perspective. I’m happy to argue environmental impact with anyone that’s so inclined – it’ll start with how old your smutphone and car are and go from there…]
Anyway, much to celebrate tonight, so I have to get back to the party – I think we’re running low on queso…