Sunday, April 27, 2008

Home Again - All in the Same Day

  Another one of the problems with being a senior citizen is that you never know where things are.  You know you have one, but now that you need it, it is nowhere to be found.

   I know I have a perfectly good camera tripod.  It stands tall and strong and has a tilt top, and I have no idea where I left it.  I am so sure that I cannot find it that I had to go and get ANOTHER. 

   The best thing about this old folks home where I live is its location.  Every thing you could need is within two blocks.  I can take my five mile per hour scooter to the Mall or Market, shop, and be back within thirty minutes.

   I scootered first to the drug store. No tripods. Then through the Mall looking for the camera store.  Gone.  Shoe stores, book stores, and camera stores are gone from the Mall.  Wal*Mart, Target, and Cost-co have forced the camera stores, shoe stores out of business, and a huge Barnes and Noble nearby brought the demise of the independent book sellers.

   Sears remains, hanging on somehow.  The huge store is still there filled with tons of merchandise of all sorts, while a few customers wander around the piles of goods, looking for the lone salesperson or two. How can they stay in business like that? Anyhow I found the camera department and s high school senior who was clerking found me.

  I had my choice of two tripods, either one costing $19.  One was a light weight fold up pod in a plastic bubble package, and the other was a huge, boxed, mammoth sturdy camera platform capable of holding one of Ansel Adams enormous glass plate view cameras...on sale.  The big one was a tremendous bargain. CBS could have used it to hold a studio Iconoscope. Since I had no need for the great one, I bought the lesser, passing on the bargain of the day.

   I scooted home and got back, as I say, within half an hour.  Incredible.

   Now, if you will excuse me, I know I am going to have to do battle with getting the tripod out of the miserable bubble plastic packaging.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL...DAD, I HAVE YOUR TRIPOD!  Kate

Anonymous said...

Well get to it man we are waiting for pictures !
Have a great Sunday my Friend!

Anonymous said...

You made a quick trip. I see by a comment where your tripod is. Helen

Anonymous said...

  That Iconoscope was one of the first television cameras and was developed by a team of scientists employed by RCA. The head of the research team was a fellow named Vladimir Zworkin, a 42-year-old Russian-American.

  The very serious Zworkin and his Iconoscope were eclipsed by a 14-year-old with one of the greatest names in Media History: Filo Farnsworth.

  Farnsworth, at that tender age, established the principle of image dissection and later was first to demonstrate an all-electronic TV system. He attracted Zworkin's attention and the older, more educated and experienced inventor made a pilgramage to California to examine Farnsworth's works-in-progress.

  Things didn't go well for young Filo. He engaged in a life-long battle with RCA, accusing the corporation of stealing his ideas. He had more success, including work in the nuclear energy field and had hundreds of patents to his credit when he died in 1971.

   Farnsworth's wife continued to battle for his place in history until she died two years ago this day at age 98.
 

Anonymous said...

Well now looks like Kate can 'keep' your other one,LOL

Anonymous said...

I set up the new tripot and it colapsed. It wouldn't even hold up the little digital camera. Maube I  can rework it somehow. My daughter needs the old reliable one for her wori. Or I can take little flimsy back and trade it for the gigantic one,