He’s become even more affectionate and clingy after coming back from the vet. Maybe he understands that I helped him out. While he’s technically a stray and no one can be said to own Master Mao, he’s certainly become important to me over the last year. Seeing him with his leg all twisted broke my heart. I couldn’t *not* help him. The vet kept the cost down to $200 and even gave me a payment plan option. Not a big deal. I mean, we’re talking about Master Mao here.

Using a tripod and remote control overcomes my camera’s limitations and vastly improves the photo quality. I can use more appropriate exposure settings in low light situations without the usual grain or blur.

The guy in charge really knew what he was talking about and gave us all useful advice about basic digital camera settings. Even though this was an amateur photographer meetup, I noticed that most everyone was packing some serious hardware. I felt lens envy. Theirs were all longer than mine.

The instruction went on for several hours and it was really cold, so I ended up not sticking around to actually practice what I had just learned, other than a few random shots I got off. Even those looked a lot better in terms of exposure and picture quality than the sorts of photos I’ve taken in the past.

Fortunately, my skills at Photoshop make me look like a slightly better photographer than I actually am.

Drat. Where will we have the dinner party now?

My car was buried under an impenetrable layer of snow.

The camper out back fared no better.

The streets were transformed.

Recent excavations in my back yard unearthed some sort of frozen beast!

Note its baleful stare.

Saving these for July…