Various

There's a darkroom blog on the way, since I spent much of yesterday afternoon working on prints. That was fun. Keep an eye out on the other blog, if you're interested in that.

Have you got a new credit card lately? Ours arrived the other day, and at first I wasn't sure what they were. I could show you a photo of the face of it in perfect safety. The old style with the raised number, date, and name is no more. Everything is now printed on the back. No doubt an accountant figured out these are cheaper to produce. 

My wallet used to be this thick wad of leather, stuffed with various cards and bits of paper that seemed important enough to carry around. I had a physiotherapist tell me that carrying it in my back pocket was contributing to my sciatica. But now it's much thinner. The only plastic cards I carry around are the credit and debit cards, Costco, drivers license, the pool admission card, and a card with my eyeglasses prescription. Paper includes the car insurance, blue cross and Alberta Health Insurance in a plastic sleeve, and a birth certificate in plastic that is beginning to come apart. 

Plus a bit of cash money I like to carry around in case there's a problem with the credit card system, or I feel like paying cash for some reason. There are those that suggest paying cash again so the merchants don't have to pay credit card fees, but then they have to deal with the cash, which has a different cost. Don't get me started on the inability of most people to count change correctly. 

And now that I think about it, I have no memory of how I actually came to have these exact bills in my wallet. Don't get me started on memory, or the lack of it. We remember the things that are important, and I guess those 3 rectangular pieces of plastic are not important.

I know lots of people that don't carry any cash or credit cards. They have photos or the electronic versions of their cards on their phone, which they carry everywhere. This seems to be overly trusting to me, but then I'm a geezer now. Although I must admit that the Coop app and paying with the phone is convenient. In other news it doesn't look like the Alberta driver's license can be added to a phone. I haven't checked to see if the other cards can be added. 

The problem with everything on your phone is what happens if you lose it or it's stolen? Or cell service/internet/bank computers/some other random bit of cloud computing goes down? Or, if you travel to a despotic country where they make you open your phone and apps so they can look for thought crime. I don't get why anyone who is not a citizen would travel to the USA just now. Or why you'd stay if you have somewhere else to be. It hasn't been a safe place to be for quite a while now, and it's no longer a free country.

We had some friends over for the Mexican train game version of dominos, which was lots of fun. We ended up with these lovely flowers. I've been waiting for the lilies to open, and this morning was the time.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Film

During stampede 2023, illustrating the problems of using a medium format range finder as if it were a autofocus point and shoot.

Linda

Newfoundland

Polar bears

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago

An early version of a print that isn't quite right yet.