Five Friday Topics

Blog Post #5555!

I'm using the Willy Nilly Friday format today to share 5 different topics.

1. The theme for today's Photo Friday is Civilization.  This picture represents reading and art, two of the cornerstones for civilization. This sculpture is at Lord Fairfax Community College in Middletown, Virginia.

 2. The lake at our community's entrance looks pretty in the sunshine. I'm sharing this with Skywatch Friday, Weekend Reflections, and My Town Shoot Out.

3. My buddy Flash had minor surgery last week. He needed his teeth cleaned and one tooth extracted. Since he had to have anesthesia for the dental work, Dr. Coston removed the skin tag from his shoulder and and cut his nails extra-short. They've always been long and they grow quickly. This picture is a "before" shot. Flash seems to have recovered well.

4. My Canon G16 is back from the shop. It's now one year old and I've sent it to Canon for repair four times! They couldn't figure out what was wrong and tried to tell me it was perfectly fine. I got impatient on the phone and finally had their guy Dave (or Dayvon) talk to my husband, who has also experienced the problem. (The framing seen through the eyepiece gets way off sometimes after zooming.) Well, whatever Frank said gave Dave the idea to try something with the camera. He came back to the phone and said that the problem was with the digital zoom and he had been able to get it to do it himself!

It seems the zoom was automatically going into digital zoom and when I went back into optical zoom, the view from the eyepiece was no longer matching the actual image. The work-around is to turn off digital zoom from the tools menu. Now I've done that and the problem seems to be solved. I don't know why the tech people didn't figure that out and tell me before. Dave said they use set testing procedures which indicated all functions were operating as designed. I have been so frustrated with the problem since many shots were ruined by my not seeing what the camera saw. I blogged about this in October, November and December. Each time I sent it off, it was gone for several weeks.

This picture came out as planned. I cut it off deliberately; perhaps you recognize the motto.

Sharing with Signs, Signs and Orange You Glad It's Friday

5. Frank took this picture of me in a restaurant. I have a short list of restaurants where I can eat comfortably because I have a long list of food allergies. Add to that the other diets that I'm trying to follow in order to improve my digestion and other symptoms and it's challenging: low fermentable carbs (Fast Tract) diet, low-histamine diet, and low sulfur diet. Oh, and low-glycemic too but I'm neglecting that for now as it resulted in weight gain.

Anyway, the restrictions have limited my desire to travel, since I find that trying a new restaurant means I'll either get sick or at least wind up sending the food back to the kitchen because they forgot to follow instructions. That takes the joy out of traveling and a lot of the fun out of socializing! Right now my husband is on a vacation trip without me because I simply did not want to go. I hate flying anyway! We do take short car trips because I can pack food, but it's a hassle. I'd probably become a hermit if I didn't need human interaction at times.

 It's a good thing I live in a beautiful area. I can enjoy a staycation and have my meals at home. They are monotonous but at least they are safe. Well, except for reflux and weight gain. I could probably do better with those except that I can't stand feeling hungry and weak!