Let's add "weird gadgets" to the pantheon of things that amuse me. This isn't news to anyone who knows me well, but just in case anyone else is keeping score….

Thanks to a recent pitch by a young man working an 'event''for D.A.R.E., I'm now the proud possessor of a miniature digital camera. Let us be clear. I'm a firm believer in "you get what you pay for" and even as I forked over $20 for this 2" x 3" toy, I had little, if any, expectation that it would function as advertised. But D.A.R.E. is a worthy cause and the little camera was so cute and pink I just couldn't resist.

Imagine my delight, then, when I got the little cutie home, put in a battery, read the instructions, and started getting actual digital pictures out of it! Color me so impressed.

Sadly, I'm not actually a decent photographer, digital or otherwise, nor am I at all accomplished in using software to actually fix up photo problems. The camera does the job with great accuracy. Me, not so much.

Today is bright and sunny.

Note the absence of huge piles of dirty snow. There are still a few heaps and ridges of snow around, largely in spots that were either protected from last night's rain or that were too dense to be melted by a couple of hours of cool rain.

It doesn't show well but in this picture, that white stuff beyond the parked truck is snow. That spot catches a bit of sun during the day (as you can see) but it faces north and north-facing slopes don't melt off very fast in Colorado in the winter.

Bookcases were the next thing that struck my eye. Mostly because other people's bookcases always fascinate me.

So, pictures of various bookshelves around here.

As always, being sure you have the camera straight is really a problem for me.

As you can tell by the poor lighting, most of our bookcases don't live next to windows with much natural light. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get most of them to photograph. Only these few shelves came out even remotely visible before I got bored of the project. (It's odd. This apartment isn't that dark. It may be that there was too muchnatural light coming in at the wrong angles or something. I'm no photographer.)

I couldn't get things focused. There's no "focus" on this camera, so I guess I need to figure out how far away from things I'm supposed to be. The "view-finder" is a plastic square that doesn't precisely point at what you're photographing. Unlike more expensive cameras, you can't really check out the shot while it's on the camera. You have to come to the computer and upload the files to see what you've taken. It's all going to take practice.

There's just no end to the things I can find to do to avoid job-hunting, is there?