Experts

Out and about early...wanted to try out the new camera...kodak easy share z990....Kingfisher was at Chapel Bridge...paused to set up, but Kingfisher moved upriver, and a jogger jogged across the Bridge, and I couldn't relocate Kingfisher...tried, made the Outside Loop staying close to the Merced...quiet...Ouzel, Flicker, Pileated, DownyOrHairy, Ravens, all faraway sightings or calls, and Robin at Ozone Beach piping...at Lunch, Two Robins at same location piping, and Ouzel, Raven, Acorn, calls, and at very last light, a flight of Mallards, six?, going downriver....sunnyblueblue, cold in the morning, cool...and I didn't take any pics of note...took an hd movie to try the zoom, 30x optical...I might leave the digiscope behind a lot on walks to come!...and a pic...sky is too green, and at 12 megapixels pics compares to the canon d10, though the d10 pixellation doesn't look as jaggedy...I have to take more pics to see what all is happening...camera is very much like the canon s3....same on and off toggle, and separate toggle zoom...I think these cameras all use the same internal parts, or something...this is the fourth point and shoot of this sort, long zoom lenses, that I have...first three were canons: one I broke the fold out lcd screen, and still can use the view window, another I've bent the edge of the lens bezel, and it's useless...oh...the one with the hd, the hd quit....and the old s3 always had a problem with the usb connnetion...had to wiggle it to download pics...I'm trying to be extra careful with this new camera...keep the lens cap on, and remember to remove it before pics...I carry it, like all the cameras, in a pouch...I dont understand the photogs wandering about hereabout with cameras dangling at their sides from neckstaps!...one, from europe, had no strap, and hand carried his camera, and made a living with it going around the world...sometimes I use the neckstrap...within a few steps, I can be scrambling up a slope, or in the river, or crowded by rocks and trees, but the most hazardous places for cameras is inside dwellings and such--bumps and falls, and changes in humidity!....anywayanyway, at break I had one of the usual roundabout conversations, that went a bit like this...

"...sure!...you're an expert of some sort!"
"oh, I think not...if I were, folk would be coming up to me for advise!....but let me think on this...well, if  I taught a kid to tie their shoes, I might be an expert of that, shoe tying, from the kids perspective...and I suppose we all have some skills of this sort....expertese is relative...if you have something someone else doesn't, you're an expert to them...oh!...like being able to see, and being an expert to blind people for this!"
"you would be king of the blind!"
at this, my thoughts were brought up short, do we consider our leaders as having sight expertise we don't have?...hmmph...."I suppose I would be king, but how would the blind know I was telling the truth?...I could just be making things up, and blind as the rest..."
"they would know, people can tell if you are not telling the truth..."
"oh!, then blind people can see!"
"yes"
"I suppose if I stepped up to the plate, and asked the catcher, 'will the pitch be a fastball?'...and he said. 'yes', I could tell if he was lying?..."
"yes"
"....that could be useful"...and I recounted a scene on tv show ncis where the interrogators gave the suspect a donut, and asked questions while he was eating, commenting on the truth of his answers by how he ate the donut!...."but back to the blind, they have no way of telling if the one with sight's reports are true..."
and break was over....

the conversation has a backstory, or back conversation, that I mull over often, and the subject is what the Critters see...a bit more on this for sometime!....