Bonzai: Thoughts and Expressions

I slept OK last night but for some reason was ready to get up around 8:00am. I got up and started burning the CDs that I hadn’t gotten to last night. All in all it took 5 CDs to house the pictures that I took from the moment I arrived to this point. Little did I know, there were more to come.

When my newly married sister and brother-in-law walked in the door somewhere around mid morning, I handed them the CDs and was ready to get on with other tasks besides pictures. Guess again. I quickly found out that their intentions were to open their wedding gifts and they requested I take pictures of this event as well. Ok, fine. I set up the tripod and grabbed a chair. Click. Click. Click. Ooooo… Ahh…. Done. Here’s another photo CD archive for you. I must say that at this point I realized that I had taken well over 1000 pictures with my sturdy new camera – without recharging the battery! This may not sound like much at first but this is an 8 mega pixel SLR camera and I was anticipating that I would outshoot the battery. Not so. I was also pleased that I shot for the entire day on Saturday without changing the CF card. Granted, this is a 4GB micro-drive but it was still sweet to not have to worry about it. I highly recommend this camera to any semi-serious photographer or other hack like me that likes to take pictures.

After the gifts, I assisted in cleaning and packing up some of the rental equipment that needs to be returned tomorrow. This went well and we were done sometime in the afternoon, leaving time for an impromptu game of back yard volleyball with the kids. Good clean wholesome fun with Papa, Uncle Bonzai and the kids.

Papa & Duncan at the 'fishin' hole'

Sometime late in the afternoon, we decided we were going fishing. There is a stocked little fishing hole somewhere in the middle of a corn field in Charlotte where a kind old soul named “Eddie” keeps the area looking like a manicured park. This is where we went fishing – my 6 year old son for the first time in his life. Normally the fish are jumping out of this pond to bite your hook. I don’t know if it was the smell of North Carolina on the hook or what but they weren’t having anything to do with us tonight. Among the many people dangling lines in the water, thee were two of us that caught small fish that night – my nephew and me. The funny part of this little story was that my wife, who had to be talked into going to see her own son’s first fishing experience, grabbed a pole after about 10 minutes of watching and was determined that she wasn’t leaving until she caught a fish! Hm. After about an hour of no activity in the water, the kids started entertaining themselves in other ways – running around, catching frogs, etc. My wife wasn’t budging. Another hour rolls by and she is the only one with a line cast. Another 30 minutes go by and now, the sun has set and the stars are visible. We’ll try again tomorrow, dear, let’s go! Eventually she was lured back into the cars and we were able to go home for the night.