San Juan Island.... sans camera

Today mom and I went to San Juan Island with some friends of hers from Bellevue. It's an absolutely lovely place. I went there once before, to Friday Harbor, when I was in high school by whale watching boat. I got seasick. That wasn't so much fun. But today was wonderful. If I had been organizing the trip, I would have done things quite a bit differently, but I wasn't. For example, it's not exactly a large island. I would have preferred to rent a bike and see the island that way. Instead, we rode around in a big van. Also, we went on a short hike, and one of the ladies is rather overweight and could barely manage the 2.5mi or so. She's a lovely person, but she would probably do well to be more active. There was also a huge kayaking group, and it was such a beautiful day today, just as good as yesterday.

Unfortunately, I had only a disposable camera that I bought at the general store in Friday Harbor. Still, the place is simply so beautiful that my pictures will be good regardless of the inferiority of my equipment. There was one point, walking along the coastline, that I had to stop and just absorb the beauty all around me because it was so overwhelming. I didn't appreciate my home enough while I lived here before. I won't make that mistake again. Speaking of cameras, I believe I'm going to buy myself a new lens if I successfully get this job in Seattle. My current standard lens is fairly low quality, and I want to take better pictures. The camera body is quite good, but the lens really makes or breaks the picture, and I can see that clearly with the difference between the pictures I take with the telephoto lens and my standard, because the standard is a low quality consumer product and the telephoto is a medium quality product. I would like to get an actually good lens and see what I can do with it.

Last night, I saw '3:10 to Yuma' with M. It was wonderful!! I have always loved Westerns, it reminds me of going to visit my grandpa. We always watched the Sunday morning Western re-runs. I don't know how many reruns of Bonanza and Gunsmoke I've seen, but Marshal Dillon (played by James Arness) was my hero as a kid. (The Westerns were mainly because we weren't allowed to watch anything else but painting shows and the news, and you can only take so much Brillo-head before wanting to watch something else). Anyway, Russell Crowe and Christian Bale OWNED their parts, and Ben Foster did a fantastic job as Charlie Prince. I really, really enjoyed the performances in this movie. When I get Netflix, I'm going to order everything Christian Bale has ever done that I haven't seen yet. I am, as ever, completely blown away by his talent.