Lessons Learned?

I thought I had learned my lesson when I left my camera at home one evening. I said "It's just a few miles to pick up my son." and "It's dark out, so it's not likely to see anything photo-worthy" and left the camera at home. Of course, I saw not one, but 2 Javelinas grazing on the plants and bushes in the neighborhood. And I said I learned my lesson: "You can't take a good picture without your camera."

I have been good about it, bringing my camera whether I am just going out to lunch, or heading up to the lake or looking for a sunset or just going to work. It has paid off. It paid off when I saw the wild horses on my way home from work one day. It paid off a couple times when I saw roadrunners on the way back from visiting my parents. It paid off when there was an accident and I was able to get a neat shot of a helicopter taking off with a line of traffic waiting for the road to clear. Suffice it to say that I have quite a number of pictures that I like that I would not have gotten if I only had my camera when I was "going shooting".

One day last week, I decided to ride the motorcycle to work. I decided that between that and the work bowling party in the afternoon, I would leave the camera at home. The bumpier ride on the motorcycle is probably not the best for the camera and keeping an eye on my DSLR at the bowling alley would be tricky. Since I was also bowling, I would have to juggle bowling and taking pictures and I just decided to take a day off from the camera.

What do you think happened? Yup, on the way in to work, there was about 10 wild horses closer to the road than I have ever seen them. Even worse (for me without my camera) there were at least two cute little colts in the herd. Very frustrating, but wait, it gets worse (or better if you are getting some kind of satisfaction from my pain).

Several miles later I see an airplane in the desert. Not flying as they sometimes do here, but on the ground with at least one person walking around it. I suspect the pilot had to make an emergency landing as this was not a cleared-off area of the desert and they were stopped very close to a tall saguaro cactus (would have a bad thing if they had hit it).

So now I am thinking that I should get a mid-to-high end point and shoot camera. I liked my Canon A95 PowerShot, but it was a bit bulky for all-the-time carry. I might have to look around at some of the littler Nikons like the CoolPics and see if I have been good enough of a Dad this year to deserve a Father's Day present.

Do you have a compacy point-and-shoot camera? If so, which one and how do you like it? Leave me a comment here or yell at me on Twitter or post a comment on my Flowing Desert FanPage on FaceBook.