I talked with Ronn yesterday and he seemed pretty upbeat about the accident. He says Brenda is feeling the same way, although she still isn't able to eat solid food. All I can do is sit silent and listen. What kind of advice can you give unless you've been through the same experience? The little cuts and scrapes of my life don't count much against what they've been through these last two months since the accident. You sit and you listen and you hope you hear something upbeat because ultimately that's all that matters. Life is mostly attitude. The kids are safe and well, the bones are healed and solid food will come or solid food won't, the bones will ache or the bones won't, life is about more important stuff. (Turn it off, Prop. Right.)

The Nikon lens arrived today. A big chunk of glass with a lens shade that doesn't allow you to snap on the lens cap once the lens shade is mounted (moan), but so what. It gave me an excuse to shoot some pictures around the office. It's a nice lens for shooting people in a crowd and the light gathering ability of an f 1.4 lens allows it to autofocus practically in the dark. And, like all of the Nikon autofocus lenses, you can make an adjustment and switch to manual. I'm not going to say more about it for another month and then I'll see if I'm still using it or if this was just another way to spend money on toys that you play with for a couple of days and then forget about. I hope not. I'm not against spending money on toys, but I like to be honest about it. I think it will at least draw me out of the apartment this weekend for a walk through San Francisco, poke around a little and maybe look at the studio strobes at Gassers.       ;-)

I sent an email to Rien asking him to send me a copy of the CD he's made of his journal (complete with printed cover) and said I'd send him some numbers for his collection by the end of the month. Anyone who's read my journal knows about my tendency to, um, procrastinate, to promise to do things and then, well, not quite get them done on deadline. This has been a life's theme, one I would like to de-emphasize in my later years. Koff! Grow up. Act like a man. That stuff. And, as it happens, I've promised these very same numbers to Rien in the past and not delivered. My intentions have been good. Note the back of my Nikon. I read these every time I pick it up and then unfortunately forget them, a combination of procrastination and short term memory loss.

Rien naturally sent me the equivalent of an email grin saying, well, it would be alright to point this promise out on say, the 10th of next month, right? Well yes, of course. This is the new Prop, after all, the man who can (and besides), I already have a half a dozen numbers on film. Of course they're not all that good. Well, they're in focus and all that, but numbers for Rien, a video professional, have got to have a little zip, if only to maintain my self image. (Careful self, you'll back your ass into a corner. If you haven't already.)  Numbers. We don't use numbers anymore in America. Have I mentioned this recently? Is this not common knowledge in The Netherlands? How hard it is to find them anymore to photograph?