Exposing for Highlights

I broke away from World of Warcraft to play with my camera last night. For all my big talk, there's still lots I don't know how to do with it. And when I look at the calendar and see, hey, it's been almost three years since I dropped out of photography school, I forgive myself. I was so burned out, mentally and financially, that I haven't *wanted* to play with any cameras. I've got boxes of slides I half want to throw away. The pictures aren't bad, I just don't want to deal with it. I just want to set it all on fire, let it burn and start again. At least with digital the only burning I'll do is to CD. (buh-dum-dum)

I probably looked like a loon, wandering around the front yard, snapping pictures of the grass. I figured I should know how to change from matrix to spot metering and lock the exposure but not the focus, and I found a site where they provided custom tonal curves for a better exposure so I uploaded those onto the camera. When I can save up another $175 I'm going to buy a set of filters for Photoshop that do awesome effects. My camera won't shoot black-and-white, but with these filters, nobody'll be able to tell. And I bought the pieces that'll supposedly combine together and make a nice eyecup so I don't have to squint and waste my surgically-enhanced vision. Hobbies are fun.

In other news, I sat down at my desk last night to a very large envelope filled with 44 pages of bills from the electric company. "Due June 2," it said, in bold letters, "$1027.52." Apparently, they've been misreading the meter for many months. I had a minor panic attack, and called the customer service line. One of the many messages I had to listen to before speaking to a human was my current balance, which said, "$224.61." When I finally got through, I asked the woman what was going on. She couldn't explain much, there weren't any notations on my account except an $800 credit. Our monthly bills have been lower recently, but I didn't think much of it. I figured the electric company knew what it was doing. Sadly, it didn't. But at least it sounds like it's only a $200 clerical error versus a $1000 error. Cross your fingers for me. I'm not giving up our Yosemite trip over this.