(this space to be kept blank)

They say things happen in threes. Don't know about that however during this past week we have lost three actors of note: Darren McGavin, Don Knotts, and Dennis Weaver. Now I wonder when we wil lose three politicians of note.

Well, I see where the city planning commision has approved the Rincon Towers. These will be two high rise condominiums near the Bay Bridge whose construction technique was called into question by authorities as it provides most of the building's strength from the central core. Hmm...sort of reminds me of two other twin towers that no longer exist.

Camera...camera...whose gotta a camera. Well, people whose hobby is photography probably do and I certainly do having acquired and/or gone through seven generations of digital cameras since 1999 and now contemplating an eighth model. One of these, the first generation Olympus D400-Z is certainly a museum piece bieng capable of only 1.2 megapixels. It still works, I think, but I need to charge up its batteries to be sure. My Canon G6 is an upgrade from the G3. The Sony U60 is a small and strangely shaped underwater camera that uses AAA NiMH batteries which are very difficult to find and the camera will not accept the alkaline version of AAA thereby rendering it nearly useless now. I guess that is another museum piece also. Camera manufacturers need to ditch the NiMH batteries as the Lithium Ion battery packs are much more efficient. My complaint about the rechargeable NiMH batteries is that they give little warning before going dead and unless you have a second set charged up or the camera can operate with two AA alkaline batteries, you might find yourself dead in the water at the wrong time. Having only one battery set though is a bad idea regardless of what type of batteries the camera takes. One should always have a second set charged up and ready to go at a moments notice. Even with my Canon's long lasting lithium-ion battery pack, I failed to take notice of the situation one time and found myself in the midst of the Bronx Zoo with a dying battery on my hands.

Ah, the rains continue but then this is only March. March?? Yikes! Where is the year going? It seems like only yesterday it was Christmas. Ha!

Time to renew my opera and symphony season tickets now. I don't know what the symphony will cost me for 2006/2007 but the opera tickets (per production) will be the same as last year but there are ten productions for the new season instead of nine. $37 per opera in the balcony is not bad considering what some other venues charge and there are cheaper alternatives for the student and senior "rush" tickets. Sports fans sometimes ask about the "expensive" opera tickets not realizing what the tickets on the 50 yard line cost compared to a box seat at the opera, which, it turns out, are similarly priced.

But where am I going with this you may wonder. That is a very good question. Guess I better sign off for now and go collect my thoughts if I can find them. (Now where did I leave them anyway?)