click, click...

 Once again thanks to my west coast brother, I know what a special day this is. Today is "World Photography Day."  If there is ever a celebration appropriate to celebrate world wide it is photography.  I love to take pictures.  I've travelled to all 50 states and 22 countries and taken pictures in every one of them, and seen tourists from many different countries also taking pictures.  I think it is probably the world's most popular hobby.  You may disagree and point to sporting events as the world's favorite hobby, but think how many pictures are taken at those events.  Did you see the flashes going off at the Olympics?  But I was taking picture long before that.  The oldest that I still have were taken with my little Brownie flash camera on our high school senior class trip to New York and DC.  Since then there have been family pictures and travel pictures taken with polaroid cameras, very nice cameras with flash attachments (my first husband had quite a few) and my recent Minolta that went on several vacations with me.  On one of my recent European trips I was very embarrassed when the lid over the battery compartment on that camera flopped open and the two batteries fell out and went clattering across a slate floor.  This wouldn't have been so bad except it was at a very hushed moment in a cathedral.  Since then my sole camera has been the one in my phone, which actually takes very nice pictures.  Last summer, when my now spouse and I were traveling in Michigan, I 'gasp' ran out of storage space on my phone.  I deleted some pictures and got through that trip ok.  Afterwards my wonder spouse didn't chide me for taking too many pictures, he simply added a whole bunch (that's a technical term) more memory to my phone.  Now we are about to embark on a western US driving trip and I know I'll be taking pictures, and I have another camera to try out, the one contained in my new tablet. I can't wait to see how it does.  One more note.  These days I can deposit checks in my checking account by taking pictures of them and submitting them to my bank.  This is very convenient, as I'm sure you know, but I get extra pleasure when the picture is taken because the phone makes a clicking noise just like my first camera.  Isn't life fun?