Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

It is with sadness and some puzzlement that I report a development on the road-trip front: My camera appears to be dead from unspecified and un-diagnose-able internal injuries.

The Olympus D-580 Zoom is, with slight exaggeration, the BESTEST point-and-shoot digital camera ever, at least for my purposes. (Well, except for the out-of-focus shots.) It had a great photo-size-to-file-size ratio, its skies were blue, and its grasses were green. I think so highly of it that I bought a replacement when the lower-right corner of photos taken with the first one seemed to be out of focus. (I left the batteries in that one before storing it, and the compartment is now corroded.)

UPDATE: A new D-580 Zoom has been acquired. A test run will come soon. Yes, I’m this much of a stick in the mud.

The camera recently had problems with functioning after months of inactivity, even with new batteries. Last Sunday I opened the lens case and the monitor blinked like the time circuits after the DeLorean got hit by a train. Before that, the only issue was requiring a date reset with installation of new batteries — minor, but suddenly super tedious when taking the batteries out and putting them in again to try and make the camera work.

That model of camera accounts for probably 90% to 95% of all pictures I’ve taken over the past 11 years, in multiple states and around Iowa. There’s a chance it’s only mostly dead, but in all likelihood it will end up in storage. (My wildest dream is that it and my pictures eventually make their way to the State Historical Building as a comprehensive visual record of Iowa highways and towns in the early 21st century.)

In lieu of condolences send tips on how to stop a Coolpix S7000 from turning a clear blue sky white. (UPDATE: I could still use those.)

September 16, 2015: “In this school house on March 20, 1854, was held the first mass meeting in this country that definitively and positively cut loose from old parties, and advocated a new party under the name of Republican.”

In 1854, a group of Wisconsinites met in a one-room schoolhouse in Ripon to take a stand against slavery. They determined that a new political party was the best way to make that happen.

This week, one hundred and fifty years after fielding its first candidate for president, a party whose call for the nation was once “Free soil, free labor, free speech, free men” was taken over by someone whose belief system is closest to the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.

On top of that, Deez Nuts isn’t running anymore.

December 30, 2005: Restored Apollo-era Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Today Bill Clinton’s first presidential inauguration — Jan. 20, 1993 — marks the halfway point between the moon landing and the present day. Starting now, events during the Clinton administration shift past this historical marker.

Remember a country that, literally and metaphorically, thought the sky was the limit? I miss that place, or at the very least, I miss hearing about it.

Related: The code for the Apollo computer has been uploaded to the Internet

Related: Iowan’s “Go” made difference for Apollo 11