It was another busy evening downtown tonight. People — the ones driving cars at least — seemed to be in a rather sour mood. There was a lot of honking and aggressive driving. I was in a pretty good mood, though, being on vacation and having just beaten a cold. I’m just glad I wasn’t in a car trying to navigate downtown Seattle today…

39 degrees may not be very cold in parts of the country which have real winters (a couple of which I’ve lived in), but it’s too cold for me. My hands were numb by the time I got home. However, apparently it’s not too cold to play in the Seattle Center fountain, as you can see in the photos above.

The camera works very well, though the photographer was malfunctioning a bit today. The lenses I ordered don’t actually come until Monday, so I was shooting with only a 50mm f/1.8. On the 10D, that’s equivalent to about an 80mm lens. That certainly wouldn’t have been my first choice of lens for most of the things I shot today, but it was an interesting challenge. It’s good to stretch yourself and shoot in ways you normally wouldn’t. Still, I’m looking forward to getting some wider lenses soon.

I got a new toy this week — a Canon EOS 10D digital SLR. It’s very fun so far, though I haven’t had a lot of time to play with it yet. For me, a digital SLR can’t fully replace a compact like the Powershot G3. I need to have something relatively small and light to carry around. But I also really like having the flexibility of an SLR when I want it.

I’ll try to post some photos from the new camera tonight or tomorrow, if it’s not too cold and/or nasty to go out and shoot some today.

On a related note, why are camera stores so terrible? And I’m not talking about the bait and switch New York mail order places — I mean the local ones. Even the ones that are supposed to be good. Even the ones that have nothing to do with Ritz. I can’t think of a single camera store that I’ve been to more than once and had a good experience every time. Most of the time, the employees seem sleazy, condescending, clueless or some combination thereof, the prices are high and the selection is (relatively) poor. “Oh, you want what? No, nobody buys those. Why would you want that?!”

Don’t get me wrong — I’m all for supporting local businesses, and I’m completely willing to pay extra to get better service (and instant gratification) at a local shop instead of going online or mail order. If I actually got better service, that is. But all too often I feel like I’m getting the high local prices along with the bad mail order service. Or even worse. At least the websites don’t talk to me like I’m a moron…