11.30 at night my friend R, ditched me in favour of a night of binging (who can blame him?). I decided to change plans from Yamuna Biodiversity Park to Okhla Bird Sanctuary. I taunted and teased R in an attempt to get him to come along, but he was helpless in the face of alcohol and women. I think at some point he wished me ill, and I brought upon myself, the curse of R.
I set the alarm to 5.29 am, 5.31 am and 5.35 am, and prepared to sleep.
Alarm Timings
Suddenly a few minutes after midnight I got a wave of inspiration to do something about a perpetual problem with my digital camera. When I am in sunlight or even bright light I can’t see the display. Which means that I can’t see the picture that I am taking, which means that I cannot take a picture. So I set about making a cardboard device to solve my problem. A pen, a pair of scissors, an old cardboard folder, scotch tape and a metal scale (which I found much later) were at my disposal. I first made a dummy with some white paper, made some minor changes to the die, and then constructed the all-light-digital-camera-display-enhancer device. I proudly reproduce it here. It may look simple, but I had to make pretty precise openings for the camera strap, the clicking and zooming switch and for sliding in the camera.
all-light-digital-camera-display-enhancer device
all-light-digital-camera-display-enhancer device another view
all-light-digital-camera-display-enhancer device yet another view
all-light-digital-camera-display-enhancer device aaargh yet another view
Well the great thing was that it worked wonderfully, I could take pictures in bright sunlight. But then the curse of R was upon me. Three things contributed to my not reaching Okhla Bird Sanctuary before 7.30 am.
1) The cellphone’s alarm was highly deceptive and I forgot to change the setting to every day, instead of weekday, as displayed below:
Deceptive alarm settings that regularly deceive me
I set the alarm to 5.29 am, 5.31 am and 5.35 am, and prepared to sleep.
Alarm Timings
Suddenly a few minutes after midnight I got a wave of inspiration to do something about a perpetual problem with my digital camera. When I am in sunlight or even bright light I can’t see the display. Which means that I can’t see the picture that I am taking, which means that I cannot take a picture. So I set about making a cardboard device to solve my problem. A pen, a pair of scissors, an old cardboard folder, scotch tape and a metal scale (which I found much later) were at my disposal. I first made a dummy with some white paper, made some minor changes to the die, and then constructed the all-light-digital-camera-display-enhancer device. I proudly reproduce it here. It may look simple, but I had to make pretty precise openings for the camera strap, the clicking and zooming switch and for sliding in the camera.
all-light-digital-camera-display-enhancer device
all-light-digital-camera-display-enhancer device another view
all-light-digital-camera-display-enhancer device yet another view
all-light-digital-camera-display-enhancer device aaargh yet another view
Well the great thing was that it worked wonderfully, I could take pictures in bright sunlight. But then the curse of R was upon me. Three things contributed to my not reaching Okhla Bird Sanctuary before 7.30 am.
1) The cellphone’s alarm was highly deceptive and I forgot to change the setting to every day, instead of weekday, as displayed below:
Deceptive alarm settings that regularly deceive me
