Tim Rettig's Blog

Alaskan Tundra

Once we arrived, we got our gear, piled into the pickup truck and drove to our “hotel” to check in.  The hotel is actually just some shipping containers joined together into a building. Read the rest of this entry »

For some reason, anytime I have a new trip or project to undertake, I have a need to get a new gadget.  Mostly the gadget takes the form of a camera.  For instance, when my son was born, I picked up a new camera on the way to the hospital.  That is not an exaggeration – it was literally on the way to the hospital.  My wife’s water broke in the morning, and while I am driving her to the hospital, I stopped at Best Buy and purchased a new camera while she waited in the car.  Somehow she forgave me and we are still married.  When my second child was born two years later, she made sure I had purchased a new camera well in advance.

Due to my affliction, my trip to Barrow resulted in the purchase of yet another camera.  This time it is the Olympus Stylus Tough 8000.  This is a pocket camera that has the unique feature of being waterproof to 33ft, shockproof to 6ft, crushproof to 220 pounds, and freezeproof to 14 degrees Fahrenheit.  http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/product.asp?product=1448

Now, to be honest, I’ve never crushed, dropped, submerged, or frozen a camera before.  But I didn’t want to take any chances that I might on this trip.  I also have a whitewater rafting trip coming up, and I would like to be able to take a camera along in the raft, and this camera should allow me to do that.  I’ve been using the camera for 2 days now and I must say I like it a lot.

The camera has 12 Megapixels of resolution, which is pretty impressive for a compact pocket camera.  But what really impressed me was Read the rest of this entry »