Fall In Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia

Today I had to run into Williamsburg, Va., to Massey's Camera Shop to pick up a memory card for my newfangled digital camera. I've been looking to score a step up in the camera department from my point and shoot for some time, both for work and play and finally pulled the trigger on one ... only to order it online and when it arrived find out it doesn't come with a memory card. Which makes it hard to take photos that are a step up from my point and shoot. The folks at Massey's were excellent, and I highly recommend them for all your photography-related needs. If you're in Williamsburg. And need a camera. Or camera equipment, gear, paraphernalia, etc., etc. You get the idea. (Editor's note: You'd think Massey's Camera Shop was paying you for advertising. Author's reply: Now there's an idea! Shameless blogging name-dropping for dollars!)

So I walk out of the store and my Volvo (more name-dropping!) is parked down there and as soon as I hop in there I have to drive home -- albeit down the Colonial Parkway (www.nps.gov/colo/parkway.htm ... cha-ching!), which is particularly splendorous at the moment with the trees all ablaze in color, hardly any traffic -- and go to "work" writing a story about road construction in Gloucester (complete with photos!)...hmmmmm. Or I could take a walk into Colonial Williamsburg (www.history.org) proper on a 70-degree Fall day and, uh, you know, "test out my camera" to make sure it works properly with my new excellent memory card from Massey's Camera Shop. I'll give you one guess which route I took. Boy it was a beautiful day to walk around Williamsburg and "work" the kinks out of my new Sony (bet you knew that was coming, eh?) digital camera that I bought from B&H Photo Video Pro Audio "The Professional's Choice" (a credit on my account is forthcoming, I'm sure.) and had it shipped via UPS, where "We Love Logistics" (maybe they'll let us ship something free to Brenton and Taylor?).

As you see up there, I snapped some photos of the Colonial Williamsburg scenery, getting the bugs out of the camera. Everything went very well and I'm pleased to report my camera seems to respond just fine, despite the limitations of the shooter. This whole adventure raised a troubling ethical question, however. Tomorrow is Nov. 23, at least on my calendar. The temperature here is supposed to hit 75 degrees. Seriously! I mean, isn't it snowing in half the country? And it will be warm enough here to play in the sprinkler in the yard! Here's the dilemma. On what may be the last beautiful day of the year in our neck o' the woods, and considering I have no personal days or vacation days left, at what point is it unethical to "come down with a fever," or to have a "migraine," or to have "some sort of bug," that requires me to stay home from work? Well, technically I work at home so it makes it even doubly tougher not to work, even when sick. I'm not saying I would do something like that. No sireee. I'm just saying that I can see how the average American worker could be faced with the dilemma of being "sick" on a day when it would be so much finer to take the family on an outing and, uh, you know, work out the kinks in my camera and practice in a real-life situation so I would be ready to use it for work. Or something like that.