The latest in my long line of fine purchases is the telescope. And a fancy little telescope it is. It’s not very useful for pretending to be a captain of a pirate ship, but other than that it is quite nice.

I took it on a test drive on Monday. Going up to see the goats. When I came to the traffic lights, I could not make out the lights. Even with my filter glasses on I could not see them. It always varies a little, how well I can see the lights. Depending on the sun and how my eyes are and other factors I’m sure. But I whipped out the telescope and it was quite easy to get a fix on the lights and thus I was able to tell when they turned green. So that was succesful.

I also tried if I could use the telescope to read the clock on my cell phone. I was sort of able to do it, but it was very difficult. So it’s not something I can just do quickly and easily, but in a pinch it works.

Finally I also tried it out at the supermarket. Getting tomatoes. There’s usually a specific number of tomatoes you need to buy (at least if you want the discount group price) but the number varies. Sometimes 7, sometimes 10. So I tried the telescope to look at the sign. The problem with the sign is that it’s behind the actual tomatoes, so I can’t go right up to it to get a close look. But with the telescope I could zoom in. It took a while to find the right amount of zoom, though. And it makes me very self-conscious. I feel pretty silly standing there in front of the tomatoes with a telescope. I don’t like doing that. And for general shopping I think a good old-fashioned magnifying glass is handier.

But at the traffic light at least, the telescope was really helpful. I don’t know how often I’ll get to use it, but it’s good to have. Along with the CCTV and the filter glasses I have gotten some really helpful stuff lately. Also the new vacuum cleaner is working brilliantly. So so much better than the old one. I can literally hear it sucking up filth that the old one just pushed around. The only downside is that I now have to start changing bags when they’re full. The old one didn’t use bags. But that’s a small price to pay for the extra suction.

Speaking of the goats, here is a video: youtube.com/watch?v=qIj_MueaxEs. Some amusing scenes. The goats get spooked by a rooster (not a hen, I have been corrected). A couple of times. And Magnethe snorted warning signals. And also stepped up with both hooves on my thigh. She is much, much too heavy to be doing that. I had to push her down immediately. But it did make me laugh, too. Good times.

Today I got another postal visit. Not the mailman who thought I wasn’t old enough to get the mail straight to my door. This was another guy, and he was somewhat more understanding. He told me that he had accidentally put my mail in the box downstairs. Instead of delivering it straight to my door, as the sticker on the box says to. He asked me if I wanted him to go downstairs and get it for me, if I’d just give him my key. I was a bit flustered at the unexpectedness of it all, so I just said yes and gave him my key. In retrospect it’s probably not a smart thing to start handing out my key to strangers. It works both my mailbox and my front door. But oh well, I could fairly tell that he was a mailman. And he came back a minute later with my mail and my key, so there was no problem. And there wasn’t even anything interesting in the mail. Typical.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 13th, 2010 at 20:55 and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.