The Meditation Route, Paper Cameras

We picked up a Paper Shoot Camera after I saw one at ATPI and figured it might be a fun upgrade for my daughter. She wants a better camera (see left, “Dad, why don’t my pictures look like yours?”) and I want her to stop relying on the screen so much, since it sucks (and she plays games on it). So this might be a nice way to teacher her to be a little more intentional and have a little more patience.

Think of this camera a digital version of the point-and-shoot disposables we had as kids. Just a shutter button and a selector switch (color, black and white, sepia, blue), with a paper cut-out for a viewfinder. I wanted to get a feel for it and for her to be a little older before I let her have it. So I am playing with it. Which brings me to the point.

There’s no quick way home from my office. I’d rather boil than sit in traffic, so one of the things I’ve done is work out a few different routes home. One of them is rather complicated.

There’s a lot to see on this drive home and I don’t think my wife will ever see it, so I used the paper to document parts of it. There’s a stretch of road so bad that I put my car in “X-Mode” to get though it. (More than once I’ve seen other cars try to follow me only to turn around at the bridge.) There’s industrial parks, rich neighborhoods, longhorns (in two different places actually, but I couldn’t get a shot of them), a weather radar station that always makes me think of Hilda or Twister, a daycare in an old church complete with historic cemetery, ducks, etc. Lots to look at.

I don’t need google for any of these routes I’ve made them so often. This one has become something of a meditation on the way home. I end up taking it even when traffic isn’t that bad. The route itself picks up after I gassed up near the office.