Lost

The haunted lake lighthouse located behind some trees on Hanlan's Point.

We have all done this at one time or another. Loosing a cell phone on the bus, forgetting a camera in a bar, taping over an unwatched TV show, locking yourself out of your apartment to do laundry, locking yourself out on the apartment balcony (while doing laundry), attempting to eat a really hot bagel. Yes, losing your mind for a few seconds/minutes only to discover that you made a terrible error and as a result have lost something or have found yourself in a peculiar position. The results vary but the question that comes up after is always the same, "Why did I just do that?" or maybe even "Fu*k!", depending on how bad the situtation is.

Usually the said event happens after a segment of time when everything seems to be going okay. It's like someone (possibly upstairs) says "Hey don't get too comfortable" or "Appreciate what you have". One day you wake up, maybe still sleepy, you put the house keys in the freezer while getting out some frozen blueberry waffles. After eating breakfast you leave for work and realize you don't know where your keys are. Then you go around looking for your keys that you knew you had earlier that morning. If you're lucky you get your keys in time and get to work. If you're not too lucky, you get to work a bit late. If you're really unlucky, you get to work but have to smash in the lock on your door when you get home. It's like the brain stops working for a second.

First off I would like to say that I'm glad, and I'm sure other people are too, that I'm not an air traffic controller or doctor. "Where did I put that plane?", "The sponge was right there on the tray a second ago.". Not everyone is ON all the time but there are those that are ON more of the time than others. I would like to think I'm one of those people. Until something like this comes along and informs me otherwise.

For me it's usually due to lack of sleep (as stated above - yes that was me with those house keys) or maybe because there's a girl involved. A lot of bad things come from the result of thinking of the opposite sex. It's kind of like seeing a girl then walking into a column or street lamp. That's on a good day. The brain stops thinking for a second and then there are the consequences. Today my brain turned off while taking a pebble out of my shoe. Well before I get to that let me paint a picture of what I was doing today...

Tuesday. I decided to go to the Toronto Islands to take pictures. Newspapers predicted rain and maybe some thunder. Well we didn't get thunder but we did get rain. As I tend to set out to do something that my brain has decided on (stupid brain), I left the house and went to the Islands. As soon as the boat dropped me off at Hanlan's Point (the western part of the Islands) it started to rain. It came down in buckets.

I waited around till the rain eased up then proceeded towards centre island (located between Wards and Hanlans, the three are actually one big island). There was a beach with a lot of birds lying around so I thought I'd shoot some of them. Crawling on my stomach to get some worm eye photos eventually pebbles managed to find their way into the holes of my shoe. There was a nearby bench where I decided to put down my tripod, sit on a semi-wet bench, take my shoe off, and get the pebbles out.

I continued to walk along the boardwalk to Wards island and when I got to the end and the ferry docks I decided to take a picture of the Toronto skyline. I decided to use the tripod so I could take a series of pictures for a large panormic shot only there was no tripod. Crap! I left it on the bench at centre island. I walked back the pebble extraction bench only to find it wasn't there.


The bench that I left my tripod on (between the center island snack bar and the boardwalk going towards Wards island).

The lost and found building was closed and the lost and found building on the Toronto shore didn't find anything. I'm hoping someone returns it over the next few days. I left my phone number in case someone does. My gut feeling is that I'll have to buy another one.

When you loose something you always tell yourself things like "Well that wasn't very bright" or "It could be worse". It's funny, I said that to myself just before losing my tripod when a drink machine, I was trying to buy a bottle of lemonade, gave me my change without giving me my drink. "Gee, I lost $2.75. Well it could be worse". Yes you could have lost a tripod worth $500.

The guys working at the Ferry docks were quite helpful and sympathetic. Through them I heard some kid burnt his hands on a park barbeque because he forgot it was hot from his parents cooking on it earlier. Painful and not too bright. I decided losing a tripod is better than third degree burns on your hands. So yes, "It could be worse".

Despite the loss I'm still trying to optimistic that the someone who found it will turn it in and I'll get a call sometime this week. Keeping my fingers crossed. In the meantime I will be looking into new tripod gear. I've always wanted a carbon fiber tripod with a head that rotates around the camera lens axis and has a hex mount.