Death and taxes

Two things come to mind as I sit down to right this column; death and taxes.
Well this past week I received what I would have expected to be quite a joyous gift. On Thursday I was given a brand new digital camera for me to use at the Record.
Having always been one who has loved technological advances at the paper, I had anticipated that when the digital photography age finally reached my hands I would be extremely elated.
While the new tool to do my job is exciting, a part of my soul died Thursday.
I have been shooting film based cameras for about 25 years. About 16 years ago I purchased a Canon T90. Said to be the most advanced camera ever built in its day and almost too advanced. Its photos have graced thousands of pages of the Record and countless weddings have been shot with it.
So when the digital arrived and basically said, move over film, I was a bit sad. Old Bessie, as I have been calling her since Thursday, still has a few good years in her I will continue to use her at big events that the digital can’t handle.
As the times change so does technology... I guess I just never figured Bessie would get old... then again I never thought I would get old either.
I also have a thought about taxes.
Like so many people I spent some time on the weekend doing my income tax. I pay thousands of dollars throughout the year in income tax. Then once a year I have to sit down and suffer the head aching process of filling out those forms... usually to discover I have to pay some more. I think that we should be allowed to deduct the time it takes to do those forms that I would have thought would have been replaced by something high tech long before Old Bessie had to be retired.
–Until then,
Ken