Philippine Asian News Today Vol 19 No 15 | Page 9

August 1 - 20, 2017 Life etc. by Jun Cordero Not sure if we can say we’ve had enough of this hot summer weather, with smoke and ash in the air from even far away wildfires. Surely this must be driving some people nuts already. Or maybe some people are really nuts. The warm weather brings lots of dangers, not only from wildfires but from wild critters - like bears coming down into inhabited areas. And what more can be nuts than this Chinese guy the other day who turned his back into a huge wandering black bear to take a selfie (of himself with the bear approaching his back). What a nut! Now that aI mention selfie, it wasn’t very long that the word never existed. About fifteen years ago I came across a small Radio Shack in Marysville Washington and they were clearing some stuff. PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY I saw what resembled a monopod that looked like a stainless telescopic fishing pole that had a threaded male nipple at the end. Turned out that this thing connects to the camera’s tripod nipple, which would allow you to take a photo of yourself. Remember, this was like fifteen years ago and it was called simply a camera rod. There was only one on the shelf with a clearance tag of eight dollars so for that price I thought it would be a novelty, so I took it. For some time it was forgotten in my camera bag. Whenever I want to include myself in pictures I simply use the camera timer. That’s it, so I never thought that rod to be of any use. One time we went vacationing in Hawaii I thought about using it so I brought it along as we toured the island. Swell enough it proved very handy as I took  photos, me included. But then in the middle of the tour my wife noticed that people were looking at us with a smile on their faces. My wife thought they were laughing at us, so I too began to be self-conscious using that thing. True enough, one guy was so curious that he came by and asked me where I got that thing. Anyways I didn’t want to be a laughing stock so I stopped using that rod. Checking in at the airport on the flight home I was held up at the x-ray conveyors. It turned out that they were putting my luggage back and again into the x- ray machine cause of something that caught Selfie their attention. Finally one inspector called me and told me what could be something inside that looked like a metal rod. When I opened my luggage I showed them my camera rod and the bewildered officers asked me what it was. I proudly attached my camera at the end and showed them how it worked. They all congratulated me and let me go. Soon enough, as history would show, the smartphone Toronto Calgary WWW.PHILIPPINEASIANNEWSTODAY.COM became smarter with those fancy cameras, and taking own’s “selfie” photos became popular, hence the birth of the “selfie stick”. I’m still proud to know that I’m a pioneer of this thingy, though nobody would even care. Anyways I’m glad with the fact that now I don’t get stopped at x-ray machines anymore because of that, and I don’t have to demonstrate to those airport guys anymore.