My sister, Becky, recently took a really great close-up of an infant lilac flower which inspired me to try my own amateur hand at digital macro photography. This is a baby pine cone, smaller than a pencil eraser, on a tree in my front yard. It's almost miraculous what these little digital point-and-shoot cameras can do nowadays; super-bright flash (anyone remember expensive flash bulbs that you basically exploded and threw in the garbage?), auto exposure settings for different light situations, black-and-white and lots of other artistic digital darkroom settings, storage space for literally hundreds of photos, not to mention video with sound... it's almost enough to make a guy forget about hard times! Almost.
I guess the main thing is... how cool is this little pine cone?