A present from my father

My father can be quite loving.  He's not overly demonstrative or lenient but he is devoted to his children and he's there for us whenever we need him.  Like many fathers, he also does his best to provide for us and think up solutions to our problems.

One day, when he was driving me to work, I talked with him about my lenses and how I was worried that they might develop a nasty case of fungus.  Four lenses is plenty and even if I rotate them at the rate of one a week (which I don't; some, like my long lens, don't get called into action very often), each lens still spends three weeks languishing humidly on the shelf.  I was thinking of investing in a dry cabinet and mentioned it to my father, a former photography enthusiast, to get his opinion.

"It would be cheaper to get a dry box with silica gel," he pointed out, "and bake it in the oven like I used to do."

We reached my workplace and as I exited the car, I said that I would think about it.

When I got home that night, I found a giant bottle of silica gel on my bed, along with this:

My very own dry box with a built-in hygrometer and a padded bottom from (where else but) Mustafa!  Apparently after I had left, my father made a split second decision and drove to Mustafa to talk with the counter staff about their dry boxes.  When he saw that they were selling this one for $29, he bought it on the spot.

This is one of the best presents my father has ever gotten me.  It slides nicely under my bed, but all my lenses fit into it, even leaving room for a couple more.  The silica gel (which feels like little plastic beads) goes into the little white tray on the top and stays sufficiently active for about a week and a half.

Once the hygrometer reading climbs to about 60 per cent humidity, I take the gel out, put it into a tray made of moulded aluminium foil and bake it.  I went online to make sure that I was doing it correctly and basically, it's a pretty easy process.

You put the silica gel in a foil tray and pop it into a pre-heated oven at about 180 degrees celcius.  Some websites say you can heat it at much higher temperatures but I've also heard that if it gets too hot, the gel loses some efficacy.  So 180 it is.  After it's baked for about an hour, I turn the oven off but leave it in for another hour to cool and to properly dry out.  If you have colour indicator silica gel, you'll have no problem knowing when it's done.  In fact, it's really cool.

Saturated silica gel is this gnarly pinkish-purple colour.

If you've baked it enough, it is deeply, royally, unequivocally blue.  I actually find myself looking forward to my silica gel baking every week just because I can watch the beautiful colours turn.

My father might not spoil us financially or with his words and standards, but he can't stand to see anyone of us hurting or losing sleep over a problem.  Whenever it is in his power to step in and help to solve it, he does everything he can.  In some ways, taking this supportive position is more reassuring than anything else he could do.

I am so, so grateful for my amazing dry box and I have to say, my dad made a bang up decision.