Month: December 2022

Week 34 Weigh In

Hello and welcome to this week’s weigh in. It has been 34 weeks since my Gastric Bypass Surgery. This is the final weigh in of 2022 and the first without a cat in the house. Yeah, I’m sad.

Nothing Earth shattering this week as far as number milestones are concerned, with one shining exception. Last week’s weigh in had me at 247.2 pounds. Today’s weigh in has me at 243.6 pounds. The difference is 3.6 pounds, and that is fantastic.

The total amount of weight lost since the surgery on May 4, 2022 is 187.8 pounds. A great number, but the 10’s digit is the same as last week so no big milestone. We’re creeping closer and closer to that magical day when the 100’s column changes again though.

The total amount of weight lost since the first weigh in on January 19, 2022 is 208.4 pounds. Again, an epic number but not enough for a milestone digit this time around. That’s okay though, just so long as that first digit is still a two.

The only stat left to check is the one that has a huge milestone and that is BMI. BMI values in the range of 30-34.9 are considered obese. Values between 25-29.9 are considered overweight. At last week’s check in my BMI was 30.1, just barely clinging to obese. Today? 29.7. We are official in the overweight category, and while it sounds ridiculous to say this, I am so very happy about it. On January 19, 2022 my BMI was a meager 55. I couldn’t even imagine a world where I was overweight rather than obese. I can’t tell you how amazing this is.

Next week’s weigh in is going to happen on our Disney World trip… I think. Not sure. There’s some potential changes to our travel agenda but I won’t know more until later this morning. Depending on what we learn today, I might actually be bringing a bathroom scale in my suitcase. I’ll let you know.

For now, thanks for coming and reading my insane little story.

Rest in Peace, Miss Patches

Rest in Peace, Miss Patches

I took that picture tonight just after work. We had ordered some dinner and I was sitting on the chair in the living room messing around with my camera. She came into the room for a second, I snapped a pic, she walked out.

A few minutes later Jen said she seemed to be having trouble breathing. She was wheezing a little and her sides were extended, almost swollen. She was purring, but it had a weird high pitched sound. Jen said she was walking a little sideways too. Clearly something was wrong.

We put her into the cat carrier and she didn’t fight us at all. That’s a clear sign that she wasn’t right. I took her to a veterinary hospital in Lawrence, at the spot on route 114 where the Showcase Cinema used to be. They took her right in while I stayed in the lobby filling out the paperwork, and then I just sat there waiting. Eventually they brought me into a room and I continued to wait until the doctor came in.

She told me Patches was having a bad time. Her chest was full of fluid and it was putting pressure on her heart and lungs which made it difficult to breath. She said they could try to do a few things that would ease the pressure, but there really wasn’t anything they could do to fix her. They could keep her alive but they couldn’t make her well, and that wouldn’t be much of a life for her.

I called Jen and we agreed that it would be better to let her go. I went home while Jen called the kids. They came to the house too and then we all went back to the hospital to say goodbye. They brought us to a cozy little room and then brought a very sedated Patches in with us. We spent a few minutes showering her with love and affection and then the doctor came in and gave her an injection. She fell asleep almost immediately and then was gone shortly after.

She will be cremated tomorrow. They will send us the ashes. I’m not sure what will happen after that. I am sure that I am going to miss that tiny little baby kitty, even more than I ever would have expected.

Rest in peace, Miss Patches. Panic Panache Patches. Lady Penelope Clearwater. Lady Pachelot of the Rhode Island Pachelots. What else did we call her… Oh yeah, Alexander Pachelton.

Is Patches Sick?

I am in the waiting room at a veterinary hospital in Lawrence. Patches was breathing funny and making a weird noise as she prrred. She was also sort of hitching her back with each breath and she seemed to be walking a little funny.

Jen called a vet hospital and told them we were coming. I drove over with Patches in the cat carrier sitting on the front seat. It’s about 28 degrees Fahrenheit tonight. I wonder how long it’s been since Miss Kitty has felt cold like that.

I’m worried about her but I’m also pretty sure I’m overreacting. Not that I know what I’m talking about. She’s also 15 years old so she’s pretty elderly. I’m still convinced she’s going to live five more years at least, but I hate to see her struggling.

The staff took her away from me as soon as we came in the door. I’m sitting in a waiting room, hoping she’s being a good kitty for the docs.

Bonus Pic

robertjames1971's avatarRob Shoots Film

I’m so happy about a roll of fill getting to the lab that I am posting a second picture today! Also, this is one that was just a test and isn’t even a little bit interesting so why not post it as a bonus!

When I was first playing with Dad’s camera and trying to learn how to use a camera that didn’t have an Auto setting, I took a bunch of pictures of the keyboard that used to be in the living room in an attempt to figure out how to get a shallow depth of field and a nice blurry background. 99% of those tests were with my DSLR, but here’s one on film. Fascinating, eh?

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The 2008 Point and Shoot

Last week I was looking for something in the film draw in my desk and I saw my old point and shoot. It’s a Casio EX-S10. I bought it just after Jen and I got engaged, back in 2008. I used to sneak it into concerts. I stopped using it in 2015 or so because I couldn’t find the charger and the battery was as dead as a door nail.

When I setup the new mirrorless camera on christmas day I stole the memory cards from my DSLR and my Nikon point and shoot. At lunch today I went looking in my camera bag to see if I could find any old, forgotten cards to put back into the point and shoot. There was a pocket in the bag that I seem to have forgotten about because when I opened it up, there was the Casio charger!

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The engagement point and shoot is about to live again!

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I checked the memory card and there were about 100 pictures on it. There were a few from our 2014 Niagara Falls trip, a bunch from our friend Carolyn’s wedding, and a few from one of the monster snow storms that pummeled us back in February 2015. All of the keepers were already on my Flickr account, including this one:

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I doubt I will use this camera very much going forward, but I will use the memory card. The biggest, forgotten card in my camera bag was 2 gigs. I had put it into the Nikon point and shoot, but immediately replaced it with the 4 gig card that was in the Casio. Four gigabytes on the Nikon gives me about 460 photos. That’ll due for now. Eventually I want to get two seriously huge cards for the Z5. The little Nikon can get the 16 gig card back when that happens, and the DSLR can get the 32 gig card back as well.

The moral of the story here though is, the little Casio point and shoot is going to live again!

Auto Focus Fun

After watching the video that was/wasn’t posted earlier, I did figure out how to move the focus point around on the Z5. The video did not completely answer my question of how to do it. It was missing one step. I figure out that missing step kind of by accident and then I was able to do it.

On this picture I set the focus point on the words “Deluxe Reverb-Amp”.

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On this one I set it on the headphones.

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On this one… I forget. It was either the FTZ II box, or the word Pelican on the bag.

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Isn’t this fascinating?

On another photographic note, I just got the email from Old School Film Lab saying that they received my roll of film! WOOHOO!

Merrimack River

robertjames1971's avatarRob Shoots Film

I’ve posted a bunch from this spot already, but here’s an unshared shot. I will go back here again. I’d like to try it in black and white.

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I shipped a roll of black and white film out for developing last week. I haven’t heard anything back yet. My fingers are crossed I will get them before the end of this week so I can make sure using Dad’s lens with my camera will be okay for Disney World. I’m starting to lose hope, though there is still plenty of time. Hopefully I’ll get the email saying they received the film today.

Like I said, fingers crossed.

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YouTube is Helpful

I’ve watched at least 10 videos on YouTube that walk through Nikon Z5 settings and menus. There was one question I had that none of them answered. How do you set the camera so that you can use the little joystick to set your focus point. While doing today’s faux-jog (pronounced faux-yog, with a soft “J”) I watched this one, which I think answered the question. I’ll check once my legs start working again.

Ever since the camera obsession was reborn back in June, YouTube has been a huge help to me, a source of Gear Acquisition Syndrome (what is this medium format of which you speak?), and it’s more or less replaced my constant television streaming. 95% of what I’ve watched is film related, but there are a bunch of digital folks that I have obsessed over too.

Of course January will bring us a new Star Wars show (The Bad Batch season two) and a new HBO show that I can already tell is going to be appointment viewing (The Last of Us), and there is more Star Wars and Marvel (I think?) and Walking Dead not too far behind that. TV will take back a lot of my time during faux-jog (pronounced faux-yog, with a soft “J”), but I think photography YouTube might be here to stay for a while.

For now though, let’s go see if the autofocus joy stick thingie can be switched on via the back display screen.

ADDENDUM: Okay, so I can’t embed the video. Sigh. You get the idea anyway, right? Here’s a link.