I’m trying to listen to a Jefferson Airplane playlist on my iPhone and have it stream over to the HomePod on the shelf above my desk.
It keeps crapping out on me. Failure is the theme for this day.
Robin stares off into infinity, pondering the mystery of audio streaming between two Apple devices.
It’s gorgeous out today. I have windows open in almost every room in the house. Eventually it will be too warm outside for that and I will close them all and let the central air take over. For now though, let’s enjoy the breeze.
Robin was sitting in front of the dining room window, as she often does. I lined up a shot for today’s photo a day, as I often do…
She saw me coming and decided that rather than play the role of the model, she wanted some attention. She ran away just as I was about to press the shutter. She ran right over to me and demanded I pet her.
So now this is the photo a day photo instead of the cat in the window I was trying to get. Either way… adorable.
278/365
Photo a day challenge number 277/365.
And one to grow on…
I’m working in the office today so it was very important that I take a pic or two before I left the house so that I would not forget and put my photo a day challenge thing in jeopardy. I used the Hipstamatic app and took a bunch of cat pics. All is well.
Except…
Flickr appears to be down today. At best the service has been intermittent. It works for a minute, then it doesn’t. I got today’s pics uploaded, but adding tags and permissions and albums has been difficult.
I wanted to try to sneak in a photo a day post here, but I can’t get to the pics right now. Let’s all send some happy thoughts to Flickr. Hang in there, folks. You’ve got this… whatever it is. Good luck!
My music nook is about to go through some shit.
Photo a day 276 of 365.
Right folks, what are our thoughts on Substack? I subscribe to a handful of them but I only ever actually read stuff from the guitar player who used to be in The Blake Babies (and I’m just thinking that it is really getting to be time for another Blake Babies reunion record, don’t we think?) and one film photographer from youtube who lives somewhere in the wilds of New Hampshire. Truthfully, I don’t read every post from those two users but I read some of them. Sorry.
My first thought when I learned about Substack was nope, I’m too old for that shit. The Blake Babies guy is older than I am though… he’s also 100 times cooler and a lawyer (yikes) and his cred level is 100000000 times mine… though any number that quantifies your credibility is higher than my complete and total lack of credibility, right?
My second thought was… it’s an email newsletter. Anyone who would be dumb enough to subscribe to mine would mark me as spam within a couple of days of my pointless brain droppings.
Still… am I thinking about it? No… but… yeah, no.
What else, what else… new camera coming soon. The USPS tracking number says it will arrive on Saturday. That doesn’t give me any time to shoot and develop a test roll before I go on vacation, but I had already decided not to bring a film camera on vacation this time. I’m going all digital on this trip.
Part of my initial film camera attraction was using fully manual, mechanical cameras. I didn’t want any automation at all. I didn’t want anything electronic. This time? The new camera has autofocus. Oh praise be, it has autofocus! I’m getting blinder by the minute and manually focusing is a bitch. Wearing bifocals (well, progressive lenses) makes it so much worse. Now I am going to be able to autofocus with film and oh how the heavens will sing in gleeful glee.
What else? This is traditionally the longest week of the working man’s life. The full work week before a vacation. One day down, four endlessly long and painful days to go. But hey, there’s a new camera and a vacation at the end of it! There’s two carrots on the end of this week’s stick. The best part? Both kids are coming on this trip. We’re going as a full family. How cool is that? Both kids are in their 20’s and we can still get them to come on vacation with us. Life is pretty fucking cool sometimes, don’t you think?
I should join Substack and write a big article about it.
Another day, another photo a day pic. This one makes me think it might be interesting to know what a cat is thinking. Then again… it’s probably all thoughts about murder and slaughter so… maybe not.
274 days down, 91 to go.
Two thoughts on the mountain of film I got back from the development lab today.
First, I need to learn how to hold my camera without leaning to the side.
Every square format shot is tilted. Do I have one leg longer than the other or something?
Second, I am not vibing with this brand of film. I bought two rolls of 120 and two rolls of 35mm. I shot the two 120’s last week and one of the 35mm’s today. After I finish the last roll I think I am done with this brand. Oh well.
I got my new batch of film scans back today! Can I get a WOOHOO from the audience?
Bellana came home late last night. Late enough that I was asleep. I woke up at 4:00am for some reason and checked the driveway and her car was there. Wonderful! My step daughter is home!
By 8:30am though we had dropped her off at the airport. She’s flying to Denver, meeting a friend, and then driving back to somewhere in North Carolina. From there she’s going to Atlanta and flying to Orlando where she will meet up with the rest of us for our Disney trip the week after next.
That’s a lot of traveling!
Her flight hasn’t boarded yet, but according to flightaware.com it is still on time. Safe travels, Bellana! We love you!
On an unrelated note, I think I need to set up parental controls on my computer. I think I need to block ebay. Yeah… I bought another camera last night. What the fuck, Robert? This one is a 35mm with autofocus. It has a 50mm lens too. Bonus! I still don’t think I will take any film on our vacation, but it is pretty clear my self imposed two month film hiatus isn’t going to last more than a few days. Oh well. I tried.
While we’re on the subject of film, I got a notification from the lab I sent the last batch of film to that it arrived. That was Thursday afternoon. I was hope hope hoping that I would receive word that the scans were available yesterday but I gots nuttin’. I doubt they’ll be working over the weekend, so hopefully early next week we’ll have the results. I’m optimistic that the five medium format rolls come out okay. Four of them might at least. One of them might be a smidge under exposed. I had the light meter app on my phone set wrong during one roll. Dumb ass. Everything else (hopefully) was free of user errors or dumb ass fuck ups. Fingers crossed.
Inside the Red Head's Head 