Author: robertjames1971

I'm wicked tall.

Self Traits

Daily writing prompt
What’s the trait you value most about yourself?
View all responses

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I have decided that I am not going to come up with a serious answer. No, that would require more self reflection than I am comfortable with. You’ll get an answer, and it’s an honest answer, but it’s also a smart ass, sarcastic answer. I don’t do the whole self analysis thing very well. I go looking for positives and find an infinite number of negatives and I end up depressed and miserable and I just don’t want to go there today. No thank you.

Back in my Community College days I took an intro to psychology class and I learned a little factoid that turned my brain upside down and, unfortunately, confirmed a suspicion that I always had about myself. The factoid is that people who suffer from depression often have an accurate view of themselves, while people who don’t suffer from depression often have too rosy a view of themselves. They see themselves as better or more important than they actually are. I had always thought that was the case, but to read exactly that in a psych textbook blew my tiny little mind in a way that I had never imagined. It seemed to confirm why I was always so depressed.

So what is a trait that I value about myself? I am really, really tall. Six feet, four inches tall. Almost but not quite two meters. I can always reach the top shelf. I totally value my height. It’s one of my best traits.

There. I answered your damn question. Let’s all move on with our lives now.

28mm Cats

I’ve been using a 40mm lens exclusively for the last nine months or so. Using a 28mm lens now feels weird somehow. I didn’t think it would be quite this different but it is.

I’ve been following cats around this morning shooting them in low light. None of these look terribly good, but I’m liking them anyway.

30/365
30/365
DSC_1973
DSC_1976
DSC_1974

7:45am on Day 13

To test for Covid or not to test for Covid, that is the question which boggles my tiny little mind.

Jen just took a test. It came out positive but it wasn’t an instant positive result the way it has been of late. It took a few minutes for the positive line to show up. I’ve generally been a couple of days behind her in my viral progression. I fully expect that if I do take a test my result will be positive too, so why not punt it for another day or two and save myself the sad face when that T line starts to form?

We had planned to spend this weekend cleaning the house from top to bottom to sort of de-virus everything, even though that probably really isn’t a thing. Now? Given that we’re still positive? What’s the point? We’ll do it next weekend. For today I think I will probably just watch a lot of TV and flake. Maybe I’ll play some guitar and constantly post insipid nonsense to this here little blog.

8:31pm on Day 12

I would like to say that my new camera lens and I are going out shooting in the morning, but I have the double whammy of still being positive for Covid-19 and a terrible weather forecast to deal with. Maybe Sunday? If I test negative tomorrow maybe I’ll mask up and chase the sunrise on Sunday. Or maybe I’ll finally spend golden hour in Boston. Who knows. I will say that I ain’t goin’ nowhere without a negative test.

My wife and I ordered take out from the 99 Restaurant tonight. Door Dash. My gastric bypassed little baby stomach pouch and I ordered chicken fingers off the kids meal. That’s a thing I do now. It came with a side of mashed potato. The whole thing was delicious, but the last few bites refused to play nicely and I have spent some time praying to the proverbial porcelain god. It’s not a bad thing. I am fine. It took an hour to clear itself, but this is not me complaining or struggling or anything negative. This is just me being thankful that my stomach did not have any episodes like this while the Covid was at it’s worse. It’s almost like how I drove us home from Florida, 1200 miles over three days, and didn’t have a single Covid symptom until after we got home. It’s almost like my body knows what it’s up against and adjusts itself accordingly. It’s almost like the human brain and the human immune system can do really amazing, fantastic things. Know what I mean?

As far as Covid goes, I feel really well tonight. I’m tired again, and I was really beat after my work day ended. I would be surprised if I tested negative tomorrow. I might not be that surprised if I were to test negative the day after tomorrow though. Damn, that would be awesome.

Here’s hoping.

Two Photography Notes

Two quick photography notes to share.

First… is today a NLD? What is NLD? New Lens Day! I ordered a 28mm f2.8 Nikon Z mount lens from Best Buy. Will I get it today or will I have to wait another day? I don’t know yet. I’ll find out when I find out.

Second… All of those lame iPhone photos I’ve been sharing over the last few weeks, the ones with all the heavy filters, were taken with an app called Hipstamatic which was super popular in the early days of the iPhone but was sort of blown out of the water by Instagram. I still like it, mostly because it’s so over the top, but also because I’ve spent a small fortune on in-app purchases (filters, which it releases as film and lenses) so every so often I feel the need to use it to justify the expenditure. Anyway, Hipstamatic has tried to reinvent itself a few times. Currently there is Hipstamatic Classic, which is the one I use, and Hipstamatic X.

I messed around with Hipstamatic X a bit today. It doesn’t have the random lens/film setting (which Classic calls Shake to Shuffle and I use all the time) so really, what’s the point? I did setup some combos though and maybe I’ll use it once in a while, but I think I will stick to the Classic version.

These were taken with Hipstamatic X:

So were these:

12:11pm on Day 12

I have successfully stopped myself from taking a Covid test today. I know it would be positive so why waste the test? I feel about the same today as I did yesterday. Better overall. I might be a little better than yesterday, but not enough to think I would have a negative test. I might test tomorrow. If not, I will test the day after tomorrow, Sunday. We will see.

I’m back to the waking up at 4:00am thing again. I did that for the first few days of Covid-Land and now I’ve done it two days in a row again. It was okay two nights ago because I went to sleep before 10:00pm and had a solid six hours of sleep before popping awake. Last night I didn’t get to sleep until almost midnight so 4:00am came quickly. Both nights I was able to get back to sleep. Here’s hoping I got enough sleep overall last night that I don’t have fatigue issues this afternoon.

We’ve been using Instacart to get our grocery shopping done while we’re both testing positive. They keep bringing the wrong things. It is the risk you take when you ask some one else to do your shopping for you, but it still makes me sad. They keep bringing me the wrong gastric bypass related stuff. I ask for sugar free, because I can’t tolerate sugar anymore, and they bring me sugar full. Like I said, it’s sad. It makes me nostalgic for the days when I could eat things with sugar. Not really. I’m being overly dramatic. I’ve lost 200+ pounds in a year and a half. I don’t miss sugar at all. I just need to be vigilant. Just like Mad-Eye Moody used to say. Constant vigilance babie!

Money is No Object

Daily writing prompt
List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.
View all responses

Three jobs I would have if I didn’t have to worry about money. I have two that come to me instantly. I will have to think on the third a little…

  • Musician. Sure, there are people who make a lot of money in the music business but there are some false truths here. First, 99.999% of people who pursue careers in music don’t make any money. Second, with the notable exception of Miss Swift, the music industry doesn’t really exist anymore. There are a few folks hanging on to the past model by the skin of their teeth, and a lot of legacy artists who are too big to fail, but for the most part, again with the exception of a certain Miss Swift, there is nothing left of the industry. If money were no object though, that would be my first choice of a new career. Hell, in 1989 it was my first choice of any career. It didn’t work out though.
  • Photographer. People make a living with it, but how many more fail than succeed? I don’t know for sure (unlike the music biz, where I absolutely do know for sure) but I bet the percentage is pretty high. If money weren’t a factor though, I would give it a try. I’d have a portrait studio and I would do landscape shoots and I would do travel photography and all of that stuff that I would do today just for fun.
  • Blogger. I have no desire to try to make money off of this silly little personal blog. None at all. Zero inclination toward blogging for a living. Nope. However, if money were no object, I would totally do it. I would just write blog posts all day. No one would read them, but I wouldn’t need to make any money so it wouldn’t matter and it would more or less be exactly the same thing I am doing now. I would put a twist on it though and I would make this a travel blog so that I could use not needing any money as an excuse to travel all the time and I’d just write about everything I do while traveling. Jen and I were fantasizing about a where-we-came-from trip last night. It was inspired by yesterday’s writing prompt. Travel to Scotland and Ireland and see our heritage first hand. I could write blog entries about stuff like that for a living, you bet… assuming I didn’t actually have to make any money doing it. So I guess I would do it for a “living” if you know what I mean.

There you go. Three fantasy career choices that would not pay the bills, if I need not worry about ever having to pay the bills. As it is, being a programming supervisor at a medical software company is doing all right by me. I think I will stick with it.