Author: robertjames1971

I'm wicked tall.

Getting Stuff Done

The first day of vacation is the last day before we fly to Florida. Lots of stuff going on. My suitcase is packed by my carry on bag and my back pack are not.

We have to run out to do a bunch of errands, then go to pick up my mother in law, then come back and meet up with my step daughter and get something to eat, then finish the packing, then hopefully go to bed early because the plane leaves Logan Airport at about four days before dawn, or something like that.

We also have to plan our Disney World park visits and what our ride preferences are.

Busy day!

It Is Official

It is official… I am on vacation.

Oh glorious glory, I am on vacation.

Six business days without having to go to work and do business. Ecstasy at its finest.

In less then 48 hours I will be in Florida where it is not 24 degrees out. It is just too amazing to be real. Warmth in January. Pretty please.

AI Images in WordPress.com?

Earlier today I inserted an image into a post using the wordpress.com image tag thing. “/img”. 99% of the time I just paste in a link to an image on Flickr and the post editor embeds the photo through magic or something. The other 1% of the time I pull the images off of my phone. This morning though I used the tag and saw something new. There’s an option to have the built in wordpress.com AI thing generate an image for you.

I figured I’d try it out today. I asked it to generate an image of a Jedi Knight petting a kitten while a blues band plays in the background. Success, I guess?

Let’s try another one. This time I’ll add the instructions before I generate the image… how about this:

Generate an image of a hockey player using his stick to fight off a zombie attack at a fast food restaurant

Let us see the results………

Huh… okay… I guess it decided on its own that one of the zombies should also be a hockey player. Everyone appears to be skating without actually wearing skates, though why they would have to skate at a fast food joint is unknown. Is the guy in the back living or just a newly turned zombie. Also, what’s the deal with the teeth on the zombie on the left? Does the AI think that zombies have different teeth than the humans they used to be? That does not compute.

Okay, so there’s a nice little feature that I will only ever use ironically. Okay. I guess.

Something is Up

Look at that face. That’s the face of a furry creature who knows that something unusual is going on in our house.

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I just happened to be changing the lens on my digital camera, after having just loaded a roll of film into a non-digital camera, and she came in to see what was up. She’s on to us. She knows.

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Oxblood

Question: What is the most expensive Gibson Les Paul on Earth?

Answer: Jeff Beck’s super modified 1954 Les Paul Standard, commonly known as the Oxblood Les Paul.

Question: How much did the Oxblood sell for?

Answer: It is commonly believed that Beck bought the guitar for about $300 in 1972, but two days ago it sold at auction for $1,315,708.

Beck’s wife put up his gear collection for auction and the results were pretty staggering. While the hope was the guitars would be bought by people who would actually play them, I think it’s safe to say that most of the big tickets are going to museums and private collections where they will likely be on display and never actually touched again. That’s sad, but at these prices what can you do?

There were a couple of guitars that I would have bid on if money were no object. The Oxblood and the Yardburst being the two big ones, but there were supposed to be some signature models and prototypes of signature models (of the Oxblood, at least) that I would have liked to get my greedy mitts on.

Still… I think I would rather we still had Jeff Beck playing all of this stuff rather than having to live in a world without him. That would be way better than this world.

It is Going to Be a Long Day

It is about 7:30am. My work day starts at 9:00am. My vacation kicks off 8.5 hours later at 5:30pm.

It is going to be a long day. A really… really… long… day.

After that? I have to pack. I have to make a stash of protein bars to get me through the first couple of days in Florida. I have to figure out the camera situation… charge up the Z5 and put on the 40mm lens, fill up a bag with rolls of film, load a roll into Dad’s Pentax K1000. I’ve decided that Dad’s camera is coming with me this time. Normally I would take my Nikon FG-20, but this time I think I want to take the camera that hurled me down the film rabbit hole a few years ago. Yeah. I am weird.

Anyway. Yesterday I bitched about how the Bruins suck now. Last night they beat Ottawa and jumped three places in the standings. Not only are they back in a playoff spot, but they above the wild card spots and back into third in the division. What a world, huh? We’ll see how long this lasts. The standings are pretty tight these days.

Okay. Time to get the ball rolling on this Friday. Vacation is less than 10 hours away.

It is Time

Yup. It’s time. What time? Too-close-to-vacation-to-concentrate-on-anything-else time.

One work day left. At 5:30pm tomorrow (about 21 hours from now) I will punch out of work and be on vacation for more than a week. I’m on PTO all of next week and the following Monday. Six business days.

I just have to get through that one final work day and then I will be out out out and I can’t wait. Also, I can’t focus on anything else. The flight to Florida is Sunday before dawn. At this moment in time, on Thursday night, I am literally watching Disney travel videos on YouTube. This one is about finding hidden perks when staying at the resorts.

Let’s go now. I mean, the hell with responsibilities, let’s just leave now!

So Close Now

One work day after today. Two days until the first full day of vacation. Three days until we fly to Florida. It is getting harder and harder to focus on anything else. I still need to pack. I still need to decide which film camera and how many rolls of film to bring.

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I probably won’t bring any black and white film, unless there is already a roll in whichever camera comes along. Dad’s Pentax is empty at the moment. I’m thinking of bringing that one. We’ll see.

This water fountain is in the hotel we stayed in last time. I just can’t remember which one (we stayed in two last time). It is either Coronado or Saratoga Springs. My beloved bride, Jen, says this was in Coronado. She’s always right.