Category: Family

April 15th

Today is tax day in the US. It’s also my dad’s birthday. Of course he was a tax accountant. It was his destiny. I miss him a lot.

Today is also the anniversary of the opening of Fenway Park. Also fitting for Dad’s birthday.

It’s the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s death. He was shot on the 14th and died the next day. My dad was a bit of a civil war buff.

It’s also the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. I don’t think Dad ever saw that movie.

Google April 15th. For some reason there were a ton of Earth shattering events that happened on that date. It’s weird in a cosmically weird way.

Stuff

I looked at my work schedule for the next two days and… Holy shit, I don’t have a single moment without a meeting booked over the next two days. It is going to suck tomorrow and then I’m going to go back on Thursday and it is going to suck then as well. Damn it.

In other news, my step daughter just did something awesome and it is awesome. Things are crazy exciting. Crazy!

Big Weekend

This has been quite the big weekend and it has very little to do with a zombie who gave up his weekend for our sins. But I digress.

Today, April 5th, is the 19th anniversary of my first date with my wife. Clearly she wasn’t my wife at the time, but it was a pretty good first date. Very successul. We celebrated by going to a matinee. We saw Projet Hail Mary again. It was my second viewing and her third. Great movie. If it is playing on an IMAX screen anywhere near us next weekend we might go see it one more time.

After the movie, Jen made a fancy easter/first-dateiversary dinner and it was wonderful. We ate at the dining room table like civilized people instead of slumming it in the living room in front of the TV like usual. It was a very nice moment.

Yesterday we had my in-laws over for a pre-easter easter dinner. Jen made lasagna. I don’t like lasagna so she made me some pasta on the side. She’s the best.

After dinner I hopped in the car and headed to Boston to see a show. Throwing Muses. It was a fantastic show. I was feeling kinda negative at first. I was feeling like I’m too old to go to shows in bars. Two songs into the Muses set though my whole universe changed. By that time I was actively trying to think of a world where I could see Throwing Muses live every day for the rest of my life. It was magic.

There was one negative though. Halfway through their set I got a nose bleed of all things. Not just any nose bleed, but a massive, gushing nose bleed. It was everywhere. I looked like I was living through a horror movie. Gore.

To summarize, it’s been a very good weekend. I’ve been nuts about my wife for 19 years now and I just keep getting nuttier and nuttier as time goes by.

Now, a few pics from the show last night.

She’s Home

My step daughter is home from her academic trip to Europe!

I think the pilot on her flight from Dublin to Boston must have had a date or something. Either that or he has the airplane equivalent of a lead foot. The plane landed over an hour early. How sick is that? Thanks, speedy pilot!

Happy Fathers Day

Today is fathers day in the united states. If you are a dad or if you are someone who plays the dad role in your family, then happy fathers day.

This year is the first fathers day we’ve had since my father passed away. Jen and Bellana went to the grave with me. I am so grateful to them for that gesture. It means so much. I miss my father quite a bit, and I miss him a little extra today.

2010-01-30 - Harry BDay at the Parkers 050

Substack

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.

Travel Plans and Parental Controls

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.