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The Last Work Day Before Vacation

It’s Friday. Tomorrow is New Years Eve. Monday is New Years Day (celebrated). Tuesday is the first day of my two week vacation. That means that I am officially on vacation at 5:30pm today. Nine hours and 13 minutes from now.

I haven’t started packing yet, but I have done some pre-pack preparations. We have a dining room table full of toiletries that are ready to pack. Last night I went to a department store and bought three pairs of jeans. I’ve been buying new clothes every 5-6 weeks or so, and it was about time anyway. The new jeans are, shockingly, TWO sizes smaller than last month’s jeans. I’m not sure, but I think my waist size is 16 inches smaller than it was a year ago? something like that. I really cannot believe it.

This morning I wrote up a packing list that (hopefully) is ridiculously thorough so that I don’t forget anything. It was so over the top that Jen actually suggested I drop a few items because they were overkill. That’s okay with me.

Plans for the weekend are mostly up in the air. The kids are with Dad for New Years Eve, but they said they would come over for a visit in the afternoon. I am so happy about that. I was thinking maybe we could sneak out to the city after they leave and pretend we are not afraid of Covid and stuff like that. The temperature is supposed to be super warm, but it’s also supposed to rain all day and night. So much for that plan. I want to visit both of my parents before we leave. I need to do a little more travel supply shopping, but mostly just for protein supplement stuff. The kids are coming to our house on Monday before we leave. Actually, when we leave sort of depends on when they get here. We want to spend a little time with them at home before the chaos commences. There’s also a little NHL Winter Classic game happening at 2:00pm that includes the Boston Bruins and Fenway Park. If we’re home, I’m watching. If we’re on the road, I’m listening on the radio.

Jen and I just added our Disney passes to our Apple Wallets so that we can use our phones and watches in place of the Magic Bands we used on the last couple of Disney trips. That’s pretty cool. We’re both hoping we can leave all of our various cards behind and do anything we need to do through Apple Wallet via Apple Pay and what not. It’s time to embrace the future!

I punched into work a smidge early today, just to get a jump on stuff on my last day. At this point I am eight hours and 35 minutes away from my two week, epic vacation. May today be a quiet day at work while still managing to not drag. Fingers crossed on that. Happy Last Work Day Before Vacation, everyone!

Let Down

robertjames1971's avatarRob Shoots Film

Pretty much everything I shot at The Park in Andover was disappointing. Was it because I had the camera in Auto Mode, which is really just aperture priority? I hope that’s not it, because I was pretty much planning on going with Auto Mode during our vacation trip next week.

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Patches on Film

robertjames1971's avatarRob Shoots Film

We lost our cat, Patches, last night. We didn’t see it coming. She was having trouble breathing and the Vet more or less said there was nothing we could do to make her well. We were all with her when she passed. It was peaceful and sweet, but now I am sad. I miss our kitty.

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This next one and the one that follows are utter garbage and I never would have posted them otherwise, but these are the only film shots of Miss Patches that haven’t been shared yet, and I want to share them all. Sorry for the blurry, but I kinda don’t know what I’m doing. I think both shots were worth a try, but I should have known better.

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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.

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!