In Vermont

We are at the hotel. No interesting pics yet, but these exist so here they are.

Packed

I just packed a backpack full of camera gear. Three cameras, two 35mm and one mirrorless, four lenses in total, and six fresh rolls of film. Also a shit load of various Apple chargers, a small food scale, and a couple of camera chargers.

Tomorrow I’ll put my MacBook Pro and probably my iPad into the bag too. Then I need to pack a bag full of protein bars and go to the grocery store to buy a shit load of water bottles and sugar free gatorade to put into a cooler that I want to keep in the car. I need to get ice too.

The only other thing left to pack is one collared shirt that I washed earlier today that is hang drying in the cellar. Tomorrow morning I’ll throw that in the suitcase.

Oh yeah! I also need to pack a travel shaving kit, a tooth brush, and some deodorant.

All of this for four days in Vermont.

Totally worth it. I can’t wait.

Four Day Weekend

I am on a four day weekend. I am also suddenly super exhausted.

I don’t think those two things are related but who knows, maybe they are?

Happy four day weekend. We’re goin; road trippin’, babie!

Stomach Ache the Next Generation

Bad reactions to food on Sunday and Monday. Migraine on Tuesday. Bad stomach aches all day on Wednesday. Mostly okay except for a bad lunchtime food reaction on Thursday. What does the shit roulette wheel have for us on Friday?

Another stomach ache. But it feels different today. It’s not an oh I think I might be hungry kind of ache. Today it’s more like a you are disagreeing with something you ate last night kind of ache. Lots of gas, eating doesn’t help at all. I’ve had eight ounces of water, a protein bar, and a little protein snack. Still feeling it pretty much exactly the same as when I woke up.

Shit.

The good news though is that I have watched the season two premier of Yellowjackets. You know that show, the single most fucked up thing on television at this point in time? Yeah, that one. Great freakin’ show that is seriously disturbing while also really funny. No spoilers but the first episode was excellent and the last second reveal at the end… ewwww.

I checked the forecast for the weekend. Guess what’s not going to be out in the morning on either Saturday or Sunday. Go on, guess. You know it… the sun. No sunrise pics for me this week. It’s getting to the point where I might start taking this personally.

If we go to California in the fall, should I think about making a photo book for fun? Not like, oh I took a bunch of pictures so let’s throw the best ones into a book type of thing. More like planning out what I want to see in it and then trying to take pics that make it happen. Something like that. I’m sure I can get that done super cheap through Shutterfly or something. Maybe I can talk Jen into going up to the mountains a lot this summer and I could do something similar there. Just a thought. I like projects sometimes, you know? Like creative projects and stuff. I’m old, leave me alone.

The cats are in the cellar with me but they are avoiding me. I don’t think they like me very much. Sad face.

Unrelated productivity note: I am watching a youtube video of a guy using a folding camera from 1940 with a discontinued film format that expired in 1970. He’s in his home office talking about how he handled the ISO on the expired film and he’s standing in front of a white board that’s hanging on his wall. That’s super cool, of course. The stand out thing though, is that he has a Texas Instruments TI-83 calculator velcro’d onto the white board. Oh my god my nerd brain just exploded with how awesome that is! KaBoom!

Commute

I made it to work this morning with virtually no traffic. One douche canoe cut me off and I had to hit my breaks. Another douche nozzle tried to stop at the top of an on-ramp and then pull into traffic four feet in front of me without speeding up first. Other than those two schmucks the drive in was event free.

The post-storm sky was interesting though.

10 Month Weigh In

Today is March 4, 2023. It has been exactly 10 months since my gastric bypass surgery. I am having a tough time accepting that that much time has passed. 10 months? That’s insane. It feels like yesterday.

I weighed myself this morning when I woke up. I am down 1.4 pounds since Wednesday’s weekly weigh in. I weigh 216 pounds exactly. My BMI dropped from 26.5 to 26.3. My weight since surgery has gone down 215.4 pounds, and the loss since the first weigh in is now at an astonishing 236 pounds.

I finished my exercise a few minutes ago. I jogged in place (yogged) for a faux five miles. I haven’t been feeling well for the second day in a row. I have been dealing with the lightheadedness quite a bit today. I need to go make myself some lunch and put a lot of salt on it and see how that goes. Air fried potatoes, maybe?

On an unrelated note, I put in for some time off from work in the fall. There may be another vacation to someplace warm and sunny later in the year. I’ll let you know. I don’t know if I will be able to hold the traveling jones at bay until fall though. New York and Mountains and other places within driving distance are seriously calling to me.

Faux France

Rob Shoots Film

A street corner in France… in Epcot’s World Showcase… it’s not real France, it’s Faux France.

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Random Thoughts

How do you tell if your two cats are playing with each other, or actively tying to kill each other? One second they appear to be trying their hardest to tear each other’s throats out with their teeth, and the next second they are curled up together, grooming each other. I don’t get it. All I know for sure is that the kitten likes to stir up shit any chance she gets, and every now and then the bigger cat will turn the tables and ambush the kitten in ways that nearly make her shit herself. It’s scary and entertaining at the same time.

Harry’s coming home tonight. Just for one night. He’s having computer troubles and Jen is going to troubleshoot with him. That’s all. It’s going to be great to have him here though, even if it is a super short visit.

The weather sucks. It’s going to be super cold tomorrow, and we have another snow storm on the horizon. Hopefully I’ll be through with the car music by then. Hopefully the weather will start to improve once February ends, but we all know that Spring doesn’t come to New England anymore until mid-May at best. I want Summer. I want to move to San Diego where it’s summer all the time.

The Red Sox are playing their first Spring Training game right now. The annual beat-the-hell-out-of-a-college-team kick off to the grapefruit league season. They have a 5-3 lead over Northeastern University in the middle of the sixth inning. I am looking forward to the Red Sox season, even though it is clear we have another last place finish in our future. The fun part about Spring Training is the clean slate. Sure, our roster is a nightmare, but until you start losing games that matter, the possibilities are still very much endless. Speaking of San Diego, now that Xander Bogarts is a Padre, maybe it’s time to become a fan for real. I mean it is one of only three non-Boston stadiums I’ve ever been to. There’s personal history there. Maybe.

So television. I am currently trying to keep up with the following shows: The Last of Us, Star Wars The Bad Batch, Star Trek Picard, Poker Face, The Flash, Extraordinary, and You (season three, I am a full season behind). I may also get back into Star Trek Discovery but I’m a full season behind there too. The Mandalorian is coming back next week so we’ll add that to the mix as well. Yellowjackets season two is on the horizon too. On top of those shows, I have a weird compulsion to start binge re-watching The X-Files and Star Trek Deep Space Nine as well. Why am I torturing myself like this?

I haven’t shot any film since Disney World. I blame the weather. I still have a bunch of rolls saved up. I had way more than I needed for Disney so there’s still a nice supply available. I want to get some more black and white film to play with too, and once the weather starts clearing I am going to go WAY off the deep end, with both film and digital. I just need to find a way to convince people to go with me. Like a photography club or something, but just with people I actually know rather than random folks in some online club.

I want to go wander around Boston. I want to go wander around New York. I want to go wander around the mountains in New Hampshire and Vermont. I want to go wandering around the coast of Maine. I want to go wander around the coast of Massachusetts. I want to go back to Washington. I want to go back to San Diego and Los Angeles. I want to go to San Francisco for the first time. I want to go to Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington for the first time too. I just want to go places. Covid screwed us out of three years of exploring. I want to make up for lost time.

Okay. Back to work, Robert. Only 2.5 hours to go until the weekend when you’ll see Harry and do a mountain of work on music and spend quality time with the love of your life. Get on with it!

Florida Recap Post – The Film

This is going to be a long one. It might end up being absurdly long.

The question before me was, do I do a recap post with just film shots, or do I keep posting things to the film blog one shot at a time and reblog them as I go. My choice was to do both. One huge film post and then potentially repost one shot at a time.

These are in random order because they came back from the lab shuffled a little. There are a ton of pics on this post but it’s just a fraction of the whole supply.

Also, the overwhelming majority of them suck… so… yeah…

243717470032_33A — Blurry edges… was that on purpose? Sure, let’s go with that.

243717470014_15A — Our hotel hallway. Blurry around the edges again? Huh.

243717470025_26A — I like the France pavilion

243717470013_14A — Artwork in our hotel room

243717500003_5 — Animal Kingdom, waiting for the kids to arrive

243717500010_12 — Like a bridge over troubled waters

243717500016_18 — Meter for the shadows?

243717500023_25 — I’ve got a bike you can ride it if you like it’s got a basket a bell that rings and things to make it look good. I’d give it to you if I could but I borrowed it. You’re the kind of girl that fits in with my world, I’ll give you everything anything if you want things

243717500035_E — Digital or film, it doesn’t matter. My safari shots were dog shit

243717450002_4 — Magic Kingdom, where my Nikon camera met with Dad’s Pentax lens. Nifty Fifty, babie

243717450031_33 — Lamp post. Sucky lamp post, for sure

243717490002_5 — Hollywood Studios. Dad’s lens on my camera again. STOP!

243717490007_10 — AT-AT outside of Star Tours

243717490011_14 — The Stormtroopers harass the guests to compensate for their crappy aim

243717490031_34 — What’s the Buzz, tell me what’s a happenin’

243717460011_13A — Epcot. Back to using my lens again

243717460019_21A — I had the hardest time getting good shots of the Monorail. The two best were both film. Nice

243717460023_25A — I did not ride the new Guardians of the Galaxy coaster, but Harry rode it a few times

243717480001_3A — Back to Hollywood Studios

243717480021_23A — I used the Mickey Mouse watch face on my Apple Watch all through the trip. I love Mickey Mouse watches

243717480023_25A — Jen and Grogu. Best buds

243717480029_31A — The Darkroom… on a film photo… get it?

There you have it, folks. The final Disney World Vacation post for our January 2023 trip. It was a fantastic week-plus. We’re already sort of planning another trip. This one will maybe be Disneyland instead of Disney World. I’ll let you know more about it as we get through the Spring and Summer and into the early Fall, hint hint.

Florida Recap Post – The Tenth

It occurred to me today that I still haven’t finished with the Florida vacation picture posts. All that’s left is the last day at Hollywood Studios, the drive home, which I probably won’t write a post for, and all of the film. Do I want to do one recap post with just film shots or do I want to keep sharing them one at a time via the other page? I haven’t decided yet.

I still haven’t done the firmware update on my shiny new Z5, or Z 5, or whatever. I made some chicken for lunch, put on the two most recent episodes of The Last of Us (episodes four and five are pretty much a two-parter, right?) and that’s me procrastinating.

Anyway, here’s Hollywood Studios from January 11, 2023….