9:15pm on Day 13

Very sleepy tonight. Is it Covid or is it just a bad night’s sleep last night? Could be either one, but I am guessing it has more to do with last night than the virus. Who knows. I just nodded off watching Doctor Who. I put an episode on, blinked, and the episode was over. Ooops. Guess we’ll be watching that sucker once again, eh?

Do I want to put on a mask and take the cameras out a-shootin’ at sunrise tomorrow? I do, but will I? I don’t know. I have a new lens to test drive. I should… or should I? I don’t know. The CDC tells me I’m okay to leave the house, and I did do a curbside pickup at Best Buy today. I don’t know… or do I? Ugh.

I’m sick of this Covid crap, really I am.

Daily (goofy) Haiku for You #43

Today’s haiku is inspired by still being a little sick and having nothing on the agenda for today.

Lazy day for me.
Take some time and feel better.
Hope for good results.

Hey folks, what do you think about a bonus haiku? Two haiku for the price of one? Let’s do it!

This one is also sort of inspired by having nothing to do. The curtains in the living room are open and I keep finding myself staring out the window. This comes from that…

Neighbor wearing shorts
It’s 59 degrees out
Dude must be freezing

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: