We’ve made it to the Disney World resort. We took a detour to visit the ocean in Daytona Beach, but we are at the hotel now. We won’t be able to check in for a while though.
The kids are in the air. We will head to the airport to pick them up shortly. The epic road trip (part 1) is over. Time to start the epic vacation!
Happy New Year, everyone. Hello and welcome to 2023. 2022 can go suck an egg. Here’s hoping 2023 improves things.
We did not make it to midnight last night. I think it might be the first time in my adult life that I didn’t make it. I tried. At about 11pm last night I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. Jen was already sound asleep. I said the hell with it, sent the kids a Happy New Year text and then packed it in.
I woke up around 4:30am. My alarm was set for 5:00. I hate when that happens. I didn’t get out of bed until almost 6:00, but I didn’t sleep much if any during that hour and a half or so. When I did get out of bed we decided to go see a doctor to get some reassurance that we’re good to go on a two day drive followed by a week+ Disney trip followed by a two day drive. The doctor gave us the go ahead and now we’re all set.
My immediate plan is to do the 30 minutes of exercise that I didn’t do when I didn’t get out of bed at 5:00am. I’m going to take care of that as soon as I post this. After that, breakfast. After that… no clue.
The Bruins lost to the lowly Sabers last night. Hopefully they were just getting it out of their system before the Winter Classic tomorrow. I’m going to make my beloved bride listen to the game in the car as we drive south. I hope she forgives me for being a prick like that. Love you, sweetie.
Okay, time to faux job (pronounced “yog” with a soft J). Wish me luck.
The kids just left. They got here about 1:00 and stayed for four hours. That’s more than I expected. I’m very pleased. I got to visit my mother and my father today too. That was tough, but I’m glad I was able to do it.
A nice big chunk of the packing has already happened. Well… our packing. The kids… not so much. That’s okay. They are coming over around 1:00ish on Monday with their bags. I’ll load them into the car and then load all of our bags, including all of the stuff that’s only there for the car trips.
As for the rest of New Years Eve? I had a less than good nights sleep last night and I was crashing hard around 3:00 this afternoon. I made our late lunch/early dinner a little after that and it fueled me up a bit. I’d say that staying up until midnight is a 50/50 call right now, but I’d still like to do it. Over the last month or two I’ve been setting an alarm for 5:00am so that I can get my exercise for the day done before anyone else wakes up. I might push that to 6:00 tomorrow… or maybe 7:00… we’ll see.
On an unrelated note, Jen and I have started watching the new Quantum Leap. It’s not a reboot. It’s more like a sequel with a redesign. We’re only three episodes in (or is it four?) but so far we’re liking it. The time traveling dude has yet to say, “oh boy” though, so it doesn’t feel quite the same.
Five hours and 21 minutes until 2023.
Oh boy.
So it is New Years Eve again. 2022 was a kick in the balls but it was probably better than 2021 and 2020. Not by a lot, but what can you do? Will 2023 be better than 2022? Who knows. Current annual trends imply that 2023 will be better than 2022 but it will still suck badly. It’s sort of the way things are in the 2020’s, you know?
So we’re all going to Times Square to watch the ball drop on New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, right? Yeah… no. I am going to do some errands this morning and then visit my parents. The kids are coming over in the afternoon. I think we’re going to have a late lunch/early dinner while they are here (gnocchi again?) and then… who knows? Staying up until midnight is even up in the air right now. We might just ignore all of the festivities and go to bed. It’s too early to say.
What are we doing for New Years Day tomorrow? I haven’t a clue. Nothing? Packing? Yeah, packing. Then on Monday, the kids will come over with their luggage for the trip, we’ll load everything in the car, and then Jen and I will hit the road. The kids will fly on Wednesday and if all goes as planned we’ll meet them at the airport when they land.
Will I play guitar this weekend? Maybe. Will I play with my new camera? Definitely. Will I spend quality time with the love of my life? Of course!
We were going to fly to Florida for our nearly two weeks at Disney World. Now we’re driving. This means a few things. Obviously it means we’re leaving earlier and getting home later and it also may mean cutting the last day at the parks a little short. It means we’ll have a car with us for the whole time which implies we can leave the resort if we need to (as in, we need to buy protein bars or something). It also means gas money. We are going to do our best to leave the car in the parking lot for the whole trip. Disney provides transportation between everything on the resort so we will be able to travel all over the place without using our car. That’s the goal, and it’s worked fine the two times we’ve stayed on the resort in the past.
There are other things that driving allows too, and for me it means I have the opportunity to be WAY more obnoxious. Heh Heh.
I was planning on taking two cameras, the new Z5 and the film FG-20. I was planning on taking one lens for each camera. I was also planning on leaving some of my film behind, just the two rolls of ISO 800 film that I picked up from Amazon not too long ago, out of fear of X-Ray/CT scans at the airport. I was also planning on bringing some envelops with me so that I could ship film off to the lab a couple of times, rather than fly home with them and risk a second X-Ray/CT scan.
Now that we’re driving? All of the lenses are coming. All of the film too. No more worries about luggage space on the plane. We’re taking the Mazda because it’s the bigger of our two cars, and with just me and Jen on the drive we can fill up the back seat as well as the trunk. That means we can take the kids’ suit cases so they don’t have to check their bags, and it also means nerd boy can take his big camera bag rather than just putting the two cameras into his carry on backpack. Oh yeah, babie. Robbie is going to be photographically insufferable. Insert maniacal laughter here.
Driving also means we will have to load up on protein meal replacements for the drives down and back. I was likely going to do that anyway, but this just adds an extra couple of days to consider. It also means Jen and I will need to do laundry more often, though possibly the same number of times but needing to do the first loads earlier in the week. Something like that.
What else does it mean? I’m thinking! We might end up listening to an audiobook during the drive. Something like that. Maybe I’ll put together a Rob’s driving while Jen is sleeping music playlist. I once made a playlist of favorite guitar moments from the Big UK Three, Clapton, Beck, and Page. I shuffle it and let it go. It runs for a few hours. I only get the urge to use that playlist on long drives. Maybe it will get some use.
That reminds me! Total change of subject.
On Monday Jen, Bellana, and I went car shopping. We were in our second dealership and we found The Car. As we sat down in the office to start the purchase process, the classic rock station playing in the background (it was a Boch dealership. Ernie Boch, Jr is a rocker. Jen and I saw his band play at the Brad Delp Memorial concert back in the stone age. Ernie and the Automatics. Two ex-members of Boston were in the band. Or was it three ex-members… I can’t remember if Fran Sheehan was in the band or not, but Barry Goudreau and Sib Hashian [aka Dwayne The Rock Johnson’s father in law] were) played the Golden Slumbers medley by The Beatles. Pretty much my favorite thing in the entire Beatles catalog. I took it as a sign from the music gods that we were buying the right car.
Not long after that the radio played Trampled Underfoot by Led Zeppelin. I haven’t heard that one in years. The next song they played was Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton. I thought to myself, two songs by two of The Big Three in a row. If they play something by Jeff Beck next it will be more proof that universe approves of the car purchase. They did not play a Jeff Beck song next. Oh well.
But wait, there’s more!
Last night we went back to the dealership to pick up Bellana’s new car. The song that was playing as we walked in the door? I’m a Man by the Yardbirds… with Jeff Freakin’ Beck on guitar. Holy Shit Nuggets! They weren’t consecutive, but the universe gave me all of The Big Three. Woah!
Anyway, back to planning the trip and being obnoxious… I can’t think of anything else right now. I’m sure I will later, and I am sure I’ll write a 50 page essay describing it. Until then, go listen to some Jeff Beck and then maybe go buy a car.
Happy new (used) car day to Bellana!
We are booked to fly to Disney World on Wednesday January 4th and to fly home on Thursday January 12th.
Two of the four of us likely will keep those flight reservations. The other two? Probably not. It’s still all up in the air right now, but it looks like Jen and I will be driving to Florida, probably leaving on the evening of January 2nd in an attempt to both get South of New York City by the end of that night, and to get to the Orlando, FL airport in time to meet the kids when they land. The reason is medical and I am not going to mention it because it is minor overall, but it is just safer to not fly.
Coming home, the flight is in the late evening. Jen and I will probably leave in the morning, possibly after spending a little time at a park though equally possible we will just leave from the hotel, and take two days to drive home. The kids will get home on the 12th and we’ll get home on the 14th or maybe 15th if we dawdle.
It’s going to be insane, but we’ve done it before and it will be a fun addition to our already epic trip. Just think of all the extra film photos! Wow!
In less chaotic news, we are supposed to head to Norwood tonight to pick up the car we bought for Bellana two days ago. The hope is that we will leave as soon as I punch out of work. I am going to need to bring a protein bar or two with me and have them for dinner on the drive. I thought we were going to have to stop at Dad’s on the way back, but maybe now we have to stop at a grocery store instead? I don’t know yet. We probably won’t know until it happens. Once it’s done though, our brief experiment with being a one car household will end.
It’s been a crazy few days here in our house. It’s going to be a crazy next 2-3 weeks too. I am so freakin’ ready to go to Florida. I would leave right now if I could. After last night with the cat and all of the other shit that’s gone down I just want to get the hell out of here for a couple of weeks. I want to crawl into a hole and hide. Granted, I want to take the bathroom scale and a film camera and my new mirrorless camera into the hole with me, but the idea still stands.
Let’s Freakin’ Go.
Happy Boxing Day, whatever the hell that is.
Today has been a day for used car shopping. I mentioned that we had become a one car household. Well, that didn’t last long. We gave our Mazda CX5 to my step daughter. After a week of driving it she was very displeased. I’m not sure exactly what her issue was but she wanted to trade in the car and get something smaller with better gas mileage. Okay, so maybe I did know what her issue was. We said no, just give us the car back and we’ll help you buy a new car. Today became that day.
We journeyed South to The Auto Mile. If you live in Massachusetts, you know of what I speak. We found something suitable at the second dealer we visited. A not-too-terribly old Hyundai Elantra. We then spent eons handling financing and paperwork and insurance calls and all of that. The car may be ready for pick up tomorrow, or failing that Wednesday. When we pick it up Bellana will take ownership and we’ll take the Mazda back and be a two car household again.
The car purchasing process went very smoothly, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s the second most stressful shopping experience one can have in modern day America. The only thing worse is buying a house, and that is WAY worse. In the end though, all went well and Bellana will have a more suitable car going forward. I am pleased.
The other note worthy story on this day after christmas has to do with my awesome new camera. My seriously ass kicking new camera. My old camera is a Nikon D90. The sensor on that camera is cropped, meaning it is smaller than a full frame sensor. The term “full frame” is not a standard, as every camera manufacturer has it’s own spec, but basically it’s supposed to be about the same size as the film that is exposed when the shutter opens on a 35mm camera. For Nikon, cropped sensors are called DX and full frame sensors are called FX. They make lenses that are specifically designed for one or the other, though they can be used interchangeably. the catch when you mix DX and FX is that the focal lengths the lenses see are different and, I didn’t know this until late last night, the resolution on the images might be off.
A month or two ago when I was researching upgrading my D90 for the first time, I am pretty sure I wrote a post about it, I was looking at new DSLRs and mirrorless cameras that were DX format so that I could use my existing collection of (three) lenses. The camera that Santa brought me is an FX format. I knew that my lenses would work fine (with an adapter as the mirrorless cameras have a new lens mount) so I didn’t think twice. Then, after uploading a bunch of pictures to Flickr, I took a look at the resolution of the images that were uploaded and was really surprised to see that it was lower than images from my D90. The D90 is a 12 megapixel camera and the christmas Z5 is a 24 megapixel camera. How could Z5 pics have a lower resolution than D90 pics?
To the Google I go!
Oh, that’s why. When the Z5 sees a DX lens it automatically crops the images down to 10 megapixels because there is a percentage of the sensor that the lens does not cover. It makes sense when you think about it. I just didn’t think about it at first. The images it takes are still seriously awesome, it just means I will need to get an FX lens to take full advantage of what the new camera has to offer. Nikon makes a few budget friendly Z mount prime lenses, including a 40mm and a 28mm, both with apertures that open up to less than f3. I think the 40mm goes to f2 and the 28mm goes to f2.8, though I might have those backwards. I’ll start with one of those lenses, probably the 40mm, and will hopefully be able to swing it before Disney World next week, though we did just buy a car so who knows. The lenses I have are perfectly fine so if I can’t get it done in time I won’t be upset, I’d just like to have 24 megapixel shots of Mickey Mouse if possible, you know?
And there you have it, the two major stories from Boxing Day 2022. What’s up for the rest of the day? Well first I am going to wait for my stomach to stop hurting due to trying to eat my lunch (three meatballs totaling five ounces and about 30 grams or protein, assuming Google gave me accurate information), and then we’ll see. I think I am going to start taking down christmas decorations, specifically the tree as it’s dead dead dead. I might also go food shopping because christmas is over and it’s time to start cooking meals for reals again. For now though, wish my stomach luck.
I got up at 5:30 or so and did my exercise. After that I did the Santa stuff. The kids’ presents were “hidden” in the cellar so I brought them all upstairs and arranged them in the living room under the tree. Then Jen filled the stockings and I hung them up in front of the fireplace. I took a bunch of pictures with my DSLR and with Dad’s film SLR. Jen made breakfast, and I helped where I could. I woke the kids up at 9:00am and they had french toast for breakfast while I had scrambled eggs.
That’s when I took the matching pajamas group picture.
…and that’s when the presents kicked in.
I got a wallet and a new leather jacket. The leather jacket was a wonderful gift. In 2007 when Jen and I celebrated our first christmas together she gave me a leather jacket. I wore it until it started falling apart, then I kept wearing it. I stopped a couple of weeks ago when I finally accepted the fact that it’s at least two sizes too big and I donated it to goodwill. Jen bought me another jacket as a replacement and it warmed my heart in ways that I cannot even begin to express. I am so lucky to have someone so thoughtful in my life.
Oh, and I also got a new camera. Woah! A Nikon Z5. A full frame mirrorless camera! I am so excited to use the shit out of this thing. I got an adapter so I can use my lenses from my DSLR with it even though the Nikon mirrorless cameras have a different lens mount. I took a bunch of pictures with the new camera but most of them have kids in them so I won’t share them here. I will share the random christmas tree ornament pictures.
I don’t know where I am going to bring the new camera for it’s first photo walk, but I know once I figure that out you, gentle readers, will be the first to know.
HoHoho! I hope your christmas was as magical as mine. I got to spend the day will my favorite people and it was wonderful. The kids are about to go back to their dad’s for the week, though Bellana will be spending some time with us tomorrow.
Up next is New Years, next weekend, and then Disney World. Expect a shit tonne of mirrorless camera photos from that trip.
So our annual christmas eve party with Jen’s side of the family got a little mangled this year. So what. We still pulled it off. Sure, post-Covid christmases might look a little weird, but they still work.
Merry Christmas, Nana and Papa.
Inside the Red Head's Head 