Tag: film

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!

Forgotten Roll of Film

I thought my film camera was empty. I was going to put my last roll of black and white film into it and test drive it with Dad’s cheap zoom lens.

Turns out I was wrong. I put a roll of color film into my camera on our last day at Disney World and then never took a single shot. I put Dad’s lens on it, but I’ll have to wait for 36 shots before I load another black and white roll.

It’s supposed to snow all day tomorrow, though no accumulation thankfully, but it’s supposed to be sunny out on Sunday at dawn. I’m thinking of taking the new mirrorless camera and one, if not both, film camera out that morning. Possibly to the ocean for some sunrise pics. My film camera has 36 shots left. Dad’s has 20.

In other news, Harry is on the way. He’s somewhere in New Hampshire though he hasn’t reached route 93 yet. He’ll be here in a couple of hours, I think. Drive safe, Harry!

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!

Black and White Film Day

I got an email from the film lab. The two rolls of black and white film I sent in along with the six color rolls from Disney are done! I can’t view them from work because the lab uses dropbox and our network blocks dropbox links, but I’ll see them when I get home.

WOOHOO! Film Day!

Back to Reality

Oh boy, is this a bummer.

It’s Monday. Vacation is over. It is time to get back to the week day routine. Crud.

I tried very hard to close all three of my activity rings over the course of the vacation. Unfortunately, on Thursday, our last park day, I hit a level of exhaustion that I don’t think I’ve ever hit before. I lost the ability to focus my eyes. It was scary. My stand and exercise rings were closed, but my activity (calorie) ring had quite a ways to go. It couldn’t be helped. I was thinking I was at the start of another migraine so I got into bed, buried my eyes under the pillow, and went to sleep with my third ring still open.

My success streak had come to an end, and over the next two days we were going to be in the car all day. I made the choice to just not worry about it until we got home. Then when we got home I was so out of sorts that I decided to take the weekend off too. Well, the weekend is over. It’s 6:48am and my exercise ring is closed. I jogged (pronounced “yog”, with a soft “J”) in place for 31.5 minutes which closed the exercise ring and 64% of the move ring. I plan to start lifting the hand weights a little again today too. I fell off that wagon months ago and it’s time to start that up again.

A couple of other points on this random Monday morning. Last night I watched the first episode of The Last of Us and HOLY CRAP was that good. So good. I am absolutely riveted. I never played the game so all I know of the story is from the trailer, but that was enough to know that the first half hour of the show was leading us directly to something gut wrenching and boy did it ever. I am so psyched for episode two next week. I am going to find every podcast covering the show that I can and queue them all up today. I am 100% on board with the hype.

I placed an order with the film lab I’ve been using, Old School Photo Lab in Dover, NH, on Saturday but I haven’t had a chance to drop the film in the mail yet. I was thinking of doing it this morning, but we got a little snow last night and I just don’t want to deal with it. Tomorrow will probably see me starting my work day super early, so maybe at lunch time tomorrow? Maybe at lunch today if the ice from last night melts a little. I haven’t checked the forecast yet. We’ll see. I have six rolls from Disney World and I want to see how they came out. I also have two rolls of black and white from around christmas that are going too. Once all of that is back I am going to slow down on the film for a while. I have a roll in progress in Dad’s camera that I would like to finish, and a roll in my camera that I haven’t taken the first shot with. That roll is going to sit there for a few months, I think. Once Dad’s roll is done I will take a couple of months off again.

Okay, it’s almost 7:00am. Time to go upstairs and start the day for real. My two week vacation is over. Pity me.

Developed Film Day

I just got an email from the film lab! The scans are done! When we stop for the night I’ll be able to see the roll of film I sent out a couple of days before Christmas!

Here’s hoping they look okay! WOOHOO!!

Chomping at the Bit

I’m having trouble focusing on anything. Tomorrow is such a big deal that it’s messing with my head. I asked Jen if she wanted to go for a drive after lunch. She said yes. She also said she might want to go to bed around 8pm tonight. Not because she’s tired, but because that means tomorrow will get here sooner.

I’m watching YouTube videos that tour the resort hotel we’ll be staying at. We have reservations at Topolino’s Terrace one night. Did you know that Topolino is what they call Mickey Mouse in France? Wait… was it France or Italy. I don’t know. Probably Italy. Whatever, we’re going to eat there.

I still have a lot of stuff to pack up tomorrow. Stuff like the very laptop I’m typing this post on. I will need it today, so I’ll pack it tomorrow. I have put a roll of film in the camera though. All that’s left photo-nerd-wise is to put the new mirrorless camera into the camera bag. Everything else is done. I also created a folder in Apple Photos to keep all of my Disney 2023 pics. I don’t know if I can turn it into a shared folder or not though. I’ll have to see once I have stuff to put into it.

Okay, we’re going to go for a drive up route 93. We’re not going to stop anywhere. We’re just going to get out of the house.

Until next time, my New Years Day friends.

Driving Means More Obnoxiousness

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.