We are home. Graduation weekend is over. Two things happened. One, my step son graduated from UVM and that is amazing and he is amazing and its all amazing. Two, rain. Constant, never ending, drowning, soaking rain. The whole time. Rain sucks.
Remember when bribery was illegal? That was before the nazi in chief of the fascist states of america declared that it was a smart move to let a foreign government give you an airplane as a present. Our new air force one, which will stop being air force one and become trump’s personal plane once he leaves office, assuming he leaves office before he dies.
Yeah, this country fucking sucks. Can you imagine if Barack Obama told the public he was taking a passenger jet as a gift from an Islamic nation? Fucking fascists.
Change of subject. Two things to look forward to this week. First, I have my three year post-gastric bypass surgery check in at the weight loss clinic. I expect them to tell me that I am the greatest patient they have ever had, and that no patient they’ve dealt with has ever had such overwhelming success with their post-op program. I am hoping for a plaque or something to honor me.
Of infinitely greater importance, my step son Harry is going to graduate from the University of Vermont this weekend. I am so proud I am so proud I am so proud I am so proud. Did I mention how proud I am? We’ll be heading up there after work on Friday. I am really looking forward to it. I don’t know if you can tell by the context of this paragraph, but I am really proud of Harry.
Okay, Robert. Back to work with you.
Finally! The sky was clear at sunrise on a weekend. I took four, count ’em four, cameras out with me. My digital, Nikon Z5, my two 35mm, Dad’s Pentax K1000 and my Nikon FG-20, and my new/ebay medium format experiment, Lomo Lubitel 166 Universal.
The 35mm cameras each had a roll already started. My goal was to finish them off. The Lubitel… what the hell, Robert. I’ve had the camera for months and had not completed even a single test roll. I had already messed up the first roll by over advancing it once and blowing a shot, and then flashing the film when the camera back popped open on its own once. My goal was to finish that roll and then put a second roll through and hope that something worked on one of them enough to let me know if the camera actually works or not. Besides all of that film fun, I just wanted to take a bunch of pics with my Z5 because it’s super fun.
I completed all of those goals. I now have four rolls of film to develop. I’ll place an order today and ship them out tomorrow. The two 120 rolls were fucked up even more than I already knew. I didn’t have any trouble with the second one… or so I thought. The camera can be setup to shoot in 6×6 format or in 4.5×6. I was using the 4.5×6 numbers for advancing the film after each (well… most… there are going to be a bunch of double exposures because I am too stupid to operate a manual camera, I guess) but upon further review, the camera is clearly set up to shoot a square format… so every single shot is going to overlap. Moron.
Anyway… here are a bunch of digital pics.
Hampton Beach, NH at sunrise!
These are from a spot in North Hampton, NH, just a little north of Hampton Beach.
These are from a little spot on route 1A just south of Hampton Beach. I don’t know if it is in Seabrook or in the town of Hampton Beach, but you can see the Seabrook nuclear power plant from here so… kaboom.
After that spot I drove home, but didn’t go home. I went to the Spicket Falls Dam in downtown Methuen. We’ve had massive rains over the last week so the river was roaring.
At this point I still had a few shots left in two of the film cameras so I went over to Greycourt Park where I got my brand new sneakers soaking wet by walking around in the grass. It was nice.
What is that baseball doing there? Who left that behind?
And there you have it. Finally, a photography kinda morning. You would think this would hold me over for a little while at least, but nope. I want to go out again right now. Right Freakin’ Now.
I heard that there was white smoke in Rome today. This was my first response:
Turns out the new pope is an American. Weird, huh? Dude’s going to speak English with an accent that I can understand. Too bad I’m not catholic anymore. It might mean something to me if I were.
Here’s a cat to celebrate:
Here’s another cat to keep celebrating. The new pope stole the thunder from my birthday. What a jerk. At least he’s not maga. Civilization has that going for it, I guess.
My last post was published seven hours ago. I’m hanging in there but really can’t wait for this crap to be over. I’m fasting ahead of a medical test and I am hungry. I barely have a stomach left after gastric bypass surgery, but what I have is really jonzin’ for a snack, know what I mean? No hunger pains yet, which is odd given that I get hunger pains all the time. Maybe my brain is trying to protect my stomach? Who knows.
I can’t eat today, but the birds can.
That is today’s photo a day challenge pic. Blurry backgrounds are fun. Bokeh.
The cats are in a state of hyper vigilance right now. There is a mouse in the house. It was in my home office earlier but it got away. In was later seen in our bedroom but I think it got away again. Both cats are on the hunt so it’s days are numbered. I will catch it and bring it outside if I can, but the feline avengers might not give me the opportunity.
Here’s a picture of Robin from before the mouse presented itself.
Here’s one of Lily. Robin was already stalking the rodent invader at this point, but Lily wasn’t in on it yet. She was blissfully unaware.
I took this picture yesterday. Not sure why I am posting it now, but I am… so there.
As mentioned in a post from nearly 24 hours ago, yesterday was a holiday in Massachusetts. Patriots Day. In my neighborhood, Tuesday is trash day. I got up early and got everything ready and opened the door to walk outside with a big trash bag and as the door was swinging in toward me, I remembered that whole holiday thing. The holiday trash pickup schedule punts our Tuesday to Wednesday. Aw, hell. I hate when I forget about that. I took the barrel out to the street anyway. Tomorrow’s an in-the-office day. Taking the barrel out now saves me about three minutes tomorrow morning. Yippee.
Now, onward to another super fascinating Tuesday. Yippee, again.
One of the cats was sitting in the window next to my desk, just watching the goings on in the backyard. All of a sudden she FREAKED OUT and ran away. A few minutes later I noticed this:
Coincidence?
Insert joke about a zombie giving up his weekend for our sins.
The plan is to visit Jen’s mother and step father today. It will be a lovely day, I am sure. They have a new cat. The resemblance to our cat Robin is striking. I expect I’ll use the wrong name at least once or twice.
Until then here is a photographic study. First, we have two cats who were pretending to be asleep as I snuck up on them with my camera.
Awake Lily:
Awake Robin (also, today’s photo a day picture winner):
Then a couple of hours later I returned to the scene of the crime and found both of them actually sleeping.
Asleep Lily:
Asleep Robin:
Cuteness overload. Happy Easter from my cats to yours.
We tried. Twice. We drove up to Kingston, NH for a protest but when we got there there were only a couple of people holding signs in a park. We changed direction and headed to Billerica, MA where there was a big rally going on in the town common. We tried to stop but there wasn’t any place to park and well… at the risk of TMI… there were full bladder issues that needed attending.
We will do better next time, and I promise there will be a next time. Until then, here’s a cat.
We are only on the 10th floor.
Inside the Red Head's Head 