Two things happened today that are related to photography fun.
First: I didn’t need it but I did it anyway. I bought yet another camera from eBay. A Nikon F90. It was on my list of cameras to look for when I bought my last film camera last year. I ended up going for a much cheaper Nikon F401 which turned out to be broken. It came with a nice 50mm lens though so it was worth it for that.
Similarly, today’s eBay purchase had more to do with the lens. There were two in the sale. One was another 50mm. That’s fine. The other was the reason I pulled the trigger. It is a 70–200mm zoom. I don’t have a good zoom lens that works with any of my film cameras. I do actually have a couple of zooms but they are both in seriously rough shape. Here’s hoping this one works out.
The camera itself looks good. Will it be broken like the last one? Probably, but who can say. It has autofocus and that’s what I really want. If the camera and the zoom lens both work out okay I will be very happy with this deal. If only one of them works, I’ll still be happy. If it’s all junk? Fuck.
What was the second item of note today? I took a bag full of cameras to Boston and went for a 6–7 mile long photo walk. Yikes! I started on Berkeley Street and Commonwealth Ave. I walked up Comm to Mass Ave, then cut across to Newbury Street and walked back down to Clarendon Street. I shot two rolls of film. The sunlight was pretty good, though it was a lot cloudier than the forecast I read last night said it would be.
When I finished that loop I switched from film to digital and did the same route in reverse. Also, that was when the sun went away. I’ll post the digital highlights later.
For now… my legs are super tired from all that walking. I’m old, leave me alone!
Today is May 4, 2026. Four years ago today I went under the knife and had my stomach rewired. Gastric Bypass Surgery. I try to honor the memory of that day by stepping on the scale and weighing myself to see how things are looking.
When I first decided to work toward getting the surgery I weighed 452 pounds. About four months later when I actually went through with it I weighed 431.4 pounds. This morning at about 4:30am when I got out of bed I weighed 231 pounds. I am still down 200.4 pounds since the surgery and 221 pounds over all.
I was really hoping I would still be under 230. Hell, I was hoping I could get back below 220. I am actually up 12.4 pounds since last May the 4th. There is no reason for me to be upset by these numbers. I have always known that they would creep up over time. Still… shit. My next weigh in will be in six months on November 4th. Until then…
It’s been a while but I did something mildly creative this morning. Not really, but a little bit.
For the first time since August I filled up a back pack with cameras and went outside a-shootin’. Digital, film, the works.
More often than not when I start feeling the photo-takin’ need I head to the ocean at sunrise. That’s what I did today. As sunrises go it sort of blew chunks. The forecast I read last night said it would be clear skies at sunrise today. It was not. Not even close. There was a little gap between the horizon and the cloud cover that sort of let me see the sun when it rose, but it was a pretty underwhelming view. Thanks to our friend the Nikon Z5 with the cheap-ish 85mm Chinese made lens I can show you what I’m talking about…
At least the waves looked cool. They were about as high as this little corner of the Atlantic Ocean gets.
There’s our friend, Mr Sun. It was trying its best to break through.
My sunrise stop this morning was at Salisbury Beach which is on the Massachusetts side of the state line. I was planning on starting at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire, but I needed to stop for gas and I knew there were a few stations on the way to Salisbury so I wouldn’t have to go out of my way. Also, Salisbury is closer to home so it gave me more time to take care of things before the sun came up.
After a few minutes on the beach I wandered around the area a little bit looking for things to shoot… and I ended up more or less shooting the same things that I almost always shoot when I go there. Oh well.
Someday I will be there when these lights are actually on.
Artsy chair pic alert:
Lame life preserver pic alert:
Every now and then the sun would break through the clouds and we’d get a few seconds of glorious golden hour light but the clouds kept getting in the way and blocking the sun. It was a little frustrating.
After a few minutes of wandering around I got in the car and drove up to Hampton Beach. That’s two towns North across the New Hampshire state line. I stopped at a usual fishing boat view. Again, the sun kept breaking through and going away. I think I got some good light here using one of the film cameras, but not so much using the digital.
As usual, let’s all say hello to the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plan before it blows up and melts everyone.
Out on the beach itself, would it surprise anyone to learn that this pic was a total accident? It probably shouldn’t.
The seagulls were my friends today. They mostly didn’t run away from me.
Again, when the sun cooperated the view was fantastic.
I left Hampton Beach and headed South to Plum Island to say hello to the Merrimack River and the Plum Island Lighthouse. I made the obligatory stop at the airfield as well.
By this time the sky was pretty blue. The clouds were losing the battle.
Is the water at Plum Island the bluest water on Earth? It’s gotta be in the running, right?
I mean… seriously… just look at that.
I don’t know anything about this boat except that I shoot it every time I come here.
And in closing… the Plum Island Lighthouse… which has to be the most underwhelming lighthouse in the world. I mean it’s not even as tall as the trees that surround it. It’s also not even on the water. It’s a little ways down the street from the river. How effective can it be?
There you have it. A few highlights from this morning’s wanderings. I also shot some film. I had a black and white roll in my FG-20 that was loaded back in August and still had a few shots left (Kentmere 400). Last night I put a roll of Lomography 800 into Dad’s K1000 and a roll of Kodak Gold 200 into my medium format camera. I finished all three rolls and mailed them off to the lab to get them developed. Hopefully I won’t have to wait too long to share the film version of this masterpiece of a post. Be on the lookout.
Will there be another photowalk tomorrow? Depends on the weather. I am off work again on Tuesday too so there could be something then, again if the weather cooperates. Hopefully it will be better than today but who knows.
It felt good to just go outside and shoot stuff, even if it was really cold on the water. Summer is coming. Maybe some day soon I’ll be able to repeat this experience without wearing a winter jacket. That would be sweet, huh?
It is that time of year again. The time where my loyal readers (all zero of you) start getting inundated with posts where I say something like, just you watch… tomorrow I’m going to go to the ocean and take pics of the sunrise.
I haven’t taken a photo-walk or anything like that since last August. Eight months. I have the day off tomorrow and the forecast calls for clear skies at sunrise. Let’s do this!
The way this works is… I say I am going to go to the ocean to take pics of the sunrise the next day, and then the next day arrives and I stay in bed. That’s how these things usually go. Will that be the case this time?
In our house, the cats are not allowed in the cellar. No. No kitties in the cellar, damn it!
Today, this little monster…
Lily… the gremlin… the queen of personality… she broke the law. Jen was coming up the cellar stairs and when she opened to door to come out, Lily darted past her and ran down the stairs.
That’s not the point of this post, I just wanted to share with the universe that Lily was a bad kitty today. Bad kitty!
Now for the actual topic I wanted to write a short (mercifully) post about tonight. The Boston Bruins are down in their first round playoff series. They trail the Buffalo Sabers three games to one. Tonight is game five.
Does the series, and by extension the season, come to an end tonight? It sure looks that way. I mean, I hope not but after the way they got the snot kicked out of them in game four it sure feels that way.
I have to say that I am still pretty pissed off at the entire NHL. Granted, only the players from team USA were involved, but the way they figuratively dropped to their knees and figuratively chugged down the nazi orange ass clown’s spooge (figuratively speaking)… it made me fucking sick and it made me kinda want to see the entire league lose. I hate feeling this way about my favorite game but what can I do? Fascists are evil and these fuckers lined up to be counted among them.
Damn it. Now Lily is asleep on the otoman… otaman… How the hell do you spell that anyway? Ottoman. There, that’s right. Thanks spell check. What was I saying? Oh yeah, Lily is asleep on the ottoman and she is so cute it’s ridiculous. I guess I can forgive her for going down cellar. I don’t know if I can forgive the NHL for being full of nazi ass wipes though.
Think back to the bad old days of Taco the Nazi Orange Shit Clown’s first term. I used to joke that with all the bitching I sent toward him on twitter I was going to end up in front of the firing squad at some point. I wouldn’t be in the first round of executions and probably wouldn’t be in the second, third, forth, or fifth rounds. Eventually he’d get to me and I’d be finding myself in front of that wall staring down the barrels of the rifles held by my nazi toadie executioners.
Fast forward to teh bad current days of Taco the Nazi Orange Shit Clown’s second term. Last night he posted on his nazi fake-twitter that the nation is going to bring back a bunch of cruel and unusual execution methods. One of them was firing squads.
Yup… one step closer. Look at me being all Nostradamus and shit.
251 years ago today the American Revolution began with a fight in Concord, MA that extended into a Colonial Militia harrassing a column of British troops in Lexington, MA. The shot heard ‘round the world, as it were.
That’s what happens when you piss off people from Massachusetts. Bank on it, mother fuckers.
I am so sick of seeing the nation that grew from that event in 1775 being run by fascists and pedophiles and criminals of all shapes and sizes. I am fucking sick of it.
I am so fucking mad I can’t even think straight anymore. Furious is way too polite a word.
There has been construction work on our tiny little street for months. The road is a total mess. Today, the construction extended from the road…
…to our front yard. Ouch.
I mean… we didn’t really need a front lawn, did we? No…
A lot of this was cleaned up after they replaced our gas meter and made sure everything was hooked up correctly. That’s nice and all, but I really want my street back. Preferably repaved. The potholes are lethal.
Today has been a tough day. Nothing bad happening, just lots of stuff at work happening simultaneously that is stressing me out. The stress increase is unnecessary and pretty irrational, but it’s real none the less.
We have been asked to setup a new development environment that has an extension with our new ai software. I’ll save my ai rant for another post (and you bet your sweet skynet fearing ass that many such posts are coming) but suffice to say I have been having a ton of trouble getting the new environment up and running. Most of my team got things running without issue but a few people have been hitting major trouble. I don’t know if my troubles count as “major” but I had to uninstall everything today and start from scratch and it finally worked. Finally. I feel a huge relief.
Today is Monday and I haven’t posted anything since Thursday. That’s crazy. I never go that long without boring the internet to tears with at least one pointless post. What’s wrong with me?
I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me… I’m currently not in a band. I’m starting to get to the point where its not a matter of wanting to be in a band, it’s a matter of needing to be in a band. Maybe even multiple bands. A cover band, an original rock band, a bluesy jam band… all of the above?
I’m also starting to reach the point where my desire to start going outside and taking pictures of everything is getting out of control. By extension, my desire to try new 35mm film cameras is also getting out of control. I’m having to force myself not to open up ebay when I am sitting in front of a computer. A Nikon F5 (or F6, or F4, or F2) would really hit the spot right now. Also 100 new lenses would really make life better during these dark days of fascist dictatorship.
Speaking of our fascist dictatorship, I consider myself a pretty militant atheist but I grew up catholic. Can I just say that on this day in history I would really like to give the pope a high five?
What else, what else… the Red Sox are no longer the worst team in the big leagues. When I looked at the standings yesterday there were a whole two teams with lower winning percentages. Nice. On top of that, the Bruins clinched a play off spot. Bring me that post season, where they will likely get bounced in the first round.
Okay…. that’s it for this post. Back to work, you.
This has been quite the big weekend and it has very little to do with a zombie who gave up his weekend for our sins. But I digress.
Today, April 5th, is the 19th anniversary of my first date with my wife. Clearly she wasn’t my wife at the time, but it was a pretty good first date. Very successul. We celebrated by going to a matinee. We saw Projet Hail Mary again. It was my second viewing and her third. Great movie. If it is playing on an IMAX screen anywhere near us next weekend we might go see it one more time.
After the movie, Jen made a fancy easter/first-dateiversary dinner and it was wonderful. We ate at the dining room table like civilized people instead of slumming it in the living room in front of the TV like usual. It was a very nice moment.
Yesterday we had my in-laws over for a pre-easter easter dinner. Jen made lasagna. I don’t like lasagna so she made me some pasta on the side. She’s the best.
After dinner I hopped in the car and headed to Boston to see a show. Throwing Muses. It was a fantastic show. I was feeling kinda negative at first. I was feeling like I’m too old to go to shows in bars. Two songs into the Muses set though my whole universe changed. By that time I was actively trying to think of a world where I could see Throwing Muses live every day for the rest of my life. It was magic.
There was one negative though. Halfway through their set I got a nose bleed of all things. Not just any nose bleed, but a massive, gushing nose bleed. It was everywhere. I looked like I was living through a horror movie. Gore.
To summarize, it’s been a very good weekend. I’ve been nuts about my wife for 19 years now and I just keep getting nuttier and nuttier as time goes by.
Inside the Red Head's Head 