Commute

I made it to work this morning with virtually no traffic. One douche canoe cut me off and I had to hit my breaks. Another douche nozzle tried to stop at the top of an on-ramp and then pull into traffic four feet in front of me without speeding up first. Other than those two schmucks the drive in was event free.

The post-storm sky was interesting though.

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196/365

10 Month Weigh In

Today is March 4, 2023. It has been exactly 10 months since my gastric bypass surgery. I am having a tough time accepting that that much time has passed. 10 months? That’s insane. It feels like yesterday.

I weighed myself this morning when I woke up. I am down 1.4 pounds since Wednesday’s weekly weigh in. I weigh 216 pounds exactly. My BMI dropped from 26.5 to 26.3. My weight since surgery has gone down 215.4 pounds, and the loss since the first weigh in is now at an astonishing 236 pounds.

I finished my exercise a few minutes ago. I jogged in place (yogged) for a faux five miles. I haven’t been feeling well for the second day in a row. I have been dealing with the lightheadedness quite a bit today. I need to go make myself some lunch and put a lot of salt on it and see how that goes. Air fried potatoes, maybe?

On an unrelated note, I put in for some time off from work in the fall. There may be another vacation to someplace warm and sunny later in the year. I’ll let you know. I don’t know if I will be able to hold the traveling jones at bay until fall though. New York and Mountains and other places within driving distance are seriously calling to me.

Running Late on a Friday Morning

I didn’t get out of bed until almost 6:00am, which is almost an hour later than I was hoping to get up, and then got wrapped up in a couple of things and didn’t get to my morning joggin’ (yoggin’) until after 7:00am. Yikes!

While exercising, I watched a youtube video with two film guys gone shootin’ in New York. I thought to myself, self? You and your wife are going to New York this weekend, damn it! Then I checked the weather and saw we’re getting a foot of snow starting tonight and ending sometime tomorrow night.

Shit.

No New York this week. No ocean pics, no nothing pics outside of the house. What a waste. We need to go to New York soon though, and I need to take one of the film cameras with me. There. I said it. New York on film, babie! It’s going to happen. The sooner the better. I used to write all of those Stir Crazy Files posts in the early days of the pandemic lock down, but this one is stir crazy for really reals. I need to get out of the house.

My mother’s big brother is out of the hospital. I am happy. We needed some good family news, and now we have some. Continue to get well, Uncle Jim.

Jen is having computer problems. Last night I went to Micro Center in Cambridge, MA to get some components that might help, but apparently they aren’t. We might have to fly back there tonight after work, assuming the snow doesn’t come early. The Bruins aren’t playing tonight, but the Celtics have a home game at 7:30. We’re bound to hit rush hour traffic plus Celtics traffic, but it will be okay. Assuming the snow doesn’t come early. Fingers crossed.

Okay. It’s 8:24 and I still need to shower and shave and get dressed before punching into work at 9:00. I am way behind schedule today. I hate this feeling.

I am going to cheer myself up by sharing one of my favorite film shots from the Disney World trip in January. This is my road tripping travel companion love of my life woman of my dreams wife Jennifer. I absolutely adore this picture. It’s my favorite film shot by far. By miles. By astronomical units. By light years. I love her and I love this photo of her. How could you not fall head over heels in love with that smile?

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I love her more than I could ever put into words

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!

Florida Recap Post – The Film

This is going to be a long one. It might end up being absurdly long.

The question before me was, do I do a recap post with just film shots, or do I keep posting things to the film blog one shot at a time and reblog them as I go. My choice was to do both. One huge film post and then potentially repost one shot at a time.

These are in random order because they came back from the lab shuffled a little. There are a ton of pics on this post but it’s just a fraction of the whole supply.

Also, the overwhelming majority of them suck… so… yeah…

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Blurry edges… was that on purpose? Sure, let’s go with that.
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Lamp posts, of course
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Clock, of course
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Our hotel hallway. Blurry around the edges again? Huh.
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I like the France pavilion
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Daytona Beach
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Artwork in our hotel room
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Animal Kingdom, waiting for the kids to arrive
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Like a bridge over troubled waters
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Meter for the shadows?
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I’ve got a bike you can ride it if you like it’s got a basket a bell that rings and things to make it look good. I’d give it to you if I could but I borrowed it. You’re the kind of girl that fits in with my world, I’ll give you everything anything if you want things
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Digital or film, it doesn’t matter. My safari shots were dog shit
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Magic Kingdom, where my Nikon camera met with Dad’s Pentax lens. Nifty Fifty, babie
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Clock, of course
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Lamp post. Sucky lamp post, for sure
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Hollywood Studios. Dad’s lens on my camera again. STOP!
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AT-AT outside of Star Tours
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The Stormtroopers harass the guests to compensate for their crappy aim
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Chewy… we’re home
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What’s the Buzz, tell me what’s a happenin’
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Our hotel
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Epcot. Back to using my lens again
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I had the hardest time getting good shots of the Monorail. The two best were both film. Nice
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I did not ride the new Guardians of the Galaxy coaster, but Harry rode it a few times
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England
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Back to Hollywood Studios
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Clocks, of course
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I used the Mickey Mouse watch face on my Apple Watch all through the trip. I love Mickey Mouse watches
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Jen and Grogu. Best buds
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The Darkroom… on a film photo… get it?
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Donald!

There you have it, folks. The final Disney World Vacation post for our January 2023 trip. It was a fantastic week-plus. We’re already sort of planning another trip. This one will maybe be Disneyland instead of Disney World. I’ll let you know more about it as we get through the Spring and Summer and into the early Fall, hint hint.

Florida Recap Post – The Tenth

It occurred to me today that I still haven’t finished with the Florida vacation picture posts. All that’s left is the last day at Hollywood Studios, the drive home, which I probably won’t write a post for, and all of the film. Do I want to do one recap post with just film shots or do I want to keep sharing them one at a time via the other page? I haven’t decided yet.

I still haven’t done the firmware update on my shiny new Z5, or Z 5, or whatever. I made some chicken for lunch, put on the two most recent episodes of The Last of Us (episodes four and five are pretty much a two-parter, right?) and that’s me procrastinating.

Anyway, here’s Hollywood Studios from January 11, 2023….

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R2-D2, the true hero of all Star Wars
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BB8, the hero of the sequel trilogy
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Chip and Dale… but which is which?
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Stop!
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Go!
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Boston is that-a-way
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Donald!
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Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway is now my fourth favorite Hollywood Studios ride, and fifth favorite Disney World ride over all.*
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Gonk
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X-Wing. If I had to pick one ship from Star Wars as my personal ride, it would be an X-Wing
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Rey
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*My top five Disney World rides:

  • Rise of the Resistance
  • Toy Story Mania
  • Splash Mountain
  • Smugglers Run
  • Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway

Disney Bikes

I wrote before about a pair of bikes I saw in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. They were leaning against a building and I took a picture on film. Later I saw what I thought were the same two bikes in a different location and took a digital picture.

I needed to see the film to answer the burning questions. Was I mistaken and they were different bikes? Were they the same bikes and I was mistaken about the different locations? Did I screw up the film shots and end up with an illegible blob of gross on the film?

Let us answer these questions at last!

The digital pic:

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The film pic:

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Yup, different bikes and different locations. I was wrong, as usual.

Florida Recap Post – The Ninth

It’s been a while, but here’s some more Florida! Still waiting for the film to come back. I was hoping I’d have the scans today but maybe tomorrow? We’ll see. These are from our full day at Epcot. Most of which was spent in the World Showcase. There was talk of drinking around the world, but a stomach bug got in the way of that plan.

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I did not ride the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride, but Harry did. A couple of times.
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The monorail goes whoooosh
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England is photogenic
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Does this count as street photography?
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Epcot’s groovy back door, as seen from France.
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Selfie
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This is Morocco, isn’t it?
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Worthy of The ‘Gram
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Fountains
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This random lady gave Jen a pinwheel and it was really cool. I think I will have a picture of it later.
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Japan
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Why does the World Showcase need a US pavilion? It’s literally in the USA.
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Fountains
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Italy
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China
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Love
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Norway, land of gnomes and trolls.
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Mexico
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The pinwheel
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We were going to stay for the fireworks but it was friggin’ cold. Bellana stuck it out, but the rest of us bolted.

Florida Recap Post – The Eighth

On January 9th we started the day at Magic Kingdom, then went back to the hotel to flake out for a while. That was the last recap post. That night we went back to Magic Kingdom for the fireworks show and stayed for an after hours event. The event required a separate ticket and took place after the park closed. That means the joint was virtually empty. We did a ton of rides with little to no wait. It was awesome.

Here are a ton of pointless photos.

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I was really ready for the xmas stuff to go away.
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Fireworks… in manual mode. Like a crazy person
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Hey, bunny
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This is me putting my feet up on the nearly empty People Mover, which we rode I think four times that night.
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Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin (my favorite Magic Kingdom Ride not called Splash Mountain) was a walk on. Glorious.
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Harry took this
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Blurry background, babie!
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I really wanted a slow shutter speed shot of the spinning merry go round, but not enough that I would stand there and wait for the ride to start. Sorry.
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He’s especially good at expectorating.
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That’s it. The next post will bring us back to Epcot and I think it’s going to be a long one. Lots of pictures from the last stop at Epcot. After that there will be another day at Hollywood Studios and then I think that’s it.