Tag: Travel

Travel Tomorrow

It is 9:30pm on Saturday night. The car that is taking us to the airport will be here at 4:45am. My alarm is set for 3:30. Here’s hoping I get at least a little sleep tonight.

We’re 95% packed. All that is left is last minute things like this laptop I’m typing this post on, and some chargers, and things like that. Harry is here and he’s doing some laundry, so he has to finish that tonight too.

One thing that isn’t here is the new/ancient film camera that I bought off of ebay last week. The USPS delivery date/time was today at 9:00pm. It was set for that for almost a whole week. At 9:00 tonight the estimate changed to Monday at 9:00pm. Fucking post office. I’m so pissed off. Now my new/old camera is going to sit on the steps for almost a whole week while I’m off visiting Mickey in Florida. Fucking post office.

I’m going to try and get some sleep soon. Here’s hoping for a smooth journey tomorrow, a successful week’s vacation with the family, and a safe and easy trip home next weekend. It’s going to be a great week… despite the fucking post office.

Substack

Right folks, what are our thoughts on Substack? I subscribe to a handful of them but I only ever actually read stuff from the guitar player who used to be in The Blake Babies (and I’m just thinking that it is really getting to be time for another Blake Babies reunion record, don’t we think?) and one film photographer from youtube who lives somewhere in the wilds of New Hampshire. Truthfully, I don’t read every post from those two users but I read some of them. Sorry.

My first thought when I learned about Substack was nope, I’m too old for that shit. The Blake Babies guy is older than I am though… he’s also 100 times cooler and a lawyer (yikes) and his cred level is 100000000 times mine… though any number that quantifies your credibility is higher than my complete and total lack of credibility, right?

My second thought was… it’s an email newsletter. Anyone who would be dumb enough to subscribe to mine would mark me as spam within a couple of days of my pointless brain droppings.

Still… am I thinking about it? No… but… yeah, no.

What else, what else… new camera coming soon. The USPS tracking number says it will arrive on Saturday. That doesn’t give me any time to shoot and develop a test roll before I go on vacation, but I had already decided not to bring a film camera on vacation this time. I’m going all digital on this trip.

Part of my initial film camera attraction was using fully manual, mechanical cameras. I didn’t want any automation at all. I didn’t want anything electronic. This time? The new camera has autofocus. Oh praise be, it has autofocus! I’m getting blinder by the minute and manually focusing is a bitch. Wearing bifocals (well, progressive lenses) makes it so much worse. Now I am going to be able to autofocus with film and oh how the heavens will sing in gleeful glee.

What else? This is traditionally the longest week of the working man’s life. The full work week before a vacation. One day down, four endlessly long and painful days to go. But hey, there’s a new camera and a vacation at the end of it! There’s two carrots on the end of this week’s stick. The best part? Both kids are coming on this trip. We’re going as a full family. How cool is that? Both kids are in their 20’s and we can still get them to come on vacation with us. Life is pretty fucking cool sometimes, don’t you think?

I should join Substack and write a big article about it.

Back to Normal

The cats were very displeased with us when we got home last night. They hid for a while before coming into the room with us but keeping their distance. By morning they were being super affectionate again. Actually, they seemed more affectionate than usual. Maybe they were just starved for attention. Two days without humans constantly baby talking to them must have seemed like an eternity.

Jen and I are both back to work. We’re both really tired. We were so busy this weekend that it feels like we need a weekend to recover from our weekend. I won’t be getting one though. This week at work has the potential to be pretty rough. Here’s hoping the universe takes it easy on little old me.

We have to put a pause on the celebration of my step son Harry for a day. Today is my step daughter Bellana’s birthday! Happy Birthday, Bellana! WOOHOOO!! A couple of weeks ago I was sad because I had a birthday that moved me from my early 50’s squarely and undeniably into my mid 50’s. Today sees a similar (though less depressing) thing for Bellana. She moves from her early 20’s squarely and undeniably into her mid 20’s. The poor thing. The poor, still very young, thing. Heh, sorry.

Apart from the birthday celebration everything is back to normal. I even looked at the long range weather forecast and as expected, it calls for rain next weekend. Of course.