don't worry

This played just before walking out the door to Smackdown 2.0.  A new route and same old people.

B-group was the smallest and that was okay. It looks like the A group splintered but hey, not my zoo, not my monkeys.

Was whistling that tune as the ride started, and occasionally through it.

Ride was better but my HR was about 10 beats lower at max efforts than last week. I slept a little better but still really tired. 

Less stress w/o teaching this week. Not sure it would have been more restful in the PacNW but I am taking the next couple days off.

will try and rest.

don't worry, be happy, but dig in to the lyrics - stay positive even in the face of troubles... aka

AMOR FATI MOTHERFUCKERS

and the Robin Williams being in there did drive a bit of a spike into my heart and got me sad thinking about how he chose to leave.

But then I suppose choosing how and when we're finished is not the worst thing, certainly is better than having someone else choose for you.

Such is life and death and this crazy existance.

be well

heddwch
G

Clawing back

 Wednesday was rough. One of my worst physically and mentally. Not painful just impossibly difficult. Managed to survive, made it home, even made a quick dinner. 

Slept but not all that well. but better and last night was better than that one

Deep rabbit hole about headsets and bikes and thinking about the Paramount and the possibility of taking a vacation that's just me to the desert southwest, ride the places around where my dad was, visit my step mother. But when? Is that even possible? How? Weird dreams anyway. Then them merged into another one with someone from the past and someone from the current and it was just weird. 

Also weird that I remember them. Tired of being wide awake at 5am and then falling back asleep before I can think about just getting out of bed only to then be groggy and sound asleep when my alarm goes off. 

I had sold two art prints. First in a long time. Need to get back at that. Or something like that.

Maybe I can work out a production/shipping deal with my printer. Deal with that when I have time. After my vacation.

Next week was going to be a vacation. was going to go to seattle. And of course I just checked for travel this coming week. Flights are all way cheaper than when I looked a while back. Damnit. oh well.

I'll get a vacation some day. 

Maybe.

But at least it feels a touch better and survivable today.

Still fucking crazy. Not sure what the hell the weekend will bring. 

Brought food for a post am commute snack, lunch and pre-ride afternoon snack. Ate everything at once at lunch (late). oops.

24HOGG fees go up on April 1st. Not a ton, have to decide if the increase is worth the uncertainty. But man do I like that event. The one race I'm pretty good at. Got thinking about the Domarski 6hr thing. Maybe/ have to see what the schedule is like. Stuff is weird lately.

It has been a rough week. It is Friday. Now what? not sure, but hopefully I still manage to fit in Dirt Church this weekend.

Who knows who with or where I'll be riding this weekend. maybe just back to the old haunt for a change...

Dunno.

Okay now I'm tired, slowed down enough that the intangible energy of purpose and immediate threat has dissipated and I'm sitting here kind of...  wiped the fuck out.

Shocking.

y'all be smart, don't be like gewilli, get some rest, have fun, don't work too hard

heddwch
G

burried

 and frustrated and overwhelmed

again

Flat out

 Hit the wall yesterday.

Couldn't figure out why. 

then

remembered...

time change

right

Blink

 another couple days, a week, what? blink and a month has passed, blink again and it will be April, next blink and it will be December.

what is happening, why is everything so piled on and crazy and busy and why can't the pace be manageable and chill and relaxed?

SQUIRREL

 sorry - been doing the whole film thing, scanning and posting and blah blah blah - IG is the place to be for most of it.

Found some old gems, developed a roll of film with a few frames from the 12 hours of Pando in '96 or '97 I took of my 2 man teammate. 

Also found the russian panoramic camera roll...

Throwback

Maybe have words to add more later.

We'll see.

Also def transitioning away from twitter - moving to Mastadon so if you are on that platform HMU you can probably guess what my username is there.

heddwch
G

one way to slow down the shoveling

 the shoveling of food into my mouth.

Make it so spicy that even *I* have to take a break.

There was one large habanero left in the fridge, so i chopped it all up and put it in the 2 cups of rice and beans and make a taco salad with some mixed greens and cheese. Holy shit this was a SPICY one. 

What a week. Long week, short week, long weekend first? Tuesday night after four days off and two days of actually getting stuff done at home finally. I really just wanted to keep going with the projects at home that haven't gotten done because I haven't been home in years. With time and energy to do anything. That last part is important. Two days on the weekend aren't enough esp when you try to fit in a MTB ride, weekly grocery shopping and maybe races or bike shop work. But a couple days AFTER doing that? Prime time to actually do something. So I did.

Bike room was sorted and organized a little more on Monday since the weather was nice and I could take everything out. There are a lot of bikes in that damn tiny space. And it seems I have quite the collection of tubeless tires. Mostly 'gravel' CX. but yeah what to expect. I do also have a lot of really nice NOS 'vintage' 26" MTB tires. And well used but not dead CX tires (not tubeless). I did finally toss out the tires I was saving as a 'just in case' or 'i'll use this to line a larger tire' well work and dead but not blown up.

Tuesday was more of an organizational, evaluation day. Went through a bunch of stuff. Sorted and organized and cleaned. Still between both days the recycling AND garbage bins are full. Not the worst thing, more to do though. Much more to do.

Found a few more developing tanks. One double roll tank, so there's there. no more waiting for the fancy plastic peterson to dry before processing another roll of film.

Finally working through this last roll of expired TMax 400. 17 shots done. A handful more to go. Will be interesting to see how the exposures are w/o a working light meter. Maybe not the worst thing. Perhaps it is a good experiment to go through and really learn the feeling for what the f-stop and shutter speeds need to be.  Although this roll is not going to help, next few rolls are 100 or 200 speed (finer grain).

I did see this last night and reading it was pretty much precisely why I loved Tech Pan film. Miss that stuff.

This TMax400 has such a large grain size, but could be also the expired not kept cold part of it. Either way I don't hate this grain, and people like it but it still doesn't quite feel like me. But maybe I'll come back to it. We'll see.

It is a process.

Like life.

Did a long exposure last night and then a daylight one. Looking forward to seeing the scene in two different ways.

Now trying to psyc myself up to be awake enough after lunch (nice mellow low key burn in my mouth, so good) to do what needs to be done.

1pm meetings are some of the most difficult. Coffee and rally. 

heddwch
G

developing

 Finally got the OM-10 film developed. Threw a handful up on a few places. 
getting that roll developed sort of flipped the switch, felt so much better, dunno if it is the process or just unrelated to everything else. 

But man i'm tired, this has been a long week...  riding hard and long on Saturday and Sunday is tough for this old man. Well old is all relative but I'm relatively old compared to how old I used to be. So fuck it.

Took some more photos with the Pentax this morning on the way in.

A couple I'm excited to see. Some stuff I should have held off sharing the digital version.

Shooting a bit with the 28mm on the Pentax, def like that field of view, but that 50 on there is pretty special. Although it isn't a great lens for bright light and fast film. F 16 is all it stops down to. 
Also 1.8 lenses have an insanely narrow depth of field. I kind of forgot about that. You gotta focus that shit precisely .

And while not having the meter isn't the end of the world I really need to get a battery for it. Would speed up the photo process. 

Here's a song for ya today.

I'm gonna head home, looks like I'll beat the rain.

heddwch
G

Link Dump

 First pile have been accumulating on the phone. 

To read, or if already read to save and share later, like here...

Not going to add much commentary if any, just paste and move on

https://everythingchanges.us/blog/no-one-is-non-technical/

https://theclimbingcyclist.com/the-end-of-an-era/

https://thetrek.co/appalachian-trail/siblings-on-the-at-54-miles-of-shenandoah-national-park-in-december/

https://scitechdaily.com/100-year-old-paleontology-mystery-solved-yale-scientists-uncover-how-ancient-plants-adapted-to-land/

https://www.mysportscience.com/post/excessive-exercise-training-affects-performance-mitochondrial-function-glucose-tolerance

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/a-philosophy-professors-final-class

https://petapixel.com/2023/01/21/how-to-develop-bw-film-at-home-a-simple-guide-for-mere-mortals/

https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/

https://www.treetopbarn.com/buildblog/2023/1/31/what-are-you-even-talking-about-the-aixam-mega-desert-thats-what

A little late for this one, guess maybe I should look at these pages more often
https://www.fromthegroundup.bike/

This is for all the women out there - if you aren't one then share it with someone you know that would get a kick out of it
https://libbabray.wordpress.com/2017/02/08/womanifesto/

That's it from the phone...

here's two i left open from this morning:
https://leica-camera.blog/2012/11/30/marc-babej-pursuing-art-for-arts-sake-part-1/

https://leica-camera.blog/2012/12/10/marc-erwin-babej-creating-images-that-engage-and-expand-the-viewers-consciousness-part-2/

minor house cleaning but hey - it is a start.

I wonder how long it will take for all these links to die...

heddwch

G

the internet is dying

Or why should we persist in these types of spaces?

Is there still a place for user generated content and unique web addresses?

Seems odd, but now content is coordinated with large social media aggregators. You toob, Tick tock, insta, book face, and the array of fresh places like post, countersocial, spoutible, mstdn, vero...  and then the og of og social stuff, forums and listservers.

Content made and shared there, it isn't really yours but it makes it easier for hosting and finding, sure, and then all the algorithms can direct you to new stuff or direct you to stuff similar to what you want to see but paid for by adjacent creators. 

We blogs the OG social media? Maybe. But they weren't really even all of it. Plenty of people had their own page and did their own thing with it. blogging platforms just made that easy. 

This contemplation brought on by getting here SUPER early today, being really productive but then finding that in between space. That point where you normally would stop for lunch but it is an hour earlier than lunch and if you eat then you'll never make it through the day so you delay. And today I opened up some old folders of bookmarks. So. Many. Dead. Links. So. Many. Kind of surprising though, there were lots of sleeping, static, lost or forgotten or just hanging on for some reason, frozen in the moment of last creation, 2008, 2013 or whenever. 

Found some great content, some stuff to re-read. Didn't go through and delete anything yet or clean it up, or re-organize. I did read some of it. Left a few tabs open to come back to. 

And then I opened this up.

It was a great morning ride in, warm, already in the 50s by the time I got on the bike just after 7. over 60 right now. 

This morning would have been the absolutely fabulous perfect sit on the porch and drink coffee and chat and hang out. I just don't have a porch or someone with the time to do that with. I certainly didn't have the time this morning. But I did make time to snap a few photos of three deer that were hanging out near the bike path and walked past me. It was cool. 

I had stopped to get a black and white film photo of the tire and foot prints on the wet surface of the bike path. A documentation of who had ridden past that spot in the morning. And while I got the camera out and the lens cap off they walked out onto the path. I think I got a good shot of one of the deer on the path. We'll see when I develop and scan the next roll. Should be soon.

One rabbit hole I dove down was trying to identify that Lens that got away, the one I saw in a used camera store in Seattle in the early 90s. A perfect condition M42 screwmount Zeiss ~20mm lens. A fisheye almost but with nearly no distortion. I think I found it today, found one in Ukraine being sold for almost $1000. A few others here and there all expensive, the nicest Pentax ones are also very expensive. Wish I had bought it, my up until 2005 self always regretted not getting it, and now my 2023 self is just as mad if not more so. So far I haven't really shot anything with a wide angle lens. Although the yashica has the zoom on there. wider for sure than the 50 on the Canon and the Olympus. 

Once this roll is done I'll see if I can jam the LR44 into that weird battery holder on the Pentax and blast through one more roll of Tmax400 before deciding which camera to shoot the Arista.EDU film in first.

Hey look at the time. 

Eating.

Food.

heddwch

G

What a weekend

 Satuday was exhausting. Not because of the cold.

Just, completely non-stop, all out, moments of absolute intensity, and just left me wiped out. Didn't even ride.

Sunday got up early, got some coffee in me, packed the Top Fuel, ate an old bagel with some butter on it, headed to world's watch party, drank more coffee, hung out with friends, watched the race, then headed off to Big River. Chased Donny, Betty, Noah and Colin along with Syl. They were hammering and I think i was a bit underfueled, tired and just slightly off, but those four are all really fast and young and yeah. Only saving grace was when we hit the technical stuff, I was able to easily, very easily keep up, was at least some level of positive take away from it all. Could have probably eaten more before hand, i did snack on some expired cliff blocks during the ride. Ate a lot the night before so that was good to burn through some of that fuel. wasn't a total waste but it was tough. Syl and I missed one of their turns after a bit of a climb (no surprise) and we just turned around and headed back. Got enough pedaling in. I was so smoked the rest of the day.

Still pretty tired. Having to get ready to teach, so instead of making sure everything's ready I'm sitting here. 

The ride was crazy, we got insanely hot mid-way through, then it started to cool off again. What a change from the day before. Or the ride home on Friday.

Need to probably shift back to full speed mode.

Going to leave this here because it is so visually spectacular... this planet is crazy and amazing and gorgeous.

heddwch
g

Leveling off?

 Maybe, hard to tell what altitude... not crashed on the ground, not soaring over the clouds in perpetual sunlight.

Scanned the rest of the negatives. 

There's a bunch getting posted all over the place. 

Some photos I really like. Some just feel like just not quite there. can't tell if it is the film, the camera, the processing, or what. But on the whole, there's a huge satisfaction and beauty that isn't found in the crisp digital super shots. 

capturing the photons in silver vs silicon. 

So magnificently different.

Funk

 It shouldn't be. Heck class starts today.

But have been trying to shoulder through it, one foot in front of the other, and STILL not through it.

Still.

Even got out for Dirt Church, but then of course that was not as planned. Unexplained flat front on the Top Fuel. Put air in but didn't trust it and the dropper needs service and the shock mount bushings are in need of replacement. So I rode the singlespeed with the wrong tires for this time of year and it was hard. 

Developed film friday night and saturday morning. Went to the friends and family opening with K, then shopping then home and i don't remember. just out of sorts.

And now I have to get ready to teach, so much to do, but not much different head space than the end of the week.

Not good.

Lots to do.

Best get at it.

But pausing here first

not sure why... too much, but at the same time facility use is way down right now and that's bothering me too, so many things bugging me, nagging, nibbling, gnawing, eroding, but in the shadows very insidious.

Some how have to shift into the next gear, I never managed to master shifting w/o the clutch, never could figure that out and I need some more RPMs but I'm stuck in this. Kind of like riding behind out of shape and slow geared riders on a tallish singlespeed. It just doesn't work. 

fuck,

at least i don't have a choice, have to do all this shit...

best get started

heddwch

G

two rolls down

 Posting some other shots on IG (sidebar on browser i think still). 

Just finished the second roll of TMax400. Did something really dumb this morning, bright sunlight, i slowed it down trying to play with a bit of depth of field, when I should have gone the other way. Idiot. First moment of what was I thinking. Should be a few interesting or way overexposed frames. 

Time to move on to the Leica, but first maybe process these two rolls.

I did carve out a little time to get on the SEM yesterday. Put a few tiny sand dollars in there, found some cool stuff, maybe got a few cool photos, need to work on them but it has been a struggle this end of the week.

Like just a flat out struggle, kind of have hit the holy shit so much to do i'm overwhelmed and getting only the barest most critical shit done and staring at the rest of it wondering where to start. Haven't had this issue in a while. 

Thought I had something to say, guess just that even given all the good shit around lately, the positive movement and stuff happening I'm in a mental rut. I am bothered a bit by the low use in the facility, not sure why so many systems aren't getting a lot of use, stuff is STILL not back to pre-pandemic levels and I don't really like it, it is a concern. but not really, because I'm not high enough up in the bureaucracy to really be impacted. I hope. One can never tell though. 

part of me is a deliberate but maybe unconscious pause before next week, self protection mechanism, before all hell breaks loose and there's no time to get paralyzed by what to do next because EVERYTHING becomes holyshit get that done yesterday. And that's exhausting.

And my sinuses are still not 100%, but my ears are mostly clear.

And the bike? Yeah The crockett doesn't create the pain at night, on the Black Blue because that oddly seems to be the best, even though it is kind of too small for me. I keep thinking about getting the White blue set up with full fenders as a geared Rain bike. It is sitting on a trainer just being in the way in the basement at the moment but then there is no room in the bike room for it now anyway. Need some major overhauling of space in there. At some point. 

Add it to the list.

Winter might get here next week. Maybe I'll start wearing something other than thin wool gloves. 

maybe.

Ah well.

Not the most positive post to end the week with. But hey, life ain't always bubble gum and lolly pops, or weed and whites. Not that I'm a fan of any of those four things.

Gonna make up some XTOL developer, send some emails, sort out a few other issues, make a better plan for Monday, maybe just try and leave early for the hell of it. Esp if I'm sitting like this...

But tomorrow is saturday. Take a day off, Sunday will hopefully hit the trails on the MTB. 

And Monday the crazy starts. 

heddwch
G

Storm coming

 But mostly rain.

Honestly digging all this rain. 

Except for the part of riding the rain bike messing up my left butt.

weird. Rode the Crockett, still covered in Hartford mud and clay. Need to resolve that. Need to put gears on there too, maybe road tires? Maybe?

Lots to do, lots to work on.

And the film shit showed up and now it is time to get my ass in gear, but not force it too much.

Photos...  photos of what? People? Trees? landscapes? Not sure, but I've always been more of a landscape photo person, but then, it isn't much different than street photography. Shot a couple frames that are solid street, but with a cool tree.

I'm finding I shoot with just one camera, I don't think to shoot with the phone camera and the film camera, one, or the other. Strange? Maybe. Keeps the moment unique, no crossover means no comparison and remember kids, comparison is the thief of joy.

Take care of yourself...

be kind, you don't have to be nice, but you do need to be kind, being nice but not kind is the worst.

heddwch

G

lets jump back to bikes for a minute

 With this... still wiping tears from my eyes...

That ending scene with his dad, wishing I had a moment like that with mine. Hoping to share a moment like that with my children perhaps. 

The dichotomy of GeWilli, doing everything so much always je suis seul

Is that the legacy of my existance... seul... 

Perhaps it is, but of course there is the schism within that wants anything but that, clash of opposites.

The battery tweak didn't work for more than one photo on the ride in. Went to grab a second and it shifted and didn't work. 

Fixed it now perhaps, perhaps I leave soon and capture some of the evening light, perhaps.

My butt still hurt last night, from the bike, just the left side, feels fine now, and wasn't as bad through the night but it wasn't great. Dry so I took the Black Blue, perhaps that will sort things out. 

We'll see tomorrow. Maybe my body got used to not riding. This isn't a great development, but perhaps one to work on solving, as I work on moving forward. 

Mike Foley died yesterday it seems. Sudden and unexpected heart attack. Such a force, such a crazy but always smiling person. Met him in person back in 2010, maybe before, but def then. I thought there were photos of us, but no just a photo he took of me. 

He posted something a few days ago that really struck a chord, so good, so on point...  and I'm glad he was at least at the 5/6 mark. I want to guess that you can't do better than that, and just getting there is a huge achievement of perspective. 

Going to try and add it in here as an image because his account is locked up...  and I feel pretty honored to have been let into his private space, that he was willing to share it all with me. haven't seen him, like so many, for so long. 

Life, ah this brief and crazy temporal existence.

Heddwch
G

film

Dammit. Both the Pentax and The Leica R3 have film. The Leica is set for ASA/EI of 50, means it probably has the Tech pan film. Of which I've been reading about tonight since finding that out, it's annoying to process and it's worked for me because I've always used D-19. Don't think you can get that anymore. And besides I already ordered the worst developer for the film. I think maybe I cut losses and wind the film back up and save it for when I go with a different developer. 

But first I'm going to shoot a roll of the TMax 400 (at 400) on the Canon AE -1. It also has film on it. Really old color. ASA set to 200 but it's a roll of 100 and everyone's pretty sure the camera back was opened. Probably should toss the film. I'm don't want to play with color, yet.

But new batteries in the Leica and cleaned up and ready. Then finally camera 4 (how and more importantly why do I have four old mostly manual, film cameras?

The Yashica at least has a 28-85 macro zoom, pretty cool actually. The Leica only has a macro 50/2.8, the Canon a 50/1.8 and a cheap 80-205/4.5 zoom lens.

Then there's the Pentax. That's really my camera. The go to, the one with the array of great lenses and a shitty zoom of course. 

I mean there is the busted Olympus OM-10. Something mechanically is wrong with it. Guessing it's lens won't work with any of these. The Canon is the most automatic. The Leica can do some of the same but the Yashica and the Pentax are light meter only, and I only really ever shot the Leica I'm manual mode. 

But there's new film coming, compatible with the developer I bought, and the TMax works with this developer. 

Oh and the PENTAX also has film in it. 200ASA/ISO/EI so who knows what the fuck film is in there. Or from when. Or what is on those first 14 frames.  But since it is not at 50 it probably isn't tech pan.

And why? What am I doing? Taking photos, with film. For what purpose?

I think maybe to just get back to the art of it. Make each photo more precious?

We'll see.

Maybe the snow will help with the inspiration and photos.

And hopefully the path will be clear and I've free tomorrow.

Heddwch

G

Riding bikes and taking photos

 

And listening to music and dealing with teaching and helping take photos of the tiniest shit.

Life. 

I keep forgetting to send KF a text about his snow photos, a smart ass comment along the lines of snow always looks good in black and white - no blue tint... but then I forget and like maybe I should just text now but posting here feels more meta.

Took a few more shots this morning. Roll almost gone. Had idea that I shoot the next two rolls of the TMax on different cameras. The Cannon maybe next? Then either the Leica or the Spotmatic. But kind of thinking maybe saving the Spot for the new film. Because why not? I don't know.

Maybe we'll actually get some snow and I can go out and get a few high contrast structure photos to end the roll.

Chemicals are on the way. Will need to truck home some DI water for the rinse and for making up the chemicals. Went through the "where do I order it all from" that penis shape prime place actually had almost nothing in stock or at crazy prices. Then looked at Adorama and that place was out of stock on a few things and exactly the same price as B&H and well that last one had it all and that's enough for me. Probably didn't need to order 100 neg sleeves but they were only a few bucks more $ than 25 sleeves. Probably should have just gotten 25 but my daddy taught me to always look at the unit price. or something. Also, I kind of hope that I will maybe shoot that many. Just have to watch the bottom line. Shit might get expensive. Threw a few rolls of film on there, the least expensive. I do want to try that CineStillXX stuff and the Illfod PanF and the JCH film, but they are all boutique, aka expensive. HP5+ seems pretty popular, likely for a good reason, but I can't shake my TechPan affinity. 

I guess I should really find a mirror (that isn't a bathroom) to shoot the photographer selfie with the film thing before this roll runs out on the Yashica. 

Rode bikes Sunday. Hit the dirt! For a good long ride. That of course the wahoo died on.

Of course.

But friday and saturday night I was woken up with that dreaded pain in the left butt. Seat height. Right? I wrote about it here and then said I'd remember if I wrote about it but now I'm still doubting but hopefully fixing. 

I knew that something was not quite right on the Surly and up until last week I had been okay riding it once or at most twice a week, basically only if it was going to be wet. It has basically been wet every day almost and well, I've been on the Surly and well i've got that pain in the ass that doesn't show up until I'm sleeping and in the morning. Goes away all day until sleeping. But only happens if I'm on a bike with too high of a seatpost I guess. Different than too far forward of a saddle/seat angle. Also different than cranks that are too short. 

Surly saddle was 6mm high vs Crockett and so, I dropped it this morning. Now kind of want to check the top fuel because of the long ride on Sunday on that. Maybe too tall? STILL? Also need to service the Dropper. There's some stiction in the mech and it would be nice if it was all smooth again. 

Ride was good, but I still am missing a good bit of punch. That said the nearly 3 hours of riding actually felt pretty good, not bad. Wish I was faster and the hills hurt but the duration was managable. So that's not the worst.

My ears are getting better, haven't taken any of the OTC stuff since the PE on sunday AM. 

Kind of mind blowing that classes start again next week. Gotta a lot to prepare for. 

Need to remember to bring the one 1.5mm wrench home that I can put my hands on easily to get the pump battery swapped but it gave me the chance to use the Tubi 2 stage as a pump and I have to say - i really like it. Half thinking about putting the tubi pump head on the digital pump. That or putting it on a valved inflator for the compressor.

Maybe bring it to the shop.

Really wanted to ride on the Road Saturday but man I can't do 7 days in a row and MTB > road. Gonna need to take a mental health day mid-week soon, if the weather cooperates and we aren't about ready to get into 6 weeks of snow and shit.

Okay now that I've reached the rambling phase it is time to stop. Fingers crossed the pain is gone tonight and the tweak to the position works.

Heddwch
G

And it begins

 

So, yeah. I loaded up a roll of film. Still haven't sorted a battery for the Nikon 6006, or the Canon AE-1 or my old faithful Pentax Spotmatic. But the Yashika that hitchhiked back from VA with me takes those 44 batteries. Ideally the SR but Dollar Tree only has the LR44, alkaline is fine. At that price esp. Needed batteries for the Topeak pump anyway.

Loaded the roll of expired TMax 400 up in there. Might be slightly overexposing with the light meter, but hopefully not too much. The phone app is showing it a stop too bright. BUT hopefully that's fine. I don't really want to pull process anything yet. But I guess if it consistently one direction I can do that. Or just tweak the ISO rating so the spot meter works better (it is center weighted only and may not be super reliable). 

But it has been fun to get back into it. Except now I will need to process it soon and for that I need chemicals and for that I need to get off my butt and order stuff, or buy stuff, or use some of a former student's chemicals in his darkroom that he set up after taking my class and getting hooked on black and white photography. I really don't want to mail this stuff in, and I do kind of want to just be able to process it myself when I'm done with the roll. Don't want to wait the weeks it takes to mail in the film. Although maybe I should do the mail in thing with a service that also scans the images.

SO MANY OPTIONS. And then what's next for the film? What film do I try after these rolls.  Or do I try and fire up one of the other cameras? WHO KNOWS. But it is good and the contemplating processing and chemicals has been good. Although it reminds me it has been 17.5 years since I've been in a darkroom/played with chemicals. Damn it has been a long time. 

But I have most all the stuff I need to do the processing. I've got an ancient old Minolta film scanner, might even have an old computer that will work. Not the best resolution but it should be good enough to scan and post (until I take the next step and start printing). Yes I have the enlarger and everything. 

Shooting the last two days I've more or less just taken the standard shots on the commute. I did manage to do something I've never done before. Lose a lens cap. I've had a track record going back to my first camera of never losing a lens cap. 

So it was kind of funny.  I thought the cap just was in my backpack when I pulled it out of the back with not lens cap. It is one of those that easily gets knocked off. So NBD. Got to work, looked through the bag, no cap. WTF? I laughed. And thought 'it figures, first time using it, lose it' and then riding home, in the dark, in the rain I stopped at the 3rd photo location, and where I first noticed it missing, and looked all over with the headlight. Nope. Not there. Rode down to the 2nd stop. Started looking around, nope, and then I noticed something very regularly shaped in the grass, and black, and there i was, sitting waiting for me to find it.

I have the cap now. 

And still a few shots left before the end of the roll. Trying to be conservative with the photos, but also kind of want to just shoot the whole damn thing and process right away. But not having chemicals is helping with the patience thing and pacing and and all that.

Also, Breck Epic. SO WANT TO DO THAT RACE. See also Transylvania Epic. But man those are pricey. Maybe next year.

8 months of kid at home then the youngest is off to her dream college. Maybe things will open up after all that.

Now that I'm finally old and shit. Just another old guy trying to do shit he never was able to do in his prime. Such is life eh?

Tomorrow is also the 18th anniversary of me calling the boss here at the current job and talking about it before actually getting it. First contact. And here I am still at this place. Doesn't pay well but how does the joke go, there are good benefits? I also like what I do, even if it gets stressful sometimes. Just kind of wish we still had a darkroom but fuck, everything is digital. And yeah, maybe I just better get a digital black and white camera, film is just so... film. 

But man did I really like it at one point. So many home made pinhole cameras. So many negatives somewhere. 

Bikes, might not get out on the bike tomorrow, might need a day off. Maybe my ear will clear up and I'll be able to hear too. Who knows.

It has been a week, craziest 4 day work week all year!

heddwch
G

Double dose

 Did I mention I've been on a bit of a Stromae kick? Sure, I've heard the dance anthem a billion times, why? BECAUSE IT IS SO GOOD ( Alors on danse) I'm sure you have too.

The latest stuff is also magic, but the old stuff is still absolutely gold.

This one prompted me to share it. Document. And DAMN IF IT AINT ALL THAT!

More so now that that other guy has taken over the show. WOW what a mess.

 

Also, the whole reading other blog posts: Jill's latest hit me pretty solidly in the feelings. Read it and I'm sure you'll make the connection. Funny that I saw that just as Alex's latest O offering rolled out on the promo bus

And man my ears are ringing and full of cotton. I can hear the music just fine but not anyone talking at me from outside the office. They pop and crackle a bit but just don't want to clear out, no matter how many fluids I drink or what I do. Might be time to try a different OTC med to clear it. 

gratitude. for the bloggers out there still blogging, the genuine ones. Like Jill and Stevil, even Janice who's been somewhat regular web logger. I love listening to music on the youtubes, and listening to audio books, yet I can't get into audiobooks, and in the same page I love reading what people have written, real stuff, but still don't mind consuming the micro blogs that twitter and visuals IG happen. Not sure that makes sense. 

Felt right writing it but hey who knows. Def not getting the effortless prose you find at Jill's or the carefully crafted mix of news, feelings and promo and cool shit at Stevil's. 

Such is life.

heddwch
G