Category: The DayBook

Boys and Girls – tag your photos. Because 30+ years from now, you won’t have a clue.

About “wealth”. When I was young – I desired the accouterments and perquisites of wealth. Mega houses. Haute couture clothes. Jewels from Graff. Camera by Hasselblad. Etc. Now that I am old – I no longer crave houses, clothes, diamonds and custom cars, or even Hasselblads.  But, I still crave a NetJet share. A big fat NetJet share. Not a little bitty dinky share. But a huge lavish go anywhere anytime I want size subscription. I don’t want my own personal private jet. Just a supersize NetJet share. NetJet = Timeshare for the super rich.

In the late winter of 1992 we crossed the USA. From the looks of my photos from that trip – I was starting to take better pictures. I came to photography late in life. An employee of mine told me that I would be a total failure as a retired person. He predicted that with in 6 months I’d be photo engraving US currency in my basement. At that time, I didn’t own a camera. Or a basement. But, he wasn’t far off the mark. (That would be you Dave)

I am appalled by the performance or lack thereof by the Congress.

Nice day today. The scanner did not eat any photos today.

I am having bad old foto karma today. I got a book back from Shutterfly today and it was an epic fail. Half the pages were upside down. I emailed Shutterfly and they promised to send a replacement post-haste.

Then, I fired up my scanner and for some reason it ate 23 of the 62 images that I scanned today. Fortunately, I noticed it and rescanned the 23. But, it do make one wonder how many other images were eaten…

Gotta get back with the Ephemera Project. But, at this instant I am feeling a bit daunted by the size of the job. In 1987, Mr C and I tramped about New Zealand for 3 months. I have a lot of photos and 2 full notebooks from that trip. They are next up. Hopefully, by tomorrow, after 3 days off from scanning, I’ll get back into action.

One of the less important things that I have been struggling with as I get older (and older) is what to wear. How vain can I be? Who cares what I wear? For years I have gotten by with “no elastic waists, nothing from Talbot’s ever, and only one thing from Free People at a time”. That doesn’t seem to be working any more.

One thing is for sure – hemlines must be “closer to my knees than my crotch”. That goes for pants and skirts. I think I have decided to limit my dresses, skirts, pants and shirts to black and beige. Pants and skirts can be denim. No denim dresses however.  And allowing any sort of jacket/sweater/wrap that I want – the flashier the better. And, of course, Aloha Shirts. And still no elastic waists. And rethinking the whole Free People thing.

You’re so vain, Peg.

Yesterday when I went walkabout the neighborhood I took the elderly FX01 along. And sneaked up on a bee on a basil plant. No need to sneak up on a sleeping cat.

Rainy day today. I did NOTHING. Well, I hauled my little old lady grocery cart to Trader Joes and filled it up to over flowing with heavy stuff. Canned tomatoes, beer, olive oil, cheese, wine, chocolate…

The Bug Out Project is over. It wasn’t bad at all. Carlton was a “Drama King” all day. But, it was no biggie and the weather was so good – I didn’t mind spending the afternoon out wandering around exciting downtown Arlington.

Carlton plans on playing tennis tomorrow. If he hurts himself – I hope his doctor will not mind being called out on the weekend. Because she told him he could do “anything”.

Oh, about the photograph… Nothing fancy. Just the point and shoot camera (Panasonic ZS15)  – hand held.

Two good news today:

1. Carlton was declared good to go by his hernia surgeon.
2. “They” decided that “they” don’t need to spray our floors for bed bugs. They need to spray our ceiling. Soooo, instead of moving stuff off the floor – we will need to move stuff off our ceiling. Which means, I’ll have to take stuff off the top shelves of my closets. I can do that. And, cover all the food stuffs in the kitchen. I can do that too. And stay out of the apartment from 12 to 5. I may shop.

Click here to view this photo book larger

This is from 21 years ago… The fall of 1992. Bill Clinton was running for President. His Momma still lived in Hot Springs, Arkansas. We were at Hot Springs NP.

I still fondly remember the collection of 1950’s sci-fi paperback that filled a bookcase in our quarters. I have been collecting vintage science fiction for my Kindle. I hope I live long enough to reread all of them.

Yesterday we were told that we had to be out of our unit from noon until five on Friday. And, we have to more all of our furniture 2 feet away from all the walls. This is not possible. I am old and Mr. C. is still recovering from hernia surgery. Neither of us are up to moving furniture. Why is all this happening? We are being fumigated. For bed bugs. We don’t have bed bugs. But bed bugs are apparently in our part of the building. I will take Friday off from work to “deal with it”.

And… the dead mouse. My dead mouse is just my beloved Microsoft Mouse. A replacement has been ordered. But one does get attached to one’s favorite mouse.

Been doing some work setting up software on an iPad Mini at work. That is one sweet toy. I might just have to get myself one – after the next version comes out.

In 1986 my photography skills were de minimis. For example – I seemed to be clueless about where to focus. And for no apparent reason – after getting the picture printed – I punched a hole in Carlton’s ear. But, I still like the picture. Maybe more since it isn’t focused to Mr C.

The shooting at the Navy Yard today. I worked at the Navy Yard back in the ’70s. Rather unsettling.

This is the folder that contained the badly faded photos from the trip Mr C and I took in 1983. The book that I had printed from the salvaged photos arrived. It looked as good as it could. So, I took the binder and photos down to the trash dumpster today. As luck would have it, as I went through mountains of photos – I found another 3 that could be in the book that I made. And, they are better preserved than most of the ones that I put in the book. Oh well.

The starlings and crows continue to gather on our ledges. The young starlings are still learning how to fly. The crows mostly make noise. But, soon they’ll all decide it is time to move farther south.