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April 22nd, 2005

Hard To Say
Things are picking up. The Cherry Blossom parade this Sunday in San Francisco, the Laguna Seca U.S. Sports Car Invitational next weekend. I need to buy a sleeping bag and a mattress pad today so I can see what it's like to sleep in my car. Maybe I should try putting the seats down to see how, um, level they are, how lumpy they might be, how thick a mattress might be required. Nah. Leave it to the last minute.

Right.

Friday was a good day, not too stressful, the head and jaw feeling somewhat better, my attitude one of, well, let's take a break and read the paper rather than let's see if we can do these three things at once and finish before noon so we can tackle the next three things and get them done by two (doodle-dee-doo). This was a “finish the project before June” Friday, none of this get it done by noon. With an attitude like this I could survive in my life if not in my job. One or the other these days, it seems.

Bummer! You're actually in a pretty good mood. Let's get it back on track.

Indeed. This Saturday morning is cloudy, they're talking rain today and tomorrow (on my Cherry Blossom parade), but so what? A photographer cannot be deterred my mere rain (or bullets). A good photographer gets out there and brings home the pictures! Yes. Indeed. Sitting here in my apartment snug and warm and full of vinegar or, at least, what passes for (piss and) vinegar in my declining years, I can say that with confidence.

You know, I write something like that and I think is this stuff dripping out of some terminal fog that I've slipped into over these years, does it make any sense? Is this a reasonable facsimile of my stream of consciousness (filtered through a little rewrite for ease of reading)? I guess. I'm tempted to reread Ulysses after all these years to see what real stream of consciousness is about. It gets down to persistence and determination, I suppose. Rewrite, rethink, rework and post less but better. Better is better. Don't talk about photography, for instance. Folks who aren't into photography zone out and folks who are into photography realize I don't know what I'm talking about. This is, I believe, what is called a “lose - lose” proposition.

The digital camera, by the way, the Nikon D2h crapped out last weekend exactly three weeks after the manufacturer's warranty expired. Surprised me when I realized it's been more than a year since I bought it. I did buy an extended warranty from an outfit called Mack on the east coast through B&H, but their web site said they were running behind due to high volume (five or six weeks to get your camera fixed), so I sent it overnight to Nikon Monday morning and I should be getting something in the mail pretty soon saying how much it's going to cost to have it fixed.

I also asked them to test the color to see if it matches Nikon spec. If they want a fortune to do all this, I'll send it to the east coast and not worry about it. I've been calling B&H every morning now for the last three weeks to see if the D2x is in stock (no it's not), but so what? I have these really nice film cameras, the F6 and the F5's. I'll just shoot up a lot of film and let it sit undeveloped with the ten or so rolls I have sitting undeveloped on the shelf in the kitchen. I am in a good mood. The more undeveloped film I have the better is my motto. Mumble. (The letterf from Nikon came later today. They will fixt he camera and check the color for nothing, even though the warranty has expired.)

Anyway, another day in Oakland, the weather getting worse, getting better, hard to say.

 
The photograph was taken recently in Seattle with a Nikon D2h mounted with a 17-55mm f 2.8 Nikkor lens at 1/40th of a second at f 2.8 at ISO 640.

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