Quiet day

Russian Orthodox Monastery at Jordanville, NY

Quiet day today - didn't accomplish much. Matted and framed some family pictures to make the house look like a home. Got Linda's indoor/outdoor thermometer set up.

Tried scanning slides tonight. I clearly need to spend more time learning how to use the scanner, but it's amazing what it can do. The image here was shot on July 1987 on Agfachrome RS film using my Nikon FE-2 (yeah, I'm anal). We were camping at Glimmerglass State Park, and wandered up to Jordanville to find the monastery that I had heard so much about. I must have used my 80-200mm lens, with a star filter to add the color starburst effect. Home processed the film using one of the simple E-6 kits.

While I enjoyed doing this kind of photography, I haven't touched color in at least 10 years. Mainly a matter of time and focus.

Buns

Anvil & Gloves - Peters Valley, August 2004

Met the guys for coffee this morning at the Bread Basket. Jim was late - had to take his son to the airport - so we waited around for him and they hung out longer. It's great being retired and not on a schedule!

Then stopped at the Wine Exchange to pick up some wine for our party this weekend.

Processed some 35mm film this afternoon - got the first role right, but I screwed up the second. First time I've ever made the mistake of taking the top off the tank while the film was in developer! Too bad - that was the roll from our trip to NYC in early December. But the one that was right was from the weeked in NYC in February (now that tells you how little photography I've been doing!) and it looks pretty good. My try to include an image from that sometime over the next day or so.

The anvil and gloves were done with the 4x5 - really like the surface detail. I made a fine print a couple of weeks ago using Ilford MG Warm - really nice effect.

It's Party Time!

Sausalito - July, 2004

We started prepping for our New Year's party today. Hung the print in the dining room, and the oil painting in the bedroom. Also hung a print (Port Clyde Light) in the study. It's starting to look like a home!

This afternoon we went to the dollar store to buy wine glasses. Someone suggested buying inexpensive wine glasses at a dollar store (typically, $1 each) rather than using plastic. The neat thing is that the glasses we found are rather nice and you would never know that they are cheap. Then to the supermarket to buy party supplies. Finally stopped at Boscov's to exchange the track suit that I bought Linda.

The image today is my first attempt at scanning from a negative. I'm not too excited by this first experience - perhaps more practice will lead to better results.

The Day after Christmas, 2004

Kuala Lumpur, 31 December 1994

Its hard to believe that it's been 10 years since I had to make that trip to KL between Christmas and New Year's. Time really flies when you are having fun. I look back on that as one of the successes of my career at GE.

I completed the "mission" in a meeting with a guy from TNB on New Year's eve morning - it was a Saturday that year. In the afternoon, I walked through the shopping district and made this image with my trusty Olympus 35RC before heading back to the hotel. I had time for one last Tiger (beer) before packing for the return flight to New York. I had a flight from KL to Changi in the early evening, followed by the long Singapore Air Lines flight from Singapore to New York with a refueling stop in Amsterdam (or Frankfurt, depending on the day of the week). But it was New Year's eve, and the business class section of the SQ 747 have more stewards than passengers. When you add that to SQ's penchant for believing that they have failed to take proper care of you if you arrive sober, that night was a real party!

Linda and I drove over to Manchester today, mainly to get out of the house. Had lunch at the Equinox. She found a painting for the bedroom, and also a nice framed print for the dining room.

Christmas Day 2004

Trio - along the banks of the Delaware River

Called Dave in Beijing last night. He sounded great - he's enjoying his adventure, and he has made some friends to overcome the risk of lonliness.

We waited for Jeff to get off work, and then went to 11pm service at church. OK - but I really don't get any social value from the association, and I prefer a more formal service.

Today was Christmas. I helped Linda prepare dinner - peeled, cut and mashed the potatoes, made the gravy, etc. Had a nice Martinelli Russian River Sauvignon Blanc (1999) that we brought back from California a few years ago. But it was a quiet day with just the three of us. Never went out of the house.

Linda gave me a HP scanner. Couple of problems with it - its about 1/2" too long for the cubby under the desk - I have it on top of the desk for now, but I think I will get a longer USB cable and put it on top of the file cabinet. The other problem was loading the software, but I found that this was a known problem and there are downloadable patches on the HP web site to make it work.

So here's the first picture for the blog. It's from the 1999 Ernie Rubin workshop at Peters Valley.

Incompetence at Dell Computer - a rant

I bought this Dell computer in October. From the minute I placed it on the desk, I had a problem making it interconnect with the h0me network. I mush have spent 16 hours on the phone with various Dell service techs - some of whom charge for their "service". Eventually, I was able to make it work by disabling the Norton Internet Security package including it's inherent firewall.

Yesterday, we had a momentary power interruption. When I rebooted the machine after power was restored, I found that Norton was insisting on giving me an error message that the firewall was deactivated. Because this error message reappeared every 15-20 seconds - in the center of the desktop and on top of whatever I was working on, it effectively made it impossible to do anything withi the machine. So I called Dell.

The first problem was that they insisted that I had to pay to be able to talk to their help desk. I bought a four-year service package, but apparently it only covers hardware (that was NOT clear on the web site when I ordered it). Then the guy who answered the phone was clueless and wanted to do some "research" - promised to call back in 2 hours. Didn't do it! Finally, last night I called Dell to demand that they reverse the charge on my credit card on the basis that the help desk didn't even try to solve my problem. They pleaded for a second chance, and the dude in India (Maged) did try. But he eventually said that he needed to do some "research" and promised that someone else would call back this morning.

Today, I spoke with Erica in Ottawa - finally, someone who recognized that if the problem was that Norton wasn't working right, a potentially likely solution involved removing Norton, and then reinstalling it. She walked me through that process - good thing because it was anything but intuitive!

Bottom line - two months later, and after spending $200 on telephone support, the problem finally appears to be solved. Norton Internet Security now allows the network to function with the firewall, and the nuisance error message has disappeared.

But the entire process was totally frustrating. Tonight, there was an ad on TV about how much support Dell provides to purchasers of their systems. Bull!

More photography

Made some photographs in the great room this morning - tried to carefully compose and meter, and with long exposures, had to deal with reciprocity failure. Processed negatives - they look OK.

Thinking about how I want to photograph Jojo and Heather, and also Devin. I think I will do Jojo and Heather together on the stairs, using a strobe in an umbrella on one side and a reflector on the other. Will place Devin on the floor for a solo shot. Also want to do Jojo alone with the big camera - probably in the breakfast room where light kind of surrounds the area from windows on three sides.

Kind of quite today - Linda's last day of work this year, and Jeff isn't up yet. I will probably drive down to Borders in Clifton Park after lunch, and also drop in at Starbucks to see if they have any chocolate.

Painting

Started painting the dining room today. Linda finally selected a color, and I bought the paint last week. So I started earlier this week repairing the settling damage, and this afternoon I painted one section of the wall for Linda to inspect to make sure that she likes the color.

Last week I made a photograph of my snow shoveling gloves - a pair of heavy deerskin gloves that I've had for about 35 years. They are stained and worn now - lots of character - so I wanted to do a photograph of them in fairly contrasty light. Unfortunately, the first attempt failed - I had used such extreme movements that I had some severe vignetting. Actually, that's OK, because the light this morning was so much better streaming through the dining room windows, and having made one attempt and leaned some lessons, I was able to try again today. Haven't processed the film yet, but I'm very optimistic.

Spent most of the morning working on the presentation that I will be doing for Engineer's Week - its a continuing education session that I will get some credit for preparing.

Printing

I printed this morning. This was the first time I've been able to print since I was at Peters Valley last August. And it was neat in that because I'm now retired, I don't feel the pressure to generate as much work as possible in a short period of time, and can take time to get better results.

I think I have about four good (11x14") prints and some contact prints to show for about 6 hours of elapsed time. I did take a coffee break mid-morning, and then also a quick lunch break, but otherwise it was a leisurely but intense session.

Photography

The weather was forecast to be clear, so today was the day that I had set aside to get out to do some photography. I got out, but no photography resulted.

I drove up to Salem in Washington County, and back through Cambridge and Greenwich. Nothing caught my eye. There are days like that!

So I came home and repainted the door in the study where the grain of the wood had been bleeding through. Used a shellac-based stain-blocking primer. Looks good now, but obviously it needs a few months to see if it solved the problem.

Also processed some film that I had been holding back on. Four sheets of 4x5 - exposures seem good, but composition was off in a couple of instances.

First Snow

Worked on the "honey-do" list yesterday - building a tool rack for the garage. Did what I could with the materials on hand, but need to make another Home Despot trip for more stuff.

Had our first snow of the season yesterday. Only a couple of inches, but naturally there were a lot of accidents because people forgot the lessons they learned last March. Snow blower started on the first crank. Kinda enjoyed getting out to clear the driveway. Someone was skiing down the street to get to the path to the golf course - almost came in to get my skis to join him.

Did a lot of work on the conference yesterday - organizing tutorials, setting up the program, etc. Need to work on the mailing list (or perhaps delegate that to Sam since he's the registration chair).

Meeting Jim and Mel at the Bread Basket this morning - first time for one of the "old retired guys" sessions. Then to the Wine Exchange for a couple of bottles, to Home Despot, to Staples to copy the Christmas letter, maybe to the public library.

New York City trip

Linda and I went to NYC yesterday. This was our annual gallery crawl trip that we normally do in September, but had to delay due to conflicting travel schedules.

Cold day, but beautiful. Bus dropped us on 34th street across from Macy's, so we walked over to 8th Ave to get the subway down to 23rd. The block between 10th and 11th Aves is full of neat galleries - mainly 23rd through 25th Streets. Great fun! Lots of photography. Saw the Life Magazine show - great classic images. Also saw the Timothy Greenfield-Sanders show of 11x14" portraints of porn stars - wow! I want to do some LF portraiture. I can't see myself with an 11x14", but a 4x5" camera should producing some amazing work. Ruth Bernhard nudes at Sarah Morthland gallery.

Also saw some freaky non-photographic stuff. The paintings and drawings were great, but some of the mixed media constructions suggested that the artists had issues.

The trick to these trips is homework - go to the Photography in New York web site and download the current show directory. Then, visit each of the gallery sites to get an idea of the major galleries to hit. Finally, walk down the street and duck into any gallery that strikes your fancy.

Lunch at Chelsea Square Restaurant - ordered broiled flounder and they brought a whole fish - enormous meal! Then took the subway to 53rd street/5th Ave to do some shopping. That was a mistake! The sidewalks were so crowded that you couldn't move. Got into Crate and Barrell (hint: they have clean bathrooms!), and then to the Rizzoli bookstore on 57th Street. Finally, walked back to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas Tree (a mob scene), and then meet our bus.

Major problem on the return bus. The driver told us to meet her on 51st Street between 5th and 6Aves. Unfortunately, NYPD wouldn't let her make the turn onto 51st. Street. So we were standing in the cold while she was circling trying to find a way to get to 51st. street. Eventually, we were able to make contact with her by cell phone and arranged to meet her on 6th Ave. That's fine, except that there were nine people who didn't get that message, and the cops wouldn't let her stand at the sidewalk to wait for them. So she decided to take another spin "around the block". Good news was that the missing folks were found by another driver from the bus company, so we were able to arrange for a place to meet them. Bad news was that the traffic was awful, and it took an hour and a half to get "around the block". On top of that, as the driver was turning off of Park Ave onto 51st she hit a parked car (illegally parked, naturally), so dealing with that added more time to the problem. And one of the missing folks was diabetic and had left her insulin on the bus. But eventually we were able to get through the Lincoln Tunnel at about the time we were supposed to have been arriving in Albany, and got home around midnight.