So. Got my camera back yesterday. I think for$400 a point-and-shoot that’s not waterproof ought not to have to be repaired after two months. Certainly not again a few weeks later. And definitely that they should actually fix it this time. And then, after the third trip in, one’s camera really, oh, really should not come back with a cluster of dead pixels, a vertical line in the images and moisture in the lens! No, indeed.
I demanded my money back, and I hope I get it. I’m buying something else.
There is a difference between merely not having a focus and being unfocused. This goes for photography and for, you know, real life.
Before Charlotte was born, we bought her a new Moleskine (sized A4) for a first-year journal, and I bought a new camera with the cash I was planning on buying an acoustic bass with. My better half is a talented historian, and I’m a little obsessive and compulsive. We planned on recording everything. Everything.
I didn’t mean to, but I’ve found myself watching important moments through my camera’s LCD screen, and I’m so behind in journaling (and I haven’t cracked Charlotte’s volume open) that I can’t stand to sit down and begin to write anything at all. Today, I noticed a nice red stuck pixel in the middle of my camera’s pictures. Great. I know that bad pixels are a fact of digital photography, but a red one right in the middle is disconcerting. I spent the night trying out CHDK, but their website and download pages have been down all night. And the firmware version is conflicting with what it’s supposed to be. Canon said to send it back to them. Okay, that’s like $15-$20 in shipping and a week or two (or three) without my camera.
In itself, that’s not the end of the world. I could do something scummy, like buy my camera over again and return the one I have now, since my return period is over. Aside from being scummy, I’m sentimental, and I don’t want to do that. This camera took Charlotte’s first picture ever. But I find myself hoping that she doesn’t do anything too memorable in the meantime. And this is stupid.
For another thing, if it were me, I’d rather hear the story from my parents than see the photos. My parents took tons and tons of photos of their boys as children. But my own memory and hearing my parents tell me things that I don’t remember serve me better for my nostalgic needs than photo albums. In fact, there are some I’ve probably never even bothered to look through.
I’ve developed a strange “I’m getting older” and “important things are happening now” penchant for writing everything down and recording everything (that sounds like it’s own blog post) over the last few years. I worked all day and spent half the time Charlotte was awake messing with my camera like her childhood depended on it. But worrying more about some photos and posting them on Facebook seems like a waste of energy to me these days.
But, you know. Tell me that.
I am finding that I can’t sleep lately. Friday and Saturday, I had to wake up earlier than usual and get going, and I was out late Friday night, too. I tried to sleep late Sunday morning, but my body resisted. I didn’t feel very tired, though, and had even more trouble getting to sleep on Sunday night. Felt ready to wake up and battle traffic and work yesterday (Monday) on very little sleep. I had more trouble getting to sleep last night, but that could have been the family emergency (more later) that had me cycling like mad against a headwind yesterday afternoon. Maybe, because today I’m pooped. I hope it passes. The idea that I need less sleep/rest with the warming weather is very appealing to someone who likes to stay up reading at night and cycling early in the morning.
I am very ready for winter to be over. I generally like it. There are past instances on this blog where I was angry at a lack of winter. I like wearing sweaters and flannel and cuddling up with the Mrs at night to watch movies, read and sleep. Cycling when water freezes to your face is exhilarating, if for no other reason, for the looks of amazement you get from other people. Longjohns are their own unique experience when you have them on under your work pants with nothing under them.
Maybe it’s barreling downhill for four miles every morning and getting watery eyes from the wind or my being tired of not being able to wear sandals sans socks. Or of coming home from community meetings at seven or eight in the dark. Maybe I’m tired of the bleak landscape on my way to work through the Jones Falls Valley and out of my window on University Parkway. But I’m really ready for spring now.
I haven’t actually gotten tired of winter since 2003, when I lived in Boston and didn’t blog yet. It was a particularly bad winter, full of blizzards and April snow. St. Patty’s day that year was 70 degree weather, with students at Boston College sitting around talking in tanktops next to mountains of snow still piled up. I remember wearing flip-flops and crunching on snow that April and wearing a jacket in May and June a few times.
There was snow on the ground two years ago for St. Patty’s Day, too, after a January that was so warm that plants were budding the week after New Year’s Day. I guess it could be worse. I get to work from home this morning for afternoon meetings and can probably get away with sandals later, if I’m willing to have cold feet, which I am.
I have a fridge full of Irish stout, cabbage, homemade soda bread from the Mrs and Irish music. What, you haven’t heard the new U2 album yet? It’s excellent.
[Larger.]
I’m a Baltimorean and a Poe fan, so I have Poe on the brain this year (his 200th!) This is my Lil Edgar toy, posing as a farmer or Zen gardener in the Zen garden on my desk in my office. He has the company of a Poe action figure (pictured) and a Poe bobble-head. My Poe Little Thinker is at home, sadly.
Photo Friday: Costume.
Okay, so Christmas and all those other winter holidays are over. I can’t tell if I’m sad or glad.
I remember when I first became a Christmas Grown Up wherein shopping and gift giving replaced getting presents as the hallmark of holiday excitement. Instead of staying awake at night thinking about that awesome slot car set or my first CD player, I would get so thrilled with being the instrument of happiness in giving gifts that I would constantly drop hints and think about nothing else than how my brother would shit when he opened that custom garden gnome holding a sign with our last name for his new house or the look on my girlfriend’s face when she put on the necklace I picked out as a teenager. Etc. Christmas went from being fun because you were lucky enough to get presents to being lucky enough to give presents. But it still all hinged on shit wrapped in boxes or lazily thrown into those cheesy giftbags.
At some point, though, Christmas became about family and togetherness and traditions and that kind of thing, probably because I spent most of my 20s living far away from all of the people I care about. It became why I would drive for 18 hours through the mountains and snow and traffic without sleep and dodging deer carcasses to see the people I wanted to see, which is no huge deal for me because I do in fact really like my family. At least my immediate family.
But then people get married or engaged or pregnant, and too many families try to still have their same holidays when they are connected to other Family Christmas Networks. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has accidentally gone to someone else’s Big Family Party under the pretense of it being some kind of integrated party that transcends last names and bloodlines.
Everyone has traditions they enjoy, and everyone thinks their holiday awesomeness is more awesome than your holiday awesomeness, and because of the limitations of space, time and our being embodied beings in the world, there’s only so much you can do. So we all take turns giving up what we like to do during the holidays if we’re lucky. If we’re not, we never get to do anything we like to do.
Even when you try to not take a shit all over someone’s party or traditions, you wind up doing it. My youngest brother and I are very particular about Christmas Eve. If anyone trys to mess with it (and people always do), it gets messed up — no matter how good the intentions are or even how much frikkin fun the plans might be. We get pissed and ruin it for everyone. Maybe from rigidity. Who knows? One could argue that our Christmas Eve activities are so long-standing that we’re almost allowed to be rigid and that anyone who knows these plans and trys to change them is a dickweed. I wouldn’t argue it, though, since I realize that we’re not going to get to perform our Christmas Eve rituals much longer and probably, most likely, almost definitely, never again. Even if sitting around watching those stop-motion animation things and drinking coffee is not as fun as some of the stuff people have gotten us to do, we’re pissed and resentful, and we’ll be unhappy on Christmas Eve until we can accept that what we used to like to do is over.
The bad part about traditions: Their rigidity.
Of course, the other bad part that we’ve seen is that traditional people seem to enjoy pushing their traditions on other people, which is of course what my youngest brother and I did to my wife with our favorite mode of Christmas Eve.
So this year, as I was prevented from doing most of the things I like to do, I was pissy and a jerk and overly critical of other people. Then empty. I wondered if I should have a kid soon to recapture some of the “magic” of the holiday season. I don’t know. It might work, but that’s a stupid reason to have a kid in itself.
What I wonder is if it is possible for a creature of habit like me to have a tradition-free holiday without making that a tradition. That would be a fun holiday. At least, with little pressure.
But would it be Christmas without all the annoying things you have to do?
I am at my family’s house in Hampden, in my old bedroom, on my Dad’s new computer. (I’m seriously stealing this frikkin monitor when I go back home.) After much drama, research and, well, bullshit, I have a new camera. It’s sitting here in the tiny (and kinda over-priced) case I bought for it, charging. Did three test black shots, and there was a weird spot in the first one. I almost pooped. But I took three. And the others were fine. Took two photos of the wife and put that baby on the charger like it told me to. It’s tiny. About the size of a deck of cards. I can actually carry it around! I didn’t check to make sure there’s no crap under the LCD, but that’s only happend to me twice (knock on wood), both with a Canon. The same one that died twice on me. Four of the same model (!). And the other dead pixel one and my favorite old A60 which up and died totally, else I’d probably still use it. With the luck I have with digital cameras, maybe I shouldn’t check? (Kidding.)
I am going to my brother’s house for Christmas Eve, and I’m stoked that I will have a camera. Enough eggnog in my baby brother, and I’d be a fool to miss it.
I should really post more candid photos of people on here and Flickr. But I don’t take a whole lot. I’m photo shy. I used to sneak photos of people and call it a pretentious name (look it up with the search function!).
I can’t sleep and didn’t eat much for dinner because I’m pooping myself with excitement over Christmas. I think being away from my apartment and job (and bike, poor thing) and seeing the presents I have for people is infecting me. I wanna wrap and give and take pictures of people opening the awesome shit I got for them.
I went shopping with my Mom yesterday like I used to before I started my VISTA year. People were nuts. You know, proof of the existence of God might lie in the way that more people don’t either die or kill each other over the stupid things people do when they are lurking and speeding their metal cages around with them.
You might think it’s weird to spend one’s day off with one’s mother, but I don’t give a shit if anyone thinks that. Hell, I like my parents a lot. I have fun with them. I feel badly for people who don’t enjoy their parents’ company, and that is at least half of the people I know.
Mrs. P. and I went shopping with my Dad tonight for a camera and other things. When I was in college, my Dad and I used to go shopping just days before Christmas and do all of our purchasing. I don’t think anyone really did online shopping back then. When I was living away, Mrs. P. got to come along, which was supposed to be understood as an honor. With the advent of online shopping and DOORBUSTERS, we’ve sorta fallen out of the tradition. I was glad to revive it tonight, quite unexpectedly.
I have a little more shopping to do on the Avenue tomorrow, a half a block away. And TONS of wrapping.
If you don’t hear from me before then, very happy holidays to you. And to everyone else I love or hate.
I don’t have any recent photos of Christmas because my camera pooped out. This is my Grandmama-in-law [who is one of the sweetest people I know] back in 2004.
I don’t get/have to travel for the holidays these days, which takes away some stress/excitement. I still eat too much and feel guilty about it though.
Not that I don’t do that a whole lot during normal times.
I did too much research and picked my new camera, which I’ll order later. Hopefully this one will come sans imaging processor errors.
Christmas feels weird these days. It’s been suggested that I need to have some kids to get back into it. Kids? I wonder how long it will take before we have a kid or two, as if I don’t get a say in the matter. Any children we have will probably show my green eyes and F’s big hair.
So cute that they might destroy the world. Or save it. Maybe even make a real, really, totally-for-real Santa Claus.
Holy shit.
I am pooped. And I haven’t wrapped my presents yet.
I’ve only owned Canons once I got into digital cameras. My first was a brick, but I loved it. And I swear subsequent cameras have not taken photos that were quite as nice. It did die, but after I had a replacement. My next had a dead pixel that showed up as a white dot in every shot. It’s replacement did. And it’s replacement did. So when I was, apparently, stupid enough to get another one (but with a totally different imaging chip), it did it again! This time, it’s red. That makes dead pixels in four of five Canons I’ve owned, with the fifth dying itself totally.
This time, it actually happened when I was taking photos in a church Wednesday on a walking tour. I can pinpoint the shot where it showed up, and it’s staying.
So I was, of course, up all night looking for replacements. All the ones I like are getting replaced themselves this spring, which makes me want to wait. But waiting months to get a camera when my old cameras all have dead pixels is just a painful thought.
I also lost my cell phone last night and didn’t know until a nice cyclist called me and told me several hours later. It’s nice and awesome that someone is nice and awesome enough to do that. But still.
Technology was not my friend yesterday; that’s for sure.
I think I’ve been not much in the holiday spirit because I haven’t been shopping much at all. And also work business. But I think it’s largely a lack of shopping. What?
Christmas came early for my bike though. The seatpost clamp that is not QR doesn’t fit, but that’s Okay. The seatpost does, and the saddle’s on, too. The stitching is wacky on my seat. But. Whatever. At least I can ride it today. While staring at my maimed bike all last week across my desk made me ache to defy death in traffic, The Duke sitting here while I work has made me excited today for the chance to ride home. For all it’s annoying quirks and imperfections, I do love my bike.
I think that my old (stolen) bike got me out of my car and into the fun world of getting around without four wheels. This bike was under my butt when I really got into cycling in traffic and to get places that people look at me funny for riding to, like weddings, job interviews and community meetings in questionable neighborhoods.
There have been times I’ve badmouthed it myself, for all its hyrbid dorkiness, but I’d be beside myself if someone stole this one.
So he’s coming to the office with me until my workplace threatens me. And I’m prepared to fight them, given what little anyone does to prevent bike theft these days. (Though a UB detective tells me that they are getting siren locks to lend folks….)
There I was this morning, meandering through wooded streets on my way to work in Central Baltimore. The ground was wet and more filled with gravel than I thought it would be, so I was taking it slowly to avoid having to clean myself and my drivetrain later. (My current fenders suck hard.) My fingers were warmer than they should have been, and I was trying to remember why yesterday felt like an important date.
Yesterday was three years since we actually sold the car and took up legs and transit and trains to get where we need to go. I’m probably not much thinner and don’t really have a ton of money saved (I made more money as a grad student than I do as a VISTA), but I’m much happier.
I feel like I should have some reflections on being carfree, but I’m too tired to think of much. Like how you avoid the guilt that one of my neighbors told me about this morning, of driving everyday alone. Or how you really do see more of your city and meet more people and stay in at least slightly better physical shape. Or how you should try it.
But it’s hard to really try being carfree. We decided to sell our car a few weeks before we actually handed over the keys and $6,600 to a Saturn dealer — because Thanksgiving was coming, and we were on the way to Baltimore, and we couldn’t meet with the car guy to sell it until we got back. So we had time to get used to the idea. How will I get here? Should I stock up on stuff because I don’t get there as often? If I still owned a car, I don’t think I’d be able to think very creatively about transportation and fun because the four wheels would always be there to make that commute quicker or that trip a little more comfortable. That could certainly be my own weakness speaking, but it’s like imagining what it’s like to be a vegetarian. Until you’re faced with what to eat at a steakhouse you go to with a family member (and when, like the car in the garage, you could just eat the meat), there are alternatives that are fun and alternatives which are just unpleasant that are hard to imagine unless you have to. It’s not a matter of weakness or strength or ethics. It’s hard to imagine the tight spot that vegetarianism and being carfree can each be unless you’re in it.
I’m certainly not trying to get preachy or anything. Even with the rise of cycling as transportation, I don’t actually know anyone in my family or circle of friends who is intentionally carfree. I do know some car-light folks who cycle as much as possible, and that’s more awesome than I can say. But there’s still the car when you “need” it and the difficulty in imagining being very carfree. I know people without a car because of money or a lack of license. But swearing off the auto is hard business. I think I’m stubborn enough to be able to stick with it, that stubbornness being a weakness dressed up like a strength in this instance. But there are definitely times when a car would make some things easier. With the way things are laid out and constructed around cars in the US, this is bound to be true. I’m not saying that we don’t live in a great country; nor am I judging it. But the US is arranged around cars for the most part, and that’s not just my opinion. Look around, or read up on what smarter folks have written about it.
In the end, though, cycling, walking and transit make a boring trip a mega-fun adventure. Going to The Charles to see a movie is a pain in the ass if you drive. If you cycle from North Baltimore, it’s a fun ride, and the theater is warm and inviting. Imagine grocery shopping without ever having to look for or fight for a parking place. Being able to lock your bike right by the door at work. The cool looks you get when you go to a dinner party or a wedding and tell people you rode there on a bike or walked.
All possible without a car.
[More BIKE LIFE photos.]
[If you think cars are the best thing ever and want everyone to have one, you should direct your energies toward a blog on that topic (I'll read it), rather than wasting it on trolling comments that won't get published. Just sayin.]
Photo Friday: White.
A few weeks ago, my friend and I embarked on a milkcrate installation and tire/tube replacement on a quiet Saturday afternoon. It was very spur-of-the-moment and got more so with the addition of snacks and beer. I got some photos of Mr. D doing funny things with his knee brace, but I’ll keep those to myself.
This probably makes it look like we’re whinos. But this was definitely a treat for both of us.
Photo Friday: Spontaneous.
Either my caffeine addiction is more alarming than I thought, or a lot of the people who I work with have a different definition of “too much coffee” than I do — and I like the people I work with a great deal. “I heard you guys on the sixth floor are coffee nuts?” “He wants to meet the people who drink coffee in the afternoon.”
In the afternoon? All day! LOL
Oh, well. If you’re going to have a reputation for something, it could be worse. Much worse.
I blame the tons of good coffee places within a five minute walk of my office, even more within ten minutes. But on the same note: Baltimore has a lot of good coffee shops around mid-town/Central Baltimore. Oh, dang. Poor me.
[Larger.]
I finished a big project at work yesterday with a remarkable amount of sanity left. So I am feeling very boastful this morning. This is my “title” instead of “hubby.” It’s more bubbly.
Photo Friday: The Extraordinary.
(I know; we have a bike blog. But I’ve been dominating the posting lately and have been neglecting this blog, so here you go.)
It’s a bee-otch. I have been having a lot of tire trouble lately. Or, maybe, I’m just riding more and getting more flats. I officially blame the Jones Falls Trail, particularly the part under the Howard Street bridge. Of my recent flats, three were caused by glass from right there. And after my recent adventures, I’m rocking Kevlar-belted tires. That didn’t help yesterday when three huge slivers of glass that looked like quartz stems stabbed my tire. I came out from work and suspected someone was messing with my lock and noticed my rear flat. I didn’t feel like patching, so I put my spare tube on. Those tires are pain to get back on, so it took a bit for me to figure out the trick. I was running low on air, so I stopped to put some air in when I got to the trail and realized why: busted valve stem. While I was examining this, some dickhead wizzed by me on his bike without a word, bell, etc. (I hope your trunk bag fell in some mud, wanker.)
What’s up with the rude cyclists lately? Are they pissed that they have to ride because of gas prices or something? I mean, I love the greater number of cyclists. But there was a time when most of the people I passed greeted me back or even first. You know: last year!
Anyway, I went to some shade to patch my tube after taking off this new and busted tube. Some old guy came over and silently watched my work. Told me I have a nice bike. That I should get some tire strips and that I would have payed less for my bike at the bike shop he likes. I didn’t feel like getting into how tire strips rub and then cause flats, how the price of my bike did not differ (in fact) from the different Giant dealers in the Baltimore area in October 2006. I just finished, thanked him for his company with a handshake and went on my way.
I was stupid enough to try to plug the hole in my tire tread with rubber cement. Did a number on the rest of the rubber. I think it’s Okay for a while. But I patched the inside of the tire, ordered two spare tires and some more spare tubes — just in case. Overhauled my brakes last night, too. Replaced my front pads, which were doing a number to my rims. Poor things.
I rode a different way to work this morning, avoiding my usually sylvan ride in favor of riding through traffic the whole way. In some respects, I like it better. Though I’m probably upping my chances of getting hit. When I was on the Maryland Avenue bride this morning, I turned around and saw four other cyclists riding to work and school. Five bikes on that little bridge at once!
Biking in Baltimore is coming around.
Mrs. P. and I in Walden Pond last month.
Photo Friday: Relationship.
Photo Friday: The Good Life. You might be thinking, “The good life? Coffee? Isn’t that shallow?” I mean, after a decade of studying Western philosophy, shouldn’t this be a photo of a relaxed person, contemplating comfortably in a cafe’? Or after studying Eastern philosophy, why photos of a mind-altering substance like coffee?
It’s been…a week. So right now, Friday morning, when I have to run around until about ten or eleven tonight, teach kids about bikes, go see my sick grandfather days after his 80th birthday, work on job stuff, etc., coffee is the good life. I know; everyone is busy. So you should know what I am talking about then.
[Larger.]
For Photo Friday: The Machine.
This is, of course, very tongue in cheek. I just thought, you know, it might be more interesting than a photo of my bike. I’m not going to join some sort of revolutionary force to overthrow the government. Totally not. Honest. Come on, it’s funny. Right? Not me — I’m gentle and fuzzy. Huggy, too. Half of my family works for the Gubbmint. Don’t call the fuzz please.
One of my favorite shirts has long since rotted off of my shoulders from being worn so much. It was a Rage Against The Machine shirt in white, with a photo of nuns with guns. It was awesome. I never got enough compliments on it. I had a The Clash shirt on last year at Wholefoods, and a middle-aged guy who probably went to see them in person when I was a wee lad gave me a nice compliment. I was stoked. Compliments are good.