One year ago today: July 3, 2025, a porterhouse this big.
Five years ago today: July 3, 2021, WIP
Nine years ago today: July 3, 2017, NZ, just in case . . .
Random years ago today: July 3, xxxx, WIP
First thing in the morning, I get millennialized. All the how-to videos show how to replace the high beam, including the ones that specify low beam. I finally reached inside and pulled off the power cable. Once again, my make and model seem to be an Internet one-of-a-kind. This is ripe territory for your GenXgeniuses, who don't see click-baiting as trickery. As I've said, the big regret of many Boomers is we won't live long enough to see that pack of bastards stew in their own juice. By this time I was downtown, so I took a quick walking tour. I maxed out in a little over two blocks. I was hungry, so I peered into a half-dozen window to see the signs, "Summer hours 10:30AM to 4:00PM" and here I am at 9:00AM. Yet, this is tourist town and I saw a lot of good-looking skirt. Eliminate the ones with baby carriages or husbands in tow, you still get a lot of babes. While still not hippie-era head counts for single women, it was worth the tour. Think of it as a field trip at my age.
I would have wrote that before the afternoon storm. Glad I didn't leave. I got stuck in the library so you get some extra edited videos, here are some street buskers. Working for money to attend music camp. This, folks, is the America that used to be. Safe and free. Here's another scene, a refurbished theater, which I'd like to see some day. Not now, I've never heard of Duncan Sheik, so I pulled up a video. Soon as I hear slow music, it's over. They are also shy about posting admission prices. There were wankers like that around back in my day, but they were never a majority like now.
This banner shows a Jim Brickman, who I have also never heard of. These obscure characters sure win a lot of Grammies. Or is is Grammys?
The Reb is back at work, just having time to say goodbye for now. And drop of my camera lucida. Remember that? It's the ancient drawing tool that lets an outline of the subject appear as a virtual image on a blank piece of paper. Low-tech, but still above my artistic abilities. It's been sitting in Tennessee a while until somebody remembered and now I need a subject that can sit still for hours. Here, Schoolboy, here kitty. I forgot it was ordered at $70 and the price has since dropped. I have my new microscope calipers, but not my new microscope camera.
Ice floe safari.
Adventures for the incredibly stupid.
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Yep, if I must, I'll take the entire housing of that headlight to get at that bulb. I'll try a couple methods first, but that afternoon storm last quite a while. I ducked into the library and stayed there past 5:00PM when the thunder abated. That's why you see so many videos. The library has excellent edit apps though some are unfamiliar. We all love software that saves your files, but does not reveal where. That reminds me, I've asked Nate for copies of the photos three times. That means the fourth time I as if there is any reason he does not just fork them over. Maybe he's still too green to know that is a two-way street. I got a lot of research done, after 4:00PM I had the building to myself. I tried to find a couple how-to videos on the camera lucida and smacked head-on into the youTube goof squads. They need to give a good shit-kicking to the guy who started the "unboxing" videos. "Don't know what this is and I've never used one before, so I'll post a video because people like wasting time watching idiots."
At the library, I mean they have video editing programs. But nothing for stills. Even basic resizing and cropping software did not seem to exist. Maybe all users except me get it perfect on the first try. I stumbled across a command that said it could make a gif, why not? Because the resulting twenty-second run required 42MB, and there was no apparent way to make it a tenth that size. For files that big, why not make it a real video and mute the sound?
This unboxing is not to be confused with somebody posting an inquisitive testing of something, where they have at least rehearsed their lines and have learned how to hold a camera. I will make some tests with the camera lucida later, but you don't get a video claiming it is instructional. I got home and prepped for the return journey. To test that device, I know I need a blank sheet of paper. This, peeps, is why I'll do business with people that I would never go partners with. I tore this place apart for twenty minutes with no luck. Either they have no blank pages or use them so rarely they are tucked away. I finally braved the rainstorm and got some in from the van.
So, it's quiet and evening, let's try out this camera lucida. It arrives unassembled. The instructions are okay but still took a half hour because they presume you know the technical terms for the parts. What do you mean you don't know what a pea fixture is. (Try P fitting, but same thing, what is that?) I could tell you, but we know millies like to look things up. I got a semblance of the contraption to work and they are not lying when they tell you it requires practice. The subject has to be well lit from the correct angle to "project" an image. And if the image isn't pretty basic, you need to eyeball which parts of it require tracing. Now they are asking for talent and I don't have any. I chose a picture of Schoolboy lying on some tiles, hoping for good constrast.
The image does show colors, kind of pale, but a boon to painters. The "lens" has to look flatly horizontal at the subject and I found tracing the outlnes easy enough. Not so filling in the details, especially shading. You can get the image dark enough to see easily, it is too dark to see the tip of the pencil lead. But that is all lighting concerns and it seems lots of people have worked something with it. There may be a reason you see so many outdoor scenes. One issue I had right away was the need to super-secure your blank page. Mine moved slightly each time and it throws off the whole drawing.
It was fun to toy around with and a great way to spend a rainy evening. Back home I have to get that floppy disk working. I found several dozen disks that might have the Reb and I either music or posing back in the 1980s. If I didn't say, we heard her on the car radio again last evening.
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