The Float this year was excellent as always. I had an especially good time on the river, and that’s really saying something considering that my raft got trapped under a tree right at the start. My raft completely popped and I ended up having to be picked up by another raft. This was all made up for by my joining the Party Island(tm) and not having to be in charge of anything for the next 4 hours.
There were several entries for FavoritePolaroid this year. Sean’s always in the running. Sharif’s big hatted pout was in the lead for a good long while. But I think this photo of Mike and Creighton wins.
Floataroid!
I’m back from Apple Valley. Spent a pleasant week with my family. Everyone was on their best behavior, which was nice.
Every time I go home, my family has *something* for me to do around the house. Helping re-roof the sheds out back, helping put up weird structures designed to cover their well, helping with yard work, ect. ect. My Dad actively saves up projects for me to help out with, which used to be annoying but now is rather amusing. There’s a surprising amount of work to do around their place and as my parents get older, I’m happier to help out. John is still living with them, which is probably a good thing since I don’t know what they’d do if none of the kids were local.
While I was home I debated taking a day trip down to LA. It’s about a two hour drive to get down there. It’s not that far, but it’s a big enough drive that people from Apple Valley rarely if ever just pop down to LA for fun. I think I might have spent a weeks worth of time all told in LA over the course of my lifetime and I’ve lived in California my whole life.
Anyway, there was some back and forth between about going to meet up with AE on Sunday, but I ended up not going. Which is for the best because at around 11am that day, the water heater underneath the kitchen sink up and started leaking. ‘les, John and I were in the family room chatting we we suddenly heard this hissing sound. I couldn’t figure out what the noise was, but John spotted a cloud of steam coming from underneath the sink. Boiling hot water was gushing out of the water heater, onto the floor. It was crazy.
We spent about an hour cleaning up the mess, taking everything out form under the sink (which is a considerable amount of stuff seeing as that cabinet is HUGE), and moping up the floor. Good times.
I was a little teary leaving my parent’s place. I missed them a lot this last year and I feel sad leaving again for another year. Last fall I kept having dreams wherein something wold happen to my family and they’d need me but I was gone. Yay! Anxiety!
I went to Amoeba on Telegraph today. I’ve had a big list-o-CDs that I’ve been waiting to get back to the US to purchase. I made myself keep it down to just five, though. It was hard choosing what I was going to get because I suspect that CD prices in the Netherlands will be pretty high considering that most of what I listen to is American imports.
While pulling ‘les away from the experimental music section, I noticed a sign for something called a “Buddha Machine”. I had no idea what it was, but ‘les had read a review of it on the internets somewhere. It’s a little box, about the size of a first generation iPod with a speaker in it. It’s loaded with nine short tracks. You pick a track and let it play for as long as you want. Each track will play in a continuous loop until the batteries run out.
It sounded neat, so we bought one.
So cute! We got the avocado green model, although apparently it comes in other colors. The speaker is cheap and fuzzy, but I sorta enjoy the distorted sound. If I still worked in a cube, I’d be all over brining this into work with me. I like the idea of having low key ambient music playing in the background will I go about my day.
Another review.
She’s playing her analog synth at the Maybeck Recital Hall. It’s at 8pm. The door is 10 dollars. Please
email ‘les [celesteh at gmail dot com] to let her know you’d like to come.
This is her last scheduled show for August.
Seriously, the Maybeck is an amazing venue. I’d go just for that.
This loft has 3 stories. Ellen is downstairs practicing her long stringed instrument. Celeste is on the top floor practicing her tuba. And I’m sitting on the second floor, feeling rather amused.
I got back my first roll of film taken with my new Holga this afternoon. I decided to go ahead and post all 12 photos even though a few of them are of the same subject and others are not all that great.
I had some trouble removing the film from the camera. I think I managed to expose the last couple of pictures on the roll while either pulling the film out or by not winding the film tightly enough. I’ve never worked with 120 film before. It’s weird. It doesn’t come in canisters like 35mm so I was having trouble loading and unloading the roll. (I sometimes have trouble with loading 35mm film as well, but that’s a whole other story.) I need to start keeping a tiny roll of tape with me to keep the film from unwinding.
I was trying out different methods of framing photos. I tried out using the viewfinder. The thing about it is that the viewfinder is in the upper left corner of the camera and the lens is in the lower center of the camera so really, it’s pretty difficult to get an idea about what will end up on the film. I started putting the middle of the camera in front of my face, facing what I wanted to shoot. Which is silly, but fun. Much like the camera itself.
I’m looking forward to trying out the colored flash.
My First Holga
So I’m back in the Bay Area. I don’t have much in the way of plans right now. ‘les has a few shows coming up that I will be going to. And I’m planning on going to Apple Valley the week around the 15th. Other than that I am free.
The first show ‘les is doing it TOMORROW in SF. She’ll be playing her laptop.
It’s at the Luggage Store Gallery at 9PM.
It would be keen if you came out.
We managed to get an earlier plane flight so I’m in Brkly now instead of tomorrow afternoon.
I don’t have plans for tomorrow. Someone call me. :)
