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In the last 36(ish) hours I flew out to Denver and back to check in on a friend that had a particularly rough second half of 2025 along with three other friends. When we learned he wasn't going to be able to come out east during the holidays we decided it was time to head west. So yesterday I got up at 4am, drove through the snow to Boston, hung out for 24hrs and flew back this evening. I am, exhausted.

I have been wanting a MOPAR B-body restomod for some time. Thought I would buy a partly built project or the like and built to suit. Couldn't pass up this 1969 Road Runner that was on auction and local. The wheels could use some work, but such is life... Not much of a show car guy so I need to put some miles on her... HS

I've going over my collection, filling in any items I'm missing, I felt I really should have a modernized version of the Sigma. I came across a rather abused normal bias set which needed new drivers but wanted to try something different... so here is the SR-Sigma 507: The housing was very discolored so I wanted to try my hand at painting it. The frame was primed and painted satin black but I left all of the other parts in the primer color. The plan was to make them gloss white but this looked too cool so this is how they stayed. The drivers and cable are from a 507 so it took a lot of work to get this right. The drivers are in the cage that Stax introduced with the x07 series so I glued the drivers and fitted spare metal grills to them. In terms of sound, this is the best Sigma I've ever heard. The bass is overblown, as is always the case with Sigma's, but it has some real power to it and is more controlled than every other I've heard. The top end is nice and clean and the midrange is just sublime. A fun addition to the collection.

Thanks, all! I was doing exactly what you could guess I’d be doing on my birthday!

From last night. I was dysregulating last night something fierce, so I performed one of my comfort activities -- learning to wok.

Two meals from the new year. First up is a chicken dish from Samin Nosrat's Good Things cookbook. I don't think I've ever had a cookbook recipe come out looking this close to the photo. It was also delicious, along with the saffron rice Claire made and a Samin salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and quick pickled red onion. Last night was the first pizza of 2026, in the form to a Detroit style with pepperoni, red bell pepper and mushroom. I need to find a local source for brick cheese.

Smoked bologna

Dusty, half this family isn't Jewish, but they bought in....to celebrating Jewish family and events, as well as the Shiva mourning. Call it Shiva or not, to me it's a good thing. There is a lot of formality to a Shiva, many times it is not followed 100%. Personally, I find it the beginning of healing. Family and friends come to pay respect, connect, tell stories, and eat. The formal period is 7 days/nights. When Karen passed, I was tearfully surprised by one of my two best friends flying in from California and spending all the days/nights of Shiva visiting (3 days for us). It's that type of love and connection that helps the healing. It's just a good thing, no matter what it's called, what religion it follows, etc.

I meant kick-start the HC travel team back into being, whether or not Marc has Red Oxx bags.

William Eggleston’s Lonely South https://archive.ph/2026.01.24-204543/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/william-egglestons-lonely-south https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/william-egglestons-lonely-south

Courtney Marie Andrews - Valentine https://open.qobuz.com/album/hny90dvm03jlc She has a, Joni Mitchell, Aimee Mann, expressive innocence, and her songwriting is equally great. It grows on you the more you listen as well. Simply put, I has a new favorite.

Few more from the SSD

Went to a Shiva visit tonight. Facebook friend's father (94 years), I went to HS together with said FB friend's sister-in-law. Found out today that he also went to a Summer camp with my oldest brother. A wonderful celebration of life, and I caught up with my HS friend and her husband, haven't seen them in over 15 years! As much as one doesn't want to catch up with people at a funeral/Shiva, it was a life well-lived, and it was great to re-connect. It will NOT be another 15 years before we see each other again!

I listened to it this morning after you posted a song last night. Thanks for linking and promising! Her more simple, more country-leaning 2020 Old Flowers was HUGE here as we stumbled through early pandemic feelings. You may want to give it a listen if you haven't already. Al saw her, if I remember correctly, as the silly audience ignored the stage.

https://www.speedtest.net/result/18750860321 Even the natives seem impressed

Just so good.

Couple of coats of high temp engine paint. Looks like poop, but it is protected and ready to go. Ran it at max temp for a while to cook of any vapors, then smoked a salmon. I'm back...

Ex.

Bookish (PBS) - getting my Brit-TV fix with this new series starring Mark Gatiss & Polly Walker (#crush!) as store proprietors by day/crime sleuths by night "hubby & wife" (quotes intentional) in this series set in set in post-WWII London. British accents as thick as molasses, using the vernacular of the time, all require intense concentration, but worth it. By the by, young Buket Komur is one to watch as an up-&-comer in the biz, imo.

Didn't realize you were that old. 🙃

What do you normally shoot, Nate? Keep in mind that Lightroom/Photoshop still doesn't have full RAW support for the camera, which is quite annoying - I have about 5 days of images from winter break that I can't edit. I only found out about the one RAW format that Lightroom has beta support for. Not enough of a reason to avoid the camera - just mentioning it so you aren't similarly annoyed. I went from a not-very-good AF system (by today's standards) in the D810 to one of the best in the A7V. I nearly pulled the trigger on a Z6III around Thanksgiving so I could use the couple of Nikon lenses I already had, but the 30 fps and better AF pulled me over to the Sony side. I missed a lot of shots with the D810 when trying to capture my fast-moving niece. She just turned 4 a month ago, and the A7V was fantastic, keeping up with her fast-twitch movements. The pre-capture feature was great and certainly made up for my lack of skill. The D810 remains exceptionally capable in decent light for landscapes or scenes where AF speed/tracking isn't a priority, but with two more babies expected to join the family this year, I figured an upgrade would make my life easier in the coming years. The A7V also seems to do much better in low-light situations - I find I can push to higher ISOs before noise becomes an issue. Depending on what you intend to capture and how, the A7V might not be as much of an upgrade over the A7IV. For me, the upgrade was much more pronounced, and I am quite pleased with the purchase. I don't do much with video, so I didn't care as much for the hoopla around closed/open gate sensors. Last December, the D810 said Zara's left eye was in focus here, but obviously, it wasn't. Also with the D810, got lucky. And OOF again. Definitely pushing the limits of the D800 in difficult light. The noise/grain is obvious when pixel-peeping. I actually don't mind it as much in this image, but there were times when I did. Another one where I don't mind the grain. Here are some more where I feel like better AF, dynamic range, and noise performance would have helped capture what I wanted to. Some more from the Illumina Lantern Festival taken with the A7V. Exceptionally clean images. Some with the Batis 85mm (AF) and others with the Voigtlander 35mm (MF). It's no Leica, but Sony really does a fantastic job of working with manual lenses. I love their implementation of focus peaking.

Revisiting the music of my early childhood

Grand Slam of Curling is currently streaming for free (with ads) via Plex.

It’s definitely a thing here. A good bark on a bologna chub then pan fry a 1” thick slice makes for a tasty sandwich.

The results from last night -- very tasty, but the other brand (Nature's Soy) was spicier and had a delightful málà taste to it.

I feel that. My sisters and I "sat Shiva" (not sure that's the right way to phrase it, since we're all gentiles) when my mother passed away. It was nice -- don't know how else to phrase it. We weren't dancing around or anything, just very...sober, for lack of a better word, but not morose or mourning.

The original bag lady

I’ll add one more Rob. Feels very 2025/6. Cons and Clowns.

Megadeth - Rust in Peace (1990) Some of this album was re-recorded for the 2004 remaster, according to internet hearsay.

I really like the concept of this album.

Happy Belated Birthday Adam. Hope you "Enjoyed" the last year of our Glorious Leaders reign. What a Birthday present! Here's to a better next year.

Spent the weekend my Father and friends' cabin without the phone and any electric device beside a the lamp. Got cold. Not my cup of tea tbh. At least not in winter.

I wish there were a travel team. But Red Oxx isn't a true prerequisite if you can kickstart it back into being.

You quit...Amazon?!?!?

VPI in a Lexus commercial

Squeaking in under the wire with birthday greetings in your new home! Hope you had a great day of usuals and nibbles and such! Cheers! 🥤

Not an expensive watch, or particularly horological interesting, but I missed having one. It’s a lot of watch for the money. No more watches; I have enough.

RIP Ralph Towner....he was a great one 😪

Probably my last watch for a long time, but one I really like.

Couple from last night.