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After several tests, it seems Cora is improving. The biopsies have finally ruled out cancer, pointing instead to a very aggressive bacterium. After almost three weeks of antibiotics, she seems to be starting to be herself again.

The amount of dog hair that must be in that condo is making my nose itch. Our second foraging expedition, which was meant to be a dog walk, was a bonanza. Including the One Spear to Rule Them All!

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Attending Wilco's Solid Sound Festival in North Adams MA. Billy Bragg opened proceedings and it started raining about three songs in but nobody cared much. Gang of Four soon and then Wilco with Billy Bragg who will perform music from their 1998 Mermaid Avenue album of Woody Guthrie songs live for the first time ever.

Just a great day yesterday....went to hometown of Marblehead MA to help my mom with some work around the house, and just to spend some time. She's been having some health issues and I've also been helping with appointments and the like. It's good to get the time in with her. On a whim, I then called a dear family friend Judy who lives a couples streets away, and she was home. Got to spend a while with her as well, was great to catch up. She has had a tough time as well so I have been able to help her a bit too. It was then mid-to-late afternoon, but I hadn't had lunch. So on another whim I called my friend Melissa, she had re-connected with me when Karen passed; she lost her husband (suddenly) almost a year earlier. We've been very close since. She joined me for a late lunch/early dinner at a nice fish restaurant on the water in Salem MA. I speak a lot about "human connection" and how much it means to me. Yesterday was one of those great days, left me filled (heart and stomach) and happy!

Cowboy Junkies

Up in Maine, found out my next door neighbor went to the ER for a bad nosebleed. Visited her there, ended up keeping her company for almost 3 hours. Brought her home, then dog-watched these wonderful pups (2 Samoyeds and a 5-month old Golden - I THINK it's a blend with something else, l but not sure). At one point, she had 4 full-grown Samoyeds in her ~1100 sq ft condo!! She saw an ENT last night in Portland Maine and he helped a lot more than the local ER.....will find out today of the final prognosis & plan.

^^ After decades of loving them, I finally got to see them 2 years ago. Will also see them later this year too. Me: went to a nearby town's annual Multi-Cultural Festival. What a time! Great people, gifts, food, and music. Had very good Indian street food, bought a small sculpture from Zimbabwe and mini-paintings from France (now relocated here, a follower of Daniel Venjean). Saw music from people who are from Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, India, Africa, and Haiti. Wonderful time was had, met a few very nice people and had some nice chats with the vendors and some of the musicians. Some pics. In the 5th pic where the Indian woman is dancing, the guy in the red and yellow shirt is a good friend, known him since i was in my lower to mid single-digits. He is the drummer for the African band fronted by the man next to him, seen in the next two after that. For one of the bands, there were two couples - one with a child - who did some very nice salsa dancing!

Such a great day. The best group of people. I think Rini and Dorothy made some new friends of my coworkers.

It being Father's Day a nearby hotel celebrated with $38 burgers, whiskey tastings, and a local Jaquar club showing off a few cars (mostly non-Jaquars). Thus more testing to try to figure out this confusing Light Lens Lab 50mm f/1.5 Z21 (Angenieux S21 clone). Paired with the SL (typ 601). Makes one more appreciative of modern flat field lenses. Still old lenses for old cars.

I snapped this photo without tripod. It has a fairly high ISO, but nothing the R6II can´t handle.

Andrew and I went for less-prep, faster-cook pizza for dinner tonight. Still working on my launching, but getting a bit more reliable.

There is no reason hand-made, point-to-point wiring cannot be done right.

Detroit pizza a bit further North in Michigan

The boys have played four matches in just two days. The national championship is two weeks away, and they're starting to feel the pressure. PD: I've finally been able to try out the 70-200 f2.8L lens.

Birthday girl wanted pancakes.

Went all the way to Tiburon in an abortive attempt to see the 4th July Fireworks on The Golden Gate Bridge. Abandoned the attempt, due to the Bridge being enveloped in fog. So we came home. To watch YouTube Happy Birthday America

Lemon shortbread. Joanne on sampling it, said it goes well with Sauvignon Blanc.

Naturally a few days after doing the major software upgrade the server had a drive failure, it's been restored from the latest backup but it may be missing several hours worth of data. My apologies!

Finally made it to the top of the local climb without blowing up. Key change was grinding out the steepest pitches sub 60 rpm to keep my heart rate out of the red. I was worried I’d be going too slow to stay upright, but it was fine. Also helps that I’m also slowly but surely getting more fit. I feel a lot better about the climbing on the Marin metric century now that I’ve finally been able to get up and over this thing. Nate is right, 32mm is the sweet spot. Put some on and they felt amazing.

Although I'm short on time (I've started renovating my second home), I'm doing some tests with the 70-200mm lens and I photographed this blackbird in my garden. PD. I'm quite bad, I keep trying to improve my technique.

I went on a deep dive through Jacob's photos on FB. These are some shots he took over the years that AFAIK he did not post here: The opposite focal point of this shot (where the gate is in focus and the house is OOF) would be interesting. I think the slight vignetting here is an artifact of the lens, not a software filter.

Initial viewing confirms I managed to NOT screw it up. Looks pretty cool.

Got up around 6:30 and made a batch of chili. Al's Sister Rini and Neice Dorothy and myself are making chili dogs, smash burgers, corn on the cob, potatoe salad, fruit salad, some type of blueberry angel food cake with mascarpone whipped cream, blueberry custard pie, watermelon and who knows what else? A few of my coworkers are coming by to join in the feast.

Hey! Sorry I didn't mean to go missing for so long, it just kinda happened. I have a little corner of the house with a bunch of fun music things. I recently commissioned a calligrapher to make some artwork to go with the box and can't wait to show you what they look like together.

Also, for me, everyone appears as Brent...

Finally have local AI downloaded and running. So ... Yeah, I can do that, now. EDIT: And I got GLM-5.2 running! Abysmal speeds but when I need it, I got it!

Beautiful landscape! Also I'm sure a nice Distagon. I can't choose between, but did you debate about shooting at f/800? So Light Lens Lab is probably most known for recreating old Leica lenses, but they've produced three non-Leicas also - The Cooke Speed-Panchro II (below), the Angenieux S21 (previous page), and the Dallmeyer Super-Six (I should resist, right? Being a completest is expensive.). Sometimes this is in a new mount, occasionally a new focal length. Anyway, they're often compared and I had Monday off, so swung by The Cantor Art and Anderson Collection Standford spaces with a dusted off SPII with the SL (typ 601). Isn't much of a comparison with the Jaq show, as their subjects are so different, but fun to shoot close together. Mostly at f/2.8. You may recognize the Richard Serra sculpture Sequence, shown here many times, along with a Nick Cave Soundsuite and Deborah Oropallo Patrol.

Rick's wide angle images made me want to look at some older images. Here's one with a 21mm Zeiss distagon from 2015.

ElevenHifi is a Rega dealer...

For the same money, you can buy a Steinway grand piano that will play itself.

I think I was being reminded of something I had previously been told. Repeatedly.

Kicked off the summer this weekend with the San Mateo County Fair. A few not terribly inspiring shots below. Leica SL2-S during the day with the softer Light Lens Lab 35mm f/1.4 Double Aspherical "11873" and during night the more modern Voigtlander 28mm f/2 Ultron.

Look into unifi wifi https://ui.com/wifi It's meant for covering a large area with easy integration of multiple access points. You could put one access point in the main house and another in the loft over the garage and you should have excellent coverage everywhere. You would need to install the controller on your computer to set everything up, but once it's running you don't really need to do anything else. It would also give you the ability to easily monitor it all while you're away. You could continue to use the current router, or you could use a unifi router (I have an extra in a box that I never opened of you want it).

A little while back I posted somewhere on here about a very exciting project. Some of my work at a San Fransisco book store just happened to have been noticed by Linda Ronstadt and her longtime friend and carpenter. That carpenter happens to live in Fairfax, and is a regular customer of mine at the lumber store. Once my name was mentioned by the store owner ( this owner has become a great friend, and I've now done two of her homes, and her book store), this carpenter said " wait, I know him. He works at Fairfax Lumber. " Long story, still long, he talked with me about collaborating on a large set of bookshelves for Linda. Linda's health isn't great, and that has affected the scheduling of this project. However, we are now into this project. I have not yet met Linda personally, but we have started working on the shelves at Andy's shop. He took great measurements of the space. Usually the sign of a good carpenter, and I'm sure he is. But for me the most difficult part of the project thus far has been slowing him down. He wants to hurry through and get it done. I want to build the best shelves that I can build. Time, though maybe an issue in the long run, isn't really an issue now. She's not pushing this to be quick. Money clearly isn't an issue, so I think I'm winning this little battle. I've made it clear that I'm not interested in blowing out some average shelves. I want to make something that I'm proud of, especially considering the client. We've spent two whole days working together in Andy's shop, and I think he's starting to get it. He's around 80 years old and I'm very respectful of my elders, except when it comes to sacrificing my quality. We will continue working tomorrow and I'm guessing about two more weekends. Then most likely at least 1 day of install. That's when I'm going to meet Linda. That'll certainly be a fun day for me. As most things concerning music or movies, my trivia knowledge is vast. Ask me something about anything important and I'll come up blank, but ask me about a music or movie artist and I can talk forever. This is even tenfold for me on Linda, because the Laurel Canyon crowd, and the beginning of the Southern rock genre really peak my interest. All of the crossovers of the people of this era are just fascinating to me. Linda met Graham Parsons early on, who I consider the Father of this genre. Graham discovered and then worked with Emmylou Harris, another favorite singer of mine. Linda met Emmylou and Dolly Parton at different times, and then introduced them to each other at lunch one day. They of course started harmonizing on favorite songs, and were so impressed with the melding of their voices that they decided to create music together soon. Soon turned into more than a decade, but the results were phenomenal. Linda was also a guest on the Cher show back in the 70's, and started a lifetime friendship. I being a gay man of course adore me some Cher! And anyone who is an Eagles fan owes something to Linda, because she had a lot to do with putting that band together. I could go on and on, but I'm hoping that I can reign it in a bit on the day I meet her in person. Although I doubt that I'll be successful there. Anyway, this project is coming to fruition, and what a way to crown a career that I have deeply loved for over four decades now. This will be a story that I will, well I guess I'll have to tell your Grandkids about it, because I won't have any, but I'm sure that I'll have to be told to "shut up about it already ". I will certainly try to take pictures upon install. More to come later.

Similarly we skipped Mountain View & the San Francisco Symphony and Santa Clara & the World Cup stragglers to head to the occasional DMZ of Milpitas. Not sure the band’s horns to pants ratio was correct.

Be more like Robert -- 🤘

We've thought about that over this weekend but one critical difference is that all of the stages here point away from the sunset so we get to look into the sun rather than the performers. The other is that he is king here so it should be harder to get grumpy.

Butthole Surfers - Psychic.... Powerless.... Another Man's Sac Mad genius album! Lady Sniff makes me chuckle hard every time.....

Always great in used lens ads when they include a photo of the "flawless optics".

In this case, you don't know how wise you are.

Your urine is going to smell atrocious for a month!

One of my female coworkers on the factory trawler in the Bering Sea loaned me her CD of The Trinity Sessions. Immediately after that two month tour, I searched my favorite Portland, Oregon record store and bought the vinyl. Been a Junkies fan ever since. The album would've been a year old or so at that time, so 89 or 90 ish.

Shit that's bad. I'm sure all those 10% carbon comp resistors add a magical tone...

Heavy Metal: Music from the Motion Picture

Bœuf Talk (sorry vegans): Fore Part Deux: Hind UK Edit: oops, not a TV show, don't feel like moving it. 😎

I don't use mesh but I will definitely also recommend Unifi. I have a Cloud Gateway, a U6 WAP and one of their switches. The whole system was a dream to setup and piecemeal upgrade-able should I need it. No required subscriptions or cloud BS either for the security-minded folks.