Check out my Printify Pop-up Store for new political and Spring items. Shirts, mugs, bags and always some Bulldacious! But before going there check out two of my favorite videos. One by Rosé and youngji and the other by FINNEAS and Kacey Musgraves. Wear smart and listen well. Helps ease the craziness just a little bit.
WTF? I’m worried for my country, my kids and grandkids. America is being dismantled wholesale and our constitution is being shredded. Let’s hope spring does indeed spring eternal. To help understand what’s happening open an account on Bluesky.
The clown car is making America unsafe and none of this is normal. Watch Cory Booker’s emotional ending to his 25 hour speech. Watch this version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps with Prince to fire you up!
I received a few messages on my Etsy store about the t-shirt with the propeller and VFR@pou lettering. Here is the genesis of that shirt.
I was out for my morning walk when GG popped up in my head. Gary was a Mac client of mine for over 22 years. He died in August of 2023 at age 88 with very little note of his passing. Gary was a unique and fascinating person.
We shared the same sense of humor, very dark of course, and talked endlessly about Curb Your Enthusiasm and old comedians like Buddy Hackett, Jonathan Winters, Joan Rivers, Don Rickles and Rodney Dangerfield to name a few. Whenever Gary had a computer problem I would wait a day before calling him back. I did that because I knew he would figure out the issue and resolve it. As he aged his calls came more and more as he could no longer remember how the machine worked. In fairness, when Gary started working with Macs the OS was at System 7 and a different animal entirely than the current Mac Sonoma operating system of today. He also had a desktop machine, laptop, iPod touch and iPhone all of which needed to be in sync just in case he needed the one closest to him to retrieve some valuable info.
He was an airplane pilot, writer and photographer. He turned corporate photography into beautiful photographs whether on location or portraits. Two of my favorite photo books he wrote about his travels across the US photographing and interviewing people in the small towns of America. Here are the links to those books.
Passing Gas and other Towns along the American Highway and Reaching Climax and More Towns Along the American Highway
He asked me once if I knew what VFR@pou meant, I did not. Gary explained that VFR stood for visual flight rules and @pou stood for the Hudson Valley Regional Airport that he used to fly into and out of. Life is a great trip when those you come in contact with leave a lasting impression that you carry on as part of you.
I’m officially old but don’t think old and that’s the problem. My first job, which I loved, was delivering papers in Elmira, NY. Along with my best friend Paul Giffune we had separate routes but we picked up and folded the Star Gazette together and then rode off to our separate routes. While in high school I delivered Fuller Brush products.
Before leaving for College I worked in the Ann Page food processing plant. My duties there included unloading palates of frozen strawberries from box cars, making Carmel swirls and finally cake icing. While in college I drove taxi for Totem Taxi mostly to buy records and pot.
My first job after graduating from Ithaca College with a Television/Radio degree was working for WSYE TV 18 in Elmira for the summer. I covered the great flood of ’72 and had footage on NBC national news and then at the end of the summer I was out of work. I was married and had my first daughter, Jami ( I now have 5 daughters and 4 grand kids) but no job. Luckily my parents knew the Curator of the Corning Museum of Glass and the museum was looking for people to help clean up and assist repairing of glass objects that had just been flood when the Chemung river in Corning had overflowed that summer of ’72. What was great about that job, which lasted about 4 months was working with a glass restorer from the Metropolitan Museum of Art from NYC. We spent those 4 months cleaning merticusly stain glass windows from George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon, VA. They were on loan to the museum. I was taught how to lift up the lead holding the colored pieces of glass in place and digging out the flood mud residue.
After 4 months I was out of work again and wanted to get back into television. My Dad knew the general manager of WENY TV-36, Elmira’s other TV station, and got me an interview. I was hired and spent the next 7 years working at the station as a studio and field cameraman and editor.
Moved to New York City in 1979 and until 1997 I was an editor and director of programs and commercials. My awards include an Emmy for an ABC after school special for Harpo Productions and a CMA music video of the year award for Reba McEntire. In addition I worked on Bill Clintons first presidential campaign and edited countless music programs for MTV and VH-1.
After almost 25 years in Televison it was time to move on. The internet was just beginning to be widespread and the possibilities of what that offered were exciting. Along with 2 other people, we started an Intranet development company, Cognitive Communications, employing 40 people and building intranets for Coca Cola, Xerox, IBM, Seagrams, Peoples Bank, Intel and Apple. How that ended is a story and a half…maybe told in a post someday.
I then started an Apple Computer consulting company supporting business, schools and individual users which I continue to do. All this is to say, now that I’m going to be 74, my mind needs to be working creatively. So….I’ve started an Etsy store to sell apparel and other items reflecting back on my above career and life experiences. Peruse all the back posts to get into my head…good luck 😉 All designs are my own and available for order now at the RockheadSez
My last post was 6 years ago and I’m going to start posting again. Will I have anything worthwhile to say? Who knows? Here’s a picture to start things off from Salvo, N.C.
A Jack, a Bowl, a Song and Bamboo Bam!
So I’ve been putting together an all file based audio system. I’ve been searching the internet for interesting tweaks and stuff and came across this post and thought WHAT! So while I await my Ikea cutting boards, I stuck a bamboo cutting board from Bed, Bath and Beyond that I’ve had for years under my external g-technology HD that my digital audio files are streaming from. It’s attached to my MacBook Pro (running OSX 10.10.3, circa 2008) with an Audioquest Forest Firewire 800 cable) and holy crap it changed the sound of the system! Everything seemed more focused with more space between instruments. One of my favorite reference songs is “Sleepy Time Time” from Cream’s Royal Albert Hall concert. It was ripped using the excellent XLD. For the first time I could distincly hear Ginger Baker clearly hitting the bass drum on his kit and Clapton’s higher overtones on his guitar solo. Do yourself a favor and stop by Ikea and for $14 pick up this cutting board and go crazy gypsy….Your ears will be very happy you did.
Too many metaphors and too little time ;)! Those of you who have taken classes with Rick Sammon know that he’s a font of photographic knowledge and a great resource for tips and tricks. One of my favorite is “ see the light”, it’s so fundamental and key to making great pictures, but I’d like to add to it with a “heads up”. My daughter grabs me and say’s “have you seen the sky?” I go outside on my porch and look up and there’s a storm a brewing….took this quick shot of the church tower across the street with the stormy sky.
Shot with my iPhone at ISO 100 at f/2.4 and 1/120th of a second.
I then hopped in the car and went down to the Hudson river for a much wider view. The light was cool and the scene very much stormy which was perfect.
Shot with my iPhone at ISO 50 at f/2.4 and 1/6944 of a second.
But the next interesting photo opportunity to incorporate Rick’s “see the light” and my “heads up” occurred at a Demi Lovato concert I took my daughter and her friend to the concert in Philly, Pa. I dreaded it! But it turned out much better then I thought, Demi was quite good. 20,000 screaming teenage girls stood the whole 2 hours Demi was on stage. So…..from my seat when sitting down I noticed how great the lights were and then loved how the girls in front of me were being silhouetted by the stage lights.
I just knew if I waited and watched both the lights and the girls I would get the perfect shot I was looking for. Sure enough with enough patience and a watchful eye, I got it! I just love seeing the girls face, her two friends being both lighted and backlighted at the same time.
Went to a New York Mets game this week and tried out a really cool app called Frameographer that allows you to easily shoot both stop motion and time lapse on your iPhone. It’s made by Studio Neat which also sells a great holder for your iPhone for almost any tripod called the Glif. The Glif works great on either a full scale tripod or on the little Joby tripods. See the time lapse video of the grounds crew getting the infield ready before the game at Citi Field. Again I used my iPhone using Frameographer and just resting the iPhone against the railing in front of our seats. Next, I’m waiting for a wedding at the church across the street and try the time lapse again….should be fun.
Just Because: Pete Townshed and Jack White doing the classic Who song, “the Seeker” in 2006.
Brain Surgery 