Analog Awesome in the Mail! (And randomish things)

Today I received the most amazing bit of analog awesome in the mail with an exhortation to seek the solace of the type bar and platen. And so I did, with a recently acquired Smith Corona Silent Super. The loop script looks fabulous with NOS silk ribbon I found at an estate sale last month. First, the card:

Nerdgasm! Photography and typewriters in one bit of awesome.

Thanks to the mysterious Typospherian from the Phoenix area who inspired me to do a first run with the new ribbon. This photo is going on the pin board in my office at work.

Yep, I finally got one! It showed up BIN on ebay and had been sitting there for two days. Maybe I will get lucky on the last Holy Grail Fractur machine. Or I will win the lottery.

This blog has been sadly neglected as I post my photography on Google+. The hit counts are based on some assumptions that only Google's data geeks understand. I assume that anytime an image is clicked on that counts and perhaps being refreshed inside a community does as well. Either way, last night when a number appeared on my profile page I was just shy of 2,000,000 views. It is only a digital ghost town to those who do not post and interact.

Interestingly enough, a Polaroid connection is one of the things that has kept me busy was attending and participating on a panel at the BuildWell 2014 conference located at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. The keynote speaker was John Warner of the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry. His career as a rock star chemist started with improving process and chemistry for Polaroid.

Normally, sustainable building policy is hatched in never-ending meetings in dark and poorly ventilated conference hotel spaces. This conference was an exception to the rule.

Everything is still brown and dead in Kansas. I hate/envy Californians.

It was a whirlwind trip featuring a loud and nasty turboprop to Denver and an unexpected Japanese toy exhibit inside the San Francisco airport. I had trouble leaving and took plenty of photos with my new traveling companion, the Fujifilm X100. Here are a few samples. There are more images on my G+ collection. San Francisco 2014

Hello, spinning blade of death! United did a bait and switch and changed planes from a regional jet to 1940s turboprop technology. The view was cool, though.

Kitty exercises mind control. All shall walk like her. Obey the Kitty.

Fly the friendly skies! These carnival ride parts might be better than a United regional plane. They might be better with luggage. My bag took more abuse in one round trip than in 30+ before.

Pay no attention to the robot army. Robots are your friends. Mostly.

Me, after United delays and crap planes arriving eleven hours after leaving home in Kansas City. I will avoid United like the plague if at all possible. Live trips will be replaced with webinars and Hangouts given the sorry state of air transport in general.

Well, this entry took a couple of unanticipated twists. It was good to bring the blog back to life. I am lurking on the Typosphere. Busy is a regular state of being with two teens and work. Teen one will start the college search next year. Life just blurs along and I shoot street and candid because it makes me happy.

Thanks for reading!

Obligatory Copyright statement: The words and images here are mine and mine alone. Please share the Google love by resharing, +1s, comments and linkage. Image borrowing without attribution is stealing. Beyond digital copyright issues, I has friends among the giant robots and Kaiju. You have been warned.

A Nerdy Sunday Greeting

Since I never seem to get around to long form posts, here is my short form greeting on this sunny and warmish Sunday.

My Spousal Unit and Elder Spawn went to a Kansas City Symphony concert featuring Joshua Bell on violin. The latter got a photo and a signed CD. She is in violin nerd heaven!

Meanwhile, Spawn the Younger and I did some tidying, took a walk and had a light saber dual. I combined some of the Lego collection into a single bin. Yeah, my girls have no use for the fake, tween themed Lego creations.

Cleaning up toy bins can be a little depressing. Someone had a little too much playtime.

That is all. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Don't Blink

Please stand by for a Whovianish message. Brought to you courtesy of an iPhone 5s, Procamera 7 and some random things at a thrift store.

Why? Because it is Monday, silly!

Opportunity: The Little Rover that Could

Dear NASA, JPL and Opportunity,

Happy tenth anniversary on Mars! There are not enough exclamation points to express just how amazing it is to have a machine designed for a 92-day mission headed into day 3,654. I love Opportunity's celebratory selfie!

I'm glad Opportunity has company in the form of the comparatively huge, nuclear powered Curiosity. I hope a good wind knocks some of the dust off these solar panels.

Many people have forgotten the harrowing encounter at Purgatory Dune in 2005. The mission could have been over had it not been for patience and ingenuity.

Barring gimpy motors and power shortages, it just seems this little bot will keep on ticking. I'm amazed. Not quite to the point of Voyager amazed, but amazed nonetheless.

Keep up the great work!

Love, 

Vintage Technology Obsessions

P.S. True space geeks must visit the tenth anniversary image collection. My ode to Opportunity's eight birthday is here.  It seems the solar panels were a bit cleaner at the the time. I also nerded out on Voyager as it hurtles into interstellar space and continues to send back data with technology dating to when Star Wars, AMC Pacers and Apple IIs were shiny and new. That was a simpler time when Han still shot first and you could see the matte lines around tie fighters.

P.S.S.  This blog still isn't dead. It just isn't getting much attention given my love of the photographic community and near daily postings on Google+

Christmas Leftovers

Happy New Year! I started the year off with a visit to one of my local antique malls. What didn't sell before Christmas is still there for a reason. Stick with me through the terrors to follow as I also spotted some typewriters!

"Oh, no!" Santa said to Santa, "Dwayne promised us typewriters! Where are they?"

Never fear, for here are the typewriters of Winter. They appeared from storage somewhere since garage sale season was at least sixty degrees Fahrenheit warmer than today in the Kansas City area.

As amazing as the Corona looks from a distance, the undercarriage is a bit rusty and the machine reeks of mold and mildew. It is unloved and unsold after a year.

And here is the one that sorely tempted me. It didn't smell moldy and still had circa 1958 receipts in the case.

The New Year is a time for resolutions. But that isn't my style. The closest I will come is in attempting self-restraint. I need another machine like I need a hole in the head. This awesome Underwood will haunt me. (insert pained sigh).

In the meantime, I have temporarily resolved to get by with the old beater Sony NEX-3 after partially drowning the NEX-6 last month. Yeah, pity me - a beach and a wave were involved.

As Christmas is just 12 months away, I will leave you with an exhortation to have a good New Year and the gift of a terrifying visage of angel tree toppers gone wrong. This thing scared my 13-year-old to the point where she would not go in the living room. It is now my office mascot ;-)

Yes, I have a thing for lightsabers.

On the bright side, I started 2014 with a really odd street photo and an all too seldom post on this blog. I wish all of you happy blogging, typing, writing, crafting and image making.

Full of Inky Goodness

While out and about on a rare day without our adorable spawn, my spousal unit and I stopped in at HAMMERPRESS in the Kansas City Crossroads. You might be aware that old school printing is in resurgence. This is one of those shops that was at the lead and it cranks out unbelievably gorgeous concert posters, cards and stuff. Their selection is rounded out with fountain pens, sketching materials, journals and magazines.

But the best parts are the sounds and smells that go along with active printing presses. Way back when in middle school I had the experience of racking up type on a small scale. The words appearing on this screen are much easier, but perhaps not as gratifying.

The front showroom had plenty of shoppers as Christmas is just a week away. During the First Fridays art walks, the crowd here is always thick. It is nice see an independent, small business thriving. I spotted a 3D tear down rendering of a Soviet Leica knockoff and requested that Santa add it to my stocking. I'm eclectic and difficult to shop for.

Contrary to popular opinion, this blog isn't dead. It has been kind of zombie-like and for that I apologize. Life is good, but busy with work travel and balancing the demands of work and raising teens. My primary outlet remains Google + where I share photos almost daily. The ease of posting directly from my phone or tablet is seductive, indeed.

I am on vacation and will try to catch up on doings in the Typosphere. Regardless of how you stumbled upon this entry, thanks for reading!

Other People's Lives: Confessions of a Kodachrome Voyeur

I must confess to a morbid fascination with other people's lives as revealed by their analog representations. It is no secret that I enjoy rummaging in thrift stores and antique malls. Inevitably, I run across cassettes and sorters full of slides. Rendered in the Kodachrome and Ektachrome transparencies of old, strangers look particularly exotic and engaging.

Recently, I ran across a collection of slides offered by an ebay liquidator http://www.ebay.com/usr/shesmidas She had scanned each at fairly high resolution. The image that first caught my eye was of a mother and daughter peering into an Olivetti typewriter store window display.

Pretty amazing, huh? This is a wonderful image, even for those who are not typewriter obsessed. And I am totally, madly in love with the look of Kodachrome.

Having realized that the collection had some very solid street images from around the world, I started copying away. And then I had a very odd realization...

This was the same girl...


And the same Mom... and that must be Dad who was normally on the other side of the camera. I know that reality well as there are few photos of me floating around.

So, is it good or bad to watch a total stranger's child grow up? My favorite photographic form is the art of the wandering snap known as street photography. I am constantly capturing strangers as a window on culture. But this seems different.

Certainly, it is different in an amazing way. This family trotted around the globe when flying cost a small fortune and flight attendants treated passengers like humans. Put in Dad-the-photographer's shoes, wouldn't I want people to enjoy my artistic work after I am gone?




We've spent the last sixteen years in the fast-forward maw of parenthood and are increasingly aware of how quickly our eldest will be off to college and a life of her own. Seeing a stranger's child grow up even faster on Kodachrome is just kind of weird.

Why do I look? Well, I am in love with all things photographic. From a purely clinical perspective, these images are a clean glimpse of another time. The look and feel is something I enjoy emulating through software editing tools like DxO Filmpack. But as a parent, it is hard to be entirely technical when looking at these images.

In photographic terms, this was a pretty amazing life. Picture perfect and lived, at least partly, in exotic places worth commemorating in permanent, analog form. And to be able to practice the art of street photography...

There are always vacations sometimes the family came along for the ride...

But eventually, the child grows up and starts moving on...

 Until the boyfriend becomes part of the life of the family... 

  And the baby is all grown up. Just like that. *click* *click* *click*

Photography is the art of storytelling. This random story is fascinating and made me contemplate my own life and family. The best photos are the ones that help us relate to our world or at least slow us  down enough to think.

I am also curious by nature. Who were these people? Did they live good lives past the late 1960s? How did all of these slides, a family history writ large, end up in the hands of an ebay seller?

I had been mulling this post for a month and was finally moved to action by reading this post from a fellow Google+ photographer: http://www.enlightphoto.com/views/2013/10/14/a-photographic-life-and-then.htm  This professional took on the task of helping a family sort through many thousands of slides left behind by another pro. Unfortunately, the photographer took the encrypted passwords for digital storage to the grave. That is a mistake I'll need to avoid.

Maybe I am hopelessly voyeuristic. Either way, I'd love to read your thoughts and opinions on this post. In the last month, this blog kicked over the 60,000 hit mark with precious little attention from me. I very much appreciate people like you who stop by and actually read all the way to the end.

Please share the Blogger love. There is a handy Google +1 button on this page. You can also find me on Google+.