Lazy Days
No, not of summer. Just plain laziness on my part. My energy levels seem to be way down. Some of that may have been caused by my illness mentioned in the previous post. Some of it by the higher than normal temperatures we have been having. More like Charlotte for this time of year than Boone. Maybe worse, I kind of just realized I use reading like some people use drugs.
Mostly the hot weather seems to be an excuse for not getting more exercise. I do not really understand why I am not, most of my life I spent a couple hours a day just walking. Now in my old (and not all that old) age I just do not have the get up and go. That might be partly because I am not angry and upset like I was most of my life. Interesting how a positive seems to be causing a negative. Anyway, I am somewhat worried about my weight which is now about ten pounds more than it was a year back. Maybe what I need to do is start using lists again: 8am go for walk, 10am check on mail at the post office, 10:15am Stop at library….
And So On, And So Forth
Well, the bad memory is gone. Replaced with 8gb from eBay which gives me a total 10gb in the machine. That fixed all the problems but Photoshop CS4 occasionally shutting down the computer like you just pulled the plug out of the wall. I wonder if it is a shortage of memory, after all Photoshop is only reserving 6gb’s for itself. I found several questions about similar problems with Photoshop on the web, but none of the questions showed an answer. It seems like quite often people ask for help on the web, but not many of them bother with a “That worked, thanks”.
Fixing the rear brakes, and the unintended memory upgrade, leaves me broke this month and next. Sigh, I need to start worrying more about money, don’t I?
The photography club now has 14 members, ten of them were at the last little class which was about basic portraiture. I am beginning to think that if I do my part we may actually have a viable club forming. I figure that we need 25 members to really make a go of it.
My annual housing authority inspection is due next month, and the place is a pigsty, although I picked up the living room yesterday and it only took a half-hour, so it is mostly just clutter. Mostly due to projects I got started on and then dropped because something more immediate came up. I tend to think, “I will get back to this tomorrow, so will just leave the stuff out”. But, of course, there is no tomorrow, only today…
I woke up yesterday morning with a major sore throat. Why is it these things only happen when my doctor’s office is closed? I tend to imagine the germs have set up an intelligence office. OK, his doctor’s office is going to be closed friday, saturday, and sunday, he never goes in on Monday if he can avoid it, so we will have plenty of time to establish a beach head before he can get antibiotics.
Photoshop Woes
Photoshop Bridge started causing the computer to shut down. I reloaded PS, that did not fix it. I reformatted the boot raid array and reloaded XPx64 & PS, that did not fix it either.
I started thinking that it could be corrupted files as it seemed to work with older files, only that did not fix it either.
Figuring flaky ram is quite often the problem with mysterious problems, although why that would only cause a problem with PSB is beyond me, I pulled the second bank of memory figuring to swap those sticks one by one into the first bank to find out if there was a bad stick of memory. Only the problem was in the second bank with those four sticks of ram removed the computer was stable again. PS CS4 runs real slow on only 2gb of ram, but I have been thinking of adding more ram real soon now. It is just going to have to be sooner than I intended…
A Camera Club in Boone NC
As of last Thursday, there is a camera club in Boone. The Watauga Photography Club was formed with 6 charter members. I already see two things that are needed: 1- more members. 2- I have to learn to delegate.
The funny thing is no matter how much thought and effort you put into it, you still forget things. But at the same time, everything can not be done at once even if the money was there. Once you have the club you need things like: a mailing address, email address(es), website, bank account, media contacts, etc. Since I am the only one of the new members who has ever even been a member of a club before, I will have to help my co-officers come up to speed.
The strange thing is for someone who has often been described as an antisocial self-centered person, I have joined a lot of clubs and organizations in my life, and mostly volunteering to help run the things to some extent or another; Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Junior Achivement, National Hot Rod Association, Base Aero-Club, Base Judo Club, Base Photo Club, Ham Radio Club, Computer Club (2), 4×4 Club, Appalachian Trail Club, and I am sure I have forgotten a couple of others. This is the first time I have tried to start one myself. It would have been nice if I had a few local photo buddies to work with on this, but if I had them here, I would not have had to start a club…
I have a lot of work to do on the old mini-Blazer too. I just dropped another $80 on stuff I now have to get my behind out there and deal with. I am finding it harder and harder to get going on physical labor type jobs. Maybe if I get up early tomorrow and get started in the cool of the morning. I need to remove and replace the rear brake shoes first thing, then change the oil and filters, check the differentials, and finish putting the skid plate back on. You would not think that would be hard to get up and do when you realize that I am saving about $200 by doing it myself, but to be honest, if I had the $200 I would have someone else do it.
Wow, time does fly when you are not having fun
I see my last post was three weeks ago. Been kind of doggy.
I have been doing some research on setting up a camera club, and have found that there are a lot more ways to fail than to make it work. I decided not to do much actual work on it until I find out whether anyone actually shows up for the first meeting which is next Thursday.
Just how to organize the club seems to depend a lot upon how many members there are. With just a few it looks like it is best to just treat it as a few friends getting together, in other words don’t bother. With 25 or more it looks like you need to incorporate as a not for profit organization mainly to protect the wealthier members from liability. It is not widely understood that without being incorporated, the members are severally and individually liable for club actions. For the same reason the club ought to be carrying liability insurance. Also being incorporated as a not for profit the club can accept donations.
Another thing I have been thinking hard about is club officers. In the clubs I have been involved with every year the club changed, the old officers all declined to be reelected and a new cliche took over the club and ran it the way they wanted. Sometimes you got a great bunch and the club thrived, sometimes you got a lousy bunch and the club died. I would like to some how set things up so there is some continuity to how things are run, but so that new people can easily become involved in the running of the club.
Then there is the Photography Society of America (PSA). The PSA is the parent club of many clubs. The offer a lot of stuff that a club would find helpful. Luckily the club membership is only $45/year. It is probably a good idea to affiliate with the PSA as a 1000 photo clubs has a lot more clout than one.
So, come next Thursday, we will find out whether we are going to have a Photo Club or not.
No Camera Club in Boone?
Well then I just have to make it happen:
Kind of scary. The Senior Center is going to do some publicity, I turned in a club listing to the newpapers, and the public library today. Hopefully, there will be enough interest to make a go of it.
Some thoughts
Ah, tomorrow is payday. First I have to pay my cable bill, then buy a phone card, then deal with the exhaust system on the Blazer.
I have checked into it and it will cost $130 to have it done at the cheapest place in town, or $100 for the parts to do it myself. If I had the funds that would be a no-brainer, but I do not have the funds, I can live for a week on the difference. They weld the system, and in about two Boone winters the exhaust system will rust through at the welds. If I do it myself with clamps it will fall off in about two years. Hard to tell, which to do. In any case I intend to put the under body protection (Skid plates) back on, that may help with the salt problem.
After a winter of poor health I finally have started cleaning the place up again. The bedroom/photo-studio is about 85% straightened up only a couple more hours work figuring where to put the remaining junk. The living room, I have managed to keep no less than 85%, so it is not going to be a problem. The bathroom only takes a couple of hours at its worst. So that leaves the kitchen the other catch-all room, I have to find a place for a lot of junk in there too.
The old sailors saying “A place for everything and everything in its place” is great if you have someplace to put the stuff. When I first moved into the apartment it was easy, I had little, and there was what seemed like plenty of storage. The big closet at the head of the stairs was turned into a laundry, the only place there was to put in the washer and dryer where it would not cost a fortune to run water and electric (The closet is directly above the breaker panel in the kitchen downstairs, and right next to the bathroom sink), so that space was lost. Then as I got into more hobbies, and the remaining space filled up. I really need to cull some stuff, but as you all know from personal experience, if you toss something you have not used in ten years, you will need it the next week.
I did rearrange the bedroom furniture a bit, and now have about a 9×14 clear area for the studio. The lighting equipment and backdrops are stored along the wall when not in use as a studio. The area will do double duty as a sewing area.
lets see, two bicycles, four sewing machines, five computers, three stereos, a console TV, 3 bookcases (full), a closet full of darkroom gear, two big tool boxes, plus all the usual furniture, all in a 4 room apartment. No wonder there is no place to put stuff…
At least the past week I have been waking up without my head all stopped up, that is a major improvement. It is kind of warm right now. Supposed to hit 80 today. The air kicked on yesterday. Weird Weather is the only kind we seem to be having anymore. I did get out and walk a couple of miles yesterday, I have not been getting enough exercise what with the weird weather and my weird health. At least, I can walk a couple of miles even out of condition. When I first moved up here in 2002, I could not walk a mile. I helps to keep things in perspective, things are not as bad as the were at one time.
Some Woe On To Me
Well, the computer shut down on me as I was writing this post. I think the CPU went over the temp I had set. Anyway I opened the case up and blew out all the fans and heatsinks, taped some cables back out of the way, and set the shutoff up 5 degrees from what it was. However, I did lose all that I had written so far.
I had hoped the bandage on the exhaust pipe would get me through until inspection time in September, but the muffler fell off uptown yesterday. So now I am running straight pipes. Since I can not replace the exhaust system until next Monday (EOM Blues), I hope I do not get a ticket in the meanwhile.
The support for the CISS ink tubing broke earlier today. I made a temporary bridge to support it out of a piece of aluminum strap I had laying around.
I used some double stick tape to hold it in place, and a hair band to hold the tubing to the bridge. It occurs to me that pop riveting that strap in place might be a permanent fix.
You can not say I do not learn from my mistakes, I just saved this draft so far.
It is looking rather dark and dreary out the window just now, we have been having rain and temps back down in the 50’s the last couple of days. I just got up and turned on a couple of lamps. When you need the lights on at around noon, I guess you can call it dark.
What’s Happening
I caught some of that “protect the poor investor” stuff on Public Radio this morning. In my mind investing is gambling. When I had investments, I actually did at one time in my life, believe it or not, I figured that money was a bet. I was risking it in hopes for a profit, but I knew I was risking it. They were talking about investing like it was a consumer product, talking about setting up a fund to protect consumer’s investments. How silly can they get. They do not have funds to protect you from buying a bad car, nor a bad TV dinner, but they want to set up a multi-billion dollar fund to protect investors????? The government deregulated banks and other financial firms, and now they want to protect the public from the results of that????? How about putting the regulations back in place, and prosecuting the liars and cheats when they are caught????? While we are at it, how about prosecuting those liars and cheats in Washington too.
Let’s see, I reported last time that I fixed the 4wd on my old mini-Blazer. I put one of those exhaust pipe bandages on it as a temporary fix, but the entire exhaust system from the manifolds to the tail pipe really needs replacing. That will cost about $400 in parts, of course I do not at this time have $400. I do not even know if I can get the manifolds off without pulling the engine or damaging the heads. Of course, I know many of you pay nearly that every month to the finance company, so it is not as bad as it seems, and the little truck has been kind to me the only major expense the past couple of years being the new tires. I need to hold back some funds just for vehicle repairs, only there is no excess in my budget to hold back. I do however, have until inspection is due in September to get it done. I want to do it my self as the muffler shops weld it on, and the weld are where it rusts out. They like it because they get you back in every couple of years that way.
I joined Facebook last week, mainly to see how I need to compose photos to work best as I get requests for them. The requesters do not want to pay my fee however, but maybe I could arrange to just do snapshots for Facebook use, if I just met them somewhere and too a couple of snaps I could do it fairly cheaply. If I have to setup the lights for a formal portrait I could not. Facebook seems to be designed to use 4×6 snapshots, a formal portrait usually cuts off the bottom of the subject’s face in the avatar it generates from the photo.
I woke up this morning with a sore throat. Sigh! Oh well, it is a couple of weeks since I had the last cold. I can remember when I only caught a couple of colds a year, not a couple a month. I guess it mostly has to do with getting old, but I have also been thinking that I do not get out much, so probably I do not have the immunities I had when I was in the workforce.
I am, on the other hand, mostly managing to keep a pretty positive outlook. Some may recall, I made the resolution to try and maintain a “Things are mostly going to workout OK” attitude. I am happy to say that mostly I have managed to do that. It also helps that I figured out long ago that “Everything is going to take five times as long and cost five times as much as you think”, so I do not get too upset when things do not come in just as I planned. I ought to collect all those pithy saying I have come up with over the decades some place where I can find them to remind myself.
And just to lighten the page a bit the view out my front door a few minutes ago (blogs on GMT, I’m actually on EDT):
All’s Well
OK, after 5 years, I now have 4WD again. I was somewhat worried that I had misdiagnosed the problem, as it has been years since I did it and my memory is not so good these days. Actually, my memory never was so good, but that is another story. But, no, I did not make a mistake, the new encoder motor fixed it.
The tailpipe chose the test drive to fall off the truck, so I will have to replace the exhaust system real soon now, and next month (May) is my traditional vehicle maintenance month, so I need to oil change the oil, do a lub job, plus replace all the filters and the spark plugs (150K maintenance). Then there is some new rust from the winters salt that needs to be dealt with. The lady is sixteen now, and every one knows how expensive sixteen year olds are to maintain.
I got a couple of new hard drives in the mail today. I replaced the two old RE2 drives with the two new RE3 drives, and moved the other RE3 from the motherboard controller to the raid controller as a hot-spare. That leaves me with the same capacity as I had, but faster, and more reliable as the hot-spare will switch in automatically if one of the drives in the raid-5 array fails. The Western Digital 500gb RE3’s cost me about $50 each off ebay. They have been replaced by the RE4’s and most folks are buying bigger drives these days which is why they are so cheap right now. If I can come up with the funds to buy a couple more I will expand the array to 2tb which will serve my needs for the next few years. The RE2’s are now doing backup duty. The workstation would also like some more memory, and a pair of faster processors.
The little server, has about reached the end of its life too. I had to delete a lot of stuff off it because the 320gb hard drives were full up. Gah, I remember when I bought a 100mb hard drive and thought I would never need more space than that.
The unseasonably warm weather is going away the next few days, but we do not seem to be going to have the rain they were predicting.
The price of gas has gone up again. The price of food is up again. And Social Security is frozen. The poor get poorer and the rich get fatter. If prices were stable and I had an extra couple of grand a year, I think I could get by OK. That would be about $10K. I used to live kind of poorly on $25K/year, anything more and I actually could build up some savings. That was a long while back however. I actually, had that extra couple of grand the past year, maybe another windfall will show up this year too. Just got to keep that positive attitude.