I would repeat each sentence 3x over til I had it. They were originally casting for an older girl and I was down the hall auditioning for something else - when they heard me running lines with my mom they had me read for this. They actually had to reset the scene to daytime because of me, because I was too young to legally work at night when it was supposed to take place.
Sub Urban Diy Guy - 2018
Rob Reiner said she memorized it. She was four and couldn't read. Said it was done in one take too.
A week out of the hospital, yesterday afternoon passed the clutch simulation test in the car, last evening finished with the injections, this morning dealt with another nasty headache with an Extra Strength Tylenol capsule, started the new anticoagulant drug - Pradaxa. Thinking about going back on Warfarin in three months after that moderately expensive and somewhat problematic prescription runs out. But I can't ever let one of these situations happen again.
Walking better, starting to be able to imagine being fully recovered. Leg is bending a little more and a little less painfully. In the darker phases of this shit it always feels like whatever state you're in at the moment is gonna be permanent.
First time since behind the wheel beyond the driveway stuff and first time out anywhere other than the medical trips - sixty-some road miles.
Did dinner - HM, friend, Yours Truly - at a nearby Greek seafood place. Got back home around 20:20, went out like a light in front of the television until about 22:40. Started reorganizing, stowing some backpack contents, and then my heart seizes when I suddenly realize I no longer have my MacBook Pro laptop.
I'm sure that what happened was that I'd put it on the empty chair to my left where it would've been hidden from view by the tablecloth. And there was enough other stuff in the backpack to keep me from noticing the relevant weight deficit when we bailed for the car.
I figure out how to work the iPhone enough to Google the Blue Dolphin and call at 22:50 - ten minutes prior to closing. Got the manager, I believe, who wasn't much help and told me to try again when they reopened tomorrow (this) morning at 11:00.
Had a horrible almost entirely sleepless night spent trying to distract myself and counting down the hours until I'd be able to find out one way or the other. Got to the parking lot at about 10:35 and was able to connect with a woman cleaning the door glass at about 10:50. Contact with the manager - different one - and I'm in. Make a beeline for the table where I think we were parked... Nothing. Nothing in the area. Heart sinks.
But Manager has gone downstairs to check the stash and comes back up with it. Endorphin rush. Thank him profusely, tell him how much of my life was hanging on that thing and what a total moron I am for not having things safely and thoroughly backed up - not to mention walking away without it.
I now have the better part of fifteen hundred videos, vast majority glider stuff, a fair number of the good stuff people have later decided they no longer wanted seen by the public. Over nine and a half thousand stills harvested from the videos. Gawd knows what all else 'cause I'm way less organized and disciplined than I'd like/used to be.
Wanted to get some decent backup work done before Costa Rica but ran out of time and energy.
And I need to discipline myself to NEVER put the laptop down anywhere out of conspicuous view when I've finished with it for a session. Back in the backpack compartment and zipped. Should be pretty easy for the next few weeks anyway.
Probably need to get a backup (older used) laptop and rearrange the keyboard for Dvorak 'cause this one could crash even without any negligence and I realized how SO dead in the water I was during the crisis hours.
Majorly crashed this afternoon.
Leg's not getting noticeably better. They said I should be back to normal within a couple weeks of getting sprung and in another day and a half I'll have hit that mark. I wouldn't mind waiting another couple months if I had to but I still can't bend it much and can only go bipedal in limp mode.
At the hospital early last month got told by a surgeon that I'd be fully recovered in about a week. That had struck me as too good to be true - based on what I was feeling. And around discharge time I went for a second opinion from my primary / internal medicine guy. I threw out the less optimistic prognosis of two weeks from the present point and he concurred.
It's now been over five weeks and I haven't made all that much progress. Had been worrying about the possibility of permanent damage and wrote my regular doc Monday to see if I could get a less useless perspective. She said to "give it a year for the hematoma to go down significantly". Yeah, that's a figure I can begin to believe. Seems consistent enough with what I've been experiencing. Good news... Shouldn't be any permanent damage.
Couple days ago I was able to bend the leg to ninety, not in any pain 'cept for a bit after trying to push the bend envelope, get around normally enough 'cept for negotiating stairs.
Been working on getting the scope set up for digiscoping. First stage was to get the Swarovski 30mm TLS APO adapter to go between the scope and camera. Found a very slightly used copy on eBay at a really good price but the seller had forgotten about the two necessary connection components still on the scope which had left with the ex after the divorce. Took three weeks to get that dealt with.
Trying to get caught up on enough of decades worth of SLR camera technology to be able to try to make a halfway intelligent selection for the back end... Head nearly exploded. And then once you DO get enough of a grip to establish an appropriate range you find that no matter what you're prepared to spend it's still a total crap shoot.
And back in the days of film when I was last active in wildlife photography and Nikon was supposed to be the gold standard I got cameras which were junk. And nothing seems to have changed. Go to B&H Photo, look at Canon DSLRs, check out the one star reviews. Intolerable malfunctions right outta the box and good freakin' luck finding one that was ever remedied under warranty coverage. (Sounds like what they're doing is keeping it for a week, pronouncing it fixed, shipping it back.) And Nikon's much worse.
Decided on an older model - Canon EOS 6D (WG) as my best and safest bet. Targeted a B&H used one, body only, but when I was set to go late afternoon discovered that some bastard had snatched it away within the previous hour. Otherwise I'd have had it in my hands by about half past yesterday.
Went immediately to eBay and bought the only one available for an extra hundred bucks (nine versus eight) from a seller in Brooklyn with a moderately crappy rating. And it's been sitting there ever since with its USPS tracking number provided. Guess I'll be lucky to be able to start finding out what's wrong with it early Monday afternoon.
I'd like to get a Canon short zoom range lens to:
- be able to properly test the relevant camera functions
- handle wide angle and close stuff the scope setup can't
but good luck finding one of those available minus scathing reviews.
Hope all the headaches will start trending downwards soon and that I'll have some opportunities to start experiencing a few rewards. Guessing the last of my cool wintering waterfowl will have departed the Bay by the earliest time I could be operational.
FUCK. Just found out I got the wrong goddam TLS APO adapter for a full frame sensor DSLR like the Canon 6D that'll be arriving by Monday. (Had made it to Jersey City a bit before noon today.)
It's a 30 millimeter and was supposed to have been a 43. Three hundred bucks and several weeks worth of stress and aggravation down the drain for the used one. And five and a half for a new 43 'cause there's no such thing as a used 43. The 30's for the crop sensor cameras like everyone and his dog uses. And I'd so tried to get up to speed and do everything as right as possible on this one. Just got too overwhelmed by all the tech junk I was trying to absorb.
Looking for a silver lining in this experience. Not coming up with anything actually useable.
Delighted to hear it's not just me. I did just come up with a fair silver lining however - one that should've occurred to me right away.
I got this setup with the intention of sharing - both scoping and digiscoping. At the conclusion of my next B&H order I'll have finished acquiring copies of all available T2 Adapters (see illustration above) for the purpose of letting folk slap their own cameras on the back end. Most of cameras are gonna be...
The 30's for the crop sensor cameras like everyone and his dog uses.
...the crop sensor jobs. And the 30's the TLS APO compatible with or optimized for them. (I suspect the 30 will work with the Canon full frame I'm getting but inefficiently with respect to taking max advantage of the available resolution.)
I am starting to worry a fair bit about packing for air travel though. On both scope trips (Alaska and Costa Rica) I've had very few cubic inches to spare with my current checked and carry-on luggage capacity.
Got lotsa toys today... 43mm TLS APO in the morning, adapters, camera in the early afternoon. I was a little shy of furious when I got the camera extracted 'cause, although I'd rate the appearance as pristine, the bastard didn't include - in order of decreasing importance - battery, charger, a couple cables, strap. They're supposed to be part of a body-only purchase and they were photographically illustrated in the listing. Don't think it was deliberate, just inexcusably careless.
I was able to scrape the missing stuff used from eBay and B&H Photo for under a hundred bucks but the exercise having been run late Friday afternoon I won't be able to get the camera lit up until Tuesday or Wednesday - depending on whether or not the battery comes with a useable charge on it.
But even with no juice I was able to do a little test driving and gain some better understandings.
The TLS APO housings are all identical - save for what's printed on them. And I'm now sure that the 23, 30, 43 mm designations are the focal lengths of the little lenses at the cores. You can bayonet these things onto your camera and shoot through them minus the scope. Minus the scope they don't gather much light 'cause the objective ends are tiny and you can't focus them but they're wide angle (huge depths of field) so 'cept for up real close everything looks fine.
I was right about the 30 being able to work with camera and scope but it being a much wider angle you find yourself seeing a lot of interior scope tubing surface.
Still want a low focal length regular lens but still can't find anything at any price that doesn't have multiple very creditable reviews denouncing it as total junk.
Went through a somewhat infuriating and depressing extra couple days last week. Got a couple used batteries from B&H Photo in good time Tuesday but, in keeping with what I'd expected, one was dead and the other was after about ten seconds of getting things lit up. And the charger was SUPPOSED to have come in the day's mail but had sat around inert for four days somewhere between here and LA and didn't make it till Thursday.
The fuckin' manual for the camera - Canon EOS 6D(WG) - is a bit over four hundred pages - and trying to get up to speed on this gadget cost me several more days of misery. But it's been on the back end of the scope and aimed through the glass of the patio door at the feeders area out back for several days and I'm beginning to get it to work, get inside its head a little, trick it into doing some of what I want it to, get some test shots off of the card and into the laptop and Photoshop.
Not shooting any of these birds for Audubon magazine covers but finding out what I can do with acquisition, focus, framing, ISO, shutter speed, mirror lockup, lighting, metering, reviewing...
Last time I was aiming a camera at birds I'd need to finish the roll of film, mail it into Rockville, wait another week to find out what I'd done wrong.
