New Point Break

Well, I knew this redo of a turd of a film wasn't going to be good, but holy fucking shit was this uber turd of a film.  Do not waste your time on it in any way shape or form.

This Politcal Season

OK, it's been a while.  Sorry.

So, it's presidential circus time again and i have to say it, I am ready for it end.  While most people know that I am very politically minded, my fuse this time around has become very short and I find myself following (not unfriending) almost everyone I know.  I have also been very sparse in posting anything political to my own timeline, I do find myself wanting to comment to both my right wing friends and to left of center friends who currently hate Hillery.  But when I do, I can only muster sanctimonious blah, I can't find myself raising above it and finding clear and present words for me, or for what friends I have.  I think I tend to make things worse.  So  anyway .  . .

Trump - at the start of the primaries, I told a right wing friend of mine that I really didn't know who I would vote for, but I knew categorically that I could never ever support two candidates , these being Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.  One, I simply do not like either one of them, and second I do find myself agreeing on anything they are for or support.  Both of them seem incapable of telling the truth. They both strike me as sociopaths.  Now that Trump has the Republican nomination, I categorically know who I am not voting for.  Period.

Hillery - Now, this isn't such a  straight arrow thing for me.  First, I am not a fan of the Bill years, I don't hate him or even many of policies.  I understood when we elected him back in 1992 that he as "center" democrat and never failed me here.  Where he did fail me was who and how he handle judicial nominations.  Basically speaking he flubbed them and completely caved to the right on the issue.  Judicial nominations are super important and pretty much moved the federal court as a whole to the right, when he didn't have too, it was just politically expedient for him.  During the 90's I was generally a fan of Hillery, she was obviously to the left of Bill and she hit me as smarter then Bill, not nearly as charismatic, but definitely smarter then Bill.  Anyway, move forward 20 years and I still have a very mixed opinion.  In many respects I'd like to vote for her, but to be honest she is less than stellar and is her own worst enemy.  I can totally understand why many left of center folks are still not backing her.  But at the same time, many of them are going on feeling and not fact.  Not all of the problems with the current DNC go back go her (primary voting irregularities for instance) .  For instance the DNC email/Wikileaks debacle comes to mind.  I've read quite a lot on this and varying opinion pieces too, best yet is that you can go and actually search and find the damning emails in question and make up your mind.  The thing is, most of leftie-hate-hillery friends have not gone this far.  Don't get me wrong, the DNC fucked up and did do a number things during the primary that they shouldn't have, but whole sale fraud that we've been sold on concerning the DNC email debacle isn't quite horror show it's been made out to be.  I really really suggest folks read and do their own work here.  But I will state, even with the DNC shenanigans, I do not think he would have won the primary.  The Voter poll problems (think Arizona, Brooklyn and other state fiasco primaries where folks were kicked of voter roster) for instance were not national DNC's fault, the DNC emails actually show how surprised and pissed off they were to find many of these out (especially the Arizona primary).  But at the same time, the DNC really did fuck itself over here and Hillery too.  As such I am having a very hard time actually wanting to get myself to vote for her this time around. For such a smart person, she can at times be her worst enemy (to say the least).

Anyway, this is more then I should post these days.  Happy August!

Anyway, that has been my soar thumb issue within an issue here

The Break

OK kids, so it's been a while since I posted here. So the good, the bad and boring the boring of what's been up.

First, work (good). I think I posted few months back about starting a new job at local university up here. My days and hours a kept me busy and after 6 months I had my first review and my bosses are very happy with my work. So happy I'm writing and posting this from work! I also just received 30% off classes BAVG and should be taking a few classes this summer on my job's dime, which should make happy on the job front. On another good note, my stress levels are lowest they have been in over a decade. Which is really really good.

Bad: I'm only half done with that lambretta engine video and over the 3 of the last 4 weekends I rebuilt my vespa rally engine, badly. Ugh. I hate scooters. I ended up dropping it off at Ptown scooters last weekend so Patrick will eventually fix what I can not. Ugh

The Boring: So last weekend I was in Portland for Spring Scoot scooter rally. I was reminded of a few things. Mostly I hate socializing and I'm boring. OK, that makes little to no sense, so maybe I need to write this out a wee bit. So since moving to the bay area, I don't socialize as much as I did when I lived in portland. Even when I lived in Portland, I didn't always socialize that much mainly because of the stress of working 40+ hours a week and trying to do grad school and then on top of that stupid family drama. But since moving here I socialize as a whole, less then I did or ever did, and when I do, I prefer to keep socializing to an 1-3 hours at a time. Then I need to not socialize. I'm not sure of the why or extent of it either. But after more then 3 hours I socially shut down. I don't want to talk, I don't want to get close either. I turn into bah humbug and get off my lawn.

Now I don't hate people or anything like that, but as I've been getting older and socializing less, letting people in and closer to me has become harder and harder for me to do. To the extent that it's completely flat lined my dating life. When I first moved here dating was actually easy and I dated quite a bit. But over the last 2 years I've really curtailed my dating all together. At first I thought it was because I just wasn't meeting anyone I liked. Nope, that wasn't it. Then I thought it was because quality of who I have been meeting, and no, that's obviously not it either. It's me, it's totally me, and it's me. I've slowly withdrawn and stopped caring about stuff like this. I don't and won't let myself get close. Which over the last weekend of a LOT of socializing was apparent. I barely talked at length about anything relevant this weekend. I shared nothing of a personal nature, but I also didn't ask anyone of a personal nature about themselves either. I was unsocial to say the least, even though I was among my people to so to say, I placed myself outside of it and just observed it.

So that's it for the moment. Hopefully I'll have some photos and what little story I have of last weekend to post in week too

Portland

I know, I'm not remotely done with posting about going to Arizona, but Xmass is almost amung us and this is fresher in my little mind at the moment, so here goes

Over the USS Hornet

Because of the new job I'm without any vacation or sick time at the moments, so heading up to Portland for thanksgiving meant that I'd have to leave on Thanksgiving this time around. Oddly enough the Oakland airport was rather sparce and stared off with no one in line ahead of me to get into the terminal. That didn't stop TSA from over searching my bag and chemical testing the wrapped charizo I had in my bag. I brought it along so I could make breakfast pasta for the family the next day. The flight up was aboard a turbo prop plane that seated about 40 folks, and I was happy to find that I wouldn't have share my seat for the trip too. The skies were rather clear so I was also able to snap a few photos along the way.

Over Mount Shasta

Over Crater Lake

Dinner with the rents and family went fine, for the first time in years I stayed home and didn't go over or out to see friends after dinner. I mainly hit the internet and started looking for places to go hiking the next day. For msot of time living in Oregon, I rarely crossed the Columbia, so this time around I looked north for a place to hike the next day. So after sleeping in a bit I got up the next day went about making breakfast for the rents. I made version of breakfast pasta (AKA Carbonara), but instead of prescuto, I used charizo I brought up with me. It was different, but wonderful none the less. Afterwards I got into my stinky smelly rental car and headed up north along the 5. This time around I found 2 places to hike both on the south side of Mount St Heleans, the first was called the Ape caves, the second hike was to be in Lava Canyon. After hitting the bottom of the mountain getting away from the river it tunrs out that this area had some snow recently, but it was clear sailing to my first stop. Climbing down into a lava cave was rather easy, at the bottom of the stairs the passageway split into two. One was marked as easy, the second as moderate hike.

A few years earlier I had explored similar caves in california and thought I knew what I was doing, so I chose the later "moderate" rout into the mountain. The trip was about 3 miles underground, with about a dozen semi cave ins along the way (a cave in meaning you'll have to climb and over quite a number of rocks and boulders in order to move forward). About a mile in I found myself looking up a 8 foot wall, at this point the whole moderate hike was pretty much in the toilet and I tried my hands and climbing in the near dark, up wet rocks and almost found myself tumbling back down. At this poiint I couldn't move forward so started to climb back over the rock dree I had passed before my impass. At this point I got lucky, and 20 something couple was at the bottom of the rock pile and starting to climb up. I told them of the impasss and they were nice enough to help me up said wall. I kept up with the couple for another half mile or so, but being old and fat I really found myself not being able to keep up and thanked them for the help and bid them adu. About a half hour later of shuffling over rocks in the near dark I finally came to the of the hike and was happy to see sunlight again.

Out of the hole

The Hike back

Climbing out revealed that I was back up the mountain and had passed into area of frosted snow upon the first around me. It was a rather nice and brisk walk back to the parking lot at this point and I was hppy to get back as I hungry and wanted to store up the backpack I brought along too before starting the second hike about 5 miles away. Unfortunately the drive over to Lava Canyon was a bust as the road had far more snow on it then expected. I actually ended up driving the car sideways at one point as the road was frosted up more then I should have been driving on at the time. So I had to abandon hike number two for the day and headed back to portland in smelliest car I had ever rented (I actually had to keep the rear windows partially open so I could breath).

The only hole and light during my hike

Friday night was spent with a few friends at a local dive bar, which was rather nice oddly enough. The bartender was pretty nice and generous with us to say the least. Though I wasn't up for that much drinking. Around 10 I bid adu and headed back to the rents for a nice long shower. Saturday was spent trying to find jewler who could fix an old watch of mine. I hit up 3 different places and all them said it would be too expensive and time consuming to do the fix in quesiton (broken crown). Oh well, the restof the day was spent helping my mon do her weekly shoping at a fe places so I my sister wouldn't have to deal with it. That night was dinner out with family. Sunday was rather bland and I tried stopping by my favorite german deli, only to find it closed on a sunday. Ugh, so no frozen sausage came back with me that afternoon to Oakland. Oh well. After all it was still a nice tight trip to say the least.

The Rent's cat trying to ignore me

Birthday and Xmass

If you're inclined to exchange presents with me this year for my upcoming birthday and Xmass, here is what I'm looking for . . .

In Who's Name - book Birth/Naitre/Die Geburt: Photographs of Magnum Photos/Photographies De Magnum Photos/Fotografien Von Magnum Photos Magnum Opus - book paperback In Our Time - book Magnum Story - book reading Magnum - book Magnum Magnum - book Kubrick Archive - book Kubrick A Life in Pictures - book

By the TIme I get to Arizona (Part III)

Day three started off early. I wanted to get up and get breakfast and then find myself to Navajo reservation as soon as could. Early though was at 8am and a 20 minute drive around Page Arizona and not finding any place open to eat. Ugh, I did find a convenience store open and ate shit I shouldn't be eating and picked up some water for day in the desert.

I headed south and then east passing the boarder and into the Navajo nation. To the dead east was a huge coal-electric station, that belted out large gapes of gray and black gas and polluted the skyline. I found my off ramp which was just to the west of this place and settled down into small car-line of sorts waiting at the gates to get into the parking lot. The wait was about 30 minutes and few more cars settled in behind me, or tried to double up next to already formed line in hopes of cutting thier way in so to say. To enter the Navajo land or nation you had to pay a fee. Once in you then had to pay one of 4 outifts that licensed to take tours of the various slot canyons found within the Navajo nation. I had already booked a time and tour of the lower antelope canyons and paid extra so I could get the photographer special so to say.

all of the canyons in question are sandstone rock that has been cut and warn by about a 1000 years of flash floods and erosion. The sandstone also has a lot of glazed clay to it, giving it a strong red-orange color, mixed with ambient lighting that filters down to the bottom of these canyons is kind of a once in a life time site that you'll not find any place else.

In all honesty, this part of the trip was one of the two reasons for taking this trip. I had seen over the last few years that a few friends of mine had visited these canyons and wanted to visit them as well, so in the weeks prior and I scoured what trips could be made and centered this trip so I could visit at least 2 canyons while on this trip. For this trip I'd visit the both the lower and upper antelope canyons. Most people I know had visited the upper canyons, the lower canyon from what I could tell would have far less people on it and I wanted to take as many photos I could. So I had booked a photographer special (2 hours vs the normal 1 hour) for both canyons and set up the lower canyon as first tour of the day. Lucky for me, I was the only one to book the photographer special for that time and day so I had about half the canyon to myself and guide for the first hour

My tour guide was 18 your old kid from the Navajo nation named Josh. I have to say that this kid had the world by his balls. What mean by that was he uber friendly, way too talkitive and really out to explore the world around him. He was chatty the entire tour. We actually started at the end of the canyon and then made our way towards the start where the normal tours started. This way we had the canyon to ourselves. I was amused at by all the photo talk he gave me about the canyon and what to shoot, mostly telling me hor to ge the best color in all my shots. I had actually brought along two camera's for this morning, the first being my Leica M7 loaded with Plus-X B&W films on my tripod. Around my neck was my Leica m240 digital camera and in the bag was assortment of several wide angle prime lenses to capture the morning's work.

As you can see from the photos that I've littered here on this blog posting, my interest in shooting in this canyon had a lot more to do with light, darkness and texture found within the canyon and not so much about color and content. In total, I shot about 400 digital picture and full roll and half of B&W photos over a 2 hour period. Many of them at first glance look and felt the same, so I had to spend a lot of time first choosing the right photos from among-st my work and then some time in post production making them stand out from hundreds of others. At this time, I've only developed the lower antelope photos, so all those found here are from that canyon at this time. Anyway, as we started to meet up with the normal tours, josh then found time to flirt and jump into every selfie being taken within the canyon. I have to say I was amused as hell at his energy and gumption.

Anyway, at the end of tour, I tipped him well knowing that he was stuck with me as his only customer for the morning sojourn and headed back into Page Arizona for lunch. As I had a second tour lined up for mid afternoon, I drove around the town after lunch to get a better idea of surroundings, as I drove by the local highschool a cop uturned and stared to follow me. 2-3 minutes later I was being pulled over speeding. It seems that while at the bottom of the hill that the speed limit was 45, they hid a second sign for 30mph half way up the hill and nailed me for going 10 miles over the speed limit. Great, so the trip was going to cost me another $200. Oh well, but I did make my way back to the Navajo nation and found that my second tour hadn't been set up right. While I had signed up for a tour, they had no record of me having signed up a photographer tour that afternoon. In all honesty I was kind of glad as earlier tour had really taken a lot of photo-ness and I had put the M7 away for the second tour (I really didn't want to lug a tripod around again is what it really came down too). So I ended up doing one of the last (normal) tours of the Upper Antelope Canyons that day.

I ended up in the back of a 4 wheel drive pick up truck with 5 german tourests for a 10 minute drive up the canyon to the Upper Antelope slot canyon. This was in effect the main canyon to tour as it was twice as deep and wide as the lower canyon is. What that means was more ambient light and greater vaulted (deep walls) height and even more tourists as whole. I was glad to have done this tour, but the place was packed people and moving around and getting shots of the place wasn't easy. If Could have toured the place by myself, then it would have hands down beaten the lower canyon too, but with large number of folks touring it kind of diminished things for me. Also, once you were done with the canyon, you had to slip back threw it to get to your waiting 4 wheeld drive pick up truck to get back to your car, so I have to say, I really enjoyed the lower canyon more then I did the upper canyon, but was glad to have done both. After getting back, I was then in need of a doing a 5ish hour drive back to Phoenix for the night

By the Time I get to Arizona . . . (part 2)

So, I didn't get out of Sedona till quite a bit later then thought I would and didn't make it to Flagstaff till about 11pm. I had booked a place according to Epedia based on location and price. Well, right after my shower I found I had booked wrong motel of sorts. I could hear the fun being had in the room next to mine with bed slamming against the wall. As you an tell, I didn't end up with the best night's sleep as the fun times went stereo at 6am. Anyway, it was good invitation to get on the road early at least. I had another 2 hours of driving to hit the main part of the Grand Canyon to do and didn't want to deal with crowds if I could help it. None the less it took about 20 minutes to get past the gate even that early in the morning (and off season). I promptly got lost in Grand Canyon Village for the next 30 minutes too. The roads and signage were less then stellar to say the least. The build up of village was odd too. Anyway, I finally broke down and sat tight for about 20 minutes while pured over maps to figure out what I wanted to do. I ended up doing one of the most done hikes you can do in the Grand Canyon. So ya, it actually took me about an hour to find the stupid canyon . . .

As you can tell, visiting the grand canyon itself wasn't really on the top of my agenda for this trip. But my main thoughts for visiting were of course, I had never visited it (other then in photos) and it was on the way to one of those places I had really wanted to go to (see part III). Part of my blah atitude for visiting the canyon was I knew I could really only visit for a day at best and I'd be hitting the most touristy part of too. I was happy though I wasn't hitting it in August (as it would bee too fucking hot, hazy and filled with even more tourest)and Iknew I'd kick myself if I had just blown it off too.

So, I did the Rim/Hermit trail hike. Basically you start at the Bright Angle lodge in the Village and follow the rim of the Grand Canyon till you hit Hermit's Rest. It's about 5.5 miles and fairly flat hike. Dumb me didn't pack much in the way of water though, but I still easily did the walk with two camera's in tow. While the breath of the canyon is really something to see, their was also a mild haze, which made for less then stellar photography. Then add that I was doing this walk during the mid day, meant less then stellar lighting too. That having been said, I oddly enjoined the company I kept running into while on the trail. I rarely head English spoken, with a lot of French, German what I think was Brazilian being spoken with smidgen of Chinese and Spanish along the way. I've oddly come to like hearing non-english being spoken when I explore. The hike took me to most of the same well worn landmarks you'd see along this part of the canyon too. At the end I opted to take the bus back, which was it's own short story. I headed directly to the back of the bus, not really wanted to deal with where some had thrown up seat on the trip to Hermit's rest for obvious reasons. AS we traveled back, the bus quickly began to fill up too. At one point a muslim family boarded and the husband in the group couldn't sit with his kids and wife, so he ended up at the rear of the bus with me. At the next stop a large load of Merkians boarded and none of them would sit next to him. And older couple quickly settled next to me as I had my Powells books tshirt on and they were from the Pacific Northwest and we settled into Portland talk pretty quickly. But despite the crowding, this poor guy was being ignored for, well, for obvious reasons so to say. I can't really stand this type of behavior where everyone isn't being obviously racists, but in fact is being racist. It's stupid as fuck. None of this is generally helped by me as I tend to be anti social and not very chatty with complete strangers to start with. So as we approached the village I leaned out and asked him how he and his family were enjoying their trip. The depressed look on his face immediately did a 180 at this point and he told us he and his family were enjoying their stay in Northern Arizona. the older couple kind of took it from there and added into the conversation at that point. What amused me the most I hate to say was that the guy and his family were native born US citizens and from Indianpolis. The Indianaplis part actually made me laugh, as it surpassed the older couple quite a bit. That just about made my day.

Lunch back in the village was pretty uneventful and as I knew I needed to hit the road again I was back on the road following the canyon rim. I stopped from time to time to snap a few pictures and even took a 30 minute hike out one of outcrops to try and get a shot of the breath of the canyon. The hike was nice, but shots I got were blah. Oh well. I did end up stopping at last fire look out and hiked around as the magic hour hit. I think I got my best shots here of the canyon, but I still had about 2 hours of driving and didn't want to be as late as I had been the day before, so as soon as I could, I was back on the road again.