Month: September 2020
13SEP2020 – Quote of the Day
(Hitchhiking Scene)
Peter Warne (P) – I wish you wouldn’t talk so much. Now we let a car get away.
Ellie Andrews (E) – And suppose nobody stops for us?
P – They’ll stop all right. It’s a matter of knowing how to handle them.
E – And you’re an expert I suppose.
P – Expert. And I’ll write a book about it. Call it “The Hitchhiker’s Hail.”
E – There’s no end to your accomplishments, is there?
P – You think it’s simple?
E – No.
P – Well, it is simple. It’s all in that old thumb, see? Some people do it like this. Or like this. All wrong. Never get anywhere.
E – The poor things.
P – But that old thumb never fails. It’s all a matter of how you do it, though. Now you take No. 1 for instance. That’s a short jerky movement, like this. That shows independence. You don’t care if they stop or not. You got money.
E – Clever.
P – No. 2, that’s a little wider movement. Smile goes with this one, like this. That means you got a brand-new story about the farmer’s daughter.
E – You figured that out all by yourself?
P – That’s nothing. No. 3, that’s a pip. That’s the pitiful one. When you’re broke and hungry, everything looks black. It’s a long sweeping movement like this. Gotta follow through, though.
E – That’s amazing.
P – But it’s no good, if you haven’t got a long face to go with it.
E – Here comes a car.
P – Okay. Now watch me. I’m gonna use No. 1. Keep your eye on that thumb, baby, and see what happens.
(The car speeds by without slowing down)
E – I’ve still got my eye on the thumb.
P – Something must have gone wrong. I’ll try No. 2.
E – When you get to a hundred wake me up.
(Peter tries all his routines repeatedly, on a procession of cars, one after the other, and finally gives up)
P – I don’t think I’ll write that book after all.
E – No but think of all the fun you had, though. You mind if I try?
P – You? Don’t make me laugh.
E – You’re such a smart aleck. Nobody knows anything but you. I’ll stop a car and I won’t use my thumb.
P – What are you gonna do?
E – It’s a system all my own.
(Ellie walks over to the edge of the road and as a car approaches pulls her skirt up over her leg well above her knee. Scene cuts to the interior of the car where the driver slams on the brake and pulls the emergency brake. Scene cuts to Ellie and Peter sitting in the rear seat of the car they’ve stopped. Ellie is looking pleased and Peter is looking disgruntled.)
E – Aren’t you going to give me a little credit?
P – What for?
E – I proved once and for all that the limb is mightier than the thumb.
P – Why didn’t you take off all your clothes? Then you could have stopped a hundred cars.
E – I’ll remember that when we need a hundred cars.
It Happened One Night – Frank Capra
Guest Contributor – War Pig – Fall Color Ride in Ohio
Takes a little longer for the change (which comes from East to West) to get to Ohio. our best leaf-peeping times are mid to late October. To remember mom, I go on a fall color ride in October at peak color and take a few pictures. She loved for me to take her after she could no longer drive. We made a day of it. I’d pick her up early then meander our way to the Hocking Hills area. We’d go usually on a Saturday to avoid rush hour traffic. We’d eat breakfast at McDonald’s (she loved the McGriddle sandwiches) and I made sure to brew two big thermos bottles full of black coffee for us on the road to refill our insulated travel cups.
We’d drive and look and comment. She’d remind me of stories from my youth and told me stories of her youth. I told her stories of the far-off lands I’d seen in my military career. How Bavaria in Germany looked a lot like Ohio during the fall colors. We’d eat lunch in a sit-down diner, then hit the road again, stopping as necessary as dictated by mom’s water pills. See the colors, stop at roadside rests and breather the crisp air. Refill the travel mugs and go on. We’d stop at an Amish restaurant for supper that had superb baked steak in gravy with home fried potatoes and German chocolate cake for dessert. Mom always got another baked steak diner to go and I put it in a warming chest that plugged into my rear electric outlet. More driving, more leaves, more color, seeing the buck deer with full crowns, seeing the geese and ducks fly south for the winter in squadron formations. I’d get her home after dark (later, it was to the nursing home). She’d then eat the second baked steak dinner as I had more coffee. I’d leave her and she’d go on to bed.
Autumn for me has always been the color of the trees. That’s what I hated about Vietnam and the Middle East. No bold change of the seasons, wet or dry, hot or very hot. No crisp days when apples still on the tree were as sweet as nectar. No gathering of hickory nuts or black walnuts or butternuts. No toasting of pumpkin seeds for snacks. No fresh apple or pear cider. The Amish restaurant is still in business and I still stop for a baked steak dinner in mom’s memory. I talk to her as I drive even though she’s not there. Been gone 14 years now. The Amish store bowed to using electric cash registers as the state got pissy over sales tax receipts. I miss the ring and cha-ching of the old mechanical registers.
One day it will be my last ride. Being over 70 that day is closing in on me but I’ll hang on as long as I can. I’m like Slade in Ghost Rider. One day I’ll have one last ride in me. I hope to make it a good one.
End of Summer 2020 – A Rambling Maudlin Dithering Dissertation
It’s customary to declare summer in the United States over after Labor Day. Other people look at the Autumnal Equinox as the end of summer as well they may since it really is the beginning of astronomical fall and the point at which the nights become longer than the days. Some more practical folks just call it over when the kids go back to school. Of course, during the COVID panic there is no school so that’s sort of irrelevant.
Here at the compound we have a more poignant measure. Summer is over when the hummingbirds leave. They left yesterday. Camera Girl is sad. She told me I should memorialize this event with a post about the end of summer. As the ever-solicitous husband, her wish was my command so, here I am prattling on.
It is funny though how exactly these birds seem to define the end of summer in this exact locale. Already, even on a day that reaches eighty degrees, the air is different. Drier and lighter. And the late afternoon is cooler and breezier. And now by seven p.m. the sun is gone and only twilight remains. The leaves are coming down at a decent clip. These leaves are yellow and must be coming from some of the species that lose them early, the cherry and the birch. But it’s the start. Next the maples will start turning. The oaks will hold out the longest, well into October. But it’s the start. And because the leaves were starting to fall Camera Girl, who is, like most women, a practical creature had the pool company close the pool down and put on the cover this week. Maybe that’s what tipped off the hummingbirds.
And Camera Girl informs me that the birds that haven’t left yet go to bed earlier now. By dinner time they’re gone. So, all in all, the whole natural world around me has conceded the end of summer 2020. But not me. I rail against it. Oh, soon enough I’ll shift my attention to fall foliage photography and then onto reviews of horror movies for Halloween. But not yet. I still haven’t seen a preying mantis this year. I haven’t gotten a picture of a heron on the pond or a painted turtle in the pond. I still want to try the 600mm lens with a hawk in flight. So, though I promised Camera Girl to declare and mourn the end of summer I will use this last full week of official summer to hunt my last summer targets.
12SEP2020 – Quote of the Day
Weak leadership can wreck the soundest strategy; forceful execution of even a poor plan can often bring victory.
Sun Tzu
12SEP2020 – Photo of the Day
11SEP2020 – Nineteen Years Later
What a strange world we live in. When the 9-11 attacks happened all those years ago it was galvanizing. The anger and determination it engendered was monumental. And back then I still believed we were one nation. There were hints that not everyone thought we were the aggrieved party. And there were voices from the millennial generation that were unpatriotic in the extreme. But the great majority of Americans were united in wanting to avenge a great wrong.
But think about where we are now. Look at what is happening in places like New York, things being done with the explicit approval of the mayor and the rest of the city and state government. New York is actually in worse shape than it was on 9-11-2001. The city is empty. People live in isolation and in fear of each other and of the next wave of violence that will happen whenever the Antifa and BLM terrorists decide it’s time. Business has ground to a halt and anyone who has the economic means is leaving.
When I think about 9-11 now I just feel numb. All those soldiers fought and were wounded and died to avenge a city that Bill de Blasio is destroying on his own. New York has disgraced itself. They dishonor the flag by kneeling through the anthem and they spit on the police that try to keep them from killing each other. I was born in New York. New York doesn’t exist anymore. It’s just a failed state waiting to completely collapse. It has even managed to delegitimize the solidarity Americans felt for it after 9-11. Now it’s just a place where people are ashamed of the country that went to war to avenge it’s wounds. It breaks my heart to say it but we shouldn’t have bothered.
11SEP2020 – Quote of the Day
Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.
Sun Tzu
11SEP2020 – Photo of the Day
Photography – Sony – Sony Launches the LAEA5 A-Mount to E-Mount Adapter
There is a small community of photographers who were Minolta and Sony SLR users that still have some very good a-mount glass that they currently cannot use satisfactorily with their E-mount Sony cameras. These are the lenses that use the old-style screwdriver autofocus connection. These lenses lack any internal motor of their own. Currently the only way to use these lenses is with the LA-EA4 adapter that does not use the camera autofocus but has a limited number of autofocus points in the adapter. Not only that, this adapter uses a beam splitter called a translucent mirror that throws away a third of the light that goes through the lens.
I have been waiting forever for Sony to come up with this adapter. When I was told about the launch of the LA-EA5 it felt like Christmas coming early. I have been dying to use the Sony 135mm f\1.8 and Minolta 200mm f\4 macro lenses with the autofocus of the A7 III but didn’t think Sony would do this great thing. But as with all things in life there is always a catch.
If you read the fine print you discover that the lenses without motors only have this autofocus capability on two cameras. The A7R IV and the A6600 are the latest full frame and half frame cameras in the Sony line up (excluding the professional A9 cameras) and I guess Sony figured it would be easier starting with those cameras. What I am hoping is Sony will come up with a firmware update for my A7 III to allow me to take advantage of this marvelous present for A-mount lens owners.
I plan to rent the LA=EA5 and the A7R IV and try out the combination with my 135mm and 200mm A-mount lenses to see how good the autofocus is. If this works out it will be an exciting move by Sony. After all supporting these old lenses is a low return investment from the point of view of finance but it does demonstrate a smart public relations move for a camera maker attempting to win over the public.
So for any of you A-mount lens owners out there, keep the faith a little longer. To be continued.