Tag: OCF Update

26JUN2021 – OCF Update

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As you can tell I’ve been spending time doing some of these macro focus stacking projects.  It’s a weird thing and much less fun than just taking photos.  But it does allow me to make images that would be impossible otherwise.  But it’s fussy and time consuming.  I’ll be doing some flower shots soon and I’ll see what else I can think of.

Camera Girl has abandoned me today to learn how to paint pictures.  She left my lunch in the microwave.  I will have to feed the dogs and push the button on the microwave and talk to myself for several hours.  I told her this was a dereliction of her wifely duties.  She narrowed one of her eyes and I think she was thinking bad things about me.  Luckily I think she lacks psychokinetic powers.  Unluckily she makes my food so you never know.

Camera Girl has become a voracious reader of fiction.  It’s mostly crime novels but recently she read a book that was recommended by a friend.  Based on the quality of that book she picked up another one by the same author.  Yesterday she told me that the plot of the book involved a black maternity nurse who gets involved in the death of an infant whose father is a white supremacist.  He even has swastika tattoos on his head.  Apparently, in the story the hospital is punishing the nurse out of consideration for the influence of the swastika guy.  I told Camera Girl I thought this was quite a stretch of the imagination.  “How many white supremacists are out there who have the local district attorney prosecuting black nurses?  I’m thinking the number is slightly lower than one.”

I tried to browbeat her into abandoning her book but she never drops a book until she finishes it, no matter how bad it is.  Well, this prompted me to remind her why I don’t bother to watch most television and movies that have a Leftist slant.  She rolled her eyes and nodded.  I told her I’ll have to find a Dissident Right author for her to read as penance for the indignity I suffered through knowing she was reading this piffle and she made a disparaging noise that was sort of a guffaw mixed with a cough.  Women!

Anyway, I’ll have some stuff up later and we’ll see how the day goes.  It looks nice out so I’ll be at play in the Gardens of the Lord.  Enjoy your day.

12JUN2021 – OCF Update

photog Current Events, OCF, Uncategorized

As you may have noted, my daily photo is now solidly past photos of summer 2020 and into the fall with autumn foliage colors and leaves all withered and sear.

Juxtaposed against the very verdant summer outside my window I find it stimulating to enjoy the contrast.  And it reminds me not to waste the chance of getting out in the world and soaking up the summer air and sun.  It’s turned cool and rainy today and we’ll have a bit of cool weather for a few days but with any luck global warming will come to my rescue.

After the elation I described in conquering the lawn mower repair I bragged that I was looking for new worlds to conquer with my newly minted mechanical aptitude.  Well, pride goeth before the fall and Camera Girl reminded me that I had promised to fix a leaky drain line on the kitchen sink.  I was going to call a plumber.  The line is one of those new-fangled plastic lines that have invaded our piping systems of late.  And I’ll bet dollars to donuts it will require all kinds of fittings and adhesives that I do not possess.  Well, what can you do.  My pride won’t let me call the professional now.  Well, not until the water gets too deep.

Tyler Cook of the Portly Politico and I have decided to cross link on our reviews for the 2019 movie based on H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Colour Out of Space.”  We both thought this movie was awful but we thought that readers should enjoy the nuanced differences between the reviews.  Actually what you’ll see is our two styles.  Tyler is a witty and intelligent writer and I like to rant.  This exciting literary event will occur at 6:30 AM Monday, June 14th 2021.

On the politics side we are firmly into the Silly Season lull but there are stories emerging that indicate that the “Great Reset” is a partnership between Woke Capital and the Joe Burden administration.  Apparently Black Rock Capital will buy up all the suburban real estate so our kids and grandkids will have to rent from them in perpetuity.  On a positive note DeSantis in Florida, Abbott in Texas and some of the other governors are starting to make noise about taking a stand against the feds and the woke corporations and fight for our rights as unwilling serfs.  Abbott doesn’t seem like a real conservative but maybe he’s smart enough to know which way the wind is blowing.  DeSantis may be the real deal.  Time will tell.  Maybe we actually aren’t licked yet.

Anyway, plenty of fun stuff to write about.  Stay tuned.

28MAY2021 – OCF Update

photog Current Events, My Fiction, OCF, Science Fiction / Fantasy

The weather turned cold and wet just in time to make my Sunday barbecue into an indoor event.  I’m guessing the swimming pool will be empty but we’ll have fun anyway.  All the grandkids will be there and I’ll regale them with stories from my days as a doughboy in WW I.  Wait, that can’t be right.  Well, they’re kids they may believe it.

I’ve started a new story.  I’m writing an alternative present/future with a revolt against the Left.  It will have some touches of techno-thriller and some sci-fi and I’ll be in it too.  So that’s scary.

It’s got my interest.  We’ll see how this goes.  I may throw some scraps of it up on the site and ask for feedback.

Stay tuned.

22MAY2021 – OCF Update

photog Current Events, OCF

My apologies, today is going to be a busy day in the real world.  I don’t know if I’ll be doing much writing until this evening but on such a beautiful day as today everyone should be out in the real world, at play in the fields of the Lord.  So I’ll see you soon.

House Rock Valley Road, Sony A7S and Voigtlander 10mm lens

18MAY2021 – OCF Update – Quiet News Day

photog Current Events, OCF

Israel and Hamas lobbing missiles at each other?  Check

Gas and food prices soaring across US?  Check.

COVID lunatics warning of a surge if we don’t keep our kids masked in school?  Check.

Joe Biden spouting nonsense about vaccination?  Check.

Federal Gestapo searching for white supremacists in Red States and the military?  Check.

Yep, situation normal all Biden-ed up.

Sort of a slow news day.  But a nice day for swinging a grandchild in a swing.

I received some pushback on my statement that “Treasure Island” was the finest boys’ adventure story.  A dissenting opinion was raised in favor of Jules Verne’s “In Search of the Castaways.”  I have to confess I’ve never read it.  I’ll correct that situation soon and report back my opinion.

On my regular Tuesday morning zoom with “the boys” I was told that even in Boston, the very Hub of the Woke Universe, people were attending a Red Sox game without masks!  And this is in advance of the official end of the mask mandate scheduled in a few weeks.  Could it be that even here in the heart of Blue America the captives have grown weary of wearing their shackles?  Shocking.  What will all the millions of Karens do?

Miracle of miracles, by a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court agreed that the police can’t confiscate a man’s guns without a warrant to do so.  I hear that a major abortion law in the South will be reviewed by SCOTUS soon.  I’m not very hopeful based on what I know of the Roberts court.

My favorite Biden-ism of the week was Dementia Joe warning those refusing vaccines by saying ”  Ultimately, Those Who Are Not Vaccinated Will “End Up Paying The Price.”  What a dope.  I was looking at the mortality rate for Sweden that rejected masks and the rest of the nonsense and comparing it to the United States.  It currently is 1,807 deaths per million population for the US versus 1,408 for Sweden.  Apparently if we had done nothing our numbers might actually be better.  But certainly no worse.  Fauci should be put in stocks and pelted with garbage by anyone who has the notion to do so.  And so should Cuomo, Biden and the rest of the idiots.

Well, that’s enough for now.

09MAY2021 – OCF Update – Happy Mother’s Day

photog Current Events, OCF , , ,

It’s going to be quiet on the site today because I’ll be gone for a chunk of the day eating delicious unhealthy food with the most important people in the universe, my descendants.  After all their relationship to that strangest of all human beings, me, ensures that I find them infinitely fascinating.  I will impose myself on them and assume the role of “one of the boys.”  Whatever they want to do I’ll join in.

And I’ll be a charming guest for their parents too.  But it is a well known fact that grandchildren are much more fun than children, especially after they become parents.  So that won’t be as fruitful an activity to my mind.  And I’ll be nice to Camera Girl.  But really that’s her children’s job today.  It’s right there in the title of the day.  But I’ll still be nice to her.  She deserves it.

The day has dawned and it is sunny, butterflies were fluttering by and the stupid blue birds are complaining that once again they were dispossessed of the houses I built for them by birds with more grit and verve.  I intend to go out now and perambulate in the Fields of the Lord and restore my faith in creation as a whole if not in the so-called pinnacle of it.

I hope all of you have a good day with your families and I’ll contribute something today when I can.

08MAY2021 – OCF Update

photog OCF , , ,

Spring is moving along nicely.  Camera Girl has been working industriously in the Fields of the Lord.  Vegetables and flowers will abound and the lord of the manor rejoices at her industry.

Mother’s Day will feature Camera Girl being hosted at her older daughter’s home and all of us enjoying a barbecue of epic proportions.  First real family get together in over a year!

I was watching this video on chaos theory and how it relates to the Mandelbrot Set.  If you have a mathematical bent check it out.

And as stated the hummingbirds have returned from Capistrano.

 

02MAY2021 – OCF Update – A Day of Rest

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Today was a day for other things.  I had chores and some outlining for a story.  But I thought it would be good to just mention what I think is the significance of the story I found most interesting this week, the Basecamp story.  The details are amusing enough but what I think is most interesting is that this is the second incident where a tech company has put an end to the woke reign of terror at their company.  First Coinbase and then Basecamp.  What seems to be happening is that CEO’s familiar with the actual ethos of the millennial generation can parse the difference between employees seeking to optimize their work environment and SJW’s working to parasitize a healthy company and suck the life out of it.

From my observation of old guard corporations they either can’t see this or are afraid of the wokesters or they think it won’t destroy their company within the time window they care about.  Perhaps it’s a matter of size.  There is a lot less margin for error in a sixty man company than there is in a sixty thousand man company.

What will be interesting to see is whether any other type of company decides to try out this strategy.  I’m trying to imagine how a car company or an oil company or even a coffee company tells its employees to shut up and get to work.  I think that would be really edifying.  And hopefully it will be in a red state because I can see a blue state government stepping in and helping the feds put the screws to someone who doesn’t want to pay people to complain about social justice offenses against wokeness.

It may be that I am making a mountain out of a mole hill.  But it was one of the only promising signs I’ve seen in the corporate world in a very long time.  And for that reason it really impressed me and gave me a lift.  I’ll keep my eyes open and await the third occurrence.  After all everyone knows the third time is the charm.

24APR2021 – OCF Update

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I’ve been going through some of the “Oscar Nominated” movies that TCM runs for a month before the Oscars Ceremony.  Lately they have been adding in films from the 1970’s, 80’s and even later.  It’s interesting that some movies that I saw when they came out back in the old days really didn’t age well. As an example there was a movie, “Mona Lisa” from 1986.  It was Bob Hoskins break out role.  He earned an Oscar for best actor.  It’s about a small time London crook who is assigned to drive a high priced black hooker to her hotel appointments.  The story revolves around his emotional involvement with the woman and his attempt to help her save an underaged girl who has been swallowed up by the sex trade.  Some things in the movie are interesting but the grittiness of the portrayal of the sex trade in 1980’s London is a bit much to watch.  I didn’t remember it being so ugly and so extremely downbeat.  And that movie is just one example.  Especially in the 1970s the attempt to portray realism ended up making for a very tawdry product.  There are exceptions but it is worth commenting on as a feature of the era.

I have been remiss in finishing off season two of Star Trek and then finishing out season three.  It’s because I really am not in the mood for it.  I’ve been wanting to start the Jackie Gleason series, “The Honeymooners.”  But I am going to rededicate myself to slogging through the rest of Star Trek.  It has to be done.  But I may decide to start the Honeymooners before I finish.  There’s nothing wrong with a little variety.

I spent today outside working in the fields.  I have some of the scariest thorn bushes growing at the borders of my woods.  The trunks of these things get as thick as saplings, two or three inches thick.  If I wait until summer they will form an impenetrable wall of thorn brambles.  The thorns are bigger than the ones you find on roses.  They are formidable.  And we had some invasive trees to remove.  There are Russian Olive trees that have gotten way out of control.  So I went back there with my triangular saw and my large pruning shears and attacked them with all the enthusiasm I could muster.  I’ll have to say I was surprised how much satisfaction you can get from beating up on brush.  It was tiring but when I finished the job I felt better than I have in weeks.  Physical activity takes your mind off the political madness going on.  Sure it is temporary but I really did clear my head.

So with renewed enthusiasm I say to this fallen land we live in, “Bring it on, bring it on!”

19APR2021 – OCF Update

photog Current Events, OCF

I’m currently reading the two short story collections from the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.  The first one is called “Side Jobs” and I’m about halfway through.  They’re actually pretty good.  Of course I’m already a fan of the Dresden stuff and I also enjoy short stories.  But also I’m glad to have something enjoyable to read to take my mind off of the laughably awful happenings in Dementia Joe’s Lockdown America.

And the other thing going on is that spring has sprung.  And even after the ridiculous spring snowstorm last week flowers are flowering and trees are budding all over the place.  I’ll have something to photograph that isn’t ant sized.  And that is good for the mind.  And I hear that even the COVID paranoid are starting to break down and let their kids play (gasp) with other kids.  Maybe there is hope for the crazy after all.

Well anyway it’s time to get out there and breath in that good clean spring air.