New York August NYC Meet-Up 2021

Cal,
Agree where the planet is headed and some adjustments may indeed come about. Also agree about gathering up items you want cheaply and keeping them. Something you might find interesting as a Technika/Kardon Color Guy, I just pulled the trigger for a 500mm Schneider Tele-Xenar. Many use this on the 5x7 Technikas. This one will go on one of my 5x7 Sinar Normas. It might fit the 4x5 Technikas.....

When I retired a friend of mine out in Vancouver told me "Go Full Sail". I'm quite sure you will be doing so, but he's right. Crazy is Good. Over The Top, Well Yes, Exactly. Stay in touch and enjoy your newfound freedom

-Devil Dan

Devil Dan,

The world is not that big. I intend on staying active on RFF. The DEvil Christian's idea of www.Lazy-SlackerCalvin.com need to become my lifestyle magazine of sorts.

Did you know that Devil Christian has a Linhof 5x7.

My Guitard friend Dave asked me if I won the lottery because of my plans and guitar purchases.

"Maggie" is recovering from the Moderna booster she got late Sunday. It was worse than the second injection for her, but with me no side effects and on my second injection not even a sore shoulder.

"Maggie" though expressed her worries that I might be overly reclusive with a darkroom, digital printing studio, and a music studio. We decided on a contract where during the week we would do our "work," but on the weekends go out.

How great is life for us, but then look at the rest of the world and it is a huge mess. I think I need to address some of these social ills in my retirement.

Cal
 
Happy-happy...

Last night I woke up at 3:00 PM and went down into my "parlor" (Victorian name for living room) and pulled out a Telecaster and practiced for an hour and a half before I had to get ready for work. This happened on Monday and Tuesday too, and I woke up refreshed with a clear head. I figured I could nap on the train on the way in but that wasn't required or didn't happen.

How happy and carefree is that. Life has so little stress that all I need is 5 1/2 to six hours of sleep to feel totally refreshed and alive.

My new old guitar from 2011 was suppose to be delivered Friday, and the stress from that delivery was not only the wait, but also "Maggie" wanted to go to Kingston to visit a warehouse where we could secure house parts for our renovations so that we are period correct.

I got an update that the delivery was expected Friday and that the parcel arrived at a facility in White Plains. Oh-well... But then I got a new update saying it will be delivered sometime today. Is this divine intervention again? How can this not be divine intervention?

One thing with my guitar playing is that because I'm an anxious person (and perhaps annoying like Maggie) is that my timing is not so steady in my playing. I tend to rush and slow down, and there seems to be an edgy unsteadiness. So my friend Dan's story about Bob Fosey sucess was due to him building upon his weaknesses I applied to my playing. Fingerstyle in a way is more complex than flat picking because it is more like playing a piano where you play both bass and a lead voice at the same time. Then I'm adding a spin where I'm playing like a drummer. I don't know why but this added complexity has smoothed me out, but I haven't sorted it all out yet...

Anyways a true artist is always evolving, and this seems to be happening.

Last night we attended the NAACP zoom call meeting. I'm a member and so is Maggie. An interesting group of thoughtful people.

I think I will contribute all the proceeds of my Japanese Maple seedling venture to the NAACP to fight for the cause. There is an enviormental element to the Peekskill NAACP Chapter as well as a financial literacy component.

I also got the smut and the big picture of what the problems and future development possibilities.

Today is "Day-One" and my final day of work. Wednesday December 22d is my official last day of work, but that basically is a lunch party to celebrate my 22 years of service being a Lazy-Slacker who got paid too much and spent most of his time doing my own research, searching and shopping on EBAY, and wasting time socializing on the Internet in places like RFF. Not bad having a career of a boring day-job where I basically am alone and unsupervised. On my official last day of work we will go out to a Japanese restaurant because I want to eat healthy.

So a double miracle happened. On the Metro North Hudson line typically the trains are 4-8 minutes late all the time, but yesterday and today they precisely arrived on schedule at 5:48 AM. Yesterday some people remarked that this never-ever happens, and because it happened two days in a row I deem it a double miracle, but I also made a joke saying aloud, "I wonder how many people will miss the train because it is running on time."

So my mark of poverty is that I'm a bit of a hoarder. Over the decades I accumulated luxury durable goods, and this was wise. My old titanium bikes as well as my old retro first mountain bike are still great bikes, and I'm glad I was able to retain them. Actually it is too cool owning old retro vintage stuff that was bought brand new and used over decades. With cameras I went overboard, culled down, and then bought some more.

Anyways I own a lot of durable luxury goods that were accumulated over decades. In the end it can be looked upon as collecting and storing wealth since today I could not afford to replace what I now own. The costs have appreciated very much like investments, and besides I cherry picked all the items and are now bonded to them in a way that makes each item unreplacable.

So today yet another guitar, and I think this one will make 15 or 16. My friend Dave says he has 38 guitars, I say enough is enough, but I think I will go ahead and have the custom order for a new Santa Cruz made with old growth woods. It will be my last hurrah because basically I have enough, bikes, guitars, amps, cameras, expensive watches, and other luxury goods that I really don't need any more.

How crazy is it that I could reach a point where I own everything I need to be happy-happy?

Anyways have a great holiday, and know that I will be sure to somehow maintain my presence here, and I hope one day we can have NYC Meet-Ups again.

Happy Thanksgiving and all the best for you and your family and friends.

Calvin August.
 
How crazy is it that I could reach a point where I own everything I need to be happy-happy?

Oh, we know you too well Cal, you will find another obsession very soon. However, I will say that once you do not have that boring day job, you will do less internet shopping!
 
Oh, we know you too well Cal, you will find another obsession very soon. However, I will say that once you do not have that boring day job, you will do less internet shopping!

John,

You really know me. LOL. I have an obsessive personality.

Lately I think the obsession has been the house and building it out. I think our neighbors have taken notice.

My co-workers just came by and gave me a going away present. I found myself apologizing because I realize that at times I am a nasty bitch and I get really-really pissed off and get a bit mucho crazy.

I realize that they love me anyway despite all my drama.

Anyways the sense of achievement is pretty huge, but I don't think it is an exaggeration that I own a lot of cool stuff that is kinda crazy. The house is mucho quirky and mucho cute if you can imagine a stucco Baby-Victorian. It has a bit of my Ghetto style. LOL.

As a kid I was know for having many hobbies and being great at all of them. Now I have photography, biking, fishing, guitars, printing, and of course the house and gardening.

Anyways the time of EBAY pre-New York tax is over. Internet taxing should curtail a lot of my spending. Actually my boring day job cost me lots of money because I would obsessively lurk on EBAY looking at all kinds of things to buy. One day I went on EBAY and typed in purposely a bicycle that only was in my imagination: an IBIS Mountain Trials in titanium; and somehow I stumbled into one a few hours before the auction ended.

I was out bid, but then I got a "Second Chance" because the high bidder was a deadbeat. That is how I secured a Ti IBIS Mountain Trials prototype. Again either a miracle or divine intervention...

Cal
 
I'm retired and I love being relaxed all the time. Pretty much I have no commute, I don't have a day-job anymore, and I live each day wondering what I should do.

Gener-AL-E I try to accomplish something every day so I don't feel like a total lazy-slacker, and gener AL-E I could try and accomplish and crame more work into a day, but at this time there is no point to it.

The day before Thanksgiving my new used guitar was delivered early. The frets displayed no wear and initially the sound was boxy, muddled and not very open. It seemed like it was not played in at all even though the guitar was built in 2011 and is a decade old. So now it is loud a resonante because I flexed the top and played it in a bit. Because the guitar has an all mahogany body including the top the voice is rather interesting in that the fundamental is very pronounced along with mid-range definition. This contrasts greatly against my Brazilian Rosewood OM that has an Adirondack red spruce top that has pronounced bass and treble but with scooped mids.

The Hog-F sized guitar I think is very much like a parlor guitar, meaning intimate, I think because the response is so quick and defined, just like a small parlor guitar, but an "F" sized guitar is a "mini-jumbo" that has the potential to get loud. Overall I think for solo playing and for blues in particular this definition and projection of intimacy is kinda wonderful.

Know that I bought this unloved, unplayed guitar that pretty much is NOS condition and has about $2.5K wortyh of upgrades I bought for less than half what a new current order would cost.

Don't tell Maggie, but I think I'm still going to order the Custom order Model "F" with a 1934 spec's. This all Mahogany (figured upgrade) is pretty much a 1929 spec.

Today I used a one-tonne "Man-Bag" and my Gorilla Carts to move cubic yards of leaves that some of my neighbors used leaf blowers to pile along a fence. I am using this free compost as clean fill to terrace the part of my back-backyard that is a steep slope that leads down to the frog ghetto (marsh). Every year this pile gets created, and I intend to harvest their labor and exploit the annual resource to my benefit. The quantities are vast enough that I might be able to terrace the way back-backyard with leaf compost. Perhaps 20 cubic yards of leaves a year, but you know how leaves compress and break-down to eventually become topsoil.

Yesterday I started tearing up the kitchen floor. The is a layer of ceramic tiles on top of a quarter-inch layer of plywood over two layers antique linolium. I quickly learned that broken tiles are sharp like glass. I stripped about a 4x8 section of tile and it seemed the plywood was only screwed down and not glued. It was lucky that the tiles were not set in a bed of motar and that the plywood was only 1/4 inch thick.

My worries were with the linolium because of the adhesives, but in my case the adhesives were so old that they broke down and pretty much it was as if there was no adhesives. I was surprised on how easy it was to get down to the original quarter-sawn heart-pine floors. Another surprise was that the original kitchen floor had never been finished or even sanded for a finish and when brand new and just installed the builder installed linolium.

I am so happy-happy that the entire first floor will be 1912 original heart-pine floors and rescuing the kitchen floor not only has mucho value added, but is also a personal trophy of sorts that will add a lot of appeal to a cute tiny old house. I think I will try to sand and finish the 11x14 kitchen floor myself.

Last weekend we drove to Kingston very near Albany. We went with the purpose to visit a warehouse of house parts. It was kinda crazy and overwelming. The warehouse was stuffed and cluttered and was definitely a fire hazard. Kingston at one point was the Capitol of New York State, but the British captured Kingstone and burned a lot of it down, One part of Kingston is part of a fortified area that has many historic colonial houses, then there is this section near a creek that somehow allowed coal to come from Pennsylvania. The creek area is an art community. The center part of Kingston is not so distinguished or special, but the uptown and downtown are kinda wonderful.

Been on a few hikes with Maggie at Blue Mountain Preserve. On my mountain bike I went onto the Red single track trails which proved to be too technical, especially for a bike without suspension, but now I see there are some trails that are ridable for me. Pretty much I went "Gonzo" in my first attempts.

Anyways, the most important resource for an artist is time, and now I am less busy wasting time doing a long commute and working a meaningless day job. Last Wednesday an administrator called and left a message on my cell. I returned the call the next day on Thursday and found out through the administrator's assistant that my cyclotron has not been operating smoothly since I left. "Ha-ha," I say.

Pretty much I'm retired, and calling me won't be much help because I don't work for free. The days of slavery are suppose to be history. LOL. Anyways I figured it would not be too long before the second institution learned that they are in way over their heads. Oh-well... and Ha-ha again...

Technically I'm on vacation and December 22d is my last day.

Cal
 
Cal, So very happy that you have reached this stage in your life. It gives one time for reflection. I have been retired for five years now, after a career of over forty years in sales. I don't miss it a bit in waking, however I find myself having nightly dreams of me still calling on my old customers when I was working as a sales consultant. I too consider myself fortunate in that I have all my needs met at this time in my life. My home in Colorado has mountain views and is very comfortable and mortgage free.
I have ample income, savings , investments and no debt at all. I have good health.I am 67 years old. I have a wife of over 40 years, a daughter and son in law, and beautiful identical twin granddaughters. I feel very blessed. I wish for you total happiness and enjoyment for your life. I know that you have earned it. :D Be Well.
 
Congrat's Cal enjoy your retirement, I'm sure you'll keep busy you have so much that you could work on, the house, guitar's,
Camera's and everything it's all good.
 
Today was my last day of work. Since Thanksgiving I've been on vacation. Stress is so low in my life that even getting my car inspected is a big deal, and having to mail a letter is annoying.

I have been working around the house keeping busy. I moved a pile of leaves that some of my neighbors created with leaf blowers (about 25-30 cubic yards) using my Gorilla dump cart and these recycled bags that Amazon workers disguard around NYC. Don't tell Jeff Bezos that these utility bags are great for construction D-bree and are perfectly sized for use with Gorilla carts.

I have about half the kitchen floor dem-o'ed. The ceramic tiles create lots of glass like shards, there is a layer of 1/4 inch plywood, and then two layers of linolium. Thankfully the glue is so old that basically it is not glue anymore. I found that a two handed scrapper that resembles a hand plane works great to get me down to the bare wood. I figure rescuing the quarter sawn heart pine in the 11x14 kitchen will save me thousands. I know no contractor would do this task because it is ugly and time consuming.

The Audi has 22K miles on it so in a year I added 6K miles, but I had the oil changed anf the antifreeze replaced. The dealer said the coolant is good for ten yesars, but I say 7 years is long enough. I don't know then history, but with polar vortexes I'm not going to take any risk loosing such av fresh car, especially one that I truely love.

So the all mahogany Santa Cruz Model F (mini jumbo) arrived the day before Thanksgiving. Just as I thought the guitar was not played in even though it was ten years old. Like a new guitar the sound was muffled and boxy, but it seems mahogany breaks in rather rapidly. What an intimate guitar. Pretty much a $9.2K guitar if I had it built today (custom order) but I paid well less than half that even with shipping and NY sales tax. I'm very-very happy with this guitar.

Today on my way home I stopped at the Apple Store in Grand Central. We live in an age of shortages and I just wanted to buy a cheap IPAD so I can surf the web and more easily post here on RFF. It seems my old computers with their old operating systems are labeled as not secure. I had to order the IPAD since none are in stock and the delivery will be sometime in the first half of February. Oh-well...

Anyways I run Lightroom 5 and old machines have built in SD card readers. EZ-PZ.

Earlier in the week I sorted through my cameras and I was impressed with all the gear I own.

Next I did some deep forensics to figure out what I did about two years ago when I stockpiled 11-speed XTR drivetrains for mountain bikes, and XTR 9 speed. I remember Phil stressing 9 speed and 3/16 inch chain durability. I saved mucho money by buying up 11-speed at the end of the season sale when in the following year a new 12--speed would be released, but what was I thinking about implementing on the 4 bikes I own. So as usual I created a complicated puzzle.

So now I have been doing lots of creative and obsessive thinking. I just ordered over $500.00 worth of tires, not for a car but for basically two bikes. My IBIS Mountain Trials have 24 inch rear wheels so tires are a problem. I created a stockpile just in case they get discontinued. Then the wider 2.35 tires get sold out fast...

Sorry for the infrequent posts, but I have to borrow one of "Maggie's" computers because my retro computers don't do the Internet.

When I get my new IPAD I expect to launch LazySlackerCalvin.com a blog that is a lifestyle magazine of sorts.

All the best.

Cal
 
Nice to hear your doing good Cal, I've been busy as well, getting ready for Christmas and all setting up my tree and train set up,
been busy with camera's as well, since my so called resurrection I sold and purchased a few more camera's I've been bitten by
the Leica bug again getting a Leica M8 and M3, the M3 is a project and I been working on it because of a few problems I'll get it
worked out.

Merry Christmas everybody!
 
I have taken a few breaks from the house, and I figured out why I bought all mucho obsolete bike parts, some on closeout, and others on EBAY before the government imposed taxes. First off I saved a lot of money, and I maximized resources in a clever manner that was kinda clever.

Phil taught me the wisdom of a 9 speed and 3/16 inch chain durability. My forensics reveal that my Ti Basso has a retro triple crankset that I have to build around that imposed a creative limitation. Then I have two IBIS Mountain Trials Bikes to outfit: one steel version; and the Titanium version that is a prototype one-off that somehow I found on EBAY on one of those days when I was fully bored.

On the bike front things are evolving and I expect a tire delivery over the next few weeks. Building out these bikes is a cool creative venture that I'm enjoying. I planned ahead and delayed for a very long time. In a way I front loaded a dream that now is becoming a reality. I suppose the same is true for the darkroom that I have not built yet, but is almost fully outfitted.

I failed to mention that after Thanksgiving it did not take long for the Cyclotron to fail and then one day blow up. First the target changer went south, and the machine was made into a Carbon 11 machine only, then the chemist operating the machine blew the vacuum foil killing the high vacuum and making the machine inoperational. January 10th is an expected field service visit.

"Ha-ha," I say. LOL.

In the new year I need to drop off that Leica M3-DS that has a new "L" seal at Nippon for serrvive. I jammed it trying to recover the slow speeds after I bought it back from Brian. I also jammed my weird prototype Ti M6 that is a Wetzlar early version with the old engravings, but is a Titanium top plate. Somehow by serial number it predates the later ti versions by about 5 years. I bought this camera in 2008, had it serviced by Sherry, and shot thousands of rolls of film. This camera saw very heavy use and is heavily modded with missing 135 framelines and MP mod. A few lenses for Limnhofs need to be cleaned and timed.

At the same time I need my Panerai serviced and the cracked crystal replaced.

The most important resource for an artist is time, and it is a great reward to have unstructured time and a life of minimal stress. Happy-happy. In a ways I'm not really retired because I am busy every day woorking on my own stuff.

Cal
 
I picked up a Leica M3 that is of course a good user, and been working on it, the finder has a lot of fog which I cleaned and the little
prism lost it's reflection in the rear so there was no rangefinder at all, I did mange to purchase a few tools to open it up and I took
out the little prism and took a mirror from a broken Nikon F3 and was able to glue it on the back of the prism and I now have a working
rangefinder in my M3 next it to send it out for a replacement shutter it's pretty bad.
 
Would that throw off the range, if the mirror wasn't in the exact same location (distance) as the prism was? I suppose you tested that. I'm on the fence about taking even my unusable equipment apart...it often doesn't go well...everything is too little.
 
I put it back in the right position and it seems to work fine I adjusted the rangefinder and it does work, I have to get the shutter replaced
to really see if it works well.
 
Chris,

Don't underestimate Bob. Not only is he a bit crazy (crazy-good), but he is also stubborn. I played with a Rollieflex that Bob bought for no money and repaired. How crazy is that?

Cal
 
I figured out a good project for the 25 packs of Fuji F-100 I have stockpiled in the fridge. I'm gonna document the restoration of the Baby-Victorian. This will make a cool boxed set, and I think a very cool raw material for one of my crazy art books.

I also think I will do some B&W silkscreened T-shirts using some of my street shots and urban landscape. To keep it small I'll do them as limited editions. Kinda promotional, but at least I won't have some gallery taking a 50% commission or people stealing my images off the Internet.

Today the keypad came for my IPAD. It originally was expected to be delivered the first week in January. Now I'm waiting on the IPAD which is expected the first or second week of February.

In the first week of January, I'm expecting over $500.00 worth of bicycle tires to be delivered. In January I will try to order a custom wheel, but I expect delays even though I will be supplying the rim because the bottleneck likely will be getting a White Industry hub. We live in an age of shortages...

Know that airline flights are being canceled because of short staffing. Now would speculate car rentals will be hard to get. I know because sadly "Maggies" mom died Christmas Day, and her brother had to drive from Colorado because flying was not going to happen. Then my niece booked a flight to Disney for winter break and already the flight got canned due to short staffing.

There has been a lot of death lately. Two of Maggie's classmates from her PhD that remain close friends lost their mothers. Maggie's cousin Kevin died from Covid. Been sidetracked going to wakes and funerals.

I feel a divine message, and I learned a lot about my own mortality. After Maggie's mom's funeral, I talked with a man who very recently I had attended his wife's wake and funeral. He is/was a man's man, but now is suffering a bit from dementia. As his friend, he walked over to talk to me, and since he was a vet we talked about the military, he enlisted into the Navy to learn electronics.

So it was like in the film "Groundhog Day" with Bill Murry because somehow I heard the same stories of how he met his wife, how he signed up for the Navy, and how he qualified over and over again. Of course, there were other stories, but overall I heard each story 3-4 times as if it were for the first time. I kinda knew he wanted to talk with me, and actually since the loss of his wife I figured he really needed to talk to me. "Maggie" later told me that since his wife died he never spoke of her, but somehow he felt comfortable to open up to me. I feel honored that he did.

At the funeral, I saw many people my age who looked really old, but I met a remarkable man who was a bit of a fitness freak, and when I inquired why he said, "I was almost killed in a car accident and was told I would never walk again." After about 6 months of recovery, he started to work out. He told me that he at one time did 900 push-ups in a day doing a set every 5 minutes for 2 1/2 hours. Then he told me about "Burpees" a combination squat thrust followed by a set of pushups.

So with the pandemic I know I have lost a lot of strength and fitness, but all the deaths I am experiencing has a deeper meaning to me. Maggie's mom had vascular dementia which is a result from a series of small strokes that kill off parts of the brain. The death process actually is a long decay that is about a three-month process. After about 6 weeks no solid food was eaten, then eventually not even water, but there was this "Terminal Lucidity" that lasted for about a day and a half.

Most days when we visited Maggie's mom slept, and if she woke it was as if a blink of an eye. It was as if she were in a coma. There would be all this twitching of arms and legs due to electrolite imbalances, but one day we walk in and she is watching a Christmas show and she turns to me and says, "Cal you look good," flirting with me.

So I get the message: I need to start seriously pumping ox-A-gen to my brain daily. BTW both my parents died of heart failure.

Anyways Covid is kinda the blame for Maggie's mom's demise. Because of short staffing a patch of skin Cancer was not detected by staff, by Maggie discovered it on one of our vists. The procedure proved to be difficult for Maggie's mom, and even though she was a fighter, it was the beginning of the end.

Covid is killing people in other ways.

Also my ultra-fit man was 51, but he had recovered from Covid, but he reported it took a long time for him to recover all the strength he lost.

A lot of sad stuff was happening before Christmas, but I didn't want to ruin the holidays. Meanwhile, I'm getting those bikes ready, and I'm going to buy Maggie a bike.

Cal
 
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