robert blu
quiet photographer
It seems an interesting film, unfortunately I doubt it will arrive in Europe...
robert
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
Robert,
Channel surfing while practicing guitar I stumbled into some Latin programming on a station that broadcasts on the airways (Channel 9) since I'm too cheap to subscribe to cable. This is not so obscure, so I'm not that hip. LOL.
My thinking as an independent film this one could have widespread appeal. The writer, directer, producer grew up in my hood, is a dancer, and it seems this film has mucho authenticity. My impression is that it will do well and will gain some notoriety and will be talked about.
Latin culture is huge in NYC, Mexico is the most populated Spanish speaking country in the world, and gentrification really defines more than a decade.
You might be surprised...
Cal
jwlee
Established
Spanish broadcasting in NYC: channel 41, 47 and 68.
Prest_400
Multiformat
If it is released online, that's sorted out.
A couple days ago I met with a friend who's heading to NY and wanted some tips, told me I had much knowledge about the place. Particularly impressed about US geography. Not really, but I do try to soak in wherever I go. Also, reading first hand experiences from locals does a lot to it.
Plus when I find something interesting, I tend to delve into it for a while.
I was reflecting about the potential of internet and it really is an almost limitless gateway. You just have to browse towards it. Curiously, even the more modern mobile smartphone infrastructure is just a decade old and it is already so rooted in our routines.
Cal, I even wish you got sidetracked to Barcelona for a brief BCN meet-up
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
If it is released online, that's sorted out.
A couple days ago I met with a friend who's heading to NY and wanted some tips, told me I had much knowledge about the place. Particularly impressed about US geography. Not really, but I do try to soak in wherever I go. Also, reading first hand experiences from locals does a lot to it.
Plus when I find something interesting, I tend to delve into it for a while.
I was reflecting about the potential of internet and it really is an almost limitless gateway. You just have to browse towards it. Curiously, even the more modern mobile smartphone infrastructure is just a decade old and it is already so rooted in our routines.
Cal, I even wish you got sidetracked to Barcelona for a brief BCN meet-up
Jorde,
The world is not that big. I expect to visit Barcelona one day. We have a knitwear designer friend who once worked for Mango, and now she is in New York. Maria is Catalan. This is what I love about NYC. The world is here.
We talked recently over a meal about the populism and the rooting of Facism going on. The manipulation and deception of voters seems to have been a bait and switch in Spain. There are strong parallels going on here between what happened in Spain and what is happening here in the U.S.
Maggie has decided to stay close to home for our retirement. I was willing to transplant and immerse myself into Spanish culture. Because of medical insurance, being expatriots, and not being members of the E.U. it seems Vancouver makes sense and Seattle. These "expensive" cities are 25%-30% lower cost of living than NYC. For my biking and fishing lifestyles I left behind I should be able to regress.
I also know the E.U. relies on Germany's export economy; China is another export economy; and export economies don't do well in a recession. I expect the next recession to be kinda "duro."
"Maggie" is almost 65. Here at work things are slowing/gearing down. A cyclotron has a useful lifespan of about 20 years and this machine now is 15 years old. I feel uncertainty looming. My boss "How-Wierd" (Howard) is already full retirement age, but he would like to linger around for a few more years. I already kinda gave him a heart attack over 5 years ago so he could pop the cork at any time.
So my plan now is austerity mode, pay down debt, save mucho, and be ready at age 62 (less than 2 years from now) for a forced retirement. I need to be ready.
In the past I drove my Jeep with the Corvette engine with a broken gas gauge. I knew to get gas every 250 miles, but a few times I pushed things past 250 miles, and when the engine would sputter and I got stuck somehow it always seems like a rude surprise. Trying to avoid a different rude surprise.
I think I most surely could make it to 62, but additional years would be a bonus, although uncertain. Maggie looks so far this year looks like she will exceed or match her salary as a professor, so basically she should more than double her income. Likely when this happens she will quit her day-job. The idea here is to not collect her Social Security till age 70 to maximize benefits. If this happens there will be no worries about fixed income and pretty much we will have a luxury retirement.
So if I can maintain my present job for 5 more years, I too will not collect Social Security, nor my two pensions till the age of 70. This is mucho dinero, basically at age 70 my income will exceed my present salary for the rest of my life. Know that my dad lived to 94, was poor, illiterate and had a brutally hard life. Pretty much our savings would remain a nest egg and we would be wealthy.
At age 62, I will be ready to retire if I have to, meanwhile I am trying to do things with my photography. Meanwhile it seems I am being swept into the world of fashion. I might have to travel to Shanghi. Out of all places in the world Maggie is most famous in China. The Left Coast seems like the best place to be. Also already we have a tribe of friends established in Seattle.
The Pacific Ocean is five times deeper than the Atlantic, so climate change will be less severe than on the East Coast. I expect the mixing of cold and warm fronts that create polor vortex's, tornados, and severe huricanes to worsen over the decades. Simple science of differentials searching for equalibrium. Water is a great thermal moderator so I expect less climate change on the Left Coast and worsening more severe weather on the East Coast.
Cal
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
Jean-Marc,
Soy liendo pediodicos Latinos para practicar.
Muy lento en tiempo, Poco a poco, pero puedo comprender a todo porque soy liendo noticias del dia.
Mi ovido mucho, pero no es tan deficil. Recueda que fue casado con una Latina de Costa Rica, y peiamos todo el tiempo cada dia.
Poco a poco...
Cal
Prest_400
Multiformat
Retirement will bring quite a bit of freedom and you could really do some slow travel, almost live in, for a month in different locations. I have some far relatives who split their seasons between Australia and South America. I guess someone must be doing an "eternal summer" moving between hemispheres.
I've been planning to escape Spain because I have hit a ceiling career wise and I'm not liking the way things are headed here, politics included. I feel and am talented and developed in various ways which are not appreciated, applied for a Master's in Scandinavia and will do a few years abroad. I'm looking forward to wander a bit, I've always had an "elsewhere" part in character and somehow I have developed a bit of American in me.
Also, moving in I might have access to a community darkroom so it'll be great to Develop myself in B&W finally.
I've gotten used to live in austerity. Must be the growing up in recession, which still lingers here.
Another housing bubble is inflating and people seem to have forgotten even if it was just 10 years ago.
Crazy times
I've been planning to escape Spain because I have hit a ceiling career wise and I'm not liking the way things are headed here, politics included. I feel and am talented and developed in various ways which are not appreciated, applied for a Master's in Scandinavia and will do a few years abroad. I'm looking forward to wander a bit, I've always had an "elsewhere" part in character and somehow I have developed a bit of American in me.
Also, moving in I might have access to a community darkroom so it'll be great to Develop myself in B&W finally.
I've gotten used to live in austerity. Must be the growing up in recession, which still lingers here.
Another housing bubble is inflating and people seem to have forgotten even if it was just 10 years ago.
Crazy times
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
Jorde,
Maria explained how the middle class was kinda eraised by the government. Also it seems that Barcelona is much like New York in that it represents a disproportionate part of the Spanish economy.
I have no problem bootstraping poorer less developed states. Understand that New York, New Jersey, and California, three states, contribute and represent 25% of U.S. GDP. Certainly the wealth is centered and concentrated in these three states.
The Tax Bill (that's what I call it) is not really a tax cut for any home owner in these three states because the $10K limit on State and local taxes (SALT) is not high enough to cover very high property taxes. Suddenly I feel lucky that I don'y own a liability (home).
These tax bills kinda specifically target the most open, progressive, liberal and most educated states in an economically oppressive manner.
My friend out on Long Island has property taxes of $16.5K so he gets a free $6.5K haircut. Maggie's sister has a property tax bill in Weatchester of $28K. There is already mucho talk of downsizing and renting by mucho homeowners. The ending is bad here. Someone else in the Westchester suburbs lost enough deductions that they now have to pay $7K, no refund for them. Sadly this is a young couple, dual income, one child family, living in a condo.
Someone should yell "rape."
The way Maria explained things in Barcelona is that the government kinda wiped out the middle class. Limited opportunity and a life of struggle only remains.
I imagine that Canada as a net exporter will remain with a depressed currency. Tar Sands oil has been displaced by U.S. fracking. My inflated New York dollars I think will go far in Canada. Also I think the quality of life there is higher. The U.S. is no bargain, especially NYC.
I think you might be being clever. The long term look is the way to go. They say if you don't plan a decade ahead you won't have a retirement. It seems today for younger generations one now has to think decades ahead because the opportunities I had are now gone.
I too see mucho opportunity in finding a nitch that exploits the Internet. I submitted coverage to my editor of the Camera Carnival. He loves the writing. This could lead to other things. Like Maggie I'm thinking branding.
Cal
Prest_400
Multiformat
Exactly that. I think a more nomad globalist lifestyle is well suited to our situation. Maria pointed it out well, it's quite out of whack.
Thinking about it, Spain's situation was quite a plot twist from the heydays of the 2000s and the credit craze + housing bubble to the postrecession. I guess the same is true for some US states or areas.
I always recall my Dad's view about it, and thankfully our family was very conservative financially. I grew up with that mindset, plus somehow being planning and trying to be strategic.
State pensions will require adjustment, not simply because of the population pyramid, also because the middle class young can't support a level of tax to back up the system.
I keep my eyes open around the internet, but really one requires luck and right timing. Lots of great artists unexposed and great work just obscured. Finding that "accidental" thread to keep growing in like Maggie did.
As a tool for knowledge and social interaction I already appreciate it.
Thinking about it, Spain's situation was quite a plot twist from the heydays of the 2000s and the credit craze + housing bubble to the postrecession. I guess the same is true for some US states or areas.
I always recall my Dad's view about it, and thankfully our family was very conservative financially. I grew up with that mindset, plus somehow being planning and trying to be strategic.
State pensions will require adjustment, not simply because of the population pyramid, also because the middle class young can't support a level of tax to back up the system.
I keep my eyes open around the internet, but really one requires luck and right timing. Lots of great artists unexposed and great work just obscured. Finding that "accidental" thread to keep growing in like Maggie did.
As a tool for knowledge and social interaction I already appreciate it.
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
Jorde,
Being a "Globalist" is not very popular right now, and unfortunately anyone with a global mindset in the Whitehouse seems to lead to getting fired.
One thing I learned from Maggie is that if you want to stand out, don't do what everybody else is doing. Doing fashion with a Leica Monochrom was difficult because the texture and colors on clothing needs to be highlighted not simplified. The result though is that her blog really stood out.
More and more I think in a counter-intuitive manner, and my timeline is broadly long term. Now the flip side is that not owning a home and relocating are actually great things.
Sadly I am witnessing the destruction's of a more civil society. Really hard to bear the embarrassment displacing the pride I once had. It seems that today Governments think people are an expendable. Perhaps Henry Kissinger had it right: the masses are just "food eaters."
Having escaped and known poverty I know first hand how long and constant a struggle it is to create an "Island of stability" (term borrowed from particle physics). Just realize that realistically it takes a long-long time. I would say my life was pretty much paycheck to paycheck until 2004. Now 14 years later I really have advanced and accumulated some wealth.
Mark Cuban explained to become a billionaire you need three things: be hard working; be smart; and the most important element is be lucky.
Cal
Prest_400
Multiformat
As a kid I used to think other kids were stupid, and frankly I was quite antisocial. Grew out of that but still keep an attitude.
Good thing is I was known to be creative and loco amongst my drab business classmates, and I do empower it, hah.
Seen many more middle fingers and shark attitude than I'd ever imagined, and I'm wary about it. I guess it's always been that way and specially in corporations; but recently even more, it's a jungle and you gotta care for yourself.
And some social media and tech things can be quite dystopian.
Good thing is I was known to be creative and loco amongst my drab business classmates, and I do empower it, hah.
Frankly seeing the innards of retail banking has taught me a lot about the face of the system and how people end to be just a file and numbers. On the other hand I know that nowadays loyalty isn't very appreciated, at least here. An older friend ended a year's service and she was very disappointed in how impassive they were at handing out the termination paperwork.
Seen many more middle fingers and shark attitude than I'd ever imagined, and I'm wary about it. I guess it's always been that way and specially in corporations; but recently even more, it's a jungle and you gotta care for yourself.
And some social media and tech things can be quite dystopian.
And what did you replace it with?
Range-rover
Veteran
Well I have those Rolleiflex's I restored a 3.5F and have that Rolleiflex
6002 I showed you guy's at a meet once, and a new to me 2.8C which
is on the workbench in pieces it needs a new bellow's in it.
stompyq
Well-known
Gasmaster:bang::bang:
ptpdprinter
Veteran
And to think he had only one of those attributes.
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
PTP,
That's a funny spin, and I like it. Now I think I'm going to have to stop repeating the expression. I'm moving forward.
I see lots of hard working smart people struggling.
I also know many talented people under the radar. Meanwhile I'm tired of seeing the same old faces again and again getting all the FaceTime.
Cal
Says they guy who has twice as many cameras as me.
Range-rover
Veteran
I think all you guy's have more camera's than I do, which is good thing,
I'm just older now and look at thing's different.
I'm just older now and look at thing's different.
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
John,
At this point I can say I have the right amount of cameras because over time they became valued keepers. The bodies and lenses that remain today would be hard to replace.
Only digitals are the Monochrom and SL. Of course film cameras each have their novelty and specialization to cover formats.
Glad I bought the used film cameras at great prices. Now they are treasures. I only have 16 cameras. LOL.
See everyone this Sunday.
Cal
At this point I can say I have the right amount of cameras because over time they became valued keepers. The bodies and lenses that remain today would be hard to replace.
Only digitals are the Monochrom and SL. Of course film cameras each have their novelty and specialization to cover formats.
Glad I bought the used film cameras at great prices. Now they are treasures. I only have 16 cameras. LOL.
See everyone this Sunday.
Cal
Damn...16!
I have 5... and I think I'll be selling 3. Probably hover around 3-4 in the coming years generally. My Fuji X100F and X-Pro2 have me pretty satisfied.