NYC Journal

Devil Cal,

Make sure it has ample room for a big studio and darkroom. And ten foot ceilings. Happy New Year All!

My 3 1/2 gallon tanks have been full of D23 and Fixer all this time. Seran wrap and big rubber bands act aa a tank cover. Wnat to start using the 5x7 Sinar Normas (have more than several) with 13x18cm Euro size, and 5x7 sheet film, in the deep. Got a fairly decent deal on a couple of stainless one gallon tanks, with stainless lids. Useful for specialty developers and processes. I also have a rack that holds 48 4x5's. 5x7 isn't much more to carry around than 4x5. Been building some specialty hangers in the Euro sized 18x24cm. Cut down EK's with dremel and JB Welded back in smaller metric size. Expensive on Ebay. Have scads of 8x10 hangers (lucky me!)
 
A big deal today was seeing a red bellied woodpecker at our front feeder. I was able to point him out to “Maggie.”

Today we had the last two steaks that I cut from the rib roast Christmas sale, a Happy New Year dinner. Mighty good. The kinda meal that leaves you hungry. Call me a greedy American…

The grandson pretty much does not want to go home when he visits our house. Good food and pretty much he gets our full attention.

Seems like the pickups I ordered take a lot of heat for being crazy expensive. Kinda like Leica envy from certain players who can’t afford them. They are critical about the market hype, but what sold me is the sound quality of the demo’s that seems to be highly produced. There is a great player, and also he is using all high end gear.

Some comments are right, it is the player and the amp besides the guitar and the pickups. The Jazz set I ordered for the Strat certainly do what they do like no other pickups that I know of or have played in a Strat, granted that I’m not a Strat player really. The demo was a good demonstration for me.

Pretty much the warmth and clarity when compared by the same hot player demo’ing the various product line. Anyways the voicing to me seemed to be distinct and unique in a way I would like to emulate.

So pretty much there is a negative cult thing happening. Then again they get or were approached by artists that wanted recreations of their vintage pickups as backups or spares. I ask myself how did they gain access to these big time artists and their un replaceable gear to develop these recreations? That ain’t hype, that’s trust and having a great reputation.

So don’t tell anyone I spent over $500.00 on a Strat set of pickups, because like owning a Leica I will be accused of being a “rich dentist.” Kinda funny.

A set of Lollar 65 Strat set would be about $320.00.

Cal
 
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Devil Dan,

No sewers kinda inhibits analog photography. Silver kills needed bacteria in a septic system.

Am I correct?

Glad you are using those big rubber tanks. D23 home brew seems the way to go. You get awesome results.

Cal

Maybe a little off-thread for this post, but to keep this wonderful thread in a (sometimes) photo-centric vein, one of my new year's resolutions for '25 is to return to 'trad'(itional) developers for my B&W photography.

I will be mixing up two batches of old brews. Beutler's, a goodie-oldie from Germany dating to the 1950s, and the late Barry Thornton's two-bath (I particularly like the Ansel Adams mix for higher contrast). Beutler's is ideal for the older emulsions with a higher content of silver. Thornton's works fine for me with newer films like Kodak TMax. To me it's the best of either world, as I have enough basic chemistry at home to keep me awash in developer for the rest of my time on this planet.

I have +/- 20 rolls to be processed, including the last three of my beloved Kodak Panatomic-X bought in 1993. Even then it was probably fairly cooked anyway as I believe Eastman Kodak stopped making that film in 1987-1988. Over the years I've used it up for special projects, and found it had almost no fog, which apparently is not unusual for those old slow, slow films.

I had a brief love affair with D23 many decades ago Which didn't last long as for my needs I found the results a little too 'mushy' for sharp prints. Back then I was selling one-column and two-column filler images to publications like The Economist, and my clients insisted that even those small photos had to be super-sharp. Even D76 gave quite inconsistent results, which maybe had more to do with water quality or even some fault in my mixing habits. So I had to look elsewhere for developers. Beutler's and Thornton's two-bath came to my rescue.

If Kodak were to start manufacturing Panatomic, Plus-X and the old Tri-X again I would happily semi-bankrupt myself and buy a shipload of bulk cans of all three. As I'm sure would many of us here.

I have two 100-foot bulk rolls of Pan-X and one of Plus-X - sadly, the old Tri-X is long gone from my otherwise still full film fridge. Those Kodak cans are now worth so much if I sell even on Ebay, I'm reluctant to crack them open and spool the stuff into cassettes. It's more an investment.

Okay, done with the photographic. It being a day too late for NYD good wishes, my late wish for a happy '25 to yez' all. Get to work and make it heaps better than '24, in all ways, almost - politically, well, let's not go there...
 
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I just custom ordered a Tele and also a Strat neck.

I decided to go with flamed roasted maple and upgraded to dark rosewood on the Strat neck, as well as upgraded pearl inlays. This neck will be on the custom colored Candy Apple Red body that is in a “closet classic” condition. I also decided to add two none period correct features: one is a LSR roller nut to add tuning stability; and since I broke the mold I decided to go with the oversized CBS headstock like a Jimi-Hendrix era Strat.

The larger oversized headstock adds some weight and also tends to dampen highs as well as add sustain. I’ll also be using Sperzel locking tuners which contribute some added weight. On archtop guitars the have beefy/meaty headstocks and use heavy tuners to support the mellower, deeper warmer tone, cut some highs mechanically by changing resonance, and adding sustain.

So the Strat decidedly went all in with going full Jazz mode. Glad I waited and got educated that a 9 1/2 inch fingerboard radius is required for optimal use of the ball-bearing roller nut. So I also decided to go all in with the vibrato.

I’ll be ordering a Callahan Strat buildup hardware kit. The vintage style tuners will get used on the Tele neck. The Tele neck also will have a rosewood fingerboard. My other electrics have maple fingerboards for brightness and bite, except the carved top which has a mahogany neck with an ebony board, and the all solid rosewood neck on Korina.

Next is an expensive Callahan order for hardware. The necks have to be built, and there is some lead time.

There is a 6-10 week lead time on the pickups anyways… The Strat I figure could be built out by mid-March.

Tele’s are very versatile guitars, they can kinda cover all the bases, but this Strat is being built with a specific purpose of clarity, warmth, and sustain. Perhaps might of been better if a hardtail, but that pretty much, is a different guitar.

The Tele neck is for the incoming custom color Sonic Blue Thinline Tele that has a more open sound than a solid body Tele. The rosewood fingerboard also supports taming excess treble and supports warmth. Should be mucho pretty and stunning looking with a gold anodized pickguard.

So pretty much this Tele, and this Strat are being built out as Jazz specific.

Cal
 
I still think about Devil Dan’s idea of a big studio. The second floor over the detached garage with a deck would be mighty cool.

Too much woman-factor going on right now, and the fact is I still love the Baby-Victorian. The heavy lifting already has been performed, and if “Maggie” would let me work on the house, perhaps I could get it done.

Carmel is about a half hour away, even though only 21 miles.

Andrew made a point yesterday that the kids will kinda be grow up, and won’t be so interested is us.

I don’t want to start over again fixing up a house. Gasoline is cheap. We kinda have a great deal here. Why move?

I think I know what I want. Pretty much fix up the Baby-Victorian and be happy, Maggie I don’t think knows what she wants.

The times are difficult, and it seems Maggie is never satisfied.

Good news is Snoopy and JJ bought a home in Texas. Kinda makes no sense, unless they plan on relocating kinda soon. Pretty much a new McMansion with a pool. JJ is still working for the MTA, so he is stuck in New York, but Snoopy will move into the new house. Not so practical. I suspect that JJ will retire.

I have no love of Snoopy and JJ.

Cal
 
Austin,

Thanks for the uplifting picture. LOL.

Lately I feel a bit castrated. “Maggie” is a bit crazed, and perhaps more worried about her future than mine.

From what I read, the surgery only requires an overnight stay. Recommended no driving for 2-3 weeks, also during those 2-3 weeks it is expected weak bladder control, then 2-3 months before anything strenuous activity.

The only “Q” factor is if I need radiation therapy that may drag things out. From my reading hormone treatment and radiation therapy don’t mix well, and Radiation Treatment if needed could be 4-6 weeks.

Oh-well if radiation treatment is needed, but I’m not counting on that. The biopsy of the excised organs will be the tell-all, so why jump the shark?

Meanwhile Maggie is loosing sleep and seems to think the worse. Pretty much she is making herself crazy.

Because Maggie is an overly anxious person, she thinks the worse, like maybe I will be handicapped or an invalid to an extent. I don’t see it that way. Certainly life will be different, but unlikely the way she is framing them. I kinda feel like I’m being left for dead and that ain’t the prognosis.

I understand her worries, but I don’t understand her selfishness.

Also pretty much I brought up moving and buying another house. I pretty much the sense of loss that I have for the efforts and investments I made. This house was suppose to be “one-and-done,” but there are some real compelling reasons to move for a more durable future.

One floor living, closer to a village that is walking distance, a newer home that is tighter and better insulated, and to be closer to the kids when we need support.

I’m not willing to start all over again with a fixer upper that needs heavy lifting, and pretty much living condition wise it has to be kinda turn-key. She wants small, but I going to demand a good workspace. I’d like a 2-car garage because I would like to keep the 1966 C-10.

So I have a depressed unhappy woman, but I have an aggressive Cancer. I will call it out: this really sucks and is hurtful. I don’t deserve this.

Like I said, it seems she is more worried about herself and her future. This is about her Ego and being nar-C.

Cal
 
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Also, any move, now could be a year or more away, and the price envelope had to increase.

Peekskill is a hard deal to replace. Our 30 year mortgage is well below 3%, and it is not so big either.

I see no economic benefit or savings. In fact I see increased costs.

I’m not dead yet, and at this point I will tell her when I die she can sell this house and move.

Cal
 
Good news is my Sonic Blue Closet Classic Thinline will be delivered Monday a day early.

I’m excited about this.

Deer scuffs to mark territory and to let female deer know a ready male is nearby for the rut is now in my front backyard and even the front side yard.

Claimed a discarded Christmas tree for clean fill. Parts of the chain link fence are obscured from view. Yesterday we took down our tree, and it to is in the back as clean fill as well as some wreaths and our centerpiece.

I feel sad and depressed. Monday is the meeting with the surgeon.

I can’t express what I feel right now, except I am disappointed and feel alone. “Maggie’s” vulnerability is greater than mine.

Cal
 
I’m feeling much better now, I’m not one to pout and sulk.

Decades ago I read a short book called “Love” by Leo Buscalia. Pretty much it teaches how to love unconditionally without any expected return. Life without love is sad and not really living.

Some people are not capable of love, true love, their love is conditional.

I can give my love unconditionally. You can hurt me deeply, but I will continue to love you.

Some people though like Snoopy and JJ don’t deserve my love, so I will not waste it.

Some people love others, that don’t deserve it. I see this also, but at least the giver is capable of love, even though not deserved.

Anyways an interesting spin on love. Kinda rare now-a-days.

In the end you get what you give…

So many people love in an “extra-medium” manner, but not me.

Got a birthday message from my little brother, 1 1/2 years younger, but only a grade lower in school. My brother because of his birthday was a runt in school, and of course my birthdate is well into the school year, and research has shown that this is a big advantage.

I decided not to tell my brother about my aggressive Cancer. My love for him is to protect him. I don’t see telling him being of any benefit to anyone involved. I put him first, and I want him to be happy. This is love. This is true love. I put him first.

I also did not tell him of our older sister’s passing. She died of Cancer, and in her case I believe it likely was uterine Cancer. About 30 years ago she underwent surgery for fibroids, her uterus was riddled with them, and it was so bad that she resembled being 3 months pregnant.

She had no children, but she wanted to remain fertile even though she was of an age where child bearing would be dangerous or impossible. She wanted to remain an intact woman, and it likely ended up costing her life. My sister was 5 years older than me, so at 71 she was “Maggie’s” age when she died.

I found out through my niece, I’m estranged from my two older brothers and my deceased older sister. We didn’t grow up together. My younger brother and I were in Foster Homes for a decade, so no real bonding happened.

Then there was survivor’s guilt that separated us that compelled our older siblings to hurt us further by pushing us away and excluding us. My sister first was abusive to my younger brother and then separately and later me. My younger brother and I made them feel bad about themselves.

We were disturbed angry kids, we were left alone to struggle alone, and it was clear we were messed up kids for good reason. They had to know we were abused kids and experienced horrors. They had to know bad things happened to us.

So on one hand we were abandoned and left in a destitute situation. It was neglect, not by the government, or Foster Partents, but by family.

But on the other hand, being 5, 9 and ten years older, they were adults when I was 13 and had to be a man. So blood has no meaning here, but I also have the love and the capacity to see that they could of done things differently and do better, but I also can see they too were too young also to do very much.

That is what I call love, but of course this is one sided… this love and this understanding.

In Foster Care my younger brother suffered great abuses. The anger and rage embodied in him is scary, and there is great potential for evil is all I can say. Out of the decade we were institutionalized only three of those years were we in the same Foster Family. It was not a good one…

My younger brother was hospitalized from abuse early in his life, and he was given his “last-rights” because he was not expected to live.

Out of the 5 offspring I kinda was the pick-of-the-litter. I had the fine features and the looks of my mother, and I was a painful reminder of the mother they lost. I did not know my mother, only the shell of a woman destroyed by electroshock therapy and Thorazine.

My older siblings projected upon me that I would be the one to carry the legacy of mental illness in our family, but my mother really likely just had what they call today Post-Pardon depression.

I realized this, and of course our relationships were loaded, fraught, and charged. Pretty much one-side, and pretty much unlikely to be healthy ever. I withdrew for the better of everybody. I understand their pain.

This too is an act of love even though they don’t deserve it.

Realize at one Thanksgiving my oldest brother told me my mother had a breakdown before I was born and she recovered, “Then you were born,” he said. I was standing in his kitchen in his house as his guest when basically he is kinda saying that I should not have been born.

I stood there waiting for him to realize what he said in an off-the cuff manner, and basically controlled my rage. He stood there in silence. Maybe he was scared for his life, because I could of ended him there, but I said, “Thanks,” and walked away.

This is not love. Blood does not matter.

There is a quote, “If you love something, set if free, if it returns, it is yours, but if it doesn’t it never was.”

In high school there was a poem written in one of my text books signed “A.”

“Alone is one, never two, always looking and longing for love, and someone leaving.”

Fact is I am a man of passion. I don’t do “extra-medium,” but I know how to live passionately to be fully alive, and I know how to love, even if it is one-sided.

Perhaps this explains why I am a loner…

Cal
 
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It certainly is arrogant that I know I am capable of great things.

It is doubly arrogant to keep these great things to myself, but I’m also I can share this here.

With this Cancer, I just have this vibe, this feeling, this certainty, that my life has a deep profound meaning and a sense of purpose that is yet to come.

There has to be some greater meaning to what I don’t understand yet.

I’m not on hormone treatment yet, and I am crying.

Know I am not afraid of dying…

Cal
 
I’m inspired by mixing finger style, plucking for a piano, and pick by this player who does it well with a lot of style.

A key thing I need to do is practice doing the switch of tucking the pick in the palm of my hand, and then into pick position. I already have a great sound using pick and fingers.

The idea here is to vary the attack and to be able perhaps to play a guitar more like a drummer having a set of traps.

This player I admire plays Tele’s. Different than a Strat that basically has three of the same pickups, a Tele has a bright biting bridge pickup, plus a very different sounding neck pickup that offers mucho contrast being smooth and mellow.

Lots of big Jazz players use a Telecaster for playing Jazz.

I hydrated the sponges I keep in my acoustic guitar cases to humidify my Santa Cruzes. I played them a little and pretty much am amazed that I own three world class acoustics that are the very top of the game. I play these guitars hard to help break them in to make the tops more flexible and responsive.

Then on my electrics an evolution happened where I started using 12’s, a heavy gauge of strings, that falls into the realm of the realm of being like medium gauge strings that even utilize a wound “G” string. I also play my Tele’s as if like an acoustic guitar with a mucho heavy attack. This is likely because of playing unplugged a lot and trying to make acoustic sound.

On an archtop the best sound is acoustic volume and an amp volume being about even. This mix is interesting and has depth.

So I kinda exaggerate the percussive quality of a guitar, and somehow I have evolved into my own style. Style and especially and individual style that is kinda playing an electric guitar as if an acoustic.

Cal
 
Anyways, this development of style is pretty much a huge step, yet is not fully developed. If this could be mastered, it could be a big deal. I’m on that path, and it is exciting.

I had a good sleep last night. I ended up staying up late for me, but this did me well.

Cal
 
I skated through 4 days into January with an expired inspection sticker. Pretty much the Audi A4 with just under 51K miles is in good shape. I was told the front brakes are just starting to enter into midlife, so there is a possibility I could reach my goal of reaching 100K miles on the OEM front brakes.

Most of my driving is open road.

“Maggie” mentioned the idea of building out an ADU, which has a space limit of 800 square feet. Kinda too small for me, and in further discussion we would not want to rent it out anyways because of loss of privacy, the responsibility of being landlords, and loosing access to our back-backyard. Anyway’s a dead end…

I still love the idea though of a 400 foot studio over our existing garage, and building out a deck. It would capitalize on the view. My dream would to have a music room where I could set up my 300B tube monoblocks in an open loft like space.

We bought a 100 foot ten gauge extension cord. It is just long enough to reach the She-Shack. This can handle 20 amps, and the brand is Rigid and is made in the USA. $179.00 and if I paid more than I had to, I’m cool with that because the quality is there.

I set up the variable 1500-800 watt heater that is from my Grumman days that is perhaps 30 years old. It is 1 1/2 times the power of a hair drier and draws 13.5 amps. Right away it takes an edge off the cold because of drying of the air. This ends up being rather significant, but the warming of the shed as far as temperature goes is very modest. Better than nothing, but not so significant on a cold day.

At the Audi dealer they have a 2024 RS5 in grey in the showroom. $90K. I was drooling.

So what would I rather have: my 1966 C-10 with a 450 HP, 444 foot-pound motor, with a close-ratio 4-speed with 2 overdrives, and a Ford 9-inch rear with Wildwood disc brakes; or an Audi RS5?

The C-10 I could easily build out at half the price of the Audi RS-5, and I think it is cooler, but we are comparing a full sized truck to a luxury touring car with German engineering.

Anyways price aside, still a difficult choice. Hmmm. What a nice daydream.

You can see why I want a 2-car garage…

Cal
 
The Audi A4 will be a decade old later this year. Mighty low milage for a car this old.

“Maggie” is spoiled by the luxury like the electrically heated seats.

All the electronics though, many that I don’t need, is scary. More things to break…

The 2015 has side collision avoidance, pretty much it is all I need, plus the backup camera.

Cal
 
The Audi A4 will be a decade old later this year. Mighty low milage for a car this old.

“Maggie” is spoiled by the luxury like the electrically heated seats.

All the electronics though, many that I don’t need, is scary. More things to break…

The 2015 has side collision avoidance, pretty much it is all I need, plus the backup camera.

Cal

Do as we did and still do. Keep them all turned off. Turn on as and when needed only.

Works for laptops, PCs and cameras too.

PS Good wishes and best of luck tomorrow. Two bits of advice from one who has been there and done that. Treat t all as an adventure. And ask questions - dozens, scores, even hundreds of questions. Politely but firmly demand answers.

And remember, we are all hoping for the best outcome for you.
 
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DU,

I love the interface on my SL2. Pretty much I can configure the camera as I want, and pretty much I make it as simple as an analog film camera tat is fully manual except for the autofocus.

The SL2 user interface is just so more advance than my SL.

Cal
 
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