r o b o t m i n i o n

Tucson-Bound

Tomorrow I'm flying to Tucson to enjoy a long weekend with the boy during his break from research.

While the weather in Columbus has been lovely for the past few days, it is supposed to turn cold and rainy again this weekend while I'm away. Don't get me wrong, I love my fellow Columbussians, but the fact that I am going to be someplace warm and sunny and escape the dreariness of a rainy Central Ohio sky delights me to no end. Going someplace warm and sunny when your own town is experiencing good weather is never as satisfying as knowing that you've escaped a cold, gray day.

Sandal Date, 2005

It's 75 degrees today (my office is 85), and I'm officially declaring today my "sandal date" for the year. This is better than last year, when sandal date didn't happen until April 15th.  (I remember this because I was in Chicago for a conference.)

Sandal Date is the date each year when socks officially (for me) become strictly optional. The weather may go back to crappy on Friday but after today, my sandals are totally rotating to the front of the show rack.

As a result of sandal date 2005, I also have some lovely blisters forming, which is why I'm walking around a little barefoot in the office. The office will probably survive though. As it is, I am using headphones and sparing them my music today, because the only thing that really fits my mood right now is (I can't believe that I am documenting this publicly) Belinda Fucking Carlisle. I'm particularly partial to "I Get Weak" and "Heaven is a Place on Earth."

I totally blame spring.

Whole Foods is the new Starbucks?

We just got back from walking Turkey down to the Northmarket for his regular Saturday morning constitutional. Walking the dog on longish walks that culminate with goat cheese ice cream is my favorite weekend activity.

This week, we heard something disturbing. Apparently Wholefoods is looking to open a 51,000 square foot store within about a block of the Northmarket. When I lived in New York and last spring when the boy was working in Pittsburgh for the quarter,  I enjoyed shopping at Wholefoods, but this would be the worst thing possible for the Northmarket, and the Northmarket is the heart of our neighborhood.

According to the article, the city subsidy for the Northmarket has gone from $60K to $22K in the last three years. The land that Wholefoods and their development company Casto is looking at is mostly owned by the city. I hope the city of Columbus proves not to be as stupid as they have been in the past. (Supporting suburban shopping malls while City Center turns into a poor youth ghetto with no retail left...)

I'm not sure there is much that we can do at an individual level, beyond keep shopping at and supporting the Northmarket and girl-cott Wholefoods if they pursue this deal. If it does get built, my dog will be the one pooping in their parking lot.

The XA Arriveth

My certificate in Camera Repair

Last weekend, we took a mini-break down to the family cabin in the Hocking Hills to do a little hiking with Turkey. It was the first time he'd been there, and you could tell that our city-dog was lit up to be around so many small animals to hunt and kill and new and exciting methods to get dirty. We even roasted marshmallows on a campfire.

I took about 4 cameras with me to try to get some good shots of the dog while he's still a puppy to document the occasion. While we were at the cabin, my Lomo LC-A camera broke in about three different ways. I have somewhere between 5 and  10 cameras that are in working order but this is the camera that I use all of the time.

With the help of the boy and the internet, I think it is mostly fixed. Since I found a few helpful tips for Lomo repairs on line, I thought I would document what happened and how we fixed it.

Problem #1: Prior to this weekend, I was missing a screw in the front faceplate of the camera. I had heard that loose screws were a problem, and missing one didn't seem like a big deal. After our trip to the cabin, I was missing 3, and the last remaining screw felt loose. I use this camera frequently, and I would not say that I'm exactly gentle with it. I've had it for over 2 years now, so I'm not sure if this is a problem that increases with age or what.

I found this page on line and it was extremely useful. Basically, it said that if the screws on your LC-A fall out, you can replace them with the smaller screws in an eyeglass repair kit. This is the most wonderful $2 repair hack ever.

Problem #2: Possibly as a result of the faceplate being so loose, my lens cover got stuck half open. This was pretty easily fixed by taking out the last remaining screw and resetting the pin levers for the two covers (one comes down, and one moves up).

Problem: #3: Last year I dropped my LC-A on the bricks of the alley where I lived as I was trying to juggle too many thing in my hand and unlock the door. I am a very graceful woman. Since that incident, there has been a hairline crack near the film winding spool, but no resulting light leaks. The bigger problem is the top of the film winder was cracked in such a way that the pin that sticks up for winding and releasing the film compartment falls out when winding film. Since then, film winding has been slow, but I have not yet lost the pin as I expected I might. My attempt to epoxy the plastic that would keep the pin in place failed.

Last night, after fixing the other problems, we tore off completely, the half of the top of the winding spool that had barely been hanging on. This actually made it easier to wind with my finger. I'm contemplating looking for a replacement winding spool though, as it appears to be somewhat standard.

I know that there are a lot of differing views on the whole lomo scene. I definitely think that a certain percentage of it is pure marketing hype. I know the cameras are overpriced (I bought mine in a rare sale on Amazon a couple years ago) and I know that they are prone to problems like this. That being said, I really love some of the pictures I've taken with these cameras.

While I was investigating solutions to fix my LC-A, I ran across something that got me really excited. There is apparently a large number of devotees to the lomo-style that have turned their affections toward the Olympus XA camera from the eighties. When I saw a picture of the camera, I almost fell out of my chair. The Olympus XA is the camera that I grew up using.

My father is the official family photographer and rarely let anyone touch his cameras until I was well into my teens, and even then I think it was more of an "ask forgiveness rather than permission" kind of thing. The Olympus XA  was my mother's camera. I think my dad bought it for her birthday around 1983. It is a sturdy little camera — I took it with me for my first year of college in New York and I can remember shooting pictures at the Met and Central Park in the Autumn of '97.

I haven't touched the camera in at least 8 years, but as I type, my mother's XA is winging itself towards Columbus. I know I will have to find a new battery for it, but I am totally looking forward to playing around with some 100 speed film and trying to replicate the lomo color saturation in a much sturdier camera.

As an end note, I did get some good pictures this weekend of le dog with my Olympus 3030 digital camera. I'll post some today or tomorrow.

27

Today, I turn 27.

So far, kind of anti-climactic.
A nice birthday at Northstar this morning and Indian for lunch.
Dinner out at a new restaurant tonight

Party to follow: Burgundy Room, Saturday night, 8:30 pm

Dube Special

I know that I like totally haven't written anything here in a week, and I could get all down on myself, because I had been doing so wel with the posting and all, but like I totally won't because I have been under the thrall of the most heinous of group projects.

I can't say too much about it, but it is so done. To celebrate the end of group projects and the end of evil, fucking Winter Quarter, we made ourselves a little Dube Special. For those of you not familiar with the Blue Danube, it consists of grilled cheese, tomato soup and champange. So there. Take that Winter Quarter. I'm so over you.

Marty Party

Happy 25th Marty.

Sorry I couldn't join you guys for birthday lunch today. Seeing as it's after 3 in the afternoon now, and your iChat status says you're still there. May there be many more 3-hour lunches in your future.

This is a picture of Marty at a party where I didn't throw a shot on him. The picture looks like this because I took it with my Lomo Pop 9 camera.

I think we've all seen Bonanza

We watched the Director's cut of Donnie Darko last night at Cinema Voshell. It's one of my favorite movies, and I was really looking forward to seeing the new version, which never made it to the big screen here. It was good, but I think overall, I prefer the theatrical release. I know that "Never Tear us Apart" was the original choice for the opening music, and that is totally my favorite INXS song, but I don't think I can live without "The Killing Moon."

Some of the scenes that were included were really good, but overall — and especially the end — it really lacked the emotional punch of the original. Besides, half of the fun of that movie was doing the work, going to the websites, listening to your friends' crackpot theories to find out what the hell happened.

Also notable, was that every time Frank the bunny came on screen or talked, Turkey growled. That dog hates giant, evil bunnies.

Nightmares of the Plane Crash Variety

For the past 4 or 5 nights, I have had horrible nightmares of very graphic airplane crashes. Oddly enough, the most vivid of these was a dream where I'm driving on 670 towards my house, and a plane coming into land at Port Columbus starts to break apart in the sky, finally breaking apart with the fuselage tearing off and rolling into an explosion on the ground very near the highway.

It's always the airline that my mother works for. Fucking weird.