I’m not exactly closing this blog, but I’m definitely not here much anymore. Maybe someday I’ll pick it up again.
What I am doing, however, is a photoblog over at wordpress.com.
There, I’ll be posting a photo a day. The pics will be the ones captured on film. I’ll talk a bit about the photo, the camera, the film and the developing process (I’m now processing my own film at home in my bathroom).
So go on over there and check it out, okay?
It’s been awhile since I posted here. I tried to keep up with it more, but I’m still thinking about closing it down and moving to WordPress.com. The audience seems bigger and it might just be a better place for me. Anyway, until then, how about a life update?
Since my last post about root canals, I got a root canal. It was horrible. Seriously, the worst dental experience thus far. Hopefully it will be my last. My dental treatment thing is, however, ongoing. It will be forever.
Smartz and I just got back from a ten day trip to Utah, Colorado and Wyoming (mostly). It was a huge amount of awesome. You can read all about it here.
And, at the Spiral Jetty, Smartz and I got engaged. It’s all pretty exciting! She didn’t want a ring, so I contacted our friend Ashley to see if she could make a necklace for her. There was a bit of a misunderstanding (completely on my part) and Ashley sent what I thought was the “wrong” thing. I had a brief meltdown/freak out, but boy am I ever glad Ashley knows better than I do. What she sent was perfect. Smartz liked it so much better than she would have liked the necklace that I first described to Ashley.
Oh it’s all complicated and I won’t go into it, but it worked out perfectly! Thanks, Ashley!
Along the trip, I took a ton of photos with several different cameras and several different kinds of film. I’ll post the results over the coming weeks.
I’m also getting ready to gather supplies so we can start developing our own film. The place that I use is getting too expensive and the place that Smartz uses is going to stop processing film. After the initial cost, this will cut our processing expenses down from $7 a roll to about $1.50 a roll. Not bad.
I can image that I’m leaving out some things, but I’ll get around to tell whomever is still reading this about them someday.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) I head back to the dentist for more and more and more work. This time, it’s a root canal. That sounds fun, no?
A “root canal” is actually called endodontic therapy. It’s the procedure where the dentist (from my limited understanding) hollows out your tooth with a drill and a brush. He removes the pulp and the nerves and then fills it with stuff (possibly gutta-percha – a plant from Southeast Asia) and then fills it and caps it with a crown.
Not THAT kind of canal!
Root canals have a long history of being THE worst dental procedure you could endure. In recent times, however, I think things have gotten easier. I hope so.
After this, I’ll have two temporary crowns and will have to get them replaced with permanent ones soon enough. After that, I think I’m done with crowns and root canals. Those are the expensive things.
Part of me wants to take a break from going to the dentist after this. Just a month or two. But another part of me wants to just get everything done as quickly as possible. The financial part of me is torn as well. I obviously can’t pay for any of this out of pocket, so it’s all going on a credit card. I’ve got good credit, and so I have a year or so to pay without interest. So you see, speed is essential to not paying interest.
This whole thing has been one big mess. In the end, it’s still cheaper than dental insurance (which is sort of messed up). But even more importantly, if I would have flossed, this wouldn’t have been as much of an issue.
So take it from me. Floss. A lot. Every day. Or at least once a week. And go to the dentist at least once a decade. Probably twice a year.
When you’re thirsty, why grab a drink only favored by the bourgeois? For a working man’s thirst, you need the drink of the Party. Leninade is the only choice for you, comrade!
On our last outing to the Root Beer Store, I found what might be my new favorite non-Birch Beer soda. Bottled and capped with slogans like “Drink Comrade! Drink! It’s this or the gulag!” and “A party in every bottle,” how could I not at least give it a try?
So I joined the party and got “hammered and sickled.”
All joking aside, this is some great citrus soda. I suppose it some sort of lemonade, but it’s got some overtones of graprefruit, too.
So drink up, comrade and “beware the repressed communist party animal who is really a proletarian in denial masquerading as a bourgeois cold war monger.”
Our 5-Year Plan: Drink a bottle a day for five years and become a Hero of Socialist Flavor!
This is Smartz and Juniper Pürrito. What are they doing?
Though it may appear on first viewing that they are engaged in something together, they are actually doing two separate things.
While Smartz is attempting to take Juniper for a walk, Juniper is attempting to not be taken on a walk.
If it were otherwise, Smartz would not have to do this.
So Smartz and I did quite a bit of traveling yesterday (you’ll get to read all about that soon enough, keep your pants on). While we were cruising around the backroads of central Washington, near Potholes State Park, we saw a cute old couple driving a cute old car.
It was a sedan from the mid 60s. Four doors, hardtop, and freaking whitewalls.
As we tailed it, I frantically took as many pictures as I could, as we decided that we needed to travel in an old, yet smaller, sedan. With whitewalls.
But what was it? A Galaxy? A Falcon? I couldn’t tell. My dad could, of course. That’s his super power. But for me, I just couldn’t make it out.
When we got home, I took a look at the photos and could read the badge on the back of the car: “RAMBLER”
And there it was. A Rambler. Some further checking and it seems to be a 64 or 65, but it’s hard to tell. Also, there was the Rambler American and Rambler Classic. But I have no idea which one (if any?) it was. Hopefully, my father will come to my assistance.
I’ve been writing the Civil War Daily Gazette for over a year and a half. In that time, I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with some wonderful readers who, through their insight, knowledge and passion, correct my mistakes and add to my omissions. There are few things I like more than when someone teaches me something.
For the most part, all of these people have been kind and happy to help. Except one.
A few months back, a reader attacked me for my interpretation of a battle. He wasn’t just upset, he was obnoxious. I was taken aback by this since most people aren’t actually that obnoxious.
First he claimed to be of Cherokee and Southern blood and was not happy with how I portrayed the South’s policies towards the Cherokees. He attacked me for calling Southerners racists (I didn’t), when it was the white northerners who were racists (never said they weren’t). He complained that the north kept attacking “us” (the natives) long after the Civil War. Also, he’s from Virginia, so I’m not really sure who this “us” was.
His long, ranty and rambling comment caught me by surprise, since most people are civil. But more soon followed. He would say things like: “What a big bag of baloney,” and call me confused. It really wasn’t that big of a deal.
From the natives, he moved on to defending Virginia. He first took issue with my use of the word “Manassas,” which was used by officers of both armies (and many people today) to denote the battlefield of the first major battle of the war. In another long, ranty comment, he went on and on about how Manassas didn’t exist, that it was Bull Run, etc etc.
This is when he started with the personal attacks. “All in all I enjoy your articles. I use them as teaching examples to show the kids what revisionism of history looks like, and we examine the non-neutral northern biases that exist in almost all of your articles.” I don’t think he’s actually a teacher. Not a real one, anyway.
The thing is, every time I’d reply, I’d do so in a fair and calm manner. I’d explain myself and my research and was very respectful. But he would never answer back. It soon became clear that he wasn’t looking for any dialog, he was just having a knee-jerk reaction to things that didn’t fit his weird ass “the south was perfect will rise again” silliness.
I tried so hard to just ignore him. “Tears are welling up in my eyes from laughter. That is the most hilarious account of 1st Kernstown that I have ever seen!” began one of his longest rants that took me to task for not properly (in his mind) explaining that a Confederate defeat was actually a Confederate victory. He somehow got the Marines involved in it and… I don’t know… it’s one of those rants you just sort of stop reading about a third of the way through. He’s neither interesting nor literate.
When it came to the Battle of Shiloh, a very clear Confederate defeat, he again piped up. “At Shiloh they will lose most of the battle, more killed and casualties, their entire strategic objective will come to a complete end … yet … the Neo-Yanks hail this as a “victory”. LOL!” Seriously? LOL? This is an adult male who is probably around fifty-ish.
One of his more recent comments began: “Ahem … uh …. gee … look at all the fighting now going on between Darth Lincoln and his Sith Apprentice McClellan over where to put people, how many they have, and the utter failure of Pinkerton and the other Blue Devil contractors in gathering intelligence.”
To a post about Lincoln abolishing the slave trade: “Holy Toledo, Batman, the Neo-Yanks sure love to re-write history and load the wheelbarrow full of manure. Geez. LOL!!”
He’d also go on about New York school textbooks, how Lincoln was an atheist, and, of course, how the South wasn’t fighting to keep slavery.
That was when I decided that I put way too many hours into the project to have to deal with some weird little neo-Confederate’s taunting. This fellow is now banned. And that is sort of great and sort of sucks.
It’s nice to not have to deal with him, but it sucks that people can’t engage in some rational discussion about this. Neither he nor I are experts on this subject. If he would present his views in a calm and adult way, backed up with sources, etc., then I’d love to talk about. But he never engaged in anything more than trolling. That gets old real quick.
I certainly don’t feel bad. And most of all, I’m fortunate that he’s been the only one thus far. If I could finish out that war (and thus the project) having only banned this one nut, I’d be very happy.
