Hurry Up and Wait

So the trip got postponed, I was suposed to leave Friday.
They are now saying "end of March", sigh.

Virgin no More

I got my passport in 2001 when I was working at Morgan Stanley for the trip to England that I was to take, but the economy started to tank and that trip was canceled. Sad face. With this, that, and the other, I have never had a chance to travel. I have been out of the country 2 times in my life, the first was in 1990 for the eclipse in Mexico (9 minutes of totality!!) the second was riding across Vancouver in a bus (big trip). But now, my passport finely has a stamp in it, and what a stamp!
90 day, double entry Visa for Kazakhstan!

A Fuck Load of Work

So, not only am I working my but off at work, for work preparing for work (Yeah, in this economy nobody should complain about having too much work). But also doing a lot of work preparing for taking pix.
I bought a med format camera for the trip, and had to send it back cuz the lens mount was visibly bent. So, I got a different one and discovered that the light seals were totally degraded :(
I was pissed at the guy who took his camera off the shelf after it had been sitting for years and just assumed it was in the same condition that it was when he put it there...
Hmmm, I should run a roll through my 35mm camera.
So, the plan for this weekend is to scrape off the old light seal, clean the camera thoroughly (probably clean the digicrap too, it is looking nasty), put new light seals in, and run a roll through it to see what is what.
I'll let you know how it turns out.

Frozen Beavers

It is cold in Kazakhstan this time of year. Damn cold! And I may have to be working in the cold.
So, I am considering growing a beard for the trip.

Thoughts? questions? Concerns?

Practice, and Beginning, or 40 Below Zero

So, I am leaving for kazakhstan in a few weeks (I don't know how many, but 3 or 4 is a working number). Don't worry about breaking into my empty house wile I am gone, there will be more people here than there are when I am in town (everybody loves my cat and are queued up to house sit for her). Why am I going? Cuz I am tired of telling people the temperature and having them ask Fahrenheit or Celsius?

But anyway, I will be taking many a photo during the trip and writing about what I see. I will be adding notes as to which camera was used what day and about what I saw (this is for me so I can look back and have an idea as to what I was photographing and why) so you will see the following notes as I blog (I will have internets for most of the trip) and some pix may start showing up on my flickr during the trip. I reserve the right to change my notation.
DC: Digicrap (Nikon CoolPix)
D80: Nikon D80 Digital
F100: Nikon F100 35mm Film
120: Mamiya RB-67 Pro S(120 Film, 60mmX70mm)

Yes, there are a lot of Nikons on the list, I can swap lenses from the D80 and the F100 (Oh, and thieves, if you are trying to steal my cameras, I keep them in my bedroom next to my collection of antique bear traps)

Anyway, I have not taken any pix of the trip yet. But I did go to the doctor to get medically certified for offshore work.

Adulthood

I recently asked my grandmother how was it that I had become an adult. I was feeling frazzled and at wits end with all of the responsibilities that I was feeling like had been thrust upon me. All sorry for myself and full of "life's not fair"

She looked at me and said:
You become an adult when there is something that needs doing; when you look around for a grown up to do it, you find none, so you do it yourself.

The Text from my Toast at Beer Bash's Wake

I would like to raise a glass

We are not here tonight to mourn Beer Bash's passing, but to celebrate his life.

Tonight we remember Beer Bash as a friend.
Tonight we remember Beer Bash as a teacher.
Tonight we remember Beer Bash as a fighter.

To some Beer Bash was merely a fire spewing, fighting beer keg. Nothing more than a mad creation trading incredible hits in the robotic combat arena. But to me Beer Bash was so much more.
For Beer Bash brought me my dear friends Avish, Bruce, Phil, and Susan, and I thank him for this gift.

As we built Beer Bash, Beer Bash in turn taught us. Which I suppose, being a school project, was the point. Beer bash taught us engineering skills, and machining skills. Beer Bash also encouraged us to learn from each-other. This was part of the curriculum at SF State. Beer bash was expected to teach us these things, and we got a grade for it. But Beer Bash taught us more than this, beer bash taught us about taking different paths to victory. Beer bash taught us that you can walk into a competition fully expecting to lose, then lose indeed, lose big, but still be able to call it a victory.

Beer Bash was always very proud of his fighting record. He did not win many fights, but he did win some and this, for his humble beginnings, is something. I think that being made in a public school shop by students taught Beer Bash an important lesson that he carried into the ring for every fight. Nothing is given, if you want to succeed you have to fight for it.
And fight he did. He got in the ring every single time his card was up, no matter what he faced, he fought out of weight class, he fought opponents that out classed him, he fought. It was not until the very last battle that he could not muster the strength to climb into the ring one last time.

After dozens of fights on two continents Beer Bash missed his last fight.

So tonight I raise my glass to Beer Bash's toast:
Drink!! Then fight.