A week or so ago Best Buy had an online clearance sale on Star Wars merchandise.
I picked up the Black Series Landspeeder with Luke figure, and a second Sphero droid.
R2-D2 inspects the new box Continue reading “R2 Units”
The 50s
Today is the 50th anniversary of one of the best monster movies ever made.
This was one of the first ones I remember watching on TV, probably on the tiny 13-inch black and white set in my parent’s bedroom.
And probably on the 3:30 Movie on KGO Channel 7 in San Francisco.
Between the weird ‘metal’ aliens (Kilaaks) and the 11 Toho monsters and the Moonlight SY-3 (I still want a toy of that) there’s very little to not like about this one. It’s campy and silly at times, just like a classic Godzilla film should be.
My favorite part is when the Kilaak leader begins to gloat near the end, and then Godzilla smashes into their secret base.
It’s like, “naw, b*tch, we comin’ for you, too!”
This was one of the few classic Godzilla films that I got to watch with Dad, sometime last year. He found it just as silly as I do, but entertaining.
What I found amusing was that the English subtitles did not match the English dubbing for a good portion of the movie.
I watched it over the weekend, not knowing that today was the actual 50th anniversary. I may watch it again tonight, just because.
Cleaning Up
My Dad rarely, if ever, asked for help with anything around the house. I usually ended up helping him bring groceries up the stairs, or laundry, or bringing down garbage and recyclables from the kitchen or bathrooms.
Sometimes he’d make it halfway up the stairs with a sack of rice before I knew what he was doing. I’d bring it up the rest of the way.
When he moved back home in 2016, the basement and garage was filled with the moving boxes from his place up in Washington state. I kept asking if we could reorganize or clear a lot of the boxes so one or both of us could park inside the garage. He kept insisting that he’d get to it, eventually, and while he did empty a few boxes and dumped stuff, the garage was never cleared.
So I did that this weekend, dumping and rearranging the boxes so I could park my car back inside the garage.
The best part?
The boxes are situated so I can go through a few every weekend, and do more dumping. They were not so arranged before my reshuffle. I just need to back my car out and have plenty of room to sort through the rest of the boxes.
And then I can start on the basement. Again.
Randoms
Shutter Priority setting
Aperture Priority setting
Camera stuff
I did a factory reset on my Canon, and a couple of test shots this morning appeared to have fixed the issue with whatever settings I screwed up.
I also picked up a couple of new memory cards (64GB) since they were on sale, and the 32GB card that I was using was producing a ‘cannot read card’ error message. I initially thought that the off brand replacement battery may have been causing the error, as some folks had been stating online, but it happened when I used the stock battery with the camera as well.
I need to start taking pictures again. Maybe my toy rocket will go on a mission this weekend.
Friday
Model Building
The last time I built a model of the Starship Enterprise was over 35 years ago, and it was the movie refit Enterprise. She still hangs from the ceiling in my bedroom.
Today I built a snap-together Original Series Enterprise, pre-decorated.
POI
A couple of years ago I introduced Dad to Person of Interest. He liked it right away. We would watch a couple of episodes every few weeks or so, maybe every two months.
We got to the introduction of Shaw in season 2 before Dad passed away. I wish he could have seen the rest of season 2, when the finale actually took place in Hanford, Washington’s nuclear plant, where he worked while he and Mom lived up there.
Today I got to Season 3, episode 9, where I experienced the biggest TV shock since Marie Warner shot her fiancée on 24.
And I cried. Mostly for what happened in the story, but also a good cathartic cry for my Dad.
That cry seemed to clear my head and shook me out of a funk I’d been feeling for a couple of weeks now.
And I came to a decision about something.
I’m not going to move to Sacramento.
There’s a position open in our agency’s office up there. I was supposed to go up there these past couple of days to check it out, but a sore back stopped me from going Wednesday, and Thursday I didn’t feel well in the morning.
Maybe this was a sign.
I figured stress was responsible for both days, and once I sat down and made the conscious decision to no longer consider the Sacramento move scenario, I felt a great weight lifted from me.
I have enough to deal with around this house, disposing of so much of Dad’s and my own stuff, I don’t feel that the added stress of moving was needed.
I felt that I needed to move out of this house ASAP, partly because of the constant reminder of where I found Dad on the steps, every time I walk by them. But over the past couple of weeks that feeling has lessened. I’ll always have that painful memory, and the time will come when I will move out of here, but that time is not now.
For the moment, I feel less stressed than I’ve been in a couple of months.
I still need to go see a therapist to cope with grieving, but I think I made some headway on my own.
Primed and ready for painting
In progress inspection
Behold, PORG!
ADVANCE! TO BATTLE!
On the battlefield, against the Paneuropean forces
Bird’s eye view