Strange Pulse

Now’s your chance to see.

It’s dirty.

This is Daniel’s office. The tv shows the security camera feed. The picture on the wall next to it is an autographed picture of Three Inches of Blood. The bamboo plant on his desk is one I was given at my work. The little blocks of wood next to it are his disassembly puzzles.

That giant garbage can? It’s a giant garbage can.

Lots of machines with switches.

Lots of raw materials laying around. If Daniel ever starts his own blog, I told him he has to call it “Metal Flake.”

I don’t remember what that machines does. These are the materials the bases are made from:

The machine on the right is a press, the green coil is an air line, I think:

These are boards after they’ve been pressed but not yet finished (they get trimmed and sanded down):

Boards after they’ve been finished:

Another coil:

Another dirty machine:

There you have it. Now you know why Daniel’s constantly covered in gook and grime. And thus my carpets.

The other morning I got up early and went into downtown Huntington Beach to snap some pictures. I used my Holga, which is a toy camera that uses 120 format film. You basically point, shoot, and wind the film. It’s fun, and Holgas are known for having vignetting and sometimes, um…interesting focus.

This is the surfing museum:

Antique store:

A hydranga that is over 80 years old, next to the antique store:

I love living here.

Except for the part about being twice what we pay in rent now.

Cat, Daniel and I went to the beach the other morning, before Daniel headed to work. We went to a local spot where there’s never any people, called Sunset Beach.

Daniel found a football on the sand, so they tossed it around. He later joked to Nathaniel that you don’t need to bring anything to the beach, so much junk washes up on shore. You just go there, play with a football, then take it home, leave it in the gutter. Next time you go to the beach, there it is again!

We set up some chairs and nearly got ran over by the beach cleaner.

But he detoured around us at the last minute.

Daniel headed out into the surf to catch some waves.

He mostly missed them, though.

Then we all spotted something scary in the water.

Daniel immediately booked it in to shore.

Cat said, “If I wasn’t afraid to surf, I for sure wouldn’t be afraid of DOLPHINS!”

Daniel said, “You don’t understand. Everytime you go out there, you’re operating under the idea that there could not possibly be anything else in the water with you. You don’t like having that illusion blown!”

Especially when that something in the water with you has a dorsal fin.

Plus, he heard a surfer once got his back broken when a too-friendly dolphin jumped on him.

Haven’t done one of these in awhile…mainly because the radio.blog hasn’t been working. I finally got it moved and set up with a newer version.

I like to make themed mix cds/playlists. It’s easy to do in iTunes—just do a search for a particular term, and all the songs with that word in the title appear. When we drove out to Beaumont to watch the meteor shower, I made a couple mix cds based on a “star” theme:

Stars - Alison Krauss & Union Station
Shooting Star - Bad Company
Star - Belly
California Stars - Billy Bragg & Wilco
What the Stars Have Eaten - Deadboy & the Elephantmen
Shining Star - Earth Wind & Fire
Starlight - Electric Light Orchestra
Two Star - Everything But The Girl
Downed Star - Floor
Star Star - Frames
Starshine - Gorillaz
Star - Jesu
Under Cold Blue Stars - Josh Rouse
Andy, You’re a Star - Killers
Lucky Star - Madonna
Northstar Blues - Magnolia Electric Co.
Soft Rock Star - Metric
Stardog Champion - Mother Love Bone
star star star - Motorpsycho
Stars Around Her - Mountain Goats
Starlight - Muse
Hanging on a Star - Nick Drake
If I Were A Little Star - Nicolai Dunger
Wishing On A Star - Paul Weller
Copper and Stars - Planes Mistaken for Stars
Stars Die - Porcupine Tree
Baby I’m A Star - Prince & The Revolution
Star/Pointro - Roots
When The Stars Go Blue - Ryan Adams
Everybody is a Star - Sly and the Family Stone
Star Power - Sonic Youth
Superstars - Styx
City of Stars - United State of Electronica

Sometimes the mixes are good, sometimes they’re just so-so. But it makes it interesting, cuz I never really know what’s going to come on next, and they’re often full of songs I don’t normally listen to, which makes it fun in two ways: 1) I’ll often discover artists or songs I’ve overlooked previously 2) I often can’t remember who some songs are by, and I have to try to figure it out based on their position in the mix—the playlist is always alphabetical by artist name.

Most of these were bands I’m already pretty familiar with. Except one stood out as someone I need to check out more: Nicolai Dunger.

Next music post will be: my “magic” theme for our latest trip to Magic Mountain.

Daniel and I went to the wetlands the other night at sundown. He brought the new Dune book to read. I brought some of my cameras.

It’s one of my favorite places to go. When there’s not a lot of people there, especially. I just find it very serene.

Daniel hated the noise of the traffic. It’s right along the Pacific Coast Hwy, and where we were, you could hear it really loudly.

That’s a picture of one of my cameras, this one, in fact. I set it on a bench, pointed it toward Daniel, and then stood on the bench and took a picture from above it. It’s one of those cameras where you look down into the viewfinder from above. Pretty cool, huh?

The trails run pretty close to the edge of the water, and apparently, the ground is crumbling away in spots. I leaned against the fence railing—actually, I must have sat on it, because it fell off, and I landed on my back on the other side of the fence. Boy did I feel stupid. I wish I’d had a picture of it though! I was lucky the edge of the water was another 5 feet beyond where I landed.

(Don’t trust the fence railing)

What you’re missing from these pictures is the smell. Especially down in this area:

A lot of garbage gets washed out from drainage ditches and into the wetlands. It’s really gross. People were fishing, though, and we saw fish jumping out of the water.

I managed to pick up a couple cameras really cheaply at a flea market yesterday. I decided to take pictures of all the cameras I’ve amassed so far. It might look impressive, but these are all super cheap, junk store cameras.

First, the fold-out cameras. I have two, both Kodaks.

This is the Kodak Jiffy, folded up:

This is the Jiffy extended out:

Having them be collapsible was meant to make it more convenient to carry around. You can fold it down and stick it in your pocket! They must’ve had large pockets back then.

This is one my parents just sent me, and it’s a little the worse for wear. I haven’t identified what exact model it is yet:

And folded out:

I haven’t run film through either of these yet, but I did shoot a couple pictures on the Jiffy. The film seized up and won’t advance. I haven’t taken it into my darkened bathroom yet to open it and see if I can figure out what’s wrong with it.

Next, the medium format box cameras.

The Argus 75:

Which I used to take these pictures. Here’s one as an example:

I also have a Super 75:

Can you tell the difference?

The 75 doesn’t allow you to control the focus or the aperature. The Super 75 does. I tried running a roll through the Super and it came out completely blank, I’m not sure yet what went wrong.

Kodak Dualflex II, which I have not tried out yet (it’s sort of skewed and I’m worried it might not be light-tight):

And a camera I just picked up yesterday, a Ricohflex Dia M:

It’s not in the greatest shape. The shutter won’t adjust, I think something’s broken. I loaded film into it anyway, and then realized the frame counter isn’t working either, so I’m going to have to guess at how many times to crank it for each frame. Should be interesting to see how it comes out.

Toy cameras.

I only have a couple. A Holga 120N:

My first test roll through the Holga, I accidentally had the shutter setting wrong, and everything came out overexposed. So I’m running another roll through it now.

I also have this Debonair, which I thought was a Diana clone, but I think it might be more of a Holga clone (they’re all pretty much the same thing, anyway):

You can see pictures I’ve taken with it here. Here’s one example:

Sub-miniature cameras!

AKA “spy” cameras. I just realized I forgot to take a picture of one. It’s for 110 film (remember that?) and I always keep it in my bag. Problem is, I forget it’s there, and have yet to actually snap any pictures with it. (I don’t know where I can get the film developed! They don’t make it anymore.)

Here’s another one I have, which I bought because it was so cute and little, not realizing I wouldn’t be able to find film for it:

Above is the front, below is the back:

It’s called a Univex. To give you an idea of the size:

Those are regular sized hair barrettes (not the jumbo ones).

And finally, 35mm cameras. Here’s a really early one, an Argus Model A:

You can see pictures I’ve taken with it here.

This is a similar one called the Spartus 35F:

This is a later Argus model called the C3:

It’s also known as “the brick.” Because it’s big, thick, and HEAVY. It’s also credited with making 35mm into the standard film in use today. I think I broke mine. I need to clean it up and see if I can figure out what’s going on with it.

This is a Russian Zenit TTL, with my favorite lens, the Helios 44-M:

It’s the one that does the crazy swirling effect:

And my other latest flea market find, a Mamiya Sekor 1000 DTL. The 1000 means its shutter speed goes up to 1/1000, which is pretty fast for such an old camera. What’s really cool about this camera, though, is that it has a built-in spot meter, which was rare back when it was made.

I haven’t tested it out yet…dying to though! Soon! I just realized the ring around the lens that tells you what kind of lens it is is gone. Interesting.

And, the old camera I had years and years ago that my uncle gave me, a Minolta Maxxum:

It’s nice, cuz I have three lenses for it, including the big zoom lens you see. However it’s very much an automatic camera, and I’ve gotten into old school manuals, if you can’t tell!

My husband thinks I’m weird for taking pictures of all my cameras. So it’s ok if you do, too.

P.S. I obviously haven’t included a picture of my digital camera. Don’t want to waste film on it!

My dad made me and my brother these toy horses that we loved. That’s my older sister playing with us, and our dog Daisy. It’s weird to see that tree so young. I remember it being big and sturdy enough for me to hang from a branch and run my feet up the trunk.

On our way to the Pelican show last Friday, we stopped at an intersection with this crazy gas station. Nathaniel quickly snapped a picture before the light turned green.

I tend to think “Only in LA” when I see stuff like this, but then I remember the EMP in Seattle.

Did anyone stay up late and watch the meteor shower last night?

I took Nathaniel and Catherine out east to a little town called Beaumont, in an attempt to get away from the city lights, to watch the show in the sky.

The kids counted 12 shooting stars. We were there for about two hours. I was busy taking pictures and only saw a few. But it was really fun and cool.

We were originally intending on driving out to Palm Springs, which is about a 2 hour drive, but when we got to Beaumont (about an hour away) we decided just to try to find a side road to park on. We ended up driving through some hills and finding a golf course. As soon as we stepped out of the car, a security guard was coming at us with his flashlight. He wanted to know what we were doing there. I guess they’d had some break-ins recently. But when we told him we just came to watch the meteor shower, he suggested we go down by the grass where there were less lights!

So we took our gear—three beach chairs, two cameras, a mini-tripod, a water bottle, a cell phone, and an iPod—and went down by the grass to look at the sky. Fortunately we didn’t sit *on* the grass, because after a bit the sprinklers came on.

We had a good view of the southern sky (I think it was south). We wondered later if we should’ve been looking north, but there were lights and hills that direction. The kids counted 12 shooting stars. I saw maybe three. One in particular was really long and bright and amazing.

I set up my tripod and took a few pictures of the night sky. I was leaving the shutter open for 15 seconds. So I told the kids to go do stuff in front of the camera. We had fun with this for a bit:

I know we caught some streaks made by planes (above), but I think this streak (below) is actually a meteor.

Then I noticed Cat had the cell phone. I told her to draw something with it, so she wrote her name:

Problem is, the cell phone’s light would shut off before 15 seconds were up, plus the battery was low. We quickly figured out the her iPod would be better. And that’s when the real fun began:

Nathaniel made Cat into an angel:

Cat made me into a devil:

I made Cat into a kitty:

I tried outlining Cat (that may be a shooting star in the horizon):

I tried drawing a palm tree, but the camera setting accidentally got changed to 5 seconds rather than 15:

Cat had fun with spirals:

I tried to make lightning come out of Cat’s finger:

She’s a lovey:

Nathaniel, not so much:

As we were clearing up to head home, I told the kids I hoped the pictures came out ok. Nathaniel said, “My POOP came out ok!”