#hopefully getting it Wednesday! i still need to make sure my gap claim actually. got filed. they told me it was autonomatic

[autistic-shaiapouf]

Have decided that the other car is actually very comfortable at the other store and would be annoyed if I transfer it in without actually buying it

Will yall help me ease the autism for a moment bc I was looking at 2 cars and am very settled on the first one but in the back of my mind I'm like. the other car will be so sad if I don't also transfer it in to test drive it

[storiesforpatreon]

#001 — Stories I Will Not Ever Or Have Not Yet Published Publicly (A.K.A. “Secret Stories” #001)

Wednesday, June 7th, 2017

Metro-Detroit, Michigan

Accompanying video link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpIPIjh_BEQ&feature=youtu.be

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This post illustrates how lengthy I can be if I do not check myself. This post is why I try to keep videos short. I go on for too long. I suppose this exists for posterity’s sake. It fills in the details better for the things discussed today. I will absolutely never be as organized as John Wesley, but I certainly am nearly as talkative as the man was. Hahaha.

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0.   BLUR

I messed up. I forgot to set the focus on my face after I set it on the camera straps. Yeesh. A lesson for next time. And, I will remind you—that was my fifth try at the video! Hahaha.

1.  MARCY AND TYLER

A couple weeks back, my assistant and I met this wonderful couple in Detroit. One was from my neck of the woods (30 miles north of downtown Detroit at 15 Mile Road and Harper Avenue in Clinton Township); one was from Grand Rapids (2-3 hours away from the city). They are two young aspiring actors. We had so many laughs. I took them to Greektown and Hart Plaza and up Washington Blvd and Woodward Blvd. I took them to the Fox Theatre and the David Klein Gallery and past a few other noteworthy places. It was glorious. One day I will get along to culling the hundreds of photos that my assistant and I took of them.

 2. DOMINIC

As my assistant kept getting lost in Detroit, I happened upon a truly unexpected photography opportunity. I had to holler at her to come over. Haha. She was walking about the median of the street. Dominic wanted to me to photograph his friend and himself coming out of the limo and going into the restaurant. He said he was going to pay me extra at the end of the little shoot. It was 10:20 pm, so I thought I would be done by 12:20 am. I made sure to keep a regular watch on the time. He asked what my rate was, and I told him that we could talk about that later (I have never had a “rate”). It was clear that he hardly knew the girl that came over. He was using my assistant and I to make him look “important.” He said we were his paparazzi. Hahaha. His buddy backed up his claim. What Dominic had claimed was a possible marriage proposal to a serious girlfriend was likely actually a first or maybe second date with a girl. A second girl arrived, and she was not comfortable with the cameras, so Dominic said he was happy with our work thusfar. We left. I had $200 in cash, and my assistant had $15 in cash. This was fair, since she had no clue what she was doing the whole time. She kept pulling me aside and telling me her photos were blurry or too bright or too dark, so I would trade her cameras. When I would then use the camera she had, I was able to get good photos. I still am dumbfounded as to how she was having such a hard time photographing. We traded cameras many times. When I got back home, I looked at the shots before I went to bed. She had a few good ones but a lot of bad ones. It is a learning experience for her, and she got $15 for an hour’s work. That is the same rate that makes up the independent living wage here in Michigan. That is good money. That is the rate that the photographer that I want to work with offered to start me at. That was not good enough for my assistant. She shook me down for more money. I have never taken a cab or uber before, so I gave her the $20 that the restaurant folks gave me. I was infuriated. For context, this girl has no need for money ever. In midtown, at Wayne State University, there is a law building named after her grandfather. Her family has a membership to the Detroit Athletic Club (the most expensive place to have a wedding in the state). She has 18th century furniture from England (that she is trying to get rid of) and ~2000 year old Chinese tapestries and Japanese samurai swords at her house. She has a $40K emerald ring from the 1920’s. She has no need for cash. She was just being very petty. She likes that I am doing something meaningful, so she comes along. I work light. I never eat in the city unless she wants to pay (I would rather work than spend cash on food). I don’t live frivolously. She has never paid me, and I have never paid her—until today. She got that cash from me, and I felt used. I suppose it hurts the most when you are betrayed by someone you count on and hope to trust in.

 3. D600 SENSOR

The Nikon D600 has a physical issue involving its shutter mechanism. Nikon used to make all their gear in Japan, where they are based; now they make most of their gear in China, and that has resulted in poorer build quality. That is one reason why I love my cheap, old, manual focus Nikon lenses. They were all HAND MADE!! That is amazing! That also makes them simpler to repair. If something can be assembled by hand, it must also be easier to disassemble and reassemble it by hand too (compared to something produced by a specialized machine). The shutter on the D600 sloughs off plastic bits from the shutter and also spits oil droplets onto the camera’s image sensor. That is akin to a camera doing that to the film inside of the camera body. The thing that makes this worse than if it was a film body is that you are stuck with the same sensor, so that means you have to be careful to keep it clean. I took my two cameras in to be cleaned it was $25 per camera, and the guy, Joel, did both for $40. On top of that, he gave me two camera straps for free! I knew I wanted to buy a vintage strap for the D600. I just think they are classier. Plus, they are WAY cheaper than a $50 boring, modern strap! I remembered they had a good selection of old, used straps from before. Well, they only had three left this time. I bought the last one for $5. I knew when I did that he might have given that to me for free too, but it was not right after he had saved me $20 between the cleanings and the straps. I think he admired my passion for photography. We had a glorious conversation about photography. I had him check out my D200, and he cleaned it for free! Hahaha. This was in part because he sold the D200 to me, and the camera had a speck underneath the sensor (a $100+ fix at a different store), which was impossible to clean without a very expensive procedure. This speck was likely there before I bought the camera. I did not notice it until he pointed it out to me. Perhaps that was why he was so nice. Haha. I brought in some of my old lenses and asked him questions about them. I joked that he was around and a working photographer when these lenses were produced, so he should know more than me about them. Hahaha. I have this macro lens I got for $10 (usually around $100 used) that would not stop down (let the aperture get narrower). I thought it was missing the aperture. He said that the lens likely had oil that leaked on the aperture that made it recede into the lens. All I would have to do is take apart the lens and wipe off the oil spot, and it would work like it was brand new. That is amazing! I guess the new, plastic lenses are not as fixable as the old metal ones. I mentioned that cars used to be able to be repaired at any gas station (or at least I heard). He said that his present car’s headlights cost $200 to replace, since the engineers designed the bulbs to only be accessible by getting to them beneath the engine! Hahaha. It really was a wonderful talk.  

 4. STRAP FOR ASSISTANT

I sewed cotton batting, fleece, nylon trim and elastic together (along with a 9” zipper) to make the ultimate comfortable strap for my assistant to use with the “new” (used) 2012 Nikon D600 camera. That took nine hours. I got another strap from a camera store for $3 (again, the only vintage strap they had on hand), and I have poured 12-20 hours (so far!) into that $3 strap to hopefully try to improve upon the original modification to the other strap. Maybe if I can do this to a few straps, I will make a video for it. I just sit and sew as I listen to Al Mohler’s “The Briefing” or “The World and Everything In It” (my two favorite weekday news podcasts) or a B&H Photo lecture on some photographic topic.

 5. RODE MICROPHONE

This microphone is invaluable for video making. It is the standard microphone used on the streets by YouTubers just as the microphone I used in this video is the standard one used at home by many YouTubers.

 6. LACUNA IN VIDEOS MADE

Lacuna

[luh-kyoo-nuh]

noun, plural lacunae [luh-kyoo-nee], lacunas.

1. a gap or missing part, as in a manuscript, series, or logical argument; hiatus.

2. Anatomy. one of the numerous minute cavities in the substance of bone, supposed to contain nucleate cells.

3. Botany. an air space in the cellular tissue of plants.

Origin of lacuna — Latin  —  1655-1665  —  1655-65; Latin lacūna ditch, pit, hole, gap, deficiency, akin to lacus vat, lake1. Cf. lagoon

 7. CAMPING JAKE DAD AND STRAP

My best friend’s step mom and actual dad both died of cancer in 2016. This camping trip was a chance to spread his dad’s ashes. The last time he went on a vacation was the last time he and I camped there. It was a very good week to decompress. I sewed the whole time. I knew I would have trouble reading a book during the down time there. Jake rented an RV for the week. Haha. His brother was sick and stayed in the whole week watching The Three Stooges and Abbott and Costello movies (we are a classy bunch). His girlfriend (who I forgot to mention was there) stayed in and texted much of the time. His mother and sister only showed up for a day and then went home. That left him and I to sit by the fire and talk and talk as I sewed. We biked and hit up the beach that was immediately beyond our site. Haha. It was only maybe $150 for five days and four nights for the six of us (though not all of us stayed the whole time). That is a deal for being right on the beach! The RV was a different story. He paid for that himself. I thought I was going to sleep in a tent, but the RV had room for me, and he insisted I stay there. Haha. What a glamorous way to camp. Jake, his brother, and I remember the other side of camping. I guess one time, there was this horrible storm, and our tent was leaking from above and flooding from beneath. I slept through the nearly whole thing. Jake and Justin were frantically trying to patch up the top of the tent with a tarp. Haha. finally, I awoke and was very confused as to what was going on! Hahaha. Jake, Justin (his little brother), and I have a legion of stories like this. Haha. Needless to say, this was a huge upgrade. I would have been more than happy, though, to sleep in a tent. I got to know the people at the general store at the camp site (it was right next to our spot). The lady, Kris, there told me that we had the worst spot in the park, since is was the first one to flood whenever there was a good rain. I told her that I knew it flooded, but I did not know it was so particularly bad in that way! Haha. Jake and Justin got a good laugh from that. Hahaha.

 8. WALK AND TALK ARE FUN BUT LONG

Well, I forgot to mention this in the video. I am having trouble getting the Walk and Talk videos to be edited, since there is just so much footage to comb through. My solution is to set a time limit when I am in the city to use for shooting the video. This will combine the sublime structure of a lesson with the equally exquisite openness of the walk-along video. I just have so much fun making the walk-along videos, and I think that happiness and energy help make those installments more compelling than the more formal lesson videos. I really need to find a way to marry the two. To do a candid walk around that contains a lesson on a topic. For some reason, I am too dumb (for now) to figure out how that would work.

 9. EMAILED PHOTOGRAPHER - ONE AT A TIME

Parmenides (the founder of western philosophy, who said “whatever is is.”). I say “Parmenides” to say “it is what it is.” Haha. I emailed the guy. That is what it is. Haha. There is little more to explain here. I hope he hires me.

10. HOW DO I HAVE A BETTER WITNESS IN DETROIT

This is an ongoing desire. I need to find my angle. I am cut to the quick. It is said that George Whitfield could not go more than half of an hour without telling someone of the Grace and of Christ on sinners. He just was a bloodstained believer with a holy fire in his belly. I need to get my way of being as the greatest evangelist of the past 2000 years was. Even D. Martin Lloyd Jones said he would give up anything to have even just a week of George Whitfield’s life. The man was that effective and great.