June 17

I received a new vintage camera today!

The camera is a Yashica 635, a twin-lens reflex camera probably produced some time in the 1960s. I'm incredibly pleased to find it in such wonderful shape and completely functional; once I get my photo workshop out of the way later this month, I'll probably put a roll of film through it to see how the images come out.

The camera is unique in that it's designed to take both 120 film (medium format) and, with an adapter, 35mm film. It's an interesting, if somewhat useless, feature, but the camera did come with the adapter, so I could do it if I wanted to.

What it's missing is a light meter, so I'm going to have to really work on the estimating exposure and Sunny 16 rules to get my shots. Fortunately, modern films are pretty forgiving in that respect. I have two other manual cameras with meters, but without batteries (the mercury cells aren't made anymore, for environmental reasons), so I'm getting better at guesstimating exposures.

I'm pretty excited by my new toy, and only hope I can give it the care and attention it deserves.

168/365 -

June 16

I really don't spend all my time goofing off at work. Honest. However, on those occasions that I have a few minutes, I'm not averse to spending some time on some utterly useless activity only for my entertainment. So in a moment of down time at work, I took a post-it note and made a paper aeroplane (seen above).

It's pretty, and more importantly, it flies. The balance is pretty good for something I guesstimated, eyeballed, and experimented with. The wing was originally a little big for the rest of the frame, so I added the makeshift elevator at the back. A paperclip at the front to bring the center of gravity forward, and voilá! Aeronautical magic.

167/365 -

June 15

On the spur of the moment, my friend Marion and I made impromptu arrangements to have dinner over my break this evening.

Dining choices near my workplace are a little limited. You can get excellent but pricey food at Sasso, excellent but expensive steak at Daily Grill, an overabundance of food at Cheesecake Factory, or hit the food court at the Pru. We opted for the food court -- both for price and for selection. It was the right decision: Marion got sushi at the Japanese place, Orange Chicken from the Chinese place, and two sodas (the Chinese place sells Dr Pepper). I got Veggie Samosas and Aloo Naan from the Indian Place, and we met in the middle to dine, chat, laugh, and enjoy one another's company.

If this keeps happening, I'm going to end up having a social life despite my best efforts to be a curmudgeon.

166/365 -

June 14

I thought it was funny how Pogo acts when I found him wrapped up in the bedsheets early this morning. We give him clothes to wear to bed and he starts acting more human. Or, more specifically, more like me. I'm a blanket hog myself.

Pogo has been having accidents at night, so we've had to start putting him in a diaper at night. We call the diaper his "pajamas," though, so we won't embarrass him when we put it on him. It's working; he's wearing it without complaint. So now I'm not having to wash sheets every other day.

Diaper = win-win.

165/365 -

June 13

The crazed senior citizen pictured here in the wicked cool typing gloves is Boyfriend's mother -- my mother-out-law, as I'm fond of saying. Today is her birthday, so we hied it to Connecticut to celebrate with the family. She's looking pretty good for a woman turning 64.

I often like to tell the story about her trying to kill me the first time she met me -- not true, precisely, but it makes for an amusing anecdote nonetheless. His parents have always been kind and gracious to me, welcoming me into the family with open arms. It's scary -- especially to Boyfriend -- how well his mother and I get along. For me, it's a heartening experience, one that makes me glad right down to my very soul.

Plus, she'll pose for me even when I ask her to do something like make a scary face. You have to love a woman like that.

164/365 -

June 12

There was a rainbow over Boston today, and one of my residents called me so I could snap a photo of it. Rainbows, being ephemeral things, often don't last long, and this one faded before I could get a good picture of it.

Since I was 19 floors over Boston, though, I took advantage of the opportunity to get a panoramic shot of the South End. After the clouds parted, it was a lovely day -- perfect for outdoor photography.

They say life is what you make of it, and I'm beginning to see their point. You can't ignore beauty while chasing rainbows.

163/365 -

June 11

Having gone into the subjects of curious juxtapositions in Boston yesterday, it figures that the perfect illustration would present itself today. Oy ...

I have my doubts about whether the smart car is as intelligent a choice as it's being made out to be. I just think it might be more hype than substance. My friend Sean says that all early adopters are showy, but he's willing to believe the car may have something going for it other than its novelty.

It was amusing, though, to see this über-modern little car -- one of the visual punchlines to the new Pink Panther movie -- parking in the Back Bay, among the ever-present Saabs and Volvos.

162/365 -

I'm experimenting with a new "frame" for my Photos of the Day. Opinions on it are welcomed.

June 10

I was walking back to work after parking my car when I happened to look up and catch sight of these two very traditional-looking pipes sticking out of a very postmodern wall of the very postmodern building where I work.

As I'm mechanically disinclined, I have no idea what these pipes do. It did make me think, though, about how Boston manages to meld old architecture and new architecture into a seamless whole. When the Apple Store opened on Boylston Street, the minimalist glass cube set among a row of traditional storefronts should have looked ludicrously out of place. Yet in Boston, it works -- and it won a design award to boot.

If that can work, and win awards, I guess it's not surprising to find two "vintage" pipes in a postmodern ediface. Truth be told, it's nice to live in a place where the two extremes, and everything in-between, can coexist.

161/365 -

June 09

In general -- and in most cases, specifically -- I'm against littering. It's bad for the environment, it's not tidy, and it's uncouth.

Today, though, I was given a glimpse of nature's resiliency. I'm not sure how healthy it is for house sparrows to eat out of plastic containers, and suspect it's just as bad for them as it is for us. At least some living creature was getting sustenance from the litter, though, which I suppose is somewhat better than having it be a completely bad thing.

Still, I wish people would pick up after themselves instead of being lazy jackasses. Litterers suck.

160/365 -

June 08

I spent my first three hours or so on shift tonight folding floorplans. Believe it or not, tedious as it sounds, it wasn't an unpleasant way to start my workday.

Folding floorplans is busywork, pure and simple. It doesn't require a brain surgeon, takes little in the way of skills, and it can be pretty boring, yet it must be done. And honestly, I enjoy busywork on occasion. There are just some days when I have to be at work, but the old brain is a little soft in the middle. Busywork is perfect. Occasionally I even seek it out, and end up taking care of back filing, sorting items, arranging menus and the like.

At the risk of sounding like a nerdy Klingon and a geek (for making this reference), "Today is a good day to file."

159/365 -

June 07

Today's weekend photo walk was one of the more interesting trips I've taken -- specifically because of the company.

Anna and Brandon busied themselves doing environmental work before the photo walk began. They hauled a shopping cart out of the Muddy River near Fenway. I was invited to participate but declined. I picked them up and off we headed, meandering around until we decided to head over to Charlestown and the Bunker Hill Monument.

Marion had to work until 4 pm -- and then an hour later -- so we picked her up en route to Castle Island. She was sporting two black eyes and a bruise over her left eye from a softball accident, so any portraiture plans with my most willing subject went out the proverbial window. Since she gamely let me take photos, though, I cleaned up the bruising just a teensy little bit in Photoshop. After all, we must look our best. ;-)

In the future, I hope we can get some more folks involved in our walks. The people I've met through National Novel Writing Month and Script Frenzy are really some of the most interesting and unique individuals I know -- and I have high standards. It's just a lot of fun spending time with them.

158/365 -

June 06

Anna, my friend and the Young Adult Librarian at the West Roxbury Branch Library, procured an easel to advertise my Photo Workshop on June 24th. Of course, finding something to fill the easel was another issue entirely.

I frankly don't have the money to go have an enlargement of my letter-sized flier made, so I was left with the issue of filling all that space. I considered posting interesting photos around the flier, but that was ... well, boring.

Then I remembered I know how to rasterbate.

The idea of the big poster is to get people's attention, so I looked through my selection of photos for something eye-catching. This photo of Belynda was perfect, and it served as a perfect surround for the flier. Additionally, it's a cheap solution.

I love it when I'm able to come up with a good solution to an unusual problem.

157/365 -

June 05

There's a perfectly rational explanation for this photo. Really.

Late last night, my friend Anna stopped by my workplace after going to the nearby Barnes and Noble. As she had today off, and I hadn't had dinner yet, she proposed that we go out and dine after I got off work. Easier said than done, considering I get off work at 11:30 pm.

Not to be deterred, we decided to go to IHOP, the old reliable 24-hour standby. When we pulled into the parking lot, we spotted this poor Boston Globe box -- sad, neglected, upended. I briefly opined about metaphors and the toppling of the print newspaper industry before telling Anna to go stand there and pretend she killed it. Hey, at 12:01 am, after a long day's work and no dinner, that's funny.

OK, so not perfectly rational, but still funny enough.

156/365 -

June 04

Posting parking meters two days in a row still isn't as bad as all those flower pictures, is it?

What can I say, except that today offered pretty slim pickings photography-wise. I've been kept fairly busy with life and the assorted crap that comes along with it, so getting the camera out and actually finding something noteworthy is problematic.

Today's pic comes from my many circuits of Back Bay city blocks looking for non-resident parking this evening. I do this pretty much every day, so it's applicable to my everyday life. Some days it's easier than others to find that final spot of the day; other days, I have to bite the bullet and pay to park in the garage next door. And there's the ever-present risk of out-of-order meters, with their one-hour limit, and Boston's "move to another block" rule after your meter expires.

It may not be interesting, but it's my life. (Hey, I think I just coined my new blog catchphrase!)

155/365 -

June 03

Summer is remodeling season in Boston's Back Bay, as evidenced by this casually-placed hard hat in a tree.

Remodeling means construction, which means construction trucks taking parking places and other spaces being cordoned off for deliveries and pickups -- even the occasional double-parked enormous construction vehicle taking up more than its alloted half of the already-narrow Back Bay streets. Boston doesn't have that much on-street parking in the first place, so losing five or ten spaces on adjacent blocks has a knock-on effect for the entire neighborhood.

Fortunately, construction workers arrive early and knock off early, so if I can find a space initially, it holds me over for two hours when more spaces are free.

154/365 -

June 02

I'm notoriously bad at growing things. When I see flowers like the ones my neighbor Nicolene grows in her front garden, I'm left green -- pun intended -- with envy.

A couple of summers ago, the boyfriend and I grew tomatoes in pots on our front porch. Boyfriend even put some mint and spices in the soil around the base of the plants. Our reasoning in growing tomatoes was sound enough -- they thrive under "benign neglect," which is pretty much the best a plant will get under my watch. The tomatoes grew tall on their stakes, because I didn't know that you're supposed to prune from the top, and while we harvested perhaps two dozen small tomatoes from the plants, it took two or three of these miniature tomatoes to equal one supermarket specimen.

Nonetheless, it was nice to walk out the door to a little forest of green that summer, if only because it was green and living and vibrant. I may have to try my hand at gardening again soon. Practice makes perfect?

153/365 -

June 01

There is a no-tipping policy in place at the high-end luxury apartment building where I work. "It's all part of the service," is what we're supposed to say when refusing gratuities from grateful residents.

Many of our residents, however, will not be deterred so easily. Ennio and I are often the recipients of gifts of food -- everything from dinner to snacks to sweets -- that our residents bring us to show us their appreciation for our hard work. Today, over the course of about ten minutes, one resident brought us fudge and macaroons from Ocean City, NJ, while another brought us an Edible Arrangements selection of chocolate-covered strawberries (pictured, with an appreciative Ennio).

As I've said before and likely will say again, the residents may offer us the occasional tip out of a feeling of obligation. When they feed you, though, you know they like you.

152/365 -

May 31

If I were a superstitious person -- or any more superstitious than I already am, I should say -- today would have been very auspicious indeed!

My friend Keith and I went roaming today, half in search of photo ops and half just getting out and enjoying a pretty Sunday afternoon. Near the JFK Library, after walking by the bay, we came onto a secluded little garden area. I looked down, because I will look for four-leaf clovers in any patch of clover I happen to see, and spotted this pretty little specimen.

Afterward, between rain showers, we caught sight of a rainbow from Castle Island and then another one over Boston from Memorial Drive in Cambridge.

With all these good luck omens today, I should have bought a lottery ticket!

151/365 -

May 30

My photo walk today was less of a walk and more of a car-based meander.

It was a great day here in Boston, with temperatures in the high 70s but low humidity. Puffy white clouds floated in the clear blue sky while I drove around this afternoon. Nobody was available to hang out, so I went it alone and ended up having a really good time.

From Memorial Drive in Cambridge, I went over to Bunker Hill Park in Charlestown, then to the Charlestown Navy Yard, before driving over to Castle Island and capturing some shots of airliners taking off.

It was there, on the fishing pier, that I looked over my shoulder and caught sight of the stunning sunset behind the Boston skyline. No question -- this was going to be my Photo of the Day.

150/365 -

May 29

Next month, I'm going to be teaching a photography workshop for teens at the West Roxbury Branch Library.

My friend Anna is the Young Adult Librarian there, and in response to a request from one of her students, she asked if I could present this workshop. Originally, it was going to be in the fall, but for budgetary reasons (their fiscal year ends June 30th), they were able to bring me in much earlier.

Above is the flier I've been working on to advertise the event. The library -- read, Anna -- offered to do one for me, but I'm so particular about these kind of things, I thought it best to take care of the design myself. And I'm nearly happy with this one (as you might be able to tell from the scribbled notes in Sharpie all over it). I have a little less than a month to get the workshop materials together, so it should make for an interesting experience.

149/365 -