30 May 2005, evening Argh, I had a lazy day today, just sitting where I am now. But yesterday, I met my friends from work at the Brazilian meat restaurant at Kobe Harborland. Once again, it was a fantastically meaty experience. I arrived in Harborland about 90 minutes before our reservation time, so I had a lot of time to walk around and take pictures and get hungry. So thank you to Linda, Rob, Dana, Dan, Fiona, Seth, Saki, Sachie, Nao, Yuki, Yukiko, Yuki (no mistake), Caroline, Craig and Dani for coming and wishing me well at my new school/job. After dinner, we all went to a game center for a "print club" session. That was about 10 people squeezing into a photo booth. Boy, was it hot! We were locked out of our usual route to the station because of the hour, so it took a long time to get home. In other news: I'm stuck in the middle of my Yashica Lynx restoration until I receive an order of light baffle material. I'm determined to get the camera working again, but right now it's just a loose bundle of parts in a plastic tub. I had to rip up the leatherette body covering to get to the lens, so that's something else to replace, and more money. It's a true learning experience. I could certainly buy one in perfect working order for less than my repair cost. That's okay though. How else can I realize my dream of becoming a camera repair man/jazz singer/photographer/self-sufficient farmer/Attenborough-esque nature show host?
Dolphin rider ride in shopping center. Who thought of this, I wonder?29 May 2005, morning I finished reading Peter Pan while in Guam. I really had fun reading it. I didn't know anything, really, about Peter Pan before. I've never seen the play, and I've never seen the Disney version (although I have ridden the ride). I enjoyed the fantasy and the violent/innocent action. It was darker than I'd imagined, and Peter Pan was less of a hero. I liked the character of the pirate Capt.James Hook. His was the most compelling, and made me want to read more pirate fiction. Now I'm reading Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson, which is great, but I'm waiting for Treasure Island to arrive from Amazon. Luckily I have a Scottish coworker to coach me in the pronunciation of the huge number of old Scottish words in Kidnapped.
Me photographing a wallowing ox. Photo by Kumiko.26 May 2005, night We just got back from Guam. Let me say this first: best Star Wars ever. I was so impressed with the drama of Anakin's conversion to the dark side. Darth Vader was already a sympathetic character, but now it's hard to feel anything else. The emperor's part was played perfectly, by the character and by the actor. And Hayden Christensen was much better here than in the last movie. The relationship with Obi-wan was well played and developed as well, and that duel between them was amazing. I loved it. I'm not going to mention the bad parts, because they were few and didn't amount to any real detraction from the story and everyone already knows what they are. Thankfully Jar Jar was held to a non-speaking role. Guam itself was a surprise as well. I wasn't excited thinking about Guam, but we found it to be a really relaxing, beautiful island, populated by the friendliest people I've ever encountered. I'd love to go back and explore a bit more. We probably will. It's a fast, easy, cheap trip from Japan. I'm not looking forward to work tomorrow, but it's always good to be home.
Kids and their grandmother at Koroen station. Guam pics to come!19 May 2005, morning No. I decided to ask the seller for a refund rather than fix the shutter. He shouldn't get away with false advertising. I'll repair the shutter on my Yashica Lynx 5000 instead, as well as adjusting the focus. It's started sticking on any speed below 1/60sec. So I'm going to need a couple of tools right off: a lens spanner and a soldering iron. I've already consulted a repair site, and taken it apart as far as I can without the soldering iron. I was able to repair the meter display in the viewfinder without any tools. There was a small mirror which was missing, so I just replaced it with aluminum foil and it works perfectly. My first success. But from what I've read, most first amateur repair jobs end up heaped into a plastic bag and set out with the trash. You have to ruin a couple before you fix anything. If this one ends up in a heap, I won't cry. I've now received yet another camera in the mail, and this one seems to work beautifully from the start. It's a Voigtlander Bessa RF, not the modern 35mm rangefinder with the same name, but the bigger pre-war (ca.1939) Bessa which inspired it. This is a 6x9cm folder, same proportions as 35mm, but much much bigger image. I had a dream last night that I'd received the first roll back from this camera, and rather than the things I remembered photographing, there were just a lot of screen shots from Star Wars movies. Not such an odd dream, considering that cameras and Star Wars are foremost in my thoughts right now. We're going to Guam in only 5 days. In addition to Star Wars, I think I want to see Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy while we're there. So to summarize the camera situation, the Balda Super Baldax 6x6 folder is in the mail, on its way back to England for a refund (I hope). The Zeiss Super Ikonta 532/16 6x6 folder is on its way to Pennsylvania to get a new bellows and to be cleaned, lubed and adjusted (CLA). It will come back as a perfectly tuned and usable instrument. The 6x9 Voigtlander Bessa is now on frame 6 of 8 of its first roll (you only get 8 frames when they're this big), and seems to work a charm. What's next? I think I'll look for a 35mm folder next. No rush, no need, but can one ever really be satisfied? It's against human nature.
This is the best of a few good shots I got from the Super Baldax before it seized up completely.
Taken with the super Ikonta14 May 2005, morning Only a few minutes to play around before my early shift. Saturday is definately the toughest day at work, but starting next month I'll have Saturdays off. I received a third package - the Super Baldax 6x6 folding camera a couple days ago, but I've been dissappointed that the shutter doesn't fire accurately. I'm thinking of trying to repair it myself. There are lots of camera repair sites and forums which walk you through different procedures. I'm sure I can find one for the Prontor SVS shutter.I've been thinking how cool it would be to learn camera repair, and this may be my first step. I'm going to give it a few days though, to see if the shutter will fix itself with use (possible).
An old house in Osaka.9 May 2005, evening Two days and two packages in the mail. Yesterday I received two filters for my Zeiss Super Ikonta, both yellow. I don't know why this fellow was selling two nearly identical yellow filters in the same lot, but I won them on auction from a guy in Russia for $1, so it didn't really matter. The shipping was $10. Hopefully he made a bit of profit on the shipping too. Today I got an order from Amazon: The Private Life of Plants (David Attenborough) and Pennies from Heaven (the BBC mini-series with Bob Hoskins). My friends Ernesto and Jill and I used to look for Pennies from Heaven on video back in the days, but we could only find the movie with Steve Martin. I've seen parts of the miniseries, but it was ages ago and I can't remember much. Today we went to Hep Navio and watched a movie called "Dodgeball". Pretty funny. We smuggled Subway sandwiches into the theater, except that you don't have to smuggle them here. It's not against the rules. Here's a link to a new set of photos called "People and the Train". Well, some of them are new.
Enjoying free Asahi beer after the brewery tour.7 May 2005, morning So much to catch up on. Last Tuesday I drove for the first time in Japan. Kumiko's mom suggested we take their car out for a drive since we didn't have plans, and I thought that was a great idea, since I made sure to get my international driving permit last time we were in Austin. We drove up to the mountains around Mino City. It was fun, harrowing driving. The roads are very narrow. You drive on the left with your steering wheel on the right. To your immediate right is oncoming traffic, and to the left a kind of drainage ditch cut into the road just wide enough for your wheel to slip down into it and get stuck. I don't know why they do that. Luckily I navigated it successfully. We had a great time and saw some really beautiful mountain scenery. The colors outside have been more vibrant and the vistas deeper, since all the factories are shut down for golden week holidays. On the way back home we got caught in traffic, which was frustrating, just like old times. In other news, I got a promotion at work, and am now the most powerful man I know. The new position is similar to waht I was doing (teacher training), but I'll be overseeing 4 or 5 schools rather than just one. My working hours have increased, so I've asked to be moved to a block of schools nearer my house, which I think will happen in July or August. In photo news, I've bought two more cameras from Ebay (a Balda Super Baldax 6x6 folding camera, like my Zeiss but lighter weight and without a bellows light leak, supposedly, as well as a Voigtlander Bessa RF 6x9 folder, also in supposedly excellent working order). Neither have been delivered yet. They're both old German cameras, but they'll be coming from England and Canada respectively. In the garden, there is more news: I've gotten several of ther white cucumber seeds to sprout at home, so I'll be transferring them to the garden probably next weekend when they're a bit stronger. Everything else is going great guns now. We had big rain day before yesterday, and sunny skies yesterday and today, which is a potent combination for growth. I'll go down and visit the garden in a few minutes.
2 May 2005, evening Everything I planted two weeks ago in the garden has sprouted and is growing, except the white cucumbers. I'd given them a deadline of today in my mind, and since they hadn't shown themselves at all this morning, I went ahead and planted three regular cucumbers in their place. The seeds for the white ones are still in the ground, but hope has pretty much faded for them. I've planted a couple more in small pots on the balcony to see if I can get better results at home. There's still room for them if they do decide to grow. Kumiko also helped me plant two goya seedlings this morning. Tomorrow I'll probably plant two more of those as well. The beets were getting to the point where I needed to thin them out a bit. I hate thinning plants out. It gives me a shameful feeling to plant them and then pull them up in their infancy. But it must be done for the good of the nation. The okra and turnips will also need to be thinned out soon. It's so hard to pick which ones live and which die. It's like a lottery of death. After gardening, we relaxed a bit at home, watched Star Wars, then headed out to Osaka, where Kumiko joined me on a photography walkabout. We went to Naniwanomiya park, where people bring their dogs, and talked to a guy who had a Belgian shepherd. It was really pretty, but very skittish. For some reason it's afraid of people, and he said that this visit to the park was a kind of therapy to overcome its fear. My friend Brian sent me a link to a Star Wars episode 3 review, and I have to say, it sounds like an amazing and terrifying movie. Really looking forward to watching it, but at the same time, I know it's going to be hard to watch. After walking around for quite a while, we went back to Umeda and had ramen at Kumiko's favorite shop, "Kotan". It was a real treat, since neither of us has had ramen for ages. Finally, we stopped at the Tsutaya video store in Umeda, which is much more complete than our local shop, because I wanted to watch an old movie tonight. I picked "Dark Passage" and Kumiko picked "Bringing up Baby". We're going to watch one of them in about 15 minutes.
I like this picture: a "mansion" entrance in Taisho, central Osaka.
