The sound of silence

April 11th, 2010

I’ve been ill over the last few days.  One of the unfortunate side effects – one that has befallen me twice before – was the affliction of laryngitis.  My voice has nearly disappeared and what remains can only be coaxed out with significant effort.  About one time in four, when I attempt to speak with volume, a pathetic raspy whisper emits instead.

One does not really appreciate the utility of the human voice until it is lacking.  Also, having laryngitis is surprisingly inconvenient because people do not particularly understand it.  Oh, of course, they understand it, but most people seem to think that you can make an exception for them and can speak up.  Usually, yes, you can do this, but you damage your vocal cords further and delay the recovery period even more.

Right now I have two volumes – quiet and raspy, and really quiet and whispery.  I have a theoretical third volume – very loud – but I fear that seismic detectors may read spuriously if I decide to test it.

Thankfully, whispering works (and stresses the vocal cords not at all).  However, it is extremely hard to whisper to someone who is speaking to you at a normal volume.  Try it.  Psychologically, it seems very wrong.  The other person will feel far more comfortable if she whispers back to you.

I’m hopeful that my voice is comfortable tomorrow, because I expect that we will be busy at work after this past week’s windstorm.

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The wonder of the Hero 616

April 2nd, 2010

I just found a terrific blog post about the Hero 616 fountain pen and thought I should share it with you.

I got ten of these pens a few months ago because I only had a couple of pens and wanted some more to use with more obscure and interesting inks.  (A person doesn’t want one of their only two good pens full of an ink like Private Reserve Shoreline Gold when a person doesn’t want to be using it every day.)

I’ve found them to be decent writers with many inks (Waterman Florida Blue ink particular) but not as nice to use as a better pen.  While the Hero 616s look a lot like the Parker 51, it doesn’t write as nicely as one.  The 51 lays a much wetter, nicer line.

Still, if you’re on a budget or want to introduce fountain pens to someone who may or may not like them, it’s hard to go wrong when you can get ten for under twenty bucks including shipping.

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New additions

April 1st, 2010

A couple of fountain pens followed me home.  :)

First, a really nice Aurora 88 – a cousin to the Parker 51 but with a piston-filler instead of the Vacumatic or Aerometric fillers of the Parker pen.  It was made in Torino, Italy… and I bought it from an Italian seller… in Torino, Italy.  How fitting!  It was made in 1948.

The second one is a Parker Vacumatic in green from 1946.  What a gorgeous pen.  (I’ll post pictures of it in another blog post – I need to get the time to take some photos of it.)  The writing feel of it is absolutely wonderful.  This is a third-generation Vacumatic so as Vacs go, it’s probably one of the less desirable ones but if this is the bottom of the Vacumatic barrel, I will take the whole barrel.  I think that a blue one will be in my future.

I think the Vac might well become my go-to pen, and I have a few nice fountain pens now.

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The joys of the penguin

March 29th, 2010

I’ve been using Linux for several years now – about seven I think.  I was first inspired to try it when I realized that I could turn an old 486 that I had into a modest file server.  (The 486 was actually disassembled for recycling – the RAM and disks were out and the power supply removed.  I reassembled it and successfully installed Debian on it.

(The machine is still running.  I’m upgrading it to the testing version of Debian called squeeze.  The machine has a whopping 32 megabytes of RAM in it and I call it canberra.)

I have several other interesting hobby machines.  One of them is a Sun Ultrasparc 1/170E that I call moora.  I’ve used it for a few purposes (including hosting an IRC server for awhile) but lately it’s been off more than it’s been on.  Still, it has enough RAM that I thought it might make an interesting desktop machine.  Not too many people surf the web on an Ultrasparc, after all.

After realizing that I was going to have issues adapting the installation of Debian to permit a GUI, I decided to give Gentoo Linux a try.  It’s an interesting distribution because it is designed to compile everything from source – and I mean everything.  There is the possibility of installing software from packages, but the premise of the distribution is that everything will be optimized if you customize your environment and compile your software according to your unique needs and your system’s CPU and resources.

And so… here I am, compiling the beginnings of a Gentoo installation on moora.  It is not fast (an Ultrasparc 1 runs at about Pentium II speeds, although I find that it multitasks a lot better than a Pentium II does for some reason), but it is still an intriguing project.

The machine can take a full gigabyte of RAM, so if this works I will max out the memory.  Right now it has 640 MB.

When new, the Ultrasparc 1/170E sold for $27,995.  I paid $35 for mine, several years ago!

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Spammers

March 27th, 2010

Joy, the spammers have found me.

Please indulge me as I manually approve replies to posts.

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The simple matter of ink

March 23rd, 2010

Having relatively recently acquired a passion for fountain pens, I have had to begin subscribing to the habit of reinking.  Somehow, it’s become one of my favourite aspects of fountain pens.

One of the big advantages of fountain pens is the ability to use any ink in any pen… and there are so many different inks to use.  Right now, I have pens inked with blue, black, red, green, brown and gold ink.  Who knew writing could be so fun?

Atop that, though, is the contemplative, even therapeutic process of filling the pen.  Somehow, it’s a relaxing respite from the chaos of the everyday things we all have to do.  Even better, when a person decides to change the colour of ink in a pen, one must first rinse out the dregs of the prior ink.  Even this is somehow a relaxing process.

So today, Waterman Florida Blue in a Lamy Al-Star (my first fountain pen), and Diamine Saddle Brown in a Lamy Safari.  Both of these inks are ones I find myself using frequently.  (Who knew I’d like brown ink?)

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Spring

March 21st, 2010

The equinox has come and gone and now, for those of us north of the Equator (which includes all of Canada down to the southernmost tip of Point Pelee, Ontario), day now outlasts night.

Although I see some double-digit temperature forecasts for the coming days, we are some time away from spring having arrived in a practical sense.  Still, it’s nice to know that the worst of winter is behind.

Once most of the snow is gone and a person can meander about without requiring hip-length galoshes, it will be time to expose the cameras to some daylight as well.  Let the games begin.

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Fountain pens and film photography… kindred spirits

March 20th, 2010

Last night while having a chat at APUG I had a bit of an epiphany.

I’ve enjoyed film photography since my childhood.  Of course, at that time (the 1970s) film was the only medium available for imaging.  However, as digital imaging developed, while most photographers switched, I never did.  Despite my passion for computers and technology, I never shared the passion for digital imaging.   (To some degree I even resented it, but that’s not germane to this discussion!)

It is occasionally frustrating when people don’t understand why I continue to conduct photography traditionally.  To those who have taken up photography in the past few years, digital was the method that came naturally.  To have chosen to shoot film would have been peculiar.

Fountain pens are much the same.  My chat mate was surprised to learn that not only were fountain pens in active use by many, but that pens and inks continue to be produced and to be sold.  Her perspective on fountain pens gave us both a very interesting perspective on how many others must view our photography.

No one would naturally choose a fountain pen as a tool for writing.  The desire to use such a pen comes from curiosity.  At a point, the curiosity overtakes the natural hesitation that exists and a person makes an effort to acquire a fountain pen and ink.  There is no practicality about it, although there are many practical reasons that one might choose to use fountain pens.  Most writers stumble upon these advantages.

For both hobbies, it must be said that the Internet is a godsend.  There is a wealth of information about both pursuits – and about many scores of pursuits beyond these.  Latent or even unknown curiosity can be nurtured and developed.  Technology may be the ironic saviour of traditional methods.

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Postcards from the edge

March 19th, 2010

I’ve been using Ilford photographic products since the 1970s – films, chemicals and photographic papers.  Other than some brief dalliances in the colour world (most notably Ilfochrome, formerly known as Cibachrome), Ilford’s feet have been firmly planted in the monochrome photography world, and that suits me fine because its products are exceptional.  In fact, since Kodak’s withdrawal from the black-and-white photographic paper market a few years ago, Ilford is the world’s largest manufacturer of black-and-white photographic paper products.

One of Ilford’s most interesting products is its postcard paper.  It’s normal Ilford Multigrade IV Portfolio paper (Portfolio signifying a thicker paper stock than its normal Deluxe version), but on the back is a postcard-format imprinting.  The sheets are a standard 4×6″ postcard size.

While you can actually put these cards through the mail, it’s fun to use them to make small prints and give them to people.  Recently I made a bunch of prints of a photo I was raffling off, and everyone got a postcard of the print.  One person took home an 11×14″ of the photo, framed.

I’m thinking about putting out an issue of postcard prints every year, as a way of sharing my photography with friends (and giving myself an artificial deadline!).  I think postcard paper is a good way to do it.

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Photographic motivation

March 18th, 2010

One of my favourite web forums is the Analog Photography Users\’ Group, which is dedicated to film photography.  (In fact, other than people scanning images to show them on the forums, there is no digital workflow discussed or performed on the site.)  If you’re a member (which requires a small subscription fee), you get to go into the chatroom as well.  (The forums are free but I like to pay to support the site.)

Chatting with fellow film photographers at APUG inspires me to do more photography.  I find myself getting a real itch to be in the field, burning some film.

It doesn’t hurt that I got back nine rolls of Kodachrome slide film from the lab.  I shot them in San Diego in February and they are delicious.  (Sorry, no scans yet.)  I have one roll that got temporary lost (shot in San Diego also but not found again until the other nine were in the mail to the lab).  I’ll send it later in the spring for processing, and that will be Kodachrome’s finale for me.  Sniff.

I have such a hoard of film in the freezer (not Kodachrome alas) that I can go a bit crazy this year and not have to buy any more.  It would be a good thing if I did that, in fact!

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