The Coffee House

[Gary A.]

You might start thinking about accumulating some backup water, food, & gasoline. You know, just in case.

In six decades of living here, I've never been faced "needing" any backup water, food and/or gasoline. Plenty of earthquakes and an occasional blackout, but on average the blackouts last no more than a few hours ... if that.

 

[Gary A.]

Buenos Dias Coffee Hosers. As Randy Newman sings ... "Another perfect day, I love LA." It is 6:30 a.m. and 55F, it is predicted to cool off to the mid 60's maybe it'll hit 70F today. A hint of an ocean breeze, soft and caressing. Kona again today, The cup is back lighted by the monitor and I can see waves of steam rising. It's a white, oversized rounder cup with this giant lower case 'g' painted on the side.

Anybody hate you yet?

I'm trying, lol. Everybody is talkin' about their weather ... so I'm just tossing in my $.02 and talkin' about what we (you and I) have to face.

 

[Gary A.]

As one who is prepared for nearly anything, I don't understand that either.

And what about those people getting ready for a hurricane? I mean doesn't anybody keep the plywood they used last year? I guess they just remove it and haul it to the dump after every hurricane.

Not having lived in the Midwest or East Coast ... it is only recently that I've realized that you guys are prepared and expect that the power grid will shut down for a day or so numerous times over the winter. On the West Coast, as the grid rarely is down, nobody has these expectations, and thusly, very few people have generators or firewood or a back up food supply, et al. All that backup stuff is quite odd to us.

Yup, being prepared for dealing with the effects of storms is something I grew up with and is second nature to me. And whatever lessons I learned here in the Northeast, I had them reinforced when I lived in Istanbul, where power or water would disappear completely randomly, regardless of weather. Never knew when they'd come back, either. Often it was just a few hours, but a few times, we'd be without water for up to 2 days with no explanation. Having large reserves of potable water is a no-brainer for me.

And on a related note, since living overseas, I also carry a package of tissues with me at all times because I still don't trust that there will be toilet paper in public bathrooms!

the water is something else, with a well it was just a matter of keeping the well pump running. with town water it depends on if it goes down which hasnt happend often but has happend. It doesnt just stop flowing though it just isnt really that clean, even though supposedly it is sand and charcoal filtered they lose power over there it makes a difference. . Ours is pumped from a spring but a town spring, filtered town charcaol. so if it goes down you are better off not drinking it. My most recent experience with that is the water was brown out of the tap, to make it worse we have a spare water tank that fills off that town supply too. So recently even after the water situation was sorted out on the town level and safe to drink again i had this crap in the bottom of the water tank settled at that point. It ran somewhat brown, mostly some extra minerals and dirts for a week. we drink bottled water in such cases. It really isnt harmful for showers so much, no different than jumping in the river Just a little questionable on drinking. i also heat it if need be and use water purifcation tabs. but mostly it is just excess iron and minerals in it, no so much that it is totally unsafe. That almost never happens though

I have an RO system in the kitchen that I use for drinking. More for taste than necessity.

 

[Gary A.]

Not only am I not prepared ... over the course of some 60 years I have not faced a reality stemming from not being prepared ... I am not worried at all, not one iota by my lack of preparedness. (I do have a small solar panel that will recharge my phone and flashlight. As for water, I am surrounded by pools and I have my pond.)

 

[bribrius]

Goodmorning coffee housers! It is a balmy 14 degrees here. Just checked my outdoor temp sensor. 65 inside 14 out. considering a morning margarita and a sit down my the river.. The sun has made it through the trees now and is lighting up the snow covered field out back. Drinking my first cup of coffee right now, went out for my morning cigarette while it brewed. A certain quietness with the glistening of the ice and snow under this mornings sun rays.

 

[sm4him]

Morning all! 14 degrees here too, bribrius, which just seems really wrong to me, for us to be as cold as it is up there!
No snow or ice though, so at least we've got that going for us. In fact, it's a beautiful, clear sky kind of day. If it weren't so bloomin' cold, I'd be headed out to a nearby dam to see if there's any eagle activity, but I just can't get motivated to go out. I'm planning to stay inside instead and start learning how to use Lightroom--I've had it for over a year and have yet to start trying to use it, but it's time.

More coffee first, though, and maybe some pancakes.

 

[bribrius]

Morning all! 14 degrees here too, bribrius, which just seems really wrong to me, for us to be as cold as it is up there!
No snow or ice though, so at least we've got that going for us. In fact, it's a beautiful, clear sky kind of day. If it weren't so bloomin' cold, I'd be headed out to a nearby dam to see if there's any eagle activity, but I just can't get motivated to go out. I'm planning to stay inside instead and start learning how to use Lightroom--I've had it for over a year and have yet to start trying to use it, but it's time.

More coffee first, though, and maybe some pancakes.

oh yes, post processing. Seems to be my achilles heel. i now have three programs, dont know how to use any to much degree of proficiency and noticed most anything i try to post process looked better before i touched it straight out of cam. While i try to force myself to learn my attention span for it is seriously lacking. Looking for that eagle in your case sounds much more fun.

 

[limr33 3]

It seems that all the cool kids are at 14 degrees this morning

I have to start processing photos today, too, but it's a messier process than sitting at a computer I am figuring at least 3 batches of Caffenol will be required, probably 4 to be safe.

 

[sm4him]

It seems that all the cool kids are at 14 degrees this morning

I have to start processing photos today, too, but it's a messier process than sitting at a computer I am figuring at least 3 batches of Caffenol will be required, probably 4 to be safe.

I can't tell you how many times in the last two years I've been tempted to delve back into darkroom processing--find me some cheap equipment, and start using some of these film cameras again.

But then I remember, that really, I was never all that great at darkroom processing. I think I enjoy the "thought" of doing it again more than I would actually enjoy the process.

Morning all! 14 degrees here too, bribrius, which just seems really wrong to me, for us to be as cold as it is up there!
No snow or ice though, so at least we've got that going for us. In fact, it's a beautiful, clear sky kind of day. If it weren't so bloomin' cold, I'd be headed out to a nearby dam to see if there's any eagle activity, but I just can't get motivated to go out. I'm planning to stay inside instead and start learning how to use Lightroom--I've had it for over a year and have yet to start trying to use it, but it's time.

More coffee first, though, and maybe some pancakes.

oh yes, post processing. Seems to be my achilles heel. i now have three programs, dont know how to use any to much degree of proficiency and noticed most anything i try to post process looked better before i touched it straight out of cam. While i try to force myself to learn my attention span for it is seriously lacking. Looking for that eagle in your case sounds much more fun.

I'm pretty comfortable with my PP skills in Photoshop (although there IS a lot of the more advanced stuff I really need to work on), but for me it's about organization, and I'm convinced LR really is the way toward getting a handle on that. My current organization system still involves looking at my unprocessed photos and writing down on a sheet of paper which ones I want to process. Trying to FIND a particular photo a year or two later--well, good luck!!

 

[limr33 3]

In some ways, I have it easier when it comes to organization. I can only "upload" 12, 24, or 36 pictures at a time

When I scan a roll of film, I save the pictures in their own folder, labeled by date and film type. Those folders are organized by camera type. So, I've got one file for each type of camera I have, and inside those folders are the rolls I took with that camera. It can sometimes be tricky to find a picture after time has passed, but usually I just have to remember what I was shooting and then go look in that folder. I can usually do that pretty quickly.

When the pictures are unedited, they are named by whatever the scanning program automatically names them (usually some combination numbers). When I open them in Corel to edit them, I save a copy under a different name, so when I see file with an actual word name, I know that I have edited it. If I ever want to re-edit starting from scratch, I still have the original unedited scan.

 

[KenC]

It seems that all the cool kids are at 14 degrees this morning

I have to start processing photos today, too, but it's a messier process than sitting at a computer I am figuring at least 3 batches of Caffenol will be required, probably 4 to be safe.

The only problem with a high degree of caffeination before processing is having to run to the bathroom when you should be agitating the developer.

 

[limr33 3]

Ah, but the caffeine isn't for me; it's for the filmz

 

[KenC]

Ah, but the caffeine isn't for me; it's for the filmz

Gotcha - I just Googled it and found out what it was. I just used HC-110 or TMax developer myself.

 

[Gary A.]

Buenos Diaz Coffee Hosers. It is 8:00 a.m. and 54F at City Hall right now. Should hit the mid 60's. Gotta run ... I'm running a little city council campaign and suddenly my life is all cramped up.

 

[limr33 3]

Ah, but the caffeine isn't for me; it's for the filmz

Gotcha - I just Googled it and found out what it was. I just used HC-110 or TMax developer myself.

I have nothing against the traditional developers, but at least for the moment, I prefer to use Caffenol. It's not toxic - I suppose it's technically drinkable in the sense that if you ingested some, it wouldn't kill you or burn the sh*t out of your esophagus, but it certainly would taste nasty as hell The house has a private septic tank and I don't want to be pouring chemicals into it. Plus, there are town laws about not doing it. I know I could just pour the exhausted developer into a jug and dispose of it properly, but that's a lot of developer and a major PITA. It's fine for fixer since I can reuse it a lot more often than I can developer. Definitely can't pour fixer down the drain.

But it's also a really effective developer, so it's not like I'm settling for something substandard.