New York January NYC Meet-Up

15 hour days means you are a Brooklyn tough guy.
Hah! There might have a been a time when that was true, Cal. Or, at least, there might have been a time when I believed it! Now 15 hour days just means I'm tired a lot and get my dates mixed up.
 
On Saturday "Maggie" bought us a one-day pass for "Winter Jazz Fest," and we saw some shows on Bleeker Street. There were venues all over the city, and pretty much you could come and go as you pleased.

The highlight was this woman who played a tenor sax who many say captures the style of John Coltrane. I would have to agree, but I did not hear the dual melody in two different octaves that always kills me like in Coltrane's version of "Giant Steps."

This show was pretty much the high point. This woman had these beautiful hands. There were two different drummers that shared a kit. They really were smoking great players, and oh so tasteful.

During the set-up I wondered about the two upright bass's. There were multiple guests that sat in that were also great. Another tenor sax, and then a baritone sax who crushed the audience, but then Reggie Workman sat-in who actually played with Coltrane back in the day.

So the venue had no seats and it was standing only. I set up stage left which could be considered the "wing" if it wasn't all open about 12 feet from center stage with my SL and 50 Lux-SL. I shot wide open and pushed the ISO to 1600 to have a good shutter speed. Pretty much I had staked out a great place where I got mucho great shots.

So this is a reason to live in NYC. I came pretty close to filling a SD card.

Cal
 
With a little luck I'll bring a surprise to the meetup on Sunday. Ah, the first unnecessary gear acquisition of the 20's.
 
With a little luck I’ll bring a surprise to the meetup on Sunday. Ah, the first unnecessary gear acquisition of the 20’s.

Christian,

Keep an eye out for a 9800 or 9880 printer for me.

Looks like your clever idea of hiding a massive floor standing printer from "Maggie" could happen. I might have the space to hide it. Don't tell anyone.

What is particularly great is that I believe the carts I have for the 7800 that I use for flushing and storage will work on this "new printer" also. How cool is that?

I think this printer will be for color. How cool would it be to have a 44 inch printer?

Cal
 
Don't tell "Maggie" but I can connect the dots and on January 20th the big network NYC broadcast show she has as a gig on is not a taped show but will be a live broadcast I suspect.

Yesterday she went to the "Wing" in SoHo which is a shared workspace. Know that you have to be an invited member, be a woman, and that there are other "Wings" in Dumbo, Williamsburg, Chelsea and a brand new one in Bryant Park. As well as these locations these is one in L.A. and another in London, and Maggie has access to them all.

No men allowed.

So they sent a crew to tape an interview for their online platform I suspect, and they shot some "B-roll" on the street for editing purposes.

Maggie revealed that some spontainious events happened that greatly pleased the producers: one is they captured on tape a passerby who approached Maggie and complimented her on her style and fashion sense; and then later some street photographer came along and started shooting and blasting away.

No red carpet required, and Maggie did not have her ontourage, meaning me.

So 5 days from now I predict Live from NYC will be a live broadcast on network TV.

Cal
 
So I regress to an earlier time in my life when I was a poor dirt bag that was "King of the $200.00 cars." Pretty much economically it was all I could afford, and because I'm clever like Christian, and stubborn like my dad, I kept these old eyesores, rust buckets, and plain fugly old cars going for years.

I learned all kinds of tricks like instead of buying a new water pump, add a $3.00 can of water pump lubricant. I learned how to do my own tune ups and brake jobs. I replaced my own exhaust systems. Boy could I spackle a car together.

My neighbors in the Long Island suburbs did not appreciate at all my hill billy attitude. You know they have this expression: "You know you are a hill billy when half the cars you own are not running." That was sometimes true for me, and at one time I owned 4 cars.

The 67 Ford Falcon was my bike car that I would take out to the Hamptons. Much cooler than the Mercedes or Porsches with bike racks of my bankster friends from Wall Street out in South Hampton, especially with a Yakama bike roof rack that was worth more than the car, and don't forget the exclaimation point was the Titanium bike on the roof rack.

The color of this car was half dull faded maroon and the other half rust. No floor boards on the passenger side. When I drove through puddles I got splashed. BTW the pretty gals in the Hamptons thought I was cool because I had "style." LOL.

I also owned an 85 Saab 900 4-door (saloon). This kinda was my chick car to show I had refinement, class and good taste. I enjoyed the comfort as well as the balanced handling.

Then I had my 84 Jeep Scrambler that was my urban assault vehicle that I built before they invented the HumVee. I had raised the truck with a suspension, installed a cutdown Ford 9 inch Posi-traction rear with Lincoln Continental disc brakes, built huge car crushing bumpers front and rear from when I worked at Grumman.

There was also an 80's black Firebird that basically was once owned by this rich English kid Mark that had a ZZ3 Chevy crate motor installed in it with a high stall torque converter. Mark was a wack job that use to do burnouts and do donuts in front of the police in the Hamptons to initiate a chase. He was playing like he was Smokey and the Bandit, except out in the Hamptons.

Somehow I bought this car for $1K, because Mark had been arrested, was in all kinds of trouble, and had to get rid of the car. My plan was to buy it for the engine which was basically a Corvette engine with a 4-bolt main, forged pistons, and the same aluminum heads, but without the fuel injection. 350 horsepower and 400 foot pounds of torque.

So like Devil Christian I decided to do something crazy and use a NV 4500 200 pound cast iron tranny. This was basically a 5 speed truck transmission with an underdrive of 6.321 and and overdrive. Pretty much was an truck 3 speed with both an under and overdrive. With the 2.6 geared transfere case along with the 3.5 gearing on the Ford rear I figure I might have enough torque, horsepower and gear multiplication of 60 to one to maybe push a telephone pole over into say someone's house I didn't like.

So pretty much out on Long Island I was known as the guy who worked at Grumman who put a Corvette engine into a Jeep Scrambler. I was pretty famous, and this was all before social media.

So here I am at work, and pretty much the old hill billy in me returns because now my job is to keep this 18-19 year old Cyclotron that once cost 3.7 million dollars going.

Four more years and 7 months to full retirement. Pretty much those old skills of when I was king of the $200.00 car are paying off, and I regress to an earlier time when I was a dirtbag where my neighbors asked me not to park my eyesore car in front of their neat looking house in the comfortable suburbs.

Not so sure the two institutions are going to cough up $700K to overhaul the machine. Also I work alone with no back-up. I feel like a Navy SEAL or like that Vietnam era sniper I know that got dropped behind enemy lines without his Dog Tags. Don't tell anyone, but no one was suppose to know he was there.

Cal
 
My first car was a 1986 Subaru GL wagon. It cost me $300. My Yakima rack was wider than the car and I regularly put 6 tricked out mountain bikes on top. With 6 passengers and the drag from 6 bikes, that car could only do 55mph on steep downhill sections of highway, otherwise it was a leisurely 40mph top speed. It was easily $10000+ dollars (1994) of bikes atop my crappy $300 car with the $300 bike rack. Good times.
I had to sell the rack when I got my beetle because the risers weren't high enough to clear the dome of the top of the car. But I was working in a bike shop so it was easy and cheap to replace. That car only ever held 4 bikes and 4 people. Sure, we fit 9 people inside once but no bikes on the roof. Almost everyone had a girlfriend on their lap.
Phil Forrest
 
So I'm going to emulate some of Pro-Mone's style because I inherited a Lumix/panasonic DMC-LX7 to use as a light meter because it is so small. Bonus is it is also a camera.

Somehow in "Maggie's" "Hot-Mess" she found the power supply to charge the battery.

I also brought a knapsack full of Apple products: Iphone 4S; Iphone 6S; two early IPADS; an I-Book; and a bag full of Apple cables and adapters. It is almost to the point where I have my own Apple Store because I left at home an Iphone 8S; a MacBook Air; a freestanding Mac desktop; an IPAD Mini; and a Sixth Generation IPAD that "Maggie got from GoDaddy as swag that currently still is for sale at the real Apple Store. About half of this stuff is boxed.

I have my new "Fit Bit" charging (boxed). "Maggie" goes through these reverse binges where she just has to unload of stuff.

Last time this happened I didn't get too far and somehow met-up with another tenant in our building (who is a make-up artist). Had two loads of clothes, coats and shoes to donate to charity, but it all got diverted to our neighbor's apartment.

I gave clear instruction that anything not kept should be donated to charity.

Whatever you do don't tell Maggie.

Also I screwed up again. The likely Network suspected live broadcast is not on Monday June 20th, but is the following day on Tuesday January 21st.

Some of this other stuff being cast off by Maggie is going to be recycled by me into prizes. Don't forgt that Sam is donating a M3 that needs TLC.

I have a Nikon S80 kit that includes a case, spare battery, and cable. This is a pocket sized digital camera that is slightly smaller than a pack of cigarettes in perimeter, and about half as thick. Definately worth fighting over. Remember our only strictly enforced rule: "No Biting."

In Maggie's honor I have a stash of high fashion micro polishing clothes. Some have mucho style, some are huge luxury brand names. Really-really obsessive thinking going on here. The ultimate status symbol: a designer lens polishing cloth. There is a reason why this is the Tenth Annual Camera Beauty Contest.

I also will donate the last piece of "Prada" Goat Leather to the owner of the camera that best suggests a "Red Carpet" look. Note the leather is enough to cover a M-body or a LTM. Sorry plus sized models excluded. Don't sue me.

Cal
 
Sorry I was a no-show yesterday at Sharlene’s. A small family emergency had me go out of town unexpectedly. I hope there were some fun folks (and cameras) there in my absence.
 
Sorry I was a no-show yesterday at Sharlene’s. A small family emergency had me go out of town unexpectedly. I hope there were some fun folks (and cameras) there in my absence.

Ethan,

To fill you in: Devil Christian brought in a Linhof 220, a very cool one in the later black and with the latest side grip. Of course he bought it for "no money" to annoy me.

I bought in some framed prints. I kinda changed my mind about these cheap see through "Muji" frames made of acrylic. I bad mouthed them because they seemed like huge dust magnets, but I now say if you clean them once with Windex pretty much no dust.

What is really interesting is how a layer of glass or acrylic softens an image. A print that has a bit of "crunch" due to say a bit too much sharpening or overuse of clarity appears rather smooth and perfect.

Pretty much I exploited other trained eyes to gain their insights.

As usual, a small crowd, and near five a pretty packed bar.

Cal
 
It was good seeing everyone. I walked away with Steve's Canon lens cap. I'll bring it next time.
Of course Joe was right about the missing RF mirror. Logic would suggest that it can't go very far. I had already looked for it in the finder, without luck. When I was out finishing up the roll, it somehow showed up in the viewfinder. I opened it up at home and shook it for a minute before it dropped out on the table. I have now epoxied it back and done all the calibration. The last issue is a sticky film counter. If I can resolve that it will be (almost) good as new!
 
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