I hope all of you had a wonderful and blessed Christmas, and that you got to spend it with people you love – for me at least, that always seems to make or break the occasion. I had a pretty good Christmas – got to spend a little extra time with my family and some friends, not to mention the five-day weekend which allowed for all sorts of projects and entertainment. My roommates have all been out of town for a while, visiting their own families, which means I had the whole house to myself since last Friday. I don’t want to worry anybody or anything, but I’ve turned the dining room into a painting studio, the living room into a music room, and my bedroom into a catch-all for the cameras I’ve accumulated over the past couple of months.
So after my recent obsession with the viewfinder photography I was finding on etsy and flickr (I believe I linked to Alicia Bock in my last post, and she’s still my favorite example, but Irene Suchocki has some beautiful photos, too), I’ve decided to give it a go myself. I’m not much of a photographer, so I’ve had a big learning curve with it, but it’s lots of fun, and I love the vintage feel of it. I ordered a Kodak DuaFlex camera off of ebay for less than $15, as it has this enormous mirror viewfinder lens. Last weekend, I built a little makeshift tunnel light-shield thing out of paper (do these things have proper names in the world of photography?) and took it around town for a trial run. I wish I had a digital camera with higher resolution / better zoom, since the end result comes out a bit smaller than I’d like, but otherwise I was very encouraged with the results. I might get around to posting a few after I get around to Photoshop tweaking.
My biggest undertaking last weekend has been organizing my music collection. It’s been hanging over my head for a while now as something I’ve been meaning to do, and the dozens of trips to the mechanic only made things worse, since every visit required stuffing all of my loose cds in a bag and into the trunk of my car to prevent robbery. So I finally installed my iPod hookup into my car stereo, and proceeded to rip every single cd I own onto my laptop. It was a bittersweet event – especially the process of putting every cd and cover booklet back into its respective case. For a long time I had said I’d never switch over to digital – I’m a huge fan of music packaging, from taking the shrink wrap off of a new cd to flipping through the booklet, and even the sort of joy that comes with having a car with hundreds of loose cds scattered around. But none of this can contend with the horrible disappointment of a brand new album skipping two weeks after I buy it because I accidentally sat on it or something. So really, necessity and budget demanded another option. It is nice to be able to listen to podcasts in the car, too. I can say that much for going digital.
All that being said about Christmas weekend, I’m blogging to you right now from a lovely little budget accommodation hotel on the outskirts of New Orleans. Hannah, Corey, and I decided to do a bit of traveling for the long New Year’s weekend. I’ve always wanted to visit New Orleans, and it seemed like a good candidate since I can’t really afford a plane ticket anywhere (sorry, Macchu Pichu, but we’ll just have to save you for another occasion). We left Greenwood right after lunch Wednesday, and to save ourselves from cruising down I-10 when the clock struck 12, we made an overnight stop in Mobile, Alabama, where we made history as a part of the MoonPie over Mobile. We obviously couldn’t miss it, and while we didn’t get there early enough to get a bite of the actual world’s-largest moon pie, we did get little baby moon pies to eat, free entertainment, a less-than-whelming moon pie drop, and a beautiful fireworks show. I’d say it was pretty exciting, and even after nine hours of driving.
We explored the city yesterday, mainly the French Quarter, and took a ferry across the Mississippi to Algiers, which was not exactly the “heart of New Orleans” it claimed to be on numerous billboards. It seems to be my knack for picking bizarre times to travel places, because today just happens to be the SugarBowl game between. Well, two football teams, I guess. The French Quarter was insane yesterday, as they were having a fan fest of some sort, and it was almost too packed to move around. The game is tonight, and hopefully all of those fans have tickets and will be in the SuperDome, so that we can enjoy the sights and get some pictures more or less undisturbed, and maybe even fit into Cafe du Monde. We ate the world’s best fried chicken yesterday at Willie Mae’s Scotch House, and it really was quite impressive. It was especially nice to see a more residential part of New Orleans. It really is incredible how much work has been done to rebuild since the storm, and also how much still needs doing. The roads everywhere are a disaster — cracks and lumps and potholes everywhere, even in parts of the city that otherwise seem practically new.
My car has been an absolute joy for the entire trip. It was probably the riskiest factor in the trip — I’ve already mentioned its numerous encounters with the mechanic recently, and I just put new spark plugs and wires in it a couple of weeks ago. It’s been a little shaky and has displayed a prominent “check engine” light for a month or so. I guess it’s a fault of mine that I tend to take such threats as challenges more than anything, and with a vague memory of “probably” having roadside assistance with my insurance policy, I made the executive decision — the neon goes. And here’s the conclusion I’ve come to — cars need excitement just like the rest of us. There were a couple of lurches and noises at the beginning of the trip, and the little neon wasn’t too fond of some of the bumpy parking lots in Mobile, but by the time we made it to New Orleans, the check-engine light had gone out, and we handle the ridiculously narrow, curvy interstates here with finesse. I can’t recall a time when this little car ran better, actually. Now if we can just make it home without incident, I can drag myself into work Monday and everybody wins (Sunday involves about a 12-hour drive home, plus we’ll lose an hour in the exchange).
Hopefully we’ll get to check out some museums and different things today, especially if the streets are as crowded as yesterday. I made a nice long list of things that sound fun while we’re here, and while yesterday was a good start, there’s still a lot on the list. Sleeping in for a bit today didn’t help, as it’s now after 10 and we’re still in the hotel, but then a vacation is sort of pointless if there isn’t at least some laziness involved. For the record, the coffee here is phenomenal.
I hope all of you had a really nice New Year celebration, wherever you may have been. New Year’s is one of my favorite holidays, if only because I’m constantly enchanted with the idea of fresh starts. I have a pretty clean-cut list of resolutions this year, some of which I’ve already gotten a head start on this year (exercising more often, eating more natural / organic food, etc.), and some of which are more “stretch goals” than anything. For those of you with resolutions, I hope they’re going well so far (it’s official! 0.41% of 2009 is already over!), and for those of you without any resolutions, I admire your confidence and/or ignorance to your own shortcomings. I’ll post some photos and things later, I hope.
listening to: Blind Pilot – The Story I Heard