On the Future, Forgetfulness, and Pride

On “The Future”:

I spent most of Friday, into the wee hours of Saturday, accomplishing the incredible task of stepping into the computing future at last. After a couple of years of dragging my feet, I was finally forced to upgrade my operating system by way of a corrupt and important program. Of course I’ve accomplished this just before The Future becomes The Past and Apple releases another kitty system, Mountain Lion. Still, this was a big deal.

What it consisted of: Running Time Machine for the first time in months. Doing an additional backup of all the important stuff (music, photos, user data, etc etc) independent of Time Machine. Researching my purchased programs and making sure all of them will still work on Lion. Doing a re-install of my current OS (Leopard) to fix the corrupt program (problem solved! Yay for recognizing iPhones and cameras again!). Updating Leopard to the last possible version, then installing Snow Leopard on top of it. Updating that to the latest possible version and the finally getting to actually install Lion.

Sadly, stepping into the future involved more work after I finally got the coveted software onto Little Old Macky. I still needed to update Lion and all the various programs I run (this included a support call with Adobe, a re-install and slightly sketchy downloaded update of Lightroom, a trial version of Photoshop as I still have some problems there, and a trip to the Genius Bar regarding my email program).  Now here I am blogging my first entry in The Future…woot woot!!

On Forgetfulness:

Neighbor Nikki, thanks for the wonderful reminder to keep my stupidly expensive, morally questionable, time sucking device (aka iPhone) in sight at all times. I am on my third iPhone since I started 14 months ago, but I still have not caught up to you.

On Pride:

Carol and I ventured out to San Francisco for the Dyke March and our share of the Pride festivities for 2012. We people watched and milled about, marched the whole thing (damn cute blister causing heel-y shoes!), took lots of photos, got very little action (two single ladies should wear matching t-shirts that say “I’m not with her –>” to prevent the confusion we got), met up with Nikki and Silvia for perhaps too many shots, then headed home early (upon which aforementioned iPhone misplacement occurred).

Photos of the whole mess of it follow. Apologies for the overuse of Instagram effects here, I finally decided to join up today so I could see Nate’s bachelor photos! (If you are offended by blatant stereotyping and generalizing (or nudity, or gay people) this is the part where you stop reading)…

Look at all those gay folks marchin’

Gay Pride is a Spectator Sport

Even in a lesbian parade you can find pervs who just want to see boobies

And people who willingly comply

There are mildly frightening feminist lesbians

Adorable, classy lesbians

Lesbians named Carol

Lesbians on a quest

Fashionable lesbians

Men in various stages of (un)dress

Photographers

Kids learning how things go

Love

Legs

And gay dogs

On gates and foreclosure…

Sixteen months ago I moved into my very first, very own apartment. Around a year ago, Nikki and Georgia moved in next door. As part of their move-in agreement, my landlord said she’d fence the backyard. Fence the backyard she did, and rather quickly too. Minus one small detail: an approximately two foot section of the gate was left unfinished.

Our humble little house is home to three very well behaved pups: Georgia the husky, Qispi the Peruvian, and Lizzy the pit. All the girls enjoy the yard at some point throughout the day. We’ve spent a year rigging up a ghetto gate using a bungee cord and a trash can. Honestly, its a pain in the ass.

I’ve complained on and off about finishing it up since the project was started. As we’ve come into summer my inquiries have become more constant. Its warm and nice and I want to wake up in the morning and open my backdoor. I want my dog to sun herself outside. I want to water my garden in relative security. I want to close the screen and mosey about inside knowing there is at least a gate between my home and any vagrants who may aimlessly wander though to check out our trash. This is not unreasonable.

On May 30th I wrote a rent check. Around it I wrapped yet another question regarding the gate. On June 6th I got a foreclosure notice (more on that below). On June 7 my rent check cleared and I called my landlord about still not acknowledging my issue (how could she deposit my check without seeing my fairly blunt note?). And now, on June 18 I have come home to find a gate. A shoddy gate, but a gate nonetheless. Woot.

Back to the foreclosure business. My little house which has overall more good things than bad things about it; my first little house of my very own; my little house where I’ve created my own little cabinet of curiosities, my own garden, my own romantic disasters, my own everything, is about to become someone else’s little house. The bank’s little house to be exact. My little house will become the bank’s little house.

My knowledge about foreclosure, specifically what happens when you are a renter and your landlord is in foreclosure, has gone from non-existent to educated in 2 weeks.

About my landlord. She has lots of buildings, perhaps around 50. About 15 of those buildings are in default, including our vintage abode. Our Notice of Trustee’s Sale, posted on June 6, set our house on the auction block for June 25. That date has now been postponed until early August. It may be postponed again then, who knows.

About my rights. Fortunately, I live in California where renters’ rights are pretty good. When the bank (or new owner) finally takes over I get my deposit back (assuming I don’t destroy the place). I am legally entitled to an eviction of either 60 or 90 days. The new owner still has to fix my issues, or I can fix them myself and deduct costs from my rent (yes, I do continue to pay rent to someone).

About the silver lining. Luckily for me this could turn out to be a great bit of fortune. There exists a controversial program called Cash For Keys. The idea is: banks aren’t set up to be landlords and do a poor job of it, evictions are expensive and time consuming, and renters are inconvenienced by the whole process. An exchange of sorts is set up, with the renter trading time for money. So long as you are educated in your rights, its a win-win for both bank and renter. The bank gets an empty, sell-able house, does not have to hound tenants for rent checks or fix toilets at 3am, and doesn’t have to finance evictions with all the associated costs. The renter still has to move, can negotiate how quickly, and gets a big handful of cash to boot. Banks usually pay between $1500 and $7500 depending on your circumstances: how fast you can move, how much it puts you out, etc. The drawback: you cannot be in the process of moving to cash in on Cash For Keys. That means, you sit tight until they begin to offer you money, you negotiate a sweet deal for yourself, then you scoot quickly for the most cash.

In preparation for the upcoming cash or eviction, I decided to take lots of photos to remember my very first, very own apartment by.

My main room, facing the photo wall:

My main room, facing the curiosities:

My main room, facing the sun:

My main room , showing the neglected front door:

My main room, including the bedroom:

My bathroom, partially:

The Curiosities, in detail:

My yard/parking/garden, with doggie:

The Kitchen, morning messy:

The Breakfast Nook, with clutter:

Going to the County Fair!

A couple of months ago Carol and I were asked to teach a class at the Alameda County Fair. Of course, we enthusiastically said yes! Our class is coming up in just under 2 weeks and preparations are preparing. 🙂

Our class, Digital Photography, could be taught with any number of photos we already have on our hard drives. But wouldn’t it be way more fun to hit every single fair possible before class and use those photos instead? Yes!

I’ve been to 2 fairs so far, Contra Costa and San Mateo. A pre-class trip the the Alameda fair will be my third and a post-class road trip to the Mid-State fair should nicely round out the summer.

Here’s some of interesting stuff so far:

– Depth of Field

   

– Shutter Speed

  

– ISO Noise

  

– White Balance

 

– Exposure Compensation

 

– Composition: Leading Lines

– Composition: Rule of Thirds

 

-Light

 

– Night Photography

 

– Long Exposure Portrait

  

– Misc Other Stuff

Yay for fairs and piggies and Americana and hot hot summer entertainment!

Restarting my Blog, Take 2.

My attempt earlier this year to restart my blog was a grand failure. Round two is forecast for much more success due to many life changes, of both the good and bad variety.

First, foremost, and most regrettably, I am working through being single after over three years alternating between pure bliss and total shambles. In addition to having a gaping hole in my heart, I have a wide open schedule.

Second, I have my health! After six months of medical mystery starting with “Oh, you have a female problem…no, an STD…no, a jungle disease…no, lupus” and culminating with “looks like its just a case of mono” I am finally on the upswing in the physical-feel-good department.

Lastly, I have sun! Why does sun spell success for this blog you ask? Longer, sunnier days mean a happier, more active Flee. Time for hiking and beaching and shooting and museum going and friend making and gardening. Hoo-ray!

To start this blog off right, a picture summary of some of the notable events since I closed my blog in spring of 2011. More on some of these later. Since Spring 2011 I:

– had a Spring Break visit from Rayanne and Monica, then another from Madison.

– sold my car, bought a new car, and had it in the shop twice.

– took a road trip to Canada.

– became three times an auntie.

– planted a garden.

– bought a toilet.

– found various roadkill.

– received countless damaged products and got to play with some random cool ones too.

– sold a bunch of stuff on eBay

– watched my baby grow up from this:

    

to this:

– -began teaching photo classes.

– shot some random stuff.

– and some pretty people

– cut my hair from this:                                       to this:

     
– made some new friends and lost touch with some old ones.

I’m working on fixing myself up now, recovering from my let downs and learning from my failures in the past year. My core is a little shaken, a bit battered from a year of mostly down, but the me that I love the most is still in there somewhere. In part, this blog will be about re-discoving that part of me that is optimistic, sweet, driven, and successful. Its a blog to hold myself accountable; am I shooting? Am I trying? Am I thinking, exploring, loving, learning, growing, stumbling, experiencing? Am I living?