Spring!

Spring is coming! Don't get all Wuhan SARS depressed. Look at the trees and you'll see they started to bud.

I didn't get to run Leo this weekend and, since he has dumb batteries, the charge had to be run down to less than 70%. Without a LiPo exerciser, there's only one thing to do... run him!

I put this video on Facebook, which, as usual, munged all of the quality from the video until it looked like mud. We had better video back in the NTSC days than we do on Facebook.

Photography

I love photography! I've been interested in it for a very, very long time. I had a few different cameras as a child, including a simple box camera that used 120 film. Despite rather simple and not very good optics, the larger medium format film produced good images. I soon started developing and printing the 120 film myself.

Dad gave me a basic photo enlarger one Christmas, which used thermal paper. I was very excited to watch my images appear on the thermal printer, but I wanted more. For several years, I processed my film and then printed using conventional B&W chemistry.

Home Automation

Home automation is a hot topic for consumers today with systems such as Amazon's Alexa and Apple's HomeKit among others. But home automation isn't a new topic. There were custom systems from companies such as Crestron at the very high end of the market and at the very low end, products such as the X10 system that have been around since the 1970s.

Doggies

We have shared our home with a number of dogs over the years. They were all good dogs, interesting and unique. They all definitely have their own personalities!

We adopted Ducky first. He was living outside on a farm in Pennsylvania before we adopted him. He was covered with ticks and needed a good bath and grooming. A very smart dog, he kept us on our toes. He had liver problems and later cancer, both of which we treated. His vet loved him so much that when he spent the day there for tests or treatments, he didn't stay in a kennel. Instead, he lounged on the sofa in her office.

Isabella, 1983 Imperial

This is Isabella, my 1983 Imperial.

I bought her new early in the spring of 1983 between finishing my last college classes and graduation. My internship at a small company that made epoxies turned into a full time position, allowing me the opportunity to indulge. I certainly appreciated driving a new car to graduation!