How is the house/garage work going?
Any new restoration work performed, or is the house finished?
This question haunts me. Mostly because the answer is the house isn't done (will never be done?) and the garage seems to have not gotten much less cluttered.
In the summer I try to do outside projects. In the winter I try to knock off inside projects. Also, in the summer I try to ride, have fun and take trips. Unfortunately I also try to do that in the winter.
I can't say where this summer went to. I planned on doing a lot more and I feel, aside from a few short vacations, that I didn't get much done. A lot of that has to do with work and the fact that I had a lot of it this summer. I enjoy being under employed but this summer I had a lot of jobs and they took up a tremendous amount of time.
I apologize.
Also, J's current job is extremely high pressure and this year marks the first year that I've been out earned. But it's come at a price. While she works I am pretty much the full time parent. So that's some time too.
But George, while it's not house or garage work, you did help kick my **** into getting one summer project going and that's get the front window of the trailer watertight.
Because the window sits at a slope it's more likely to catch water. I've had my suspicions of where water came in but never really could tell. There'd just be a puddle. There's a trim ring inside that is screwed to the window on the outside and here I'm removing that.
Generally all windows seem to be held in with butyl tape of some kind. Working with the stuff makes me understand how the dinosaurs became trapped in tar pits. No matter how old it seems to stay pliable and requires a fair bit of force to get it apart.
My 5 in 1 tool is super useful (not five things useful, but perhaps 2-3) but the top and bottom had obstructions that prevented me from being able to pry and loosen the frame. Scrap bin to the rescue! I milled a scrap of angle to have a narrower edge and welded it to another scrap for a handle...
I managed to get the window out of the trailer and onto a work bench outside the garage.
Oh, and that happened. I have a CraigsList search going for BMW's under $3000 and this showed up for $1800. A 1983 BMW R100RS that sat for 18 years in a barn. So my first barn find which is sort of fun. There were a lot of people trying to snag it but I got there first and, in a show of true chutzpah, bargained it down to $1700.
It isn't going to become a project (feel free to quote me later) but I'm going to clean it up, get it running and probably flip it in the spring. But I'll probably take a short trip or two on it first. I've always loved the RS.
I pulled out the old glazing rubber around the outside windows and cleaned up the frames with a pressure sprayer.
Then I pressed in the new, flexible rubber glazing.
Here's a quick before and after but not of the exact same spot. Dirt really does just accumulate in the channels and nooks of the windows.
One of the problems of attacking this sort of project is that it's almost guaranteed there will be some sort of seal or rubber gasket that isn't made any more that will be shot to hell.
This is the top of the window. I'm not sure why there's this gap with a giant complicated double seal in it. That seal is long gone and I've looked. I was trying to figure out what to do while looking for another seal and thought about just gluing a piece of aluminum channel over it but that felt... wrong. Luckily I mentioned it to Ben and he's really good about giving me permission to take the simple approach whereas I'd most likely try to find a custom gasket and end up never getting it done.
So tomorrow I'm going to make up a solution to seal that. We have plans to get an end of summer camping trip in so I need to get this buttoned up before the rains fall or we roll out.
Stay tuned.
_____________________________________Photo Nerd Intermission____________________________________
Gregor - just curious, what do you like to use instead of Lightroom? I liked LR4 the best of the versions I've used and I'm not a big fan of the direction they seem to be heading......
Also, not your architect/camera mentor, but the new Nikon Z7 looks sweet........
I find that Lightroom doesn't really have the ability to pull the detail out as well as CaptureOne. I've used CaptureOne for as long as it has existed and I've always found them to be responsive and have excellent Raw processing tools. Sadly it's not really an archiving program so for personal stuff I had to find a solution after Aperture and that's LR. I just updated it tonight and it seems a bit better but it's a clunky, non intuitive program compared to CaptureOne.
And I hadn't realized the Z7 was out. I'd heard a little about it and it looks pretty cool but much like the RX1ii I really have no need for a camera that captures more than 24mp. That to me is the sweet spot between image quality and file size.
As the architect/bad influence I bought a Leica Q that Gregor had been eyeing. I don’t get Lightroom & miss Aperture, Gregor turned me on to Capture One which I really like. I believe that’s mostly what he uses (along with Photoshop, obviously.)
So, since I've gotten rid of the RX1 I've been on the lookout for a nice point and shoot that can work as a pro camera - always my holy grail. I've pressed my A9 into service here but it lacks the simplicity that I'm looking for. Leave it to Ben to find me my next camera...
The Leica is a camera I tend to shy away from. It's mostly owned by fan boys and photo nerds and rarely justifies the prices they demand. When Ben showed up with one I think I refused to even look at it the first couple of times but then I did. I shot some photos with it on our vacation and I was impressed at how fast it was - very quick and intuitive. The raw files were beautiful too. And the camera feels great. Larger than I'd like but very solid and with a nice 24mp capture size on a full frame chip - perfect.
So the Sony photo was taken with the Leica and the Leica was taken with the Sony. Same settings. The Leica feels more transparent and neutral which, to me, is a nice thing. I'm impressed with it.
A point and shoot is a sketchbook to me. I want to experiment and play. I don't want a zoom, or a lot of features, I want a simple extension of my eye and as much quality as I can get. On our vacations this summer I didn't shoot much because dragging out my A9 felt like work and I didn't want to work. A point and shoot isn't serious so you play with it and that's how you discover things.
Like how you need a Leica...
Gregor
