my life, as far as i know.

between the video store and the coffee shop, i’ve been hearing the beatles and neil young a lot. this morning i added some young to my collection. i think one of my favorite songs is “old man”.

it makes me think of my dad.

old man look at my life,
twenty four
and there’s so much more
live alone in a paradise
that makes me think of two.

old man take a look at my life
i’m a lot like you
i need someone to love me
the whole day through
ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that’s true.

last night, i took up an offer for an extra ticket from my friends matt and geoff. we saw the french duo air at the masonic center in nob hill. i own a few of their albums: moon safari, talkie walkie, 10000 hz legend. their song how does it make you feel is one of my favourites.

matt and geoff know royksopp pretty well. i suggested they try out the album leaf, who i saw in concert last november.

i also ran into karl konnerth and his wife julia at the masonic.

this was an interesting weekend.

for quite a while now, i’ve been keeping tabs on most-things-tech by way of podcasts. i have heard plenty from the likes of leo laporte, robert heron, kevin rose, nick douglas, and others. i’ve seen so many pictures of events they talk about, many of them right in san francisco. last week i decided to bring things up a notch and attend some of these events. when looking for “high-brow geek parties”, as emery puts it, a great place to start is scott beale’s laughing squid.

on the list by way of our friend john, was yuri’s night, world space party. this event celebrated the first manned orbit of earth by cosmonaut yuri gagarin. think of the party as, space/science fair meets burning man. multiple DJs spinning, brief talks and presentations, robots, video projected onto the sides of nasa aircraft. this took place in a hangar at nasa ames research center in mountain view.

saturday i made my way to the de anza electronics flea market. i was shopping for vacuum tubes and other glass objects. i picked up a few incandescent bulbs and a pair of proper vacuum tubes. i did see one that i pined for. it was very large, had a very intricate circuit inside, and carried a $100 price tag. i didn’t buy it, but it inspired me to switch my focus to printing. if i can work on that and produce good prints, i can work on selling a few to further fund this project. ( boman is proud of me for this, i am maturing as a photographer.. :) )

soon after the flea market, i headed to the camera swap meet, which was sort of a non-event for me this time around. i have some new toys i need to work on, plus i didn’t see any barrel lenses of interest. i did see a nice speed graphic, which i would love to play with (and would be great to take to burning man), but i have other stuff i should finish first..

saturday night, emery, john, and i attended the one month anniversary party for justin.tv, a “lifecasting” website. i met and talked briefly with justin and his brother, scott beale, nick douglas, and some of the site followers.

sunday was a rest day. i started playing super paper mario on the wii. our friends matt and geoff piked me up later to rendezvous with ryan in mountain view, where we hung out and chatted over beer. seeing all of us sitting around with bottles of beer reminded me of my childhood: my parents sitting down with their friends mary and rita, all chatting over bottles of beer. final thought - i am more adult now than ever. i mean, i am becoming more like my parents.

this week brings cooking dinner for friends tonight, attending a vmware users group on wednesday, playing more with web two point zero stuff, and hopefully working on printing.

this is john, me, justin kan, and emery.

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this is another jennings radio tube. because of its shape, i couldn’t easily light the inside parts so i decided to emphasize its shape instead. i can only imagine, hand-blowing a piece of glass that will have 30,000 volts going through it. i produced more images for my series this week, i’ll post them later.

stocked up on polaroid 54 today. checked out the swap meet on bryant street (the real action will be next week at the san jose show, plus the de anza swap meet). now that i’m building up a coherent set of work, …….

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when i saw this, i had to have it. it looks like a movie prop from the 1950s. it’s quite a large tube, the glass section is about four inches tall. my collection is growing, and each successive photograph i take is better than the previous, in my opinion.

i picked up some glossy double-weight paper to try, i think it will be good for these prints. i need to bust out the print washer and clean it. i also need to do some more reading on how to dry fiber prints without curling (and no proper drying equipment).

printing tonight - the glass enveloped relay. printed as 11×14 ilford rc glossy. i got 5 decent prints out of this run. my printing is definitely nicer, now that i am doing stop-based and not time-based test prints.

not sure i like this print or not.

i get excited when i get in touch with other schlachets.

last week i joined facebook, a big social networking site. as i usually do, i did a search for “schlachet” and found a joel, in berkeley. i sent him a note asking if he’s from the large group of schlachets from ohio. no, he said. he’s from sandiego, but he’s met some of the ohio family.

i sent him a message back, briefly telling him about how i found an eli schlachet living in san diego and i arranged to meet him. my dad, brother, and i were on our way from los angeles to the san diego zoo. we did meet. eli was married and had two boys, just like my father (and my father’s father). my dad’s recollection of his family basically jived with that of eli. if i’m thinking correctly, both their fathers emigrated to the u.s. from israel about the same time.

so this joel, in berkeley, is the son of eli schlachet. one of the kids i met back in 1995 or 1996 in san diego.

is it weird that i feel some sort of draw to schlachet folk? i want to learn more about them. i want to be linked to them on websites.

when i was growing up, it was just my immediate family, my grandfather who moved from ohio to florida, my uncle in los angeles, and my dad’s half sister. his sister carolyn was from the zacuto family. a couple years ago i got in touch with a jeff zacuto, who’s met my uncle and aunt.

as i get older, i guess i’m learning more about family and understanding more why people are so interested in geneaology. it’s like history that means something very personally to you.

it makes me wonder, why there are a large group of schlachets in ohio who my family never kept in touch with. it seems like different parts of the family came into the u.s. at different times. my grandfather lived in ohio, did he know these other schlachets? i’m just guessing that eli is still around, i wonder if he remembers when we came to visit. i wish i knew/remembered more about my family.

jared schlachet, the photographer from los angeles, is from ohio. i need to make a trip down there, as we told each other we’d have to meet up if one of us was near the other.

jason, jared, joel.

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this weekend i had some pleasant solitude at home so i decided to develop some film and photography this neat metal encased mercury switch. i decided to light it differently than the other objects. i bounced 1600w-s worth of speedotron into a large umbrella. i later added two novatron heads to light the back but they didn’t make a difference. looking back i should have dialed down the speedo. but it turned out ok. my scan of this polaroid blocked up on shadow detail.. i shot this also on hp5+ (EI 200, f/64).

i was really hoping to disassemble this switch to reveal the mercury inside, but it was completely sealed with wax. this may mean i’ll be on the hunt for a new mercury switch for my colection.

hopefully this week i’ll have some time to work on printing.