Getting in the steps. Appreciating the Q2. Chilling out for the holidays.

    

Two car images I liked making this week. 

And I am not a "car guy." 

I've been to several holiday parties in the last week. One was the annual masters swim party. One of the fun games at every swim party is trying to recognize fellow swimmers when they have their clothes on. And no goggles on their faces. It's harder than one would think. 

Every year someone volunteers their home for the party. Usually the host of the party hires a bartending staff and sometimes they augment our potluck dish contributions with an assist from a catering company. A good way to assure that clean up after the party is handled by pros instead of spouses. And so that drink glasses don't wind up on wood furniture tops without coasters...

When we hosted the party some years back we had about eighty people in the house and I think that's as high an occupancy as I'd ever like to experience again. We weren't good about setting boundaries back then and our last guest left somewhere around 1:30 in the morning. We didn't hire staff for our party so we had our work cut out for us in getting the house and the area around the fire pit in the backyard free of trash, empties and other surprises. We learned a lot that time around. The hosts of parties since then have been good at setting boundaries, "Show up at 6 and get the hell out of my house by 9." Makes it a nicer experience for the gracious hosts and probably lowers legal liability for various stuff.

This year's party was wonderful. The hosts' house had the square footage of an airplane hanger but the finish out one might see in an Architecture Digest article. If that magazine still exists. The house was right in the geographic center of our little world.  Everyone showed off their best culinary work and the food was wonderful. Two bartenders kept mixed drinks and wines flowing. Amazing that hard core swimmers sometimes drink alcohol... Must be only on special occasions... (yeah. That's the ticket). 

And yes, many of the conversations revolved around swimming events and esoteric swim techniques.

Warm feelings were had by all but regrets did surface the next morning as the coach on deck at the pool ignored the concept of hangovers and over-indulgence and peppered the faithful who showed up with some tough swim sets in the pool. Chastened, many headed back home to nap.

The fun thing about swim parties is meeting everyone's spouses. Getting their take on swimming. Though some couples both participate in the masters workouts. It's the first party I can remember when I didn't take a camera along with me --- if for no other reason than to have an emotional safety blanket. I take my lack of a camera for this social adventure with a symptom of retirement. 

The next party was the holiday celebration for the Neill Cochran House Museum. It's located near, but not affiliated with, the University of Texas Austin campus. The attendees could not have been more different from the attendees at the swim party. I was, with the exception of museum staff, easily the youngest guest and one of the few who was not retired directly from academia. Hard core, history academia. 

If we were to try and make a Venn diagram between the participants of the two parties we would fail as there would be no intersection. None. But the open bar at the museum party was nice. I tried a drink called a "Greyhound" with is a thinly veiled excuse to pair Vodka or Gin (but not both) with pink grapefruit juice, sparkling water and a slice of lime. It's called a "Greyhound" because the drink originated in the Greyhound Bus terminal restaurants. I found this out with some after the fact research. It is a refreshing drink... but weird that it saw its origination in bus stations.

The food at the Neill Cochran House holiday party was mostly charcuterie plates but very well done and plentiful. One of the activities on offer was to create your own Christmas wreath. Not as exuberant or well attended as the swim party but charming in its own way. Can't imagine the competitive swimmers sitting around making Christmas wreaths. Well, maybe if you made it a timed event...

The rest of the week I divided my time between my two Leica "toy" cameras; the Q2 and the DLUX8. Both have their own charm and both are easier to wrangle than the bigger "pro" cameras but both have their own limitations. I have to say that I'm not able to decide between the two; that is, if I had to choose one or the other. The Q2 sometimes vexes me with it's fixed, wide angle lens, the DLUX8 worries me with its less rigorous build quality...

Today, after routine chores and swim practice (which is anything but a chore) I hopped in the gas powered automobile and headed out for a walk up and down S. Congress Ave. Ate a picadillo taco, drank coffee at Jo's and spent a half hour people watching. The Q2 kept me company. I also did the loop, heading north on one side of the street and then south on the other side of the street. Nothing fabulous to record but the walk itself was fun and I did meet another photographer who was sporting a black, Fuji X100VI. The addition of I.S. adds a lot to the camera's desirability. Too bad it's still back-ordered everywhere. The photographer, who works also as a pharmacist, was very pleasant and the only other person on the crowded avenue I saw with a real, live camera. Amazing.

A lot of people I am friends with are planning trips out of town for the holidays. One couple is taking their family to Bonaire. Another family is heading off to somewhere in Italy. Many are heading to resort-y places here in the U.S. I seem to be in a tiny minority of Austinites who are not at all thrilled at the prospect of doing ANY traveling during holidays. I spent my photo career getting on and off planes a couple times a month for years at a time and I never felt that holiday travel paid off in any particular way. Better to wait a month and travel with a much smaller number of of bizarre strangers that you would, for the most part, never invite into your front yard, much less your house.

Besides, when one travels too much one misses out on too many days of swim practice. Especially during the stress of the holidays when swim practice is essential for mental health.

I guess it's a tradition on photo blogs to ask what you hope "Santa" will bring you this year to augment or turbocharge your own photography. Is there a camera or lens that promises to make you the next Henri Cartier-Bresson? The next Annie Leibovitz? Do you hunger for a new flash that will illuminate your work at a higher level? Have you written to Santa asking to be sent to some sort of mystical paradise where every vista is a potential award winning photo location? Two different swim couples of my acquaintance are taking advantage of the holidays to go to the Antarctic. Both of the males have announced that part of the tour is taking a "cold plunge" into the Antarctic Ocean. Without thermal suits. They are "all in." I wish them the best for their recoveries. I have no real desire to go there but maybe you do....?

Sadly, or happily, I have the habit of just buying whatever piece of gear I am interested in without waiting for a reason, or a holiday, or the largess of a loved one. It makes the holidays seem more transactional for me. I'm always trying to convince Santa that I've been "good" in the hopes that he'll just help me rationalize spending ever more money on whatever it is that Leica decides to toss into the market. And, if it has "pro" in the name or product designation that makes it easier on both Santa and I to bend the laws of prudence and good sense and switch into acquirement mode. Saving my loved ones from spending their own, hard-earned money.

I have sunk to a new low this week when it comes to ordering stuff from Amazon. I actually bought dental floss from them and, since I have a prime membership, I had them do a next day delivery on a $10 order. Outrageous. Imprudent. Immature. But in my defense my local grocery store and my local pharmacy didn't carry the brand I like. It's called CoCoFloss and it's sold by CoColab. I got a sample sized pack from my dentist a couple of years ago and really liked it. I figure anything that motivates one to floss their teeth more is good and getting it here, timely, is part of the process. 

But yeah. It seems to me like a low point in online purchasing. And the power of Prime rationalization. They may have lost money on this delivery but I'm pretty certain they'll make it up on the next one. 

I notice Amazon tends to delivery 20 or so packages in my neighborhood every day so I guess they've figured out the cost/benefit analysis well enough. And clustering deliveries like that is probably better for the environment than if all of us got in our cars, separately,  and drove off sin various directions to get personalized supplies all the time...

(That was yet another rationalization...sorry). 

Three more holiday parties to go and I'll be ready to sandbag the windows and barricade the doors for the rest of the year. I like my nuclear family enough that I'm happy spending time with just them.

So, what's on my photo wish list here at the end of the year? It's actually more reductive than additive. I'd like to divest of all my cameras and lenses with the exception of the Q2. Then I would like to add back one of the Q3-43 cameras I've had in and out of my shopping cart for most of the year and just have and use those two cameras. Same batteries, same memory cards, same menus, same bullet-proofness, same charm. We'll see what I can do about making that happen. After all, if nobody is paying me to haul the big gear around then why not use exactly what I think I want? Right? 

And, NO, I'm not sending anything I'm getting rid of to you --- just because. 

Cold yesterday. In the 70s and sunny this afternoon. Weird. But fun. 

Hope everyone's holiday trajectory is awesome and on the positive side of the ledger of life.