I've been neglecting my faithful (and faithless) readers. Visiting Gerry 4 times in two weeks takes it toll, but it was certainly worth it. We went down to see Zoe's mom, Gerry who has Alzheimer's, the Monday after thanksgiving. It's 2 1/2 to 3 hours driving down, 1 to 2 hours visiting, and another 2 1/2 to 3 hours driving back. Plus the 3 hours of preparing and cooking food to take down for her. We bring everything to set up a festive table for us to share dinner. She ate well and was doing much better. We spent a delightful two hours with her. In the following week she was eating on her own again. We went down again Sunday and she ate like a horse. It was great! She looked much better. Even through her speach made little sense, we could tell when she was teasing and joking, which was often. She was so happy to see us and enjoyed the food so much. We wish we could do it every day.

There have also been some additions of photographic gear.

It's been like drinking from a firehose. Now that I have the Epson 3800 printer working, I've been setting up a 4x5 field camera. Vern has been helping. He made the lens board and gave me a chunk of the wood so that I can make lens boards for the rest of my lenses. The lens is a 170mm Kodak Anastigmat from a Kodak No. 3A Autographic Junior. It's mounted in a Kodak Ball Bearing shutter. I originally thought the lens wouldn't cover but when I looked on the ground glass it had lots of coverage. The folding Kodak it was from was a 3 1/2" x 5 1/2" format. And my friend Don is lending me his modern Schneider APO-Aymmar 210/5.6. I'm setting this up as a light weight (relatively speaking) walk around kit. More on this beauty later. Vern brought up a number of cameras from his late camera collector friend. There was a box of Yashica Electro 35s that I am going to sell. Very nice automatic rangefinders from the 1970s. But, as Vern and I went through the Electros, we found the camera on the left, a Yashica Lynx 14E with a FAST f1.4 lens. Like the Electros, it's fixed lens, but what a lens! I'm keeping it for available darkness photography. And, in front, is my carry everywhere Olympus XA. An aperture preffered rangefinder. A great camera in a small package. Then there was the case of Pentax Spotmatic bodies and lenses. I'm keeping a Pentax SV and a number of lenses. Most have some fungus damage but most of those are still useable but not saleable. More on that later.

It's been a very busy time. Some of it has been scary because of Gerry's problems but a lot has been very positive. I hope we can get back to regular programming soon.