This week has been spent catching up from last Sunday night. Sunday was spent cooking and preparing for another visit to see Zoe's mom, Gerry. She's an Alzheimer's patient at Western State Hospital. We left at 4:30 to catch the ferry for the usual 2 1/2 hour drive. It was longer with stop and go traffic from south of Seattle to Tukwilla due to a pretty big accident. We got down to the hospital and parked at the main entrance. As we did an ambulance drove by in front of us to the abmulance entrance where they stopped and unloaded the gurney. We both thought the same thing. Zoe said "Say it isn't for Gerry." I dutifully said it wasn't. We headed upstairs. As the nurse opened the door to the ward to let us in she said "Great timing!" We walked down the hall and around the corner to see Gerry being strapped down on the Gurney. She had fallen and hit her head on the wall putting a dent in the wall. She seemed OK and was vocally resisting. One of the nurses drove over to the Emergency Room to be with her and we followed. The three of us kept her calmed down. Xrays showed no broken bones and the CT scan of her head showed that she was fine. She was actually in pretty good spirits. I brought in some of the snacks we had brought down for Gerry. We followed the ambulance back and got her settled in. We made it to the last ferry back to the Island. The 1 o'clock (in the morning) boat. I slept most of Monday.

I've been working on lens boards for the Burke & James Press. I have the Schneider APO-Symmar 210mm/f5.6 Don lent me mounted. It's a thing of beauty. It's about the longest lens I can mount on this camera. The picture shows it focused at infinity. I can get about 12 inches of bellows extension which will focus this lens to about 2 to 3 feet. 210mm is a little long. It's equivalent to a 59mm lens on a 35mm camera. I'm almost finished mounting my 150mm/f9 Konica Hexanon process lens. It's equivalent to a 42mm lens. It's not only wider but, being a process lens, is meant for close-up work at 1:1. It's in a barrel meaning it has no shutter so I've also almost finished a mount for the Packard Shutter. Pictures later. Then to mount both Wollensak 90mm lenses (25mm equivalent). The Schneider 210 and the Konica Hexanon 150 are modern Plasmat designs (6 elements in 4 groups.) The Wollensaks are from the 1940s or 1950s are are probably 4 element Tessars.

The camera came with a simple leather strap Vern had made. I took the strap I had made for my Burke & James 5x7 Commercial View and put it on the Press. Fits fine.

I folded some polar fleece into three layers and contact cemented it on the inside. Comfy! Too busy to do any shooting with it yet. Hopefully next week.