~doppelgamer

I shot about 3 rolls of black & white film at Antique Powerland in Brooks, OR over the past two weekends. Last year I uploaded only a few shots from there, such as a couple of steam tractors and a steam crane. This year, I went back armed with a trusty Pentax K1000, red filter, and some TMAX 400 film. Hopefully within a week or two, I'll have enlarged at least one or two shots in our darkroom, and then I'll scan those.

Also, I'm still having laptop issues. It's been three months since the on-and-off trouble started, and I'm ready to get a new laptop. Very, very ready.

Well, something came up at the last minute, and Alan White isn't going to be in town this weekend. So, the whole play-music-with-a-famous-drummer thing is off. Oh well, my friend's uncle is still going to live next door to the guy, and I'm pretty sure we'll find a way to get up to Seattle and jam with him some other time.

A friend of mine just called me up with an amazing opportunity: His uncle lives next door to Alan White, the drummer from Yes (You've probably heard their song, "Owner of a Lonely Heart."). My friend was just in Seattle, and met Alan. So here's the plan: three of us practice like crazy for a week, then we go up to Seattle and play Yes covers... with Alan White. I can't wait!

Update: this keeps getting better. Apparently we'll be playing at a neighbor's party, so others will be there to witness the greatness. Also, I just found out that Alan played drums for none other than John Lennon in the Plastic Ono Band. He did the drums on Imagine! Z.O.M.G.

The short version: Apple lost my computer.
Long version: When I first sent my laptop in, the store only wrote down one of three problems. I got it back, and my warranty had expired. However, Apple guarantees their repairs for 60 days. Still, when I sent it back in with the now-complete list of problems, Apple thought I was trying to extend the expired warranty. So, they sent it back to the mac store. The store doesn't have my laptop, and neither does Apple. It's been a few days, and I still don't know where it is. Fortunately, they have tracking numbers these days... maybe my PowerBook will show up in Albuquerque or something. Maybe it'll just never show up, and I'll have a perfect excuse for finally getting a new laptop. At any rate, I've backed up my laptop's files, so I hardly care if I ever see it again at this point.

Other random crap:
It's summer, and I've got plenty going on between seeing friends, reading books, listening to and playing music, and exploring the many facets of the internet. However, photography has taken a bit of a back seat... probably because I haven't seen any steam trains or other worthy subjects lately.

Update: still no word on my laptop, but we're starting to think that the repair shop was at fault instead of Apple.

Ups:
School's done, and so is the SAT. I'm not sure how I did on either yet, but I have a pretty good feeling about both (although from experience, that means nothing). Today I got an e-mail from my school to tell me that I got into my first and second choices respectively for English electives. I had an organ lesson for the first time in months today, and something seriously clicked - jazz music is suddenly making far more sense. After weeks of issues with reception, I got a new cell phone, and hopefully I'll figure out the new menus soon.

Downs:
Apple had my laptop for 3 weeks, and I got it back: out of the three problems I sent it in for, they fixed zero. Hell, they fixed negative one problems, as now the computer won't automatically sleep when I close the lid like it should. It's nice that they gave me a new screen and battery, but neither fixed the intermittent boot problem I'm having where the computer wakes up in the wrong screen resolution and can't handle the native resolution. Furthermore, while my laptop was in the shop, the warranty ran out. Hopefully the shop will recognize that it's their bad for not doing their job and fixing the problems. If not, it's alright as long as I can talk my parents into buying me a more reliable laptop.