Year 50

Year 50 Day 74

by

Me, wearing a black t-shirt with a print of Mickey Mouse smoking a cigarette, standing in front of a park playfield with a lot of people sitting in small groups enjoying the summer evening weather.

Day 74: Wandering around Capitol Hill on a nice warm summer evening as I wait for the Mercury to open its doors. Lots of people out at Cal Anderson Park enjoying a gorgeous summer evening.

Year 50 Day 73

by

My wife and I in a nearly-empty movie theater.

Day 73: Movie time! We went off to see the latest Mission: Impossible film, and really enjoyed it. Tom Cruise may be a rather bizarre personality, but boy does he (and the people he works with) know how to put together a great, big, ridiculous, summer action movie.

Fun fact: This is the first movie I’ve seen in the theater since Star Trek: The Motion Picture!

(Of course, that was the 40th anniversary re-release of TMP, back in September 2019, not long before the pandemic shut everything down. But still! It’s an entirely true statement!)

For the mask-conscious: At this point, there were only two other people in the theater, and we were having some pre-movie snacks. Once we were done with those and more people came in, our masks went on. Even then, there were fewer than 10 people, including us, in this showing. Early Friday matinee showings are great, even for opening weekend movies!

Year 50 Day 72

by

Me on a grey couch surrounded by purple, light green, light blue, and brown pillows.

Day 72: Nothing fancy today — just flopped out in a pile of brightly colored pillows on our basement couch watching this week’s Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, followed by silly reality television.

Year 50 Day 71

by

Me in a classroom with an amused look on my face holding a CPR practice dummy.

Day 71: Today I got to do first aid/CPR training. My partner was a little stiff and not very talkative, but at least they didn’t complain when I practiced chest compressions on them.

Year 50 Day 70

by

Me crouching in front of a 60s-era pebbled building wall, next to a black padded rolling case about the size of carry-on luggage labeled ‘Enhanced Vision’. I’m wearing a grey cap and blue shirt with a print of pizza slices.

Day 70: Waiting outside one of our classrooms before getting a low-vision student set up with an Enhanced Vision Acrobat magnifying device so they can better participate in their class. It’s a fairly simple device — a screen with a camera that can be directed at the table to magnify papers, or around the classroom to zoom in on the instructor, whiteboard, or other students — but it makes a big difference. And reminds me a lot of a very similar (but much lower-tech and not at all portable) device that my grandma used as her vision deteriorated over the years that I would play with when we went down to visit them.

Year 50 Day 69

by

Me pedaling on a recumbant exercise bike; a treadmill is visible behind me.

Day 69: Time to get back into the evening exercise routine. No real goal other than just being a little more active. The actual doing isn’t necessarily fun, but it always feels good to be in the habit of doing a bit of this regularly.

Year 50 Day 67

by

Me standing next to a vintage pachinko machine set into a wall.

Day 67: A treasure of ours — a vintage pachinko machine that my wife inherited from her grandfather, who brought it back from when he was stationed overseas with the Navy. We’re not sure of the exact age (somewhere between the ’50s and the ’70s), but it was mounted in a wall of her grandparents’ house when she was growing up, and got lots of play from all the grandchildren. She inherited it a few years ago, we spent some time cleaning it up, and now it’s mounted in a wall of our basement. The mechanics work decently, though some of the bumpers have degraded and could use replacing, and someday I’d love to see if I can get the electronics working too. But even if that never happens, it’s fun to take a few shots when we walk by.

Year 50 Day 66

by

My wife and I, both wearing face masks, standing in front of a blue-lit concrete wall with the words "we are angry and hungry" scratched into it.

Day 66: My wife and I hopped on the light rail (for the first time since the pandemic hit) and went up to the Seattle Center today. We got some (mediocre) food (the Armory’s food options just don’t really work for us), sat for about an hour watching people play in the fountain, and then went to MoPOP to see the Laika exhibit (and, of course, the SF, Fantasy, and Horror sections; we skipped the music stuff, because there are only so many times I can feign interest in Nirvana memorabilia (that is, it was interesting the first time, but those exhibits aren’t as engaging on repeat visits)). I took a fair number of photos, but used my “real” camera for most of them, so they’re not ready to go yet. Eventually!

Read more