My Mind Is On Vacation

As well as my body. Time to get used to the new schedule - not exactly vacation but something much better. I'll still be working two days a week but I don't have to worry about running out of vacation days and I can pick and choose my days to work. I don't know how long the new gig will last but for now at least, I'll be back on a regular schedule of my own making and can get back to working in the shop and exercising like I should.

I've been looking for a massage therapist to pound the knots out of my back and found one last week that worked me over pretty good. The craziness with my chest has been bothering me quite a bit due to the back muscles tightening up. I don't fully understand what's going on but as long as the back stays loose, the chest is only a minor source of irritation. So I got the back worked on Thursday, went to the boxing club Saturday and then walked a few miles Sunday with my running buddy. I checked my resting pulse rate this morning and it was 58 bpm, so I'm not in too bad a shape. Time to build on that and add some muscle building exercises for the upper body to the mix. If you don't use it, you lose it.

I took a camera with me on the walk yesterday - an old Mamiya twin lens with the 105 lens. These cameras are the only medium format twin lens reflex cameras that have interchangeable lenses. They used to be common for wedding and portrait photography. I was looking for a 105 lens a few years back when all the pros were making the switch to digital. The lenses were still going high but I found a camera with that lens cheaper than I could find just the lens so I went that route. Now that I'm going to have more free time, I want to get back into some black & white photography along with some alternative process stuff.. With the saddle bags on the new bike I can load up a camera and go out on a nice day, shoot a roll of film with the medium format or a few sheets of film with the 4x5, come home and spend an enjoyable evening in the darkroom. I've got the roll I shot yesterday in the can already, just need to mix up a fresh batch of developer and then see how I did when I was guessing my exposures.

Have a good week.