Travel - SB Hopper

Something in the way

You say eavesdropping, I say just part of eating at the bar. I overheard a story that I loved. Three people. One of them is trying to sell her father's waterfront home. That person was fairly quiet, but a friend filled the third person in on the details and then

Read Watch Listen

It's never entirely about the apocalypse.

I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic stories and shows. I have a magnet on my refrigerator that says, "Sometimes I worry about zombies." It's next to the Andre the Giant magnet from the Princess Bride - anybody want a peanut? The zombie world is multi-layered. I like all the layers. Comet

Read Watch Listen

This is going to be interesting

I didn't feel like cooking anything tonight, and I wasn't particularly hungry, but I knew I'd want something during the obnoxious booms. I took a gamble on a Simple Truth, plant-based, spicy veggie masala. I'm a bad gambler, and I think I'm about to lose. One bright spot - it's

Read Watch Listen

Plans

I know I can be a downer sometimes. I blame some of it on the medium. I think if we were sitting down having an actual conversation, it would come across more as questioning and searching rather than the sky is falling. Even though the sky is falling. I'm going

Photography

Wasn't always grey...

Blog

Carthage Must Be Destroyed

Carthāgō dēlenda est. ~ Cato (via Wikipedia) The sirens beckon. I am lost in the ancient world. A re-discovery of sorts. I spent the last 6 years or so not wanting to think too much about the Middle East. I'd had enough, for a lot of reasons. Looking back I think

Music

Bremerton is the Wild West

My friend's band, Filth is Eternal [https://filthiseternal.bandcamp.com/album/love-is-a-lie-filth-is-eternal], had a show at The Charleston in Bremerton a few weeks ago. I forgot about the show until the day of. Tick tock, tick tock. You're not going to make that ferry. That bummed me out; tough to

On the Road

Et Tu, Sacramento?

I'm behind schedule and tired. And still here. I must be due for a site renewal soon. If the site goes down, it just means I've missed an email. I was about to write that I've been driving through California's Inland Empire on the way to Oregon. That's partly correct,

Blog

Happy 4th everyone

Lensatic Essays

Left turn at Portland

I need to hear someone pronounce The Dalles. I think that every time I'm in Portland. I also think 84 towards The Dalles sucks every time I'm in Portland. The traffic on 84 is always terrible. It turns into the start of a beautiful drive after you've put some miles

Travel

Seattle to Phoenix

I left Seattle for a Phoenix visit in early June. I say visit, but it's a combination of things. I wanted to work on a small photo essay. You know the kind - dude with camera posts 50 photos and makes grand, sweeping comments about places he visits for 48

Blog

Be prepared

My folks have a place in Arizona's high desert. It's nice to get out of Phoenix's summer inferno. Fires are a threat in this region, so I bought a new emergency radio for the place. I knew they had one, but I worried it might be getting old. It was

On the Road

Long Live Free Radicals

Blog

I'm stuck.

Before the pandemic I started moving away from the fast posts on social media. I don't think there's anything wrong with the fast posts on social media. Seriously. There's a lot wrong with the big social media companies, but after that consideration, it's personal. Does it make you happy? Are

Blog

Good news bad news

I tried shooting a roll of film on my grandfather's Leica IIIa before leaving Seattle for Arizona. Ended up finishing it on the road. (Posting this one from the phone, please forgive any typos - hate typing on this damn thing.) When I went to unload the film, I knew

Out of the Shoebox

Out of the Shoebox: Defiance

Long walk today. Long for me, at least. Out of shape. Down the Hill to Pike Place Market. Braved some of the interior corridors, but the words variants and mutations hung over my head. Best to get back outside. Walked up to Belltown. Lots of places closed. I wonder what

Travel

Ring of Fire

My brain is counting paces, readying for a duel. Write, go to bed. Write fires in haste, bed takes a slower aim, but shoots straight. My PNW days are drawing to a close. If I can get my act together, I'll give notice at the end of the month. There's

Photography

On Photography

It's late. I'm tired. A friend dropped off a Ham Jam care package in memoriam of a friend. I'm no Hunter S. Thompson. A Ham Jam combo does not make me more lucid. (Accurate words or prescience - I fell asleep not long after writing that opening and some of

2020

Manifest

I know I’m not alone in wondering this. Can we manifest things? Don’t worry – you are at the SBHOPPER blog. I know I don’t get cosmic very often. I have not dropped acid. I really don’t even know what acid is. LSD? Timothy Leary stuff? I

On the Streets

Out in the west Texas town of Glendale

Phoenix is massive. Metropolitan Phoenix is only a bit smaller than Iceland. If you’re reading this and appearing on Jeopardy soon, please know that’s not true. It seemed true as a kid in Tempe in the 80s, though. It seems true still. But it’s not. Ken Jennings

Alki

Afternoon at Alki

On Saturday I helped Tony with two photoshoots. One was at Alki in West Seattle. I finally made it out there. If you’ve looked at photos of Seattle, you’ve probably seen a photo of Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, and a view of the Seattle skyline from

35mm

Palmyra, Syria 2001

Palmyra, Syria*, summer 2001. The photo is not very good. I’m posting it for two reasons. It’s from my first attempt at scanning 35mm film negatives on the Epson V800 [https://epson.com/Support/Scanners/Perfection-Series/Epson-Perfection-V800-Photo/s/SPT_B11B223201] flatbed photo scanner. I used the basic scanning