Local Flavor: Gloomy Season

Well, it's officially settling-in to winter blues around here. It's been grey for a few weeks, snow-drifting on-and-off, and raining-ice in-between. On top of that, everyone is coming down with some sort of cold or another. I've been fighting a bad sore throat for about a week and it finally feels like it's turning today -- so expect answers to your questions later today as my mind is back in the game again, hah hah. Yesterday I was cleaning-up in the store all day and by about 4:30 PM I just went into fatigue-shock and had to crash for a bit.

On the bright side, I'm trying to tie-up many loose ends for all of my repair customers before the holiday bracket hits -- and progress is being made, if slowly. I'm thinking about next year and ways to streamline my work process and also crack-down on myself for letting too much stuff into the shop. The consignment on top of consignment that's been here has been hurting my repair customers' timeframes and making me a bit crazy in terms of the storage requirements. So -- I'm going to begin a strict no-new-consignment policy across the board beginning January 1st until I can clear-out what's here.

Back to fun stuff! Living in Vermont has serious perks -- including getting outdoors. The first shot up here is one I snapped off the road in Hancock, VT this morning. This one (of my little model, Miss Elsa) and the next ones were snapped at the National Forest "CCC Camp" off of Route 73 in Rochester, VT.

I've been testing out my new glass -- a used Fuji X100F and its tele-converter lens -- which will be turned on some instruments later today. I'm really happy with this camera and it fulfills my requirements for small, lightweight, and high quality. I'm still getting used to the handling but I can tell it's going to be superb for what I want it to do -- and with the TCL on it I'm getting the 50mm equivalent I like to shoot instruments at. While it's not exactly the Leica CL I would love to own, my pockets are not that deep. Did I mention fixing guitars, ukuleles, and banjos is not the easiest way to make a living -- especially if you have a musician's leanings? Hee hee.

Elsa said, "Daddy, there's a whole world in the pond!"

I've always loved this rock down near our "beach."

Yes, I am the dummy who puts this kind of stuff up while standing on a rain-slick, tin roof.