• Blog,  Money

    Good Bye to my Directv Streaming Service

    It was good knowing you but it is time for us to part ways. I was an early cord cutter adopter. Did it back when it was unthinkable to most. My only pre-requisite was that I needed Nickelodeon since my daughter was still young. I came across something called directvnow. It was $30 or $35 a month back then. Since I was what they called an early adopter or beta tested they even gave me an extra $5 off a month for some time. It was great. Then it changed names a few times, AT&T bought them and they changed the name a couple times: AT&T Stream, AT&T TV… Now…

  • Investing

    Buying T-Bills

    Trying to change it up on my financial side for a bit by purchasing T-Bills from both my Fidelity Investments account and at Treasury Direct. Both methods were honestly quite simple. Through the Fidelity account, I was buying them on the secondary market. Treasury Direct is an auction and when you sign up the return is not known. You have a good idea, but you won’t know until it is purchased. Well, that’s at least how I have gathered it works. The Fidelity Money Markets are doing quite well right now: 4.65% as I write this today. (Symbol: SPRXX) The T-Bills are paying at bit more at 5.2%, not a…

  • Blog

    Adding a Second Rental

    After purchasing a new house in Virginia a couple years ago, we find ourselves with one house too many. Two is manageable. Three is just silly and one doesn’t get visited. Last year solidified that. We stayed at the lake house for a total of two times. That’s it! We went to the lake often to go out on the boat and since home is only an hour away, we didn’t find the need to stay at the lake house. We just used it as a place we would deposit our clothes and dry out towels. At first I was very hesitant to do anything with it. Our current cost…

  • 35mm,  Photography

    I Finally Found the Appeal to Black and White Film

    I just never understood it. Why use black and white when you can have color! Kodachrome!!!! As the song goes. I’ve been in love with color film from the start. The challenge and complexity dragged me in kicking and screaming yet I loved every moment of it. I have never even shot film in black and white. I was given a roll of illford HP4 and it sat with the rest of my film and it collected dust as the others came and went. It was the grandpappy of my film collection. I finally relented and put a roll into my Canonet G3 QL17 and fired off 24 shots. Most…

  • 35mm,  Blog,  Photography

    The Difference

    The difference between the novice and the master is that the master has failed more times than the novice has tried. Very poignant. I try to keep this in mind when shooting film lately. I have screwed up a few more rolls of film. I have taken some good shots and also been stumped on what to shoot next. I’m off to give myself some assignments and shoot ideas and just get out there and take some rolls of film. I need to keep on taking the bad photographs, experimenting with developing, and screwing up before I can fully master the craft.