RAY'S REPORTS

My friend Una turned 40. Generations before us consider 40 “over the hill”, meaning that it marks the beginning of the 2nd half of our life span. But I think with today’s technology and a better understanding of proper health, it wouldn’t surprise me if we lived to 200 years old.

Ok my friend Mike asked me, “Is it working?” and I had to think about it before I could answer. He knows I have been reading books in the entrepreneurship category which turns out to be a disguise for the self improvement category. It has been a few years since I started reading these books and I always recommend him the good ones. He knows I started a Youtube channel to share some of the info. He knows I don’t go to the gym everyday and am still struggling with diet. I like fresh baked cookies.

“It is working,” I said. “I have a girlfriend. I have my name on a lease. I paid my taxes. I have a car with registration and insurance. And pretty soon I will have zero debt.” We both had to take a long pause. He knows I haven’t had most of these things in years. I saw it in his face. He realized that while it is a slow game, it is a productive one. I haven’t taken inventory in a while so I finally felt progression. But we both know I still have a lots more work to do.

It doesn’t feel like work actually. It feels like getting a haircut or putting up a new shelf. You are just making little improvements in different categories that some how add up later. These categories are ingredients to make a pie called Happiness. This is what I have gathered and attempting to improve on daily.

1. Health
2. Wealth
3. Love and Relationships
4. Purpose and fulfillment

You could stop there and have a ton to think about. But I think we have to consider our 4 bodies. Each of these bodies need each of these categories and vice versa. I know its confusing.

1. Physical
2. Mental
3. Emotional
4. Spiritual

I am calling it “The Matrix of Self Mastery”. I don’t like the term “Self Help”, it sounds like a person is helpless and no one likes to feel that way. It is probably why that term gets shit on a lot. “Self Mastery” sounds next level. And where else do we really want to be?

So while there were, are, and will be many more starts and stops, this matrix is good food for me. It is about self awareness and this makes whatever the next level is less overwhelming.

I don’t know if magic beans exist, but now that this blog is coming together I will share what comes along.

My Dad grew up in Hawaii. He met my Mom and had 3 kids with her in California and once a year or so we would go visit his family in Hawaii. Either for a summer or for a winter. My Hawaiian cousins were beach kids as were all people of the islands. And while we did go to the beach a lot in San Diego, I was a skater.

There were lots of similarities and only a few differences, but today I had a flashback of their sand management. I remember tripping out leaving the beach and they would be dry already with no sand on them. I would have to spend a bit of time showering off myself, boards, and younger siblings. The cousins would be chilling in the car seemingly have skipped a bunch of steps, in fact I can’t remember them having towels or anything extra. And they never had to worry about sand.

This would be a reoccurring observation throughout my whole life. I made surfer friends in highschool and it was the same. While some would battle with wetsuits and sand everywhere in their cars and house and shoes like me, others had zero sand anywhere ever. How could all of it just fall off their bodies as they are getting to the car or bike or skate? Every last granule?!

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind sand at all. Living in LA now I go to the beach at least 3 times a week. I have sand every where, in every bag, in my books, on my desk etc. It doesn’t bother me. In fact I love it because it reminds me that I am living the life I want to live. But so weird how certain people can develop such a command of sand.

Where in my life does this level of grace exist? I would like to say in my photos. I do not struggle with it as some others do. Or in my publishing, but sometimes I do struggle with it especially on the business side of things.

I think the truth is the grass will always be greener on the other side of the fence. Someone will always have more than you or in this case less sand than you. If we can remember why we are at the beach in the first place, then nothing else really matters.

Tobin had a bday party and I brought the GX85 with me. It performed great. I rode my bike there from my house and had the camera strapped, no bag. Not bothersome at all. Now I just gotta get used to that tiny viewfinder and I will be all good on cameras for a while.

I will say though that my computer is dying a slow death. The screen has no contrast and totally sucks and the ram can hardly handle my edits. I know that my photos can look better than this. I have been using the same computer since 2010, lol. Time for an upgrade.

I have had the camera for almost a week now. Haven’t really gotten to go out and use it as much as I want, just been busy with work. I ordered a 14mm lens and got it already. Here’s some notes.

1. The camera is super snappy. From off to on to snapping a photo it may be the snappiest digital camera I have ever used. The mechanics, size, and weight are seemingly perfect.

2. The high ISO is “atrocious”. I knew it would be bad since I have been shooting full frame sensor, didn’t know it would be this bad. But…

3. The image stabilization is VERY REAL. I can shoot at 1/10th of a second and it is perfectly fine. This sort of makes up for the high ISO situation.

4. The popup flash works awesome. I always liked the shadows from off camera flash and this has a little of that.

5. To get the camera how I like it, it was maybe 3 days of playing with settings. But that is a good thing.

6. Both the kit lens and the 14mm are as sharp as anything I have ever used. Maybe I haven’t used that much nice stuff, but these lenses are sharrrrrp.

7. Silent mode it too silent! When I am in it, not sure even if I took a photo or not. It’s awesome.

This guy came to tune Chelsea’s piano. It was dark and I didn’t want to flash him. He was moving around a bunch so it wasn’t proper to go super slow shutter speed. Noisy but I have since figured out better settings and technique.

When someone asks you if you believe in aliens or not, I think the more proper question would be, “Do you believe in dimensions?”

Fermi’s Paradox is about if this universe is so gigantic, then where is everyone? One of the many hypotheticals is that us Earth humans just haven’t been around long enough compared to the age of the universe and the distances of spaces travel.

This makes me think of life spans of certain species here on Earth. For instance, a gnat. Gnats live for like 5 days or something. If you break up those 5 days, then they are full adult by age 2.5 days. And if they live in some random swamp, they might be having conversations about rumors they heard about the existence of humans. See where I am going with this?

I am saying if you are a one dimensional being, a dot, not even on a piece of paper because you would be 2 dimensional at that point. So your a dot. How would you even begin to describe or recognize a 3d being?

The truth is we live in a multi dimensional universe and if you don’t believe me then just ask quantum science. Just because we don’t understand something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Secondly, the universe is under no obligation to make sense. Thirdly, if words and cartoons can live in 2d and we can live in 3d and 4d (time), why can’t there exist beings in 5d, 6d, 7d and beyond?

I think there is still a lot to unfold. At this point we can only perceive 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum and only account for 4% of matter of known universe. That means 96% is well, we don’t know what it is.

This is Kevin Costner as Robin Hood. It was pretty good, I hadn’t seen it before. I watch 1 or 2 movies every night to wind down the day. My gf doesn’t like TV shows that much. Or documentaries, or anything with violent crimes, or horror. So we stay in the action or adventure or comedy or romance genres.

She had seen this before and warned that this was a dark version of the Robin Hood story. I was like, “How?” but we watched it and she was right.

This one is from Cowboys and Aliens. I think this is a great story. This is Harrison Ford here, but the casting of Daniel Craig was an odd choice. While he can for sure play a tough guy, having him play a boss cowboy wasn’t a good match. In fact in both of these movies, they shouldn’t have even attempted fake accents. They could’ve wrote it that he was visiting from the UK and ended up out west. It could’ve worked since he has amnesia in most the movie. Jason Bourne style.

And in Robin Hood, Kevin Costner is in a prison for like 5 years and returns home to find out it has been taken over by the Sheriff of Nottingham. They could’ve said he was in prison in the USA and that’s how he lost his accent.

In movies they portray aliens as these disgusting insectoid type of beings but with advanced technology. If they are so advanced, I don’t think they would look like that. Think about human evolution. We are less hairy than Neanderthals probably because we developed clothing. Our eyes got worse probably because we don’t have to hunt and the invention of glasses.

But for sure there are probs tons of different species of ETs and what do I know. What I do know though is that if you have the kind of technology that allows you to travel interdimensionally, then there is no way possible that Earth humans could or would ever be a threat.

Photo notes: We watch movies from a projector. The blinds that came with our apartment are roll down white screens that turn out to be perfect for projection. That wood thing at the top is an awning to cover the roll up system. That dark thing on the left is our front door painted brown. Sometimes it is hard to get a photo without getting the shadow of my hands and phone in it. Also, the projector doesn’t have a sound auxiliary output. It has a speaker on it, but it is kind of quiet. So we run the subtitles with the movie. My parents watch Game of Thrones with the subtitles on because they can’t understand the thick accents so much. I watched with them and it changed the game for me. Reading the dialogue brings me into the story even more. If it is available, I will put the subtitles on everything now.

Speaking of reading. I grew up learning from older photographers that printing and processing photos helps shape the way you shoot photos. And vice versa. This is why I am constantly making zines and printing out my photos. It helps my shooting and my shooting helps my printing and it goes around and around.

I didn’t realize until a few days ago that this applies to reading and writing. Instinctively, you can guess that reading a lot will help your writing. But I am finding out that writing is helping me read better. Reading speed is a lot faster. Concepts and ideas from authors are absorbed quicker and I just enjoy it more. I have been enjoying reading for a couple years now, but lately I can’t get enough. And I think it is because I have been writing a bunch.

Anyways, I don’t know if my movie breakdowns are that interesting and I don’t even know who, if anyone, is reading this. But, I wanna start a daily writing habit and it will probably be live and in public here on this blog. I am always thinking, “What should my blog be about?” and “I will just post my random thoughts and photos until the day when an idea comes.” Well that day came today. This blog will be about my random thoughts and photos. LOL.

** NEW CAMERA ALERT ** Not usually a big deal. But I have been thinking about Micro Four Thirds for a while now. And I wanted to share why I ended up going this route.

First is size. I have a Nikon D750 and a bunch of Nikon lenses. And while I do try to take it out a bunch, it is just not convenient to bring to the beach or on a bike ride. So everything gets shot on my phone. In fact I would say 95% of this blog has been shot with Samsung Galaxy S7 and S8. I don’t mind it, I love it. But I miss having a viewfinder and lens options.

Secondly, price. I already have the Nikon setup for “work”, now I just need a setup for “cruising”. I didn’t want to spend too much. This is for out and about and might get thrashed. Of course I was looking at Sony full frame and APS-C and the Fujis. Both systems are not that much different than Nikon prices when you factor in lenses. So if we look at cameras under $1000, we really only have the Ricoh GR II or the 1″ sensor cameras or.. M43.

An M43 set up seems to be the perfect match for me. Size is right, price is right. Viewfinder check. Lens selection check. In fact the lens selection is epic, but I just need a couple cheap pancake options and I’m good. I went to go handle the Panasonics at Samy’s Camera Store which is not far from my house. I wanted to compare the GX9 to the GX85. Right away I liked the look and feel of the GX85. They had an open box one for $100 cheaper than normal plus $200 rebate. Grand total $350 out the door with kit lense and tax, I had to pull the trigger.

I will probs talk about this camera a lot. I already picked up another lense for it. I have had it for 2 days and I love it. In my opinion for size, shape, and price it might be the best pound for pound camera out right now. Even if it is a couple years old.

** Side Note. When my friend Ted was diagnosed with cancer, the doctors told him to stay out of the darkroom so he went digital. He got an M43 setup and I got to play with the files. I was impressed. We have published a bunch of the photos in Hamburger Eyes and I have seen and handled some of his 16×20 prints he made for exhibition. They looked awesome. Also, one of our last conversations before he passed away was about this particular camera. So there is some sentimental value.

My fantasies about being a blogger are starting to manifest themselves. I have been writing articles on the Hamburger Eyes site and have been getting good feedback. Not a lot of comments but some emails, texts, mentions, and DMs. I have been writing about photography and publishing. You could say that I have been blogging since 2003 with that site, but not until recently did I start “writing” “articles.” I feel like I have excavated not a new skill or talent but new pleasure? Does that sound pervy? I guess I am trying to say I have been enjoying it.

I would like to start writing articles on this site. Not sure what about yet. My Youtubes hover in the self-improvement/human potential category but I think that will be expanding soon as I start interviewing people and make a show out of it. I think from there I will be able to narrow focus. For now, more photos and philosophizing out loud.