The Blog of James Jay

this weekend me and the girls took of to the park. the weather has been so nice,  the colors are amazing and its just so good to be outside. i have been playing with the yashica t4 zoom which i got on craigslist. i find the camera pretty fun to use, im still not sure if i like it i have shot some rolls of film through it but still cant decide if i like it.  i have also been using this cheap film that i bought at the dollar store and have been trying to find a film that i feel is decent with this camera. i was hoping to use my solaris ferrenia film but they have discontinued it. and i have also been resizing my photos with a 5×7 frame, and getting my film scanned to cd. i can see the different results from my scans and the stores scans i must say i am really enjoying the scans. well on to the photos. 

here is a picture of more trees and leaves. for some odd reason i really do like these shots like this. i don’t know why. the colors rock in this picture i think. 

this pic just looks awesome to me. 

chloe has started to swing and actually enjoy it. she was smiling and laughing the whole time. 

me and talia have learned we cannot swing across the monkey bars no more. and we are to tall too. 

she looks so adorable, i love love love her smile. 

she looked all snugly bundled up with her scarf on. i think i should be watching the road too.  

and finally me messing around. its cold and im still wearing shorts. and wearing my rush t shirt that has a pentagram on it.

on a side note doesnt the colors rock in the pics…

Well as of last night I finally finished the book I had been reading for almost a year now. It was only about 400 and some pages but it took me quite a time to read.

I read slow…

no just kidding I was taking my time with it.

I know I mentioned I was reading the book I gave my father while he was in a rehab center.  The book is named GHOST RIDER, and is about the drummer from the band RUSH. After losing his daughter in a car accident and a year later loosing his wife to cancer. Feeling lost and living with the ghosts of there memory he decides to take a touring trip on his motorcycle covering over 50.000 miles, along the way documenting his travels and trying to learn to cope with his loss.

I bought this for my father one year mostly cause I figured it would give him hope. That he might be able to cope with his own form of pain and suffering. That he could go on with is life and be able to see that in the end it can work. That life will still go on.  Well He never finished the book cause he passed away that summer. So in the book was left a bookmark where he left off. Almost finished but not quite there.

This whole time I wanted to finish it to get over the point he couldn’t. Trying to get through my own form of mourning. Knowing my father didn’t finish a book he was given. One thing I could count on was him finishing a book, no matter what. I still feel pain from his death sometimes. I’m sure that’s to be expected. Its like a wound never completely healed. He was taken so fast and unexpectedly, so you can say sometimes its kind of hard. Even the simplest things sometimes make me burst out with tears. Oil and grease on the skin, giving off that smell that can only come from being a mechanic. The name patch that was attached to his shirt, that I ripped off as we were burning his clothes. His wallet, reading something he wrote. All kinds of things trigger those sleeping memories. I miss him sometimes.

Well as I was reading the book I felt as if I trying to face my memories. Trying to get to that first point. The bookmark. The bookmark represented more than just a place mark it represented my father. This whole time I kept putting the book down and going back to it. I guess in my own way not wanting to reach that point in the book where he left off. So I would leave it for weeks, months, and then try and go back to it. Always getting closer, sometimes to close for comfort. And me being the person I am I read one thing at a time. I don’t start another book until I finish the one-im reading. I try and give the book my whole attention. Well as I passed the bookmark I didn’t feel completion or sadness. I honestly don’t know what I felt. But last night I decided to finish the book to wipe it from my list so I could go on to something else. So I start on the last chapter and it hits me like a ton of bricks I start to cry and realize its almost over. I made it past the bookmark, to the end of the book. I sat there and through tears I finished the book that he didn’t finish.

Talia later asked me what did I learn from the book. I had to think about it a bit, honestly cause I think I was trying to get through my own mourning and trying to let it all sink in. the story as well as my own story. Then I came to realize that the point of the book is that “life will go on” that if you want there is always a reason to carry on, that “love” will always conquers all. 

Or as my father would say, “what’s done is done” he would shrug his shoulders and carry on with whatever task he was doing.  simple words, and a simple gesture, but in the end something that still makes me remember.

ohh allergies are flaring up even more today left early yesterday cause I couldn’t look at the screen no more my eyes were killing me. Now today its even worse. Great. It always seems the allergies go right for my eyes all the time. Sitting here in front of a 23 inch monitor does not help at all. So im trying to just go with it…I feel better typing than actually trying to look at my work on screen.

Coffee is strong this morning too.

I tried not to make it to strong but it seems all I know is super strong coffee. Tar as I call it sometimes. Im sure those people in the other side don’t enjoy it though. They hate my coffee except for a select few. It is so much to ask for them to make a decent cup of coffee? Ill admit it im pretty spoiled about my coffee.

Here is the list of my coffee demands.

1. I don’t think that coffee should taste like water.

2. You should not be able to see through it.

3. Powder cream is not cream.

4. Sugar should only come from cream.

5. If you don’t have cream don’t stoop down to using sugar or powder. Drink it plain.

6. Iced coffee should be consumed during the summer. And on some occasions in the winter.

7. Hot coffee should not be drunk in the summer…whatsoever.

I think thats about it.

Im sure there are less important demands but for the mot part that’s about it.

Its actually tasting really good and doing its job. Something I can smile about.

Now to do some work.

not to many photos these days i dont know why…

but i do have some shots to share, been playing with the yashica t4 zoom that i bought and dollar store color film. it has given me some nice results actually. wow they really changed the interface of wordpress around. 

i forgot to add this one too… i used fuji film for this one. me and my friend darrell were out at this place called the tilted kilt. i didnt even look through the viewfinder guessed distance and shot… thi is the end result i thought i should post this one.