Canon Film Camera Resurrection, Rust Boys Camping Trip, New Tent

Canon Film Resurrection

I received an old Canon SLR AE-1 from my sister who kept it from my mom, who had it from my dad. I do remember this camera from my youth and how awesome I thought it was, and I remember it being one of my dad’s prized possessions. My sister didn’t want it, but I thought it was a good opportunity to clean it up and add it to the family heirloom collection, of which there isn’t much. How exciting to think about shooting film from a camera that my father owned and is probably 35 years old?

I purchased a battery and the all of the action still works. The camera looks like it was kept in a damp environment, which some screws rusty and what looks like a water stain on the bag it came in. The detachable lens is pretty beat up too but I think that can be remedied also. I removed the plastic eye cup and noticed a crack in the viewfinder body, but I think that can be replaced as well. Probably the best thing to do is buy another parts body off E-Bay, strip this one down, and replace it with any parts from the new camera. When it is done I will photograph the family with it and some other landmarks that were important in my dad’s life.

Rust Boys Camping Trip

I was able to spend a weekend, albeit only one night, with my brother and my nephew. This was the first time just the three of us camped together ever, and the first time in many years my brother and I camped together also. It just seems like time is going by so fast and we don’t have enough good memories together. My nephew played sports most of his youth, so getting him on a weekend was a rare event. I do wonder if we are doing youth sports correct and if the monopolization of time, the weekend baseball doubleheaders, travelling teams and multi-weekend tournaments, two a day practices, two or more team involvements at a time for a single sport, actually make sense. Seeing children wearing knee and elbow braces that are caused by sports injuries is great business for orthopedic surgeons but maybe not so great for kid’s bodies.

We had a lot to cram into what was essentially one day and we didn’t get all of it in. We did fish, shoot, and cookout. My nephew always wanted to catch a bass and he did just that too and that was a win. We spent this weekend at Dutchman’s Rod and Gun Club and again, I am so glad to be a member here.

New Tent

My family is growing and it is time to upgrade the tent. I noticed after my last trip that one of my poles from Kelty Yellowstone 6 was fraying. I decided to replace it with a much larger one, where we can stand up in it and fit all of our air mattresses. I chose another Kelty to fill the void and went with an 8 man. I typically find that if you take the total persons reported for the tent and divide it by 2 you get the true capacity, although if we all slept on the ground and staggered ourselves it would work I guess. The particular model I chose was the Kelty Copper Canyon.

So far I am really happy with this tent. It is incredibly spacious and you can stand up in it. It does take two people to setup though and it I’ve struggled the first two times I put it up just figuring out what goes where as it’s not exactly intuitive the way it assembles. I will not be able to put this one together and take it down in the dark like I could with my previous tent though.