Neanderpundit

For the last month and a half, I’ve been fixing everyone else’s shit. Nephiew’s car blew a head gasket, so we ripped that apart and installed a new one. Sister’s car had no heat, chased that down. Sister’s porc roof supports rotting, replaced/repaired that.One thing after another after another, after another. And shit at Chez Og going to hell in the meantime.

So yesterday, my first day of not-fixing-other-people’s-shit in six weeks, I decided to tear into the Exploder and see what that front end vibration is.
Now, it’s been doing this for a couple years, so it’s nothing major, but it’s annoying and I want it to stop. I suppose it’s most likely that it is a CV joint, so I yank the front axle out and replace that, about a four hour job working by yourself that ends up in- you guessed it, the same damnable vibration. So the last thing it could be, I figure, is the actual wheel bearing, andf t5hose die so rarely that I was unwilling to spend the $165.oo just as a diagnostic, but I figured it was time. So I rip the farging axle apart AGAIN, and proceed to replace the bearing. THis time it works, and I’m going down the road in blissful quiet again. Still, big PITA and eight hours of work (and $200 in parts) I would have preferred to avoid. At least I didn’t pay some shop $1800 to do it. Then I made the nephiew clean my garage, which was tasty. Now all I have to do is survive next week and try to get a deer. Or, hopefully, three.

Elm Tree Forge reminds me I am remiss in mentioning National Ammo Day.

Corrected. Swing by, understand what it is about, and buy some ammo. This post to remain on top till the 19th.

I collect cameras. I have done so for a long time, and I love to take pictures with the ones that work as well as just look at the ones too old to use. It’s an easy thing to collect, because with the advent of digital, cameras that were once the exclusive area of the very wealthy can be had very inexpensively.

Case in point, I just recently acquired a Contaflex. Now, not too many people in north american even know what a contaflex is, most people are familiar with Canon, Nikon, the other Japanese makers. Contaflex was a postwar company that made cameras far and away more complex and sophisticated, for their time, than anything from any other manufacturer. And they had Carl Zeiss lenses. For those of you in Rio Lindo, Carl Zeiss practically invented light. I mean, the finest lenses in the WORLD. Shit, Hasselblad has zeiss even this day. In 1957, when this Contaflex was shipped from Deuitschland, it cost as much as a good used car. Today, it’s bloody difficult to give one away.

So for a couple hundred dollars I have a collection of cameras that once would have cost a kings ransom. And I’m accumulating more all the time. Oh, a few hold their value, like blads, and leicas, and of course there will always be a market for a good Nikon F, but for the most part, the very fine cameras of the last two generations are now nearly worthless. Because of their cost, people took exquisite care of these cameras as well. It’s as if you could go buy a perfecly preserved 1957 Thunderbird for $400. Amazing the things of great value that just become worthless. Like ten year old computers- the difference being, a vintage Argus C3, or Bell & Howell 16mm movie camera, will still work perfectly at it’s chosen task, while a ten year old computer is worthless.

What do you collect?