18-VI-2013.
Johana has four kittens again, presently in that corner of the terrace, by the chimney. There's a lot of wood shavings on the terrace(... 7 words...) and Johana is full of them.
Measuring the attic, to make a drawing of where we want the walls to be. We finally decided to turn that into living quarters, as Stanley and Go think of moving here. Long ago someone asked why were we making such a big house, as we have three daughters. „For the sons-in-law“ was my standard answer. Turns out I was accidentally right. Made a bunch of shots (including the parts for this autopatch) for future reference.
The white box on the left beam is the fuse box, which Mića installed last time, so I'd have power up there if there's a need to do some work.
Finally replacing my ID, it's worn out (reshot it yesterday, just for the record) and submitted the request at the police HQ nearby. Just like any state job, these new card-sized IDs were outsourced to some private scam, and in this case it was the color print of the photograph that rubbed off. It either didn't have a proper coating, or wasn't baked in well - in any case, my carrying it in a pocket, with just the debit card and the driver's licence, did it enough damage to lose a large swat of pixels, generally making my beard about three sizes larger in area and volume, twice as white, and about quarter of my face missing (which was my impression of it the first time I noticed this; in the end it was as the picture shows). I sort of liked it better that way, but back in the end of march, when I was registering the saxo, the clerk noticed the fault and told me to just submit a request to replace it, and they'll do it for free, it's their fault.
Few days later, waiting for the fingerprinting (same scanner gadget as the US border uses, and the belgian embassy did) and to pick the ID up, and some young lady, escorted by, presumably, husband, addresses me. Am I the so-and-so guy, did I work in the erc of the stour? Yes, and? Well, I'm Radoja's daughter and he talked a lot about you, in high regard.
And ah, the picture on the new ID was now monochrome...
In the afternoon, DC-99 organized a photo-op on Peskara, in Čurda. I knew it existed, but never went there, though I was quite close to it a few times. Just never walked the last 100m to see it. It was one of city's beaches, but very irregular. The lake came to be by accident - the place was a sand pit, and as they dug out the sand, the water appeared from underground and, filtered through the sand, came up quite clean. The lake floor, however, was quite irregular, having not been exposed to any kind of erosion, so wherever a backhoe made the last dig, it was deeper than next to it. Many have been caught by surprise, walking through relatively shallow water and all of a sudden finding themselves in over their heads. Combined with panic, possibly beer and cramps - the water temperature would differ in places - one or two would die there almost each summer. Swimming there was usually forbidden for exactly those reasons, but the ban wasn't enforced.
Now, around 2003 I think, they finally did something with this and turned it into a very nice beach. She stayed at home, Stanley, Go and I took Neša and packed his stroller, my eos40, Go's EOS6, and went there.
Practically whole new DC-99 was there - Miško, Joška (and his wife was swimming around). There was a sizable amount of equipment - several Canons, Nikons, big flashes, and a board of styrofoam to reflect the light. There was no lack of girls either, at least six, mostly blondes (by birth or by conviction), all pretty, sexy and tanned - Čurda always had a lot of them - were ready to get launched into the galaxy of models, or at least to get free shots of themselves, done by experienced guys.
I picked this shot simply because of this funny juxtapositions of hairs - the extra hair belongs to another girl behind, who's otherwise all but invisible, didn't even make much of a shadow. I made a bunch, and so did Go - she even brought the long tube, the 200mm zoom, which on a Canon means an equivalent of 320mm on Leica.
Neša got really hot, all pink, so Stanley lowered him into the water a couple of times, and he seemed to like it. When this was over, we decided to go have a pizza. Geographically, the pizzeria that made most sense was Roma, just beyond the courthouse. Sitting outside, in the shade, it felt better. It's only mid-june and it's already so hot. They served the pizza on round wooden platters, with three grooves across the center, so the cutter would go below the bottom. Practically a cheat sheet.
To at least make Neša less thirsty, Go took out the slice of lemon from my tonic (they had beers) and gave it to him to suck. The face of a baby having its first taste of lemon works every time, it's a sight. Too bad I didn't get the best faces he made, just three quite good ones.
At work, Das and Hana sherlocked the team email, which stopped coming through Sugar. The culprit was one email with hugenomental hookachment, which took all the quota. They'll have to call Sugar support to get that unstuck. Too bad, it takes a few hours to get that done, and the customers keep sending more, unaware that these won't be received; on the other hand, thats a few hours of peace and quiet.
Mentions: Čurda, DC-99, eos40, erc, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Hana Burberry, Johana, Joška Apro, Mića the electrician, Miško Lenđel, Mohandas Raj (Das), Nenad Berger (Neša), Radoje Maletin (Radoja), saxo, Stanley Berger, stour, in serbian
26-V-2023 - 20-XI-2025