A great day in Nashville

One great thing about living in Tennessee is the ability to take day trips to such great cities, and also there are some really BAD things about it, and that's driving to Nashville to smoke cigars and drink with a friend and having to drive home 3 hours afterwards.  I did not drive drunk, but the length of the drive over is NEVER as arduous as the drive home.  IT TAKES FOREVER!  Thank goodness for McDonald's and usually SONIC, but not tonight.  I went over to Nashville to hang out with my friend Bill86.  Bill is a lot like me, overly opinionated, and always right.  We try to make people understand how smart and right we are, and 8 times in ten they just think we are a55holes.  But as anyone who knows me knows, that's their loss.  I am a tremendous human being.  And furthermore, I don't CARE if they find me to be an a55hole.

I went to the area around Vanderbilt University to a place called South Street Restaurant, and showed up an hour earlier than scheduled, because I have a few new cameras and lenses I wanted to test.  And after the day's shooting, I have to tell my sister, LOOK OUT.  I am used to point and shoots, and I have gotten lazy in using them.  I am not the kind of guy who just turns it to AUTO and shoots, but I AM A GUY that is used to a great modern convenience, and that is Point & Shoots that show you in the viewfinder or on the LCD what your current combination of aperture and shutter speed will produce if you were to click the shutter at any given time.  It might be black or blown out, or hell, maybe perfectly exposed.  Well today I took out my 'new' used Nikon D70.  And in the viewfinder of the D70, its always Sunny in Philly.  I always see great shots in great focus, and I fire away, always thinking that I am a photographic genius.  And then I get home to my computer and look at the blurry, over-exposed CRAP I shot and go "DAMN, that really sucks."  I CAN take a great photo, but again, I have grown lazy and stopped paying attention to the little things, like exposure meters or histograms or flashing ISO AUTO warnings and other things.  And so I shoot crap.  Luckily inside South Street today, all I really had going wrong was the white balance.  I had been shooting in cloudy conditions and came inside and forgot to re-white the camera.  So bear with my photos.

The first smoke I had was a Montecristo No. 4 and it was pedestrian, nothing to get excited about.  Certainly nothing I photographed.  I traded a few cigars with Bill, who was so kind as to give me a Bolivar Edicion Regional German No.1 (or is it a 2?), a Laguito No.1 sized cigar, a HOT, HOT, HOT regional, one that you were very lucky to get if you got even one, never mind a few boxes.  and Bill hooked me up with that cigar that I have been wanting to try for YEARS.  Thanks.
Here's Bill....

And here is a Cohiba Panetela I worked my way into second...
and next to it a Patron Reposado, a Jack and rocks and a Yeungling pint, all being worked on kinda simultaneous like.

That's all the SERIOUS drinking I did today, I had a few more pints, but no more liquor.  Its not good to drink and drive.  But drinking and smoking was the deal today, so I had fun while I could.  I guess I should have framed it all together, but I was shooting the cigar.  You can see a little of the white balance issue there, too.  Later on I got into a Monte Edmundo 2007 that was about the same as all Edmundos, underwhelming, but a good cigar to drink with, cause it just burned and gave me something to do with my hands.

Now, that is not to say that I didn't burn it DOWN to the end, oh no, I smoked it alright.  Bill and I always talk about the exact same thing every time we get together to mini-herf, it is hilarious.  But it never seems like we are talking about the same stuff, its just been so long that we forgot what we talked about the last time.  Cigars, vendors, people that get on our nerves, job trouble, hot bartender chicks, and I also always say, "OH, I remember what I wanted to tell you", then I take a puff and forget what it was.  Same thing I do here all the time, but with a cigar in my hand.

And we smoke and we smoke, and Bill eats, and I do not, cause I eat chips and drink Mountain Dew all the way to Nashville, so I am never hungry.  Today I also had an Esplendido, which I rarely do anymore.  It was good to get one in today.  I used to just hoard them and never smoke em.  Today I had one that was creamy and strong, though not overly flavorful, at least not up to the potential of the smoke.  But I smoke too fast when I herf with Bill or anywhere.  I run my mouth and smoke too fast.

But I got everything I wanted today, I got to go to the campus of Vanderbilt and take a bunch of terrible pictures that show me that I need some SERIOUS practice shooting my new camera.  I used to take such fine pictures and now I look like a half-trained chimpanzee.  I am gonna work on paying more attention to the viewfinder screen and all it is trying to tell me.  But in the end I can't see very well, anyway.  I have the viewfinder set up to my eye 'prescription', but the rest of the world and the buttons on the camera are still blurry unless I stop and put on my glasses, during which time I can't take pictures, so mostly I just wing it like I always did with Point and Shoots.  Damn 'good' cameras, they suck, lol......

But all in all it was another good day, and another good mini-herf with Bill.  Wish you had been there, you'da had a good time, I know it.  My sister is in New Orleans right now, so I KNOW she is having a good time..