Punk Barney

Another photo from the archives. This big stuffed Barney used to sit outside a shoe repair shop on St. Mark's Place in the East Village in New York. I passed it every weekend back in 2007 or so, walking home from the Zen center. I wonder if it's still there -- Punk Barney, with one eye?

The tickle in my throat has indeed morphed into an illness. Nothing major, just an annoying cold that leaves me feeling drained. Of course Olga insisted on going to the park yesterday anyhow, so I dragged my sorry self along and wound up having a pretty good morning. The weather was so beautiful it was impossible to feel bad.

I tried to resume my photo scanning yesterday, but the scanner quality gradually deteriorated and I'm not sure why. To test it out I rescanned a photo I had scanned earlier, and the two scans looked noticeably different -- the second one was much darker and lacked definition. I didn't change the scanner settings, so I can only imagine that I tired out the machine! That's OK -- I finished everything up until I went to Morocco in 1992, so that's a good chunk of my photo collection, including all the prints that were deteriorated and needed restoration. I'll be able to get rid of about five photo albums!

It turned out to be a very social day, despite my cold. I Skyped with Mom in Florida and my friend David in New Jersey yesterday (that's socializing, isn't it?) and my friend Pam arrived from Boston for a quick visit. She's staying two nights in our guest room (probably our last guest in this apartment!) and hopefully we'll get to spend a bit of time together this evening after work.