o, on April 30 of this year, several of us participated in the annual Victory Boulevard Restaurant Stroll, which as you may know is like a giant block party except that you pay for admission and get to sample the fare at different eating establishments. As we made our way down the hill from Todt Hill Road to Jewett Avenue, we heard several people mention that Schaeffer's was not participating this year, despite their name being on the tickets we all held with little tear-off tabs for each establishment we visited. After we made our first few stops, I took full advantage of there being no line in the liquor store next door to one of the restaurants that had a tremendous line; the liquor store was having wine tastings, and so why not? I had a ticket. Of course, after that I was holding out for my visit to Schaeffer's. Surely it was all hearsay that they would not participate, but then I realized they had no reason to advertise their business any longer as they had planned to close. So sad, they had the best pastrami on rye sandwiches. I don't think I ever ordered anything else there. As we stopped at the closest restaurant to the tavern on the stroll, I asked the crowd I was with if they wanted to go into Schaeffer's for one last drink. They were not the least bit interested because they were not participating. Well, I never! Pass up a chance to have a shot at Schaeffer's for what might be the last time? Not me! I was looking forward to going, so you guys keep moving and stuffing your faces while I sit for a few minutes, bring my alcohol level back up, and document my surroundings, thank you. The bartender, whose name may have been Tom but I don't remember now because it's fully nine weeks later, appeared to be a bit on the melancholy side that day; I told him I was aware that they were closing and that he must get really tired talking about it all the time. He nodded his head sadly in agreement. I asked if he minded if I took some photos. He was all right with that. Looking back at all the photos I took, I can't help but get a little sense of my own mortality, as the memorabilia spans decades of owners, bartenders, and patrons who have long passed. There are photos that, by the look of the hair and the clothing, look to be taken in the 70s. There's a pencil sketch of someone that it not labeled, but I'm betting he's a patriarch. I asked Tom if they had any plans to auction off any of the memorabilia, or if items were already spoken-for. He said that some of the collection would remain private, but that many items would be available. He was kind enough to offer me a business card before I left. My last visit to Schaeffer's was the one I will remember the most. I don't usually make it a habit of going to bars by myself, but I'm glad I did this time. In hindsight, I should have bought a sandwich to go that day and saved it for my next lunch, but I'll just have to savor those memories of pastrami gone by. My family is all IUOE and I would love to give this sign to my brother for his birthday.
How much?
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I have a GoPro Hero 5. There was supposed to be a controlled atmospheric event this week that involved colored gas at night in the clouds, so I set it up after being alerted to the event by my good friend, Patricia. The gas launch was canceled, but I got a pretty cool video. I had the good fortune to be invited by producer Tina M. Davido to attend the Atlantic City Boxing Hall of Fame Inaugural Ceremony this past weekend. I still have a lot to write, but here's a video and some photos to get me started! The cake, the awards, and the pre-show jitters. The Ceremony Begins! Mayor Don Guardian, Atlantic City, NJ Needs More Don King!!Needs More Tina Davido! The Parade of Inductees Have I? I ask this question because I need to reassess what I'm doing with my time online. I'm a photographer who has been trying to push her work on her friends and family for too long, all the while hoping that they would share my work with the same enthusiasm that I had for sharing it. They liked it enough, but it just doesn't seem as if I was getting the message across that I wanted you to look at my website, comment on it, and share it. Why ask now? Because I have been in denial for a very long time about a sad, sad truth, and that is that I am entirely too focused on Facebook, and not enough about LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and the Adobe forums that I am entitled to use with my subscription to their Creative Cloud Suite. At one time not too long ago, my Facebook feed had good articles that were shared by friends and colleagues. Since Zuckerberg and Friends have changed their algorithms so much, I find I mistake a lot of what might actually be good stuff for Facebook Ads. Not only, but I think that people are just sharing a whole different kind of status these days. I'm to blame for a lack of good content as well. I don't post anything of merit because it seems to go largely unnoticed. People don't even read it; I can tell. I might get a like on a good article, but only shares if someone is getting hurt by being stoopid. FB has become a vast wasteland, and it's a shame. The only real thing it is good for anymore is finding my friends and keeping up with them. Otherwise, it's become as useless as FarmVille - another social pocket that became too greedy too quickly. Zynga, the creators, even admitted they wanted to keep you hooked so that you wouldn't leave. It was a great artistic outlet - I had fun building marvellous landscapes out of nothing - but they never rewarded you with anything worth your time. I didn't need any more chickens, thanks. I wanted more interesting things with which to decorate my beautiful estate. I was out when they flat-out admitted they were robbing us blind of our time. Deleted my iPhone app and everything. pfft. But, I digress, as I'm wont to do. No one cares about FarmVIlle anymore, least of all me. I've found newer, better creative outlets, and rediscovered some old ones. Photography has been a huge part of my life since I was in my mid-teens, and I never went any further with it career-wise than as a photo hobbyist. I had a steady, reliable job that didn't pay the greatest salary, but it was close to home, and I had great health benefits and perks. Besides, I was called upon to take photos and design graphics for the department quite often, and I was happy for a while. After leaving the healthcare industry last year, I was seriously considering buying into a leading paint-and-sip franchise. What I learned along the way was that yeah, sure, I could have done it, but I became interested in photography again and was kind of relieved when after almost a year of due diligence and real-estate searching, I backed away with the blessing of my business partner. After that, I became involved with a local 'portfolio review' meet-up, and what I learned from them was that I was wasting my time going to portfolio review classes and that I needed to build a portfolio. My work was worthy, but I really needed to get back into the mix. I found some Meet-Ups in Manhattan, and one of them brought me to Pace University and a series of classes that were all overviews of what could be done with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Photoshop, and the proper lighting and exposure in the first place. Why fix 500 photos for color and lighting when you can get it right the first time and not have to edit those particular things at all? These short overviews led to my eventual enrollment in a new continuing education program at Pace that they were building based on the feedback from the meet-ups. The certification in digital photography and retouching I will be receiving in September will make me very employable, and will also help me to become certified in Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom. For now, I'm doing the best with what I have and doing what I can do to be productive and be one of those people who write the interesting articles that used to get shared all the time on Facebook. I think the LinkedIn people appreciate it more, anyway. I still love you, FB. Visit my blog page at Cathleen's Scene, and my Photography page at CathleenGillingham.com Directly above is the original of the edited
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