Right now feels equal parts numb and overly emotional. Work has been slow as per usual this time of year, but the Covid version of this normal season has been rough. It's crazy how bad I want to be back on a film set with a camera on my shoulder. That's such a weirdly specific urge.
One of my escapes the last few months has been getting out and flying a drone. Those absurdly cold weeks back in mid-February at least made for some interesting looking landscapes. I'd never seen a near white-out here in Oklahoma City and there were some wild looking fog over Lake Hefner due to the painfully cold temperatures. Freakin' kudos to DJI for developing such a hardy little flying chainsaw in their Mavic 2 Pro. The cold did shorten the battery life, but they still lasted long enough for my fingers to go way past numb while working the remote control.
This weird, smeary time where days don't seem to count hasn't been all bad (I hope). I've been working on a personal project based on my rubber stamp collecting and digging up all kinds of nonsense. There's plenty out there on the collection and study of postage stamps (Philately) and I found a website for the National Postmark Museum. I'm still digging around for organized groups of collectors somewhat similar to my nonsense, but I've found a few things already.
- StampZine: an ongoing collection of original rubber-stamp art from different contributors around the world.
- National Park Travelers Club: an organization for anyone who enjoys visiting our National Parks and everyone collecting cancellations in the Passport to Your National Parks Program.
- The whole world of Correspondence Art.
Once international travel opens up a bit more and I've got the margin, I'm hoping to head over to Asia and snag some of the eki stamps available at train stations in Japan and Taiwan. By all means check out some of the examples over at Hyperallergic.
Also, I've started cataloguing my personal collection and hit 665 stamps as of the end of 2020.