Moderate Living

Hello, I'm Mike – I write every Tuesdays and Fridays

  • Mom Visiting For The Weekend

    Mom Visiting For The Weekend

    There are just some days, as I’ve mentioned before, where I don’t want to see the sunlight and would rather live in a reduced mode of daylight. I don’t know why, maybe I’m just naturally emo or something, who knows? lol

    photo by: Michael Williams @ moderatelivingblog.com

    Such days cannot be had when Mom comes down from north New Jersey to visit.

    “What are you? Dracula or something? Open up the shades!”, she said, not even 5 minutes after she arrived.

    Of course, I had to open up the shades, there’s no refusing Mom!

    And herein lies a spooky movie recommendation for this Halloween for Rojie’s prompt – thanks Rojie!

    What would be on your spooky movie marathon list?

    Bram Stoker’s Dracula, directed by Francis Ford-Coppola is one of the best movies of the 90’s. It was a highly stylized Victorian-esque romance re-written for the rugged, bohemian angst of Gen X approaching the crest of their cultural influence. I also highly recommend listening to the soundtrack!

    It featured peak work from Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Anthony Hopkins. And, of course, the drama was anchored by Gary Oldman’s portrayal of the titular character.

    While I dutifully drew back the shades to let the sunshine in, I thought “you know what Mom? maybe…yeah. Maybe I am Dracula! Maybe I want to hide from this world of heavy feelings and emotional colors playing in the shadows!

    photo by: Michael Williams @ moderatelivingblog.com

    Maybe I’m heartbroken and am willing to wait for a millennia or two – or seven, before the love of my life is reincarnated again so I can vie for her love and tell her the iconic line from the movie: “I have crossed oceans of time to find you.”

    But I’d update it for modern uses (to which my past girlfriends didn’t mind apparently):

    “I have crossed oceans of M&Ms to find you”

    “I have crossed oceans of carne asada to find you”

    “I have crossed oceans of mozzarella sticks to find you”

    And in the meantime, I live in the darkness of the shadows. Staying up at night with a burning thirst, not for human blood, but for mocha coffee which drives me to appear amongst the townsfolk in a menacing form (shaking from coffee withdrawals).

    Have a great weekend y’all. I’ll be retreating to my dark coffin so Mom gets to soak up the sun in the living room for the weekend. 😂

  • A 135mm Dilemma

    A 135mm Dilemma


    (written early 2025)

    No, 135mm is not a personal measurement lol.

    It’s a number that’s quasi-central to a decision I’ve been weighing for a few months. As a hobbyist photographer, I like to use prime lenses. But I keep things simple. I have a specialized lenses for wide shots and for standard and tele-standard focal lengths. As for the far end, I don’t feel the need for primes and will leave that distance to the most economical zoom lenses that make sense for me.

    But within that telephoto range, a 135mm lens is a necessity.

    I already have – in my opinion – what was the best modern one in the Nikkor 135 f/2 DC.

    The problem is, I cannot use the autofocus on new mirrorless cameras because of the unique – but obsolete – mechanical context the lens was produced in. It’s still usable on all Nikon DSLRs so I can still use it on Nikon’s top of the line D850 – but it would require me to get a D850.

    And hence, the problem.

    Yes, I can get a D850 but at this point in rapidly advancing camera tech, is that really the most cost-effective way to give me a 135mm reach on all my photos? I decided that I needed to stretch my dollar in terms of optionality because this is an expensive dilemma to solve.

    Enter the Sigma 135mm f/1.8 (yes, they are now in the 1.4-1.8 realm for telephoto primes – crazy!).

    It’s made for all of the big DSLR mounts and because I have the EF to RF adapter, along with the Fringer autofocus EF to Nikon Z adapter I can theoretically use the Sigma 135mm on my Canon DSLRs, my Canon mirrorless unit, and my Nikon mirrorless unit. That’s 3 lens mounts that I can use the lens on. So that begs the question; is the Sigma 135mm as good or better than the Nikkor 135mm?

    The answer is both. It’s as good and has objectively surpassed Nikon’s product making it the best 135mm of the pre-mirrorless camera era. It is a lens whose glass formula is built specifically for the new sensors of the present day.

    This is ironic given that shooting my old Nikkor 135mm yields spectacular – and I mean spectacular – results. I have used it as a manual lens with the Nikon mirrorless adapter and the photos are a dream. ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

    photo by Michael Williams @ moderatelivingblog.com
    photo by Michael Williams @ moderatelivingblog.com

    However, not having autofocus is a big tradeoff, again because of the unique 1980’s – 1990’s context and constraints the lens was made to address.

    It’s hard to imagine a 135mm lens whose output is above and beyond what the Nikon produces. But such is Sigma’s offering.

    That’s why I’ve been so back and forth with getting it. It is, admittedly, head and shoulders ahead of the Nikkor 135mm which, in turn, is orders of magnitude ahead of Canon’s EF 135mm f/2 – which I, unfortunately, invested into on a whim (it’s still a good lens if you’re willing to stop down beyond f4).

    The Sigma is roughly $1000. Can I, given how much money I’ve been spending these last few months to prep for the summer, for taxes, for…. “incidentals”, etc. bring myself to spend cash for a lens that I know ticks off all the boxes? Yes, I have the line of credit but it’ll just be something hanging over my head.

    I am, though, in need of an autofocusing sharp 135mm.

    (I’ll post the conclusion of this in the near future)

  • Detour Ahead

    Detour Ahead

    I had to drop off some billing paperwork for a past medical appointment earlier this week. It was literally just going to be a half an hour errand at most and I would be back home in no time. But these short errands often have a way of becoming unexpected side quests.

    After dropping off my paperwork, I was putting my seatbelt on when the light flashed on my truck’s dashboard advising me to check my fuel tank. Thinking the fuel hatch was slightly ajar, I got out to check only to find it was indeed shut. However, upon opening it with the intention of shutting it more firmly, I saw that my fuel tank cap was missing.

    I don’t know about y’all in similar states but this is starting to be a problem for me. Whenever I fill up on gas (here in NJ, an attendant is mandated by law to do this, you cant do it yourself) a day or so later I realize the cap is missing. This has happened to me twice already.

    I needed to get to a Chevy dealership to replace the cap and begrudgingly accepted the additional 20 minutes that this would tack on to my day. But ironically, the main roads getting to the highway were closed for construction necessitating circuitous routes that I needed to take. This small 30 minute errand had now ballooned to an hour and a half to 2 hours including the waiting in line once I got to the Chevy dealership.

    But on the way there, I got to see different neighborhoods that I’d never had the reason to see before. There were different parks, different intersections…different lives that breathed, lived and walked about their own reality.

    I even found a hidden big chain grocery store that I never would have imagined existing in that area.

    I eventually arrived at the Chevy dealership and promptly bought – not one – but two fuel tank caps, to the initial surprise of the person at the parts department. But upon explaining the situation, he kindly gave me a reduced price for the second one.

    Thinking that the concept of Time was all but irrelevant at this point, I gave myself the freedom to get a takeout or drive-thru lunch from whichever food place I wanted.

    The drive home was free and clear.

  • Home Products That Make My Life Idyllic – Like This Early Spring Impressionist Painting!

    Home Products That Make My Life Idyllic – Like This Early Spring Impressionist Painting!

    LOL.

    I needed a way to tie in the featured image to the post .

    Ok, so jumping in…

    For the longest time, in keeping with accordance of manly man laws, I have used pine scented or aggressively scented shower body washes. And for an equally long time, I’ve dealt with itchy dry skin when I would go to sleep at night. I don’t know why it took me so long to put 2 and 2 together but after one night where the itchiness was so severe I decided I had enough and it occurred to me that it was probably the body wash I was using.

    So I threw away the old brand and bought this on a whim:

    It’s said that this product uses cutting edge molecular technology wherein the moisturizing pellets seep into your skin when you use it during the shower and produces a 24 hour therapeutic effect.

    Skeptically, I was like; “….ok, right..let’s see if this actually does what it says..“

    To my pleasant surprise, my skin did feel so much more hydrated after getting out of the shower. There wasn’t that sense of dryness followed by the infuriating bouts of itchiness. I could literally hop out of the shower, sit at the couch and watch YouTube videos as I dry off and not feel itchy while feeling like there was some type of hydration going on in my skin.

    I’ve been using this product for months now and it feels like living with itchy post-shower skin was like an epoch ago. Not even like 50 years ago, it feels like the days of me having that skin irritation was like a millennia past, even a bad dream.

    I am still very much skeptical of this next product because I just can’t conceptualize it actually working so I have to trust what health professionals in my social circle say. I’m hoping that if some of you here are health professionals or work adjacent to it or even use something similar you could tell me.

    One of my biggest fears in life is food or bacterial cross contamination on kitchen surfaces onto my hands. It’s not like I”m a complete germaphobe or something it’s just that I find the thought of salmonella or some other weird worm pathogen getting into my system uniquely disturbing. But managing raw proteins calls for safety precautions that sometimes overwhelm my simple caveman mind.

    I saw an Instagram cooking video where a guy literally cuts meat on a board, sprays it with this thing and then proceeds to cut different food on it again.

    I was shocked, I tell you. Shocked!

    I feel like everything has to be washed especially after raw protein gets cut on it.

    So, I did some cursory research and was recommended to similar disinfectant products. This is the one I bought and what I’ve been using for quite a while now. Not only for cooking surfaces but for any surface that I deem could be bacterially or pathogenically infested.

    Of course, I’ll clean it first with a wet paper towel before applying the spray off of the dry surface.

    But for as long as I have used this – and I do like it, btw…..it still escapes me, conceptually, how this simple spray actually gets rid of bad microscopic stuff AND allows us to use the surface especially to place cooked food on and eat safely.

    I’d appreciate any info on this from y’all.

    Ok, I’m done posting and will now return to my secluded cottage out in the country where a grand orchestral soundtrack plays in the background, where I can enjoy disinfected kitchen surfaces and hydrated skin whilst marveling at the pastel colors of an early spring (perhaps this is the real effect of the hydrating body wash???) 😂

  • Functionally Ending The Year…And Beyond

    Functionally Ending The Year…And Beyond

    I had a very busy week with contractors and appointments. And now that it’s over, I am in that frame of mind that I don’t want to deal with new contractors for the remainder of the year or possibly longer. I only have landscaping and house gutter appointments to finish out. After that, I just want peace and quiet until I know I can stomach the process of calling, setting appointments, setting costs, etc. I don’t want to see another clipboard, another invoice, another e-mailed estimate – I’m just done with everybody and everything lol.

    (if images don’t load, you can right-click on them and open them in a new tab)

    There’s something about Fridays – especially autumn Friday mornings.

    There is a noticeable chill in the morning air here in New Jersey. The shorter arc of the sun gives the new season a unique face from both the color palette and the timing/position of the shadows cast.

    I have not enjoyed a quiet morning in a while so, knowing last night that I’d have the whole day tomorrow, I decided I wanted to catch the morning in photos.

    Getting ready to start taking some shots with the camera. This lawn chair and footrest set came with the house when I first moved in. It’s so comfortable that there have been many times I’ve simply fallen asleep in it.

    photo by: Michael Williams @ moderatelivingblog.com

    I know that the season is starting to accelerate when I see the different leaves on the ground. It’s usually just the walnut tree leaves at first but when I see the other tree leaves I know we are really starting to turn.

    photo by: Michael Williams @ moderatelivingblog.com

    This is where the water pipe had burst over the summer. It’s hard to believe that even after a day and a half after I had the excavator in here, grass was already growing visibly on top of it. Now, it’s well on its way to being fully covered again. Life really finds a way.

    photo by: Michael Williams @ moderatelivingblog.com

    I know I talk about the shadows and lights that the autumn sun brings but it’s also really beautiful to see the turning leaves against the crisp autumn sky.

    photo by: Michael Williams @ moderatelivingblog.com

    One of the last times that I’ll see this sight: my hoodie folded on the chair. As the sun starts to come up to signal mid-morning into mid-day, it still has enough heat to make you break into a light sweat. I still have the option of keeping it on or taking it off to just wear my t-shirt. In a week’s time though, especially after the first real frost hits, even the mid-day sun will start to lose its heat.

    photo by: Michael Williams @ moderatelivingblog.com

    I’m off to get my daily coffee. Have a great weekend y’all!

  • A Busy October Tuesday

    A Busy October Tuesday

    I have a ton of things to run through for the next couple of days so I don’t have something specific I can write about.

    However, there’s something I’ve always been meaning to give people a head’s up with – especially people that happen upon my site from the Recents or Newly Posted tabs.

    While I really appreciate your visits and your likes and your comments, do remember to have your blogging page’s link in your Gravatar profile. If you don’t know what your Gravatar profile is, it’s this $#%@$ dumb profile page they make you set up whenever you set up your WordPress site. The login details there are the same as your WordPress account so all you have to do is go to Gravatar.com and login.

    For some people, their website link doesn’t automatically show up in the public profile.

    What happens then is that if you’re trying to create a social circle or following, you’ll go around liking people’s stuff but then when they try to go back to your site to visit, it will only redirect them to your public Gravatar profile. Then, at that point, most people stop trying to find you and then you’re left wondering why you aren’t getting any engagement on your content while you go out and try to farm engagement from people like me.

    I really try not to get too harsh on Gravatar for this. After all, it’s simply meant to be a public online card that displays your active social networks. But I still find it massively annoying.

    If I were to rank my top concerns and priorities for the world on a list, it would look like this:

    1. Two-tier and hypocritical law enforcement/policing action
    2. Gravatar not including your WordPress home page link by default or not directly going to your webpage when your profile photo gets clicked on the Likes tab.
    3. The possibility of World War 3, happening soon because of the combined hot spot conflicts in Iran/Ukraine
    4. The possibility of a new relentless global pandemic because some lab girl in Europe broke a glass vial containing some “plague bacteria”.

    So please, I really appreciate your visit and your time. Just remember to put your webpage address in your Gravatar profile so I could look at your webpage!