It’s more than five years since Breaking Bad first hit the screen in the USA. It was a couple of years later that I discovered it and, after catching up on the backlog, I have been a fervent fan ever since. Unlike many series, Breaking Bad has a storyline which demands an ending, and we are getting close.

The final season is split into two eight episode segments, and the final segment kicked off on Sunday with an episode absolutely soaked in drama. The last seven episodes are going to be quite a ride.

It was she who must be obeyed’s birthday last week. It’s good when she adds another year, makes the age difference between us seem less significant.

In keeping with our agreement that we would not buy each other birthday presents, I had not planned any purchase; but it seemed wise to ask her if there is anything that she wanted. She declared that she wanted a full medical check-up at Bumrungrad hospital in Bangkok. She is constantly convinced that she has a range of dire diseases, so a health check-up is an occasional event that proves, for a day or so, that there is little wrong with her. Anyway, as she was going to be off work for two days at the time of her birthday, a trip to Bangkok was doable; so I prepared to book a hotel. Then she decided she would just go to a local hospital. Then she decided that she would just go to the nearby clinic which was excellent news because it is cheap and convenient; and the best birthday presents are cheap and convenient (unless it is my birthday).

Thailand’s obsession with social media means that anything remotely popular in Thailand can garner a huge number of hits.

The video below is an example, more than six million views on YouTube; exactly the result that Wacoal were hoping for.

If you haven’t seen it; I suggest you keep your emotions in check until the end.

An early start (for me) as I act as chauffeur to she who must be obeyed who has some business at Chonburi City Hall, an hour’s drive from home; or two hours plus if she was driving and “navigating” on her own.

On the way I tell her about the rather excellent macro photographer in Singapore and suggest I would like to attend one of his future workshops. She is most enthusiastic about the idea, mainly because she has an imaginary list of expensive items I could buy for her while I am there.

My Betterscanning negative holder arrived and today was the first chance to have a play with it. The main improvement is that it comes with some special glass which sits on top of your negative and makes sure it is flat; a huge problem before with my large, curly medium format negatives. It also offers height adjustment and I spent an hour or so scanning the same image with different height settings on the holder, before deciding that an increase in height of 0.2mm was the best; but the improvement is very small.

I also played around some more with the Vuescan software and was able to produce a much more contrasty image. Then I found an option that allowed the software to pick the grey point based on non-existent colours in the black and white negative; but the different choices did make a difference and I decided that making grey from perceived blue made my subject stand out the best.

More improvements no doubt to come, but here is the latest scan of my test negative:

My very first post on Pattaya Days paid homage to my coffee machine; and rightly so. It had been making us a daily cup of coffee for more than five years, and it continued to do so until about three months ago when I changed my diet.

Starting the day with a large glass of water and then accompanying breakfast with a freshly made juice, broke the coffee spell and I suddenly no longer wanted to my morning shot of caffeine. And although I have had the occasional cup of coffee while out and about, my lovely coffee machine has sat idle. Time to sell it.

In preparation for the sale of my rather splendid model of the 1966 Le Man winning Ford GT40, I decided to take some photos of the little beast.

Cue an hour or so of frustration as every speck of dust, most invisible to the naked eye, show up in the photographs; and I found it impossible to eliminate all the blown out highlights from the light sources. More time with a tiny brush will be required, plus the construction of a white plastic enclosure to thoroughly diffuse the light. Still, this interim shot will do for now.

With a macro shoot planned for this morning, I spent some time yesterday evening preparing my gear for the outing.

Camera with macro lens affixed - check. Spare battery, fully charged - check. Tripod - check. Remote release - check. Mosquito spray - check. Boots - check.

With everything in order and placed by the door for a speedy exit, I retired to bed; ready for an 0630 start.

Arrived on location this morning with Ian from PattayaDaze and picked up my camera. It was at this point that I realised that I had forgotten to check that the memory card was inserted, and it wasn’t.

I spent a joyless hour or so trailing around after Ian, spotting bugs for him, like this one:

Looked good when photographed with a macro lens, but not with an iPhone…

Bloody stupid, I need a proper checklist for the next trip; but then I will probably lose it or forget about it.

As a very small compensation, I dragged home an interesting looking flower, introduced my memory card to my camera again, and took a shot of it. Not enough compensation for getting out of bed at 0630.