Books, Bards & Baselines

For a tech person, I’m pretty old school when it comes to certain things. For example, I don’t subscribe to any of the streaming music services (although I do have YouTube Music as part of my YouTube Premium subscription). Apple Music is especially problematic as Apple actually removes your own copies of music from the Apple Music app and replaces those songs with its own master copies – whether you like it or not. It’s possible to lose unique or special versions of songs in your library.

So I’ll never subscribe to Apple Music – and I manage my music library the way I always have since the days of ripping CDs and filling my iPod. I have too much music to download it all to my iPhone, so I sync only selected playlists and albums.

Years ago my playlists started getting corrupted. The songs were correct and played properly – but some (maybe half?) of the song/album cover artwork got randomly replaced by cover art from a different song in my library. It was super annoying – it’s been super annoying for years. But the music played fine, and I largely ignored it.

I had made a couple attempts to research a fix, but what I was told to do seemed like a horrid and dangerous pain – so I didn’t even make the attempt.

Today, though, I decided to research the situation again. I was a little more confident now that I’m armed with Kagi. I did a search for iphone music showing wrong album cover, and the top three results were immediately informative and useful.

So on my iPhone I went into Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Music > Edit > All Songs and deleted all the songs. Then I connected the iPhone to my Mac and resync’d all of my playlists – twice. (I’ve learned that I need to activate the SYNC action two times, and it’s the second time the app Syncs that the music gets transferred.) The Music app informed me that it was downloading 2000 songs to my iPhone.

When that was done, I checked my phone – and all album covers are correct! I’m very happy about this!

A Playlist on My iPhone 13 mini

I’m pretty happy with Kagi, too.

2026 Portland Winter Light Festival World Trade Center • Portland, Oregon February 13, 2026 Nikon D810 • AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G f/4 @ 24mm • 1/30s • ISO 6400

I really dislike doing “coverage” photography – even moreso in poor lighting conditions. I have to overshoot – a lot. And then I have to deal the mess.

( Decisions, Below This Cut )

Previously
PDXWLF 2026, Day 1 – Friday
PDXWLF 2026, Day 2 – Saturday
PDXWLF 2026, Day 5 – Tuesday
PDXWLF 2026, Day 6 – Wednesday
PDXWLF 2026, Day 8 – Friday
PDXWLF 2026, Day 9 – Saturday

Quantum Jungle by Robin Baumgarten World Trade Center • Portland, Oregon February 13, 2026 Nikon D810 • AF-S NIKKOR 105mm f/1.4E f/2.8 @ 105mm • 1/125s • ISO 3200

The rain has returned – light, intermittent rain. I was loathe to use the Hydrophobia rain cover again. I decided to gamble and use my Nikon D810s in the rain. They are pro cameras, weather-sealed – and theoretically they’ll do fine in light rain – for a short while. In my camera kit I keep a terry washcloth so that I can wipe down the cameras if they get wet. The D810s are pretty rugged, and I was going to let them earn their keep.

( PDXWLF Second Friday Below This Cut )

Previously
PDXWLF 2026, Day 1 – Friday
PDXWLF 2026, Day 2 – Saturday
PDXWLF 2026, Day 5 – Tuesday
PDXWLF 2026, Day 6 – Wednesday

Porch/Light Dance Party! at The Old Church The Old Church Concert Hall • Portland, Oregon February 10, 2026 Nikon D810 • AF-S NIKKOR Z 16-35mm f/4G f/4 @ 81mm • 1/15s • ISO 3200

Tuesday night’s mission was very simple – photograph a single event – the Porch/Light Dance Party at The Old Church. There was no rain in the forecast. I chose two very different cameras for the evening. I packed the Nikon Z8 with the NIKKOR Z 24-80mm f/2.8 S lens – which is best for close-quarter work in the dark. I also packed the Nikon D810 with the AF-S 16-35mm f/4G VR. the 16-35mm is the widest full-frame lens I have, and I figured I’d need a very wide angle to capture The Old Church.

( PDXWLF Tuesday Below This Cut )

Previously
PDXWLF 2026, Day 1 – Friday
PDXWLF 2026, Day 2 – Saturday

Pyromancers • 2026 PDXWLF Opening Ceremonies Pioneer Courthouse Square • Portland, Oregon February 6, 2026 Nikon Z8 • NIKKOR Z 24-120mm f/4 S f/4 @ 81mm • 1/30s • ISO 3200

(I am soooo behind this month! I’m going to try to catch up on my PDXWLF posts before the end of the month. *fingers crossed*)

I had again signed up to be a photographer for the Portland Winter Light Festival. A select subset of us PDXWLF photographers have an agreement with the Communications Director that we are no longer accepting specific assignments – but are free to roam and photograph whatever we want. But even with that, we are expected to provide a certain kind of event/art coverage. The six-page photography guidelines document spells everything out in detail. Lots of do’s and don’ts. I end up going into coverage autopilot mode instead of doing only my own photography. This isn’t actually a good thing.

( PDXWLF Friday Below This Cut )

Complimentary Birthday Spumoni at Nonna Emilia’s February 26, 2026

On my birthday I was still decompressing from the work I had been doing for the Portland Winter Light Festival. I kept plans for the day very simple – a morning self-portrait session, a bargain lunch, and the traditional birthday dinner with my best friend, Jenni.

After a series of rainy days, Thursday was sunny. I thought it was perfect weather for an outdoor portrait – but I need to plan those well in advance, and I just filed the idea as a possibility for next year. Sunny days aren’t unusual here in the last week of February – but you can’t count on them. The sunshine streaming into my library was cheery and much appreciated.

I did have a tech issue I was trying to resolve – and best be done before I did my brief portrait session. Unfortunately, the tech work took all morning, so I had to postpone the portrait until after lunch. I wanted a quick, light lunch, and I took advantage of an offer from McDonald’s for free fries with a Filet o’ Fish sandwich. Simple enough.

After lunch, I did the short self-portrait session, which had been kept simple because I was using the new bookwall for the background. One side of the bookwall wasn’t well-lit, so I added a studio light to brighten it a bit. I also had set up my Dracast studio light to provide lighting for myself.

I had run a few tests the day before, and I had set up my Nikon Z8 with autofocus and face detect – which would choose one of my eyes as a focus point. I’ve never before used that type of autofocus for a self-portrait – and it seemed to work well. The Z8 takes a standard Nikon 10-pin remote connector, so I connected one of my Phottix wireless remotes.

The photo session and post-processing went quickly. Afterwards, I went for my daily walk – and enjoyed the sun.

At 3:50 pm I left home and met up with Jenni at Nonna Emilia’s for our traditional birthday celebration. I ordered my standard meal – spaghetti with meat sauce and meatballs, while Jenni tried a combination pizza – something different for her. I stopped ordering Nonna’s pizza back in the 90s, I think. I did accept a slice to sample, and we both agreed that the pizza was just OK. The spaghetti was delicious, as always.

The important part of the meetup was chat – and we are grateful that Nonna’s allowed us to occupy a table. (The restaurant wasn’t completely full – but it was getting close by the time we left.) Nonna’s also gave me a free ice cream for my birthday. I was given a choice of vanilla or spumoni. Vanilla is my go-to flavor, but spumoni isn’t offered at most places, so I went with the less common flavor. The spumoni was very good.

Towards the end of our chat, I opened the big birthday basket that Jenni gave me. It shouldn’t be surprising that she totally spoiled me with a wealth of gifts – including treats and gift cards (Kinokuniya, Burgerville, Abby’s Pizza, Saint Cupcake, Nike). Cute plushie gift card holders added to the festiveness. A wonderful birthday card and fancy birthday cake from Saint Cupcake rounded out the presents. Yes, I’m very, very spoiled – and grateful.

Birthday Gifts from Jenni

Our dinner ran from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Best evening of the year! I love my BFF and cherish these special and rare get togethers. I had a very special birthday and went to bed with a big smile on my face.