Grease is Good: Burgers and Cameras with Della Perrone

Had a special edition of It's My Treat today. This one was not my treat. Photographer Extraordinaire Della Perrone, was nice enough to buy me lunch today. The company she works for is looking to build a Photo/TV studio and she wanted to ask me a few questions about the TV side of things. So she picked up the tab as a thank you for the insights.

I have to let you know, the only thing I like better than cheese burgers is talking about video equipment. So today was especially nice because I got both. Della selected Farren's for our meal today. We both talked about our long history with Farren's going back to the old location that wasn't so upscale as the downtown location they have now. Not saying either one was better but they definitely have a different vibe nowadays. The good thing is that the burgers are still delicious. And the fries were actually good again. Back in the day they used to have fresh cut fries that were the best, but when they moved downtown they switched to a skinny shoestring type fry that was awful. Hated it. But now they are doing a coated fry that is very good. Glad they made the change.

Della and I have a couple of significant disagreements. The first of which was she is not a fan of the Five Guys burgers. Too greasy for her. For that, I just have to say, "Grease is good!" That is what turns every meal from OK to great. Della does not agree. Fortunately the Farren't burger is not a greasy Five Guys smash burger, so I think we were both happy. She got a regular cheese burger and I got one with added bacon, because of course, bacon adds grease and Grease is Good.

The other thing we disagree on is camera brands. I like to mess with her about being a Nikon shooter. Not really a serious disagreement, because I do think the high end Nikon cameras are some of the best on the market right now, but more because I have been a Canon shooter since I started shooting digital back in the day. My 6 megapixel 10D was such a big step up from my old film camera. I loved it. But since then I have shot with everything, Nikon, Sony, Panasonic, Canon (sorry Fugi), so I really don't have any issues with any of them, but I do have the Canon nostalgia that brings me back. Right now my favorite video camera is the Sony A7SIII. Not a great stills camera, but the video coming out of that thing is stunning. Sorry for the equipment sidetrack, but like I said, I love talking about cameras and video equipment.

We didn't spend all of our time talking equipment, we actually got pretty serious about the idea of doing creative work, versus work just for money and how to balance those in life. I've got a really good job, but it is not the most creative, and my freelance work is pretty technical too, so not a lot of creativity going on there either, so I would have to say that I am a little out of balance when it comes to creative vs practical. Della was in the same boat for a while but is moving toward doing more creative things now. That just has to happen if you want to be a happy person.

One thing Della has on me is that she is not addicted to TV. When I get home from work, I just tend to veg out and stream whatever show strikes my mood that day. I am just so tired all of the time that my brain just gets sucked into the nonsense. I am trying to be more like Della and instead of spending that TV time, I want to focus on doing more creative projects. Or if not creative projects, at least getting out and having fun.

We both miss the old days of the music scene in Champaign. There have been many peaks and valleys with music in the area. One of the things I missed most about Champaign when I left was the music, but when I got back down here it just wasn't the same. Then the pandemic didn't help much. We seem to be in a valley at the moment, but that just means a peak is around the corner.

The funniest thing about this post is that I was sharing a meal with a photographer, and I just plum forgot to take any pictures of our meal. I did run into her later tonight at work and snuck in a quick selfie which I used for the post. But ain't it crazy that this would be the one I would forget the pictures. Ha.

Thank you Della for the meal. Hope my TV equipment insights were helpful and I am going to strive to get a little more creative balance going in my life.