TRO, TLR, and More

A TRO.
That's what my wallet should have against me.
Do not approach, do not get near, do not open.
For anything.
Especially you know whats.
A TLR:

I've been thinking about a twin lens reflex camera for a while now.
When I was shorter, I remember playing around with one.
It hung around my neck and I used it as a sort of upside-down periscope to navigate and take fake pictures.
It's a camera that I know/knew very little about so I looked, but never investigated.
Until this week.
That Yashicaflex came up on the CL and I rushed over to pick it up.
I didn't even know how to fire the shutter!
There's gotta be some kind of button here, right?
So anyways, I get it home and clean it all up but there's something wonky going on:

The camera is taking pictures like it's having some righteous flashback from the 70's!
Not that I know what that means.
Now I'm really sad.
So of course I investigate.
Must be that rear element, I must have installed it backwards or something.
The lens is flat on one side, convex on the other and when I cleaned it, it just popped out so I wasn't sure which way it went back in.
I just took a chance for most of them are convex side out.
Well I had left the camera for the kids to see but this really bothered me so I went across the street at like 9 at night and got it and took another look at the lens.
Remove and replace:

I shot my last roll of 3200 speed 120 film just to test it out again.
Still goofy.
So now I go to the internetz and look for the optical design and see that it is supposed to be convex side out and I go and fix it.
Again.
I slept a little better.
Then the next day, voila!

Now, all is right in the world!
A TLR is not for everyone, especially since it's got to be the goofiest camera design ever.
I mean you look down, and everything is backwards!
What's up with that?
Well anyways, I'm pretty impressed with how it images though, you just can't beat medium format.
My wallet is filing the court papers as I speak.
Along with the Yashicaflex, I also picked up this:

More on that beast, later.