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November 30, 2006

Pazo, Aliceanna St., 30 Nov.

Posted on November 30, 2006 11:55 PM | link to this entry

November 29, 2006

In Threes.

Bad news on the phone today, making up the trifecta (and hopefully, last) of bad news for the rest of the year. This was unexpected and totally unfair; a kinder, gentler man I've never met. It looks like we're driving to Jersey within the next week to pay our respects.

Posted on November 29, 2006 1:08 PM | link to this entry | Comments (1)

November 28, 2006

This "Work" is Hard Stuff.

The last two weeks have been pretty stressful and chaotic, with animal sickness, human sickness, travel, holidays, and household projects. I sat down at the computer to get some work done yesterday and I felt, for a period of about five minutes, like an orangutan suddenly placed behind the wheel of an automobile: What is this thing? How did I wind up here? What do I do now? Where is my banana?

Today is no different; in fact, it's been harder than yesterday. I was able to get some time critical stuff out the door yesterday, but after that was done, I was frantically searching for something to occupy my head, which has not been in the work-accomplishing place. My usual internet haunts have not been shiny enough to keep my interest. (I suppose this is also partially due to the fact that I got a series of checks in the mail last week, so the consumer portion of my brain is insistently prodding me to buy stuff. I'm resisting.)

I have work to do—plenty of work, actually. Why can't I get back in the saddle?

Posted on November 28, 2006 4:11 PM | link to this entry

Enter the Nikon.

I've been looking at DSLRs for years now, wishing I could afford to buy one, and I've spent a ton of time researching and comparing brands and models. My immediate intent was to find a good camera to help Jen ease back into photography, especially after all her film from Ireland Italy was expensively misprocessed and the liars at Ritz Camera tried to tell us it was the fault of the airport x-ray machinery. (They didn't even offer to comp us on the processing. Stay away from Ritz.)

After I got several good-sized paychecks in hand this fall, I paid off some bills, put a chunk in the bank, and started hunting seriously for her camera. The reviews seemed to be pretty even in favor of each brand, which didn't help me much. I've been a proponent of Canon since I bought my G3, and I love the simplicity of their menu/UI systems. The manuals are top-notch, the support is superb, and the camera itself has been bombproof. However, the DSLRs Canon offers in my price range feel cheap and plasticky in my hands, like they were put together with Legos and a hot glue gun. When I picked up a Nikon, it felt real in my hands, like a film SLR does, and that felt reassuring and good. After some exhaustive research, I finally gave up and took this guy's advice, buying a new D50 kit for a delayed birthday present. I think she's happy with it, and I was impressed with it when I held it in my hands. It's a solid camera, the lens is fantastic, and it takes beautiful pictures.

As fate would have it, an older D70 came up on Craigslist a few weeks later for a very reasonable price, and I bought it. I've been playing with it slowly ever since. It's been a little hard because I only got the body—the seller wanted to keep the expensive lens for his new D80, so I needed something to use in the meantime. As it turns out, Nikon hasn't changed their basic lens mount in ages, so later-model Nikon lenses will fit newer DSLRs, at the cost of some of the advanced features. Jen has a Nikon N65 film SLR, and I've borrowed her Quantaray NF AF 28-80mm lens to learn the camera. The pictures are clear but the contrast is low, which I'm guessing is due to the lens not being made specifically for DSLR cameras, and the lens not talking properly to the camera. I've yet to do a side-by-side lens comparison, but I'm trying to block out some time to try.

My biggest worry was the UI setup: I'm a usability snob, so this is a big sticking point for me. I'm finding the Nikon menu system different from Canon's but not impossible to understand: a philosophical difference. Canon makes everything available from the selector wheel (the multi-directional circle on the back) and adds several modifier buttons based on the model of camera—the UI on my G3 isn't fundamentally different than Jen's Powershot 100. Nikon makes certain things available from the selector wheel but adds combinations of buttons to access special features, like an arcade fighting game. When taken to the extreme, this gets ridiculously hard to remember and physically challenging to accomplish. (This was why I detested the abominable Coolpix 4500, and the reason I took a G3 underwater in Bimini instead.)

I'm finding, though, that the D70 is far easier to use than the 4500, and now that I've begun to understand the UI philosophy, it's beginning to make sense to me. The difference in organization means I have much rewiring to do in my brain in order to take advantage of the camera's features. I've been dicking around with the automated settings and learning the modifiers to them so that I can eventually move into the manual modes and try to remember the aperture/shutter speed math of my SLR days.

One thing that made life easier was a firmware upgrade, bringing the menu system up from the 1.3 factory installation to a 2.0 version—almost identical to that of Jen's newer D50. This, at first glance, is a huge improvement and worth the time.

Overall, I'm pleased with the decision and excited to get further into the camera. I think the decision to go Nikon was a good one, and I'd recommend these two camera models to anyone.

Posted on November 28, 2006 10:06 AM | link to this entry

November 27, 2006

Living Room Update.

I spent the three-day weekend nesting, which felt good after two weeks of upheaval and chaos. Nesting for me generally means power tools and some kind of mess will be involved, and this weekend was no different.

(Here's more information and pictures.) Sorry about the yellow cast to the picture; I forgot to change the white balance setting.

Posted on November 27, 2006 12:51 AM | link to this entry

November 26, 2006

Fireplace Revisited.

When last we left, the fireplace was covered in a wood and cardboard facia, waiting for a permanent cover to be installed. I pulled the cardboard off weeks ago, and now that the ceiling and baseboards are done, the fireplace is the last thing to be worked on.

This weekend we went searching for suitable lumber to work with, and found that there isn't much to choose from in the major home supply stores. I was looking for a good sheet of 1/2" sanded plywood, but all we could find was 3/4" plywood or 3/4" MDF and nothing close to useable in 1/2" thickness. I decided on sanded birch redwood plywood for the face and pine for the sides. Unfortunately, the first try at the sides did not allow for a bevel cut, so I had to go back out for thicker planks and start from scratch. It was at this time, hidden in the back of the store, that I found sheets of 1/2" MDF for half the price of the plywood. Oh, well.

I could only find quality planks in poplar that worked, so I sucked up the extra cost and bought them. The first step was to get the sides correct. First I cut and beveled the insides and then the tops, adjusted the height, planed the bottoms to fit the walls, and tacked them in. This was mostly easy, as it was all tablesaw work, but the hard part was next: milling a $35 board down correctly, with squared beveled cuts in four places. Here I had to get creative with a circular saw, and wisely decided my current saw was not up to the task.

My saw is a Makita that was rescued from a reposessed vehicle eighteen years ago and has been with me ever since. It's a great saw but it was used hard before I got it, and I've used it hard ever since. The rental I got is a new 8" version of my saw, which means the fittings and calibration are correct, and I can trust that 45° means 45°. The only beef I have with it is that it doesn't have a guide fence (or a fitting for one) so that I have to manually set up guide fences with wood and clamps to get a clean cut. Otherwise, the motor is strong, and the build quality is great.

The first three cuts went very well, but the angle of the fourth cut was opposite the saw's cutting angle. First, I backed away from the finish edge by a quarter-inch and made the cut straight to remove the center. Then I tried to drop the circular saw in to make the cut, but soon realized this was a mistake, and almost ruined two hours' worth of work. Instead I made a fence for my router, routed out about 1/2 the depth of the board with a miter bit, and then used a 45° bit to follow it down to the elbow, where I used a handsaw to finish the edge.

A few more adjustments to the feet, and I had the faceplate tacked in. Next, I beveled each side and the bottom of a new plank for the mantle facia, adjusted the width, and tacked that into place. Finally, I cut and fit the inserts for the inside edges of the fascia and tacked them in too.

Now, the finish work. The plan is to pull the front plates off, secure the sides into the framework, and install some shims on each side. Then the front plates go back on for good. Next I put in some faux feet to follow the line of the kickplate on either side and cover the uneven floor on each side.

The real challenge will be to find decent cap molding for the top edge of the mantle to mimic that of the rest of the woodwork in the house. I have no idea where to find this, only that it will be hard and that the major chain stores don't carry anything worth using.

Posted on November 26, 2006 11:19 PM | link to this entry

Fireplace Revisited.

When last we left, the fireplace was covered in a wood and cardboard facia, waiting for a permanent cover to be installed. I pulled the cardboard off weeks ago, and now that the ceiling and baseboards are done, the fireplace is the last thing to be worked on.

This weekend we went searching for suitable lumber to work with, and found that there isn't much to choose from in the major home supply stores. I was looking for a good sheet of 1/2" sanded plywood, but all we could find was 3/4" plywood or 3/4" MDF and nothing close to useable in 1/2" thickness. I decided on sanded birch redwood plywood for the face and pine for the sides. Unfortunately, the first try at the sides did not allow for a bevel cut, so I had to go back out for thicker planks and start from scratch. It was at this time, hidden in the back of the store, that I found sheets of 1/2" MDF for half the price of the plywood. Oh, well.

I could only find quality planks in poplar that worked, so I sucked up the extra cost and bought them. The first step was to get the sides correct. First I cut and beveled the insides and then the tops, adjusted the height, planed the bottoms to fit the walls, and tacked them in. This was mostly easy, as it was all tablesaw work, but the hard part was next: milling a $35 board down correctly, with squared beveled cuts in four places. Here I had to get creative with a circular saw, and wisely decided my current saw was not up to the task.

My saw is a Makita that was rescued from a reposessed vehicle eighteen years ago and has been with me ever since. It's a great saw but it was used hard before I got it, and I've used it hard ever since. The rental I got is a new 8" version of my saw, which means the fittings and calibration are correct, and I can trust that 45° means 45°. The only beef I have with it is that it doesn't have a guide fence (or a fitting for one) so that I have to manually set up guide fences with wood and clamps to get a clean cut. Otherwise, the motor is strong, and the build quality is great.

The first three cuts went very well, but the angle of the fourth cut was opposite the saw's cutting angle. First, I backed away from the finish edge by a quarter-inch and made the cut straight to remove the center. Then I tried to drop the circular saw in to make the cut, but soon realized this was a mistake, and almost ruined two hours' worth of work. Instead I made a fence for my router, routed out about 1/2 the depth of the board with a miter bit, and then used a 45° bit to follow it down to the elbow, where I used a handsaw to finish the edge.

A few more adjustments to the feet, and I had the faceplate tacked in. Next, I beveled each side and the bottom of a new plank for the mantle facia, adjusted the width, and tacked that into place. Finally, I cut and fit the inserts for the inside edges of the fascia and tacked them in too.

Now, the finish work. The plan is to pull the front plates off, secure the sides into the framework, and install some shims on each side. Then the front plates go back on for good. Next I put in some faux feet to follow the line of the kickplate on either side and cover the uneven floor on each side.

The real challenge will be to find decent cap molding for the top edge of the mantle to mimic that of the rest of the woodwork in the house. I have no idea where to find this, only that it will be hard and that the major chain stores don't carry anything worth using.

Posted on November 26, 2006 11:19 PM | link to this entry

November 25, 2006

Home Bodies.

Today we woke up late in our own bed with noplace to be and nothing to prepare. After coffee and breakfast down the street, we hit the grocery store to stock up on essentials and the Home Depot for one more piece of wood. On the way home I spied a Scout in the Sunny's parking lot so I wrote a quick letter and returned to the store to see if the owner was present, found a nice guy who, unfortunately, didn't want to buy my truck, and came back home to get started on the day.

Jen and I cleaned out the office and the atrium, threw away most of the stuff left over from Penn's habitation (FIP is contagious, after all) and scrubbed the floors and walls. Then, for the first time in over a year, we opened the office door and let the other cats explore. I've been waiting to do that all week, and it felt good.

Downstairs, I'm almost finished with the baseboards. With the exception of one corner, all the cap molding is in place, the toe molding is stained and in place, the walls are cut in, and the electrical is installed. The hallway got cut in, I put the lights back up, and the floor is mopped. Now I start on the fireplace cover so that we can finally button up the wall molding and call the room done.

Posted on November 25, 2006 1:02 AM | link to this entry

November 22, 2006

Home, Interrupted.

My Dad is doing well, although they had to check his pulmonary function this morning and stop in to the ER to check on a fever this afternoon. From what we understand, the pulmonary stuff is a side-effect of the medication they gave him after the surgery.

Posted on November 22, 2006 11:00 PM | link to this entry

November 20, 2006

Take Off, To The Great White North

My pop is doing pretty well. He's been on some heavy antibiotics since his appendix came out, but one of the side effects is anxiety, which makes it hard for him to sleep. Today a call to the docs resulted in some new meds and some benadryl to help knock him out. He looks better this evening than he did yesterday, and he seems to be firing on more cylinders. We got to sit around the table and have dinner as a family this evening, and that felt very good.

Upstate New York is as picturesque as ever, if your idea of compelling subject matter includes ruined barns, abandoned cars, and empty, widswept fields. Which mine does. I had to struggle not to screech the car to a halt on the way in to town to snap photos every half-mile. Perhaps tomorrow I can break away to shoot a little while my father naps. I'm also going to try to get up and visit my Grampa, hopefully in the morning when he's awake, and catch up a little with him.

Posted on November 20, 2006 10:34 PM | link to this entry

Clap On

Posted on November 20, 2006 12:25 PM | link to this entry | Comments (2)

November 19, 2006

Dinner on the road

Posted on November 19, 2006 3:59 PM | link to this entry

November 18, 2006

Win Some, Lose Some.

My Pop is out of the hospital after getting good blood tests back; the infection is gone, so he's simply trying to rest up and heal. We're loading up the Jeep and driving north to see him tomorrow for an impromptu Thanksgiving visit. I'm looking forward to seeing him.

This morning I went into the office to pick up some stuff for an early client meeting, and it was quiet and lonely.

Posted on November 18, 2006 10:23 PM | link to this entry

November 16, 2006

Youth In Asia

Penn, the Holy Orange Terror, is not in a good way. After much fucking around, the internal medicine vet got back the results which neither confirm nor deny the presence of FIP. In his professional opinion, though, he thinks it's nonspecific cancer of some kind, which sucks, because we can't treat it with anything.

After several days of forcefeeding, general apathy and lack of sleep, the little guy was wandering around like a meth-head on a four day bender, so we brought him back in to the referring doctor (herself a subject for a later post in detail) for some subcutaneous fluids, a steroid shot, and a healthy painkiller/tranquilizer to help him sleep. Of course, because he's Penn, he's burning through the trank like it's a glass of Coke, so he's still awake but very interested in checking out the floor from eye-level. (If you remember, this is the cat who went through an entire pharmacy of attitude adjustment medication in the search for the One True Drug that would allow him to roam the house free and not view Geneva as the target of ninja assassination. Jen recently threw these expensive drugs away, as they were all taking up valuable space in the egg holder of our fridge, and the urge to self-medicate with some of them has come up now and again.)

I picked Penn out of a lineup at the Baltimore SPCA for two reasons: He was orange, and I have a love for orange cats. He was also the only cat in a room full of cats begging for attention who (I thought) was smart enough to be meowing constantly, at a metronomically precise rate, to get my attention. He was staring straight out of the bars of the cage at me, his little mouth yammering at a frantic pace, until I asked the lady to pick him up, and then he was quiet. He crawled around my arms a little while until he found a comfortable spot, and then he started purring contentedly. I was hooked. (Little did I know that his method of gaining my attention was also his standard method of being alive; this hyperactivity got exponentially more hyper as he got older.) His given name was actually Dandy. I can't think of a more horrifying, stunting name to give a child or a pet than Dandy—besides, perhaps, Britney.

His brother, Teller (originally Raymond) took the opposite tack. Teller laid in the bottom of his cage on his back, playing contentedly with a yarn ball, oblivious of the people outside the cage staring at him and forty other cats. I thought this hard-to-get ploy was pretty slick, and as soon as I picked him up, he seemed to fit perfectly in my hands. Again, this naiive process of selection has come back to haunt me in later years, but at the time it seemed reasonable.

Back at home, in my rowhome in Canton, we settled into a comfortable routine, and the boys seemed to get along with each other pretty well. After I finished the basement, I would let the boys run free in the house, and every once in a while one of them would sleep in the sidewalk-level window. Before long, some of the kids in the neighborhood saw them, and they became a fixture on the walk home. I had the opportunity to introduce them to the kids, and one of the girls couldn't get the name right, so she called him "Mr. Ben." This name stuck, and we've been using it ever since, along with Pennyonce, Penndandy, Mr. Pencil, Pendleflex, Pendleton, and Pennsyltucky, to name a few.

As I've mentioned here before, merging two households of cats was 4/5 successful. Penn, who thought he was alpha male, did not recognize Geneva's rightful claim to that title, and they fought to the point of bloodletting.

After having Geneva stitched back up, Penn got banished to the upstairs office (dubbed the Pennitentiary) and the atrium by himself, and in the summer he had the run of the attic as well. The first year of captivity was pretty lousy, as he didn't get to see as much of us as anybody wanted. We weren't in the office more than a couple of hours a day, and the loneliness got to him. His favorite trick was to wait until we were comfortably asleep and then he'd sit on his haunches and scribblescrabble at the office door, making it bonk against its hinges, until I got up and put him out in the atrium.

I'm having a hard time with this situation because I have a lot of guilt over having to lock him up by himself. The other cats got to glom all over us in the cold winter months, stapling us into the bed under their sheer weight and leeching our precious body heat; they had plenty of lap time on the couch, and they got to socialize with guests who found themselves unlucky enough to be trapped in a house with the crazy cat people. Penn had to sleep and eat by himself for two years. There were many days when I had bad things to say about our problem child, and plenty of days when I just wished he was gone so we could have some harmony in our household. For these thoughts, I'm feeling horrible, like Penn deserved a better Dad than me. I am a pretty selfish, misanthropic human a lot of the time, and I didn't spend enough quality time with Penn when he was on his own.

After our failed attempts at chemically altering his behavior, I looked into adoption services with little success. There is no easy solution for adoption when the cat is full-grown, and I couldn't bear to think of Penn sitting alone in a cage at a PetSmart for three months waiting for someone to pick him, especially after he'd already been through that experience before.

Since Jen's been working from home, and especially this last year after I joined her, we've been around him for eight or ten or twelve hours a day, and he's been much happier and a lot mellower. Jen set up a wine box with a pillow in between our desks and he'd spend long afternoons asleep with us, relaxing us while we stressed out and staying up with us to hit deadlines. He became a fantastic studio cat, only occasionally spilling the odd glass of water or scrabbling at the door. (He never did grow out of his habit of meowing constantly the minute I got on the phone with a client.) This summer we remarked more than once how different he'd become, and that the change made us both feel better.

This last month has been tough for all of us. I didn't notice the changes in behavior or weight loss until Jen pointed them out, and because they were gradual at first, it took a long time for me to accept that something was wrong. As his condition worsened, the changes sped up until he became a shadow of his former gregarious self. I feel guilty about this too, although from what the doctors are telling us, there really is nothing we could have done anyway. That's cold comfort, though.

Last night we corralled the other cats in the basement, moved his box into our room, and let him stay with us for the first time in ages. He laid on the bed and stared off into space, unable to sleep, and he was like that when we both drifted off. This morning, after the painkillers wore off, he gave us a wheezy purr as we scratched his back, and that made us feel a little better, like he actually realizes we're there and that we love him. I'm making an appointment with the vet in the afternoon, and I have to decide if I want a wooden box with a plaque or something more ornate for his final resting place, but that seems kind of garish for a working-class cat like Penn. I'm also wondering where I'm supposed to put this thing. On the mantle? On my dresser? In the closet?

This sucks.

Posted on November 16, 2006 6:23 PM | link to this entry | Comments (3)

Mr. Penn

Posted on November 16, 2006 3:15 PM | link to this entry | Comments (2)

November 15, 2006

Crap!

My sister called this morning to let me know my father is in the hospital having his appendix removed today, so our Thanksgiving plans are out the window. Cross your fingers for my pop, will you?

Posted on November 15, 2006 11:11 AM | link to this entry | Comments (2)

November 14, 2006

Talk, Plus.

I've spent about 22 of the last 48 hours working on some last-minute updates for a website I've been building since last year; this included pulling some Flash out of my butt, making a lot of sitewide updates, and a few hurried conference calls with folks in California.

The company's name is TalkPlus, and the deal is that they add services to your existing mobile phone. If your phone has a Maryland area code and you'd like to have a Los Angeles number for your presence there, TalkPlus can give that to you. The service also includes a bunch of features not available with some standard mobile acounts-the ability to screen calls by incoming number, voicemail that can go to your email account, multiple outbound IDs (you could spoof your own caller ID, essentially) and a few other goodies.

They've just opened a public beta, and for a limited time you can try the service out for free. I'm not sure what numbers they have available right now, but if you spend a lot of time on the road, have multiple offices, are dating and wish to keep your actual number private, or just like fooling around with technology, check it out.

Posted on November 14, 2006 4:42 PM | link to this entry

Bad News.

Penn is home again, and his belly is shaved from one side to the other, so he looks like a standard poodle shaving experiment gone horribly wrong. The vet isn't sure, but this could be one of two things: Feline infectious peritonitis, which is an untreatable virus thing that cats can get at birth, or, more seriously, mysenteric cancer (a fancy way of saying he might have a nonspecific cancer throughout the sac that surrounds his organs).

The vet is sending some of the fluid that's gathering in his abdomen out for some tests which might tell us something more conclusive, but the nature of FIP is such that they can't be positive about it. The next steps will probably be some form of exploratory surgery to determine exactly what's happening inside.

Neither one of these things is good news; FIP is lousy, and cancer is shitty. This sucks.

Posted on November 14, 2006 12:13 PM | link to this entry | Comments (3)

November 10, 2006

Gym-tastic.

I signed up for a year's membership at the Lifebridge Health Club in Pikesville this morning. It's a big, spacious gym with lots of windows and a ton of different machines, a basketball court and a pool. I've been wanting to do some cardio for a long time to get my ticker back in shape, and because Jen already belongs, we're getting a little bit of a break on the membership. The gym is positioned in an older section of town, next to some retirement communities, so I am barraged in the locker room with as much wrinkly bare old man-bottom as I can try to avoid. It's kind of amazing how free and out there the 55-80-year-old set is with their bodies. I'm the guy with three towels and a pair of boxers scuttling back to my locker, while Abe over here next to me has his junk hanging out all over the bench as he carefully tweezes his nosehair. Clearly, I have a lot to get accustomed to. I also need to invest in some flip-flops for the first time in 20 years to avoid the toe fungus.

(By the way, was I one of the only ones who never had to shower after gym period in high school, or was that pretty much over and done with for everyone else too? No wonder high school was such a dry period for me.)

In other news, Penn the Terror is sick with some kind of bottom-problem. He's a shadow of his former self, down from 15 lbs. to a sickly 11 in the space of two months. Just when we'd gotten him calmed down, groomed correctly and used to being with him for 8-12 hours per day, he started being antisocial and avoiding his food, which is about as normal for him as time standing still or the sun blinking off. Usually, when pouring food into his bowl, he gets his head in between the food container and the bowl and nudges it out of the way while the food is still falling, so that I'm pouring the food on his head as he's beginning to horse it down. I used to think it was a little rude until I considered Homer Simpson's dream of donuts falling from the sky like rain, and then it made sense in a hedonistic food-fetish sort of way. These days, he eats a few bites and then returns to his chair in the other room to sleep.

The doc doesn't know what it could be, but she says there might be a mass of some kind in his intestines. He's had bloodwork done and a trio of X-rays, which all came back inconclusive, so we have an ultrasound scheduled for next Tuesday. In the meantime, he gets his choice of canned food so that he'll keep his weight up. Keep your fingers crossed for the little punk.

Posted on November 10, 2006 1:30 PM | link to this entry | Comments (1)

November 8, 2006

Crossed Fingers

This is the best news I've heard in a long time. I realize there are still votes to be counted, and here in Maryland the Governor's race is up in the air, but it's looking better and better as the morning progresses. Let us all hope that the Senate swings Democratic as well as the House, and that some sanity is restored to the political process here in America.

Update: Oh, it's going so much better than I'd hoped. Governor hairpiece just conceded, Democrats won Montana, and now Rumsfeld is resigning? Bust out the party hats and the whisky—it's time to celebrate.

Posted on November 8, 2006 9:30 AM | link to this entry

November 7, 2006

Carotid Artery - neck

We saw this on the wall of the elementary school where we voted this afternoon. The kid looks stoned, doesn't he? Or, better yet, it looks like he's flashing the emo gang sign.

Posted on November 7, 2006 4:32 PM | link to this entry

Changes...

Well, things are definitely moving along here at Idiot Central. Today is voting day, which means there's been a steady stream of people walking down the street in front of the house to and from the elementary school. We're going after lunch to stand in line and (hopefully) make our voices heard; I'll be happy when I've ceased getting calls from Rudy Giuliani and Bill Clinton exhorting me to vote one way or the other, and the piles of direct mail switch back over to Christmas catalogs.

I'm looking at email a little differently this morning, as well. I got my hosting switched over to a new service, one which lacks in helpful configuration what it makes up for in sheer number of services at a rock-bottom price. I'm not going to recommend it just yet (although it would be in my financial best interest to do so) until I've wrung it out somewhat, but all looks to be working correctly so far. Now, I have to read up on migrating two years of Eudora archives over to Mail.app. You'll also notice that some of my portfolio site is down—I have yet to upload the rest of my files.

Thirdly, I made a purchase yesterday that may put off the new laptop for a little while. More on that later...

Posted on November 7, 2006 11:25 AM | link to this entry

November 6, 2006

Change of Plans.

The Directory of Illustration is a huge phonebook-sized tome that ships each year to art directors, ad buyers, and designers. A number of years ago, I started getting calls from a rep there trying to get me to sign up. I knew it would be expensive, and it is—several thousand dollars, with the payment coming due either at Christmastime, tax time, or Easter. As part of my plan to get back into illustration I was thinking about joining the Directory next year, but I just got a call from a rep who told me they now have a payment plan spread out over nine months, which makes the whole thing more affordable and convenient. She's going to call back on Wednesday to tell me more about it, and I think I may do it.

Which means I have to get back on the horse and get some more sample work done in a hurry.

Posted on November 6, 2006 2:14 PM | link to this entry

November 5, 2006

Mud, Day Two

That's 1/2" of drywall up there, with one coat of mud on the seams. As of this writing, there's a second coat drying.

Posted on November 5, 2006 12:57 PM | link to this entry | Comments (3)

November 3, 2006

Family Values.

Watching the Ian McKellan-written Richard III this evening, at the exit of Dame Maggie Smith (The Duchess of York), who is delivering a final word to Annette Bening (the widowed Queen Elizabeth), who is standing on the tarmac of the airport.

Jen: I never understood why she [Queen Elizabeth] stuck around in this play. Why didn't she leave England too?

Bill: Yeah, I don't know.

Jen: Like Jackie said, "They're killing Kennedys. I'm out!"

Posted on November 3, 2006 9:33 PM | link to this entry

Christmas In November.

I just got an unexpected freelance check this afternoon, one I knew was coming but wasn't banking on until sometime mid-December. It's deposited in my bank account this afternoon, which means I might just pull the trigger and get the new toy I've been dreaming of since the beginning of the year.

Posted on November 3, 2006 5:06 PM | link to this entry

November 1, 2006

Field of Dreams

On my way back from a client meeting in Frederick yesterday, I saw this line of cars in a farmer's field and stopped to snap a few photos.

Posted on November 1, 2006 9:21 AM | link to this entry