It Wasn’t For Lack Of Trying

Except For One Thing…
I need a landscape fairy. My yard is stupidly out of control and the thought of spending hours fixing it makes me shudder. I don’t dislike yardwork, I hate yardwork.

I knew of my disdain for yardwork before buying my house, but ten years ago the housing market was hot as a lit match, my how things have change. The house I’ve been in since March 1999 was the first inhabitable structure that I found that was under my $200,000 price cap. So I bought it. In the past ten years the yard has gone from manicured, to mildly out of control, to jungle.

Anyone want to have a yardworking party on a Saturday in April? Who knows, by then I might even have functioning plumbing.

One Beer, Two Beer, Three Beer, Floor Couch
I should have known that yesterday was going to be unproductive, almost to the point of being counter-productive, when I popped my first beer open at noon. Three hours and three beers later I found myself on the couch for a “short” nap. Sometime past 7pm I awoke on the couch and gathered myself. For the remainder of the night I watched The Amazing Race and got my stuff in order for today.

ITP Flickr Pic: I Saw The Light, But Produced Nothing
I tried to take photos. I drove around both Saturday and Sunday but never saw anything that interested me. I took out my brand new flash, charged up some batteries, and verified that it worked. However, when I tried to use the flash for a few photos my exposures where terrible. This is operator error because I know that the flash is firing. For as much “training” as I’ve experienced about lighting a subject I’m still missing one of the basic premises. I know this to be true because my photos are shit.

And now you understand why there is no photo today.

Introducing “Offsite C”
On Saturday morning I looked for a hard drive to use in place of the one that’s been giving me grief recently. I opened my drawer of “old” electronics to locate drives 80GB, 120GB, and 250GB, none of which were large enough to be used for this task. Amazing! These drives are not that old, but already they’ve been rendered virtually obsolete.

While in Target Saturday morning I found that they are selling some Western Digital 750GB USB2.0 drives on clearance for $100. Bingo! This would be more-than large enough, in fact this will be more-than large enough for the next few years — so I bought it.

Seventeen hours after starting my backup process I had successfully backed up all of my documents, photos, music, and videos. Whew.

The Amazing Race: It’s Like Finding An Elephant In A Haystack
Oh Sunday night, even when football or basketball fucks with your television schedule I love you so. If you didn’t lead into the start of a work-week you’d be my perfect lover.

Sunday night is The Amazing Race night and I was ready to immerse myself into the race — and then I found out that basketball had gone about fifty minutes long pushing the night’s primetime schedule back. Oh well, that gave me the opportunity to sort my laundry for a laundromat run tonight. When the Race finally came on I was salivating for its goodness.

Last night the racers were able to escape Siberia and headed for India. Because of last week’s exemption from elimination the blonds would have to perform an extra roadblock and finish out of last place in order to survive. And then we hear one of them talking about how much she misses her child — which is a sure way for the editors to let us know that we should not get too attached to this team because they are headed home.

There have been times during this season when I’ve liked Tammy and Victor, and times when I’ve disliked them greatly. Last night the latter was in effect. There are times when it seems as if this race is too easy for them. Last night was one of those times. I’ll go on the record and say that I think that they are going to win.

The racers got to see poverty in India. Apparently this is very easy to find because it seems that we are shown it each season. Luckily the racers didn’t see too much however since they were getting the rides of their lives from what appeared to be New York cabbie flunkies. Once they successfully found the sacred tree in the middle of nowhere they had to figure out to use one of the two red phones, that were clearly out of place there, in order to get their next clue.

For their next task they had to use “traditional tools” — always read the clue, people — to move camel feed and water into a trough. Ho. Hum…

For some reason I started thinking about the Fat Frats and Toni and Dallas from last season and I kind of phased out for a while. I know there was something about getting money or finding an elephant in hay buckets before heading to the pit stop.

Tammy and Victor came in first, all alone. The middle of the pack came in together. And the editors made it appear that there was a close finish between the stunt guys and the blonds, but I think we were being manipulated. The stunt guys finish next-to-last and the blonds are sent packing.

Next week are teased with the thoughts of Thailand and the fact that Margie, of Margie and Luke, passes out from the heat. Much like the talk of children is a indication that a team is doomed, the preview of a team in difficulty usually means that they’ll get by the next week. I’ll let you know if I was right in next week’s wrap up.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – okay, but want another day so that I could get something accomplished
Current Music – listening to last week’s “Sound Opinions” podcast
Website Of The Day – Wonder what fonts are loaded on your computer and what they look like? Let flipping typical show you, just don’t try going to www.flippingtypical.com because that won’t take you anywhere. Silly internets, you’re so damn finicky. In case you don’t know this about me, I am a fucking typography nerd! I love that shit. I took offset-printing in junior high school and loved the movie >Helvetica.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing

Monthly
Foot Mileage – 2.5 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 20 (20)
Vegetarian Days – 8, Carnivorous Days – 16
Marta Rides – 0
Monday Morning Weigh-In – I forgot so I’ll guess that I’m about 200 pounds

March Goals
– Complete all necessary work on my kitchen
– Lose no fewer than one pound
– Run no fewer than 30 miles
– Completely read Softbox Lighting Techniques for Professional Photographers, and Conceptual Blockbusting: A Guide to Better Ideas

2009 Goals
– Reduce my weight to 190 pounds (today’s weight was 199.5 pounds)
– Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
РEarn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalape̱o Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
– Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
– Attend at least one professional photography workshop

The Unmeasurable
– Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
– Become a proficient programmer in Objective-C (iPhone development) and Ruby on Rails (Black Sheep web page concept)
– Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]