Where the ‘s’ stands for “shoddy.”
I kept shaking my head in disbelief at every person who yesterday announced the upcoming release of the “iPhone 3Gs — where the ‘s’ stands for ‘speed’!” Aye Carumba! It felt like it was a day of hearing Rachel Ray say “EVOO – extra virgin olive oil” over, and over again.
Doing The Limb(o)
As I mentioned yesterday, one of my neighbor’s tree lost a large limb which took out several smaller limbs on its descent to the ground. Seeing as there was no “We’re sorry about that neighbor, we’ll clean up our tree’s mess” note this time I decided that I should jump on it after mowing the lawns last evening. With my Fisher-Price “My First Chainsaw” in hand I wandered into the mess and started cutting, and cutting, and cutting, and when I made a pile that I could carry to the curb I’d stop and do so.
I wasn’t counting, but I’d guess that I made somewhere between fifteen and twenty trips to the curb. In total I spent about 2.5 hours working in the yard. And still there is more to cut.
Of course now that I’m cleaning up this mess I’ll be compelled to clean up the trees which were growing in my yard and were damaged by the limb.
The upside of this whole mess is that for all intents and purposes I skipped dinner. By the time I go back inside and cleaned up I was way too tired to “prepare” a meal and instead wound up treating myself to one beer and a granola bar.
Homeownership: It’s more than just a job — it’s a career.
I Think That I’m Going To Break Down And Make A Six-Month Optometrist Appointment
I’m not sure if it’s age or the fact that I’m staring at my computer monitor more (which I’m really not so it’s probably my age) but I’m having a harder time focusing, literally focusing, these days.
For the past few years I’ve been making a trek to my optometrist once a year for an examination and the purchase of new glasses. These trips have never been mandatory, just routine maintenance. However, I’m starting to get a bit scared about my fading visual sharpness (and here I thought it was just my photography!) so I think I’m going to schedule something soon to see what’s going on. To say that I do not like this is an understatement. With all of the other physical maladies that I deal with I think that I should at least be blessed with fair-to-midland vision.
ITP Flickr Pic
Sometimes the outtakes aren’t all that bad…
This shot was taken before the model shoot officially began. I shot this from my hip in an attempt to see how the lighting in the room was going to behave. Sure, I decapitated this attractive young lady, but I really like this shot because it’s sharp (at least to my degenerating eyes) and has interesting details.
If The Music Industry Were Smart, All New Digital Downloads Would Be $5
I’d buy soooooo much more music if digital downloads cost $5 instead of the $9-$10 price point which has now been deemed to be “fair.” With so much free, and legal, content floating around on the web music needs to be an impulse buy, and for me that constitutes about a $5 price point.
If new digital releases were $5 each I would have added the following releases to my collection.
- Jason Lytle – “Yours Truly, The Commuter”
- Dirty Projectors – “Bitte Orca” (which was released today)
- Hopewell – “Good Good Desperation”
- Gomez – “A New Tide”
- Immaculate Machine – “High On Jackson Hill”
Don’t get me wrong, I think that all of the titles listed above are quality releases but with so much music already in my collection I don’t feel compelled to own them.
Do the math… At $5/release I would have spent $25 on this music. At $9-$10/release I have spent $0 on this music.
Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – fair
Current Music – listening to today’s “Daily Giz Wiz” podcast
Website Of The Day – Have a city-scene photo that you’d like to make look like you took using a tilt/shift lens? Go to Tilt Shift Maker and play around with your photo.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – yard work
Monthly
Foot Mileage – 0 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 9 (9)
Vegetarian Days – 0, Carnivorous Days – 8
Marta Rides – 0
June Goals
– lose four pounds… plain and simple
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]
Yes, those certainly are some interesting details…
I feel your pain on the tree thing. I’ve got TWO trees that fell over my fence from my neighbors yard… I’ve spent days cutting trunks that are 20 inches across and am over it…. not sure if there is any recourse for damage, time etc, but it sucks no matter what.
Luckily I worked deep enough into the pile to find that the largest limb missed my fence and kept the others from damaging it as well.
Last year the limbs dented my gutters, which is one of the things I plan to have fixed if the contractor dude ever gets back to me with an estimate for all of the non-plumbing work I want done.
I’m seriously considering hiring a tree service to trim back the neighbor’s tree limbs since I think it’s bound to lose more. Also, I want to take down two trees and some other branches that are close to the house.
Then I need to reconstruct a retaining wall along my property line! Have I ever mentioned how much I no longer desire to be a home owner? 😉
Think of the glorious tax breaks you are getting!
Anything that hangs over your property line is fair game. I’m going to plunk down the cash and get one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Silky-179-39-Telescoping-Landscaping-HAYAUCHI/dp/B0014CC4WK/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=ICBYKOQGL8IS9&colid=3JDTSJICTN778
Expensive, but worth it given the number of houses and trees I am dealing with… and seriously, I do it, but being on the roof is not my idea of safe fun.
I am actually taking gutters off of my houses. Too many trees dropping way too many leaves, needles etc, leading to too much maintenance and time on the roofs. My duplex has gutters and I hate it. My new place has no gutters and it is SO much easier and nicer I can’t even believe it. If you have water issues then repair them to control water flow, it not, make sure you have a nice think layer of pine straw along the drip line on the ground to stop splashing and leave it alone. I think you could get away with no gutters on the sides and only over the deck in back. Maybe in the front to direct water away from the house.
I’ve thought about taking the gutters down too, but having thought it through enough to determine if that’s a smart thing for me to do — so I haven’t.
I don’t think ‘shoddy’ was the word you used the other day 😉
I was so happy just to stay home last night, got lots of stuff around the house done, sadly no yard work. This weekend is shot, heading to Cincinnati to meet the folks (ACK!!). Currently nothing is planned for the following weekend and I plan to keep it that way, I may even put the man to work in the yard. I finally got the outdoor power fixed then found out the pond pump is broken, see it isn’t just you. (PS Another plug for David W. he installed new kitchen lights, an exhaust fan in the bathroom and fixed the outdoor power all in one day and for a good price)
As far as your eyes go, are you sure you don’t have a stick stuck in there? I could see and my eye felt a whole lot better once that was out of there.
Indeed “shoddy” was not the word I used yesterday, however I have some pride in my blog and shan’t call it “shitty.” 🙂
I have but three entire weekends of availability before the end August.
June 13-14 : available (and it looks like it will rain)
June 20-21 : available but includes a BS Sunday
June 27-28 : Winnipeg
July 4-5 : Peachtree RR photography / hashing
July 11-12 : I should consider reccy’ing for my July 19th BS trail 😉
July 18-19 : panic on Saturday, lay BS on Sunday
July 25-26 : Nashville for a concert Saturday, return Sunday for a concert in Atlanta Sunday night, followed by a concert in Athens on Monday night
August 1-2 : Lyon’s Run BS
August 8-9 : trying to go to New York for a weekend
August 15-16 : BS #500
August 22-23 : available
August 29-30 : Chicago/Milwaukee
Yes, I’m a busy man.
I may have a stick in my eye, but it’s highly doubtful since I didn’t run your trail on Sunday.
Hey Paulie, Who do you usually buy camera stuff from via the web?
I subscribed to Napster for $5 a month for unlimited streaming and 5 monthly downloads. The downloads (and streaming?) are 192kb/s so things sound decent and as programmers we’re sitting at our desks all day anyhow. I guess it depends on how you consume your music, but this is working out for me. With emusic raising rates and cutting my downloads in half, I think I’m going to stick with Napster for awhile.
@Willy : Sure do! I stay with reputable dealers like Amazon, B&H Photo, KEH, and Adorama though.
@Andrew : Music consumption mostly happens at my office desk these days, and since I’ve moved back to the land of cubicles goes through a pair of Sennheiser headphones. I’ve not looked into subscription services, but perhaps will now.
Just an FYI, I got a text from Barb @ BRAG. 66 miles today and she says it is HOT!
I’m glad my trail is over, that drive to SC to reccy was getting old fast. I will pencil in your trail on the 19th. Who knows maybe I can get Jerry to come out this time, I won’t mention ticks, swamp or PI the next time around.