A few nights ago (as I was making the bed to get in and sleep the night away), I got a call. It was a good friend of The Girl’s, and she called to tell me/us that she was going to be celebrating her birthday that night, and she was to be having this bash at The Tip Top Club. The Tip Top Club is a local (the only) strip club around these parts.

She’s bisexual, by the way. Yes, she’s every guy’s dream girl. Well, half of the dream, at least.

So The Girl went. Which means, she’s now been to a strip club, whereas I have not. See the irony? My girl has been to the titty bar to see hot, naked women rub up on everyone. I have not. This is just too weird.

I would have gone, but I had to be at work @ 6:30am the next morning. The call came in around 11:30pm. Wasn’t in the cards.



This is why women are so much cooler than men, btw
Okay, so imagine a couple (heterosexual, please). Now, imagine that they are gearing up for a night out. Never, I repeat, never, would a girl bring up an idea that involved a place with men stripping to nothing and both would enjoy it.

It does seem to work the other way, though. You can take your girl to an establishment that involves scantily-clad women getting non-clad and rubbing themselves on you. Everyone is happy.

Yes, women rock.



In the “Strange Things” department
The Girl got home around 3:30am and felt like chatting. Apparently seeing lots of nipples helps you forget that your significant other has to work early the next morning. Anyway. So we’re chatting and she tells me that they didn’t serve alcohol there. I think it came up when I asked how plastered everyone got, and made sure she wasn’t drinking then driving. Anyway. The don’t serve alcohol. Yep. Not even a titty bar, I guess, what with no “bar” and all.

The Girl said that she thought it helped keep customers from getting out of control. I agreed, but it creates another problem: lost profits. Drunk people spend more. So, more tips. More money on booze. You know, because drunk people may not like $4 beer at first, but a few later and it seems like a great deal!

The next day, The Girl is poking around on the web, looking for information on the club. And here’s the “Strange Things” hook: They’re an RV sales lot. Yeah, no joke. They sell RV’s, apparently.

You see, they are not serving alcohol because they’re not zoned to serve alcohol there; it’s technically an RV sales lot. And all those naked women shoving faces in crotches?

Sales girls.

Man, I LOVE this place! And I haven’t even been there!

Peace.

Tags: women, Entertainment

Tags: earth conditions

Right now, tops on my list of P&S cameras to get is the Canon SD870 IS. I was debating whether to go with this or to cheap out a lil’ and get a camera more like The Girl’s. What to do, what to do….

I got it! I’ll get that camera, then she can get it too. Here, let me explain.

I got her the camera I got her because it was going to be her first digital camera. It’s a really great camera, but for me, coming from what I am coming from, I really would like to have as much control/featureset as possible, to make the transition easy and enjoyable. I think I’m really going to enjoy (yeah, that’s right, enjoy) the move to a P&S camera, but I don’t want to go too far down the spectrum and just be frustrated, either.

Now here’s the hairy part. If I have a camera that’s similar to hers only better, then of course she’s going to be upset with me. She says she won’t, but let’s be frank here: it’ll look like I shafted her on her gift, but felt perfectly OK splurging on me. And it’s not like that, I swear. Which is why I’m totally prepared to get her a matching one as well. But to make sure it’s a good fit, I’ll be the first to have it, this way we can compare & contrast, then make informed decisions.

Plus, you’re totally welcome to buy it for me.



About AAA….
Yesterday I mentioned how great AAA can be, but threw in a last-minute curveball about my experience. Something that ended like “more on that another day.” Today’s another day, so how’s this?

OK so what happened was as we left, I got stuck about 4ft off the side of the paved road. Looks flat, looks fun, but in reality it was a trap. Well crap now that I was stuck it was time to get started figuring a way out of this mess I’d gotten myself and my two dogs into.

So of course you reach for your wallet, right? Grab that AAA card? Yes of course! Well, except if you make the conscious decision to leave your wallet at home so as to lessen the chance of having it a) lost somewhere in the wilderness, or b) stolen from your vehicle as you’re too far away to keep tabs on it. This wasn’t a one-day decision, I never take my wallet with me when I take the dogs out.

And for reasons unbeknownst to me, I left my AAA info in my wallet, not in my car. So I grabbed the cell phone – which luckily I didn’t forget to bring – and called…. 411. Because I also didn’t have the # to AAA’s roadside assistance hotline that’s printed on the back of the AAA card. Getting their local office yields me a recording of their hours, but luckily (as I had counted on) they had a link to the roadside assistance hotline. I pressed 5. I waited on hold. Eventually I got ahold of someone and explained that I was a member, however I did not have my ID or anything on me, etc, was there any way they could otherwise look me up?

Now thus far all of this has been my fault, and I haven’t even spoken to anyone that doesn’t bark in the night. So let’s end that streak. First thing I hear is a hesitation, followed by “I’ll have to see what my supervisor says,” followed by “Can I have your membership #?” Yeah see, about that…. You may recall about 5 seconds ago I mentioned I don’t have my wallet, ID, card, checks, cash, or shirt & shoes with me. Great. Well I’m on hold again, and eventually they come back and they try to look me up by name. If you don’t know my last name, let’s just say it’s complicated, and if you do, you’re probably laughing already. So I spell it for this older lady, and she gets it wrong. I say “no no, it’s a T, as in Tom,” and she says “P, OK got it,” to which I reply “No No No, it’s a T, as in Tom” to which she replies that she’s got it now.

Time goes by. They can’t find me. They look me up in Southern and Northern Systems, no luck. So I politely inquire if she’s got the name spelled right. Of course she does, of course she does, I hear. But hey, just for kicks, how about you spell it to me?

WHAT THE LIVING F*CK ARE YOU DOING WITH A P IN THERE INSTEAD OF A T?

No I didn’t say that but boy did the thought cross my tonsils before I bit my lip. Well after finally getting the name correct, we find me in the system – in So Cal, not Nor Cal, where it should be – and they decide they’ll help me get towed a whole 4 feet to dry, solid pavement. Now it’s just a matter of getting my location…

Where am I? At the end of a dead-end road that has no name, about a mile off the freeway off an exit that I don’t know the name (I only follow the brown Park signs), in the middle of nowhere. Oh yeah, this is a great exercise. Well she’s got the internet (I hear it’s a wonderful thing), and she says she’s been trying to use google maps all day without success. She says it has been quitting on her all day, must be the weather (no, it’s your computer, c’mon!). She keeps telling me she can’t look it up, is there any way I can remember the name of the street that doesn’t have a sign, meanwhile I’m hearing the tick-tock of minutes fly by on my pay-as-you-go mobile phone that’s running low on minutes as it is, begging her to just open up the damn map program and type in the name of the wildlife reserve.

Finally she tries again and wouldn’t you know it works. She finds my location and the street names (Pound street? Really?), and I think in another minute or two that I’ll be rescued, right? Oh no, she’s not done with this fancy internet thing yet. She wants to see if she can find the address for the reserve, the one that’s at the end of a dead-end street anyway, and could easily be described as “at the end of the dead-end.” Well this fails miserably as I told her it probably would (“please don’t do that, there’s two different reserves with the same name 15 miles apart”), and she’s no longer looking at the right screen with the street names.

Well time ticks on, and I eventually get her to just call it in as “The end of the dead-end street.” She gives me the reference # – which I don’t think will matter as I’m probably out of minutes now anyway but whatever – and tells me it’ll be 45 minutes. This after almost 40 minutes on the phone with her.

And with that the story’s almost complete. Except that I have to mention that when the tow truck guy got there, he was surprised that I didn’t have any ID, a AAA card, or anything else other than tattoos to identify me. You know, you’d have thunk that with everything considered in this particular case, that might be important info to give to the guy coming to pull me out. Seeing as how they typically need that stuff when they get there, you know? Apparently not.



Odd Timing award of the night
Speaking of how I feared my minutes would run out mid-rescue-conversation, about 2 minutes after I got off the phone with my lovely AAA roadside assistance agent, I get a call from Virgin Mobile that it’s time to “top up” my phone’s minutes.

Guess they watch that stuff like hawks, eh?

Peace.

Tags: earth conditions, hate

I covered someone’s early-morning shift today and got off work around 3:30p. I had expected to come home to an empty house, but lo-and-behold The Girl was home studying on the couch. She was supposed to work tonight but found someone to cover for her. Hey, we’re both home, this is a good thing.

Except of course neither of us planned it nor what to do about dinner in such a situation. Being hungry as we were and with all the meat still in the freezer, we opted for a night out to eat, something we haven’t done in a long long time now. Our destination? Marie Callender’s. They make pies. I eat pies. Sounds like a match. Let’s go.

So some turkey dinner later, and back home I feel like a zepplin; heavy, filled with noxious contaminants, and ready to blow. Holy sh!t do I feel like it might be the last time I ever eat out. Seriously. Here’s how I’m looking at it. We sat around a bunch of people that irritated us, ate food that wasn’t all that good, paid too much for it, now feel sick, and all we really got out of it was convenience. Wow. How convenient. Now I feel like a dog and I’m broke. Yeah, sign me up.

No thanks. Organic dinners have spoiled me. And they surely cost less. And I feel like a champ instead of a chump. I’ll be dining in from now on, thanks anyway.



Thinking of a Hobby between 1 and 10…
So in case you hadn’t noticed, I sort of enjoy being outdoors and doing that sort of thing. Yeah I know it doesn’t always seem to fit with my love of technology, does it? Well believe it or not the two can coexist, it’s just finding a way to meld the two together, which was in large part what the whole “Digital SLR vs. Pocket Camera” was about: I want to enjoy the life I’m making up here, but I want to enjoy the hobbies I love as well. I like photography. But at what cost? At what point does it hinder my enjoyment of other hobbies?

Well anyway, that’s not what this is about. This is about new hobbies I want to take up. And you were supposed to be guessing, by the way.

One of the things I have yet to grow tired of up here is hiking. I love it, and again part of the reason I love photography and want to continue in some sort: it’s pretty and I want to capture it. But there’s more to me than walking around. I want to run it. And once I start running it, I need something to keep me going. Like a bear. A bear chasing me would definitely keep me going, I think.

Ah, but maybe I don’t necessarily need a bear. Maybe it’s just the challenge in general that I need. Yes, maybe that’s it. Maybe a challenge. Like a race. Yeah. A race.

You see I’m a competitive soul. I have no idea why, because I’m a sicilian male perhaps, I can’t say for sure. But I do know that I’m always game to play a sport and chase a ball, even if it’s a ball I hate (I’m looking at you, baseball…). So I’m looking into things like adventure racing or at least competitive off-road racing. Seems to me like it might be something that interests me. And it would definitely give me a goal for training & such, and I love having goals for training & such as anyone can attest. Especially if they’ll like good ol’ Miles Join me.



For the Record
This does not mean that Ju-Jitsu lessons are out. No, that I’m not taking to be directly competitive, and have no desire to try and “get to the top,” mainly as I feel that likely that involves losing more teeth than I maybe even have.

So Ju-Jitsu is still a go. And hey: if I find my way to the UFC? So be it.

Peace.

Tags: Technology

We stayed up late (didn’t get home from work until 11:15pm anyway) and opened gifts around, oh, 12:01am Christmas Morning.

I got a nice sweater, some shorts, a piece of workout equipment, a Blu-Ray Movie (which I don’t have a player yet to watch it with :-( … ) and a mini wet/dry vacuum.

The Girl got some pants, a sweatsuit, some shirts, a couple sweaters, a cast iron pan & handle cover, & a Victoria’s Secret Nightie & Undies. And handcuffs. Yes, Handcuffs.

So you could probably say I got a piece of ass for Christmas, too.



Later that day…
We got up and had breakfast (using the new cast iron pan), then hung around and eventually got up enough strength to take the dogs out again today. We were helped along by some wet-nose prodding, of course. We went out to the less-frequently visited portion of the beach, then trekked around (in 4x4 mode) along the beach to the tip of the peninsula and around to face the bay. Here, we let Miles have at it in the waters for an hour or so.

Hopefully they’ll be worn out enough tomorrow to leave us the hell alone! Well Miles, hopefully. Zoey’s already so tuckered out that she’s falling asleep standing up with her face on the couch.



Then…
The rain came. I had plans to do a workout and also to mow the lawns. Suffice to say that instead, I took a nap and lounged around all day.

Not that rain prevents working out. It’s just that I figured, what the hell. It’s Consumer-mas. So I skipped it. Well, not so much skipped it as pushed it back a day. I’ll be home by like 3:30pm tomorrow, provided I don’t get fired. So I should have plenty of time.



Then it was movie time
We rented Meet the Robinsons on Christmas Eve, to watch on Christmas. I’m not going to give an overview here now, but maybe in another day or so.



And, you?
Like I said yesterday, “Joyous festival of your choosing.” So hopefully you did that, huh? Was it everything you hoped I would be? Did you get a 60” Sony Flat-screen LCD HDTV with 2ms response time or less?

Because if you did, I hate you.

Peace.

Tags: Animals, women, Entertainment, Gym

So happens I have the answer.

Down South, we had regular ol’ carpet, a low shag type of fluff. It looks great right after you vacuum, no doubt, but it tends to look trampled relatively fast. Like, as soon as you touch it. I understand why people used to be so anal about not walking on the carpet; pretty to look at, hell to maintain.

We move up north. The place we rent? Has berber carpet. Has a mix of colors, which we assume will wear well, hiding daily dirt and whatnot. Great that it has no real ‘grain’ or anything, as now whether your vacuum or not, walking on it doesn’t make it look trampled. Yay.

BUT, we were dead wrong about the wear ability of this sh!t. I mean, our carpet is most definitely spotted where it’s used the most. And I think it’s actually a function of the low shag; since there’s no grain, there is nowhere for a stain or discoloration to hide.

Our kitchen is tiled in a sort of renaissance-type color scheme, with mixed reds, oranges, browns, etc. I don’t know what to call it, but I can say this: it stays clean, it’s easy to clean up, and eventually, I will have a house that’s floored entirely with something similar to it.

Though maybe not the grout. I hate grout. No grout. More specifically, I was thinking something like this here. Ah yes, a solid, easy-to-clean surface without grout lines. What do you think?



The. Most. Fun. EVER
That might be a small exaggeration, but I did have more fun than a barrel of monkeys with their pants down today. We took the dogs out to the beach where we normally do, then as we were leaving, I decided to take a right instead of a left and go exploring. What did I find?

Dunes. The kind that you go off-roading all over. I knew the dunes were there, sort of, but I didn’t figure I could just drive there, keep going, and then be free to do as I pleased out there. It was a surprise, and lo-and-behold it was a fun one.

Unfortunately, The Girl had to work tonight, so we had to skip home earlier than I would have liked. I took some quick photos that didn’t come out, so you can look forward to me not putting them on the web to share, too. We’ll be back there soon enough. We have some friends (turns out I have a couple) that are going to be visiting us during the late stages of this month, so I plan on taking them out there and 4-wheeling the hell out of some dunes with them. They’ll enjoy it.



The Girl is too damned nice
I mean, it’s a good thing for me that she’s nice to me, but she’s too damn nice to everyone else. I keep telling her she needs to stand up for herself and not let people walk all over her all the time, otherwise they’ll continue to do so because they know they can get away with it.

Case in point: We get home, and there’s a message on our machine from some girl asking if she could work in The Girl’s place tonight. Cool, because The Girl needs to finish getting ready for her trip back to Southern Hell-ifornia this Sunday. They make the plan, all is set. We have lunch, look forward to another night together, then the phone rings.

This lady is calling back to say that she kinda changed her mind, and doesn’t want to work for The Girl anymore. Now since she’s technically scheduled for the shift, it’s not like she can really say too much to the effect of “tough sh!t,” because it is her ass on the line. But, she was so overly nice about it that she made it sound like she was relieved to be having to work tonight after all, which wasn’t the case.

If it had been me, instead of being all “oh it’s alright, I’ll do it, no problem,” that lady would have heard “You mean now that I’ve gone out of my way to give you the shift you asked for, and subsequently made other plans, you’re calling to renege on that deal? So I’m going to have to cancel my plans because you changed your mind? No no, that’s fine, I’ll do it. I have to go and get ready. No really, I’ll do it. I’m on the schedule anyway. I can’t talk anymore, I have to go and cancel my other plans and then get ready for the shift I thought was covered. Bye.”

Yes it’s petty, but how the hell else do you get across to these people that this sort of behavior is just not acceptable? A little shaming can go a long way, OK? And really, that's what I sorta feel is necessary.

Yes I told The Girl this. Yes she gets it. It’s just hard for her to do, because it’s in her nature. Which is why it’s good for her that it’s not in mine. Don’t worry, baby; I’m here to keep you from being a door mat ;-)

Peace.

Tags: Animals, women

OK so it turns out that while Leopard is mighty, it’s not going to rewrite my computing experience. Hmm, how best to put this?

It feels a little half-baked. They had some great ideas to increase usability, but they didn’t really put it through the paces from an end-user’s standpoint. And in other arenas, it would seem that they gave up on increasing usability to add flash. The Dock springs to my mind, though honestly I don’t think that it’s nearly the bother that everyone else makes it out to be; I think by and large there’s a lot of people that are just resistant to change. I kind of like the new looks, honestly, though I would agree they went flash before substance on it.

My biggest complaint is how it connects to other computers on the same network. Wait wiat wait, let me rephrase that: how it doesn’t connect to other machines on a network. Yeah, that’s better.

On our old machines with the older OS, it wasn’t as easy to see other machines on a network, but you could connect to them even if they had firewalls up for safety reasons. In the new OS, even though it’s easier to find the machines to connect to, if they have a firewall up for protection, absolutely cannot connect to them.

Seems Apple farced something up somewhere. To me, that’s kind of a big booboo. We tell people that they should have the firewall to protect themselves on the internet, but then when they set that up, we break functionality they were expecting… They need to fix this!



So, uh, Yeah, got the little beast
Might have forgot to mention it earlier, but I both ordered & received my new laptop. Decided on the black model of the MacBook because I figured it would wear better, as well as have a higher resale value later. They’re fast, they’re sleek, but MAN! Do I wish it was easier to move things over just the way you want. I spent the better part of last night moving everything and making it just the way I wanted – Fresh, but with all my old documents, mail, music, etc.

It seems they make it easy enough to start fresh, and easy enough to keep all your old stuff, but not easy enough to do both.



Almost sold the old Big Beast
So the nice thing about a laptop & wireless internet is that I can go about anywhere to do these things. So last night as I was getting hungry, I decided to drop into The Girl’s work and have her serve me some free food. I do this often.

No point telling you about much else, other than I was computing on newbie, getting it all set up, and The Girl comes and asks how much I want for the old one. Yay, right? Well not really.

The guy who wanted it has a background which I will share a bit of. He’s a freaking drunk (guess he didn’t used to be, but we’re all here & now, baby) bartender, and about 3 weeks ago decided it would be a good idea to stick a finger in MY Fiancé’s mouth. Yeah. So needless to say, once I find this out, the Big Beast is no longer for sale. I’m not one of those people that forgives & forgets. Well, let me clarify: I can forgive & forget, but there needs to be acceptance of wrongdoing and the attempt to make right. This jerkoff has done neither, instead just sort of ignoring his actions. Look, you don’t get to be a freaking prick and then just pretend nothing ever happened, and be all chummy-chummy with the peeps you wronged. Not with me, anyway.

So yeah, I’m not your buddy, I’m not your friend, I’m not going to smile & wave politely, and I’m sure as hell not going to sell you one of my prized possessions, because as far as I’m concerned, your money isn’t worth my toilet paper, shithead. I wouldn’t sell you ice in the desert. I wouldn’t sell you firewood during winter. I, uh… let’s see… I wouldn’t sell you my laptop if you wanted it.

So maybe that title was bit misleading, ‘cuz I guess I wasn’t even close to selling it. Who’d have thunk?



So wait, he did what? And you’ve done…..?
Nothing thus far. See, I’m new here, it’s a small town, and I would like to continue living here. Somehow, I don’t think I could beat up some asswipe on one side of town, and then keep my job smiling at old people on the other side of town. I don’t see it happening, unless properly provoked.

And for those of you that think his actions constitute “properly provoked,” I on one hand agree, but realistically, I can’t just walk in two days later (the next time he worked) and reach across the bar and slap some fool. Well I could, but the cops would scream premeditation, and thus I wouldn’t be keeping my job smiling at old people.

Funny though, last night I had a chance to make him a smear on my tire. As I left, I guess he didn’t get the hint that it wasn’t for sale, and ran outside to try and flag me down.

[cue bad western music]
...and there I was, in an old west-style showdown, me in the 4runner on one side of the row, him in some ugly-ass shoes on the other side, looking like a drunk prick standing on a mountain of Jell-O during an earthquake…. Draw, pardner…
[/bad western music]

But again, I don’t see how I can hit & run a PERSON after the fact, and still keep my job smiling at old peeps.

Damn old peeps….

Peace.

Tags: women, Technology

Note to self: Don’t bring the dumb dog on the next hiking journey. I have no idea why it is that Zoey (that’s the dumb one) did this, but for some odd reason she decided to find herself in a world of potential disaster today.

We went hiking on a local BLM trailhead. It clings to a river (that’s more like a stream in most parts. At least right now in Fall), and in a few spots it gets deep enough that a dog (say, like a Black Labrador – hey, I have one of those!) could go and swim in. Cool. Well every time we go, my Lab does go and swim at a particularly deep and easy-to-reach spot. I stand on the trail, and huck small logs to the river/water hole below for him to retrieve. Retrievers are funny like that, huh? Anyway. If you didn’t get it from the previous sentence or two, the river is below the trail. Down an embankment.

After a while, the dogs became more interested in checking out the surrounding area. This may have been due to my lack of want to through the damn stick anymore, but it was what it was. Well Zoey (that’s the dumb one) decides she’s going to be brave and go off investigating something. I was trying to get my backpack off so I could hang out without it clinging to me, and the next thing I know is I hear a quick ruffle and Zoey’s out of sight. No problem, I don’t mind the dogs exploring, so long as the come when I call them. Well, out of sight or not, after some moments pass and I hear no more ruffling, and where I expected to see a small white dog running around sniffing, I saw none. So I call.

Nothing. So I call again. Nothing. I didn’t figure she was in trouble at first because I hadn’t heard any yelping, nor even so much as a whimper. But now I was a little worried, because she was between me and the river, so there’s no way she could have gotten too far out of range without crossing my line of sight. So I go to investigate the area. And as I get there, I see…

Zoey. Looking at me with this face of complete embarrassment, shame, and surprise. She looked at me as though to say “dad! Wow, um, glad to see you… um, not sure how to explain this, but um… help? I love you! Don't tell anyone about this though, OK? Love you!” She had walked out on brush. Brush. Not ground. Brush. I’m not sure what had possessed her to do this, other than dumb-ness, but there she was, having fallen through a level of brush and now sitting on another level of brush below that, too far down to get back up to where she was yet too high to make it to ground below without a substantial fall. I threw a rock to see, because I thought the water was just that close, but nay, it was an illusion, as the rock continued down through brush and air until hitting ground much further below.

Now, Zoey (that’s the dumb one) is a mere 35-40lbs. I’m closer to 200. I’m not quite sure how she expected me to rescue her, but I could tell from those sad puppy-dog eyes that this was indeed her expectation of me. Having just stripped my shirt to get some sun on my skin (and by extension, a tan), I now had to go and put it back on, as all this brush was blackberry bushes, which are quite thorny. Ouch.

This lead to some questioning. How the hell do I rescue a dog from a platform that couldn’t hold her weight, much less mine at 5x the amount? I broke out my knife and started cutting the brush down, mostly to rid the area of thorns, but found that it was making the top level of brush lay down closer to her chest. So I did that some to kind of break it up, then I noosed her with one of the leashes around her neck, and pulled while she climbed, so she could make it up the embankment she had fallen down. It worked, I don’t think she particularly cared for the solution (being noosed and all), but it was that or I jump down to grab her and we both go crashing down the embankment to whatever lie below. And all’s well that ends well, right? Needless to say, I kept a good eye on her the rest of the trip, and I don’t think I can trust her next to any embankments anymore; damn dog.

In lighter news though, Miles (He's the smart one) is becoming quite a strong swimmer. Yes he’s a Lab, but you have to understand that he’s 75-80lbs of pure muscle, and floating isn’t his strong-suit. He loves it terribly, swimming, but he’s just never really been that great at it. But with going to the beach and fighting the waves for a couple hours every other day or so, plus all the hiking and swimming there too, he’s gotten to be better, despite the lower fat-to-muscle ratio that comes with constant workouts like his. Instead of just a pair of eyes & a nose above water, his whole back is above stream-level, not even getting wet anymore. Still slow as shit, but he’s pushing enough force now to keep himself damn near out of the water!

Me? Well, I ran a little today. Because running a lot – obviously – was out of the question. Yeah. Guess I’ll have to practice that one some more. I had mentioned to The Girl that on our beach outings, we ought to dress for the occasion and go jogging along the shore.

You know that look you get when you have a great idea that makes total sense but the woman doesn’t want to play along because it means work? Yeah, I got that look.

Peace.

Tags: Animals, women

Tags: Animals, hate, Technology

Yesterday me & The Girl went up to Trinidad (view album over here). It’s supposed to be pretty cool, and I guess it is pretty & all, but it’s just not my style. For those of you from So Cal not familiar with Trinidad, it’s kinda sorta like Laguna Beach. And if you’re not from So Cal and therefore don’t know Laguna Beach or Trinidad, just think pretty place on a beach with cliffs & such.

It’s pretty, don’t get me wrong, but it’s like a quaint little retirement community. And there’s no land to really be had. I like where I am is I guess what I’m saying. The beaches are prettier there for sure, but – and this is the real thing for me – beaches are a place to visit, even if it’s daily, not a place to live at. I want land, cows, horses, birds, and penguins (yes I’m still on that kick). Cows & horses don’t do too well eating sand I reckon, and I want to tend my home & gardens & prairies. I just want them surrounded by Redwoods & flanked by the beach.

We’re probably going to trek back up there soon, take the dogs so they can have some fun. The beach there is a little calmer, so Miles will be able to swim out farther than he can where we are now. He likes the waves & all, but it’ll be a nice change of pace. Maybe he can swim out to one of the islands or something! That’d be cool as hell.



Crescent City’s next
We’ve yet to make it up to Crescent City, though we intend to. Trinidad isn’t an all-day affair, and we didn’t have all day yesterday. Next time we’re both off for a day or so, we’ll try to plan a trip to all-day Crescent City. And this time, we’ll bring hiking boots.

Yeah, we both took shoes that weren’t really cut out for what we ended up doing in Trinidad, namely hiking the small trail head they have. We decided that next time we go anywhwere, we take 3 pairs of shoes: flip-flops, hiking boots, and comfy shoes, so we’re prepared for anything. And quite honestly, I think that the beaches @ Crescent City will have us switching from flip-flops to hiking boots as we go, so they’re going to be a must.



Questioning my photography
I LOVE photography. And it’s weird that now that I live in one of the most picturesque locales imaginable, I’m questioning whether I want to continue the endeavor. Well, let me clarify that: I’m questioning whether I want to continue trying to get really good with good equipment any longer. I may just invest in a pocketable do-it-all style digital camera and leave it at that.

It’s hard, because I realize more & more that I’m NOT going to make myself into a successful photographer & make any money at it. What I do is done over & over 100 times better by people who’ve been doing it forever with background & training & everything else I don’t have. No one’s going to go “oh wow, you’re a photographic genius; please let me pay you BUKU bucks for some prints.” It’s just not going to happen. And in a sense, I’m in over my head already in this regard. I have a camera I paid $700 for, plus two lenses, paid another $149 for specialty software to process the images, had to buy a larger card to store the larger RAW images on, etc. I like taking photos, but at what cost?

I spend a lot of time & effort making the most of what I have. I find I really need a faster computer to process the images I take with my equipment, but for what? They are most likely just going to sit cataloged on my Hard Drive, never having a viewing. And those that do get viewed will most likely get shown on galleries like these online – and I don’t need the capability to print 2-ft by 3-ft prints to do that. Part of me wants more power, more pixels, so I can have the ability to blow it up to 4-ft by 6-ft, but I have no real need to do that. Those newer, bigger files will just sit on my hard drive still, doing the same thing the other 4.000-odd photos are doing – namely, sitting pretty without an audience, because as pretty as they are, there’s prettier out there, and no matter what I can’t afford to play with the Big Dogs at that kind of level.

And it’s not that I think I’m bad. I actually think I’m pretty good, and have a natural “eye” for good shots. It’s just that what I prefer to shoot – candid photos, abstract artistic stuff, nature shots – is so overdone by so many people that there’s really just no space to compete. I don’t shoot models; I have no formal training in it, nor do I want any. My skills will not net me a photo assignment with National Geographic; I will not be shooting Bikini-clads for Sports Illustrated, nor have my name next to any copyright symbols for Nike ads. So what’s the point of having a $1,300 camera with a $900 lens that can capture with wicked clarity a fantastic shot that I could print almost 6-ft tall and hang on a wall? It’s NOT going to be hanging on a wall, unless I hang it on mine & I’m already out of walls. It’s probably only ever going to be displayed here on this website, and quite honestly a decent quality all-in-one prosumer camera would do just fine for how my work will actually be put to use.

I guess in some sense it’s just that I want to be a great photographer. I love doing it, but I can’t justify the expense to do what I want when chances are I can’t even really do it, and will never get a return on it. Ansel Adams isn’t going to be replaced by random bob, a.r.c. anytime soon, know what I’m sayin’?

Hey I’m just ranting. Maybe it won’t matter because soon I’ll have enough money to blow on it anyways. Probably not. But maybe I’ll make use of it somehow. I mean, I enjoy it, right? So if I could do something with it, say local shows or even just small things for friends it may make it worth it in some sense, if not monetarily. Time will tell. Until then, I already have a camera, the software, and I’ll probably get the computer anyways (because I’m a slight techie), so it’ll be a back-burner kind of question going into the future. What do you guys think? Honest opinions only.

Oh, by the way, that photo at the top is me at work ☺

Peace.

Tags: Technology

Michael Vick Pleads GUILTY to dog fighting & animal abuse.

When the story first broke, Clinton Portis (who appears to be quite full of himself) was interviewed and said that he didn’t see why everyone was bugging out, he’s an upstanding citizen of the community & people are just trying to chop him down. It’s his house, so it shouldn’t matter. Um, yeah… about that. You see Mr. Clinton Portis sir, Michael Vick is kinda by definition not an upstanding citizen of the community, seeing as how the community decided that fighting dogs for profit is inhumane and as such wrote a “law” specifically banning this behavior. This behavior which Vick plead GUILTY to.

See, also about that whole ‘it’s his house’ thing you mentioned. You’re just a dumb jock, so you may not get it, but that statement opens up a whole can of worms you’re too dumb to comprehend. Like this one, for instance: Hey, don’t arrest me for hanging niggers. I was on my own property. Hell yeah! Whooping niggers and making them pick cotton – on my property – is totally cool. I’m an upstanding citizen, even though I beat & hang niggers, Clinton, because I only do it on my property, so what’s the big deal? Stop tryin’ to tear down whitey just because he’s beatin’ niggers on his own property. What gives? It' can't be that serious a crime. it's on my own property. You. ASS.

Yeah. Total sarcasm if you can grasp that, you oaf (except calling you an ass. That was legit). Maybe you see how stupid your talking is? Next time refrain. Ball. Chase. Smash. Big Paycheck. That is about the only thing you’re paid for, and thank god for that.



Addendum for Clinton Portis:
If you come within 5,000 feet of MY dogs, I don’t care how big & tough you are, I’ll misdirect you with a 3-4 Dime-Back scheme to confuse you and hang you like a nigger while you’re not looking. Don’t come within 5,000 feet of my dogs, dammit.

Same to you, Vick.

Needless to say, you're both hate-listed now. Buh-bye.



The reason I moved