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Today has been pretty eventful. I have had to manage some issues at work... customer issues that is... that were/are unpleasant. My great buddy Rob got a huge promotion. Big gratz to him. I am booking a few more shoots over the holiday, so I'm in planning mode. I'm really tired from little sleep last night. My co-workers boss (dotted line boss to me of sorts) was in town yesterday. We ended up staying out late drinking Guinness and Patron like teenagers. One of my ex-girlfriends contacted me out of the blue. That time of my life really seems like a million years ago. I am still, to this moment, undecided about going out of town for my vacation to shoot landscapes. I really want to, but the timing and expense just don't sit well with me at the moment. I had about 20 things I wanted to write about this morning before the storm at work. Now I'm feeling a little spent and can't seem to put my thoughts together. Maybe later...

A young blonde woman in Rockport, Texas, was so depressed that she decided to end her life by throwing herself into the bay. She went down to the docks and was about to leap into the frigid water when a handsome young sailor saw her tottering on the edge of the pier, crying. He took pity on her and said, "Look, you have so much to live for. I'm off to Europe in the morning, and if you like, I can stow you away on my ship. I'll take good care of you and bring you food every day". Moving closer, he slipped his arm round her shoulder and added, "I'll keep you happy, and you'll keep me happy." The girl nodded yes. After all, what did she have to lose? Perhaps a fresh start in Europe would give her life new meaning. That night, the sailor brought her aboard and hid her in a lifeboat. From then on, every night he brought her three sandwiches and a piece of fruit, and they made passionate love until dawn. Three weeks later, during a routine inspection, she was discovered by the captain. "What are you doing here?" the captain asked. "I have an arrangement with one of the sailors," she explained. "I get food and a trip to Europe, and he's screwing me." "He certainly is," the captain said. "This is the Port Aransas Ferry!"

It's storming outside... raining lions and dingos. My day has been ok. I haven't felt well at all and am looking forward to going home. If it were not for a presentation I had to give this morning, I would have worked from home. My co-worker and I had a "big 'ole" talk last night and everything seems ducky. I'm sleepy (probably due to the weather) and just want to sink into a numb.

remember this?

"A pessimist says the glass is half empty. An optimist says the glass is half full. And an engineer says its a good thing I put half of my water in a redundant glass." - Dilbert I'm all kinds of crazy pissed off that I am in a less than 50-50 relationship at work. I love my job and I don't mind going above and beyond. That's not the point. I see so much more capability in the t-e-a-m if we were equally productive in each account. I long for my pseudo-week of vacation. It is coming. I can feel it. My cell phone will be turned off for sure. OFF.

Basically, last week was a cotton candy on the outside and a shit sandwich on the inside. My co-worker (a.k.a. "the sales guy") was out on vacation hunting all week. This in and of itself was not an issue. It would appear as though things would be smooth sailing and quiet as the days passed. It would appear. /sigh Monday started out okay, but ended in impromptu meetings at a customer site planning some special lab testing commencing Tuesday. Tuesday was about a 16 hour day without appreciable progress. Wednesday was another Tuesday sans the after hours work, but I was so tired at that point it didn't matter. Thursday and Friday I can barely remember now, but they were unbearably long in the moment. I had a photo shoot on Saturday with the young lady pictured (yes, these are from Saturday). Today I went to a photography networking event in Pearland of all places. It was an overall success, but I spent a lot of the trip there and back wondering where my weekend had gone. Hitting the numbers might be nice about now. "Bend The Bracket" - Chevelle So the water's thickening His collar's pulled, begin to be aware It's on, that he needs to focus Beyond that man, he brings a world of pain Cause The war is on, too weak to move Call it off, sorry refused So we bend the bracket Shove it down anything to make it fit It's on, and being foolish won't cover up Exposing them as fakes So boredom captured another fool Shredding him to bit it's on And the more we tense up, avoiding pain You'll never learn a thing So, as it would go in this grind-for-a-living world, I'm back in the office bright and shiny tomorrow with not much more shimmer on my face than that reflected by light falling on fresh coffee lips. It gets me from horizontal to vertical when inertia flexes all muscles. Forwarding the tape a few songs, I think we are going to spend our Thanksgiving holiday with my family on the coast. It's to be determined. I was/am hoping for a large gathering at our house here in the Kentucky-fried metroplex of Houston proper. Blink twice and it will be Christmas. Somewhere in there, I have an (almost) week off to do with what I wish. I wish at this moment to fly somewhere beautiful and photograph it to bring home with me, but it's more likely that I'll stay home, sleep more, and do less. If I were to speculate the shift in odds, I'd say finances would be motive to foul play, but what do I know? I'm only speculating, right? What else has been going on? Nothing. I haven't been gaming. I haven't been drinking with the guys or creating anything worth mentioning. I haven't been productive outside providing food and shelter for my family. It's more fun than a barrel of monkeys. I did however, download and burn Dane Cook's Retaliation today off I-Tunes. Being abducted by aliens and coming home from work to your armor clad pet monkey wielding a weapon with which to duel you sounds exciting. Like being part of a heist... or sex. It's better than punching babies. You dig? Hey Kool-Aid! Oh Yeah!

Occasionally we all have those moments when the brain is just not engaged. You look with intent, but do not see. You ponder issues at hand, but never find the mark. I was generally dissatisfied with the entire shoot and everything I produced throughout... I metered, checked, and rechecked... I couldn't figure out what was amiss. Last night I figured it out. I'm an idiot. Now that we've cleared that up, how is your morning? I am still in the midst of deciding what to do with my forthcoming (albeit brief) vacation. I really like Joe's suggestion of consulting the Mother's Milk during the decision making process, but that most likely wouldn't work out in the long run. My credit card company would love me, but EL would unleash the terrorous wrath of her kung fu upon me. I missed more SMS texts and phone calls this weekend. Generally speaking, when I'm at home on the weekend, I put my cell phone in my closet and don't look at it but once or twice a day... if at all. If you know me well enough to ask me out for a beer, then you know my home number or you know that there is a good chance that unless enough advance notice is given for me to get the message, I probably won't get it. I'm sure I miss out on a lot of great times that way. It's a shame. My coworker is out on vacation this week, so it's quiet in the office. Well, it's usually quiet in the office, but it is even quiet-er. No fax machine R2-D2 impersonations, no muffled phone calls from the adjacent office. Only the soft murmur of my laptop cooling fan and the occasional whoosh of passing traffic on the street in front of the building. I haven't purchased any photography related equipment in a long time. I was thinking this morning about the Singh-Ray circular polarizer/color intensifier glass filter and how curious that little piece of glass makes me. I use a Cokin P system largely out of cost/convenience... not so much for the quality. Singh-Ray filters are probably the best quality filters on the market and I've long wanted to replace my graduated ND filters with their Singh-Ray equivalents. Considering Cokin ND's are around twenty bucks and the Cokin polarizer is about fifty, the jump to $170 for ND's and about $340 for the polarizer I mentioned is a tough one. I certainly wouldn't need those for any of the stuff I've been shooting this year however, a trip to involving landscape shots would be greatly benefited. I wanted the Singh-Rays for my Switzerland trip last year, but couldn't get them in time even if I had the spare coin laying around. I miss being in the field. I miss framing the shot in my mind and setting up the exposure just so... making something to take away for years to come. It's my favorite flavor of photography. I'm sure of it.

Yeah, so I was setting up to shoot EL tonight and his majesty walks in and sits in the middle of the seamless. You can't deny that kind of authority.

I book some PTO for December in the early stages of planning a photo trip. Decisions and more decisions. What should I do?

Interesting People of Newfoundland a poem by John Ashbery Newfoundland is, or was, full of interesting people. Like Larry, who would make a fool of himself on street corners for a nickel. There was the Russian who called himself the Grand Duke, and who was said to be a real duke from somewhere, and the woman who frequently accompanied him on his rounds. Doc Hanks, the sawbones, was a real good surgeon when he wasn't completely drunk, which was most of the time. When only half drunk he could perform decent cranial surgery. There was the blind man who never said anything but produced spectral sounds on a musical saw. There was Walsh's, with its fancy grocery department. What a treat when Mother or Father would take us down there, skidding over slippery snow and ice, to be rewarded with a rare fig from somewhere. They had teas from every country you could imagine and hard little cakes from Scotland, rare sherries and Madeiras to reward the aunts and uncles who came dancing. On summer evenings in the eternal light it was a joy just to be there and think. We took long rides into the countryside, but were always stopped by some bog or other. Then it was time to return home, which was OK with everybody, each of them having discovered he or she could use a little shuteye. In short there was a higher per capita percentage of interesting people there than almost anywhere on earth, but the population was small, which meant not too many interesting people. But for all that we loved each other and had interesting times picking each other's brain and drying nets on the wooden docks. Always some more of us would come along. It is in the place in the world in complete beauty, as none can gainsay, I declare, and strong frontiers to collide with. Worship of the chthonic powers may well happen there but is seldom in evidence. We loved that too, as we were a part of all that happened there, the evil and the good and all the shades in between, happy to pipe up at roll call or compete in the spelling bees. It was too much of a good thing but at least it's over now. They are making a pageant out of it, one of them told me. It's coming to a theater near you.

"A drink somewhere between coffee and beer could soon be on the menu. Nestec, part of the Nestlé empire in Switzerland, has filed patents in every major market round the world on a "fermented coffee beverage" that pours and foams like beer, but smells of strong coffee and packs a concentrated caffeine kick. The beverage is made in a similar way to beer, but fine-tuned temperature control stops the formation of ethyl alcohol. So the new drink could go down well with people who want a long tall pick-me-up while driving. Nestlé admits it was tricky to preserve the characteristic coffee smell in the production process. Coffee beans are roasted normally, and the chemicals containing the natural aroma collected in a cryogenic condenser, before being converted into coffee oil. The remains of the roast are then ground to powder, mixed with yeast and sucrose, and fermented for 4 hours at just below 22°C. At this temperature the yeast can still metabolise but does not generate alcohol. The aroma oil is then mixed in with the liquid and nitrogen is injected to make it foam. Adding a touch of extra sugar also helps trap the aroma until the drink is poured, Nestlé claim." Doubt me? Read the patent.

I was eating (again)... it is something I enjoy apparently. My co-worker and I went to a bar-b-que establishement for lunch. There was a mounted racoon ass on the wall (not the head end, just the ass). There was a ceiling tile that had been replaced with cow udders. The man sitting at the table behind us was wearing a t-shirt advertising fishing lures. The bar-b-que was great.

I woke up on the proverbial wrong side of the bed this morning. Let me start by clarifying that if all the lights are off at a residence (interior, exterior, etc.), this generally means "don't fucking trick or treat here you greedy little pieces of shit". Apparently this was too much to assimilate for some children in our neighborhood that thought they'd find paydirt by ringing our doorbell from a pitch black porch after EL was already in bed asleep for the night. When we didn't answer the door, they kept ringing. So this really begs the question: where were they parents? More so, what the fuck is wrong with parents today? Generally unqualified to breed, these people continue to amaze me with their ineptness at sculpting these small mammals into a productive human beings. If Halloween trick or treat etiquette were the only thing they failed to pass along to their offspring, it wouldn't be all that bad. Parenting techniques like never saying no or speaking negatively to a child attempting to nurture a free spirit and avoid damaging their emotive conscience is, in effect, not teaching them any boundaries whatsoever. Children without boundaries today are the problem adults of tomorrow. They are the people that will fail before their families or end up in jail. They are the people that will most likely be people I dislike beyond words. Yay parents! You guys are doing a great job fucking up tomorrows society. Go buy yourself something from Pottery Barn to celebrate. All of this has nothing to do with animal crackers in case you may not have surmised at this juncture. I had the mother of all road trip snackeries for breakfast this morning. Beef jerky. Beef jerky on a road trip is like waking up thinking you have to go to work and realizing it's a four-day weekend. It's like CRSV on crushed ice or a spontaneous blowjob. Beef jerky is right up there in the hall of fame with bacon and bean dip. Vegetarians don't eat beef jerky. So as I was sipping my post-jerky coffee thinking about how great that feast was and how I could have sprayed those kids with icy cool water from the garden hose last night instead of sending them away peacefully, I stumbled upon a small bag of animal crackers. Jackpot! Animal crackers and coffee for desert. It's not like creme brulée after chateaubriand , but it's not quite sugar on a spoon after fried SPAM either. It was just right. It was just what I needed.