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Hey, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m not exactly “Jeopardy material”. That’s why, should I ever make it on the game show, I’m going to sell my answer space for corporate advertisement.

“Hemingway selected the title of this novel about about journalist Jake Barnes from a passage in Ecclesiastes.”

“What is… Gatorade, Alex.”

“I’m sorry, Clayton, that is incorrect. You lose.”

...or did I? Muahahahahaha.

I feel so tired. I can’t even recall the last day I posted even though I’ve pulled it up and topically reviewed it before starting this entry. It seems like a month has gone by. Before I say anything else, I want to send wonderful birthday wishes to my dear friend, Beth P. I hope today is everything you want it to be. This entry is going to have to be a little like a Tarantino movie where we start at the end and work backwards. I am sore this morning, but not for doing anything special other than just existing. I drove back from Austin last night after an excruciating day with a large account. I had to get up around 5:30-ish yesterday morning to get on the road so I’d make the meeting in time. Most of the trip up, I listened to XM Comedy 150, but on the way home I caught the artist’s confidential bit where the Smashing Pumpkins detail the creation of Zeitgeist. It was really cool. There were a lot of live acoustic performances as well as step by step creative process for how much of the album was developed. I missed the first part of the interview, but if anyone knows them to replay it, please let me know. The entire day was filled with product deep dives on architecture and training on CLI and configurations in a large forum. It was the typical mixed bag of interest, but after not sleeping well the night before (more on that in a moment) and getting up and driving 3 hours to make the meeting, I was beat. At 5:10, a colleague in town from D.C. tells me he needs a ride to make a 6:30 departure from the airport on the other side of town and it’s rush hour in Austin. Holy fuck. He stepped out of my truck at 6:10 and I circled the airport until he called to let me know they were holding the door of the plane at the gate for him. I was hungry and about to fall asleep, so I decided to stay and have a fabulous dinner at Truluck’s with some other of my coworkers attending the meeting. When the restaurant’s mantra is to never serve seafood that has ever been frozen, it make the menu a little pricey-er, but oh so yummy on the tummy. I had the fresh Jonah crab claws, cream of poblano soup, and pan seared flounder. One glass of wine and nothing but coffee after that… it was a loooooong drive back to H-town. The night before, I shot senior portraits for a good friend down the street. Their daughter had a session with a professional and they were presented with proofs, but could only purchase prints from the studio at $75.00 each (as in one print o.O). Since they weren’t growing bills in the back yard, they needed an alternative. I’m glad I could help out. So that segues into my shopping spree on Wednesday afternoon when I finished work. I couldn’t stop myself. I ordered a portable battery pack/inverter for my strobes as well as a 7’ octodome softbox with a full fitted grid and speedring to match my existing units. I ordered a 22” mola-style beauty dish with a diffusion sock and the TC-80N3 timer remote with a 33’ extension cord for the remote triggers. Oh, I almost forgot, I also ordered a 13’ air cushion lighting stand with a counter-weighted boom attachment. All that stuff is probably going to take weeks to get here, but that rounds out the studio nicely. I have to get going if I’m going to change and pack for my flight to Atlanta this afternoon. I got my bail money in my sock, muthafukka! Hopefully, it will not be required. Teehee. Assuming I don’t get stabbed and my plane doesn’t crash, I’ll be back tomorrow night. Toodles.