in love

I'm still pretty busy with unpacking and moving in, but I had to say that I love my new place. I love the hardwood floors, the screened in porch, the wall colors, the size, the backyard, the garage, the white picket fence, the built in shelving and cabinets, the fridge and the kitchen.

I'm a happy me.

from crap to profit

Annoyances can turn into great profit.

Remember that.

Especially when you're moving into a house and the previous people left a crap ton of stuff the garage. At first I was pissed, then I saw the Bowflex XTL that is selling on EBay for $500. Yeah, mutha fooka. Leave your crap in my garage. I could use the money. With that, the 2 other weight benches and the other miscellaneous stuff, like great quality paintball guns, their laziness is going to pay for my movers and the cleaning service for the old apartment - at least.

So.. If anyone wants it, and can pick it up this weekend, I'm selling it for $350. Cash Money. Otherwise, it's going to be posted on the several "for sale" boards locally for $450.

molesternation

http://www.news4jax.com/news/13746619/detail.html

What the hell is up with all of the recent cases of creepy women molesting students? Another one was reported in good, ole GA, but it's not the news story that made me want to post this, it was the phrase in the first comment:

"thurle investigation".

Forget the punctuation. Hell, throw out the grammar. It's still spelled, and pronounced, "thorough". Or how about let's skip the "big words" and just say "complete" or "in depth"? If you're going to stick up for Betsy the Molesty, spell check, please. As far as I know, it's built in to every friggin browser.

And as far as the molesterned boy, an old chick has to be the equivalent of the fat chick. It's all fine and dandy until your friends find out.

manipulation

Since I've been incredible busy with the move this coming Friday, I haven't really had any time to get out and take pictures. There's absolutely nothing interesting in my complex. Well, I'll be a little more diplomatic than that. Since I'm sick of this place, my insane upstairs neighbors, the people who's car alarm is literally a fog horn and the mass of horrible dog owners crammed into a relatively small space, I can't find one single thing good or interesting about it right now.

So.. I've been playing with a few of my photos in Photoshop. Click on the picture if you're interested.

jax beach pier

I miss the old one, but hurricane Floyd took it out several years ago. Before that happened I was surprised it never fell on its own. The hurricane was just the last straw.

Every Sunday morning when it was open, my parents and I would go to the pier to have breakfast. It was awesomely "bad for you" food and when you sat down, you could look through the floor boards straight at the water. During the summers it was the hang out for every teenager on "this side" of the ditch, the Intracoastal waterway. I had my first cigarette and met my first tattooed boyfriend there.

Those were the days.. when the fishermen weren't throwing weights at the surfers.

ground swell

Tomorrow, at the butt crack of dawn, I'm going out to take test shots of a friend of mine surfing. I'm stoked. There's a ground swell coming up from the south and even though it doesn't look like much from the surf cams, it's just what I need to see if I can get the timing and framing with a 30 year old, completely mechanical and manual film camera. If it all goes well, I'm going to have a 200mm telephoto lens and tripod set up.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to become a sports photographer. As fun as it would be, I just want to see if I can capture that moment. It's a test for me, sort of. I guess... Ok. So I don't really know what it is, but I've always found such beauty in riding the waves. I want to capture that moment after you've stood and while your entire soul is laughing with joy, your body is clicked into the nuances of the water.

If you've walked on water, you know what I mean.

Now, I can talk about that moment until I'm blue in the face, but actually having the timing to get it is a different story. You either have it or you don't. Before I drag expensive equipment into the some of the harshest conditions hands down, for a camera, I need to know that it's worth the risk beyond "I wanna". If I find out I have the timing, then the possibilities are in the hands of my skill and my eye, but I need to get past Step 1 first.

So, here's to me passing my self-imposed test and not coming back burnt to a crisp. Also, here's to hoping that missing the trip today to Sebastian Inlet, aka "Where the big boys play", wasn't a sign of things to come. These next 2 weeks are just too jam-packed with annoying "adult responsibilities" to allow myself to be out of town for an entire day.

go to hell, vick

Well Michael Vick is getting indicted. Good. I hope you go broke paying for lawyers and being shunned for participating in and contributing to the senseless and insane destruction of beautiful dogs. You'd just be a celebrity in jail. It'd be better if you got food thrown at you every time you had leave the house.

As someone with 2 lovable, loyal, sweet, cuddly and awesome pit bulls I want to spit in his face, rip off his testicles and feed him his own dick. Stupid mother-effing-son-of-a-whore.

"Some of the grisly details in these filings shocked even me, and I'm a person who faces this stuff every day," John Goodwin of the Humane Society said. "I was surprised to see that they were killing dogs by hanging them and one dog was killed by slamming it to the ground. Those are extremely violent methods of execution they're unnecessary and just sick."

For the sake of the Falcons he should just retire. There is no way, convicted or not, that he's going to get any sort of support from the fans. If he is convicted and they keep him I can't even imagine what the backlash will be - besides the inappropriate "one liners".

The Atlanta Falcons. Where killing puppies is just fine with us.

quit your bitchin'

On the local news, they had a story about Sprint dumping over 1,000 customers. I heard a spot about it while watching Hell's Kitchen and even though I rarely ever watch TV news in any form, I decided it was something I needed to check out.

At first I was wondering why a major company would dump a whole bunch of people. The only thing I could think of was problem payers. You know.. the people who never pay their bill on time and get disconnected several times a year and such. As a freelancer, I've never taken on a second job from customer if it was incredibly difficult to get payment the first time. I can understand not wanting to spend the money and time on hassling people to pay. As it turns out, though, it is because the people who they dumped were calling in to complain 40-50 times a month over a several month period.

Now, my question is why are the people complaining about being dumped when they were miserable with their service? Isn't this the perfect time to go with someone more reliable, or up to their impossible standards, without having to deal with the hassle of an early termination fee - which is normally $174-$300? Obviously if they are calling that many times a month, they hate the company and should be happy to be released, right? Are other cell companies requiring that they pay an enormous deposit? I can't even imagine having the time on my hands, or the drive, to bother a company that much. I think I'd pretty much eat the fee to dump them and move on if it was that bad. Hell, even Cingular/AT&T ended up kissing my ass and eating about $150 in fees, freebies and rebates to keep my business when I wanted a new cellphone earlier than I "should be allowed". [Having an extremely long and excellent account history is the only thing that got me my way, honestly.] However, at any point they could have said "No". Of course, I would have paid the $175 to cancel and then picked out a free, kick ass phone from another company instead of waiting 8 months or paying the $350 list price on the phone.

Anyhow, it's Sprint's prerogative. If you think about it mathematically, the 1200 people calling 40 times a month for, at the minimum, 10 minutes a call were wasting 480,000 minutes a month of their customer service manpower. That's the equivalent of one person staying on the phone with customer service for about 333 1/3 days. That's just shy of a year wasted by people who were miserable and their problems couldn't be fixed. I'd want to dump them, too. There's only so much bitching about the same damn thing over and over again that I can take.

Thinking about this more.. I wonder if the people complaining that much are similar to the picture I have in my head. I imagine them to be the a-typical personality that lives to be unhappy. We all know the people. The people who not only complain all of the time, but intentionally put themselves into crappy situations because they want to be miserable. I mean, come on... if you were so unhappy with your cell company that you called every day, at what point would you just say "fuck it". Their service isn't getting any better, no matter how often you call. Why stay, other than the fact that you wouldn't be able to afford to switch to a new service because they'd want a huge deposit and you know how much a rip-off prepaid service really is? I can't think of anything that I've had daily issues with that I've kept around.When I got sick of satellite and DSL interrupting every time it rained, remember: that's every day in the summer here in FL, I switched to cable and cable-based internet.

Maybe there's only so much bitching I can take because I don't understand the reason for NOT leaving the situation that's making you miserable. And don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about those "really bad times" we all have. I'm talking about if I've known someone for 2 or more years and all they've ever done is complain about this or that, this and that and everything else. There are just certain people who like to make themselves unhappy. Come hell or high water, they can find an issue to cling on to.

pack it up, pack it in. let me begin

Christ I hate to move. Days spent putting everything into boxes, days living with boxes, a day moving boxes and about a week to unpack. It's a 2 week process that supposedly takes a day, but throw in 2 dogs, a whole bunch of crap and a serious desire to get over half of an insanely expensive deposit and you've got 4 days of going back and forth between 2 houses.

Officially, the movers are coming the 27th. The 26th I pick up the keys and take over my china and other delicate items. The next day the movers come in the morning and Comcast comes in the evening. Because really, I honestly can't go 24 hours without cable or internet. The 30th the maid service comes to clean the old apartment in the morning and the carpet cleaner comes in the afternoon. Then, the 31st is the walk-through where they had better write me a check that has 4 numbers before the period.

It will only take me about 2 1/2 days to back a 3 bedroom apartment - and that's me moving slow by cleaning everything thoroughly before packing. Unpacking is the worst, even though I love to organize. The kitchen is always up and running the day after move-in and my bedroom is always the last thing. It's usually complete a month after.

I'm just glad that I have paid muscle, that's insured, to lug my crap around. Asking friends, especially at my age, seems like a horrible way to thank them for all of their love and support. Especially since I'm moving from a 1 story apartment into a 2 story house. Which will be a first for me, ever.

I've never lived in a house with stairs. I stayed with some people in a townhouse apartment once when I was in college, but I've never lived in a 2 story, all hard wood home. With a white picket fence, to boot. I have to buy a whole bunch of those felt pad things for the bottom of my furniture so it doesn't scratch up the floors.

It's going to be so nice to have a yard to put a grill and a picnic table. It's going to be so nice to have a separate dining room, for the first time in a long time. It's surely worth the hassle, but jeebus to I hate to move.

kennedy space center

So, here are the photos from the Kennedy Space Center this past weekend.

would you drink it?

I would.

Cucumber Soda Anyone?

(AP) Japanese are staying cool as a cucumber this summer with "Pepsi Ice Cucumber" — a new soda based on the crisp green gourd.

The soft drink, which hit stores here on Tuesday, doesn't actually have any cucumber in it — but has been artificially flavored to resemble "the refreshing taste of a fresh cucumber," said Aya Takemoto, spokeswoman of Japan's Pepsi distributor, Suntory Ltd.

"We wanted a flavor that makes people think of keeping cool in the summer heat," Takemoto said. "We thought the cucumber was just perfect."

The mint-colored soda is on sale just for the summer and only in Japan, Takemoto said. She said initial sales were brisk, and Suntory aims to sell 200,000 cases over the next three months.

Pepsi trails behind industry leaders Coca Cola (Japan) Company, with about 15 percent of the Japanese cola market, and also faces stiff competition from non-fizzy bottled drinks like green tea and coffee, which are popular here.

Suntory said it sold 20.5 million cases of Pepsi brand drinks in 2006, including its popular Pepsi NEX zero-calorie soda."

[I know this came out a month ago, but I really don't follow a lot of news veins. The newest burger and the latest celebrity pregnancy don't interest me usually. Someone on flickr had the image in their photostream and I had to find out what it was.]

a favor to ask

[Before I start my rant, I had a great day overall at the Kennedy Space Center. There was a lot to look at and a bunch to do. Even though the rocket launch was postponed until Monday so I wasn't able to see it, I still had a good, exhausting, informative, entertaining time. You'll see by the pictures in a few days.]

To all of my friends that have kids, I have just one teensy little favor to ask.

For the love of all that is holy and right, can you, unlike 95% of the families that were at the Kennedy Space Center today, teach your children not to touch strangers?

I'm not just talking about bumping. Of course you want them to learn to apologize and watch out. I'm talking about them rubbing a stuffed space shuttle on some random chick's arm and playing with her purse. [both Actually happened.]

In this day and age, I can't turn around to them and say "Quit it kid!" Parents are freaking out. People in general will think I'm the one that's done something horrible and it all ends up with me being escorted from whatever theme park/tourist trap I'm at that week. Even asking, "Can you please keep your kid from touching me?", which was better than what I wanted to say (Can you teach your kid some manners please?), ends up badly. Trust me, I've tried.

You see, there are people in the world who don't like to be touched by strangers. It makes them feel ookey. Also it makes for generally more respectable kids if you teach them about personal space and it may keep them from growing up into someone on the borderline of psychotic.

You see, it wasn't just the kids. Who are these people that feel it's necessary to stand less than 2 feet away from me when I'm in the middle of a wide open area? I don't like crowds. I know that's my issue and I deal with it when I go into a situation knowing there will be crowds. I stand at the back of a group, away from the mass of mindless bodies. In "cattle-herder" lines I give a few feet in front of me and have someone I know stand behind me. I deal the best I can. I do all I can.

And still... atleast one time every 5 minutes, someone was finding their way around the friend I went with, leaning well over railings or just generally squishing up to me as close as possible when there was absolutely no damn good reason. Like when I was in the middle of an open, non-populated area smoking a cigarette next to a designated ash can and some family came and stood 5 feet away from me and glared. Or when I was in the middle of taking a picture, again away from the crowd, and some lady bumped into me hard as I was pushing my shutter release.

Listen, I get kids play and get distracted. They are overwhelmed, oversugared and overtired. I have MUCH more patience with them than adults, but when your kid steps hard on my heels 6 times in a row and we aren't moving, I kind of get irritated.

So.. just do your part if you don't want some chick turning around and making a scene after your indescresion. Because after about 4-6 times of saying "excuse me" nicely, I start dropping the f-bomb.

macros

Well, here's my first set of macros with the bellows.

There are a few extra shots here, too.

in training

Ever wondered if you could hack it in the world of fast food order taking?

Well, Sonic's got the answer.

Click here, turn on your sound and dream of the day when you are taking orders during the late night shift at your local Sonic.

lift off

I've always loved science fact. This weekend I'm going down to the Kennedy Space Center for a rocket launch. Of course I'll be doing the tours and taking tons of pictures, but mostly I'm going to see the launch. I've never seen one "as close as the public is allowed" before. When I've gone down to KSC in the past, the launch has always been scrubbed or postponed. So, I'm hoping it doesn't happen this time.

I'm fascinated with space, space travel and the lot, but I hate science-fiction for the most part. Real shuttles and space craft I love. TV and movie sets? Not so much. For me, it's so much cooler seeing what we are doing and what we're trying to do over what lies in someone's imagination that has no more of a real explanation than "fairy dust and rainbow particles".

wish me luck

I just put in my rental application to move here. The lease at the current apartment is up at the end of this month and this is the place we've settled on.

It's a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 1 1/2 story colonial style house with tons of built in shelving and storage. Plus it has hard wood floors throughout and she's going to fence in the backyard for us for the dogs. Two of the bedrooms are upstairs, both with window seats in the windows shown in the picture. There's also a garage in the back perfect for a workshop/tool shed.

The front has a screened in porch with a ceiling fan for watching the cars go by. The kitchen is kind of small, but with a separate dining and new appliances, including a built in microwave, I can deal with it. There's more room on the counters there than the one I have now, anyway.

I'm sure everything will go well with getting the place. The lady is very excited about us, specifically, moving in and has absolutely no problems with the fact that my dogs are pit bulls. We just have to, you know, go through the motions.

[ps. I've done the whole "owning a house thing" and before you ask me why I don't just buy, I'll tell you. My first and only experience was traumatic. End of story.]

pee pants

I almost wet my pants today.

No seriously.

So I got a bellows for my Nikkormat from my sort-of-tutor friend and I went to the Cummer to get some plant macros. Since it's a fairly controlled environment and plants make the easiest macros, it was a simple choice.

About half-way into my visit 2 serious things happen. One, I realized that the film hadn't caught and I'd taken 27 pictures on one frame. The second was when it started to rain and my only cover was a fairly dense ivy roof on the path. Luckily it was only a 10 minute light rain, so I waited it out surprisingly peacefully.

After it stopped, I finished mis-loaded roll of film, put a new one in, took most of those and figured I should leave before I got caught in a downpour with a 30 year old Nikon. On my way out, I looked down Riverside Avenue and thought, "You know, some shots of rain water coming off of the bridge might be neat."

And then it happened.

Lightening came down close enough for me to hear it cackle and then the thunder snapped and exploded. I almost peed my pants.

I'm pretty scared of lightening. When I was 6-7, I was at my grandparents mobile home during a pretty typical Florida thunderstorm and lightening hit the HAM radio tower my grandfather had in the back yard. It then went down the wire and into and through the mobile home - about 5-7 feet away from where I was sitting. If I think about it hard enough, I can almost feel the prickles from it on my arms and face. So needless to say, lightening and I aren't the best of friends and when it tapped me on the shoulder to say hello, it wasn't received very well.

To top the whole entire adventure off, I wanted to stop by the Landing to have a few drinks at Twisted Martini to wait the storm out in buzzed style, but some "middle eastern" jackass threated that he had a bomb. [They closed down and evacuated the Landing and Library.] So I got to drive home in white squall. There were literally times I couldn't see the road in front of me.

But I'm safe. [Woooo!] And I'm hoping I got something interesting with the bellows.