May, 2005:

Memorial weekend was great.

Friday night, despite the fact that everyone showed up pretty late, we had a lot of fun. My Dad, my brother and I took turns taking tugs off a bottle of jack while sitting in front of a pretty big fire.

Saturday morning and afternoon gave great weather. Unfortunately, that afternoon and all night it rained. Our tent leaked. I was pretty sure that it would leak. I told Jess we should buy a new one. Ooops. Despite the leaking and the mildew, we slept in it Saturday night. We woke up quite wet and sticky Sunday morning.

Sunday was *humid*, thanks to all of the rain the day before. So, we spent more time inside than I would have liked.

Monday morning we left and made it home by 1pm.

Most of the details of the weekend are probably boring if you weren’t there, so I won’t bother you with them. Jess and I made a new friend though (pictures, tomorrow). And we won the rock painting contest. Well, I took pictures of people painting rocks, and Jess painted our rock. So, technically, *she* won the rock painting contest. But, I won by proxy. She made our rock into a sandwich, complete with french fries and a pickle spear. Yeah, she’s quite crafty that way. Oh, and I went fishing. Hah. So there. Our brownies didn’t win but, we didn’t really expect to since Betty Crocker helped and all.

The new truck held up wonderfully and was quite a joy to drive. Despite the fact that I really like the feel of driving a truck, over long distances, its nice to have a bit smoother of a ride. So, this was the best of both worlds.

You don’t want to be me.

I’m sure that, at times, there may be some of you that would look on the snippet of my life that is presented here and think, “that Jim guy is one lucky bastard”. And, for the most part, I’d agree with you. But it comes at a price. And today, that price was quite evident.

2 years ago, Jess and I were at Target in need of, among other things, a backpack. She selected some $5 “value” backpack and tossed in the cart. I objected. She thought I was silly. I insisted that we buy something comfortable, versatile and long-lasting. A few minutes later I had chosen a $50 variety that suited my needs. Today, I find myself impressed with my ability to select so quickly.

Toby (my cat) peed on the backpack. I’m not exactly sure why as, other than one small spot in the corner of our living room, he doesn’t really pee on anything any more. But, for whatever reason, the backpack was left on the floor of the dining room, and he peed all over it. Jess washed it, but the smell it terrible, still. So, I need a new backpack.

The thing that makes it so terrible to be me sometimes, is my inability to make a decision and accept it as final. I’m still looking for better deals on the truck I bought last weekend. Every time I use my studio lights I curse the fact that I wasted money buying cheap crap. I still wonder if we couldn’t have gotten a house that suits us better for the same price we paid. It seems that I am never satisfied when it comes to making large purchases.

Jess told me this morning that $20 would be reasonable. I know that she is way too frugal for her own good, and doubled that number in my head. At lunch, I set out to the sporting goods store to buy something. 2 hours later, I returned to work with nothing at all.

They had a huge selection of backpacks. An entire wall of them. They ranged in price from almost $200 down to about $15. I looked at every back pack on the wall under $50 at least three times. I didn’t like any of them. I looked again for backpacks under $75 and managed to find two or three that I liked but, were they really worth $75?

I have this same problem with *everything*. It’s sort of a new development. As best as I can tell, my indecision comes from a few places:

# My eagerness to please Jess by spending less
# My fear of buying yet another terrible product in the long line of things I’ve wasted my money on
# The knowledge that, despite how long an item *could* last, with me, our animals, our lifestyle, and the kids that we will eventually have, it’s not likely to last that long for me.
# My desire to get a good deal
# My attempt to save money and still buy high quality items by doing the best I can to ensure that those items I do buy will be as versatile as possible

So, I still don’t have a backpack. And I need it tonight. That means I’ll have to stop and buy something that I don’t like on my way home from work. I’ll probably hate it. I’ll either spend too much, and realize, later, that I could have gotten what I needed for much cheaper. Or, I won’t spend enough and I’ll find that it’s missing some feature I’d like or that the quality is so poor it can’t keep up with my intended use.

So, I ask you. How much should a decent, long lasting backpack cost me? Should I purchase one backpack to meet all of my needs, or a different backpack for all of the different situations in which I would use one? Here’s what I intend to use it for:

# To carry a bottle of water, a jacket, some snacks, and my camera equipment when biking, or hiking.

# To carry a bottle of water, a jacket, a small amount of camera equipment and various purchases when walking around in a city.

# To carry a day and night’s worth of supplies and my camera equipment for an overnight, camping trip.

I’ve found that I prefer nice, comfortable shoulder straps. Because I want quick access to lots of things, I find that, most often, more compartments is better. I’m always carrying a handful of electronics and personal items, so a decent organizer is useful. A waist strap and a sternum strap both making biking and climbing with it on a lot easier. I’d prefer that there be some padding at the back and on the bottom, so that, if I have something breakable in the bag, I can be less careful with it. Plus, with the waist strap, I can clip on lens holders for the lenses that I use most often when actively shooting.

I found one made by JanSport at Target that seems to meet most of my needs. It doesn’t have a waist strap or a sternum strap. It has very little padding on the bottom of the bag. It was $40.

HELP! I’m going crazy.

Among other things, I’m going to attempt to sell a few photographs on eBay. I’m not sure how well they’ll do, or what to expect, so it’s more of an experiment than anything. I intend to start the bidding at a price that barely covers the cost the have the print made, packaged and shipped (i.e. no profit, and no consideration for time or equipment or travel). This way, I can gauge the process, speculate on the future, and decide if it’s worth doing again.

Ideally, I’d like to have five photographs from varying genres, prepared, and titled and ready for posting by this evening. Then, depending on the size of the original for those particular photographs, I’ll determine a good size to sell at, and place the auctions tonight.

If you’ve got a few minutes, browse through “my online portfolio”:http://photos.revjim.net/photography of sorts and select and image or five from your favorite genre that you think would be good to start with. I’d really appreciate it.

I’ve finally just about decided on what I want to improve the state of my studio lighting equipment. No more cheap shit to help me get buy. I’m buying good stuff this time around, and I’m planning for the future, not for the “right now”. Of course in a perfect world, I would have millions of dollars worth of equipment and space at my disposal. But, I’m taking this in smart, well designed, baby steps. The next step is going to run about $700. That’ll get me some decent modifiers and something with a little more power to help out these weak guys. The next step will be another $700 on top of that. Which should give me more control over the light, and put the weak guys on much smaller duties, assuming I don’t just sell them off.

So. I need $1500. So I’m going to start officially selling some of my work, now. I’m also going to start some personal marketing to drum up interested individuals and am going to start hiring myself and my equipment out on weekends. I’m a bit scared to take this leap, because I know that my mind will decide I’m a failure if I don’t succeed. Before now, I couldn’t possibly fail, because I didn’t try. But, regardless, I’m going for it.

I’m going through the process now of deciding which images I’m going to try to sell. Of course, for the most part, I’m willing to sell just about anything that I have the legal right to sell. But I need to concentrate my energy on certain images, or certain types of images. I’m eager to hear any suggestions you might have.

Also, for those of you that have been generous enough to act as a model for me, in some cases I’ve collected a modeling release from you allowing me to sell these images as art and, in some cases, allowing me to sell the image for the purpose of advertisement. I intend to make this model release a part of my routine from this point forward (allowing for special circumstances on a case-by-case basis). In those cases where I didn’t get a signed modeling form, if you don’t object to me selling images of you, let me know and I’ll get a modeling release to you to sign ASAP.

Wish me luck.

I’m probably gonna run around a shoot for an hour or so during my lunch break today. I really just need to get out of here and do something to keep my mind off of all the things that are bothering me.

If you’re withing 15 miles of Irving, and you’d like to join in, let me know. Or if you can’t make it today, would would like to some other time, let me know that too. I know… it’s unlikely. But, worth a shot.

I should know better than to do anything that could go wrong under a full moon — especially install a car stereo.

The 2001 Nissan Frontier has the best dash in the world. Pull out the ashtray, remove two very easy to see and reach screws, pull on the face plate and, BAM!, you’re at the stereo. Figuring out how to do remove the dash, taking the stereo out, building a wiring harness and putting it all back in took 20 minutes, tops. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.

I’m still not quite sure why, but, it didn’t. The stereo simply wouldn’t power up. I took it back out and examined my wiring harness. That when I realized that the “ground” from the stereo was going to the “ground” of the harness (as it should, one would think) but, on the car’s side of the connection, there was no wire coming out of the “ground” spot. Hmmm. Well. That would explain why it wouldn’t work. A quick review of the wires coming in on the other side showed only one wire that wasn’t being used. After thinking about it for a bit, I figured, what the hell, and hooked it up. That didn’t work either.

The stereo started beeping a lot. It didn’t turn on. It just beeped a lot. I assumed that meant I hooked something up wrong and pulled it apart right away. I did some research on the Internet. I found a pinout for a Nissan Stereo that appeared to be the same as mine. Based on it, I was using the wrong wire for “Illumination”. So, I changed the wires around so that I was using the correct wire for “Illumination”. It also claimed that “ground” was where the wiring harness had it, but, I knew better. Ha! So, I hooked up the “ground” wire to the remaining wire, the one that I originally thought was “Illumination”. It worked like a champ. I thought.

Later that night, we needed something from the store. We hopped in the truck and, um, well, all of my instrument panel lights were out. I figured one of my bad wiring attempts blew the fuse. None of them seemed to be labeled “instrument panel” so I picked the 50% or so that seemed like they might have something to do with it, or was something I couldn’t decipher, and checked the fuses. They were all fine. Back upstairs for more research. I figured there must be a hidden fuse somewhere.

There is very little information like this available on the web, unfortunately. The one thing that seemed reasonable that I found was someone stating that the dimmer switch might be bad. I didn’t think I could have “blown” it, but what the hell, it was worth a shot. I took it out and tested it with my meter and it seemed fine. Then, I happened to remember a post that I read where one guy said his tail lights and instrument panel were both out and another guy insisting that they wouldn’t be linked. Just for fun, I checked my tail lights. Yup. They were out. I checked the fuse for the tail lights. Yup. It was blown.

I crammed my spare in there and turned the lights back on. POP! Ooops. Whatever blew the fuse was still connected. I put in another fuse (that I pulled off of something else, since I only had one spare). I unplugged the stereo and then tried the lights again. They worked! So, I figured it *must* be the illumination lead because, surely, the stereo needs “ground”. So I unhooked it (since I don’t use the dimmer functionality anyway) and then plugged the stereo back in. Then I turned on the lights. POP! Goddamn it!

I unhooked the “ground” wire entirely, even though, since that’s essentially what I had hooked up the first time around and it didn’t work, I knew it wouldn’t work. Well, it did. I hooked the “ground” wire back up the the “ground” of the harness (that goes no where). It still worked. Why it didn’t work the first time, I’ll never know.

Unfortunately, I was out of fuses to replace the blown one now in order to be *sure* it wouldn’t pop again. And, while I was willing to drive the car without instrument panel lights, driving in the dark without tail lights could prove to be bad for my health. So, I took Jess’ car to get replacement fuses. I didn’t want to drive all the way to Wal-Mart (the only thing open that late) so I decided to try the grocery store. They had one package left. I snatched it up and took it home only to realize that there is more than one size of “blade fuse” and the one I bought was too big.

I was mad, angry, frustrated, alone, very tired, and it was late. So I just said fuck it and went to bed.

This morning, Jess and I went to Wal-Mart on our way to work. They had *one* package left of fuses. It was $15, had a bunch of fuses I didn’t need, and had been opened and all but cleaned out of one of the fuse types it carried. Luckily, that type wasn’t the one I needed, so we bought it.

We plugged in the fuses and crossed our fingers. Everything worked fine.

Let this be a lesson to my fellow wanna-be electric engineers:

# Even devices powered with DC voltage don’t always need “ground” to operate.
# Car manufacturers (and others as well, I’m sure) don’t always label everything appropriately.
# Don’t assume that, because it’s not working, that it must be the fault of some part you bought, and not your own. Sure, that’s always a possibility, but don’t assume that it is the case.
# Don’t ever, *ever*, *EVER*, work on anything involving electricity or electrical components under a full moon. *Ever*.

girl draped in herself in black and white

(click to enlarge)

Another great image of Jennifer.

As always, your comments and suggestions are appreciated.

And special thanks to those of you who provided feedback via my “Flickr Pre-Publish Photo Set”:http://flickr.com/photos/revjim/sets/354516/.

This is the season finale.

Dinner served at 7:30pm.

Lost starts at 8:30pm.

Lost will end at 10:30ishpm (earlier, since we don’t watch commercials)

We have a much more complete set of drinking rules for those that wish to participate.

We are able to accomodate up to three people (or sets of people) if you wish to drink a lot and spend the night and leave for work from our place in the morning.

I get home from work some time between 5:30 and 6:00pm each day. I go to bed somewhere between 10:00 and 11:00pm. I’m up at 5:30am each morning and out the door for work by 6:30am. That gives me, roughly, 5 hours each weekday of free time.

In order to get ready for our family gathering in Oklahoma this weekend, Jess and I need to accomplish the following:

* Install MP3 head unit into new truck (Daylight helpful)
* Invent a method to keep truck bed covered (tarp?)
* Perfect brownie recipe for cooking competition
* Make brownies (Thurs.)
* Make 20 servings of macaroni salad (Thurs.)
* Lost Party (3+hrs, Wed.)
* Make and Eat Dinner (1hr) (x3)
* Prepare cat feeder and waterer
* Prepare potted plants to be automatically watered (put plants in the backyard with a sprinkler in the middle of them and attach a timer) (Daylight helpful)
* Tear down studio equipment (so the cats don’t do it for me)
* Clean house
* Mow the lawn (Daylight helpful)
* Buy wiring harness for stereo installation
* Buy Groceries
* Pack Clothing
* Pack Toiletries
* Pack Camping Supplies
* Pack Groceries

So the question is should I go to my Martial Arts class this evening and/or Thursday night? The class lasts an hour. If you add in driving time and preparation it takes about 2.5 hours each time. Just the few things I put times on above will require 6 hours. Add 5 more for martial arts and I’ve used 11 of my available 15. I don’t think I can get *all* of that other stuff done in 4 hours. Even with Jess’ help. If I can, it’ll be tight. And that’s not mentioning all the other little piddly things I need to get done. So, I think I’m going to skip both classes this week.

Class is held on what looks like a dance floor — hard polished wood. It’s not very nice on bare feet. I’ve got blisters on the ball, big toe, and side of both feet. One of the blisters is so deep it’s bleeding. It might be good for me to take a week off and give my feet a chance to heal and harden anyway.

I hate the thought of skipping class. I need the exercise, and it makes me feel so good to get a real pounding workout. But, I think that’s the best thing to do right now.