As much as I didn’t want to, I decided I would just eat the $20 that I put into “the mis-prints”:http://revjim.net/2006/09/13/making-a-bad-day-worse/. So, I reordered them yesterday morning and had Jess watch me do it to ensure I didn’t press any of the wrong buttons and to make sure that I pushed all of the right buttons. We both felt confident that I did it right, so I had no reason to believe I wouldn’t get prints of the sane quality I’m used to seeing from CostCo.
Without telling me she was going to do so, Jess called CostCo later that morning and arranged to have the reordered prints provided at no charge as a replacement for the ones that didn’t come out as I had wanted. I hadn’t been willing to take this step because, despite the fact that the user interface undoubtedly sucks, I couldn’t be certain that CostCo was in any way to blame for the poor results. She also arranged to use her lunch break today to make the exchange herself since I left the bad prints at home.
So Jess went out of her way to save us $20 and she arranged to pick them up for me so that I wouldn’t have to deal with it. That’s a very sweet, generous, and thoughtful thing to do for me. I am elated that Jess would want so badly to make me happy that she would go through all of this trouble to do so. I’m also grateful for the assistance and happy for the favor. But I wasn’t at first.
For some stupid reason that I have yet to be able to pinpoint, her doing this bruised my ego and left me feeling incompetent and even more angry. I was angry with myself for not taking care of it in the first place. I was angry that I wasted all afternoon yesterday frustrated about the situation and confused with how to deal with it. I was angry that I couldn’t just shake it off and more forward. I eventually got over myself, swallowed my pride, and even met her at CostCo, mostly just to give her a hug, but under the safe guise of having lunch together. Sometimes I’m just plain silly.
The rest of my work day went mostly without a hitch. The “frames I ordered”:http://revjim.net/2006/09/12/frames-by-mail/ were on my doorstep when I got home as were a new set of Expan Drive Kits to replace the ones that collapsed and snapped in my studio while photographing Gloria a while back. I didn’t order any matboard because we still have a ton of it from a combination of the “hey daniel more people will buy your prints if you sell them framed and matted” extravaganza as well as the “name your own price” print sale. I did, however, forget to order the anti-glare plexiglass fronts that I usually mount prints behind so it looks like I get to go to a craft store and pick some up.
Around 8pm Jess and I met for the usual Wednesday dinner with “Pegleg”:http://peglegpete.livejournal.com/ and friends. We ate pizza, drank beer, talked about “Portable Media Players”:http://revjim.net/2006/09/14/ipod-nano-vs-the-world/, “Myschievia”:http://revjim.net/2006/09/14/attending-myschievia/, and monkey’s with expired sausage in thier butts. Then we headed home, I edited some pictures, bid on more eBay crap, and then went to bed.
*Her*: But your names rhyme, how cute would that be?!
*Me*: Sure, the rhyming names are adorable… it’s thinking about the butt sex that makes me a little queasy.
*Her*: Ew ew ew! Alright, you win.
– A conversation yesterday between a friend and I in regard to her husband.
I’m working from home today in an effort to lengthen the day by as many hours as possible. With these extra hours I intend to finish work on the “PhotoBlog”:http://djamesphoto.com/arranginglight/ (yes, that’s a real, working, honest-to-god link, though the content behind it isn’t 100% ready yet), and put up *something* on the “Main Site”:http://djamesphoto.com/. And I have to get to a craft store. I’ve also squared away a chunk of time to finishing signing the prints and packaging the books so I can put them in the mail tomorrow. Then there’s another slice of time allotted once Jess gets home for building frames, cutting matboard, and mounting the prints for “the Exhibit this weekend”:http://revjim.net/2006/09/05/exposure-dallas-presents-ambiance/. Jess offered to help which is good because I really suck at cutting matboard.
A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.
– Ansel Adams