Maker Faire '07 - Part 2.

I'm going to start with easy stuff, because well. I'm tired.

I initially thought I would have a lesurly day. I'd gotten two day passes. But it was just so much fun that I blazed through 8 megs of photos.







Also, I'm about to go batty over dust artifacts. I really hate to photoshop any of the pictures I take. What I see in the viewfinder is what I keep. And no matter how diligently I clean - I just can't seem to get rid of a couple dust artifacts that have been plaging my pictures for a while.

Maker Faire '07 - Part 1.

Let me be the first to say this.....can we move onto another hackneyed phrase? Whenever there is mention of robots, this is the first thing people say. This is a little old, people. But that is just me.

What the hell is up with blogger?

Now you have to type in word verification to publish a post? Ridiculous.

Not only that.. I have to re-post my Maker Faire entries because posts with pictures refuse to enable comments. Apparently posts that have been published with text first - seem okay.

I hope I don't have to bail to one of blogger.com's competitors.

A lot of the people I read seem to be bailing blogger. They just seem to be making it more and more inconvenient to manage blogs on their site.

Update:
Maker Faire series will be re-posted. Apparently the workaround for comments with images is to post a text only entry. Publish. Then go back and add your pictures.

Blogger Problem.

I know I'm having a problem with my comments right now. They dropped out right about the time blogger started automatically saving updates. I'm not sure what to do about it. All my energy is zapped from the Faire, and my ADD extended brain is having a disconnect. If anyone wants to lend a helping hand I'd really be thankful. she _ said @ comcast dot net. Otherwise you'll just have to wait to make comments.

Drive-by.

Sort of "meh" - but today I stumbled upon an indy location shoot. By the time I whipped home and gotten the camera - they were tearing down the stuff outside, and had moved inside to shoot.



There was only this guy running his ass off, and I didn't want to interrupt him. So I don't even know what film they were shooting.

Somehow I've become.....

The unofficial ambassador for breast reduction.

Women always talk about their boobs right? At least all my girlfriends have. So - how is it I missed so many women being tortured by being big breasted? I thought everyone wants to have ginormous boobs.

At first I was embarrassed to admit I was joining the plastic surgery masses. But it wasn't until I did, that I started to realise how many women really want to have a reduction. Even though they know full well my Dr. wants to take half. These are some serious women.

I even heard envy in my mother-in-laws voice when I told her I was thinking about having it done.

One thing is sure.. my breasts have taken on a life of their own. Which is saying a lot. My nickname for a very long time was "breast". I've never had so many people feel so comfortable asking questions and talking about them.

People seem more anxious for me to have the surgery than I am. Though it is becoming clear the reason is - they either want the surgery, or know someone who does. They want to be able to ask questions. This is something that was completely unexpected.

Who could have known?

How I'm ruining the earth - Part II

Part I here.

I think I might be starting to have an issue with the new "direct to customer" trend.

Obviously - the big beneficiary is the big box store who doesn't have to deal with as many inventory issues. But this just moves the inventory burden onto the retailer, and the customer. For example:

A few weeks ago I special ordered some curtain rods. I thought I would pick them up at the store when they came in, but they were directly shipped to my house. From Canada.


As you can see. They aren't very special. Just very minimal rods. All that stuff to the right is just packing material.

Waiting the two weeks to get them wasn't that much of a big deal because I was busy with other stuff. But - I was suppose to get two rods, not one as shown above. It took another two weeks to get the rest of my order.

Now mind you.. it has taken me a month to get some very uninspiring curtain rods. I only liked them because they fit as close to the wall as possible so I can make my bedroom into permanent midnight.

And now... I have yet even more packing material. See that little tiny circle? That is my curtain rod.



I mean - all this has to be hurting the retailer, right? I just can't be the only one this happens to. Can I?

Calm - for now.

I think it is going to be a good day. I didn't have to get up early, only to have my contractors not show up. If they knew what an insomniac I was, they would think twice before booking a time and not being able to make it.

Truthfully, I'm pretty laid back, because I don't care what f-ing time they show up. Just don't make me wait around all day, and not turn up.

In the end my contractors man-ed up, and actually made me happy. I even wound up tipping them a little, but not as much as I would have if they hadn't become a problem.

They even offered to throw in a free side job to make up for the problems. I declined, but I appreciated the offer.

The whole paint thing was a several week long ordeal, and I'm happy to have it over. It took so long because I live next to "little pink houses", and "holy shit that yellow is burning my eyes". You think I'm joking.

I had neighbor after neighbor stop to talk to us and make comments about those two houses. They all expressed relief we were going to choose normal colors that fit into the neighborhood.

Who paints their house pink anyway? I know people have the right to paint their houses any color they want, but come on people. The yellow house bled off onto our house so dramatically, that we couldn't use anything that had the smallest hint of yellow. Like most tan colors. It also made it so some colors would look nice on a normal block, but combined with those two houses would look like Easter egg alley. I think in the end we had 20 colors up on the house. I'm sure it messed with the neighbors heads. It was like a large impressionist painting.

We eventually wound up with tortilla color, off white trim, and a navy blue accent. Oddly, it tones down our side of the yellow house, and makes it look like a completely normal color of yellow.

So - I get a couple of days of not be on tilt. I can go into the weekend being relaxed. Mostly.

Next week I have roofers in. An expense I would have loved to put off for a few months, but nature has its own time line. The extreme drought has caused high winds to whip up every single day.

I have a wood shingle roof.

Last year I was watching water plane drops from the balcony. Not only that.. people in my neighborhood seem to think shooting marine flares for the Fourth of July is good clean fun. It makes a home-owner like me terrified.

At least my roofer has been with me through 5 projects. Unless he's gone mental, everything should be fine.

How to melt down in 3 easy steps.

1. Almost kick your painters off the job.

I know it sounds like I am doing this a lot. But - it is really hard to get anyone to be consistent around here. Even if you get a great referral. With the year round good weather, there is never a shortage of work.

So - after them not showing up three times, I was starting to get a little pissy.

2. Go to a breast reduction surgical consult where they tell you they want to take half your breasts. I sort of felt comfortable with a quarter.

I debated really hard if I was going to mention this here. But the truth of the matter is I'm going to have to shut down the blog for about a month. I'm not going to be able to drive for three weeks. So I probably wont have many stories to share.

3. Get paper audited by the IRS.

You know what is scarier than getting a letter saying you owe them a holy fuck amount of money. Having them show up on your caller id.



I wanted to be a rage filled ball, but I suppressed those urges and just tried to be super nice, and they were super nice back.

Being on hold for an hour and a half. Going through the IRS menu system, and the hold music is enough to drive anyone to insanity.

Once I got to an actual human I realised it was going to be a simple paperwork problem. And they were going to be very reasonable.

It did shave several years off my lifespan, and took up the better part of a day.

Even though I may still have to pay taxes on about 400 bucks, I hope I convinced them it was a good faith error. I don't even think I owe taxes on that.. but I just don't care considering the amount they claimed I owed. I am happy to pay the taxes and fine.

I hope, dear readers, your week is going lots better than mine.

If you thought the last one was scary!

How UPS hates mothers.

Okay - maybe I'm being a little harsh.

Still, I'd like to know how a gift card - shipped from NJ (not even the state I live in - California) can't make it to Ohio in 3 days. I'm pretty sure even the post office could have accomplished that. Oh yeah - did I mention I paid 5 extra bucks for 2 day shipping?



As a single incident - this wouldn't mean anything. But it is a gift card for f's sake. Not that complicated, people.

How on earth can a store get this wrong?

I'm going to segue in a minute. Just hold on.

First, the day started out very nice. My husband and I traveled to the last place on earth (that we know of) which makes Dutch Babies. I am totally stuck on them right now. Not quite a crepe, and not quite a pancake, but they are delicious.

See?


Then we decided to go to Fry's electronics. The parking lot seemed pretty empty. I needed memory cards. My new camera eats them. Those raw files are enormous, and we're going to Maker Faire. So I needed to bulk up.

Usually most departments are an "ooh" moment. Oooh.. look at that flat screen TV. Oooh, look at that computer. Today was just "meh". I was more thrilled by the magazine aisle. They had a bunch of geeky magazines I hadn't seen before.

People were really rude. Somewhat normal for that store. So we decided to get our roomba battery, 5 magazines, 2 beakers and checkout. Yeah.. I don't know what I am going to use them for either.

If you've ever been to Frys' before.. you know how the system works. 50 checkers, and one person who mans the line to tell you who is open.

We get checker number 7. He goes to get my memory cards, and then starts ringing our items up. This is where things get super screwy. It is taking him a super long time to ring items up. Like maybe a minute per item. No exaggeration. He would scan my Dwell Magazine. Hit the enter key like 5 times. Wait. Fidgit. Then apologize for it taking so long.

Finally after he got to the third magazine (Electronic House) I started asking why it was taking so long, because to tell you the truth I thought he was stalling for security. A Fry's employee had shut me down for taking pictures in the television department. Something that has never happened before. I had tried again in another department and found them very edgy about my camera. So I figured I was going to get the security bum rush. They would want to look in my giant camera bag, and see what photos I had taken.

Finally, after I was starting to get really irritated I asked him again "why it was taking so long". I'm pretty sure it might have taken close to ten minutes for him to ring our stuff up. My husband just wanted to leave everything and go.

This is when the checker said the following "our computers are slow". What?!? This amused the guy being checked out right next to us - making him ask the guy how that could be. "You are a computer store" he says.

I know they want to keep track of their inventory and stuff... but hell, why are they are running everything off one 1980's mainframe? How can every grocery store in town have computer systems that can scan items as fast as the clerk can grab them, but the Bay area's largest computer and electronics store have a checkout system that takes a minute per item?

Bizarre Foods.

Since Maker isn't until next weekend - I think I will try to get some rest this weekend. Wish me luck.

So - I leave you with this:



Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods. The only man on earth who could make watching someone eat bizarre foods more disgusting than trying to eat them yourself.

The way he eats is just so distracting. I've never seen anyone, especially on TV, chew so loudly. If you don't loose your lunch over what he sticks in his mouth, you will by the sounds he makes. There must be some level of etiquette to eating pigs balls... isn't there?

Lame!

In today's "are you kidding me" segment - I bring you a rabbit with allergies. In an effort to drain us of all our life savings... I now have to figure out how to fix this problem.



A few days ago we noticed she had a small rough patch on her ear. Didn't think much about it. Put on alcohal, and Vaseline.... because that damn product Mommy De Gallo suggested is harder than moon rocks to find. I spent 4 minutes on hold at Babies R' US to find out they were out.

Anyway - back to the ear. The rough patch started getting redder, and became more swollen. So I had to take her into the vet.

Combined with the missing fur on her chin here, it looks like some kind of allergic reaction. Not only do we have to give her benadryl, we have to find out what she is allergic to.

Todays guilty admission.

For weeks - I've been telling a girlfriend I haven't been getting the emails she's been sending with pictures of her new baby. Mostly because I don't want to lie to her and tell her I think he's cute, when I really think he looks like an alien.

It was hard enough when she told me his name was Orion. I mean really? Naming him after a whole constellation?

Sometimes just saying "I'm working on it" means everything.

Since I'm trying to be better about making entries where I'm not irritated, I thought I'd give an update on my neighbor situation.

Two days ago our neighbor came over. The one from "you suck" fame. He wanted to talk about the dog. Which was really surprising - because, well... you know how neighbor things go.

He started off on a good footing by waiting to be invited in before stepping into our house. Something that pissed me off when he came over last time. Point #1. Okay, maybe that was point #2, because just having the balls to address the problem meant a lot to us.

Last week, as soon as my husband opened the door he walked right in.

Half the time I walk around with shorts that barely cover my ass. Being the modest girl I am....it made me happy that he understands you just don't walk into someone's house until they wave you in.

We all talked for a good while, and he apologized about the dog, and said he felt embarrassed. What... what... what? Maybe I was wrong to feel like a chump for taking care of his dog.

The funny thing was... apparently the dog had gotten out between the time we complained, and when the neighbor came over.

Someone else had tied the dog up in his front yard. I think he assumed it was us. Which is wasn't. Even thought we definitely had thought about it.

Either the dog didn't manage to make it into our backyard, or when we forgot to close our gate from having painters here - the dog climbed the fence and just walked right out into the neighborhood.

At any rate.. the neighbor rage-o-meter has been turned back significantly.

Minor add-on rant: Why is it that when people know you do "something" in computers all of a sudden you become tech support for them? My poor husband now can add the neighbor to the long list of people who need things fixed. We generally don't mind helping, but fixing computer problems for people is a little like taking home stray cats. They keep wanting you to feed them.

Shhhh. Don't tell the paint Mafia.

First - a question. If anyone has the answer - I would love comments, rants, or just plain conspiracy theories.

Why doesn't Kelly Moore let you buy their damn color swatch booklet? I'm not sure what you call them. The full Kelly Moore color pallet?



For now I am calling it "the precious".

This week I've been buying a never ending supply of paint, all in different colors, trying to find one I like. I think I'm up to about 15 quarts at this point.

After the first couple of visits to Kelly Moore I asked if I could just buy one of these things. At that point I had only bought 5 quarts.

The helpful person who up to this point had attended to my every paint need - flat out said I couldn't buy one.

So you can imagine my glee when my painter showed up and said I could have one of his.

When I asked him why Kelly Moore wouldn't just let me buy it, I couldn't quite get the answer out of him. But he did manage to tell me that he had to give them his name, address, and phone number to borrow one. When I told him I didn't want to get him into trouble - he simply replied by saying that he would just go to another store. So now I have one for free.

So - this is what I don't get:

Having the full Kelly Moore color guide that I can just walk around with certainly makes it more likely I will go back to their store to buy paint. I mean... how many of those little freebie paint booklets do you have at your house? I have a ton of them, but they never have all the colors the company makes. Not finding the color I like in those books just makes me want to go buy paint from someone else.

Today we drove around our neighborhood color matching house colors we liked. And you know what? We drove right to Kelly Moore and bought more paint. If we hadn't had the color chart we would have gotten the paint color matched from a big box store.

So why not just let customers buy them?

Cute - or Creepy?

I'm not sure my girl is an attractive yawner. Usually - trying to capture any bunny tongue is cute. With Saffron - maybe not so much. You can admit it.



Links: Here, and here.

Pretty on the Outside.

I've been in a generalized funk - which I will probably talk about soon.

For right now I'm posting these pictures of the new DiNovo Edge Keyboard we just got. If you buy one though - get it through amazon.com. They are 30 bucks cheaper.

No product review yet - but it looks super cool. The packaging is almost as nice as the product.

It comes with a cleaning cloth - which I found funny.



Look at how thin this thing is!

Dear Neighbor - you now officially suck.

The first 4 times your dog climbed the fence and got into my backyard I found it amusing. Now I'm sort of pissed.



It wouldn't be so bad if your dog didn't bark incessantly while it is waiting for you to get back from where ever you are - to take it home. Which by the way - probably makes us look like an asshole to some of our other neighbors.

I can't tell you how much it sucks that we have to babysit your dog. Needing to tie the dog up so it doesn't run the backyard non-stop trying to get out. Or - feel guilty that if I don't tie it up, your dog will get into the street. Get hit, stolen, or taken to the pound. Its okay. Cleaning up dog shit is our thanks.

Never mind that I had this crazy fantasy that I would let my own pets play - in my own yard. But never have - because I'm not sure when your hunting dog will come over.

Or that we are forced into a conflict because we need to tell you that after the dog has gotten into the yard 5 times - the novelty is wearing off, and we are feeling less neighborly.

Somehow you never know how the dog is getting out. Despite me telling you exactly how and where the dog is climbing the fence.

Oddly - lots of our other neighbors have dogs, and seem to know how to keep them in their own yards. But you dear neighbor are completely incapable of this. Thanks - we appreciate it.

Checkers anyone?

Gratuitous use of LEDS.

Crappy image quality due to my cell phone. Just another reason to hate it.

Why I never seem to get anything done.

I thought we might go to some technology-ey event this weekend. But - after seeing the weather forecast - I decided to stay home an prepare for the plague of locusts, and the apocalypse.

Normally - people in industrialized countries think if you own air conditioning, there is no need to worry about hot weather. That is what air conditioning is for - right?

Yeah - but this is California. You can't really count on having electricity. After the heat wave of last summer - a little fear runs through me when excessive heat starts coming so early. Bunnies are really vulnerable to heat.

Today I thought I might go and get supplies to put up giant fabric shades in an effort to stop some of that heat from getting into the house. Plus - this kind of weather makes everyone flood into stores. While my meltdown quota is high - it isn't something I really like to do.

I thought I was being smart to shop while the stores were relatively empty.

I wasn't being my typical shopping self. I wasn't in a hurry. I had to get some paint, so I was fully prepared to browse and just be zen. I'd gotten my shades, and went back to the paint department. No one was in line.

So - I'd made sure to tell the older gentleman how much I appreciated him getting my 4 cans of paint ready for me. He was on the third label by this point. We chatted about how it would suck this weekend, and that everyone would probably be in to buy air conditioners. It was a nice day at that point. Even though some of the conversations I overheard made me really happy I was getting this stuff done early. Peoples nerves already seemed a little frayed.

When the paint guy went to put a sample dot on the can - they weren't coming out the right color. Frankly I didn't notice, because they were just test colors. I figured they might dry the color of the swatch. It didn't matter to me anyway. As long as they were close.

Now he had to redo two of the cans - because the colors are not coming out right. I'm still fine at this point. There is no one behind me. So I'm not stressed.

He was redo-ing the 4th can when another set of customers walked up. I decided to get out of the way and hang out on the other side of the counter. For about 5 minutes he worked on my order, without saying anything to the waiting customers. Since he was an older guy - about 70, I kind of understood he felt he needed to stay focused - but I dont really like to hold other people up either. I could see one of the customers biting a hole in his cheek. Which is probably what I would have been doing. He wasn't rude - but you could just tell he was freaking out inside.

I thought he had 3 cans done, and went over to be ready to pick them up. Plus, I was trying to get away from the woman who was talking me up. She was bitching about her rental properties. She landed on my radar earlier because she swooped in and yelled at the paint guy to see if he had any brown paint.

Note: I may melt down all the time on this blog, but honestly - I am exceedingly nice to people in person.

So - the paint guy tells me he had to redo all the paint over. All four cans. The machine wasn't putting out the appropriate mix. (Fuck). What I thought would be a 30 minute trip has now turned into over an hour. So - I offer to come back in so he could take care of the other customers, and not worry about my paint. While I'm annoyed, I can't be annoyed at him because he was working his ass off and it wasn't his fault.

An hour later I go back to the store to pick up my paint - there were like 10 people in line.

Also super annoying? People who don't walk any faster when they are crossing a street. I mean - you'd think they were walking out to check their mailbox or pick up the morning paper. By all means - hold up traffic.

Am I really NOT an average consumer?

Oh my goodness readers. From time to time my love of technology gets overtaken by my sheer feeling of defeat.

It feels like a constant battle. Which I'm pretty sure - it actually is.

Most weeks - there is a tolerable amount of ridiculousness. Not this week.

Sometimes - it is completely understandable. I'm not just a frustrated consumer. Mr. Snarkolepsy still works in technology. I used to work in technology.

So - I understand how some of the product decisions are made. Having said that - right now I'm totally irritated.

Yesterday it was my cell phone. An XV6700 - from Verizon.



At the time we bought these - there weren't many choices on internet enabled smart phones. I chose to not go with a Blackberry because I don't carry a purse. I walk around with the phone in my hand all the time - and the Blackberry seemed a little large for me. I also liked that the keyboard would tuck away so I wasn't constantly pushing the keys.

It was soon after we brought it home that we started to realize some of the horrible design flaws.

First - All the function buttons on the sides of the phone are in horrible places.
When you turn the phone off, and put it in your pocket, a stray button-push will not only turn it back on, but redial the last person you called - or the person who last called you. Even more irritating - its impossible for the person on the other end to disconnect. So - if you didn't know the phone had redialed - the victim you just called couldn't just hang up their side and regain the ability to use their phone connection. Oddly it drops calls all the time, but for some reason - not at that time.

The 'camera' button is one of those poorly placed buttons along the side. If you want to use the camera, it's almost impossible not to hit the other function buttons on the opposite side (such as the audio recording). If you want to use those other buttons you can't help hitting the camera button. Just irritating. And the camera takes a really long time to come up. Like - 10 seconds. I know in text that doesn't seem like a long time - but we have owned lots of cell phones. None of them took remotely close to that long to bring up the camera.

Yesterday - I was sure I was either going to take a hammer to it, or smash it into the concrete. Since neither of those things are rational or mature - so I chose not to. Though the urge was strong.

So - the thing that caused me to become un-spun yesterday....

I had managed to use up all my memory space with audio recordings. All of it. To the point I couldn't even send a text message. So I tried to delete some. Frantically searching through all the menu's to try to delete some of them - almost resulted in the demise of this phone.

This should be really simple, right? Just highlight a recording file, and choose "Delete" from a menu. Pretty standard. Except it doesn't work. Oh, I can select the file I want to delete. And there's a menu with a "Delete" command. But then when I choose to open the main menu, the "Delete" selection is grayed out. No matter what file I select, the "Delete" is disabled. WTF?

Come to find out - it's not enough to select the audio file, you have to select the audio file with the stylus and hold the stylus down for several seconds to bring up pop-up sub-menu, and you can delete it from there. Yeah - that was completely obvious. I don't know why I thought it might be under the area that says "menu" which has a menu item named "Delete". As a matter of a fact anytime you want to delete something, it is incredibly cumbersome. I just dont understand why.

The bright spot is I get to find a suitable replacement. (I hope all my readers are picking up on the thick sarcasm in that last sentence.)

I think I might give up on Technology.

More to follow.

Hofstadter's Law

Today was just going to be a short project day. We got a little rain. No reason to do too much.

I after becoming fully caffeinated I notice a small tree down in the backyard.



My first thought was wind damage - even though nothing else looked touched. It was a weird area for damage, it was sort of wedged into a corner. So we went out to examine it and found it had no roots. Which was pretty weird since you can see it is still flowering. How does that even happen?



Anyway - handle the tree and onto the main project. Fixing the gate my contractor built - but have never been able to use.

I really thought it was a minor issue. I would have been happier if I didn't need to fix it - but it seemed so small that hassling the contractor was just not worth it. We are capable of fixing things.

I wanted to put another cable brace - my husband wanted to tighten the brace already on it.



Apparently tightening up the existing brace causes the gate to torque in 2 directions instead of only 1.



After diagnosing this thing for about a half an hour - it now looks like instead of being less than an hour of work - it will be at least a half day project. A perfect example of Hofstadter's Law.

We will have to take the gate off. Apparently when you make the door square - it pushes the top right corner so far up, the gate is no longer level.

We have to buy new hinges. Push the bottom right hinge out. Add a 3rd hinge above the top one to support the weight of the gate. The 2x4 is just not capable of supporting the weight as built - and sags at the top.

Move all the latch hardware so the mates meet.

I just hate paying for things I have to fix anyway - but it is way too late now, and I just have to move past it.

All I know is that it better rain this winter. I need some down-time. Cursed California sun.

Why do companies just not get it?

From Engadget.

"Tough news on the Lenovo front, as the "world's third ranking PC manufacturer" is looking to axe 1,400 of its US-based employees -- and fast."

Normally - I'm all for a good firing. But this little section makes me particularly irritated.

" The company stressed that its return to profitability last year was greatly assisted by the laying off of upwards of 1,000 employees, and insinuates that the latest cost-cutting measures are just attempts to "make the organization more efficient by reducing expenses".

Hey Lenovo! You know what would make you profitable? Not taking weeks to ship a freaking machine. You know what else makes you profitable? Having your salesmen not tell people you have a machine ready to ship. Then when you are ready pay - finding out no such machine exists. Here. It tends to piss customers off, and they decide to buy from anyone but you.

It just annoys me to no end - because I really think companies could be much more profitable if they just got their supply chains up to speed.

Little more my speed.

The blog has been really light on the robot side for a while. A few events I normally attend were canceled or rescheduled. But - all hope isn't lost. I think.

Last year I didn't attend the Maker Faire. I didn't know about it until a month after it was over. Which was such a bummer because the MythBusters were there.

Hopefully - I will have pictures of something that everyone else in the world hasn't already covered.

Watch the Maker Faire trailer here.

Is it me - or is this guy trying to look like Johnny Depp?

Simple Things.

Oh my goodness readers! I actually went to see the indie movie Simple Things - and I can't tell you enough how happy I am. Initially we weren't sure if we were going to just show up to take pictures, or actually stay for the movie. Their web-site really made the difference for us. I'm glad we stayed -- it was really good.

The cast and directors were so kind. Michelle - I can't thank you enough for letting me take photos!

I was completely thrilled to get a shot of Joshua Leonard. I could tell having his picture taken wasn't so much his thing. He seemed kind of shy, hanging back from the rest of the cast photos, and I'm very grateful he posed.


Click to enlarge.

Cast of Simple Things.


Click to Enlarge.

Left-to-right: Cameron Bancroft, Edie McClurg, Mickey Jones, Bellamy Young, Andrew C. Erin.

More cast pictures.


Click to enlarge.

Producer Tosca Musk.


Click to enlarge.

Mickey Jones, Tosca Musk, and Big Mike Griffin.

Click to enlarge.

Mickey Jones, and Sam Hennings.


Gratuitous use of full spectrum mode. No flash. I'm sure a few of the cast were looking at me thinking "she knows she can't get that shot without a flash - right"? I could have benefited from some image stabilization.


Click to enlarge.

Director Rowdy Sovall. Director Mexican Sunrise.



I wish I would have gotten to see this film, but they weren't running anymore showings. This was a picture of Rowdy - his wife and new baby.


Click to enlarge.

This thing freaks me out, and I don't know what to do about it.

Like many of you in California - you probably live on a concrete slab. We just don't do basements here. There are probably all sorts of reasons for it. Right now - I don't care why.

Now I find myself with somewhat of a crawlspace. Not a down on your belly - cave crawling space - but a knees and elbows crawl space. I never really liked it from the beginning. Even though as far as crawl spaces go, its amazingly clean. What I made up in my head about it was much worse than it was.

A few months ago - every so often I would hear this vent rattle. Heater off, nothing running. But a distinct (loud) rattling noise. So my first impulse is to kick the door - because I don't want to open that shit. I don't know what's trying to get in. Mice - raccoons, zombies.

Whatever it is - I don't like it and it has to stop. But the heater needs to breath. Now I completely understand why horror films are so effective.