Out of Pocket
Dang I'll be glad when her high school reunion is past and I can use the desktop again--where all my images and blogging clips are stored. This morning, another 25 new emails came in and that means I'm banished to the laptop watching her backside and elbows clickety clicking the morning away. I had an image in mind for today, but it will have to wait til I'm back in the Holodeck.
I'm really having a sense of disconnect with comments broken, not that I got many comments in recent ages. I guess just the idea that I'm cut off from that kind of connectedness after more than 4 years makes blogging more like just simply jotting in a journal or scrapbook--which is basically all FFF is, but with people reading over your shoulder who can let you know you're not totally alone in your musings.
I go today for the last recording session, and then what? I've about talked myself out of an audiobook, except perhaps a very abridged "best of" from SRH. If I do even that, I'll want to upgrade sound editors, and this morning, Ian from London suggested Audio Audition. Funny. I owned this program when it costs $49 and was called CoolEdit Pro. After enjoying it for a few months, Adobe bought the company, quadrupled the price, then charged an arm and leg to upgrade--which I didn't. Now it costs $350. I may still qualify for an academic discount since my teaching contract runs through August 2007. I dunno.
Also in the reinvesting-in-the-business category (here as the tax year comes to a close): I've found a SWEET tripod and head at PFS Photo. Even my arthritic hands can operate this fine piece of equipment. Justifying the extravagance, I told Ann this would be "a lifetime investment" and she was quick to remind me that, at our age, something wouldn't have to last all that long to qualify for such anymore. Smarty-pants. I can save $50 ordering online. I'd rather buy locally. I'll call this morning and see if Mike has any wiggle-room on the Bogen / Manfrotto 458B NeoTec Pro Photo Tripod Legs and 322RC2 Heavy Duty Grip Action Ball Head. (Merry Christmas to me!)
Let's see now...I had some snippets to share, in addition to the landscape I was going to show you.
Well, I'm going to what promises to be an interesting gathering of writerly types soon, and expect there will be some blog posts to come, if not directly from the site, in the days that follow. And more than that, I am hoping to have been nudged forward by the conversation and encouragement, networking and enabling that will happen there into whatever it is that comes next. The consensus of unofficial polling and listening to what people say (especially blog readers) is that it should contain color images. One of the folks I'll spend time with at the conference is gathering specific info on full color printing in books he might publish. I gather that, while in the past couple of years, inexpensive color book printing has meant shopping the jobs overseas (in China, Korea, etc) that the same services can be had reasonable on this side of the world.
Thanks to those couple who have emailed during this comment-less period just to let me know you're still out there. I'm still hoping for a fix. And that I'll wake up one morning this week and all my firewood for next year will be cut, split and stacked by the back door by a troop of kindly elves. And a Pulitzer Prize. And six-pack abs.