Sheep Guarding Llama

Eric found a really awesome blog today with amazing photography of New Orleans post Katrina.

The sun is shining today although it is still cold. Oreo’s grass allergy has been acting up really badly and we had to start him back on his anti-hystamine medication today. Hopefully that will take care of everything. There has been so little snow this winter that it is really hard to tell how having snow would affect him.

Dominica and I woke up earlier than usual this morning from the dog almost getting sick on Dominica’s head while she slept (he likes to be dramatic.) So we decided to just get up and enjoy the day. It was nice being up a little earlier and getting some sunlight and Min enjoyed not having to rush around trying to get to work on time. She sat in the living room and watched a couple episodes of The Gilmore Girls and knit before heading off to work.

I was scanning in more slides this morning and I am up to 1989. I came across my collection of slides that were from the “A Day in the Life of Rochester” Photojournalism competition that I did that summer. I was thirteen. It was my first photo competition. Kodak held the competition. Everyone was given one single roll of Kodachrome 64 and 24 hours in which to use it. Everything had to be taken around Rochester. It was a lot of fun but I had a really hard time, at that age, understanding exactly what I was supposed to do. Now I am much more familiar with the “A Day in the Life…” Photo book series and know what they are looking for. I also have a much better idea of what photojournalism is. But this competition got me started in broadening my understanding of photography. I did end up being a photojournalist for a little while just four or five years after this so I guess it had some impact. I didn’t win the competition but I did pull an honorable mention! I was very happy. I was especially happy to have done so well with the Canon T90 camera I was using having exposer meter problems so that all of the pictures are very dark.

Going through my old picture I found this old picture of Eric wearing a really dorky watch. Andy was making fun of the watch and we got talking about bad old watches. He remembered this classic story of owning a big Radio Shack talking watch that would tell you the time out loud. What a cool watch for a kid. One night his watch died and wouldn’t stop talking. For an hour it just talked and talked in the middle of the night. He couldn’t get the battery out of it and didn’t know what to do. He attempted to flush it to make it stop. His dad came down and discovered him trying to put the watch into the toilet! (Imagine me almost crying as Andy is telling me this story.) Eventually they just buried the watch under a bunch of junk and let it talk until the battery died. He even found a picture of it…

Dad was running errands in the city this morning and Geneseo is on the way from Rochester back to his house so he stopped by a little after noon so that we could go over to the Omega and get lunch.

Not long after we had the story about the French woman willing to kill everyone on a passenger jet in Australia just so that she could smoke we now have the French woman who received the world’s first face transplant willing to lose her new face just so that she can keep smoking. I can’t believe that the French people have to pay into their socialist medical insurance pool so that people like this can get expensive medical care and throw it away. Viva la tobacco.

Apparently in Japan it is popular to have television shows about little girls being attacked by a lizard. I am totally lost as to the entertainment value of this. Now if the lizard actually ate some of them that would be a different story.

If anyone is in need of Ninja advice you can now Ask A Ninja.

Okay, Eric hooked us up with this link to a video of what happens when a water balloon breaks. This short video is AWESOME.

Some of you out there in Llamaland might not be aware of a sport known as “sport stacking” where contestants stack and unstack special plastics cups as quickly as possible. No I am not kidding. This is an actual organized sport. One which, IMHO, makes more sense than many other professional sports. Maybe SGL should sponsor one of these Sport Stackers (read: buy them a t-shirt) to get some publicity. You can check out the sport’s web site at Speed Stackers. What is the world coming to?

I managed to get Episode 42 of the podcast put together and posted before Dominica got home from work. I can’t believe that it has been forty two episodes all ready. Boy time does fly. While doing everything else today I got tons of slides transferred over to digital. The quality of the transfers isn’t that good but I am hoping that a lot of that can be fixed through GIMP or something after the fact. I have transferred all of my slides from 1989-1991 and am working my way through 1992 now. It is really obvious when I finally figured out photography because the quality jump from the 1991 images to the 1992 images is significant. I am pretty sure that that is also the year that I moved from using my dad’s old Canon T90 to my very own, brand new Nikon 5005 with a 50mm Nikkor lens and a 70-210mm Tamron zoom lens. I started using more serious film as well sticking almost exclusively with high end Kodak slide film. I was also working part time with an Olympus Rangefinder. Until fairly recently I was still looking for a replacement for that old rangefinder from the 70’s but film cameras just aren’t useful to me anymore so i am moving on. That rangefinder got left in a hotel room in Arlington, Virginia back when I was seventeen.

After Min came home I made a large spinach salad for dinner and we moved into the living room to watch some Angel before heading to bed. We need to watch quickly because Andy is getting us TNG season three on Saturday. So that we really keep us busy.

Up at 5:45 this morning. What is wrong with me? I shouldn’t be waking up on my own so early in the morning. Since I was awake I figured that I should at least take advantage of the spare time so I got myself out of bed and shaved my head (it really needed it) and got ready to go to work today. Today is the big project day that Jeremy is coming along to help out with. He is excited, it is his first real day of work on an IT job. He has helped out with things down at Castile before but that isn’t the same.

As always happens to me when I have to get ready for a big project day like this I end up running around like mad all morning and then running late because I can’t find things that I really, really need. Today was no exception. I was supposed to pick up Jeremy in Leicester by 8:30 but it was ten till nine by the time I finally got down there to get him. What a great start to the day.

The upside is that we ended up arriving in Pittsford just a few minutes after 9:30 which is when we had scheduled with Tim, the electrician, to be there. He, being for more responsible than I, had been there for almost twenty minutes by the time that we arrived. The weather turned really cold today and it was quite unpleasant being outside at all. Fierce winds and a lot of snow. The people who were supposed to have opened the store for us at 9:30 didn’t end up being there after all so it didn’t matter that we hadn’t been there early anyway. Apparently no one told them that we were coming. Nothing new.

We waited for about fifteen minutes before going into the Barnes & Noble Booksellers that was right next to us to get some coffees to keep us warm while we waited. I think that it was a bit after 10:00 when someone finally arrived and opened the place up for us. So at this point we were running more than half an hour late and we had planned on having a very full day so we were feeling a crunch.

It turned out that within minutes we could see that the store that the three of us were working at had not actually been surveyed like it was supposed to have been and the architectural drawings that we had were useless as the architect had obviously gotten a description over the phone and had never set foot into the building. We had some real critical things missing like power, network and telephone connections. All things that we needed in order to do any work at all. It was expected that power might be short of expectations and they had, at least, though ahead and had electricians go to all of the sites and not just the techs.

The day ended up being a disaster. The original plan had us working in Rochester from 9:30 till about 1:00 and then scooting over to Buffalo as quickly as possible and doing the same project there from 2:00 until 6:00 or so. Nope. Didn’t happen like that at all. The Rochester site was so massively unprepared for us that we ended up spending the entire day there just to get the site up to the point that it should have been at when we had first arrived at 9:30 (sans telephone since we didn’t have access to the telephone equipment.) The only thing that we were able to do while we were there is get the place ready for us to try it again at a later date and determine that there is some unknown network issue that we couldn’t troubleshoot due to limited local resources and so they know that that has to be remedied before we are able to come back and try the whole thing again.

So instead of doing two stores today we ended up not even getting close to doing a single one. The day wasn’t stressful but it was hectic and exhausting. We had to make two runs to the electrical supply stores to be able to get everything done that we did as it was. We were so busy that I didn’t get to eat all day. None of us got breakfast or lunch and worked past the normal end of day time for most people.

After we wrapped up for the day Jeremy and I took a really quick run over to Despatch Junction that was nearby so that Jeremy could see what Rochester’s largest model train store had to offer. He wasn’t very impressed. The guy who runs the store is really nice and helpful but the selection leaves a lot to be desired for serious modelers. It is tough because we have almost exhausted his entire supply of N scale (1:160) building models because there are only a handful from DPM and Model Power. We have all the DPM models that he carries and almost all of the Model Powers. We could order them but it would be nice to get a good look at things before buying them. The sad thing is that we have purchased just about every building that they have at that store in the process of building one tiny learning layout that is only a fraction of the size of a normal layout that most modelers would do. It is, in fact, only a fraction of the size layout that we are hoping to do soon. We just are doing something small to get started. Good thing that we are sticking with the size that we are or we would have to order parts for it just to get to the point that we are at now.

We were only at the store for ten minutes or less and then it was on to Geneseo to get dinner at the Omega Grill. More tuna salad cold plate. I get that almost every day while I am on this diet. I am losing interest in food, let me tell you! I was almost relieved to only have to eat a single meal today. The cold plate is actually very good but I have been eating it SO much. I have most definitely figured out how this diet really works. Culinary boredom!

I took Jeremy home and then drove over to dad’s house to pick up Oreo who had been staying over there today. I hung out with dad for about forty-five minutes or so before coming home. By the time I got home I was exhausted. I spent most of the evening scanning slides and writing the dailies (I am a day behind.)

My latest N scale model railroad locomative came today. I got this one off of eBay. It is a Bachman made Burlington switcher. By Burlington I mean the old pre-1970 CB&Q red and white colour scheme. I thought that it would go well with my other Bachman made Burlington Northern engine. I could use the two together on a layout and target the very early 1970’s when both colour schemes were both in use on the Burlington Northern lines just after the merger. It isn’t a top notch engine or anything I just got a really good deal on it and it matched what I had invested in previously so I was happy with the deal.

Dominica didn’t get home until after 11:00 pm. She said that her drive home tonight was the worst drive that she has had all winter! The wind is just awful. She wanted to watch some DVDs before going to bed but I was really exhausted after my long day and I decided that I would just wrap up some stuff in the office and go to bed early. It is pretty unusual for me to go to bed before she does but once in a while it actually happens.

Well, I caught up on the dailies now. Tomorrow is going to be a relaxing day, I think. That is the theory anyway. Dad has errands in the city in the morning and we are getting lunch on his way back home.

Today ended up being insane errands day. All errands. All. Day. Long. Ugh.

Check out a site that might as well be our llama sister site: Spitting Llamas. What a great name for a blog!

So I was filling out Best Buy rebates this morning. You all know how that is. You buy lots of stuff at Best Buy cheap during the holiday season and then get stuck with hours of work trying to get the price that you thought you were paying originally. Well, as I was filling out the rebates I discovered that when I had purchased the products that I had that the store had told me that I could buy an unlimited amount and still get the rebates. But now as I was filling them out I notice the fine print on the rebates themselves from the manufacturer that says that they will not honor more than one rebate from an address. I look again at the Best Buy receipt and it clearly says right on it, in addition to the person in the store having told me and the display saying nothing about limitations, that everything that I bought on that receipt together were eligible for the rebates although the rebate printed on the same piece of paper clearly disputes that fact.

So I called the Best Buy store where I had purchased the products. I couldn’t get through to anyone for twenty minutes. Now, think back, when is the last time that you called a regular brick and mortar store and couldn’t get through for twenty minutes? I mean the whole store is SO busy that they are no longer taking calls? I eventually called through to the appliances department and had them get a manager for me through that route. The manager attempted to get out of having to do anything because “Best Buy is not responsible for the rebates and Best Buy says that advertising a price and not giving it isn’t really false advertising but after you purchase the product and get the rebate is the actual advertising.” Now many of you may think that that makes no sense – that advertising only exists after a product has been purchased and that you can state anything you want prior to the sale as long as you don’t lie about it after the fact. Well, I have no retort. Anyway, the manager finally admitted that the store was wrong to mislabel the display, misstate the rebate limitations and misprint the receipt confirming that misstatement. Now that the store has finally admitted to being at fault the question is: will their honor the stated price (or… will they honor a rebate that they claimed to offer but didn’t… just semantics at this point.) The answer: no. Since it isn’t false advertising or anything and just plain lying. Oh I see. No wait… Anyway, they did agree to take back anything that I couldn’t get a rebate on. That is better than nothing but does NOT qualify as honoring their advertised price. Now I have to make a drive to the city (read: Henrietta) just to deal with this. They do this, quite obviously, because most people won’t bother but I purchased almost $1,000 of things that they were refusing to honor rebates on where the rebates were worth over $750 of that amount. So it was VERY important to take them back. The prices were awful without the rebates.

So Dominica and my day became a day of errands. Lots of errands. I woke Dominica up and told her that we had to go to the city to take care of myriad things so she got up and got moving and we were out of the house by 2:00. Okay, maybe a day of errands is too generous. A day of resting with several errands tacked on at the end is more appropriate.

We started by getting lunch at the Omega. We were both really hungry although Dominica is barely able to eat anything at this point because she is so disgusted by everything that is allowed by the diet. She can barely bring herself to eat at all.

Our first errand was Best Buy. Fortunately the girl working the counter was very nice and helpful and as soon as she looked at the receipt that clearly stated that we got the rebate she didn’t give us any problem returning all of the items. That was a big relief. I was half (or more than half) expecting there to be another big argument about how it isn’t Best Buy’s fault if they misrepresent their vendor partners.

Then we ran to the bank to do some much needed banking that we have been putting off for forever because it is never, ever convenient. Then up to Despatch Junction. There were some train supplies of which we were in need and we wanted to get it taken care of while we could. Mostly we got things like track and paint. Just basic stuff.

FedEx had tried to deliver my replacement cell phone today but dad hadn’t been around so they took it back to the transfer facility way out on the west side of the city on Manitou Rd. Since our timing and location was decent we took the opportunity to drive out to FedEx and pick up the phone so that we don’t have to figure out how to deal with it tomorrow. That went smoothly and quickly. Then we drove down to dad’s house because he had gotten a shipment of stuff that I needed to have over in Geneseo and it was more or less on the way home from that part of the city.

We got home and spent the evening relaxing and watching more of the second season of Angel. We watching two episodes, I think, and then went to bed on the early side because I have to be up quite early in the morning. I have a big project day in Rochester and Buffalo tomorrow and I need to be ready for it. It is going to be a really long day.

I got up this morning and called over to LBC Model Trains in Buffalo to see what their hours were. LBC is the only store that looks like it might take modeling seriously that we were able to find in the entire area. I called over and got no response at all. No answer. No voicemail. No answering machine. And it is after 10:00 in the morning! I can only hypothesize that they are no longer in business. How annoying. Of course Kurt’s in Caledonia did the same thing and they are still around just not worth going to because they are a junk store. Either way it is not a good sign for LBC. So I guess we will be giving up on them. Their website doesn’t quite totally work and hasn’t been updated for two years so they probably closed shop and just left the website in place. That happens way too much. Someone needs to scavenge these things.

After several calls they apparently decided to turn on their answering machine and I got a message saying that the store was closed and that it would open again tomorrow. Oh sure, we finally get a chance to go there and they don’t even bother being open on a big shopping day!

I called M&R Automotive and they were able to get my car in today. So we had to get moving and get my car over there so that they would have the day to look at it. Dad was on his way to the Omega for breakfast when we took the car over so we decided to stop in there to meet him.

In a surprising move, Nikon has decided to cease the manufacturing of all analog cameras! And yes, that press release is directly from Nikon. This is very surprising as Nikon is considered to be the leader in analog SLR cameras (the kind most people associate with serious photographers.) Obviously, the sales of new analog cameras is only a fraction of what it was just a few years ago. Even though many people continue to use analogue cameras very few people go out and buy them. And of those buying them I would assume that a very large percentage of them are buying them used. I was not personally expecting this move to be made for several years yet. I thought that Nikon, Canon, Konica and Pentax would keep making analogue film SLRs until at least 2008 or later. Apparently I underestimated the speed of adoption of digital imaging. It is true that digital is just so much more convenient and so much less expensive. Perhaps the biggest factor in its use is the one that I have noticed for myself which is that I only even want to use photographs in digital form regardless of what medium they were originally taken with. I don’t look at prints. I don’t project slides. I look at photographs on my computer. I watch slideshows on my computer. I send pictures online to friends. I put pictures into web pages. Et cetera. Bottom line is I do nothing that makes use of the physical media. I have owned three “photo” printers and yet have never used any of them for the purpose of actually printing photographs.

John Battelle (of Google) makes fun of backwards New York Times today as they run a story about Google Ad-Sense years behind the times. Haven’t they used the web in the last year? What do they do all day? Did they just now notice the ads on the sides of so many websites? What did they think those little ads on the side of half the pages in the known universe were random? Dirt on their screens maybe? File this under “why traditional media is irrelevent.”

At 2:00 Jeremy and I went over to the Omega for lunch. I just got a cup of soup while he ate since I had eaten just a little bit before. Then I drove him back down to Leicester.

At 3:40 dad came by and picked up Dominica and I and we went over to the Geneseo Cinema to watch Glory Road which I didn’t know much about but ended up being a really good movie. Dad has been wanting to see it for a while but I don’t really keep up on movies that are coming out so I only kind of knew what it was. All of us really liked it. I am sure that dad will be buying it as soon as it is out.

It was dinner time when we got out of the theatre so we drove up to Denny’s for dinner. Min was getting a little tired of the Omega. The diet we are on is awfully limiting and it is starting to make all food just boring and blah. It is bothering her tons more than it is bothering me. Mostly it is making me not care about eating nearly as much as I used to but that is a good thing since that is why I eat so much 🙂

After dinner I did some work in the office and Dominica knit and watched some of the Gilmore Girls which I really do not like. I don’t even like listening to it. Then we watched more of Angel and I got to work getting out next model put together. Boy is there a lot of work involved in doing that.

Tony ended up not being able to work with me tomorrow. I wasn’t able to find anyone that was able to work so we ended up having to push off the project until Wednesday so that Jeremy is able to do it. That will work out really well for Jeremy. He is even managing to get out of school to be able to do the work. He is happy about that.