Note:

originally uploaded by pr9000.

Where I am right now, it sure ain't snowy. :)

mmm ... carpet

mmm ... carpet, originally uploaded by pr9000.

I was in Manhattan yesterday (a friend suggested that locals would say "Midtown"), having breakfast with a client. The hotel's kitchen had a door that squeaked every time it was opened, and that sound was almost exactly what Trotter sounds like when he yawns out of nervousness.

Did you know that dogs yawn when they're nervous or anxious?

So the entire meeting I kept thinking about my d-o-double-g back home.

ryan, i am your father ...

, originally uploaded by beths96.

My little nephew Ryan had to head back to the hospital Sunday; apparently, the little guy had a bad case of jaundice, which caused even his eyes to turn yellow.

So they took him back to the hospital, threw him in a little incubator type thing that bombards him with light, and now he's pink and scaly again, just the way a newborn should be.

I thought he looked an awful lot like Darth Vader in this picture.

ready to play

ready to play, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Trotter goes by many names: Dirkus, Dirkus Tirkus, Stinkerdoodle, D to the P, Asshole -- these are just some of our favorites. ("D to the P" is a reference to this episode of "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" and refers to donkeys and punching)

Now he's also "The Award Winning Stinkerdoodle" because my lovely wife's company had a contest for the cutest pet in all of companydom, and this picture won first prize.

my new nephew

Ryan James Shephard

We're already looking for XXXXS Steelers clothing ...

today ...

originally uploaded by beths96.

Hailey is a big sister! Little Ryan James, 5 lb 14 oz, 19 inches long ... I'm so excited!

(PS -- that "19 inches long" thing is his total length, from head to toe. Just wanted to clarify.)

about the only proctologist joke i know

I'd like to think I made that joke up all by myself.

it was that kind of weekend

originally uploaded by pr9000.

how apple fights, versus how the rest of the world fights

originally uploaded by pr9000.

Apple's on the offensive against Vista, apparently. And good for them -- OS X is great. Really it is, and I'm not just saying that because I hate Windows. I hate Windows because OS X is so great.

However ... here's one way Apple's fighting back, at its retail stores across the country:

In the coming days, Apple will also reportedly present Vista-themed advertisements in its retail stores and distribute corresponding t-shirts for its employees to wear.

"Corresponding t-shirts?"

dc-10

dc-10, originally uploaded by pr9000.

Your annoying TSA travel moment of the day:

So I busted my considerable ass last year to get silver elite status on Northwest. My lovely wife had gold for a while and even silver, and she always got the first class upgrades. It was like that scene in "Seinfeld" where Jerry and Elaine are on the same flight; he gets the upgrade, she doesn't, and their trip is a dichotomy (take that, Foo!) of wonderful and hideous travel.

I wanted that silver elite status, so that I could enjoy free upgrades all the time. And I flew what, for me, was a massive amount last year to get it. I didn't take any unnecessary trips, nor did I spend more on flights on Northwest than I would have on other budget carriers -- everything was above-board and legitimate. I just flew here, there and everywhere, and, a week before Christmas, the trip down the runway out of LaGuardia bumped me to silver.

So now that I'm silver, I've been on three Northwest trips. The first had no first class (commuter jet), and the second found me about 30th on the waiting list for first class upgrades -- most annoyingly so on an 8 a.m. Saturday flight from Denver to Minneapolis. Eight fucking a.m. in the morning and I was behind 12 people to get first class.

My lovely wife didn't exactly understand this. So when I checked in online yesterday, once again I got the "you're on the wait list" message. She told me to get to the gate immediately and ask once again about first class upgrades.

I did ... and here's the TSA moment of the day: I told the gate attendant about this discussion with my lovely wife, and without prompting, she printed out the wait list for me.

This is very nice, and I'm guessing very, very illegal. But it proves that I'm below 10th on the wait list. So I've got that going for me.

java baby

java baby, originally uploaded by pr9000.

I haven't taken many pictures lately.

I really enjoy taking pictures outside -- using natural light, finding beautiful things in nature and then trying to find a different way to see them. But when it's -13 F outside, as it is this morning, it's a lot harder for me to motivate myself to get outside. In fact, I don't think -13F is within the normal operating range for my camera (or most cameras, for that matter).

So what to do when one lives in Minnesota and the calendar turns to winter? Build a lame-ass home studio in the basement and hope for the best.

I used the instructions I found here and built two softboxes yesterday, with my lovely wife's help. In fact, without her help, I'd have ruined several pieces of foamcore board. I have very little ability to understand schematic drawings; my spatial interpretation skills are second only to my classical ballet dancing skills. She was able to help me figure out how to interpret the crappy instructions, and after a few minutes of work, we had a softbox.

What we didn't have were light bulbs of sufficient wattage to actually d any good -- 60W bulbs do not make for good light, and certainly not enough to require a scrim over the softbox to diffuse the light ... but, undaunted, I went down to the basement and set up a makeshift studio, and then found some small objects to photograph.

Here's one of them -- a miniature Starbucks coffee mug that I use to hold rubber bands. Getting that white was as easy as (1) shooting RAW, then (2) adjusting the white point to compensate for the fact that 120W of total light makes everything look orange/brown -- the whites in that cup were not there in the original shot, but aside from adjusting the white point, I didn't really retouch the photo.

More later, as I get big-ass bulbs and a "real" background (that's just two pieces of foamcore board that haven't had the luxury of being hacked to death with my not-so-sharp box cutter). Eventually I'll get a home studio I'm proud of ... and until then, you'll get shots like this.

Mooninite message to Boston

Mooninite message to Boston, originally uploaded by SerenityF.

I hope you can see this because I'm doing it as hard as I can.