Author: andrew

Apology for my choice of browsers

Hey, Shinnfans. I just today took a look at this blog using the Internet Explorer web browser, and I realized that it looks terrible. Is this the blog’s fault? Nope. It’s the browser’s fault. You see, Microsoft’s default browsing program, Internet Explorer, does not support the web standards published by the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C.

Instead of Internet Explorer, I strongly recommend that you use a standards-compliant (and in every way superior) browser, Firefox. This first thing you’ll notice is that our blog looks a heckuva lot better in Firefox. As an added bonus, you can easily increase the size of the text on almost any web page in Firefox by holding down the ‘ctrl’ button and scrolling up or down with a scrolling mouse. That’s a usability feature that Microsoft just can’t match!

Click here for a preview of our blog in Firefox.

It’s hot

I walked outside today, and my skin all burned off.  That was my first clue that it’s too hot for normal human beings to live here.  I ran back inside.  While I was washing my crusty burnt skin off in the kitchen sink, Lisa was sitting in the living room watching television.  I overhead the weather guy say that the temperature outside wouldn’t dip below 100 degrees (fahrenheit) for the next 20 straight days.  That’s when I started beliving in Global Warming.  Then Al Gore showed up at my door step (How did he know so quickly when I started believing in Global Warming?!  Damn NSA!) and my day started getting wierd.  He was wearing an obnoxiously loud Hawaiian shirt and some of that neon green sunblock stuff on his nose.  Boy, were his legs white!  He had pet penguins toddling along after him.  3 of them.  He wanted me to come with him, but wouldn’t say where.  He stretched out his hands, and in one hand there was a blue pill, while the other held a red pill.  But it wasn’t a pill, it was an Easter egg.  And the pills didn’t have anything to do with where he wanted me to go.  He just said that the blue one was Nyquil (he had a cold) and the Easter Egg was a present.  Al doesn’t like to show up at people’s houses empty-handed.

So he asked me again if I’d go with him.  The front door was still open, and I peeked around it to see the world outside.  All of a sudden……..SPLAT!  An egg fell out of the sky and landed on the walkway in front of my house.  It cooked right away (like your brain on drugs), and I knew it was too hot to go outside.  Not even if Al covered me with his water-gun.  I was still smarting from losing all of my skin, and who knows what Al Gore keeps in his water gun!  Or how clean it is.

He pleaded with me, and said I could use his snorkel.  That’s when I got really suspicious.  I couldn’t see any snorkel, and I don’t know if people without skin can legally use snorkels, anyway.  I began to think that it was all a setup.  That’s when Lisa shook me, and I said, “Ouch!” because it should hurt if someone shakes you and you don’t have any shoulder-skin.  But it didn’t hurt, and I wondered why.  I was still wondering when I opened my eyes.  “Honey…. Andrew…,” she said.  “We’d better get up.  I heard it’s going to be hot today.”  I just groaned and roilled back to my pillow.  Not again!

What it’s like to live with a pregnant woman

This is a down-and-clean guide for those who may find themselves in a similar situation.  I make no representations about the universality of the experience; it’s just what one guy’s going through with his woman.

  1. Stock up on Cheetos.  I know the common cultural perception is that pickles are the order of the day, but this is definitively NOT the case.  Cheetos rule.  And have I mentioned macaroni and cheese?  We buy it by the case.
  2. She smells like a hound dog.  I don’t mean that in the sense of her olfactorial emanations, but the operation of her proboscis itself.  She can smell things that no one else can.  We’ll walk into a room together and she’ll pick up on a scent that won’t hit me for several more weeks.
  3. She’s assuming an altogether new shape.  This is comfortable for neither of us.  It affects her mainly in the belly and back and me mainly in the ears.
  4. We waste lots of money at Starbucks.  She gets this awful drink that’s bitter, and asks that the baristas hold any possible sweetening or additions of good taste.  And I’m not talking about coffee: she gets an unsweetened passionfruit tea.  Blecht!
  5. Sleeping is a chore.  Only the left side works, but that isn’t comfortable very often.  Can you imagine not sleeping well for 9 months?!  I can’t.
  6. Pregnancyweekly.com is our web destination of choice these days.  They tell us not only what’s going on with the baby, but also what all the cool pregnant people are doing these days.  According to pregnancyweekly.com, yoga is big these days.  So is shopping, and they just happen to give us lots of links to places we can shop online.  They also tell us that our baby is the size of a large pickle this week.  Hm, not the first comparison I would have made, but it works.
  7. When else will you buy clothes that you won’t be able to wear for more than a few months?
  8. Lisa insists she’s losing brain cells.  I say that’s a good way to start your parenting life.  First the brain cells, then the hair.

I’m sure there will be more later, but we’ll all have to hang on for that!  Until then, I have some Cheetos to buy.

Comments fixed

I know, the comments have been broken since we got the pretty new look for our blog.  They work now, though!  (Thanks for alerting me to the problem, Jon.)  Read the other post from tonight, and if you’re interested (judging by the comments), I’ll tell you all about my new obsession.  Or you can just guess at it, which may be more fun.

[Angry Rant] Keep Your Appointments!

It’s 7:45 p.m., and I just got home from the studio. No, I wasn’t working late. I went to the studio to meet with a potential client (Julie) after she got off of work. Lisa wasn’t happy that I went to the studio after hours, but she understands that I need every client I can get right now.

When I got to the studio, I prepared for Julie’s arrival. I set up a special slide show of senior guy photos (her son is the potential subject). I turned on the television and prepared the slide show for presentation. I ran the air conditioner. I cleaned the table and chair we were to use for the meeting. I made sure to get out a bottle of fresh, cold water for her and carefully centered it on a napkin. I turned on some smooth, soothing music so she would feel comfortable when she walked into the studio. I took notes from our previous phone conversation and started a special file for information about her son. I prepared questions about her son, his personality, his interests, and his unique personhood. Then I grabbed the latest issue of Photoshop Magazine and waited. I’d look up every 30 seconds from the article I was reading (about how to implant baseball stiches onto a bald-headed guy). But all I saw was condensation from Julie’s cold, unopened water dripping down past the napkin I’d laid out and re-soiling my clean glass table. After waiting for 35 minutes (that’s 70 glances at her bottle of comfort-turned bottle of offense) I locked the studio and walked to Julie’s place of work. She was gone. She’d either forgotten me or blown off our meeting. I was crushed. When I walked back into the studio, the soft piano music had turned to a doleful swing number. The combination of the music and my mood was dangerous. I felt like chaining my camera around my neck (with a 70-200mm lens!) and jumping off the nearest bridge.

My mood volatility has a little more behind it than just one missed appointment. This happens probably 40% of the times I agree to meet with a potential client. I carefully set up and eagerly await their arrival, thinking about little else than how well I’ll serve them. Then they don’t show up, and I usually don’t even get the courtesy of a call to re-schedule or apologize. I’m not a hard guy to get ahold of. I get all of my e-mail on my cell phone, and promptly return calls and e-mails, especially to potential clients. I give out my business card wantonly, spreading it like kids on a playgroud spread germs.

When you agree to meet with someone, keep your word. I lose so much respect for people when they show themselves unreliable or discourteous.

[Rant over]

The rest of the story, mostly dialogue

(Part 1, in case you missed it)

“Honey, I’m home,” he said.

“Oh, Hi,” she said nervously, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

“Where are you?”

“I’m in here.”

“How was your day?” he asked, leaning down to kiss the top of her head.

“Um, busy.  Shopping and all of that.”

“Shopping?” he asked as he opened the refrigerator.  “Not much to eat here,” he muttered around the stainless steel door.

“Oh, it was other stuff,” she said, hesitatingly.

“Oh, okay,” he said, pulling out a container of leftovers and popping it open.  “I’m going outside,” he said as he headed for the door to the recently-expanded garage.

“Um, James?” Her voice sounded tremulous.  He turned to look at her.  She couldn’t say it.  He would have to find out for himself.  “Nothing…” she muttered, turning away.

He cocked his head to the side for a second, muttered a, “hmph,” and turned toward the door.  What he saw there put ice in his veins.  There, next to the door, sitting on a stool, were two hats.  It could only mean one thing.

Any thoughts of anger or hatred suspended themselves, not wanting to come, wanting the awful truth to somehow be false, to spare them their work.  Somehow, his heart knew what his brain couldn’t grasp.  It sunk as the icy veins passed their contents, and his arms and legs somehow lurched for the door.  Leftovers spilled from his hand all over the kitchen floor.  The door seemed to fling itself open, and his knees buckled, hitting the pavement hard while his throat loosed a souful wail….