You know that Grissom uses the same camera as I do?

It's nice to see the same gadgets as you use being used by other people.

The only thing is. . . . Every time I see him taking photos of important items quite close up I just know that the on-boad flash isn't going to be quite good enough to do the job - he really needs a better flash, preferably some macro flash. The lens tends to get in the way during close up work and casts a shadow which would block out the item. . .

I'd love to see the photos that they really take.

Tags: Television, CSI, Cameras

Last week I had the chance of taking on a job of photographing a building site as 17 modular units were lifted in to place. It was supposed to be a 2 day job but not everything was in place in time so it became a half day Monday and then the two full days Tuesday and Wednesday.

Every morning I got up at 6am, made a flask of coffee and a flask of soup, checked I had my memory cards, packed my bag and was on site for 7.30am. Just goes to show - I'll do anything for money!

The routine involved me getting on to the roof of the building next to the site. The site had various diggers, tippers and small cranes on it with varying sizes of holes to be filled, cemented, made larger and then filled some more. The roof had a maintenance fire escape which had a gate on the bottom to stop civilians wandering *accidentally* on to the roof. The whole area is being revamped so the roof was being used by the plumbers to join heating to the modular units when they arrived. . .

I would walk across the roof (avoiding looking over the edge) and climb (slowly) on to the scaffolding at the end. This gave me a great view of the whole site. From where I was, the lorries were driving past just 4 feet from me and as they went through a pot hole the whole rigs would lurch back and forwards. Scary.

By the end of the few days, I have to say, I was very much acclimatised to the whole "OMG I am on scaffolding and can't look over the edge and look how far up I am and how close those lorries are* thing.

The architect had joked with me during the reccy day that it was all about "Facing Your Fears* and that came back to me on the Wednesday when I arrived and thought the lifting of the units had started without me and panicked myself in to climbing the scaffolding ladder rather than using the slower option of going up and round the roof. I don't like ladders. As I went hand over hand up it I chanted "Just Keep Walking . . . Just Keep Walking . . " and found it a lot easier to keep a rhythm that way. Turned out it was a full hour before they were ready to lift the first unit that day but the whole experience will make it easier the next time I have to do anything like that. As will the time that I got ready to go home and got to the bottom of the stairs to find the plumbers had already left for the day and had locked up behind them! I had to climb over the gate. Not easy with all that gear.

The whole thing was a great experience. I got some super photos for them. They kinda just wanted the activity documented but they got a bit more than that in the end. I got access to a roof I wouldn't normally get on to - I pushed my limits - and I learned lots about the building trade just by having to observe them for 2 and a half days non-stop.

Did you know that those little digger operators are so skilful they can make the moving of stones around look like a finely choreographed ballet? Seriously! Don't laugh. Did you know that if you have 17 units to move from England to Northern Ireland you don't have to ring round haulage companies - there is a company who will do that for you? Did you know that if a guy is on the Dole he doesn't really want you to take his photo while brushing up the place? Did you know that these people can clear a site with very little communication between each other - they just get on with it and help each other. Did you know that people working on a building site can be the most friendly people EVER? Did you know there were no women on the site other than me?

The roof wasn't the only high I was on. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience and am hoping that this is a *foot in the door* with the people who hired me. There is a second part to the job soon and I hope to be asked to do it too.

Have got a stinking cold now though. Bleh.

Tags: Work

It's Jessica's 8th birthday today!

We got her a new bike - the last one was hilariously too small for her and she needed a new super duper flashy one with gears and pinkified all over. She seemed happy with it. Mind you, she was equally happy with the £2.99 box of Bratz stickers I got her too!

At 2pm Aunty Lesley and I transported 5 girls (no David - he went to a boy's party) to the cinema to see the Bratz movie. I quite enjoyed it. It's hardly meant to be movie-of-the-year and with numerous trips to the toilet I didn't see it all but it was grand.

We then headed to a local diner and had something to eat and the staff presented Jessica with her cake. The staff were all great, very attentive. You'll notice the lack of photographs? I left the camera on charge. Totally forgot to take it with me.

Back to our house and they settled down to a couple of dvds. One girl was too young to sleep-over so she went home just minutes into the first dvd. The others got in to their jammies and settled down with their midnight snacks.

I think Jessica is enjoying herself. This is the fist sleep-over she has had of her own so I hope it is a success for her. . . . .

Tags: Birthday, Jessica, Party, Sleep Over

Here is one thing I have learned in ten years of being in business. It holds true no matter what business you are in.

The people who NEED you to bend over backwards to help them out of their panic are the most likely to let you down or mess you about.

I suppose it stands to reason. If they are in a panic they thrash about in it looking for someone to help them out of it. That means they use the conversation with you to define their own thoughts about the situation. These thoughts will change in a while and what you thought were concrete plans turn in to a thought-process for the other person.

The thing to remember is that they will have no concept of the amount of work you will be putting in to the situation from your side in order to appear professional and helpful. So don't expect any thanks for that.

The person who NEEDS their phone taken apart and working again before their sick mother goes in to hospital / child goes on holiday for the first time / husband has to drive to Dublin will forget all about the phone you have spent 2 hours working on when their next crisis comes along (and they do come along for these people all the time) and will only call in to collect it after a week. And that will be after you have ordered in a part especially for them and paid Special Delivery charges that almost wipe out the profit of the repair. . . .

Or the family who simply can not get all together on any day other than a Sunday due to work commitments so you grudgingly agree to sacrifice the only day you have as a full family to facilitate them and then when you ring them to see where they are "they forgot - sorry!"

The person who suddenly gets an unexpected date for a wedding and needs to ring round every photographer they can get their hands on at 10pm at night to discuss plans which are really being made up on the spur of the moment and will be asking for the likes of "Can you be in three places at once please?" so you try to figure out how to do that because you are a helpful individual when really any sane person would say "No. Even Superman had problems with that kinda job" will totally forget who they rang and when you ring back for some more detail the next day you will find they have "just signed up with a friend of a friend who can arrange for his best mate to be in two of the places . . . "

Or the person who NEEDS to have the family photographed during the Christmas holidays (when I am shut) because one member has just flown in from Outer Mongolia WILL be the person you never hear from again. I am STILL waiting for an order from that girl despite her NEEDING prints urgently.

Or you will get the odd person phoning on a Friday afternoon at 4pm who needs photos taken and ready to email to their merchandising company on Monday. You go out of your way to rearrange your whole weekend to visit them on the Saturday to discuss the layout of the job and spend an hour with them giving them the benefit of your expertise and artistic ideas, while the children kill each other waiting in the studio when really, you ought to say "No, I will have to juggle too many things to do this job to your time-scale."

You then disappoint your children by telling them you wont be available all day Sunday as you have to work. You wait for 3 hours for the call from the client to see what time she wants you there and finally ring to ask only to find out that she "was just about to ring to say the merchandising people have a photographer already lined up and will send them next week."

There is a balance between "helpful and professional" and "sticking to your guns with the details you know work for you without coming across as arrogant". I find this a difficult one as you have to throw "eager to make money" in to the mix.

I know all of this is *just business*. You get the rough with the smooth. But every time I get a customer who can't abide by my "hours of business" or needs "images by Monday" I just KNOW they are going to be trouble.

And it is less likely that I will be helpful for the next person.

/rant

Tags: Work, Rants, Customers

David is now in P7 in school. This means in just a wee while he will sit two exams which will determine the secondary school he will go to and thus determine the rest of his life, his income and how *I* will be cared for in my dotage.

Hmmm. All that sounds a little heavy for sure but these exams are pretty important. Thankfully, we have always known that David wouldn't need any extra coaching but for the past couple of weeks I have been making myself available to sit quietly (don't guffaw like that), ready to calm him when he tizzies himself during *mock exams* in the kitchen. They do a couple of these a week in school and one at home over the weekend.

It has come as a little shock to me that he gets in to REAL tizzies when he sees a question for the first time. He simply can not calm down when he sees question he knows he isn't strong in - mostly Fractions - and sits and sobs "I HATE these questions" over and over until I ask him a question about the question which makes him look at it again in a different way. And on we struggle. Once he has broken the tizz he can tackle the question with no problem and I have seen him on to his next tizz before I realised the last one was over.

Rearrange these words to make a well known phrase: apple tree far fall from the does not.

I can only hope that on the days of the exams he is able to take a deep breath and relax enough not to shout out "I HATE these questions" in front of the entire class!

And on to Jessica. . . Today we found ourselves playing a wee game with her. David and I would ask her random Fraction questions and she got every single one of them correct. Things like "What are two fourths and one half?" She did them all in her head and I was very impressed with her. Sum after sum she continued in her brilliance until we were confident she knew her stuff and thought it was time to unleash her on a wider audience.

We made her perform in front of Daddy then. HE had to ask her question after question too. Finally she started to waiver a little and mistakes crept in.

We called it a day when we asked her "What are two thirds and one third?"

Her answer?

"An INCH??"

Oh how I chortled!

She is such a child genius, who am *I* to argue with her? She may VERY well be correct!

Tags: Jessica, David

Two items of news had me in tears this morning before work.

First of all this one. That poor poor woman.

And then this one.

This just puts so many things into perspective doesn't it?

Tags: News

I haven't really seen any Threadless shirts for a while that have made me grin the way they used to.

This one has been announced and it has tickled me in the ribs since I first saw it.

Here's hoping they have a sale before Christmas.

Tags: Tee Shirts, Threadless

Those lovely people over at PixelNovel.com have brought out FlickrShop.

FlickrShop is a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop that allows you to upload images to Flickr photo sharing website directly from Adobe Photoshop. No need to save your image to a temporary file, no more switching between applications - just open your image, tweak it in Photoshop and share it with the world via Flickr!

I am not sure how long it has been out - probably a couple of months. I may be the last person on earth to have found it but I HAVE found it and it seems to work very nicely.

They have missed out on a little bit of advertising by not having it automatically insert "Uploaded by PixelNovel's FlickrShop" in the description of uploaded photos and "FlickrShop" in the Tags like Skitch does. But - that wont bother me much really! So long as it does what it says on the tin!

They have a Flickr account with only 3 photos uploaded. I have to say though that their Flickr badge looks remarkably like it has a tampon in the middle of it.

Maybe it is only me.

You can let me know about that one.

I am just happy that there is a new way to upload from Photoshop to Flickr and it is FREE! YAY!

Tags: Geek, Apple, Mac, Photoshop, Flickr, Upload, Photos

Yay - I have a day off. I am doing nothing. (Other than listening non-stop to the whole Texas discography.)

NOTHING.

I did all I had to do last night. Anything else I do today is purely for myself. I may assign some importance to feeding the children and making sure they are clean and taking them to the Exchange shop later to get some pocket money for David from selling his old XBox games. . ..

That is why I felt the need to take this test. It is a little disconcerting that I scored so high when the others in the forum I stole it from where so much lower than me. This always makes me doubt my results! There were even a couple of *I don't know* replies in there.

That one leads on to this one. I think I am happy with this one too. . .

Let me know how you get on.

Tags: Memes, Geek

I received the latest Duke Special newsletter this morning with the news that their new single may now be downloaded from iTunes.

There's 11,000 of you on this list - just think if you all bought this single - we could easily put Duke in the top 10 or higher.

I have bought my copy - just 10,999 to go then. Are you one of them?

Tags: Duke Special, Newsletter, iTunes

How many times have I told you how much I love Grey's Anatomy? Not enough. I love it. It is by far my favourite program. Along with Heroes, Alias and a couple of others - but Grey's Anatomy still has the top spot. It doesn't matter how many times I see an episode there are still moments of complete hilarity sewn in there and I think, without exception, every single episode has had me in tears.

Tonight's episode involved drowning - is there anyone out there to spoil this for any more? Well - drowning and all that malarkey. Obviously there was all that emotional stuff revolved around who was drowning and who was weeping and who was defibrillating but the few seconds that I lost it completely was right at the end when Izzy and Denny had a moment - passing each other in the corridor - him knowing she was near - her remembering how much she loved him. Him so accepting of his fate and happy to wander the corridors of the hospital in the hope he will pass her now and then. Gets me every time. But what happens when she moves hospitals? Perhaps Denny will get a spin-off of his own?

I think Izzy is my favourite character. I don't think Meredith is. Maybe George. . .

And because the internet is a mighty fine place (when it is working), of course there is a You Tube video of the exact scene I am talking about. . .

Tags: Greys Anatomy

Every night, in bed, I spend 10 - 15 minutes channel hopping on Sky to find the perfect program to *watch* as I fall asleep. It has to be a good program; one I am interested in but not too noisy as to keep me awake longer than necessary. It is important that it shouldn't have started too long. If there is a *+1* channel it is better that I switch to that as the program will be on longer than the normal channel . . . or if it is a double bill then after the first episode is over, the second episode will air, thereby giving me longer viewing possibilities.

All this has to be taken in to consideration as I hop, hop, hop.

Finally, I will settle on one series. Probably one of just a handful of favourites. I'll set the tv timer to turn it off after 10, 20 or 30 minutes depending on how sleepy I am. I will put the remote controls away. I will lie on my stomach, pushing my feet over the edge of the foot of the bed and promptly fall asleep.

It is always the same. Why is it so necessary to pick the program so carefully? Ultimately, it never matters what is on in the background.

The ritual is more important than the program.

Tags: Ritual, Bed, Sky, TV

I have just been handed a brand new six year old piece of kit: a Nokia Card Phone 2.0.

I love new bits of kit (especially freebies!)- but this one doesn't want to play with me. It physically fits in the Powerbook but it is so old Nokia are no longer updating the software for it and the downloads I have seen so far wont open on this laptop. (System requirements: MacOS 8.6 - 9.1 and PCC Powerbook.

I would be very grateful if anyone had any advice on how to get it running - but at the moment it looks like it is going to be on eBay very soon

Tags: Geek, Nokia, Apple, Downloads