My Two Cents

There is a brand-spanking-new condensate pump on the furnace. Good signs:

• Even after having done a little wire surgery to make the power actually connect to the pump, none of the magic smoke escaped when I turned the power back on.


• When you pour enough water into the tank, the pump comes on and whooshes it all away. This, despite the yucky-looking kinks in the tubing. Apparently, they're not completely kinked.


• Nothing seems to be leaking. Big plus.

I'm only calling it a provisional victory, because I haven't seen the water flow through the inputs to the pump. One input was a rubber tube that just needed to be a little shorter; piece o' cake. The other input was PVC, and it was a little more complicated, what with cutting off the old pipe, and building a new one with a couple of 45-degree joints. Now that I think of it, 90-degree joints would probably have worked, and been easier, but I was concerned about always having a downhill slope.

In any case, I think I've done it. Woo-hoo!

Ongoing fun with the broken pump tank:

• Furnace installers never called back, so I called them again, and managed to get them when someone could rummage through the storage closet. He said, "Sure, we've got it."
• Got to the place, to find that what they have is a whole new pump. It's not even from the same manufacturer, so there's no way the tank would work as a replacement part.
• Tried Home Depot. Nothing. The pumps they have are for ponds, and they're out of those, since it's the wrong season, and besides, they don't really sell replacement parts.
• Found the manufacturer's web site. They don't make that pump any more, and the updated version (VCMA versus VCM series) has a completely different tank. I think.
• Called the manufacturer. Sure enough, the tank won't do as a replacement. Besides, they don't sell replacement parts themselves, so she referred me to their closest distributor, in Utah.
• The distributor doesn't have it in stock, but could order one in 10-12 days. He suggests I should try other distributors, but doesn't have the list.

So, my choices now seem to be:

1. Call the manufacturer to get more distributors, and try calling them.
2. Try to fix the broken tank so that it stays on.
3. Buy the brand-new pump.

Of those, the new pump seems like the best option. Until, of course, you realize:

• The current pump's power is hard-wired into the furnace. I'm told this new pump can be hard-wired, so, maybe that's not a big deal.
• The mounting holes are probably in a different place than the current one. Should just be a matter of drilling a new hole or two in the side of the furnace, so probably not too hard. And worse comes to worst, it's got little rubber feet on it, so I could just put it on the floor. Although, that's probably not a good idea.
• The holes where the water comes in are in different places. So, that means learning how to work with PVC, to get the drain going to the right place.

None of those are likely deal-breakers for installing a new pump myself. Well, perhaps the hard-wired power. So, now I'm maybe looking at having to pay someone to install a brand-new pump. Sheesh. Just can't win this one, can I?

I had a real, "so, that's the problem!" moment today. For apparently the first time, I actually looked at the part of the furnace that was leaking. Seems there's this cute little pump bolted to the side, attached to a little blue plastic tank which holds all the water than condenses out of the furnace, and when the level gets too high in the tank, the pump kicks in and flushes it out.

Looking closely at the tank, I saw that it was dangling by two corners from the body of the pump. Sure enough, the other two corners had broken off, so instead of letting the water level get high enough to trigger the pump, it just let the water dribble out, onto the floor.

I've got a call in to the furnace shop who left their sticker on the side, and hopefully they'll be able to sell me a replacement tank. If they can, four quick screws and I'm done. If not, we either jury-rig a new tank on it, or put in a new pump. Either way, I know what the problem is, and how to fix it.

And then there's fixing the flooring. I think I know how to do it, but it's going to involve cutting the tongues off parts of the boards, so they'll fit in with the boards we didn't pull up, and then gluing the pieces down, since they won't fully interlock any more. Or, my dad suggested I might be able to wax the edges, so they'll slide together, which would have the advantage of no cutting, and still being able to take the floor up again, if we need to.

That said, now that I know how to fix the underlying problem, I want to get that done first. The fact that it gives me an excuse to delay working on the floor is completely coincidental...

Or, "Why it sucks to be a grown-up"

Yesterday, there was some water dripping from our furnace. I was doing something else, and there wasn't much dripping, and it stopped while I was looking, so I didn't think anything of it. Out of sight, out of mind, and so forth.

Today, apparently, it leaked more. Naturally, the leak went under the floor. A few years ago, we put that interlocking wood floor stuff over the concrete and tile floor in our basement, so there seems to have been a lovely little space for the water to wick its way across the floor.

randibeeman discovered this when she was walking across the apparently-dry floor, and it squished.

Yup. That's never a good sound.

So, now we've torn up something like a third of the flooring. We actually have a few extra boxes of the stuff — when we did the floor, we bought enough to also do Randa's room, but since it's pretty much just a store room, there wasn't any urgency. I'll be astonished if it's enough. Hopefully, we can get more that matches, or at least is close enough. I don't want to do the entire floor again.

And, adding injury to insult, I've got a blood blister on my thumb. Not a big deal, but definitely the icing on this particular cake.

For those who haven't seen this on my Flickr page directly, I've got pictures of Amanda, wearing my very first corset!

The pictures are on Flickr, of course, and we've had a couple of discussions on the corsetmakers' group here on LJ, one when I first completed it, and one I just started, now that I have pictures of it on a body.

So far this year, I've had one — count 'em, one — client for my photography business. And that's Megan, who's been having me do her posters for the Willamette Apprentice Ballet recitals. It's not that I'm getting calls, and the gigs are just falling through — though I had one like that at the end of last year, because we just couldn't get schedules coordinated — there's nothing.

I can't decide if I need to really beef up my efforts somehow, or just pack it in.

Does anyone have ideas on what I can do?

I've been advertising in the phone book. I did actually get a few calls, last fall, but none of them panned out. Most of them found other photographers between calling me, and my returning their calls that evening. Others were just pointless.

I've advertised in high-school papers, looking for senior portrait clients. That's gotten me nowhere. I've distributed postcards at the high schools. That's gotten me a little business, but not much.

There are some things I know I should do. I've got my web site (www.ccp-photo.com), but it looks like I'm not showing up anywhere in Google. At least, searches for reasonable keywords are getting other photographers in Albany, but not me. So, I need to figure out how to fix that.

I can set up a page on Facebook for the business. That might be a good way to get a little more visibility. But then, I have to spend more time on Facebook. (I've been avoiding it lately, because of a horrific signal-to-noise ratio.)

My dad sent me an article about a photographer who did a three-day event for seniors, where then could come in to the studio and get a free photo for their facebook page. She hired hair and makeup people from the local hair school to do wild and crazy stuff, so it was more than just a "basic" shot. Apparently, that did great things for her business. That's a thought, but it might be harder to do in my home studio.

I need ideas. Or perhaps a reality check.

Every now and then, kightp and I take an hour out of a lovely evening and wander around, with cameras in our hands. It lets us stretch our legs and our eyes and our skills a bit.

Last night was another one of those evenings. This time, we wandered around the alleys of downtown Albany. I've used those alleys for portrait locations several times, so it was interesting to take a closer look at some of the things that I might normally try and exclude from a more person-oriented photo.

Like these pipes, all twisted and gnarly as any old tree. For portraiture, they're ugly. As a subject themselves, well, still kinda ugly, but in a pretty sort of way.

As always, it's fun to see the difference in the way we see things. I tend to burrow down into the details, while Pat likes to capture the textures and wider scenes.

Of course, sometimes we switch places. Pat's shot of the bench was more of the curves and reflections, while mine tried to put it in the context of the sidewalk.

I think I'm still a portraitist at heart, but I'm starting to get an eye for these, too.

Cooked the Beef and Broccoli again last night. I think I did something wrong ... there weren't any alarms going off ...

In an entry last week, randibeeman said:

Wednesday night, Charlie's cooking. Hopefully he'll post about that!

Well, I did, and now I am.

The meal was a Beef and Broccoli stir-fry out of one of our cookbooks. It came out pretty tasty, but I certainly learned a couple of things. (Well, I think I already knew them, because the mistakes seemed awfully familiar...)

First, it's important to measure the amount of water you use when cooking rice. Fortunately, I used too much water, so it was sufficiently-cooked, just a little soggy. (I wish I could justify a rice cooker.) Second, when heating up your wok, don't go overboard. If you heat it up too much, putting the oil in makes for a splashy, smoky mess. Plus, you wind up cooking your meat much faster than you thought you would.

This week, I'm going to try it again. Gotta see if I can get it right this time.

We're both actually doing really well with cooking more, and more interesting things. We've discovered the trick to making it happen: if we sit down on Sunday afternoon, and plan the week's dinners right then, we actually make them. Before, we'd sit down, mark a lot of interesting recipes in the cookbooks, and say, "Great, now one of these days, we should actually cook them." By planning specific ones, in a reasonably short time frame, we actually do it. This week, I'm on the hook for two nights of cooking — the aforementioned repeat of the Broccoli Beef, and a Chicken Tikka recipe that I've had some success with before.

But wait — that's not all!

Between watching Project Runway, and doing photo shoots where I keep thinking, "I know exactly the outfit I want for this shoot, but I can't find it anywhere," I've found myself wanting to learn how to sew. Naturally, all I ever did was mumble about it.

Today, I started. Miranda walked me through making a pair of pajama pants! OK, they're far from perfect; I think I made the legs a little too short, and the sewing is probably sloppy. And yes, I picked a project with an incredible amount of room for error. But, I made something, and it fits. The first step on the proverbial thousand-mile journey. I successfully prepared the fabric, cut it to the pattern, put all the pieces together, serged the seams, put in the elastic ... good things to start.

Next step? Well, I'm not sure. Part of me wants to jump into something more complicated, 'cause I don't really want to just make pajamas. But, I'm not sure I could properly gauge the jump; the worst thing I could do now is to set myself up for failure. Maybe I'll just try another pair of PJs. Anyone else have a suggestion?

Last weekend, I took a field trip out to central Oregon, to photograph some ghost towns. The trip was offered by the Newspace Gallery up in Portland, and it was a whole lot of fun.

It was a group of about fifteen photographers, and the instructor/leader, Bob. Friday night, we all gathered for pizza in The Dalles, and got acquainted.

Saturday morning, we jumped right into it. Most of us were staying at a little hotel in Moro, and we all gathered down the road in Grass Valley for breakfast. At 6:00 in the morning. Have I mentioned that I'm not a morning person? Did I mention that I was not alone in that?

First stop, Shaniko. I have mixed feelings about Shaniko. On the one hand, I got a lot of fun pictures of neat abandoned things; a fire truck, tractor wheels, old theater seats, even a sad oldpiano that was left outside to die. But that's exactly it — it's a very ... deliberate ... ghost town these days. If it weren't so early in the year, all the tourist stations would have been manned, and the residents were certainly there in force. They've even renovated the school, except that nobody actually attends.

On the other hand, the major tourist attraction, the hotel and restaurant, has been standing vacant for several months. So, maybe twenty years from now, it'll be a different story.

The next stop was Antelope, most notable for being home to the Rajneeshies a number of years back. Well, not quite home, but they did set up camp right next door. This was another case of a still-inhabited town with a few abandoned bits, including an old one-room jail and what I think used to be the newspaper office. Though we all did gravitate to a rusted out truck that had great photos in it.

After that, we stopped at Bourbon. Well, some really gorgeous ruins that used to be Bourbon, and are still on Bourbon Road. This was one of the spots on the tour where we had permission to go near the site, but only as far as the fence. I'd really like to bring a model out there some time, and trespass like a fiend. I might have bribe the llamas in the next field not to blab on me, though...

Kent, Oregon, is basically a wide spot in the road. But it's got some lovely old gas pumps. We all got a kick out of the fact that the price was still set at 66 cents per gallon.

The second-to-last stop of the day was an old farmstead. We set up there before sunset and shot until it got dark. I tried to get a good sunset shot, but couldn't pull it off. I did, however, try a few unorthodox compositions.

Who says that darkness has to stop the photography? Take an abandoned church, a powerful flashlight, and a thirty-second exposure, and you have light painting. I don't think this shot is particularly successful, but it's definitely something I'd like to tray again.

Sunday was another bright-and-early start. Or, should I say, dark-and-early start. I wasn't feeling so hot, and had visions of having to cut my trip short. As if that wasn't enough, it was a much colder morning than Saturday, and everything was frosted over. And my extra-beefy, I-grew-up-in-the-Midwest-and-laugh-at-your-puny-Oregon-version ice scraper snapped in half, three scrapes in. Didn't bode well.

Still, the first stop after breakfast, a "truck museum" — basically a fenced lot with a couple rows of old trucks and tactors — provided some really interesting shots. There was fog, and frost, and lots of strangely-shaped bits of machinery; great for exercising my eye for abstracts.

Our next destination was on the Washington side of the river, up the hills from Goodnoe Station. My stomach was telling me that the day probably wasn't going to be a whole lot longer for me. Sure, enough, we got up to the top, having taken what I thought was a pretty rough and windy road, to find an abandoned old school. I got a few pictures, then had to bail. I was looking at a three-hour-plus drive back home, on my own, and I really didn't want to push it.

Bob gave me directions back to the highway, but I was really too muddy-headed to listen. But, my GPS was able to give me solid directions, so that was fine. Of course, when I took the road it suggested, and the sign said, "Primitive road ahead, next six miles," I really should have paid attention. I basically drove the six miles down to the highway on a pair of wagon ruts, on the edges of several steep hills. Not great. But, all's well that ended well ... and I only had to pull off and puke once before I got back to the highway. I wish I could have stayed for the rest of the day, but clearly, I made the right choice.

Tomorrow evening , we're all meeting at the gallery to show off our work. I've printed a bunch of my photos at 4x6 to show around, and a couple bigger ones. I'll probably frame those up and hang them somewhere in the house. Because I'm a total geek, I made up postcards with a pointer to my flickr page to give to people who want 'em. If I'm feeling extra-creative tomorrow morning, I might try and whip up a slideshow; I don't know if they've got a projector or anything set up at the gallery, so I might just let that go, and bring all the prints. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what I missed after I bailed.

I'm really glad I did the trip. I'm always nervous, when I'm going to be hanging around for extended periods of time with people I've never met before. But, it was really nice to watch the ways other photographers approached things. And checking out the vast array of cameras was amazing, all on its own; there was the expected array of digital cameras, but still plenty of people shooting film, in everything from antique cameras, to Holgas, and even a Polaroid.

The photography itself was a departure for me. My main interest is still people, but it was good to stretch and try something new. In some ways, I really don't like shooting in groups, because you have the tendency to shoot the same things. On the other hand, that often makes it easier for me to push beyond my first ideas, because I really don't want to have the same shot as everyone else. Sometimes, that's just what I need.

Swiped from lieshen...

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year.
- You have no clue what it's going to be. It could be some shiny jewelry-type stuff. Might be a photograph, or music. I might even take up some new craft, just to make you something. It all depends on what strikes my fancy.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you should put this in your journal as well. We all can make stuff! (Usually, the catch is that you must put it in your journal. I say, if you want to, great. If you don't want to, that's cool, too.)

It's the last night of my enforced Christmas holiday. (HP decided to stretch its end-of-year shutdown from one week to two. Fortunately, I had plenty of vacation time saved up. I know others who weren't so lucky.) It's been a really nice break. I've done a little photography, some theater, a lot of sleeping in, much playing of new board games, and quite a bit of hanging out with randibeeman. Of course, that "sleeping in" part was always preceded by "staying up really late," and that's going to make going back to work tomorrow a little bit interesting. Fortunately, I've been getting up earlier the past couple of days, but I don't think it was quite enough to get my day shifted back around to where it needs to be.

Yesterday, on a trip up to Portland, we were driving by the Alladin Theater. Randa happened to see that Johnathan Coulton is going to be playing there on the 24th. A couple of the models I photographed a little while back turned us on to him. (zyxwvut and zahraa, if you don't know from Coulton, you really should.) A quick check of the internet (gotta say, Randa's new Android phone is pretty cool) told us that, not only were there still tickets left, but it's a double-bill with Paul and Storm — who we saw at the Aladdin years ago, back when they were DaVinci's Notebook! Well, needless to say, we went right back to the box office and bought tickets. I really need to get more tied-in to the Portland concert scene. Every now and then, we stumble on a show like this, which is cool, but it might be nice to actually know about them beforehand.

Quoth Simon Cowell:

But in his first detailed comments about the fan's death in November, Cowell said the U.S. top-rated television talent show was "not inherently mean" and that the hundreds of thousands of people who audition every year knew they would be criticized. ^*

I'm afraid this just doesn't match reality. If everyone who auditioned for "Idol" got to sing for Simon and the cameras, his comment would make sense; you pays your money, you takes your chances.

But that's not the way it works.

See, auditioners go through at least one, and I think two, rounds of auditions, before the luckiest ones are chosen to go before the tribunal. You can't tell me that the producers running those first auditions don't ever think, "Wow, this one really thinks he/she can sing? Simon's going to rip this one apart!"

Yes, there are some — who even make it all the way through auditions — who know full well that they can't sing, and are just there for fifteen seconds of fame. But others — probably a large fraction, if not the vast majority — think they are better than they are.

If the producers know the difference between those two groups, and send the deluded ones, anyway, that's just plain mean.

And if they don't know the difference, it's mean and incompetent, and sad.


^* http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE4BG7DG20081217?feedType=RSS&feedName=entertainmentNews

Finally catching up a bit on the blogging. Work's gotten really busy for me; I've gotten a promotion, of sorts. I'm now the "lead developer" for my team, which means that I get to make the architecture decisions, and ride herd on the other developers and the test team, while still having all my other development responsibilities. And of course, there's no raise to go along with it, so I guess that means I have to work smarter and harder now. Still, it's nice to be appreciated. ( All about the Thanksgiving trip )

There's lots more for me to blog from this past week, between traveling to visit my family for Thanksgiving, and making way too many trips to the Portland Airport, trying to find my lost man-purse, and being on my own in Portland for a couple days, but that will have to come later, when I have a little time.

For now, here's a sample of the photo shoot. Modeling by the ever-lovely Jen, styling by the always-creative Melody, graffiti courtesy of a seriously-cool spot near the University of Portland, security and kibitzing by Kevin. Way too much fun...

Just some things bouncing around the internet that make me scratch my head a little bit. So, naturally, I gotta share the fun.

I still can't believe just how many people still fall for the Nigerian scam. And how do you lose $400,000, over two years, on the same scam?

I'm not a big fan of the video-game-based movies. But, I suppose I can understand how you could do it; there's usually some threadbare plot and some partially-developed characters to start with. Add in a bunch of stuff blowin' up real good, and you can make a movie. But, how do you make a movie out of Monopoly? Ridley, you're better than that.

And then, there's Baconnaise. Need I really say more?

Kind of a packed weekend. Friday and Saturday nights were the "Cricket's Hope" benefit, for heidishell. Dress rehearsal was more chaotic than I would have liked it; it took us an hour to get the sound system set up, at least enough to start working, and another chunk of time while rehearsing to get it tuned. That sucked a lot of energy out of the performers, but we eventually got all the way through it. We even managed to add some choreography to one song, and I was able to direct another song, bringing it up from "kinda blah" to "actually entertaining." The show itself went just fine. Adding the dancing kids (I'm still not sure they were actually singing in that number) and the ballet numbers in the two hours before the show was a little stressful, but we pulled it off. The first count on how much we raised was also very heartening.

Tried some photography this weekend, too. Yesterday was a spontaneous photo walk with kightp and randibeeman at Takena Landing Park. I think they were more successful than I.

Today, Randa and I tried to check out the ruins of the Douty Lumber Company mill. Turns out, the road is closed, about two miles away from there. That pretty well trashed that idea. So, instead, we backtracked a little bit to the Reehers Camp trail, and took a few pictures.

Not a bad weekend, but not a great one, I guess.

When I do a photo shoot for one of my projects, I always have an idea of what I'm going to do, right from the start. But, I don't plan things out too strictly, and here's an excellent example of why. Keisha brought her son's skateboard with her, because the idea we were working from was the contrast of conservative and "girly." That got me thinking about the skate park, and it's lovely graffiti. And the skater kids were went from being an appreciative audience, to throwing out suggestions, even to being a part of the shot.

Way too much fun.

I've been doing a lot of photography lately. So much, that I haven't had a chance to sit down and update my Flickr page. But, last night I added more than 230 new photos, taken over the past few months.

There's something for most everybody:

Weddings

• Krysten and Justin — My first "official" wedding, helping Erin out
• Pat and Celina — Again, helping Erin
• Chris and Chelsey — My first wedding as the primary photographer
• Shannon and Dan — Just a friend of the bride. Well, also the groom, but you know what I meant...

Vacations

• An extra day in the Bay Area, before Shannon and Dan's wedding

Theater

• The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged
• Play Ball, aka Chicago

(OK, those have been up for a while, but I never told anyone.)

Attractive young women

• Alexa
• Takara
• Ashley
• Carley
• Karina
• Kristi
• Samantha
• Vanessa

These were all shoots for my latest series, "Peekaboo." Enjoy!

Oh, Shannon ... I've found your bridesmaids' gift...