i love peso! i tried to dognap him before leaving minnesota but i wasn't fast enough. i got back on sunday and immediately began searching for a peso-alike. how about this one?
is that not the sorriest looking dog ever? i love how down and out he looks. i'm going with g to take a look at him this weekend; i hope to adopt him, my very first doggie. if it works out, i would speak french to him and call him mouton franc.
seldom do i ever gush about anything on schmeebot except for may be the occasional genius or heartthrob. it's because i'm not very good with words and i have a difficult time typing !!!! at the end of my sentences.
today, however, there is no stopping me!!!!
that's what i call packaging
i had learned of oddica some weeks ago from holly. yesterday i tried to buy a few of their shirts but just couldn't get the website to accept my order. so i sent customer service a semi frustrated email asking for assistance. within a minute, got a response. one minute, everyone!
some 16 pieces of prompt correspondence (with a very helpful+personable chap named brian) later, i succeeded ordering. turned out it was my brower's problem, not oddica. because, while i was struggling with my order, g submitted hers and it got right through.
that was 11:10 am yesterday. today, at approximately 10:49, i got my shirts!!!!
aa quality shirt, individually wrapped
i love the shirts. i'd show you the others except they are secret birthday presents.
complete with a proper thank you envelope (contents below)
it's borderline impossible how satisfied i am with oddica, from product to service, even the packing job. i guess i had low expectations because i had grown used to threadless. i have gotten many of their shirts over time and the sizes are never consistent. i ordered four this past june and delivery took almost two weeks. they arrived in a giant gray plastic bag with the shirts sloshing around inside, unwrapped. worst of all, the quality was total crap, from fabric to print. i should never buy from threadless ever again.
so, there you have it. oddica, the best online tee shirt store in the universe!!!!
that's my best friend trying to duck out of the panorama i took this past sunday at inspiration point. we got pretty lost on the hike back but it made for a neat story.
i've been listening to a lot of trailcast. i love getting first hand accounts on epic hikes like the pacific coast trail and appalachian trail. featured hikers often keep journals with pictures. irresistible!
i also learned that hikers have trail names. i thought about calling myself orangeblossom toadfoot of frogmorton but it doesn't really say much about my hiking style or stamina. so i came up with my own.
i found that picture while googling to see if any hiker has claimed the name. doesn't look like anyone has so i guess i should make it official:
clear the trail, everybody. here comes doughbelly!
terrible picture of my best friend but it's the only one i have on hand. you see, i learned just two hours ago that it's her birthday today. one would think that, being best friend, one would get at least a 24 hour advance notice.
doesn't matter because erin is leaving town in a week and i already have an awesom best friend candidate lined up.*
that's my future best friend setting up for a night shot tutorial. i met susie through schmeebot a while back. in no time we became knit group buddies and mix cd swappers. as of last night, we've become crazy night shooters.
san remo drive at 8:55 pm
i went to susie's hoping to get the feel for a digital slr. i ended up getting exposure to her entire trade, from strobe lighting to photoshop tweaking. and boy, does she have photo gear!
state street at 9 pm
after the tutorial susie wanted to head down to the water (for beach shots) but, because i didn't feel confident with the camera, she settled for state street. who knew standing around on a dark street corner staring down cars could be so much fun?
thuy+susie on state at ontare, 9:10 pm
what a great evening. i still have a lot more to learn about these gnarly cameras but i'm loving it. i hope susie will bring her dslr to java station tomorrow and let me mess around some more. i'd like to try for a birthday portrait. with cake.
yay, susie!
*marin, i would like to promote you to best friend one but you never come around anymore.
that's tim halberg and his buddy taylor abeel somewhere on the john muir trail. i met tim at sarah's wedding, where he was the official photographer. his camera set up was pretty impressive. intimidating, even. it made me afraid to ask him questions. but now that i know his trail name, i'm hitting him up for all manners of photographic tips and tricks.
even more impressive, tim has hiked the entire length of the john muir trail and lived to show it off. now only if he would blog about it.
it's been a bit of an interesting day for me. i started a project with a new client this morning. he and i had several phone conversations. during one of the calls, i think it was the second, he called me sweetheart.
that was around 9:30. around 4:15, my colleague greg got ready to leave for san luis obispo. he grabbed a bottle of juice from the fridge on his way out.
erkan: are you going to drink that while driving? i'll have to call
c.h.p. and report.
greg: come on, it's juice.
erkan: doesn't matter. it's drinking and driving.
greg: (pointing at label) see? pure fruit juice.
erkan: i'm gonna call.
thuy: (to greg) while erkan calls c.h.p., why don't you call
homeland security?
erkan is from turkey. isn't it terrible of me?
i should add that schmeebot is going through some tweaking. a few things are out of place but not for long. it should be back in shape in no time.
my current work project is located on drown avenue in ojai. i have been wondering if the avenue was named after someone with an unfortunate last name and if it has some significance in ojai's historic past, much like indio muerto does santa barbara.
wouldn't it be a good idea to name streets after methods of death? car crash, heart attack, gastric cancer, etc. not sure if i would want to live on any of those streets but i think they would serve as a good reminder for us to live well.
it's been a lackluster month in terms of picture taking here at schmeebot. that's not to say that i haven't been putting the camera to good use. i took over 2,200 pictures in minnesota and over 300 at sarah's wedding. other than that, i took a lot less pictures than i usually do on a daily basis.
i did spend a lot of time reading. about dog breeds and planetary systems. about the jmt and dean potter. i also spent a lot of time researching for an ideal inkjet printer for pictures and iron-on transfers. i spent a whole day getting a mic and learning to use gtalk and audacity, leading me to spend an entire other day entertaining the idea of starting a podcast or two.
view from eucalyptus hill road looking east
toward andrea clark bird refuge, 7:23 pm
there were a few days when i couldn't stop watching synchronized swimming goldfish. then there were a few nights when i glued myself to the tv watching a dvd about the quilts of gee's bend. bill hanna just lent me two dvds about the history of santa barbara, earthquakes and all, so there will be a few more nights at the tv yet. it'll have to wait until i'm done with zimmermann's knitting videos.
next up, borrowing all the library books on html, css, php, and mysql.
