Like Lileks, without the skill...
Category: Kitchen Sink...
Posted Wednesday, September 15, 2004 at 09:54 AM [GMT-6]

I put 40 miles on the Durango before 8:00 this morning, shuttling my wife to the airport for the redeye to Houston, then back home for breakfast with the Princess (a.k.a. the Niece) before driving her to school.

Now that I no longer have a regular morning commute, I tend to forget the zany antics of Midland's rush quarter-hour drivers. It's not a memory that I miss. The Princess wanted to drive, but I already had too much caffeine in my system for that.

I had forgotten about SYATP. I was pleased to see about 30 students at Midland High in a circle around the flagpoles, heads bowed in prayer. I would have been even more pleased had the five or six adults standing off to the side (whom I assume were youth ministers from neighborhood churches, judging by their not-entirely-successful attempts to be high school fashionable in their attire) also been praying.

Nice contrast here, in terms of who gets to spend my money and yours. There's these guys, and then there's this guy. Of course, the latter guy already makes more than the former guys, but I still appreciate the gesture.

Product photography is hard work. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I spent several hours yesterday afternoon working under hot lights trying to pose items ranging from cuff links (can't be done) to ball caps (piece o'cake) to bumper stickers (a job for a flatbed scanner, really). That's the easy part. The hard part is overcoming the inherent weaknesses of a non-pro digicam in Photoshop, which took twice as long as the actual photography. I stopped at 10:30 last night and started again at 6:30 this morning, in order to have something to show the client later today.

The really bad part is that each and every product bears the authorized logo of the University of Texas. I feel so dirty. The things we do to support our Starbux habits.