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I don’t normally have much if anything to complain about when it comes to work. I love my job, most clients are wonderful. But there is nothing that annoys me more then when people use me and waste my time. I have spent countless hours working on a huge elaborate proposal this past week. It has not been easy, especially considering they changed the entire scope of their RFP last Monday, wouldn’t give us anything other then an e-mail address until Wednesday when they finally sent a phone number. A conference call where I practically had to drag details out of the client didn’t leave me with a good feeling. I tried to tell the boss that I didn’t see them paying our rates, that the RFP was too loose and he wasn’t willing to give too many more details. I didn’t have a good vibe, and if there is one thing I have learned … trust the vibe. But the boss said to work away on it. So I have. About 3 hours late tonight alone, churning away. And guess what? Just over a week since they sent out their detailed RFP … and the “thanks for participating but we found a company that we feel is a better fit” e-mail came in. A form letter version, because the engineering team hasn’t had a chance to review our proposal, so they haven’t even received it. Yet their letter stated that they were “very impressed” by it. Amazing. Simply amazing.

Next time, I’m going with the vibe. For now I am going to go watch Chris on Call for Help and learn how to set up my computer as a jukebox so no one can mess with anything else while it is in that mode. The “kiosk mode” that he is talking about would be perfect for the computer in Jason’s room to keep him using it without my permission. I could even restrict what websites he can access through it. Perfect! Nothing like some techno info to help me unwind. Not a problem!

Meryl and I were discussing tonight’s additions to the Pixelog tonight. She had IM’d me and I had to ask her to wait as I finished up an addition there. In the discussion she asked me “how do you get such Wow! photos?” I honestly had no answer. The best thing I could think of? I have about 1000 photos on my hard drive right now. Of those, maybe 1/10 of them will end up online. It’s a selective process, and not every shot is good. Also, always remember the rule of thirds. If you imagine a # symbol going across the viewfinder, your focus of the image should be either on the lines or at the points. Works for me every time. Well, almost.

Adding images to the Pixelog makes me happy. It’s a nice process. I miss the days in the darkroom – it’s been years since I developed my own pictures. I don’t normally enhance the photographs for the Pixelog other then cropping and adding borders. It reminds me every time of moving the equipment in the darkroom around, framing that perfect shot before you expose the paper. Sometimes I am even surprised with the end result, just like in the darkroom, because the image will look different framed on the site then it did back in Photoshop.

The feeling of creativity brings me joy. Many thanks again (I can’t say this enough) to Jennifer for helping to make the Pixelog a reality instead of just a dream.