So on my flight back to Newark from home, I decided to stick my camera up to the glass and see what kind of pictures I could pull off. Everything came out hazy, which was a combination of the cloud cover and the film they put on the windows. Every few minutes I would snap off some pictures. Mostly it was just rolling hills full of leafless tress. I’d get some small airports and a baseball field here and there. I didn’t really look at them till today, when I was on the phone chatting with a friend. I’m looking at a picture of a city I took, and I’m thinking to myself, “I wonder where that was.” So we’re chatting and I’m zooming in to the image, and then I see it.

I have more to say about my trip and some other year-end observations, but I’m wrecked and need to get some sleep. But I leave you with a couple of pix to illustrate the first paragraph.

PIX OF THE DAY: The picture that made me go ‘hmmmmm’
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PIX OF THE DAY: and the magnification that made me go ‘ahhhhhh’
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So I had a leak on Thursday morning. Water was coming through the window. Today I saw a mouse poking around. Blah. I set the traps. I guess I’ll call the management guys today and let them know. There are holes in some of the rooms where there used to be radiator piping – I’m hoping they’ll come plug those.

I need a cat.

Now I can’t concentrate on the crap I need to concentrate on. Not really worried about the mouse – I used to have rodents as pets – I’m just annoyed. Now if he wanted to split the rent, that’s a whole different story.

On a positive note, I’m going to see the girl Monday or Tuesday or both. I’m very excited. She makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

This morning I was looking for a weather forecast and my old standby The Weather Channel was all goofy with this endlessly repeating commercial, so I started flipping through the local stations, and I catch this scene on the Today Show, where the topic was wine tasting. And I quote:

“…you should swirl the wine around in the glass. What this does is to release all the aroma, kind of like taking off your pantyhose at the end of the day.”

Errr. TMI.

I left work at 6:15, and after stopping by the dry cleaners to pick up my clothes, I was upstairs in my apartment by 6:45pm – HA! I rule. Well, the bus driver is actually the one who rules, but either way, I’m home before all the Brooklyn people in my office.

PIX OF THE DAY: Still experimenting with the super small camera – the bus ride home today.
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I went to bed relatively early last night, so I had assumed I’d get up early enough to run downstairs, pick up my laundry, dash back upstairs and then head off to work.

Of course I hit the snooze button. Six times.

So I rush out of the house and start trudging through the snow. Sometimes as I’m walking to the bus stop my mind is completely blank. Other times I’m thinking about what’s coming up in the day. Sometimes there are just dozens of random ideas bouncing around. But this morning, about a block from my apartment, this thought popped into my head, “my wallet is upstairs in another pair of pants.”

Back upstairs. Wallet. Lock door. Trudging through the snow. Again.

I got on the bus and totally clocked some guy in the head with either my bag or my elbow… I can’t remember now. I said “sorry, sorry” and made my way to the back of the bus trying not to crack up. Not sure why I found it funny, I think it was the look on his face after I hit him.

On the bus. Bundled up. Now it’s too hot. Sweating. Ugh.

Finally I’m in the city, and walking up 8th Ave heading to work. The Poster Children are in my headphones, and I’m feeling all bouncy and happy. The guys in the bodega are hilarious this morning. The guy behind the counter is telling the guy stocking the Pepperidge Farm cookies to quite busting his balls. And the cookie guy is giving it back to him. So things are enjoyable.

Then I come into work. Blah.

Big snow this weekend. I don’t really have anything poetic to say about the snow. I like snow. It’s pretty. I like winter. I liked the cold. This weekend felt like Christmas vacation. I just sat around eating cereal and reading magazines. And still archiving CDRs.

I have no real profound statements to make.

No observations to pass on.

Well, maybe one – my feet are cold.

I’m going to bed.

PIX OF THE DAY: It would suck if they had to use that fire escape today.
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So I got my Zippo-sized camera a couple of days back. It takes fairly crappy pictures, but honestly what can you expect from a $99, super-small, spycam. Outside the pictures actually aren’t that bad if you reduce them. They’re unsuitable for print, but knock ’em down to 400x300px or smaller, and they’ll pass for a really bad digital camera, or a poorly scanned print. Inside pix, different story. It needs a lot of light, no flash – but you can get some interesting stuff. Not pretty, but interesting. It’ll be fun to play with, but I can’t count on it for documenting anything.

I’m in some kind of mental fog/funk lately. I hope it’s just vacation-lag… I just can’t seem to concentrate on anything. A couple of projects at work were fast-tracked, and I did them as quickly as possible, but now I have to wait for someone else to kick in and sign off. In the meantime, I should be finishing up some of the other dozen or so non-rush projects, but I just can’t get into work.

This cloud is starting to drift into my non-work life as well. I haven’t really done a lot at home lately. I shot some pix & video with my friend James a few weeks back – and I keep meaning to edit together some rough footage so he can see what we have — we’re thinking about shooting some stupid projects in the future — but I haven’t. I’m also stalled on the CDR archiving project. Plus I owe a lot of e-mails.

So tonight, one of the vendors was having its holiday party. I planned on going and wanted to leave for it right after work. I was waiting for a couple of friends from the office to finish up some work so I could head over with them. Fast-forward a couple of hours later, and we finally head over. I go in, do the coat-check, walk upstairs to the buffet & drinks, stand there for a five minutes, then go back downstairs, grab my coat and leave. I didn’t even have a drink or food. I don’t know what it was, but I just couldn’t be there.

Let’s hope for this being a mild case of vacation-lag…

PIX OF THE DAY: Indoor shot with the little camera.
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PIX OF THE DAY: Outdoor shot with the little camera.
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PIX OF THE DAY: A portrait of the little camera with Chapstick for reference. Taken by the bigger, badass camera.
© 2003 permalance.com

So today was my first day back at the office after my little vacation jaunt back home. I had plenty of stuff to do, but I just couldn’t get back in the groove to get any of it done. I guess tomorrow will be my catch-up day.

I talked with a friend this weekend, and we kind of both had the same plan to quite working so much… to start keeping normal hours. I kind of blew that today. I mean, I didn’t really do anything, but I always get these little bursts of energy at the end of the day, so I finally started doing work around 7pm. Ugh. I e-mailed her to see if she made it out, and not response so hopefully she pulled of her exit strategy.

I keep meaning to give some highlights of my trip back home, but I never quite feel like jotting them down when I’m sitting near the computer. Here’s something… I had planned on jamming with the iPOD all the way home, but the rental car I end up with only had a CD player. I grabbed a few CDs before I left, but not nearly enough. So, while I was home, I made a couple of trips to some used CD stores and bought some stuff for the trip back. It’s fun to buy stuff you’d have no intention of paying full price for. Many of my selections were stuff I had on cassette way back in the day. Stuff like Pseudo Echo’s Love an Adventure – they covered “Funkytown” — it wasn’t nearly as cool as I remembered. The CD that is suprising me now is David Lee Roth’s Skyscraper. It’s actually holding up suprisingly well.

In an effort to waste even more money, I ordered a tiny, really, really cheap, digital camera today. It comes inside a Zippo lighter. It holds up to 300 pix. I figure if it takes even fair pix, it’ll be fun to carry around everywhere when I don’t feel like lugging around the big one. Plus, since it looks like a Zippo, I’ll be able to take it into shows. No flash, but maybe if i can get close enough, the stage lights will be enough. Of course this thing might be a total loss, like X-ray Spex… we”ll see.

PIX OF THE DAY: What was waiting for me back at the office.
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