It's a Tuesday and it's been a strange day already. 75 degrees by 8 a.m., but windy. It's May, not October, so what's with the breeze?
Beware the "great" deals on cameras. What's the old adage? Oh yeah, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I bought a little "point and shoot" camera last summer, thinking that Brooklyn could use it when she went to Cousin's Week at Aunt Peggy's house. I put in a memory card and took a few pictures, but they didn't look so good. Thinking nothing of it, I set it aside (but didn't have Brooklyn take it, for fear it would get lost.) Rob took it to Florida last November for Dodger Camp. He said he had a few problems with it and it didn't take very good pictures. I was not sure if it was "operator error" or the camera, but he was correct, the pictures did not look too good. He did take some video as well, but nothing too exciting. The camera has sat on my desk at the home office for months and I decided to take it to the Clippers game Sunday night. Lugging the big Canon around can be a pain sometimes and the ushers and ticket takers at Staples don't always let people in with "big" cameras like mine. (It also differs by event - sporting events you can usually get the camera in, but for concerts you can't. Someday, I'll find someone to explain that to me.) In any event, Staples was festooned with tons of Red for the Clippers and I took a few pictures. Yuck. The ones I took inside the arena were blurry and just looked bad, even on that little one-inch screen. I took better pictures with my Droid. So, needless to say, the camera will be going the way of the buffalo soon. Well, maybe I'll give it to Brooklyn. But why the mention of the "great deal"? I bought the camera at Kohls. It was originally about $135, I think, and it was marked down (on sale, not clearance) to about $75 or maybe even $50, and I had coupons, so I paid $35 or so for it. Turns out, I should have saved my money for a Canon Power Shot or maybe a little Nikon. Would have been better spent.
Photographers - ugh. I have had it with JCPenney photographers. Can they really call themselves "professional," or do they just pull people off of the street and hand them a camera. I know I've said it before, but this time I really mean it, I'm done with them. I took Kensi in for an 18 month photo shoot (a few weeks ago.) I had been feeling guilty that I took Brooklyn so many times when she was a baby, and had so far just taken pictures of Kensi myself (albeit with some really great results.) Hoping for the best, off we trooped. Kensi was not happy. She walked off the mat more times that I can count and they ended up taking a total of 9 pictures. Yup, NINE. I regularly take 9 pictures in about 5 minutes of average things at home. These people are supposed to be PROFESSIONALS and we were there for about a 1/2 hour before just giving up. The kicker? At one point, the "photographer" (and yes, I use that term VERY loosely) put the camera down in order to try and get Kensi to look at the camera and smile. The reward for her efforts? Kensi looked up with the sweetest look on her face and even a little grin. (Brooklyn was sitting behind her.) The problem? THE FREAKIN' CAMERA WAS 3 FEET BEHIND HER ON THE FLOOR! ARGH! I was so tempted to pick the stupid thing up and start shooting myself. So, needless to say, I'm going to be hunting for a few basic backgrounds and some canvases that I can set up at home (I already have the light stands and a few other little toys.) Anyone else sick of the "professionals" at JCPenneys doing a half-assed job? Come to my house - I'll take the pictures for free and give them to you on a disk. Can't do the digital touch ups for you, but you might get a few good ones to take home. Grrr...
And finally, just a few things on scrapbooking. You know it had to go there eventually, right? I spent Friday and Saturday in Manhattan Beach at an event put on by Teresa Collins and a local online scrap store. The event was open to 100 women (I guess men could have come too) and included 4 classes. 2 on Friday and 2 on Saturday. Teresa Collins is a pretty big name in her own right and she was able to bring together several other large names and got products donated from several big companies. The projects were cute, some a little more my taste than others. (I won't give too many details here, but will try to get pictures up soon. Some of them may turn into gifts for people.) The company was interesting. Scrapbookers can be a crazy lot. Overall though, I have found these women to be very open and warm and quite friendly. Some women came from other states and one even came from England. Apparently Teresa has a big following. (I'm not so much a "celebrity" follower in the biz, but I like certain styles.) Rob is convinced that all of them (except for me and a few of my scrapping friends) sit at home with their 40 cats, taking pictures of and scrapbooking those same cats.) I will say that there are some odd birds in the group as a whole, and a few of them were there on Friday. I could not help but wonder how many cats they owned (2 particular ladies) but I refrained from asking. They were nice enough ladies anyway, even if they did spend 15 minutes trying to measure the pieces of wood we were working with, in order to get everything centered. (I eyeballed it and then had to laugh when I did pull out my ruler and found that I had hit dead center.) In any event, the weekend was a nice break. No kids of worries for 2 whole days. I even tried to have a beer on Friday night, since I had nowhere to drive to, nowhere to be on Saturday morning (other than to scrap some more) and no other responsibilities. Yup, I fell asleep. So much for my big night out without the girls.
Now I must get some work done. Pay the bills, justify my presence, the usual things. Pictures of the scrappy projects to come soon, hopefully, and maybe some pictures of Kensi. In the meantime, GO DODGERS!
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