What's in This Picture?
It's my blog.

I know you're probably saying to yourself, "aren't I on your blog?". Well, yes and no. While this is a blog I am formally announcing that I am migrating to wordpress. My new wordpress blog will be the blog. It will contain some of the quirkiness and insanity that you've grown to love in this blog with, hopefully, a more refined writing style. I will eventually discontinue this blog and cancel this account but not until after I manage to port over all the great posts I've done here.

This is sort of a good bye but it really doesn't have to be. If you've enjoyed my writing you can still follow me at: lostinatx.wordpress.com

You can also find my girlfriend's new blog there. Debbie's blog can be found at: wherethedaytakesme.wordpress.com
Her insights on day to day life are excellent. If you only subscribe to one blog it should be hers.

I mean if you're going to subscribe to one blog after you subscribe to mine it should be hers. *sheepish grin*

I would like to sincerely say that it has been a lot of fun blogging here at xanga, and carving out a piece of the blogger's community here that I could call my own. However, it's time for me to move on to bigger and better things.

Most importantly, you shouldn't think of this as abandonment. You should think of it more as expansion. I do.

There is a fairly new concept in the world of design that is really just getting out of hand. They're products that have bulked up and over engineered parts that are designed to withstand harsh conditions. When a product is engineered that way it's said to be ruggedized.

Ruggedized products started, to the best of my memory, with the ruggedized laptops that Toshiba came out with. Now this was a good use of the re-engineering process. First responders to natural disasters (who would be using their computers in unusual conditions), architects and contractors, and the like have a computer they can use with confidence.

However, now the concept has been popularized and expanded to the point where there are ruggedized cell phones and cell phone cases, cell phone earpieces, etc ... and it's gotten worse. The other day at the electronics store I saw a ruggedized USB flashdrive.

A flash drive? Really? Look, I hate to break it to you, Agent Nobody, but you're not going to be smuggling precious gigabytes of secret data, that could stop an international incident, across enemy lines. Probably the most rugged thing you're gonna do with that device is plug it into your laptop when you're at Starbucks to bring up your Quicken records. Can you feel your beard growing?

What might be the absolute n-th degree in ruggedizing would be what I saw on The Ben Heck Show, Ben case modded a PS3 to put it into a "rugged" case.

To be fair, he did construct it for married soldiers that are serving together in Afghanistan. However, how many guys out there are going to do that exact same mod but it's never going to go to Afghanistan. It's never going to go anywhere except into this dude's entertainment center (which he also ruggedized by spraying it down with four coats of rhino liner) all so he can watch blue-rays while he drinks Mountain Dew out of a can that can never be crushed because his koozie was milled out of solid quarter inch aircraft aluminum. Oh so rugged.

To a certain degree I get it. There are extreme situations in this world where you may out and out need a product to be rugged enough to handle extreme conditions. Then there are situations where it's just cheaper to put an otterbox case on your iphone than pay for apple care. Then there are other situations (probably the most common) where you don't need it to be rugged at all but it looks cool.

What this really reminds me of is the SUV craze of the nineties. Oh really, your Nissan Xterra has four wheel drive and a built in first aid kit? Why? You're not taking it up to the top of a mountain, you're gonna take it to work, the grocery store, and home ... in that order. If you ever use that first aid it's gonna be for scraped knees at soccer practice not wrapping a sprained ankle you suffered while hiking the grand friggin' canyon.

At the end of the day, what it comes down to is that people who buy these kinds of products (for the most part) are buying an image, an identity, and the worst part is they don't even realize how transparent that is to everyone else. The only people you're fooling with your SUV and your ruggedized cell phone, laptop, and flash drive are people who are, themselves, so out of touch with who they really are that they think they can buy products that will provide them an identity too.

That's really rugged, Bro.

Do you remember what it was like before we had digital cameras?

You would have a finite number of exposures per roll. You'd look in the little plastic window to see how many exposures the shot counter said you had left. If you were running low on film you would take your shots sparingly. If what you were photographing didn't require a whole roll you would "use up" the remaining shots and then take it to the developer.

I remember when you would drop off your film and you would have to come back later in the week to pick up your shots. Then they came out with one hour photo where you could get your stuff developed while you wait.

Now we have digital photography which employs storage cards as the media. The capacities are high enough that you can take a practically limitless number of shots. I can't speak for anyone else but I know that for me this sudden sense of freedom felt like "Wow, it's like having free film." Suddenly, I didn't have to regret taking bad shots or snapping multiple shots of the same subject to get the right  shot. I could just snap away and if it was a shot that didn't work out, oh well.

Well, now I've discovered something that gives me the same sensation but for an entirely different media. It's called Digital Painting. It's a class that I'm taking at college and it's really changed the way I look at painting and digital media as well.

For some this may seem like old news. If you're familiar with the concepts of speed painting or digital painting then I might seem like a bit of a newb, but try to bear with me.
(Note to readers: If you do a search for "Speed Painting" on YouTube you're likely to find quite a few entries that do not employ the speed painting technique but are just panting processes done in photoshop that have been speeded up.)

I consider myself to be somewhat of a Photoshop expert. I'm old school when it comes to photoshop. (The first version I used was PS 5.0) However, in their most recent version they've added tools that make it possible to paint in photoshop almost as if you were using actual paints and canvas. This effect is enhanced all the more when you add a pen tablet, such as a wacom pad. I happen to own such a device, thanks to my darling girlfriend, and I can tell you, once you've mastered these new features in photoshop and can anticipate what they'll do with your painting, it's downright fun.

The feeling I get from this process is all very similar to when I first learned about digital photography. In the same way digital photography equaled free film, digital painting equates to free paint, free canvas, free brushes, and not having to worry about storing or maintaining any of those items. Plus, I get freedom from frustration as I make my way up the painter's learning curve. If something doesn't come out right, I simply ctrl+z and try it again.

In the early days of utilizing computers and other digital tools to assist in creating works of fine art, a common complaint was that computers would stifle creativity, because they would lock us into only looking at one way to do things.

Fortunately, from what I've observed, it appears that the companies that create the creative tools/software that make our fine art endeavors (at least the digital ones) possible are influenced heavily by the tools that already exist in the real world. Which really is how it should be. If you have a skill set that comes from painting, or drawing, or playing the piano, you should be able to go into photoshop, or illustrator, or pro-tools and expect a good deal of those skills to transfer. Also, you could expect to go into those software programs and use them to cultivate those skills, much as you would with the real thing.

All I can tell you for sure is that painting is something that I used to view as tedious and difficult, something I would probably never get the hang of. Now, I find digital painting fun and relaxing. I have no doubt that when this class is over it's something I'll continue with as a hobby for a long time.

What's in this picture?
It's one of the most disgusting things in the world.

Everyone has a something. Something that makes their skin crawl. Something that they find to be just absolutely vile. I don't have many. On the whole, I can put up with most of the things people do. There are two primary exceptions to that rule. One is dirty diapers left who knows where (which I've already blogged about) and the other is empty or partially empty drink containers left around.

The latter is the more irritating of the two peeves because it comes up more often. For example, I used to work at a dotcom company where someone was constantly doing this. I would walk through the office and find half empty soda cans and throw them away. After about a week of this I went to my boss and complained. He said he would look into it. I found out the next day, though, that it was actually him that was doing it.

If you're a person who leaves a drink container laying around here's what I need you to understand about people like me (who are grossed out by it). I don't know you, I don't know where you've been, what you've done, what you've touched, what the chemistry of your mouth is, and when I see a can sitting out my mind jumps directly to the worst possible conclusion. When I see that can there I think that if I touch it there's a chance that I will catch some horrible condition, something inconceivable. It's not such a hard leap to make. A lot of diseases are spread orally, especially through contact with saliva.

The absolute worst is when you can leavers leave a can that still has contents. As I pick it up and take it to the trash I'm now not only thinking about what diseases you may be carrying but what is in the can. Is it soda? Is it backwash? Is it both? Do you chew? Is it tobacco juice? You'll know I'm grossed out when you see me carry it to the trash too because I have as little physical contact with the can as possible, barely grasping it with two fingers. I'd put on rubber gloves, if I had any. I'd carry it to the trash with two pencils, if I could keep customers from looking at me weird when I do it.

but rest assured can leaver I'll carry your trash to the trash can and then purrell the hell out of my hands.

So, what's the proper thing to do Mr/Miss Can Leaver? Simple, look for a trash can. If you don't see a trash can ask if there's one behind the counter. Trust me, there is one ... and trust me in this too, I would lots rather transport your used drink can 2 feet to the trash can just below the counter than 50 feet from the middle of the sales floor. I don't care if you're a shy person and you don't want to have to ask for a trash can. I'm sure you would rather I think you're bit of a dork for half a second by asking me to throw away a piece of trash for you than for me to see the trash all by itself and think you're a rude, self absorbed, a-hole, that was probably raised in a barn, for the rest of your life.

To you the issue may simply be "Gee, I bought a can of Dr. Pepper and y'know I'm not that thirsty. I think I'll just drink half and set the other half down here" but the issue goes much farther than that for me 'cause I'm the guy that has to deal with it when you're gone.

What's in this picture?
Oh, nothing really.

I don't know what was on these shelves but whatever it was it went fast. It seems that walmart really found a target price that resonates with customers that have been hit hard in this tough economy.

No seriously folks, This is a photo that was taken at my local walmart. It's being remodeled and they're too cheap to close the store during that process. The shelf unit doesn't yet have any product on it. So, logically, it does not yet have a price either. It's really a very philosophical process.

What's in this picture?
It's a clear indication that you don't always get the most committed people if you're only willing to pay minimum wage.

This is one of the vending machines at my college and, yes, that is a whole case of snickers ice cream bars inside of it. Still in the box.

I suppose that in the broadest sense of this vending machine operator's responsibilities he did everything okay. His job is to put food into the vending machine and, technically, he did that. However, it was a whole week before the vending machine guy came back and fixed his blunder.