I really wasted my time on a film degree.
Looking for jobs can be very depressing at times - All these professions that I would've never given a second glance and all the professions that actually pay well, coupled with the act of trying to swallow my big fat pride is stressing me out. Looking for a position that has something to do with video editing is depressing. Only 7 job postings. In the whole country, according to a popular job site. And half of them are mislabeled. Of course, if I moved to another state, it wouldn't be a problem, but Washington has nothing for people like me, unless I wanna get back into videography. The three that stood out soon died down - Being a window washer/janitor was the best pay, at 15-22 bucks an hour, but I have no custodial experience and I have to fight my pride about being a college graduate. Being a teller at a bank flew out the window when I googled it - 10 bucks an hour is just depressing. And Video Game Tester is a great job to be had - if you only wish to be a contractor who wants 90 day employment. Hopefully tomorrow more job postings will pop up. I've got to get serious about the job hunt because I don't think I'm doing the kids any favors. I'm cranky Dad again.
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We went to the zoo on Thursday and it was so hot out that most of the animals decided to call it quits, and just mellow out. I got photos of a tiger sprawled lazily on its back, an elephant's ass laying down, and other assortment of animals in various poses of rest. But the kids had a lot of fun, drinking Icees and checking out the wildlife. I got a few photos, but nothing really special.
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iPhoto.
I'm sorry I doubted you for so long, and ignored you for even longer. At first you were simply impossible because of my slow hardware, but even when you came bundled with the iMac and installed in the iBook, I didn't take the time to get to know you and appreciate all you have to offer. Instead, I just concentrated on the tweaky file hierarchy that iPhoto used that made all the photos live within piles of buried folders, making a simple library into a mess of data. Little did I know that you were actually the photo management app that I've been waiting for. Oh iPhoto. Will you ever forgive me?
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I've used iView Media Pro forever, and I've liked it because it's easy, file compatible with a ton of formats, and just clean when it came to the interface. I played around with iPhoto with a bit recently, and realized that I might have written it off too soon. The pros suddenly outweighed the cons, and I transferred all my photos over to iPhoto for some lovin', and I haven't regretted it.
Pros:
Edit in Fullscreen is nice. The hiding scroll bars and menu make it easy to see your photo, and edit it with ease. iView had a pseudo full screen called Lightbox, but you couldn't edit in it, and going from one photo to the next required a short but stuttering load time.
Effects/Adjustments HUD is nice too. I liked it in Aperture, but that program is a bit slow. Surprisingly, I ran it in one of the Apple stores and it even ran slow on their machines. I suppose unless you're running a Pro setup, it's just not for your average bear. But having access to Temperature, Saturation, Straightening and Sharpness as a slider is very, very nice. The edit tools in iView are okay, but more like an afterthought.
Revert to Original is very nice. In a nutcase, it's non-destructive editing. You can dick around with your photo, quit, realize how much you suck, go back, and it'll have the original tucked away. You can dupe the original and keep that, or just revert. Aperture had that going, which I liked a lot. Now I can crop, add cheesy effects, and experiment without being afraid that I was going to kill my original.
Export is nice. I used to have to dupe it, resize it slowly with automator, and then upload it to Twango or Flickr. Now I can just export from my library and it resizes a heck of a lot quicker, and it's ready to go.
The interface of course, is excellent. Autosave is nice too. I just love iPhoto all over now.
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I'm experiencing that disconnect with the kids again. Recently Zoe has had a hairpin trigger for her emotions, though I suspect a lot of it is over reactive and being an attention hoarder. She'll cry at the slightest provocation - if Alex brushes against her, or if I tell her no on anything. Of course, her crying wolf has had an unwanted effect, that when she really needs the attention, she doesn't get it because we don't know if it's really a cry for help or attention. We can usually gauge by how quickly she recovers from her sorrow - it's usually not very long before she's laughing.
Alex on the other hand, has been messing with boundaries as well. Zoe's guilty of this too, but Alex is really stretching out that toe of his by getting upset at rules he knows to be concrete. He's been pestering Zoe a lot, and defying authority left and right. There are times when I really try not to fly off my handle when he reacts to my scolding - I guess the closest way to describe it is mocking me. He doesn't exactly make fun of me or what I'm telling him, but he is obviously not listening and have a disregard for the reasons why he shouldn't be doing what he's doing. This drives me quite mad because it's disrespectful. I know, he doesn't even know what disrespectful is, but I'd wish he'd try a little harder to get along with Zoe and me.
So anyway, I hope this "thing" will subside soon, because it's getting kinda tough being with these guys and having to keep them in line. I really just want to have fun with them, or spend time with them without every step being a major battle.
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So the new iPhone ads came out today, and it made me wonder once again if I needed one. Of course, I know I don't, but the ease and simplicity and possibilities that the ads present are just so ... sexy. Zip, zip, zip... of course, I imagine that after every shot, the iPhone had to have fingerprints wiped off. Watching the keynote the second time, after Steve Jobs spend a few minutes with it, the beautiful iPhone was subject to smudgy, greasy fingerprints all over it's screen. And he's not even a palm sweater like me. I need more friends to have an iPhone.
But 499/599 plus a two year contract plus monthly phone and data? I can't fanthom the cost of maintaining that.
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