If I seem cranky in my recent posts, I am a bit but that’s just because in the last few days I have had some discomfort in my teeth/jaw/sinus, as well as my foot. These are two areas of the body most sensitive to pain, and I’m hit with both at the same time.
However, I now have legal drugs. Good legal drugs. Nice legal drugs.
I’m also a bit disappointed about a couple of things, including the fact that it doesn’t look like my minimum reserve on my mineral collection auction will be met. I have a starting bid, but not enough to justify selling the collection. My roommate suggests that the timing was bad – Christmas is coming up. Too true. If it doesn’t sell this week, I’ll try again in January.
Also, the Practical RDF book isn’t quite selling as well as other books I’ve written. I’m not surprised – it is a very esoteric subject, and I don’t go to conferences and put my face into other people’s faces, or talk about RDF a lot. It should be a consistent seller over time, especially if I keep updating outdated sample code and putting said code out at the O’Reilly site. But it’s not going to be the success Unix Power Tools is (which was just published in Japanese – I’ll post a photo of the copy being sent to me when I get it), or Developing ASP Components. (which made it into Russian and Spanish).
However, with the sour always comes the sweet. It doesn’t look like my foot is broken, but some toes most likely are and haven’t healed well (heeled well, heh), and the X-Rays tomorrow won’t cost me a dime with my medical (I do have very good medical insurance).
In addition, I’ve had the loveliest comments from the rock and mineral Interest community about the collection. They loved the collection, the stories, the photos. Makes me feel good about the job I did putting this site online.
A couple of other things might be looking up nicely soon, but I won’t say anything specific until the rubber hits the road, so to speak. I also have a very good friend (who happens to have an exceptionally handsome voice by the way), who suggested that my next bits of photography focus on things I don’t normally take photos of, or don’t like taking photos of, to increase my expertise and reach.
Excellent advice, except that I like taking pictures of everything, being a most indiscriminate photographer. However, I am shy about taking photos of people, and that’s one I need to work on. Also, I haven’t spent much time recently taking photos within cities or towns, or of industrial areas, and these could use more attention. In fact, there is a road trip I want to take (when I can afford it again) that will involve taking pictures of people and places of this nature, not just the wonderful Missouri country side.
But I will never tire of taking photos of Missouri. I may mention the statistics about St. Louis and the crime, but this really is a wonderful city full of charm and character. And the countryside – if you’ve never been here, nothing I can photograph, or tell you, will ever convey the richness of this state: the forests, wetlands, granite mountains, and deep rivers. And the charming towns, and quirky, maddening, fascinating, and complex people that live here.
And, girlfriends, the men on Harleys here are drop dead gorgeous. When they say life begins at 50, they must have been talking about these guys, silver foxes everyone, I tell you. Youngsters got nothing on these guys. Well, okay, maybe Johnny Depp and Hugh Jackman, but that’s it.
Did I happen to mention the good drugs?