Since yesterday’s stint with the AMA, I am in so much pain and abject misery that I’d like to just shoot myself. The whole “testing me” for the things that hurt and don’t hurt, work and don’t work has stirred up misery the likes of when I first came home from the accident.
Recently, someone requested a bid on a corporate website design. I responded characteristically with a quote and my usual terms. They immediately replied, asking me to repeat what I’d already said in my response — what would it cost for just a mock-up of my design ideas? I quoted myself and hit send. I have yet to hear back from them, though I did receive a read receipt.
It always startles folks that they have to pay for me to mock-up a website design idea, but not commercial artwork. They think that I should do the mock-up for free, like I do book covers, CD covers, and brochures. Nope. Here’s why: You’ll take my design, go over to some Indian coding group and have them reproduce it for pennies on the U.S. dollar. You’ll be using my design and not paying me for my time and ideas. In other words, I’d be letting you steal from me.
Three-hundred dollars for a look at my ideas isn’t outrageous at all, especially when you can grab a screenshot of my ideas and still head out to some second or third world country to have some starving coder do it for you for a few hundred bucks.
A mock-up isn’t XHTML and CSS, either. Nope. Nor is it search engine optimized by my team which is very good at getting your website up in ranking. It’s a .jpg snapshot of a website that could be, no code included. I’m not in business to give away my ideas and my secrets. If you want them, regardless of where you have it coded up, you do have to pay for it, and, like I said, $300 ain’t much for a world-class idea.
From “matt” over on the NYTimes. May 1, 2009: http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/gov-palin-on-energy-money-no-thanks/?scp=2&sq=Palin&st=cse#comment-57839
Palin is the poster child for failed ignorant political thought. not to mention she just seems plain old dumb. Thank god she is not in the white house. — matt
I have some new neighbors, and, for the most part, I instantly don’t like them much. …Because they’re loud, sloppy, dirty, aggressive, and disruptive. Typically, they own a Pitbull. (Now, I have nothing against Pitbulls, but I’m not real happy with the ugly folks who purposely make them mean and dangerous.)
Anyway, so, last night, Hubs got home very late, way after dark, so dinner was postponed till way after my normal bedtime. We were just sitting down to this late supper when, outside, the roar of one of the “regulars” who visit the above-defined neighbors breaks the silence of the night. And then there’s yelling.
“What’s going on?” Hubs asked.
I shake my head, but get up and head out the door to find the answer. And then I start to watch.
The son of the family, an amazingly nice boy — he must be thirteen or thereabouts — is sitting in the hopped-up Jeep that belongs to the young Mexican-American man (a brother of the wife, I think). The lights are on, the engine running. The owner of said vehicle stands outside listening as the boy — scared — yells that “he doesn’t know how.”
The young man maintains a steady, even tone, his accented words gentle. “I know. You’ll get it.”
I can’t hear the rest of what he says, but it seems as if he’s giving the boy instructions on “how.”
Now, teaching someone to drive is very stressful. It falls under the heading “absolutely NOT fun.”
The engine revs. The Jeep lurches forward, then stalls, its lights dimming.
Again, the boy hollers. The man speaks calmly, compassionately…patiently, his voice still gentle. This is, I find, very unusual, because the young man is quite normally a strutting peacock, full of vim and piss.
The Jeep turns over, revs, gears grind (I’m cringing as I’m sure is the owner.), then it lurches forward, and hesitantly makes progress.
I worry that the boy is going to hit one of the trucks parked on the side of the road. …He doesn’t, but steers the hopped-up beast he’s driving pretty well. It’s the clutch that’s his problem, it seems. (Isn’t it for any of us when we learn to drive a stick shift?)
The boy gets to the end of the street, tries to make a u-turn, fails, almost hitting one of the parked trucks. He slams on the brakes, the rig sitting sideways in the road. The rig dies, lights dimming again. He gets it started again, but he can’t get it into reverse. He’s practically sobbing as he again hollers out the open driver’s window down toward the waiting man.
The man walks past, heading toward the vehicle. When he gets there, I hear, once again, the gentle voice giving instructions. The boy, whose shrill whine sounds so very stressed, finally quiets and, as the man gets into the passenger side, he manages to grind the gears and, after another couple of stall-outs, manages to get the rig turned around.
They take off down the street, the vehicle alternately slowing and lurching forward. Whew, I think.
Several times up and down the road, and, by the time a half an hour is up, the boy is getting it. He’s able to clutch smoothly. (I’m thankful all this time that the boy already has steering down.)
They stop at the house, both man and boy get out, the boy’s voice still a bit tentative, the young man’s voice still soft and encouraging as they say good-night. The boy heads for his house, and the Jeep starts. The young man puts his foot in it — not too much, though — and takes off down the road into the darkness.
I stand there thinking, what patience and compassion the young man has exhibited, despite the fact that his Jeep, his pride and joy, has taken a bit of abusive punishment to its transmission, engine, and clutch. Usually one only sees that degree of gentility and calmness when the elderly. Here, I witnessed it from a youth just entering his twenties. I’m impressed and just a little bit proud, despite the family he’s kin to.
I’m so glad he’s there for that boy, a boy whose father is notoriously loud, brazen, and exhibits every trait of a defensive-aggressive white trash male. Thank heavens for the “other side” of the family — the Mexican-American side. Despite their macho strutting, they own patience and compassion with their own.
IRRITATION NUMBER ONE: Website “entrepreneurs” who INSIST that you haven’t heard them the first time. One Kim McDougall, klchatel@verizon.net, owner of BlazingTrailers.com is one such individual. Every time I turn around, there’s yet another email in my box delivering a post she’s made to a group board I’m subscribed to. She keeps urging us, exorting us, even, to visit her site, to submit a trailer (the form’s still in beta-testing according to Kim, mind you) *roll eyes*.
Ah…I heard you the first time, Kim. And I accept trailers, too, but it isn’t the “competition” that’s bothering me. It’s your persistence of cheap solicitations.
I post one, maybe two, solicitations, well-spaced apart, then leave it alone. Seems to me that, if an author or a publisher isn’t interested, they simply aren’t interested. They aren’t interested in getting the word out, at least not using the offered venue. That should be fine, shouldn’t it? I mean it isn’t as though there aren’t plenty of book trailers and new novels coming out to fill our websites.
Bottom line: Offer it, then leave it at that. Now that might not be the “American entrepreneur’s way,” — you know, SAVE BIG CARPET SALE, COME NOW, BIG CARPET SALE, DON’T MISS OUT, FACTORY REMAINDERS CHEAP, GET YOURS HERE…. …Sorry, boyz and gurlz, that kind of advertising method just doesn’t play well with me. Class acts don’t hawk their wares like cheap sleezeballs selling second class goods, especially since books are supposed to be first class all the way.
IRRITATION NUMBER TWO: People who want to discuss politics, but get mad and indignant when someone posts something contrary to their perspective. Then, instead of debating it, they go complain to management. If that fails to reap their desired result, the squelching of the opposing viewpoint, they pick of their whining selves and, with backward glances of woe-is-me, depart the venue, only to sniffle and whine and lurk in “seeing distance.”
Gawd. Fine. If you don’t want to debate it, why play in the politics pit?
Fun…though I wouldn’t want to be in front of him while he’s perfoming.
I follow several sentators…from states other than Idaho, including Bernie Sanders of Vermont. (Why I choose to follow and support U. S. Senators other than those of Idaho is because all Idaho US Senators in firmly entrenched on the opposite sides of issues I find salient. In fact, there isn’t a whole lot of people in office in Idaho whom I do support, especially not Butch “the Butcher” Otter, but let’s not go there. None of us need a rant from me this morning.)
Here’s the latest from Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and, if you want more interesting listening and reading, then go to his website at: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/
VIDEO: The Buzz on Capitol Hill with Senator Bernie Sanders
Here’s the direct link to the video: http://sanders.senate.gov/video/20090312003/index.html
I must receive thirty-plus phone calls a week from people wanting to enroll their 3, 6, 9, 12, 14-year-old into martial arts. I dismiss them with a pleasant, gentle explanation that, 1, we’re not taking new students, and, 2, we only teach adults. And not all adults, either. It isn’t the age, per se. It’s the maturity and mind-state. I’m sorry, but children — American children (though there are, of course, exceptions) are generally unprepared and unwilling to submit to the rigorous discipline — mental, emotional, physical, and philosophical — required to study martial arts with us. We’re very strict; we’re very demanding, and we’re very much a traditional school where “fun” isn’t part of the curriculum.
Oh, it’s fun, yes, if you have a high pain threshold and love ever increasing challenges, but it’s not entertaining (except for those occasional guffaws when you lose your footing because someone dripped sweat on the mat). For Americans, both adults and youth, who have been raised to expect their hedonistic desires fulfilled, who are perpetually conditioned to expect reward for mediocrity, and who have been pandered to their whole lives, our martial arts classes are not quite what they expected. We tend to direct callers and walkins alike to the McDojos, because, honestly, that’s what they want — instant black belt in exchange for no real effort and no true commitment and self-motivated development.
But what about the prospective student who does hold the duty, discipline, self-actualization, and focus that’s mandatory? Well, taking on a student means this for the teacher: Be ready to become their life counselor, even after they’ve left town. You’ll be the one they call, regardless of what time it is, what day it is, or if you’re down with pneumonia when they have any kind of life crisis, from marital difficulties to existential crises. It’s the way of things, and, believe me, after years and years, taking on new students and adding to the calls for help and advice you get takes its toll. As a teacher, you become very hesitant to add to your load, especially since, having invested the time and effort to get them to and then through the “gateway” that is earning the black belt, then going further, you are obligated to be there, always. It’s a life commitment on both the student’s and the teacher’s part. And it’s tough on both of them. It’s also extremely rewarding. My students…my husband’s students, it’s why both of us go to bed with gentle smiles on our faces. They are our delight, even if they do occasionally cause all manner of bleary-eyed mornings.
I got a call last Thursday: ”My sow’s going to farrow, but I already had plans to go to Kalispell for three days. Can you come sit with her?”
I blinked about five times, just speechless. ”Huh? Who is this?” I asked.
He told me. It was the guy whose wife had called my Mom not four months ago because a baby pig needed help. My mom had, of course, called me, and, reluctantly, I’d driven us all the way up this long, winding road to go rescue the creature who was crushed, starving, and suffering hypothermia. That’s how Mom got “Lucky,” no pun intended, but a good pun all the same.
I’d told the husband then what I told him now once my brain connected to my mouth. ”If you’re going to raise pigs, you sit there with that sow while she farrows, and you sit there three days more. Then you keep a wary ear out for another three weeks in case you hear a piglet scream its fool head off because Mom laid on him and isn’t getting up.”
And, if you want to raise pigs, that’s what you do, whether you farrow them in crates or you, preferably, pen farrow.
“Well, I thought that you said that, if I had trouble to call you,” he came back.
I’m thinking to myself, This isn’t ‘trouble’. This isn’t a stuck pig, a prolapsed uterus, or anything dire. This is you wanting to go gad-about, and your sow is farrowing at an inconvenient moment. You didn’t think ahead, and now you want somebody to pig-sit while you go to some play-date. What I said was, “I’m sorry. I’m totally buried in work. I can’t help you. But, you know, if you have pigs, you are obligated to be there when they farrow. It’s part of the contract.”
Later, I found out that good old “boyo” went off on his weekend, anyway, the selfish asshole. What was the big ‘date’? He had a pool tournament over in Montana. Had to go suck down brewsky and rack ‘em up, you know, or the world just wouldn’t be right.
Bullshit.
If this person ever has the audacity to call me again, I think I’ll tear him a new one, and, believe me, I’m capable. People like this should NOT have animals. None. Not ever.
I hope one day, if he has a daughter or granddaughter, when she goes into labor and everybody is expecting the obstetrician to attend, that, when the call comes, old doc says, “Oh, sorry. Timing’s off. I’ve got a pool tournament over at Jug’s Bar. She’ll have to fend for herself.”
Recently, an online group decided that they would like to try their hand at commercial work. We’re talking a mix of professional people and skilled amateurs who are pretty dedicated to their avocation. All members are very talented people.
Of the pros, most are actively working, but, with the economy the way it is, it never hurts to have something cooking on the back burner. Among the skilled amateurs are some people who are looking for work along with those who have jobs or who are retired.
So what happens? When it comes to a test “job” with a generous deadline, what we get are the professionals hopping right in and doing right away while the amateurs most in need of work wind up no-shows or making excuses.
Needless to say, the project is already failed before it’s even started. Odd thing is that, from the onset, a couple of us knew it was going to wind up just the way it did. It showed in the manner in which work was done in the group all along–a couple of initiators, the rest kinda sorta going along when it suited their tastes and their private schedules.
The lesson? There are doers, and then there’s everybody else.
The group? It’s still a functioning group, and I’m sure it will remain so, but it certainly demonstrated quite realistically and inarguably that, when it comes to succeeding in a commercial project, everybody has to hold a professional discipline or it just will never get off the ground.
Spirit of the moon,
Rising at the death of solar light,
Furls the wings of eagles' flight
Until the images of night
Are but an echo.
June, 1990
I've got long legs, and I absolutely love footless tights by Cette.
And, if you are at ALL athletic like I am. In other words, you DON'T look like you've got two hinged toothpicks attached to your crotch, MyTights has you in mind, too. Since I am athletic -- horseback riding, hiking, biking, climbling, as well as martial arts, well, I've got a bit of muscle on, and, believe me when I say that MyTights is terrific!
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Jun | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | ||
zentao.com
