For nearly two months I've been dealing with the latest wave of troubles from my wireless provider -- Cingular, or rather SUCKULAR. I'm being billed for roaming and long-distance when my plan is roaming and long-distance-free! This month I had over $120 in roaming charges on my bill. Each month, I have to spend at least an hour on the phone getting them to correct the bill, and of course I still manage to get charged a little more than I should because we miss a couple of items. Not only that, I am missing a number of important calls each week. Being a freelancer, I depend on my phone for access to work, and I am missing out because of cingular wireless' incompetence.

I've decided to give Smug Mug a try -- this way, those of you who would like to have inexpensive prints of my work may do so without having to try to find me to do the printing and shipping. Joy!

I'm almost embarrassed to write about my latest gadget. It's something that I should have come up with ages ago, but for some reason have just recently decided to develop. The item, affectionately called my “doomsday device” is a portable (40+ lbs.) AC power supply, consisting of a 20 amp-hour 12-volt sealed lead acid battery and a 300-watt pure sine wave power inverter. A charger for the battery is de reguer. A grounding spike is optional, but probably handy. It's all mounted in an anvil-style case that I purchased years ago, and for which I haven't had much use in recent years. The components cost about $250.00, and it took about a full day to assemble and troubleshoot when problems arose. I'd pondered purchasing the Vagabond power supply from the Alien Bees folks to power some White Lightning strobes that I picked up used at a camera shop in Autin, but I wasn't thrilled about the $500.00 price tag, or the appearance (the bag in particular didn't appeal to me). My solution was cheaper and, from what I can gather from reviews of the Vagabond, superior. Being a photographer, I have often been challenged by the prospect of shooting on location where there is no access to AC power. I rarely sweated it, though, since I have a number of Quantum batteries and small strobes that tend to suit my needs. However, I had to acknowledge that I lacked the ability to deliver enough strobe power to illuminate a group of people in low-light. The situation would come up when photographing musical bands in their preferred settings, such as cow pastures and derelict buildings.

I've uploaded a couple of art photos to my cafepress site, and have been at work revising the logo art for Migrant Filmmaker.

I just noticed the time -- more later!