I just wrapped on a short film contest project in which I was Director of Photography. We shot for three days around Irving, Texas for the 4th annual Eighth Day of Creation film festival. Shooting with a skeleton crew and the bare minimum of resources, I think that we did a fine job of delivering the narrative for the story. I wish we could have added about a dozen more shots, as I'm sure the director, Aaron Marquette would have.

It's a damn good thing that my life didn't depend on the prescription that it took days to get filled at the local CVS Pharmacy. When I decided that I had enough time to negotiate for it, I had to sit in the drive-thru for nearly forty minutes! I watched as other cars that had pulled in behind me abandoned the hope of picking up their prescriptions one by one. Last night I went to the Walgreens across the street from the CVS to transfer the prescription, and was amazed when they were able to fill it in under ten minutes. So long, CVS!

This doesn't feel like it will be a full-on rant, but I definitely need to vent. It's a topic that certainly frustrates my wife when I tell her about it, and I think that I've simply trained myself to tolerate it. While it is always exciting to meet a new client who promises to hire me for future gigs, it is a real pisser to wait for that client to pay as promised. I used to work for a guy locally who was a super slow-pay. Once when I did a job for him, he later told me that his client didn't pay him, and so he wouldn't be paying the crew. Talk about frustration. After a while I decided that it was less stressful to not work at all than to wait 90 days to get paid. For his sake, I'll refer to him as Bozo #3. I seem to have met a new Bozo client. This one promised to pay me the day the work was done, but forgot the check. Then promised to pay on the second day of the shoot. Nothing. Promised to pay "right away" while loading the truck. That was a month ago. I've sent follow-up reminders and was told that the check went out at the beginning of last week. Mail doesn't take this long to travel the hundred miles that separate us. At the end of this week, I'll publish this latest Bozo's name in the interest of protecting the interests of those who may crew for him in the future.

It's Friday, and since I'll be travelling this weekend I've decided to go ahead and take a step toward revealing the identity of the no-pay bozo. His name without the first letter of each name is _red _artzen. I'll fill-in the blanks on Tue when I've had a chance to check my mailbox.