office tree, Amazon.ca reply

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my brother-in-law Kaarel today!

Got home at 10 pm last night, have to leave 8 am this morning to be at the house for the carpet installer (he didn't get quite finished last week), little time to Blather. I am also behind in e-mail; thanks for your patience. I wanted to thank those who sent cards and postcards to my P.O. Box, however: more on this soon, as well as pics. And YAY, my copy of Riverfolk's new Meander CD has arrived! Excited about listening to it.

Worked on my office tree yesterday while two guys from Cleanol were cleaning our ducts at the new house. After the experiment on my door, I'm getting a tad better at brushwork. But wow, I am definitely going to have to get higher quality brushes. My cheapo bristle brushes were falling apart by the end of yesterday afternoon, little hairs sticking out at annoying angles and refusing to be straightened out, ugh.

Anyway, finished the trunk and branches, working on leaves next. I was pretty happy with how it turned out, considering how little experience I have in this medium and with drawing trees. I used Burnt Sienna for the initial tree outline and shape, then Burnt Umber and a bit of Cadmium Yellow to add some texture and shading; I also experimented with dabbing and rolling the brush for different effects.

And an Amazon.ca / Harry Potter delivery update! Looks like someone at Amazon.ca does read those feedback forms after all. I received an e-mail containing an apology AND letting me know that my full payment will be refunded.

My disappointment in getting the book two days late and faith in their customer service has been much mellowed. Instead of feeling bitter about the whole experience, I'm walking away thinking more highly of the company. They could have ignored the problem (as so many companies do) or pointed fingers ("It was Canada Post's fault!"), but they didn't.

Kudos to Amazon for turning a messy situation into good PR for the company.

THREE DAYS until we spend our first night in our new house.

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doodles on my door

So my Harry Potter book DID arrive yesterday. The Canada Post guy said that the late arrival was due to the fact they had too much mail to deliver, so not all the packages got sent on time. So it turns out the fellow I talked to yesterday wasn't kidding when he said there weren't enough trucks to deliver all those Harry Potter books!

My frustration yesterday, by the way, wasn't so much to do with not getting the book on time (though I was disappointed, of course) but more to do with the overall decline of customer service these days. Mistakes happen, but many companies don't seem to realize that how they handle damage control is just as important as trying to prevent those mistakes.

As soon as they knew some deliveries were going to be late, Amazon should have sent out a notice letting customers know and apologizing for the inconvenience. Throwing some extra shopping credit would have been nice, but just the acknowledgement that something had screwed up would have made a world of difference to me.

Canada Post should have warned its employees what had happened and coached them on how to handle calls like mine. Tip #1 should have been: "DON'T gloat over the fact that you've read the book already."

But moving on...FOUR DAYS until we spend our first night in our new house! Jeff and I were at the house until nearly 1 am last night. I'm going there again today, and I also need to check my P.O. box. Here are some pics...

I painted the outside of my office door:



And inside:



It was the first time I had used acrylics. I was surprised at how goopy and thick the paint was, but perhaps the texture was because I was using cheap acrylics; I had to thin out the paint with the Retarder liquid which was recommended by a store clerk in Curry's. I'm also using super-cheap brushes (8 for $10) but since I lack experience with expensive brushes, I don't really know how much of a difference this is making in the process.

Tough at first to overcome my childhood-trained instinct NOT TO DRAW ON THE WALL, but once I overcame that inhibition, I started having way too much fun.

:-)

I'm going to turn one part of my office into a magnetic wall:



Jeff cleaning the kitchen:



Black-eyed Susans are starting to bloom:



And our daylilies are in full bloom:



New tub and tiles:



Jeff chose the sink below. I thought it looked too shallow to be practical, but it actually does work (i.e. water doesn't splash out). The bathroom vanity was custom-made by Sean Robson, our wonderful contractor guy. The counter is poured concrete!

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Why I take photos

I've had a digital camera for as long as I can remember. I actually did bring myself to finally toss the old print camera. It weighed about a ton, I believe. I cringe when I remember how much I spent on developing prints, and usually only liked a few shots per roll of film even then.

I have two types of photo-taking modes:

1. Archival: To help me remember or capture the essence of a trip, a thing, a person, an event, a moment.

2. Because I like how something looks. I tend to like interesting patterns, textures, colour contrasts, play of light.



I've noticed that context matters a lot when it comes to appreciating photos, and that part of a good photographer's skill is to be able to crop an interesting photo out of a mediocre one, to see the beauty or photo-worthy elements in what most people would barely notice. Almost anyone can take a good photo of a gorgeous sunset or a beautiful flower.

I'm still working on this.

I tend to enjoy photographing people more than I do inanimate objects. It's a challenge, because most people feel self-conscious in front of the camera, or they're moving. I'm happy when I manage to take a photo that captures the essence of how I see a particular person, especially someone I like. It's why I try not to post unflattering photos (distorted mouths mid-word or mid-chew, etc.) unless they're mugging on purpose. :-)



Because of this, I never post ALL the photos I take; some people have asked me to do so after a convention, but I say no. Main reason: I take a zillion because I know I'll end up dumping at least 3/4 of my photos, probably more. The only times I keep a bad photo is when it's my only record of an event or object I'd really like to remember. And even after my editing, I'll only post a fraction of the ones I keep.

Anyway, I started thinking about the whole photo-taking thing while I was archiving some of our Japan trip photos from 2001 on Flickr; feel free to take a peek if you'd like. Somewhat sobering to see the photos near the end of the trip; Jeff and I were supposed to fly home on Sept.11th.

Speaking of Japanese things, I'm going to kill my friend Ray for sending me a link to this MPEG, whose insidious little jingle has been going through my head over and over AND OVER recently AAAUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.

Going to the new house later today...

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burning schoolhouses and trebuchets

Explanation of my photo above: Jeff and I were watching a Wonderfalls DVD last night, and you can see the paused reflection of the TV screen in the centre of the photo; I didn't notice it at first until I realized that that particular building didn't -have- a giant tv screen billboard. Bizarre how it looks as if it belongs there in a Bladerunner-ish sort of way.



When I was a little kid, my dad used to light home fireworks in front of our house on O'Connor Drive. My favourite, which always came last, was the burning schoolhouse. I used to draw little paper people and put them in the schoolhouse before we set fire to it. Morbid little kid, eh?

I mention fireworks because it was Victoria Day yesterday in Canada, and Jeff and I watched the lakeshore fireworks display from his mom's condo window. I took some photos, but fireworks photos never look nearly as impressive as they should; feel free to check them out anyway, if you'd like. Took the photo at the bottom of the page after the display was over, out another window.

Cool photo link:
My friend Harald built a trebuchet! He'll be posting a report in his blog soon.

Three more days.

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revenge of the sith

I saw the new Star Wars movie twice on the weekend. Since Allison summarized my feelings about the movie so perfectly in her own review, I'm just going to point people to read that instead of duplicating. (*Warning*: spoilers in her review, so don't read it unless you've already seen the movie)

Speaking of Allison, here's a sketch I did of her in Corel Painter:



5 more days until we get the house.

(4 days if you're reading this entry on Monday. :-) )

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