Woke up this morning. Was just thrilled about that. Actually, I woke up pissed off that I was waking up. Because I wasn’t supposed to go to sleep last night. Laid down for a nap at 1am which, looking back, wasn’t a good idea. It never is.

Anyway, woke up. Went through the overnight emails, did the usual dicking around that takes place every morning for the first half-hour to hour. To two.

Beautiful day out. My god, a beautiful day. Take the scooter, run to the photo shop for about 30 minutes. Leave there, go meet some friends for a coffee on Ocean Drive. There about an hour. See some other friends, talk to them, then meet up with them for about 30 minutes farther down Ocean.

Wow, the people are out. I want to stay and take photos, but I have to get home. So I hop on the scooter, come home.

Home. Crap, I need milk. Scooter once more to go to Walgreens. Make the left on Jefferson and I see a great shot that I just passed so I pull over to the side to take the shot. As I do so, I realize that an officer has JUST turned on his red/blue lights.

Busted.

I’ve been driving around with expired temp tags and a suspended license. For a while now. All of this was completely unnecessary, too. At the beginning of the new year, I paid the fines which were holding my license in suspension. Had already taken care of the tickets which were keeping me from getting my tag. All I had to do was go across the bridge to the DMV, pay $45 to re-instate my license, and I was done. Could go pick up my tag then. Did I do that? No.

So my license was taken today and I walked the scooter home. Was grateful it wasn’t impounded.

It’s been a while since I’ve spent my time on foot in this town. I used to walk in South Beach all the time, rarely driving. It’s been a while.

I get home and I realize, “I don’t really need milk right now. I can probably wait a few hours before I have to walk to the store. What else do I need while I’m there?”

I need to get my license taken care of. And tags. ASAP.

Alright, I’m counting this one as a failure. A while back, I ditched my SC area code, got a GoPhone from AT&T. Bought some minutes.

GoPhone for me = fail.

Everything was hunky dory when nobody called me, when nobody texted me. $50-$60 a month was fine. Now, people want to call and text all the time.

I just put another $25 on my phone. It ran out of minutes a couple of days ago. I let it sit. Second time I’ve done that. It pisses people off that they can’t call me for some reason.

But I put $25 on it today. Already, $7 are gone. I blew $7 today on phone calls. I could have called China! It’s like everyone knows when I refill my minutes and they use that day to call me! I mean, I love people and I love talking to them and I don’t want to not talk to them and I certainly don’t want them to stop calling me because of minutes.

But my god. GoPhone = fail.

I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve been selected as one of the artists for the upcoming Life Is Art, Miami Featured Artist Fair being held March 7th from 2pm-10pm in the Wynwood Arts District. The press release on the Life Is Art website offers this description of the fair and the goal of its organizers:

The Miami art scene is exploding. America’s largest art week recently passed, surrounding Art Basel Miami Beach, featuring dozens of art fairs and tens of thousands of art patrons. The monthly art walks all across Miami bustle with more and more people, where just a few years ago they were quiet. Art galleries are springing up all across the city. People travel from all over the world to discover what we already know: Miami, the Magic City, has a creative soul.

Co-founder James Echols said, “We have seen such a growth of gifted artists in Miami, yet there seems to be a lack of focus on our own locals.” The other fairs and galleries feature artists from all over the world, which is a wonderful thing. “But, we have such talent in our own back yard that we decided that there should be a fair with a Miami focus,” Echols said.

I’m truly, truly flattered to have my work featured in this.

I will have a select few framed prints on display which will also be available for purchase. In order to represent what I shoot as accurately as possible, the prints will be a relatively balanced mix of images pulling from both The Model Shoots and Street +/ Life galleries including one or two images which I’ve never released.

The Life is Art, Miami Featured Artist Fair will be held March 7th, 2009 from 2pm to 10pm in the Wynwood Arts District at 120 NW 25th Street, Miami, Fl. I sincerely hope that my friends will come out, not just to support me but to support the other artists being featured.

Got an email earlier tonight from support at eFax who I signed up with a while back. I had meant to cancel the account a while back since I never use it but had forgotten to do so; the email jarred my memory.

I go to their site to cancel my account. Where’s the cancel button? Not in my profile. Not in billing options, not in preferences, not in account management anywhere. Click on help. Search for “cancel”. Link to an article comes up. The article says you have to enter a chat conversation with their staff to cancel your account.

Well, this just sucks monkey balls.

Fine, I’ll click on the blue button and chat with someone.

Welcome to chat.
{Scott} I’d like to cancel my account.
The session has been accepted.
{Dennis G.} Hello, Scott. Welcome to j2 Global online support. I am Dennis, your online live Support Representative. How are you doing today?

Really wish I had had the time to respond to Dennis’ question here. To be honest, I needed a friend to talk to and Dennis was there to listen. I wonder if Dennis and I could’ve been friends. In fact, maybe that’s what my response should’ve been. Just a simple question, “Dennis, will you be my friend?”

Sadly, I didn’t have the time, because the message from him was instantly followed by the next one.

{Dennis G.} I am sorry to hear that you wish to cancel. Could you please provide me your fax number as well as the PIN for verification?
{Scott} 305-xxx-xxxx, the pin is xxxx
{Dennis G.} Thank you for providing your information. Please give me a moment while I go through your records. In the meantime, please type the number corresponding to your reason for cancellation:
1) Moving to another provider
2) Bought a fax machine
3) Business or role changed
4) Short term project completed
5) Financial reasons
6) Problems with faxing or billing
7) Dissatisfied with quality of service
Too costly
{Scott} 2

Why, Dennis didn’t really care at all! I’m glad I didn’t ask him if we could be friends. It was all business with him! It seemed the friend I saw in Dennis was an illusion and that Dennis was sitting there, prepared for people like me with copy and paste text in another window to post as instant responses in order to save time.

{Dennis G.} Scott, I understand that currently you have a limited usage of our services. In the current situation, we will waive off the monthly fee for the next two billing cycles. You can use the fax service without the monthly fee for the next two billing cycles. Usage charges for sending faxes will apply. Please feel free to contact us at any time. This way you will be able to keep your fax number, which will enable you to send and receive any pending faxes with your number.
{Dennis G.} Your eFax account will be credited with $33.90 so that you may utilize our services without being billed our monthly fee for the next two billing cycles.
{Dennis G.} Since you will not be charged any monthly fee for the next two months you could keep the account till then. If however, you still feel that you do not have any use for our services by the end of this two months credit period, then you can always contact us back anytime. Will it be fine with you?

Another block of text. This personal experience of chatting with Dennis, eFax’s representative, was becoming less and less personal. I’m just a customer. And not a very valued one. But then, I guess nobody is if this is the way they part company with their customers. I just want to get away from this conversation. Yet I have no choice.

{Scott} No, I really have no intention of using the service. Everyone I deal with accepts scans of docs and jpgs sent over. So for me, it’s just money down the drain. Thanks, though.
{Dennis G.} I completely understand your wish to discontinue, since you have paid for the current billing cycle, you can retain this number at least till the end of two months credit offer as you will not be charged any monthly fee for the two billing cycles.
{Dennis G.} As a good will gesture, we will offer you an additional gift balance of $10 along with the monthly credit, which will enable to send up to 100 additional fax pages free of cost (per page per minute within US & Canada). However usage charges are applicable for sending faxes if any.
{Dennis G.} At the end of the 2 months credit period, you can get back to us immediately without any further obligation to stay back. We are available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Please feel free to contact us at any time. We will immediately process your request.
{Dennis G.} You can have it as your backup number for this period.

Hm. Well….maybe there’s a heart in there after all! Maybe Dennis and eFax DO care about me!!!

{Scott} Just one question… will an automatic rebill occur at the end of two months? I appreciate the gesture.
{Dennis G.} Please be assured, you will not be charged any monthly fees during this two months credit period. Only usage charges are applicable for sending faxes if any. After the end of two months credit period you will be charged regular monthly fee for maintaining the account.
{Dennis G.} If you feel that after the two months of credit period the number still does not serve your purpose you can get back to us anytime via the same chat session, there is certainly no obligation to stay back. We are available 24X7.

Another block of text all sent at once. A prepared answer.
You’re dead to me, Dennis. Off my list of possible friends. eFax isn’t winning any points here, either, by pretending to be all personal when, in fact, this is entirely impersonal and just an attempt to keep yanking money out of my bank every month.

{Scott} No thanks. Just cancel it now. I don’t want the two-month credit.
{Dennis G.} Okay, I understand and respect your decision for cancellation. I will cancel your account with us immediately.
{Dennis G.} We are sorry that you have decided to leave us. I will take care of the cancellation process immediately. However, if your faxing needs do change in the future, we would be more than happy to have you back.
{Dennis G.} Is there anything else that, I can assist you with?
{Scott} That’s it, thanks.
{Dennis G.} Pleasure to be of assistance.
{Dennis G.} Thank you for contacting j2 Global Online Support. Good-bye and take care!
The user has ended the session.

After I typed, my last statement, Dennis’s messages came instantly again and he was the user ending the session so abruptly. Not me. There was no saying our goodbyes. No, “I’ll be seeing you around the net, haha.” Nothing.

And wha… wait? j2 Global Support? You mean this was outsourced? That fact right there greatly reduced the odds of me building a relationship with Dennis and eFax. And by relationship what I mean is hot steamy sex. Me and eFax under the sheets.

No, I mean a customer to business relationship where the customer is valued and not pawned off like some number.

I knew Dennis and I would never be friends. I knew we wouldn’t. But it would’ve been nice if eFax had trained their staff to pretend to care. Or sent instructions to their outsourced staff to break away from script. But then… well, no.

I didn’t need to suffer through any of this. And poor Dennis… his job can be replaced by just a little bit of coding on the eFax website. Put a cancel account button on the site. After people click it, present them with the offer that Dennis made. Then, let them click, “Yes, I’m sure I want to cancel,” or “No, I want to take advantage of this offer.”

I would’ve been a much happier departing customer with that option rather than suffering through the impersonal touch.

Some nights are sleepless.  For any number of reasons.  Video here.

Got a letter from my old private school today, a little different than normal; not directly soliciting for contributions. Instead, it was a letter looking for alumni to contact families in their neighborhoods and mention the school to them.

Interestingly, they also included a DVD which they’ve had put together of the school. I’m looking forward to watching that. They also included a fact sheet. Tuition has gone up again. It’s now $37,300 a year for 7-day boarding students (as opposed to the $10K for tuition when I was attending toward the end of the paleolithic era).

My neighbors are: one gay childless couple, one fantabulously swinging gay guy, and a young Latino couple living in the studio across the hall. I can’t see me having conversations with any of them about it.

Rushed through a shoot last week; blew an entire set, both photos and video. Bothered by that. The girls are cool with coming back this next week to re-shoot so I guess it’s okay. I just hate that I wasted their time. And mine.

Reason for failure? Inadequate lighting. Shooting in natural light, supplementing with additional light as needed is not a problem for me. Shooting entirely in studio lights is a problem. Well, not really, but I didn’t take the time to set things up; the shoot was rushed. Had we shot simply an hour earlier, everything would’ve been perfect. I hate messing up like that. And rushing through anything isn’t good.

What’s funny is that about two or three days later, I had a very last minute shoot. Somewhat rushed. Two different girls. But it was all in natural light. The shots are much better, but that time, I didn’t take enough time to direct the models for the shots. Came out better, though, from a technical standpoint.

I’ll be really glad to get back to shooting normal life. Soon, hopefully.

I met a girl the other day who was fairly new in the country. She had just gotten married for that whole citizenship thing. Nice girl. Sweet. I wonder who she married. I would be lying if I said that the thought of marrying someone under those circumstances hasn’t crossed my mind many times since then.

I could love a girl like that, although love is probably irrelevant. Damn. Back to the relationship drawing board.

I had a shoot Saturday morning, one I wasn’t entirely planning on having until about 18 hours prior. Christie called me, said she wanted to shoot with another girl, Salome, who I had never met.  This was the first shoot where I shot a girl without having ever even at least seen a photograph of her beforehand.  Wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but I’ll go on record now as saying: I’m willing to take the risk of shooting a model who I’ve never seen prior to the time she walks through my front door.

Salome = beauty.

And of course, Christie does, too.    I’m going to publish the photos separately under two sets.  For now, all of Salome’s photos can be seen under the tag Salome.  Some of these photos will not be safe for work.

Sometime in the past week (I can’t be sure when since my numbering system is off), I hit the 100,000 photo mark. 100,000 photos since January of last year with my DSLR. Yikes. How did I take so many photos? And of what? Oh, I remember. Life and models.