Arkansas with the family
Just got back from 4 days in Arkansas with the family. My grandmother turned 84. We shot lots of fireworks off on the 4th at my uncle's place in the country. I took lots of pictures - i don't know if anything is going to come out. I shot some with infrared film, which i've only used once before. My cousin and I took a couple hours to run around town and find signs of neglected and abandoned buildings and such being overrun by foliage. I think i got a decent shot or two, but i won't know for sure till the end of the week. More when i get pictures back.
My father has fallen in love with his dog. Once upon a time, my dad used to ask "why do people own those tiny little hairball dogs?" When my stepmother decided she wanted a Westie, my father rolled his eyes and moaned about stupid animals. He was horrified at the thought of this little dog, because he knew he'd be stuck with scooping poop and walking the dog. He fought tooth and nail against the aquisition of this animal. He was a rational human being.
Today I went to visit my father. He just returned from the annual family vacation to Florida. So there I am watching videos of my father, stepmother, nephew, and my father's dog combing the beaches and sunning themselves on the porch of their rental house. The camera follows my nephew through a tour of the house until it comes to the dog - out fades the nephew, and the camera zooms in for a tight close-up on a fluffy little white face.
Yes, the dog got to go on vacation. Says my father "Well, you know, it makes more sense than putting her in a kennel. She could catch something from some strange dog and it's just so expensive...." Lots of excuses, but I believe he couldn't stand the idea of a week away from his new love.
But you know, if he's happy, more power to them both.
I'm way excited about the pages i'm making now. I've got this really great book, and i'm learning all kinds of no doubt trivial yet to me fascinating things like putting .swf files inside eachother (ok, actually just referencing eachother and all, but still...)
I'll be teaching again in the fall. I'm hoping they'll offer me another class come spring - they're talking about letting me do digital photography, which would be way fun. Granted i'd be all stressed again because it'd mean designing a whole new course, but i think i could probably survive it now that the Web Design class is fairly solid.
Oh, and i learned about pre-loaders and the bandwidth profiler (ooooh...) Yeah, I'm qualified to teach. Really....
There's somebody having a party here tonight, and not only is there nowhere to park, but they're making my walls shake with the really really really lame ass music they're 'pumpin'. Starting to piss me off.... after the last few days at work i'm just not in the mood to be confrontational tho, so i'll give 'em till midnight.
Mom's going to China tomorrow. i wanna go to China and stay at the Ritz for a week. it's no fair.
allen's sitting here staring at me.