Woke up at 7am. Took the dogs to the vet for boarding, it was very sad. I hate having to leave my dogs there. Hope they'll be ok. Ate donuts and coffee for breakfast. Met my parents at home drove to the airport. Breakfast made me sick, so I had to run to the bathroom when we got there. The was long and uneventful. They showed the Stepford Wives, which was surprisingly good, but I would like to see the original. Got into Las Vegas and found out that Lindsey had missed her flight. She took a second flight to Dallas and should be here around 7pm. We're staying at the Bellagio. It is freaking ridiculous. I have never seen such a large and extravagant hotel. As we drove into Vegas, I marveled at the plastic glamour of the city. It's like an alternative reality. Like being in a movie. Emily got me tickets to George Carlin for my birthday. I can't wait. He's my favorite comedian.

Later- We ate dinner at the Bellagio's buffet. I have never seen so much food in one place. Except maybe at the supermarket. And I don't think I've ever eaten as much in one sitting. It didn't seen like that much though, because we spaced out the courses. Everything was good. We met up with Lindsey at the MGM Grand, just before George Carlin took the stage. He was amazing. Most of the routine centered on his idea for a suicide TV channel. Hilarious. After the show, we walked down the strip and marveled at the campy, consumerist trash that is the strip. I was amazed and horrified. I can see how this place can get real old real fast, but for some reason I never want to leave. Everyone tries to look and act like they have money. But the casinos are the only ones who really do.

I have moved ten times in the last five years. I'm sick of it. Hopefully I will stay in the new apartment for a while. Em and I have started packing re-packing our stuff to prepare for the move. We brought everything except our clothes and business stuff downstairs and started taping up the boxes. Luckily most of our stuff is still in boxes, so we won't have too much to pack.

Oh, and we got Franklin Covey planners. Holy crap! I am addicted. I don't know how I survived without it. My hands were covered with notes, my pockets were full of little scraps of paper and I forgot every appointment I ever made. Now I have a nice little book that tells me everything I need to know and gives me plenty of room to write any notes. Never again will I have to rely on my defective memory. I have purchased three other planners in the last five years, but I never used them. Or I used it for a few weeks then stopped. This one is an hundred times better than any of the others because it actually give me room to write. It has a page a day, complete with room for a to-do list, appointment schedule and a whole page of notes.

I spent most of the day buying stuff for the new apartment. Em and I got a new mattress. A good one this time. Our last one was a piece of crap foam mattress that we got at Ikea. It gave us permanent back problems. We went to Appliance Direct for a washer/dryer. It was exciting because we have never bought appliances before. We ended up getting some high quality brand name units with slight dents, for a very good price. I just hope they work.

In the early evening, we went to the Salvation Army to help my dad with his new photography project. He will be visiting the Salvation Army every couple weeks for the next few months, taking pictures of the people who come to the soup kitchen and eventually holding a gallery show to raise money for the organization. Today was the first day. The people were pretty skeptical; they thought we were from America's Most Wanted or something. We were able to convince five people to sit for pictures. Hopefully we will build trust over time.

Em and I stopped by the printer this morning, before going to Orlando. They were suppose to have our business cards and order forms done last Friday, but they still weren't done. We are suppose to bring our Heritage insert to their office on Wednesday morning. The printer promised us that they could have it done and they better do it on time. We did a pickup in Casselberry before heading over to our new apartment to drop off our deposit. The people in the office at the new apartment were disorganized. They couldn't find our file, so it ended up taking much longer than it should. All I wanted to do was give them money! We were a little late meeting my grandma at my parents' house. We were there to reshoot the Lifetime Tribute Video demo (the original was poorly lit). It took us a while to set up the lights correctly, and it still didn't look as good as we wanted them to. We just have to buy better lights. By the time everything was set up and Grandma started talking, I had to go drop off the Photo Slide-Show that we had been working on. When I got home, the interview was over. I made chicken for dinner tonight. It didn't come out that well because it was kosher chicken and I didn't have enough coals for the grill (so it was crappy tasting and undercooked).

My parents had a brunch for some of the top photographers in the state (Greg and Lesa Daniel, Tim Kelly, and Peter Burg). Em and I went to play Cash Flow, but we never ended up playing. Instead we got some really good advice from the photographers; they target the same people we do and they've been doing it for much longer than we have. Basically they said that we should make our product really high class and up the price. Sounds good to me. Now we have to look into designers to help with our image.

I am obsessed with news. Most days I will spend up to three hours reading online news stories. I read major newspapers, TV news web sites, foreign news (including Algazeera and BBC), independent news, blogs and weird news sites. It is really a problem. I waste way too much time reading that crap. So, I have made a decision. I will only read one news source, the New York Times. By limiting myself to one source, hopefully, I will limit the amount of time I spend reading this crap.

Our 1/4 page ads finally came out in the big glossy magazines. Already we have gotten more calls from them, then from all of the smaller ads combined. Either our small ads were too small to read or the nice magazines are better at attracting serious customers.

A couple days ago, Em and I conducted a video interview of Grandma Lil. She gave a nice interview, full of interesting stories. Yesterday we spent the entire day editing a rough cut. It looks very good and my parents were impressed. My sister was in for the weekend. She slept over here last night, but got in too late to hang out.

Today, Em and I conducted another video interview for Marc Schwartz's grandmother. This interview was much more difficult; her family members were seated far apart while asking the questions. It was almost impossible to mic them all at once. The grandmother couldn't remember much about her history (she is 98 years old), but she was in good spirits, so it didn't really matter. Editing will be a bitch. I have no idea how we will cut together a coherent video. We'll just have to do our best...

I finished writing the short story I was working on (it wasn't suppose to be a short story, but it just turned out that way). I have been working on typing it into my word processor, but progress has been slow. Copying and editing the text just doesn't hold my interest. Next time I will just type the damn thing to begin with. It is 30 pages hand written. So far, I have typed maybe 15. Hopefully it will be done soon and maybe I will post it. But don't hold your breath

Congratulations to George Bush for winning the election (he even got the popular vote this time, way to go buddy!). The real loser this time is not John Kerry, it is the American people. My prediction is that the deficit will grow larger, more Americans will die overseas, and we will soon be barred from leaving the country because no one will want the dirty infidels stepping on their holy soil. I digress, we are suppose to respect the democratic process and put our full support behind the President (even if he was elected by a bunch of war loving rednecks, who voted for him based on biblical morality and the guise of patriotism). Sorry, I got off topic again. Maybe I should stop writing about politics for a little while.

Emily and I have been busy redesigning our business card sized ads. We realized that the text was too small, so we had to change the layout (I should say, SHE had to change the layout around - I don't deal with design issues). Our quarter page ads finally came out in the nice glossy magazines. They look really good and will hopefully attract some new customers. Yesterday, we shot a Lifetime Tribute Video of my grandma to use as a demo. The interview came out very well. Now we're working on editing it.

Lindsey is coming down this weekend. She'll probably come to the beach this weekend. Should be lots of fun! Oh, and yesterday Emily and I signed a lease on our new apartment! We have been looking for months, and finally found the right one. It is a villa style apartment (like a one story town house), no neighbors above or below us, a nice little fenced in back yard, a very large bedroom and a perfect space for our business. Plus, the rent is cheap and it has everything we were looking for. I can't wait to move in!

Whoever wins the election, I hope we don't have four more years of lies, deceit, unjustified wars, corruption, expanding government and inflated budget deficit.

I want to talk about the new Bin Laden video. It was really surprising to hear him speaking directly to the American people without simply making vague threats. It turns out that his values are very similar to ours! He wants security and freedom. His message was basically, "we will leave you alone if you leave us alone". Airing the tape days before the election was a huge blow to president Bush. It tells the American people that after 3 years of searching, we still can't find him. Maybe if we hadn't diverted so many troops to Iraq, he would have been caught.

Tonight Emily and I saw the movie Saw. There is no good way to say that. Maybe I should say that we watched the movie Saw. Anyway, the acting sucked but the plot was amazing. Definitely worth seeing for a good scare.

Is everyone ready for the election scandal of 2004? I sure am. I can't wait for the ballots to disappear, the polling places to move, the allegations of voter fraud, and the recounts. Our country is already seen as a bunch of incompetent trigger happy buffoons. The upcoming election is only going to make it worse. If we can't hold fair elections in this county, how can we ever hope to impose a stable democracy on other countries. How can our democracy ever be considered legitimate, when the person who wins the popular vote doesn't win the election? When some voters count more than others (for example, in Wyoming they have about 70,000 people to each electoral college vote, while California has over 200,000 people for each electoral college vote)? When candidates will only campaign in swing states, because they are the only states that matter? We must update our democracy for the 21st century. The electoral college was setup in a time when people were too ill informed to make their own choices. Are we still ill informed? Maybe we are. Television commercials are the basis of our political decisions and the debates are little more than alternating speeches. The candidates must pander to the corporations that donate the most money and refuse to take a stance on issues that might disenfranchise voters in their key constituencies. Political parties limit the issues to simple black and white sound bites. Candidates are pigeonholed into the ideals of the party. The country is more polarized than ever. Forced to chose between the extremes. Making choices based on what candidates say rather than what they do.

I would support Bush on economic issues, if I made a decision solely based on what he says. I agree with his policy of lowering taxes to help small businesses create jobs and grow the economy. However, I will never support Bush, because he does not do what he says. He has given enormous tax breaks, corporate welfare and no bid contracts to the largest companies in the country. This works against small businesses and the average citizen, because it stifles the economy and rewards large companies for shipping jobs overseas. The result is the largest deficit in history. I will be paying off his mistakes for the rest of my life.

Emily and I have begun seriously working on the "Oral History Video" idea for our company. We made a long list of questions and are working on the advertising materials.

We had my parents over this weekend for Biketoberfest. It was the typical mix of alcohol, exhaust, confederate flags and cheap leather. I saw many more Japanese bikes than I have in the past. A sign of growing tolerance? Who knows. We didn't stay very long though. The bikes were largely unimpressive and the crowd was obnoxious. For the real bike week, we are going to invite Emily's parents to come stay with us and neglect to tell them about the bike rally just to freak them out.

Emily and I went to a Real Estate meeting with my mom last night. It was very interesting - the members come from all different backgrounds and facets of the business. We didn't stay very long, but we were there long enough to meet some of the major people and hear the best deals of the month. When we get our DVD business up and running, we are going to invest in a house, fix it up and resell it. The business seems exciting.

We are starting to get calls from our magazine ads. I wasn't expecting to get anything until our big glossy ads came out, so it's good to know that the smaller ads are working. The guy who is setting up our merchant account (so we can accept credit cards) came out for a meeting on Wednesday. Noting important, just some paperwork. We should have our credit card machine up and running some time next week.

I have been writing a story. It was originally going to be a novel, but I finished the story arc in only 30 pages, so maybe I'll use it as the treatment for a script. I don't know if I'm capable of writing a full novel yet. My last script was the longest thing I have ever written (126 pages), so maybe after writing a few more, I will be ready for something longer.

I have a nail in my tire. Stupid roofing work. I went to Tire Kingdom to get it fixed, but they said that I needed to replace the tire because the nail is in the side. I was afraid of that. Abe said he might be able to get me a deal. I will just have to drive to Orlando with the nail sticking out, and hope for the best.

Biketoberfest is this weekend. The city is already full of bikers. They roar up and down our street all night. I probably won't get a good night sleep until next week. This weekend my parents are going to come to the beach. We'll probably go watch the festivities near main street. Should be fun. I haven't seen a big bike rally in a few years.

I bought a new camera for $3 from a garage sale. It is an old Kodak folding camera from the 1920s. Shoots 120 film in the 6x9 aspect ratio. I have already shot a test roll and the pictures came out nice. I took some pictures at the beach last night (time exposures) and today. Trying to get some sweeping panoramas. They should come out well with such big negatives. I haven't even been shooting 35mm anymore. Can't stand the tiny size of the exposures. Although, it is annoying to scan the medium format film with Emily's scanner, because it is a flatbed and it always cuts off the edges of the film.

I'm thinking of changing the layout of my site again. I want to scale it down to just the blog, with the photos inserted below my text. That way it will be like a photo diary, with the photos in chronological order. What do you think?

Have you gone outside lately? I should revise that question... Have you gone outside lately in Florida? It is amazing. Just a few days ago it was hot and muggy. Suddenly it is cool and breezy. Just beautiful. I was actually shivering last night. And for the first time since I moved back down here, I had to break out the long slave shirts.

I heard that Bush was holding a rally in Daytona today. I wanted to go, just to see why anyone would even consider voting for him (maybe he has some kind of magical aura when your are in his presence, or something). But it turns out that you must declare your allegiance to lord Bush before receiving a ticket. As a registered independent, I would probably not be admitted. It seems strange though. Why even hold rallies? He is just traveling the country preaching to the quire. Wouldn't his time be better spent doing presidential things? Oh wait. We wouldn't want him doing that; he might screw things up even worse.

I have been reading Iraqi blogs for the last couple hours. Blogs from both sides, soldiers and citizens. Hearing what they have to say about daily life and the decisions of our government. Their lives are basically shit. Both sides having to deal with the brutal deaths of their friends and family members. Both sides constantly living in uncertainty. Constantly having to worry about their own safety. Knowing that their lives could end at any second. No warning. Only hope and faith sustains them. It is amazing how similar the two sides are.

Who is to blame for this inhuman situation? George Bush is the easy choice, but it is much more complicated than that. Going to war with the "terrorists" in Afghanistan was the logical reaction to 9-11. If we find the people who attacked our country, we might avert more attacks. Iraq, however, was a completely different situation. Bush turned his attention to Iraq before he was finished in Afghanistan. The mission was never accomplished! He tried to find Bin Laden and failed. Then he stopped trying. Iraq was a diversion.

He went into Iraq expecting to find WMD. Expecting to "liberate" the people and create a model democracy. Expecting the Iraqis to receive him with open arms. It's never that easy. Saddam Hussein was a terrible dictator, but storming in with a huge army and taking over the county by force is the wrong way to win over the people. Hans Blix and the UN weapons inspectors did not find any weapons. Iraq was not an imminent threat. There was no reason to attack! The whole situation could have been averted if Bush had not given up the search for Bin Laden. In my lifetime, I have not seen a worse failure.

The Iraqis' first glimpse of democracy was guns, tanks, bombs and blood. How do you expect them to embrace democracy when this is their first impression? It was no different than what they saw under Sad am. Americans continue to be shot, bombed and beheaded because we are seen as invaders waging war on their religion and their lifestyle. Americans will never be safe in the Middle East until long after we have withdrawn our army. We are not fighting terrorists, we are creating them. Ideology can not be fought with an army, but that is exactly what we are trying to do. America spends more on our military than the next six countries combine. Yet we could not stop 9-11.

Our military is stretched thin, but the budget keeps expanding. It sickens me to think that a bullet purchased with my tax money is now embedded in some Iraqi's head. Innocent people are dying every day and our tax money is fueling it. How much longer is it going to last? Bush has no exit plan! We have no plan to withdraw our troops, even after the Iraqi elections.

We must fix the problems in our own country before taking on the role of world savior. Our schools are under funded, cancer, heart disease, and AIDS kill more people than terrorists ever could, our democracy is a sham (what happened to one man, one vote?), we are facing a huge energy crisis, the environment is falling apart, and we are severely neglecting our own borders. We must get out of Iraq and address our own problems.

Our first ad came out! It's very exciting, but we need to make some changes. The type in the body of the ad is a bit too small. Not too small for normal people; too small for old people. I never thought it would be such a pain to get all the ads in the papers. Each one wants a slightly different size or file format. Then, when you think everything is right, then send it back and say "we can't open the file" or "your ad is off by 1/8th of an inch." Very frustrating.

We haven't received any calls about the ad yet, but we're still hopeful considering it just came out a couple days ago. Plus, all of the marketing books say that people need to see the ad 3 times before responding.

We finally got our a/c fixed. Oh my god! It was terrible. Like sitting in an oven for four days. I didn't eat or sleep the entire time. Just sat around being miserable. It was actually cooler outside (85 degrees) than it was inside and opening windows didn't help. How can those people in Afghanistan and Africa and wherever else they don't have a/c stand it? I would just kill myself. I've never taken as many showers than I have this last week. You know it's bad when you can put an ice pack directly on your skin and still not be cool. I'm sure it sounds like I'm a whiny bastard. But you weren't here. You don't know how bad it was.

Happy Birthday Lindsey!

I have shot two rolls of film with my new Holga. Yesterday, I dropped them off in the drop box of a local photo lab. Today, I got a call from the lab. They said that the developing machine was broken, so I need to pick up my film. Instead of taking the rolls to a different lab, I bought some chemicals and developed them myself (something I haven't done in a while). It was fun! And the pictures came out nicely. Check them out here.

It is hot as hell in this house. Emily and I have been having air conditioning problems ever since we got back from evacuation. A repair man came out on Wednesday and tried to fix it. On Thursday it was obvious that it wasn't fixed. Another guy came out yesterday and found a freon leak. He couldn't pinpoint the leak, so a third guy had to come today. This guy found the leak, but it was in the coil. No easy fix. Our choices are to repair the coil ($700-$800) or replace the entire outside unit. That's probably what we are going to do, because it is terribly corroded and will need to be replaced soon anyway. It totally sucks. We haven't slept in days and we stick to everything we touch.

I honestly think Kerry won the debate. And not just because he can speak clearly and in complete sentences. George Bush has not come up with any new ideas since 9/11. He has been saying the same crap and making the same mistakes ever since! Can he really serve for 4 more years on the same platform? His administration has already done enough damage to the economy and our relationship with the rest of the world. I don't want to see how bad it could get.

In other news, Emily and I have finished placing ads in all of the local papers. They will begin arriving at people's homes in about a week, but we probably won't start seeing business from them for a few weeks. I've read that people must see our ad at least three times before they act.