MikeRomard.com

So, my friends Erin and Megan are awesome. They’re also starting up their own business, Dragon-Fly Photography Studio.

They do this:

Who hasn’t wanted to be a radiant princess or a stealthy ninja? Have you ever imagined your child as the hero of their very own faerie-tale story or wondered how you’d look fighting a dragon on a mountaintop? Dragon-Fly Photography Studio can make your dreams a visual reality.

We combine hair and make-up design with costumes, elaborate and surreal hand-crafted miniature backgrounds, and hand-drawn digital elements to provide each and every client with a unique experience and a seamless digital image that captures their vision. Each session is crafted specifically to suit our client’s desire, ensuring a distinctive and memorable experience that makes our client a key part of the creative process.

I made their website. More things will happen on it. But for now it looks that good, and they’re happy with it.

1.
I’ve got a short story in the second issue of a zine called Nonymous (available at Westminster Books in Fredericton), and another one in the next issue of Qwerty (should be on news stands within the next week or two. I’ll flip out with joy when I see it. Promise.)

2.
I’m moving in August, so I’m thinking that I’m going to put Everything I Own on hold until closer to then. I’m thinking that it’ll be easier to photograph everything as it’s either going into, or coming out of, boxes. I should probably do small updates about once a month just to keep the project somewhat alive. Which is pretty much what I’ve done to this point anyway, so you might never have noticed a change had I not said anything.

3.
I’m suspiciously close to failing my intro to technical writing class. There’s a combination of factors at play here. First, I started late, and burnt out to get caught up. Second, I use OpenOffice for word processing, and while it can save files as .doc (which is the industry standard for technical writing), the formatting can get screwed up in the process (for example, my footers disappear). Third, I misread/misinterpreted the instructions for two assignments. Two assignments that made up 35% of my final mark. Fourth, I definitely half-assed one of those two assignments.

Mostly it’s the third and fourth points that are fucking me. It’s my own fault, really. The OpenOffice thing is actually a very minor factor. So I might have to re-take this class in May. Which would mean that I’m out $320 and six weeks. But it could be worse.

I uploaded another nine photos for the Everything I Own project. It’s been about three weeks since I kicked off the project, and this is the first update. So it’s kind of slow going. I blame a combination of school work, and having the lazy. In today’s update: cat stuff.

School note: Remember the other day when I knew what kind of website I was going to make? I think I’m rethinking that. While I love the idea of building a site for creative commons licensed fiction, I’m not sure if I should be taking on something that ambitious for a class project. I may well still work on this project on the side, though.

That’s what I’ve decided to do for my web programming and design class project. If you write, I’ll probably bother you for content at some point. This will take a while.

In other fun writing news, I put up a new short story at the Vagabond Trust blog: Now I’m Lost In The Supermarket.

So, I’m back in school now. For one of the classes that I’m taking, I need to design a website. Which means, of course, that I need to decide what kind of website to design. I don’t want to redesign either this site, or vagabondtrust.com. So I’m tossing around a few ideas:

- An online zine, for Canadian writers and artists, who are willing to release their work under a creative commons license.

- A site for the store that I work at. It has a website, but it’s not as informative as it could be.

- A site (separate from this one), for the everything I own project.
(side note: I haven’t updated this week because I’m trying to focus on getting caught up on my classes. Or at least the class that I started two weeks late.)
((side note to the side note: clearly not focusing on this too much, since I’m taking the time to update my blog.)

-A site for a photography business that some friends of mine want to start. (assuming they’re cool with it)

If I had to rank these in the order that I’m most interested in doing these, it would be: zine, photo business, everything I own, work. But I’m still trying to come up with other ideas. I’m open to suggestions as well, if you want to leave one in the comments. Especially if it’s for a website that you feel should exist, would benefit others, etc.

Okay, I’ve started the Everything I Own project. I’ve started it off with 20 pictures of footwear and electronics, because they were easily available to photograph.

I also shot a short introductory video, which I’ll post after I’ve edited it. Which will happen sometime after I install and learn to use video editing software. I’m aiming for tomorrow.

red hat nb porno

I shit you not. Someone is really into New Brunswick’s feisty red hatters.

I don’t normally do New Year’s resolutions. Mostly it’s because I can never come up with anything that I care enough about to see through. Or, at least, I don’t come up with these things at the right time of the year. I do have some resolve, and occasionally employ it.

Anyway, here goes:

1. The Everything I Own Project
I’m going to get this off the ground within the next couple weeks. I’ve got most of the stuff I need for the website re-design ready. I’ve still got to figure out how I’m going to go about photographing everything I own. This will probably involve breaking everything up into categories and tackling a group of objects on days that I have plenty of free time. Also, to help keep on top of things, I will photograph new stuff as I bring it home, and old stuff as I declutter (because I don’t think the project would be honest if I threw stuff out or gave it away before documenting it).

I’ve also got to figure out what level of detail I want for documenting stuff. For example, when I cover my computers, do I want to just snap pictures of the cases, and maybe list the specs, or do I want to crack them open and photograph the different components? Or, for mundane stuff like my socks, do I want to photograph each pair, or just throw them in a pile and take one picture? And at what point do I start leaving stuff out? Do I really want to bother photographing my groceries, and things of that nature? On the other hand, if I do photograph things like groceries, it gives a more complete view of my consumption patterns, which kind of fits with the spirit of the project.

Either way, this is starting soon.

2. Go back to school.
This isn’t much of New Year’s resolution, given that I’ve been planning it for a while. But I’ve got my winter and summer courses picked out, and my registration form for the winter semester printed off. Now I just need to get a money order and mail it in. My courses for the winter will be: Technical Writing: Introduction, Web Programming and Design, and Print and Online Design.

3. Improve my relationship to water.
This one is kind of a big deal. I use way, way more water than I need to. I’m slow moving first thing in the morning, so showers last far longer than they should. I could probably do with running the dishwasher less often, and using less water when I wash dishes by hand. I’m not very good at remembering that water is a finite resource.

I also need to drink more water. And probably less coffee.

That’s probably enough as far as actual resolution that I think I’ll keep go. I’ve also got it in my head that I should eat better, exercise more, actually get involved in politics at some level, write daily, etc. But these are things that I tend not to follow through with.

We watch It’s A Wonderful Life every Christmas eve at my wife’s family’s place. My mom-in-law (who I call Mom… I call my other Mum, because she’s from Cape Breton) and I are the only two who actually enjoy the movie. I think Mark, my father-in-law, enjoys watching it because my wife, Kelly-Jo, and her sister, Alli, dread it so much. I don’t think he likes the movie itself. I think Mom genuinely likes it, and I enjoy it as a social commentary on early 20th Century America.

I’m going to tweet watching it with them tonight. I’m mostly just doing it because I have a laptop, and I can, which appeals to me on a special nerd level.

Happy Christmas, bitches.

I mentioned here previously that I was thinking about documenting everything that I own as a way to help me to better think about my relationship with my stuff. And I mentioned that I thought this would be a neat art project, which could breath some life into this website. I’ve decided that I’m going to go ahead with it.

To that end, I’ve gone ahead and signed up for a flickr account. There’s nothing there yet, because I haven’t started the project, and probably won’t until after Christmas. I also picked up a charger for batteries, because I figure I’ll probably go through a few through the life of the project, on top of what I got through anyway. Although, at this point, I think that the only devices that I actually operate that require batteries are my camera, the guitar controller that came with Rockband, and my wireless mouse. Everything else (cell phone, mp3 player, laptop, etc.) has a rechargeable battery built into it.