The Going-Ons

These days the questions have changed from, "Are you ready [for your wedding]?" to "So...how's married life?"

Of course it's good. It's only been 2 months! God if we were regretting married life so soon we'd be in league with Britney Spears or Pam Anderson.

Nothing can beat the feeling of waking up in the morning and the girl of your dreams is lying there next to you. OK OK, every once in a while there are days that aren't all peaches & cream. But overall married life is still pretty new and interesting.

That part of life is good. Business is alright too. I went to go shopping around for a new accountant yesterday. I don't know...it sort of felt dirty. A bit like shopping around for a new girlfriend or something. Why did it feel so bad? I guess I like my current accountant, but my wife suggested I might find someone less expensive. I've been paying close to $2k a year the last 2 tax seasons JUST in accounting fees. That IS a lot. On the other hand my accountant's been very professional and honest with me. So I'm cheating on my accountant. /sigh. Anyway, I'll entertain the possibility there are other good accountants out there who can help me just the same, but for less money.

We're getting on this money kick now because the idea of getting our own place is attractive. I just don't want to keep paying rent to someone else so that they can pay their own mortgage. But with the average Hawaii mortage median floating around $640k right now, the prospect of saving enough money for a downpayment is a challenge.

We drove around a couple weekends looking at open houses. Some places we looked at were ok. Other open houses were freakishly spookey looking...prime candidates to send the Ghost Hunters to I think. Some of these old houses were built in 1913 but were selling for $600k. Shit it probably didn't cost a fraction of that to build the house in the first place in 1913.

We'll see. I know we'll eventually get there....

Last month was my 2nd anniversary for Lowe Studio. I didn't even notice, I was so busy. Give myself a pat on the back. Now at least the banks won't laugh in my face if I ever want to go get a loan. :)

The Freaks Come Out at Night

This past weekend I decided to take Florence out to go see some stars. Turns out it was almost a full-moon so it was slightly too bright to see anything. But I DID have my camera and tripod out with me that evening so I decided to try seeing how my nighttime shooting skills were.

I got the shot above that night. I'm pleasantly surprised. I kept my camera on full manual mode too. My photography friends would be proud of me. It was pitch dark over there...I really didn't see much of where I was shooting.

Although in retrospect I took the shot a little ass-backwards. Instead of upping the ISO that night I just kept it low and adjusted the shutter. This was taken with a near 40 second exposure. I thought my camera died....I was about ready to fiddle with it when I heard the audible "CLICK" after the long wait.

It's overlooking the corner where Makapu'u Beach is. I think some of those lights are coming from the heiau (Hawaiian sacred spot) and some of them are coming from Sea Life Park where they filmed "50 First Dates"

What is that saying? Even the sun shines on a monkey's ass every so often. Or was that another one of my buddy Chris' made up phrases?

New Toys

I don't buy things for myself that often. And usually when I do, these days it's almost always business related in some form. That's good right? It's a tax write-off. Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode:

Jerry: "Do you even know what a write off is?"
Kramer: "Do you?"
Jerry: "No I don't"
Kramer: "But they DO, and they're the ones writing it off"

I digress again.

Anyway, I got 2 new toys today for work. One's a stinkin' home phone. Whoop de doo. No need to make a big fuss about that. My current phone holds a battery charge for about 5 minutes off the cradle...which stinks. So we had to find a replacement pronto.



My other toy is this Huey thing to help color calibrate my monitor. You'd figure as a graphic design "professional" I'd have calibrated my monitor long ago. Alas (who uses "alas" anymore? I read too many fantasy books as a kid), I regret I pretty much faked it all this time. I knew something was always wrong when my print colors don't quite look the same like my on-screen ones.

Having your monitor calibrated isn't essential. But you'd be surprised how "off" your monitor might be. You know when you go to the TV store and you see how different the TV images are when they're side by side? Well, at home you don't have the luxury of comparing your TV or monitor to something else. So how do you know it looks right?

Are your whites really white? Is the color of that rose on your screen truly red?

Anyway, that's what I sought out to find. I bought the Huey because it was the cheapest entry-level device I could find with decent reviews.

I popped it in today and about 10 minutes later my monitor is showing really drastic results. Everything looks different to me....I might even say it looks weird. But that's probably because I've been so used to staring at my monitor uncalibrated all this time. My whites look much cooler then it did before. Where I'm most impressed with the results though is in the contrast...images that looked like it had only black backgrounds before now turn up with some extra details I never saw before. So I guess this is working as intended.

I'd say it's worth the price of entry. It's about $80. If you check a lot of photos in your computer I think spending $80 to make sure it looks good on your screen isn't too much to ask.

Random Thoughts

We got our "official" wedding photos back today along with our fancy schmancy wedding album. It's pretty nice. We certainly paid and arm and a leg for it though. You know as well as I do that they have these wedding album templates they just recycle over and over for every customer and then they make a killing off of it. But MEH....it's a happy occasion, what the heck.

How's that pic huh? Look at that stud. I'm like all Roger Moore on her. I got a funny shaped head though.

The new comic stamps are out. I picked up a bunch yesterday for work. I was all happy yesterday, my wife was wondering what the big deal was. I must admit...being so ecstatic over a bunch of postage stamps is pretty sad. But they're so COOL! I don't know how Spiderwoman got on there... I'll probably use that junky stamp to pay my bills.

Life is changing. My refrigerator is fully stocked these days. I actually have meats, veggies, and sauces in my fridge now instead of just Gatorade and Costco chicken bakes. Walmart & Safeway shopping isn't just in-and-out visits anymore....they've tuned into grueling hour-long visits down every aisle comparing sale prices and nutritional labels. I no longer get to watch my Aqua Team Hunger Force and Nocturnal State anymore without it getting abruptly changed to watch the evening news and Bloomberg.

But...overall it's all good.

New website

We debuted a new website today: ParHawaii.com. This has been many months in the making. I'm pretty proud of this site mainly because it's the first website I've done all these years that's all CSS driven. Some of the other sites I've done over the past couple years may be partially, or mostly done with CSS, but I was still reluctant to completely jump over.

OK, enough geek-speak. Basically it just means I'm approaching more and more web-compliant design. I'm no super expert yet...but it's a big step for me. This site looks pretty good on the iPhone. It's SO cute all little like that.

No, I don't have the iPhone, but my clients do. It's eye candy for sure.

This site is aimed primarily at Mainland visitors looking to play a round of golf here in Hawaii. So if you're a Kama'Aina don't look for any deals here. I think you can get better local rates if you're a resident.

Don't ask me... I tried a golfing hobby once in my college years and then gave up because I sucked. I wonder how this game was created? Someone must have been extremely bored, "Let's see...let's hit this TINY ball, with this THIN stick, down HUNDREDS of feet, into a ITEE BITEE cup buried in the ground."

Wiiiiii

I have to sneak in a post now in between projects. My wife now cracks the whip on me if she ever catches me goofing off. How's that? I started my own business to be my own boss....but now my wife is like my boss.

I guess this is necessary, although I don't think I need her whip to remind me I got a lot of stuff on my plate right now. I'm kinda going nuts right now. Somehow everyone wants stuff done in the next 3 weeks for some reason. I even have people willing to pay me double-rate to get things done. I won't lie to you...that's nice!

But that also means having to do an almost superhuman amount of work. It's almost overwhelming when I sit there thinking about all the stuff that needs to get done....I occasionally get small anxiety attacks where I get this headache, my stomach cramps up, and my hands start shaking. But the wifey has been trying to help and tries to calm me down by telling me to do one thing at a time.

I'm not sure if this is a pattern. This year's pattern of work hasn't been anything like last year. It's bizarro land.

It's been haywire on other things too. Yesterday I find out one of my large deposits to my bank account was put into someone else's account. And then this morning, one of my credit card numbers was stolen and used for purchases. Luckily it was a card representative who called me and asked me if these large charges were mine. Sucks that these ID theft cases are almost never caught. It's like an easy nonpunishable crime. Bastards.

Meanwhile I got clients sending me dozens of infected virus-laden files....

And for the first time in a long time I'm actually backlogged in reading email....

Whoa nelly. After this month I'm going to treat myself to a mini-break on the beach. Maybe finally pick myself up a Wii. :)

"Damnit get back on track and show design stuff Raph...."

Is that what you're thinking? Probably not hehe. I'd like to imagine you guys out there are reading this for design news but I know it's probably to read up on what mishaps I've managed to get myself into lately.

Anyway, I DO want to get at least some design stuff out again, I haven't had much opportunity. Hopefully in a few days I can roll out some new samples here. Meanwhile I got a couple of things to show:

Here's a simple business card I did for a fellow BNI chapter member who's a therapeutic massage therapist.

"Ho...that's it?" Yep. Lately it's just a mad rush to finish up projects I had before the wedding and then trying to get a grasp on all the new ones on my table.

You like how I'm asking questions to myself and answering it myself?

My ma sent me a rather interesting art link the other day. This artist impressed me quite a bit:



CAUTION: Contains some "artful" or "disturbing" nudity so parental guidance is suggested. Apparently he makes ultra-realistic representations of people...but it's always done either super big or super small. So it challenges your perception of reality. I really wish we had a good art museum in Hawaii that where we can see stuff like this.

Filipino Cowboy

Nothing really amazing happens to me on a day-to-day basis like my buddy "Big Daddy" Chris.

My days aren't chalk full of people intent upon wanting to do bodily injury to me. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a good thing. I don't want to spend my day dodging bullets or trying to tackle large transvestites. I think if the most exciting thing that happens to me at work is an occasional unruly customer with a bad design taste, that's FINE with me.

Of course, recently SOMETHING did happen to us recently that was worth noting. Guess what...somehow it involves my bud Chris in it wouldn't you guess?

So anyway, those of you who've kept up know that my wife was finally moving here from overseas. So before she left she had told me she had 10 boxes picked up from her apartment and it was being shipped over. Alright COOL. I didn't know exactly where 10 boxes worth of stuff would fit in my little apartment, but somehow it will work.

Anyway, flash forward a few weeks and we get married here in town. We have about 3 days between our ceremony and the day we leave on our honeymoon. I get this letter in the mail from some kind of shipping company called Lavino or something like that.

It's got this message saying that the container where my wife's stuff was kept had been randomly picked by US Customs to be scanned and that we had to pay $70 for this scanning fee before getting our stuff. WTF? Customs decides to PICK a random box and then charges the customer to get their personal items scanned?! What kind of scam is that?

Anyway, it had a name and a COUPLE numbers to reach this person. Nothing unusual here but keep this in mind...

I call the name shown on the letter and ask what about this fee and what we'd have to do to pick up the stuff. I find out they have no idea what I'm talking about. For one thing this company is only in charge of taking the big containers off the boats. For all he knows, he's expecting me to roll up with a giant semi-truck and drive one of these big Matson containers back home. "UH.....I just want my wife's 10 boxes not some huge warehouse container"

Finally after what amounted to some roundabout detective work, I find out there's all these steps I'd have to take to get our stuff. Apparently the container notice was improperly sent to us and should have gone to Island Movers who owns that particular container and the stuff within it. To get our stuff, we had to clear customs ourselves over at Pier 1, pay some extra freight charge over at Pier 2, and then run our ass back to Pier 42 where Island Movers was located.

What was most frustrating was being sent from one Pier to another because we had to get some stupid thing approved here, another fee paid there. When I asked the guy at the final pier why they didn't tell us there was this other fee involved, he scolded me for not calling the number on my letter. I looked at my letter and it had 2 numbers associated with one name. I had originally called the first number but somehow I was magically supposed to know the 2nd number was to another company? I think they do this kind of thing intentionally. I'd make people run around too if I had to work at a warehouse at the end of some lonely pier staring at wooden crates all day.

Here's the part where I was getting to... (Ho long story eh?). Anyway, my bud Chris offers to help us get Florence's stuff home for us because he has a truck. Not just any truck, but one that has a big "HAWAIIAN" sticker stuck on the back window which I normally translate as "Don't touch". Also look in the dictionary for "SAMOAN" which I'm pretty sure means the same thing.

I digress.

So anyway, after spending a couple hours running from one Pier to another in a scavenger hunt from hell, all 3 of us wind up at the final Pier where we're supposed to finally get our stuff.

We spot a giant wooden crate with my wife's name on it and I start signing paperwork. Chris is standing outside getting his truck ready.

Before I know it, this filipino guy with a tight shirt, tight blue jeans and knee high cowboy boots, rolls up with his little 4-wheel lifting vehicle, picks up this giant crate and carts it out behind Chris's truck and just plops it behind there.

I turn the corner after doing all the paperwork and I see Chris staring at the giant wooden crate next to his truck with this big "UH..........." on his face. Now my mind starts calculating because I can obviously see the problem. Remember in kindergarden where they have these plastic shapes and you had to try to fit it into the corresponding holes? Well, my mind starts doing the same mental connection....BIG crate ... tiny truck. There was no way we'd fit that in the truck not to mention my weenie Acura sedan.

The crate was too big to lift. I don't care if you had 4 huge Samoans, that sucka had 10 boxes worth of stuff inside AND it was packed tight with styrofoam and wood.

Apparently, that's all the shipping companies do. They give you the crate and you're in charge of the rest. Summammabeetch.

So I turn to the Filipino Cowboy guy and I can see him trying to mask his laughter. You can just tell that this is his entertainment for the week. "Let's see how these 2 idiots try to get this done." I put on my best oh-help-me-please-I'd-be-so-grateful-you-summamabeetch face and ask him if he had some hammers or crowbars for us.

He sighs like he's doing us the world's biggest favor and putt-putts his little lift over to the crate again and hands over a crowbar and hammer to us. Careful to add in, "Oh, I usually charge shippers $5 to use my tools".

Now picture me and my friend Chris with a crowbar and hammer in our hands wondering how we'd tackle this box. I think the closest we've ever been to breaking down crates is in a video game of Half-Life or Doom.

Filipino Cowboy looks at us staring at the box for about 10 seconds and says, "You guys don't even know how to use a crowbar?"

Chris answers, "No, but if you ask me how to use my guns I know how to do that". I think Filipino Cowboy cut his snide remarks a bit after that. POP POP he opens part of the box for us and hands us the tools back. He obviously had open crates before and could have done it in seconds.

For the next 15 - 20 minutes Filipino Cowboy and one of the managers stands there and watches me, Chris and Florence dismantle this wooden crate held together by dozens of rusty tetanus-shot nails and screws. We kicked, yanked, pulled, hammered, & bashed this thing apart. Styrofoam and wood splinters flying everywhere. We finally got my wife's boxes out.

After all of this we not only had to pack away the 10 boxes we wanted. We had to get rid of the crate boards, nails and trash ourselves. How humbug eh? We threw everything we could into our cars and got away from there as fast as we could. If I never see another Pier again in my life I'll be a happy camper.

People...... stick to using USPS or FedEx if you have to. Shipping things yourself sucks.