The World According to Angie

Convergence is a beautiful thing

In late January, just before my weeks of non-stop travel began, a Very Bad Thing happened. My phone died.

About seven months earlier, Jim and I upgraded our cell phones when we combined them onto a single family plan. (It's one of those things that's part of combining two modern households... Figuring out how to merge your cell phone coverage onto one plan.)

We both got these sweet little Tilt phones; cool features, full keyboards, and since they were both refurbs, we didn't spend a lot out of pocket.

But in January - a month after the refurb warranty expired - mine went kaplooey. The battery went dead. You'd plug it in to charge, and you'd get no juice. Put in a new battery, connect the charger, and it would rapidly drain - like the polarity had been reversed or something.

Repair was going to be as expensive as getting a new phone. And I wasn't eligible for equipment discounts (thank you, AT&T) for another year.

So while I traveled, I used my work Blackberry as my primary phone. That worked okay for a while, and I didn't feel bad about using it for personal use since a new company policy has us paying $20 a month out of our paycheck to cover "incidental personal use".

Funny... I never used it got personal calls until they started making me pay for it. But suddenly, I was using it for ALL my calls. (I'll admit to a bit of a pissy attitude: you're gonna make me pay for it? Then, by God, I'm going to use it!)

My boss actually asked me why I wasn't just using my Blackberry as my sole phone - I think that's what he does -and while that's nice in theory, it wasn't practical. You see, our IT team has them locked down so you can't SMS and you can't surf sites they deem "non-work related" ... so no updating FaceBook via Blackberry. You know ... the important stuff.

So for the last four months, I've been on a tear about needing a new phone. Poor Jim... I went from sly hints to loving suggestions to outright browbeating.

You see, I decided that if I had to buy a new phone anyway, and I wasn't going to be eligible for an upgrade discount, I might as well get the device I REALLY wanted: an iPhone.

Oh, yeah....!

I'm a rabid PC user, not quite anti-Mac, but decidedly PC-preferring ... however, when it comes to MP3 players and mobile devices, I'm a huge Apple fan. After years of using Creative Labs devices, I finally bought an iPod Nano a couple years ago, and fell in love with everything about it. When it came time to upgrade it, I went to a high-capacity video iPod, which has been my constant companion for the last year. And as my frustration grew with lugging multiple devices - my purse laden with a phone, iPod, point-and-shoot camera, Blackberry, and more - the attraction of a single device to "do it all" became overwhelming.

Last night, my sweet husband acquiesced to my pleas. He made me one very, VERY happy Angie with a trip to the Apple store at Willow Bend Mall...

...and 30 minutes later, I walked out with my new 16GB iPhone in hand.

To say I'm fascinated with my new toy - excuse me, TOOL - would be a massive understatement. This morning, on the way to drop Jim off at DFW airport (he's in San Francisco this weekend for another Toastmasters conference) I sat in the passenger seat, utterly engrossed. "New Twitter post - I got an iPhone - send! Here's a picture of Jim I just took with my iPhone - post to TwitPic - send! And here's an email I just sent with the picture I just took, all with my iPhone - send!"

Yes, I know I'm being ridiculous. But the novelty will wear off soon and I'll stop posting pictures of my car keys. (I think...)

After months of waiting, and researching, and talking to friends, getting opinions and really thinking through what I wanted and how I'd actually use it... I was pretty darn sure I was making a solid, informed decision. So far, no regrets!

The whole "convergence" thing is what I appreciate the most. I have, ostensibly, half a dozen devices all in one. Just one thing to clip to my hip, or pop in my purse, and I'm set!

It's been ridiculously easy to set up and get going. It uses iTunes for all sync functions with my PC. I just had to tell it to grab my contacts from Outlook, and suddenly all thousand-plus email addresses, names, and numbers were on my phone. Same thing with my calendar.

16GB isn't enough to store my entire music collection on here, so I just grabbed all my current playlists and dragged them over. And as for video, I decided to put one set of Looney Tunes cartoons on here just in case there's a kid I need to entertain (myself included). My video iPod will still come with me on long trips, at least until the day comes they make an 80GB version of the iPhone.

The keyboard on this is taking some getting used to. My fingertips are bigger than the letter keys, so I'm frequently hitting the wrong letters; however, Apple has a really "smart" auto-correct function on the text entry. I'm learning to just type fast, and about 90% of the time it gets it right. (And the more I use it, I think I'm beginning to get a little more accurate.)

My one complaint about the text entry is the way you have to place the cursor if you need to edit or insert something. With no arrow keys to back up a precise number of spaces, you have to use your finger to "place" the cursor. It's like using a big, fat Bingo ink dotter to try and dot the i on your signature. But I'm getting better at that, too, albeit slowly.

The plethora of applications available for the iPhone is, quite frankly, overwhelming. Like the commercial says, "there's an app for that." Rather than blowing a bunch of cash on downloads, I decided to start with just a few tools I knew I'd use, and then add to my collection slowly, over time.

I installed the tools for Facebook,Twitter, and TypePad (which I'm using, incidentally, to compose this post). Next came a couple of games - Sudoku, Tetris, and Myst. And I also picked up a Tip Calculator for dining out that'll even help you split the bill.

I'm looking at a couple list-making programs for grocery lists and the like... and I figure I'll continue collecting apps over time. (If you're an iPhone user, be sure to post a comment about the apps you can't live without - I'd love to check 'em out!)

The verdict after my first 24 hours of iPhone ownership: it was worth the wait. I'm discovering all sorts of new things I love as I play with it - like the incredible control it gives you over your voicemail with it's sweet button-based menu interface... the way it pauses your song or video or game automatically when a call comes in... how easy it is to install apps or ringtones or photos or just about anything with the sync interface in iTunes...

I have no doubt I'll have more to blog about my newfound love for the iPhone on days to come. For now, I'll say wholeheartedly: convergence is a beautiful thing!

41 days 'till Christmas?!?

Thanks to the marketing machine that is insistent on cramming the holidays down our throats until we flatulate to the tune of "Jingle Bells" and the scent of candy canes, I just discovered there are only 41 SHOPPING DAYS LEFT 'TILL CHRISTMAS.

Just in case any of you were feeling laid back and stress-free today, I thought I'd share that with you.

Truth be told, I love Christmas shopping.  I love gift-giving.  I just don't like doing any of it at the last minute.  So I'm trying to get organized as early as possible.

Enter "Kaboodle".  Now, let me go on the record as saying that I'm not receiving any remuneration from this company for plugging their service.  It's just something I found, that I'm pleased with, and I thought I'd share it with friends.

They offer an online gift registry.  Okay, sure ... lots of people offer online gift registries.  But the difference is, Kaboodle will let you register for anything anywhere from any retailer.  Seriously!  My Kaboodle Christmas Wish List includes books and DVDs from Amazon.com, scrapbooking stuff from Creating Keepsakes, photography equipment from B&H Photo, and more.  But it's all stored in one place to make it easy for my family to look through.

And I mean, my whole family.  My parents, Jim's parents, whichever one of Jim's siblings got my name in the gift exchange, and - oh yeah - Jim's kids.  Veronica asked me last night for ideas on what she could get me for Christmas.  I'm going to show her my Kaboodle list tonight.

Setting it up is quick and easy.  Just go to www.kaboodle.com and go through their sign-up process.  Then, they'll have you install a Kaboodle button.  It'll sit on your browser toolbar.  Surf the web.  When you find something you like, click the "Add To Kaboodle" button.  A window will pop up, letting you categorize it, add comments, and prioritize it - and then when you click submit, it goes right back to letting you browse the site you were on before.

Quick and easy.  I showed it to Jim, and now he's setting up his list.  (Thank goodness!)  I'm going to ask Michael and Jay to do the same.  Because when it comes to Christmas shopping for those guys, they have a choice: tell me what they want, or they're going to wind up with a gift certificate.

Despite how the beginning of this post might make it sound, I'm actually pretty jazzed about the holidays.  I have several gifts I'm hand-making for certain members of our family, and I can't wait to start on them this weekend.  And this is our first married Christmas, which means our first married Christmas cards and our first married holiday newsletter.

But while I'm filled with the joy and spirit of the holidays, I'm doing my darndest to keep from becoming a basket-case.  And if Kaboodle can help?  Well, then, all the better.

Here's to planning for a stress-free holiday, everybody!

My new toy: I'm in love!

No worries, nothing has usurped Jim's place in my heart ... but I bought myself a new toy this weekend and I'm in the throes of geekly techno-love.  You know the kind ... where you're all wide-eyed and slightly slack-jawed, where you try your hardest not to drool on the object of your affections, knowing there's a chance the moisture could cause it to short-circuit, and that's definitely not covered under warranty.

After months of intensive thought and debate, I finally caved and bought myself a new iPod.  I've upgraded my 2-year old iPod Nano to a 160GB iPod Classic.  In silver.  Yeah, it's as sexy as it sounds.

I had been tossing around the idea of getting an iPhone, but I've since abandonded that.  Since they changed the policy at work, and started billing us a mandatory $20 a month for "personal use" of our Blackberries, my personal cell phone isn't getting much mileage.  (I've got some serious 'tude about it ... if they're making me pay for it, even though I was really conscientious about NOT using it before, then I'm gonna START using it.)  So I'm not going to waste the money on the iPhone, cool as it may be.

That left me wanting a way to carry all of my songs with me (the capacity on my iPod Nano seriously left something to be desired) and I've been lusting after the ability to watch video on the fly... pun intended.

I mean, my laptop and DVD-ROM is nice and all, but do you know how big of a pain it is to dig it out on the plane?  And then there's the problem of people beside and behind me watching what's on my screen.  I had one of those moments about two years ago when I thoughtlessly popped in an episode of "Nip/Tuck" on a flight back from California.  It was in the middle of a steamy 3-way scene that I realized there were children seated behind me!  With utter horror and embarrassment, I shut down the DVD and put in Looney Tunes instead.

But with this sleek little iPod, the 4.1" x 2.4" screen is big enough for me to see what I'm watching, but it's not big enough for those around me to see.  Not that I'm going to watch porn on the plane, but if I feel like watching a film that's rated R, or something a bit more graphic, at least now I don't have to worry about upsetting children or little old ladies.  Or anyone who doesn't want to watch what I'm watching.  Y'know?

I've loaded it up with all my music, and something like 15 episodes of LOST.  (I'm trying to get caught up!)  I'm working on loading some of my favorite movies onto it, but that's gonna take me some time.  For now, what I can say is that it's sweet, it's sleek, and I haven't found anything about it I don't like... yet.

This is one fun little tech toy that's making my travel that much more palatable and partially painless!

Back to the old theme...

I realized that it's January 7th, and I still had my "holiday balls" header up on my blog.  That's the same as all those people in Jim's neighborhood that still have their Christmas lights on the outside of their house, and still turn them on at night ... the ones we make fun of and roll our eyes at.  It's a full week into the New Year, people, we say... and here my blog was still decked out in holiday wear.

Shame on me.

Unfortunately, my computer heard its replacement is on its way from Dell's headquarters, and it decided that the war isn't over just yet.  It decided to start throwing some lovely blue screen errors, and stop letting me into Windows XP.  Yeah, no-go on the boot-up... what a way to start my Monday.  Especially since the only copies of my Sales Meeting presentations were on the bleeping hard drive.

Can you say total freak-out?  Thank God for some great guys in our PC Support group.  They've been working on my computer all afternoon, and managed to get the data off her - apparently, it involved loading Vista on the hard drive, repairing damaged sectors, discovering all my programs were hosed but being able to recover all my documents (THANK YOU, GOD), and moving it all to a loaner laptop that I get to use until Friday.

So, now I'm on my way to Fry's to pick up an external hard drive, which I shall be using for all of my data for the next week, and I have remembered why I should be religious about backing up my data at least weekly.

All that being said, I figured it was better to go back to an old blog theme than leave the proverbial Christmas lights hanging on the front door any longer.  Once I can get Photoshop installed on my loaner system, I'll see about putting together something fun for January.  In the meanwhile ... hey, at least it's no longer ho-ho-holiday.

After all, it's January, people...

My laptop battles are (almost) over!

Today was my first day back at the office in over three weeks, and I expected it to be difficult to make it through the day.  I expected to be overwhelmed by everything that awaited me ... bombarded with requests and meetings and all sorts of stuff.  After all, I'm climbing on a plane one week from Friday to head off to our National Sales Meeting.  There's stuff to be done, right?

Well ... I was in for a very pleasant surprise.  Not only was life at the office quiet today, but I had done a really good job of staying up on my email while I was out and there really wasn't anything much waiting for me when I returned.  Those piles of requests?  Non-existent.  Meetings?  Not until next week.  I actually get the remainder of this week to play catch-up and re-acclimate myself to where I left off back in early December.

But better than all of that was the major shock my boss handed me around 10am.  I have to give you the back story first...

I've been fighting with my laptop for well over six months now.  And when I say "fighting", I mean, wrestling with hardware that I've completely outgrown, trying to run software that needs way more computing power, and coddling a system that seems frightfully unstable despite maximum RAM upgrades, three sequential motherboard replacements, and at least that many OS reloads.  I moved from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, which helped a little, until the blue screens of death began happening.  Then, right before my surgery, they wiped it clean and gave me a fresh OS load, so I could try loading my software up one more time.

I know, it's pretty bad when the Manager of eBusiness doesn't have a working laptop.  But my problem is twofold: one, I'm running a complely non-supported system.  Our IT Department is no different than those at most companies; they have a certain set of standard, approved software packages that they have tested and that they support.  I don't use those.  I mean, I use Microsoft Office, sure ... but I also use a whole bunch of software that they wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole: namely, all the multimedia packages embodied in Adobe Creative Suite 3.  Which brings me to my second problem: I upgrade Adobe packages often enough that I need new hardware about every two years to keep up with its demands.  The problem is that we lease our computers on 3-year leases.

My laptop started acting flaky before I upgraded to Creative Suite 3; after the upgrade, it's been impossible.  We're talking about me having to reboot it three or four times some days before lunch.

Yeah.

So, imagine my shock today at 10am when I'm exchanging emails with my boss, and he says, "Come on upstairs - let's order you a new computer."

OMIGOSH!!!  He could not have given me a better (late) Christmas present!  So, being the major pain in the butt that I am, I figured if I was already getting special treatment, why not ask for what I really wanted?  Rather than going with our company's "standard" mid-line Dell laptop order, I asked for a special hardware quote ... and it was shot up the chain and approved ... and is now on order for rush-delivery, to hopefully arrive to me before I depart for the Sales Meeting next Friday.

I had to stick with Dell, since that's our company standard for computer hardware, but that's okay: I'm getting a Latitude D830 Notebook... with their T7800 processor - 2.6GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 800 Mhz dual core - which, according to their website, is precisely what I need for the Adobe Suite: dual-core processing.  I'm getting the upgraded WUXGA UltraSharp 1920x1200 LCD, maxing out the DIMM slots with 4GB of RAM (it should fly!!!) ... the only thing that might wind up being a limiting factor is the video card.  The highest you can go with a Latitude is the NVIDIA Quadro NVS (256MB) 140M video card.  Should be okay for me, not as good as you can get on their "Precision" line, but I had to stick with the Latitude.

Makes up for it that I'm also getting built-in AT&T mobile broadband (yea!) so I can ditch my PCMCIA card with the nasty antenna that I keep knocking off ... I've already had to replace the card once, ouch ... DVD RW, standard battery plus the extra one for the media bay, maxed-out 160GB hard drive, port replicator ... I'm going to be in absolute heaven when this machine arrives.

And if Adobe Creative Suite doesn't run on it like a hot knife through butter, then I'm calling Adobe and pitching a total tissy fit.

So, now, my only question is ... is it here yet?!?!

Can't sleep? Change the blog.

Usually, when I'm on the road, and I have a sleepless night, it means flipping through the tv stations and watching endless episodes of Law & Order and CSI on TNT and USA.  Tonight, however, I wasn't so much in the mood for TV, although I have had CSI-Miami playing in the background.  (You know, I really prefer the dirty-gritty look of the original Las Vegas CSI, but I'll settle for the Miami version if I have to ... and although David Caruso's posing is generally annoying, it almost fits in the ultra-high-gloss setting of Miami's beaches and candy-colored condominium living.)

My over-alliterating rambling aside, I've spent my sleepless hours tonight futzing with Typepad.  It's been a while since I looked at the settings in my blog, and it appears the folks at TypePad have been busy adding new features.  I like 'em.  So I thought tonight was as good a time as any to make some changes to my site.

You've already noticed the new theme.  I was feeling "clean and crisp" yet holiday-ey.  We'll call it the "Jingle Balls" look.  I also played with the content arrangement... let me know what you think of the posts showing up in the left column rather than the center.

And finally, I added a new list to the center column - "What I'm reading" - for anyone who might be interested.  It's pretty cool, all I have to do is enter the ISBN, and TypePad is smart enough to grab not only the title and author, but also the cover art from Amazon.com.  Then, I can add my notes, and voila - a fancy little list for anyone who might be looking for a recommendation or two for reading material.

I might add future lists for music or movies or favorite web links ... we'll see.  For now, this is just what it looks like when Angie can't sleep and starts to play with her blog.

Enjoy... and now, I'm going to try to settle down and get at least a couple hours of sleep so I can be functional tomorrow.  Argh!

150 posts ... already?!?

It's official: I'm addicted to blogging.  Does that make me a blog-a-holic?  And today's post is a bit of a celebration about my new addiction.

This morning's post is my 150th blog entry here on The World According to Angie.  Since my first post on May 23rd, 2007, I have regaled you with tales of friends and family, stupid t-shirts, Toastmasters events - including the International Convention in Phoenix - hobbies and passions and all sorts of other things.

I have been amazed, amused, and, at times, a little wierded out by just how many people have begun reading my blog.  Y'see, Typepad (the service I use to host this thing) has a feature in the Control Panel that allows you to monitor both your site statistics as well as your "referrers".  In other words, I can see where some of my visitors come from, or how they're getting to me.

I just crossed the threshold of 6000+ lifetime page views.  I'm honestly a little bit baffled - and delighted - that people find something interesting about my "random ramblings" that they keep coming back to read 'em.  The single largest daily hit was during the Convention, when I saw over 250 in one day.  That made sense; people who weren't in Phoenix were hungry for news about who won the elections as well as the outcome of the speech contest.  But in the past month, my blog traffic seems to have stabilized around an average of 80-90 hits a day.  And I can't help thinking ... how weird is that?!?  That many people are reading this thing?

The referrers are fascinating.  I can see that some folks get to me through blog readers, like their Google homepage or their Yahoo homepage or Technorati or another blog aggregator.  Some people get here from links off their email, which means they've subscribed for those daily updates by email.  (I figure that's probably my Mom!)  Others obviously have the site bookmarked; they get here straight from blog.angieflinn.com or from my personal website at www.angieflinn.com.

But the really fascinating ones are the search engines that lead to hits on my blog.  Typepad seems to do a great job of indexing blog posts with the major search engines ... specifically Google and AOL's search.  Because people are finding this site ... and for some of the oddest search strings:

• Angie Flinn blog
• The World According to Angie
• Angie Flinn Toastmaster
• Angie Flinn divorce (okay, that one weirded me out ENTIRELY)
• Migraine headaches (or any combination of Topamax, Inderal, etc. - the latest one was "what's bad about Inderal")
• Mountain biking Dallas (sometimes it includes a specific trail name, like "Arbor Hills")

Or any other number of bizarre things, which hits on any of the 149 blog posts I've made previously.

But the most bizarre referrer of all showed up in my stats earlier this week: cnn.com.  When I saw that, all I could say was ... huh?!?!?

So, I followed the link (here it is, if you're interested) ... it turns out it was a story on home offices, and how people are customizing them to fit their personalities and lifestyles.  I looked at it, and got a little confused… until I saw below the story, where there's a thing that says "From the Blogs".  I clicked it … and it turns out that it's dynamic content.  It refreshed and showed "Blogs talking about this topic."

I don't know what it will show if you hit it today, but at the time, my blog showed up as the 2^nd in the list – linking to a post I made 5 days previously about "A view into my office".

Apparently, the "blog reporting services" I have turned on in Typepad mean not only do my posts get indexed in the major search engines, but they also wind up on CNN if they're topical.  As I said in an email to my family and a couple close friends, "I'm both intrigued and a little bit creeped out."

I started blogging back in May because I figured, as Manager of eBusiness, I was way behind the ball in understanding precisely what blogging was about.  When it first hit the web scene, it was more of a social networking tool, and I wasn't terribly interested.  Okay ... to be honest, I have a major bias against internet social networking.  That was a major contributing factor to the demise of my marriage.

For those of you who don't know the story, here's the nutshell version: we met at college at 17, married at 24, built our careers and our dream house ... and shortly after moving in, his consultant work started to go bust.  His coping mechanism was to escape into the 'net ... mostly chat rooms ... where he built up a large support network of friends.  I didn't see the warning signs until it was too late.  I made him feel unsuccessful - my career was booming, and it was my paycheck that was keeping our heads above water, and I was actively encouraging him to give up on the consulting and go back to a normal 9-5 local job - but his online friends were entirely accepting of who and what he was, and probably joined him in "wife-bashing".  Along the way, he met a young woman halfway across the country ... they began using web cams in creative and inappropriate ways ... and when he took a "business trip" to her city that was only for the business of meeting her, I found out, confronted him, and immediately began the process of selling said dream house.  I still get angry when I think about the fact that he shed not a single tear over the demise of our marriage, but he cried when he finally accepted that we'd have to sell the house.  Nine months later, when the house finally sold, I filed for divorce, and that was that.  I haven't seen him since.

So yeah, I've got an ingrained bias against online social networking tools.  I didn't want to have a single thing to do with blogging or FaceBooks or MySpace or any of what I saw as subsitutes for face-to-face interactions with real, live human beings.

My mistake.  Blogging isn't about dating, or hookups, or trying to find an upgrade.  (Yeah, that was crass ... but that was how it felt at the time.)  For me, blogging is a way to force me to write on a daily basis.  I know I'm a better writer when I practice, and I suck at keeping a journal.  For some reason, knowing that there are at least a few people out there who are actually reading this thing - even if it's just my Mom and a couple of friends - keeps me coming back out here daily, plugging away, writing.  The more I practice, the better I get.  And I can see that by reading my early posts and comparing them to my later ones.

And as busy as we all are these days, blogging is a way to keep in touch.  As I hit the road this spring for those Sales and Dealer Meetings, this will be the one and only way that many of you will have even the slightest clue where I am or what I'm doing.

Blogging also provides a sense of immediacy.  I can post something as soon as it happens, and it hits the site and you know about it.  Take, for example, the International Convention.  Blogging during that event was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had online!  Knowing that I was sharing info with people who were hungry for it ... just felt ... well ... cool.

So with this, my 150th post, I must say that I'm entirely hooked on blogging.  I see the value to me - as a writer - and as an extension to my relationships - as I stay in touch with family and friends, both far and near.  It also amuses me to know that I've gotten a couple other people hooked on blogging as well.  Jim signed up for his blog shortly after I did.  And then came Audrey.  And then came Lee.  Isn't it funny how these things work?

Here's to modern technology, and using it not as a shield - to prevent us from having to interact with others - but rather as a tool to stay closer to one another.  Whether we're separated by distance, by time, or by the sheer demands of our lives, blogging has turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Not bad for a point-and-shoot

I desperately need a new headshot.

I'm not saying that in the, "I have nothing to wear" while standing in a full closet sense.  I mean, I desperately need an updated headshot.  I've been sitting on a couple emails from various Toastmasters districts, all of whom asked for a photograph to use in their promotional materials for an upcoming event ... an event where they've been kind enough to invite me to speak ... and I've been sitting on those messages because I don't have a current headshot to send them.

See, I've been on this kick about growing my hair out for the past year or so.  And as my hair grows, my hairstyle changes ... radically.  Drastically.  So that the most recent headshots I have - which were taken last November - look really out-dated.

And it's really not vanity that keeps me from sending an out-dated headshot so much as it's a pet peeve of mine.  Y'know how you attend an event and see the photo for a speaker in the brochure, but then meet them, and it's obvious that the photo was a Glamour Shot, or it was taken 10 years and 40 pounds ago?  That drives me crazy.  It's like, you think you're saving yourself embarrassment by having the "good" photo of you in print, but do you even realize how much you're pointing out "LOOK HOW MUCH I'VE CHANGED SINCE THIS PHOTO WAS TAKEN"?  No matter how much I squint, you're not going to look like this photo of you, so why don't you just suck it up and have yourself a steaming cup of reality, and get a current photograph?!?

Like I said ... pet peeve of mine.

A few weeks ago, I contacted a photographer friend that I trust and respect behind the lens, and tried to set up an appointment for JIm and I to both get our headshots done.  Unfortunately, despite a couple rounds of email, nothing ever coalesced.  And I'm picky about my photographers - I won't just go to a mall photo shop and let somebody take photos of me ... I want someone who will shoot high-res digital images and give me full rights to reproduce them.  I also want someone who is going to hand me the raw images and let me do what I want with them ... and not try doctoring them up at all.

But time was running out.  So this morning, I handed Jim my new camera, and asked him to snap a couple photos of me.  And holy guacamole, we actually managed to get one that will work for a headshot for now:

Yeah, so, I'm not in a suit.  I'm no longer in District leadership - I don't have to wear a suit unless I want to.  I'm going for the "polished, yet approachable" look.

So, this will tide me over for now ... until a little later this fall, when I'll either find myself a photographer I can trust (since it seems the one I was planning on using is now moving to Louisiana) or when Audrey and I can line up our schedules for a big ol' photo shoot.  And doesn't that sound like a whole lot of fun?  Some of my best photos have been taken by Audrey ... she just makes me smile!

And Jim - thank you for taking this for me today.  I feel so much better for having a current photo, and I think the conference planners feel better for finally having heard from me!  (To Districts 37, 25, and 50 - as well as Region V ... my apologies!)

Like my new theme?

In honor of last night's by-the-skin-of-their-teeth win by the Cowboys over Buffalo, I've re-skinned my blog.  For those of you who love football ... enjoy.  For those of you who don't ... don't worry, it's only temporary.

This was today's lunchtime project to let me play with some of the new features in Photoshop CS3.  I've got another seasonal banner in mind to swap out this weekend or early next week.

Daddy, this one's for you!

Because I deserve it!

I bought myself a new toy today.  Although, perhaps characterizing it as a "toy" isn't precisely fair.  Because, to me, it's a tool - and a necessity - as much as anything else.

You see, my digital camera bit the dust.  Yes, friends ... my Canon Elph has finally given up the ghost, and gone to the big electronics dustbin in the sky.  After years of fairly reliable service, it turned sullen and cranky, much like me after a long day at work.  Sometimes, it didn't want to turn on.  Other times, once you coaxed it into powering up, it then didn't want to power off.  And it might have been my imagination, or the fact that I got spoiled by borrowing Audrey's Digital SLR for so many months this summer, but the photo quality seemed to be degrading right before my eyes.

It was on Friday, when I bought my camera to the office to do a quick photo shoot for a down-and-dirty electronic tutorial I'm building for our product management group (on how to assemble one of our new MERV-16 air filters, extremely cool!) that it finally reached crisis point.  There we were, ready to do the shoot, and the stubborn little chunk of silver chips wouldn't cooperate.  It took me a good five minutes to get it to power up, and the battery - which I had just charged - died on me as I shot the final image.

I've had it.  So I did what I always do when I need information of a photographic nature.  I talked to Audrey.

She bought herself a new point-and-shoot recently, and I knew that she'd done a bunch of research before making her final decision. She's the genius when it comes to photography, so I entirely trust her opinion.  She recommended the Canon PowerShot SD750 7.1 Megapixel Digital Elph.  It's basically the super-big-brother to the 3.2 megapixel Elph I've been carrying around since the spring of 2003 ... just four years its senior.

Audrey and Chris quite happily happened to be over for dinner last night, and she whipped her camera out of her purse for me to play with.  It's light, it's slim, and dare I say it - it's sleekly sexy.  It turns on fast, when you ask it to (which already makes it better than my current Elph...) and the display - omigosh, the digital display on the back of this thing is absolutely gorgeous.  It's huge, and the image quality is freaking gorgeous!  I fell in love with that sexy little 7.1 megapixel baby.

Yeah, there are now 8 megapixel cameras on the market, but as Audrey quite aptly put it, that's when you hit the "pain point" on price.  I was pleased to find the SD750 on sale at Buy.com for $262.99 and free shipping.  Best Buy had it for $299, which would have meant instant gratification, but it also would have meant sales tax.  So Buy.com was it.

While I was at it, I also picked up a SanDisk Ultra II SD 2GB memory card, at Audrey's recommendation.  She's about to buy the 4GB for herself, in preparation for her cruise.  Apparently the write speed of the memory card becomes a serious limiting factor for this camera.  The photos themselves are 3-4MB apiece, and the SanDisk Ultra II can write at 9MB a second.  Makes total sense to me ... and I was able to add that onto my order at Buy.com for just another $32.99.

Finally, I tossed in a set of external speakers I had been eyeing - another recommendation from Audrey a few weeks ago, for plugging in my iPod or using as external speakers for my laptop - for less than $14.

Bargain shoppers, brace yourselves: the camera, the memory card, and the speakers ... free shipping ... no sales tax ... and an instant $10 discount when I signed up for Google's checkout tool ... my total charge was $299.

Now all I have to do is wait for my new toy - I mean, my new tool - to arrive.

I desperately want a digital SLR camera ... I've decided that for Christmas gifts and my birthday that follows (January 15th, for anyone who's paying attention!) all I want is cash.  I know that's kind of tacky, but friends and family, all I want is for folks to make contributions to "Angie's Dream Camera fund".

I want to buy a Nikon camera body and a great telephoto lens to get myself started, plus an external flash ... very much similar to what Audrey has.  Having borrowed her camera for an extended period of time this summer, I've convinced myself that this photography "thing" isn't just a passing fancy ... it's something that makes me extremely happy, and it's something I'm getting halfway good at.  So buying myself the beginning tools to pursue the hobby - without having to continually rely on Audrey's generosity - entirely makes sense.

Even if it is the single most expensive purchase I will have made in a long, long time.  And it sorta makes me choke every time I think about it.  And break out into a little bit of a sweat.

So, if anyone feels the overwhelming need to give me a gift, make it cash or check, payable to "Angie's Dream Camera fund."  I'm hoping to make that purchase sometime in February of next year.

In the meanwhile, Audrey's been incredibly cool about allowing me to borrow her gear while she and Chris are on their cruise (I told her I'd babysit it for her, how lame am I?) and then over the Thanksgiving holiday, so I can do our family's annual photo shoot ... plus a first-ever photo shoot for Jim's family in Arkansas.

And for all those in-between photos ... there's my new SD750.  Every girl needs a good point-and-shoot ... so, is mine here yet???