Linux - the Trial Trail

I bitched about apple. I said I was going to go HP and linux, and now I am.

I've been way busy this summer. That's another story.

But now, like the song says, 'my boyfriend's back and you're going to be in trouble'

I'm not sure how much I'm in trouble with linux and my belief I can replace what I was doing on my mac with linux, but we'll document that...

In any event I plan to bust apple's chops on not supporting me in particular and loyal apple users for decades and multi-deca-dollars.

Now Taking Norvasc for Hypertension

methylethyl2-(2-aminoethoxymethyl)-4-(2-chlorophenyl)-6- methyl-1,4-dihydropyridine-3,5-dicarboxylate

5mg/day

There is a risk of side effects associated with Norvasc, some of which are severe. A patient experiencing a serious side effect or an allergic reaction should seek immediate emergency medical attention. An allergic reaction will result in symptoms that include facial swelling, including swelling of the lips, mouth, tongue, or throat, hives, and difficulty breathing. Other serious side effects which require emergency medical care include symptoms such as chest pain, slow heart beat, fast heart beat, chest pain, sever dizziness, fainting, psychosis, jaundice, or swelling of the legs and ankles.

Glacier

Spent the past few weeks in Glacier Park.

There's no evidence reading is any more important there than here in California.

I'll have more photos to post as I learn linux.

Ethics 101

Here's an image I've listed at fineartamerica.com. I've sold a couple of images there, and it's been a great experience.

So, here's an image someone's bought today.

Here's my email copy:

Hi Larry,

You received an order today on FineArtAmerica.com for one of your prints! The order details are included, below:

Wave by Larry Darnell

Image Size:
40.00" x 21.25"
Total Size:
40.00" x 21.25"
Print Material:
Glossy Finish Canvas
Finishing:
Gallery Wrapped - 1.5" Stretcher Bars - Back Stapled - Black Sides

Profit from Print:
$175.00
Profit from Accessories:
$18.94
Quantity Ordered:
1
Total Profit:
$193.94

Well, that's ok...no one can complain about this.

And then I get this next email, similar to another I got for the last sale I made with them:

Congratulations on your recent order for Wave!

Unfortunately, there is a problem with your image that will prevent us from making a high-quality print:

1. The image has a digital blur effect applied to the whole image.

We need the original, unaltered image. Unless you happen to know this buyer, I can tell you from experience that he/she is probably expecting a pure image and will probably return the print if it's digitally altered.

Can you please correct the problem and upload a new image to FineArtAmerica.com as soon as possible? You'll need to replace your existing image (http://fineartamerica.com/featured/wave-larry-darnell.html) with your new image.

Please let me know as soon as you've uploaded the new image. I have the order on hold until I hear back from you.

Well, hear back from me we do:

I'd like to point out, there are 2 fundamental problems here. The first is I presented the image this person decided to buy, and you are suggesting they not only don't want what they've seen, but they won't get what they've seen - which, as far as I can tell is unethical, and probably illegal.

The second is you are asking me to alter the image I've presented, after I've spent hours altering it the way I wanted it presented - to make a pure image. Well, I can get beyond the non-implied insult, but not quite to the steady ground of your definition of pure.

I perceive there is some kind of standard by which you people judge what will print acceptably and what won't - which is neither clear nor stated anywhere. Consequently, there is no real definition of what you 'want.'

You state I applied a blur effect. Well, I applied a lot of effects - I don't know what blur effect you refer to. The process I pursued was to create a Japanese woodblock print effect on an underlying photograph.

I guess we'll have to lose the sale unless you can be more specific regarding what you want.

I know I'm nuts to turn down the sale - but what can I do...ALL my work is not PURE, I'm sure.

What do you think?

Is there life after APPLE?

Purgatorio
As I was saying ..my Apple dual G5 of 3.5 years died last week. This my main machine for graphics has been a workhorse with minor problems and a 3 year APPLECARE we'll come and change your sox $300 program which ran out last January and, unlike the telemarketers' promise, cannot be extended.

So it's dead...and here am I wondering what to do...

I did a perfunctory search on the web to find some quick fixit suggestions - all of which i tried to no avail - and i also found a surprising number of whiners complaining about the same problems i was having...with mixed results from Apple support.

Now, I'll admit, I expect to get moused by most large corporations. But this is being written on an Apple g4 machine that's 10 years old...and I'm still using 2 old g4 laptops - my expectations have been set so high, it's hard for me to accept a dead lemonapple after 3.5 years.

Well, I digress...I took the box to Santa Cruz to Dave's for $75 to tell me...whoa, it's the logic board or processor: $7-800 to start. I didn't want to do that...who knows how long that fix will stay fixed?

In this day and age, that's still alot of dough for me - a light lunch for some.

During this process my friend Don asked, have you taken it to the Geniuses? I hadn't had that standing-at-the-oracle experience. Something you might do sometime, if you can't get to Lourdes or Delphi... You are confronted with a weighty coolness and light, the acolytes and Geniuses are young cool arrogant talking snakes. If you don't know about this unique Apple personality, you should think: Timmy Geithner but cool, Marky Mark with a GED or DeSoto sales people who don't need tutone shoes and brylcreme hair - hipsters deep into that 1984 commercial style trench they think they broke out of.

Well, I did get around to taking the computer to the Apple Genius Bar in Los Gatos...now this is a cultural throwback to something surreal as well. Most of the media buzz these days, when not arabcentric, is about how the dust bowl is acomin or here now, Not Los Gatos. So Los Gatos is a Must see. It's a Western Silicon Valley enclave that's always been the upscale [often white, but not always] place where those in the futureknow shake a tailfeather. Los Gatos is like an updated backlot 50's version of bustling small town america on steroids - commerce a-gogo, preening yuppies doing eurotrash and upsacle california casual. And buying their precious and weaverbird geegaws like sandbags before the impending flood.

So I went to the APPLE center. I did this because I read the tempting forum experiences of those who claimed they knew someone with MY SAME PROBLEM, APPLE gave a new machine to, only charged for parts, acted like their product was important to them and so was their customer.... WOW! Let me in on this gravy train.

Well, on a Thursday night, with my "some dirt on the case" G5, I was lucky to get an appointment at the genius bar...look way back in the photo to the blue squares, those are monitors...just above them are the iconic statements that you're at the oracle of the GENIUS BAR.

To help with the visualization, I will be taking photos on my next visit, so you without experience can visualize the intellectual separation between you and an Apple genius.

I met with the genius who was able to tell me how much it would cost me for APPLE to confirm DAVE's assessment ($75). Sure, sure...I was ready for the mea culpa...I'd read the dual G5 was acknowledged by engineers as a lemon before they pulled the production trigger.

Woof. Not so fast chucko =

Altho I was told the box was going on the rack for a 48 hour testorama, I discovered on my return from my pickup Jasonandmeg LA roundtrip [another tale for another time] they'd left a phone message the next day saying - oh, you need to replace the logic board and processors - $1800 +.

To be fair, I was told on the phone I could get it fixed cheaper someplace else. I was told I could part it out. I was told too bad. I was told there's no place for old, or recently old macs.

So for half the price of the fix, I'm getting a new HP.

But there's purgatory...that time when no longer apple and learning linux....it's going to be a slog


updates as they are available

waiting for the electrician

im sitting here with Dante [grandson 2 years] asleep upstairs, waiting for his brother to be born.

we were at the park this afternoon, that would be the park Fred Keeley said no one use because he's the kind of officious public servant who knows everything wrong, but is arrogant and a pissant to boot.

we were at the park this afternoon, and Dante, who is now physically pretty controlled, altho falls from time to time controlled, was climbing on structures pretty well.

he was interested in watching the big kids running, climbing and jumping on everything - but not wholly interested in being involved with them in any particular way.

which brings me to my point regarding my work.

there are seldom any people in my images, and if they are, it's unlikely they are anyone you can identify - how come?

i hadn't thought about it much until i watched Dante avoid the big kids.

when i have a choice, i don't like people. i'd prefer to be left alone - what legal scholars state that which defines the right to privacy. i'm not interested in listening to others' litany of problems, regurgitated perceptions of reality as dictated by the media, or careworn popular culture claptrap regarding the challenges of the earnest borgeouis middleclass, deflating retirement accounts and real estate, inflating butts, jowls, guts or metastases.

i don't mind an intellectual challenge, the wit or insight of the gifted and anything that offers the opportunity to experience something that will drag me outside or transcend myself, or provide the shock of the new - that has nothing to do with style.

i'm not just jaded, i'm just about 60 and i dont have the time for the predictable pathetic weight of this disintegrating culture.

so, i do landscapes devoid of people. not because the landscape is God's pristine garden, but because there people aren't there. i don't care how many feet have trod the place. i don't believe a place is any better due to the difficulty of inhabiting it.

at that moment i'm in it, it talks to me because no one else is there - at that moment, which i love - and for the image to share with those who also respond to an empty place for a moment to be alone.

Spring Creek

We went to Dorrington for the weekend, and while I didn't shoot much, I did get 4 or 5 images that I think are pretty great.

I've posted one at Fine Art America here:

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/spring-creek-larry-darnell.html

I haven't had the chance to print or even proof any of them, but I wanted to work with this one, as I also have audio to go with it.

coppermine gripe

I've about had it with coppermine as a platform for my portfolio.

I think I'll be revamping all my photo galleries in the next couple of weeks.

UPS GRIPE

I don't know why I wasn't getting UPS emails - which are the only way I get their bills, but I didn't get them for a few months.

Now my UPS usage is pretty small...I gripe about another issue later, but we're not talking about a lot of dough.

So, they get around to sending me a notice by mail about my unpaid balance, about which I was partially unaware. Why partially? Well, I gave a vendor my UPS account number and asked them to send me stuff on my account to save a shipping premium they charge. Well, I get no invoices from UPS, so I'm not aware of what I owe.

I call them, and discover, aha, here are the collect charges. They ask about my email address to make sure it's the right one, and, lo and behold, it is - I still didn't get the invoices, but I paid what I believed I owed - never got any invoices from them - by email even after I called.

They added late payments. I didn't pay them.

Now they've given me notice I've got an invoice, and I got to log in to my account, and can't. Ask to get a new password by email. I get it....can't log in with the new password. Get another password from them...can't log in with that one.

Woof - I call the number in the email states they're open Mon-Fri 8am - 9pm eastern time. The message says, they're open 8am to 8pm eastern time. Too late on the west coast to call after 5pm.

Ok, I'll call tomorrow.

How much time invested? Just 1 hour so far.

New Hope for American Art

New publication about regional artists from the New Hope, eastern Pennsylvania Bucks County region. I've just ordered this and will have a review as soon as I get it.

Available here at the publisher: Jim's of Lambertville.

Twitter Experiment

Ok, I'm trying twitter to see how else I can be distracted from doing my work. So far, I've found the article posted below, and a French photographer who's identified a couple of links to other websites where I might post my art. We'll see.

follow me here

http://twitter.com/CALandscapeArt

How the City Hurts Your Brain

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/01/04/how_the_city_hurts_your_brain/

Landscape art for therapy

Art Books

I am a hopeless collector of art books. I often acquire more than one of a title that interests me, and offer those for sale at my website, many times at prices less than retail. I tend to enjoy western art and photography, landscape art[ists], Japanese prints and style, biographies and a variety of other things. Take a look, you might see something you like. And I will be identifying books I think are special.

Link to Art Books.

FINEARTAMERICA

I've just started posting images to the Fineartamerica site. Hello to those of you who have come here from there.

I am revamping my website starting tomorrow to update many new images I've made over the past year and haven't posted yet.

You can see additional images I've posted at the photo.net site in the interim.

I'd value any and all comments you have the time to leave me.