First things first, as I mentioned in my previous post, I have me a new toy: the apparently already-outmoded Sony Cybershot DSCW-200: a combination treat to myself and a needed accessory in the wake of our last camera's unexpected demise right before the end of baseball season last year (and just before the Central Division clinching game, to make matters worse!). This new guy is a leap forward from our old Cybershot, offering a whole range of shooting and setup options which I am still figuring out as you read this, not to mention far more detailed picture and movie quality than what we were used to before.
In addition to providing all kinds of new pix for this here blog, my new little gadget will also be contributing heavily to my recently-created Flickr site, where I've been busily editing and assembling photographic galleries for your viewing pleasure. A couple of Tribe games that Sarah and I attended last fall are already up on the space as you read this, soon to be joined by tomorrow's contest, some pix of the kitties, the store, and whatever else I get in the mood to shoot over the coming months.While we're discussing all-things internet related, there will be some big changes pretty soon around these parts, and I suppose now would make for an opportune time to hip y'all to what's coming up. First off, this blog will very soon be known instead as The Cantaloupe Machine. Some of you may remember this to be the name of a music-only blog that I started to mess around with a couple of summers ago and never really kept up with as simply creating content for one of these things (let alone two) was eating up more time and thought than I was willing to invest at that point. Since I always liked that name "The Cantaloupe Machine" much better than I Am A Bug, I've decided to resurrect the name at this location rather than simply wipe it out. Thus, the original Cantaloupe Machine has been deleted and the posts that were hosted over there will be reverting back to this space in re-edited form over the next few months once I finish wrapping up the Twenty Years series (which is about 1-2 posts from completion as of right now).
Going along with the renaming of this blog will be a re-formatting to change up the basic look of this place a bit. Don't worry, I'm not looking to drench my content in day-glo yellow with pink polka dot highlights or anything like that, but I do want something just a bit "busier" looking than the rather austere design I've been using here since late 2004.
Sarah's new job seems to be progressing pretty well, though by dint of her working environment alone, it's certainly a far more stressful affair for her than Case had been. As she is fond to quote from Ghostbusters: "Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've worked in the private sector. They expect results."
Stress has been a shared element around here ever since last summer, when Sarah left Case and spent some time on the dole and I was finding myself with an evaporated bank account (again) after my root canal and crown. For her, many recent headaches have been due to her car's recent systematic breakdowns as nearly every possible thing that can go wrong has done so over the last few months. This puts much more stress than I'd like on the aging Beretta that I've been driving as she needs to use it to get to work, being that we live about six times farther from her place of employment than mine. Conveniently, the Beretta is now developing some issues that will need attention shortly ... assuming I can do so after my own maintenance dues are paid, and that is a situation that is also developing in unpleasant new directions lately.I've already paid up on the first of two crowns I'll be getting this year from my dentist (the prep for this one was a couple weeks ago now, the completed crown will be in next Monday), which is no big issue as these procedures were part of my financial plans for this year since last fall. However, some new discomfort has been nagging at me over the last couple of weeks from beneath the site of my crown from last year, which has me worried that something about the root canal (done by an endodontist at Aspen Dental in Mayfield last summer) that preceded the placing of that crown may have gone wrong.
Now, if the above is indeed the case (and I hope to figure this out after my next crown placing via. an x-ray or two), I have no idea what to do about it or how to proceed with possibly un-doing and re-doing all of that work from last year. I do know that my dentist plans to send me back to that endodontist if the discomfort fails to improve by next week (on the assumption that this might be some kind of late-breaking infection, I've been on Amoxycillin for a few days now), but unless the x-rays show something is demonstrably wrong beneath that crown, I have no idea what to even ask the endodontist to do about it. If the procedure was done wrong the first time around, I get the funny idea I'm not going to get much of a break on having it done over again ... and if doing so also involves creating and placing a new crown afterwards, my slowly recovering finances will spin right out of my control yet again.
There have been a couple of new developments on the money front lately that have greatly helped with the bills and getting myself back to being caught up (which is basically where I am now). Knowing I'd be facing a couple grand more in dental work this year, as well as needing to start seriously setting aside some kind of money for a possible replacement for the Beretta, I decided back in January to open a store on amazon.com in order to start generating some side income to get me over the coming springtime hump. After a couple of weeks of absolutely nothing happening, suddenly I started selling some of my older CDs and movies right and left. A few weeks later, I mentioned how my little operation was doing to Greg, and he started selling some items through my store as well (and paying me a generous commission for it at the end of every Amazon payment cycle).By the middle of March, through a combination of my own sales and a portion of his, I'd made enough after expenses to wipe out the first crown prep and placement, and that more than anything else is what allowed me to catch up with bills after over six months of being behind. With another crown (and whatever else awaits) still on the horizon, I'm not out of the woods just yet, but I'm definitely optimistic that keeping my little online operation going a few more months will help make the worst of the expenses yet to come a bit easier to handle.
Work itself has been a bit touch and go from a numbers standpoint, though business overall seems pretty steady compared to last year. The big problem we have is that blizzard a few weeks ago in particular gave us one hell of a black eye, landing on one of the busier non-holiday weekends of the year. Thus, in the space of two awful days, the month March instantly became a lost cause.
Obviously, we're looking to make that lost business back over the rest of the year, but with the other two months of this year so far coming in at "flat" or "just off by a hair," and the general shaky state of consumer confidence and the economy as a whole, those two days might actually become the difference in our year unless we can catch a break. Then again, in modern music retail, flat is the new up, and Greg is still confident enough in our ability to lure business that we're in the process of negotiating our next five-year lease.
Finally, in perhaps the one shining ray of truly good news I've had so far this year: I actually made back a handful of money on my tax returns at both the state and local level (which in all likelihood means I did something wrong, heh heh). Sure, the combined amount I made back won't even fill my gas tank, but hey, a small victory sometimes means just as much as a big one.
Go Tribe!
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