Hello, my name is Dan and this is my DT Log.

Creatively, I am going in a different direction starting with the new year, and I intend to bring the DT Log back to what it was pre-Internet, which is updating and entertaining friends.

So this will be the last public DT Log WordPress post.

***

Some of the things I have learned after two years working in a photo lab:

Studio portraits are unnecessary. – The most stress of this job is trying to convince customers that we as a lab need permission from the photographers to reprint their works. But with a few exceptions, the quality of studio portraiture is very poor. Even when it does pass muster with lighting, clarity, composition, I still find most shots to be sterile, unimaginative and not worth the money. Often, I find candid snapshots more charming and better suited for wall placement.

Some people’s fear of technology cost them hundreds of dollars each year. – I started this job thinking that there was still a use for film in most cases, but now I have come to the conclusion that digital saves a ton of money. To process 27 pictures on film, you have to buy a Single Use Camera for $4-8 and then process in one hour for about $8 if you want just singles. Multiply this by 20 to 30 per year from our frequent shutterbugs and that can be upwards of $200. A simple investment of a Fuji bundle for just $90 and then printing 100 pictures for 15 cents apiece (not including pictures you couldn’t otherwise delete on film), and the savings would be within reach very quickly. Alas, technophobia not just abounds in the baby boomers and up, but a lot of Gen Xers as well.

The Polaroid brand has been run into the ground, and Kodak is headed that way too. – With Tom Petters being found guilty this past week of his company’s Ponzi scheme, Polaroid’s future is very much up in the air. They don’t produce Instamatic film anymore, and their product output is abysmal. Polaroid digital cameras have the worst quality of any national brand, and they break very easily. Once solid in reputation, Kodak is having trouble because of lot of their past business has been selling film. They posted a $137 million loss in 4Q 2008, and started whittling away at their workers due to “plunging sales of both digital and film-based photography products.” Despite friendly yellow boxes and decades-long brand loyalty, their products aren’t very good anymore, and customers are starting to bypass them in favor of Samsung, Sony and Canon.

There is no down time, ever. – Since this is my first experience with retail, there is always something to do. Always. Where once I had a job where I could listen to the radio and leisurely key in office supply orders, this is absolutely, mentally and physically, the hardest job I’ve had to do in my life. And appropriately enough, I don’t make even close the amount of money I did when I was in data entry. Of course the rent in Minnesota is much, much cheaper than California, but it doesn’t feel like an equitable trade-off.

Self-service photo kiosks are designed to be “user-friendly,” but those designers couldn’t possibly know what that means. – Programmers overestimate the ability of the average customer to use their machines. Instead of simplicity, the kiosks are filled with all kinds of confusing twists and turns under a mission of upselling and offering as many choices as possible. So unlike In-N-Out Burger menus, the complexity of the touch-screen options actually mean we lab workers are spending more time walking our customers through orders. We’re not supposed to “order for them,” so guiding the average first-time user (and there are hundred of them each month), means we fall behind in our other lab duties.

The one-hour photo is the wackiest place in any store, so naturally I fit in. – Photo is the landing place for quirky personalities due to the intense interaction with machines and customers. On one hand, the routine is very right-brained, and you follow a rigid to-do list that is more science than art. Once aforementioned customers have problems on the kiosks, we must do a mental 180 and teach using our left brains. Couple that with the physical stress of being on our feet all day, we are exhausted by day’s end. So gregariousness, joking around and loud, amusing proclamations are the hallmark of the ideal photo worker’s personality. And since we know the names of our customers, those wacky customers often congregate and join in the absurdity. I suggest if you ever wanted free entertainment, go to your nearest discount or grocery store on a busy day and watch the lab work.

***

Hope this was an entertaining one year-point-three-three of DT Log on WordPress.

See everybody on the other side of the decade on FA.

Ascent: August 30, 2009.

Mark Ness, one of two people to successfully highpoint all the counties in the state of Minnesota, called Crow Wing County’s summit “one of the most remote in the state.”  He is very right about that.  There is virtually no chance of driving right up to it.  The way to claim the high point is to trudge through the woods and sidestep the swamps.

It was daunting for my first county highpoint, but I had to do it, since Crow Wing is my home county.

Read the rest of this entry »

For years and years, and many viewings, it took me until LAST YEAR to be able to parse the differences of Brian Johnson’s letter from the beginning of the movie The Breakfast Club, and his final draft.

Each of us… each of us.

EACH OF US!

I’ve seen John Hughes’s movie at least 25 times [it was one of my sister's VCR tapes on heavy rotation], and yet the subtly of this escaped me.  The point of the entire movie.  What happened?  Did I see it when I was too young and then I only paid attention to the off-color jokes upon repeated viewings?  Did I just zone out as soon as Simple Minds’s “Don’t You Forget About Me” started playing behind John Bender’s triumphant fist-pump under the football crossbar?

A great, great screenwriter… John Hughes… disarming us with laugh-out-loud humor, and then reeling us in like a guffawing big-mouth trout to absorb the drama underneath.  Someone who was an example for me as I tried in the mid-90s to be as prolific as I could putting stage direction and dialogue to page on my Commodore 128.

He holds the record for fastest time writing a screenplay: 2 days for Weird Science.

Two days!  120 pages?!  Most writers only crank out 2-3 pages a day if they work 8 hours at it.  I can imagine John at his typewriter, right next to a percolating Mr. Coffee.  Pounding away for hours and hours and coming up with the funniest lines in movie history, establishing the smart-ass teenager movie as a genre, letting the caffeine help transcribe the movie in his head.

I finished my first screenplay in 8 days back in 1994 – Night on the Edge.  I thought to myself… wow, this is great.  I can do one of these a month!  So many ideas!  I’ll have a stack of scripts by the end of the year!

Well, that proved to be an exception.  As a matter of fact, the most recent script I completed took 12 years!

I don’t think I could have matched the frenzy of completing The Breakfast Club in 3 days, or the week spent on the first draft of Mr. Mom.  His scripts, all comedies poked with sentiment, and done the right way – National Lampoon’s Vacation, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink,

and my favorite Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, where the most lasting moment is when Cameron closely examines the famous pointilist painting by Georges Serrault,  A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte: it is an illusion made up of millions of dots.

John Hughes gave spirit, humor and intelligence to his teenage characters, and it is sad that he should die at the young age of 59 – influencing some great screenwriter-directors like Judd Apatow and Kevin Smith, (me too, maybe, someday?)  With the whirlwind of my life as a teenager, I probably figured out way too late [into my 30s!] that I was a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal.

Maybe I shouldn’t look at the stats to Dan Touchette’s Timebox:

I don’t think you can accuse me of keyboard spamming, because this was the passage that probably brought this search term to my dashboard:

Honestly, Troy and Andrew were most excited about this. They were the ones who networked their computers together and played Doom all weekend. Troy was practically fondling the Timebox to suppress his excitement. Andrew told him to knock it off and give to me.

So I had the Timebox in my hands, which were attached to arms around a cute red-headed girl who was, for all intents and purposes, jailbait. The only thing I needed was a day off tomorrow to enjoy this a little bit longer…

Maybe this contraption would make her boyfriend disappear.

I think you can see here that I’m only commenting on the romantic age difference of 20 to 17, which does carry some sort of guilt and delicacy.  There really isn’t anything sexual about this scene other than the fun and innocent flirting I remember from 14 years ago.

So if people are scouring WordPress pages, in search of underage girls,

well, I hereby apologize you had to read my little sci-fi story and left unsatisfied.

I was checking out at the store the other day, and this caught my eye:

Yowsa!

And Elaine couldn’t find anybody that was sponge-worthy?

If you put me in a room with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Megan Fox, seriously, I couldn’t be sure who I’d gawk at more.

For those hopeful of maintaining health and vitality at age 48, it might be a good read.

link

If you have read Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach, you may be familiar with the parable of  the Blue Feather.

Bookrags sums up the passage like this:

When Donald W. Shimoda challenges narrator Richard to practice “magnetizing” things to make them materialize at will, Richard chooses a blue feather. He carefully pictures every aspect of the feather for several minutes and then broods all afternoon because no blue feather appears as Shimoda assures him it will. Finally, at dinnertime, a blue feather appears as a logo on a milk carton. Shimoda explains a real feather would have appeared had Richard pictured himself holding one rather than as an abstract thing.

Because the universe of Richard Bach’s novels is a hopeful version of my own reality and truth, I decided to read more.  I found The Bridge Across Forever, a non-fiction love story, in a thrift shop.  One of my online acquaintences, Konrad, suggested I read Bach’s One.  But I couldn’t find it in the library or in any thrift store.  I didn’t want to pay for it online, knowing I would at the very least have to pay a few dollars shipping.

One warm Saturday, I ventured to the Santee Swap Meet looking for treasures.  I did get one, season five of “The Simpsons” on DVD for nine dollars.  This left me with 25 cents.

As I rounded the back of the lot, I thought of Richard Bach and his “experiment” with the Blue Feather.  Also taking a cue from Dr. Wayne Dyer, “I decided” that I would find a paperback copy of One within the next week, and I would pay 25 cents for it.

Right by the exit was a bookseller with about two hundred paperbacks on the table.  I scanned them quickly, and in short time, my jaw dropped and my soul stirred.  There it was – the novel One by Richard Bach.  I gave myself a week to find it, but it took only ten minutes!  Sure enough, the sign above the texts read: “PAPERBACKS – .25″

That day I realized I could make powerful decisions and create a little miracle.

The year 2008 was a rough one for me and my family – professionally certainly, as I still feel I need free time to pursue my desires in the arts.  My faith was thoroughly tested and I did emotionally break down at least once.

Now the fresh start of 2009 has me energized, and I answered an ad in the Cass-Crow Wing County Freecycle for a box of free books.  What the heck, I said, I might be able to fund my non-profit this year with a book sale.  Not to mention, most of Bronwynn’s and my books are still in my mother-in-law’s shed in El Cajon, including my copies of One and The Bridge Across Forever.

~

Less than a half hour ago I dropped off the money order for the rent and looked at the books.

Lo, at the bottom of the box commingled with silly romance novels, Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews and Psycho II,

there was One by Richard Bach.

My Blue Feather decided to appear in Minnesota.

THIS MAY OR MAY NOT BE A TRUE STORY.

A funny thing happened to me in the photo lab yesterday.  I was cursed.

When encountering a customer with a difficult issue, it’s best to remain patient and try to solve the problem.  This old women with pale blue eyes pointed a crooked forefinger at me and said, “How dare you reprint 15 copies of frame 15A!  It was supposed to be 16A!”

I had no idea there were gypsies in Minnesota.

“Uh, okay, ma’am, sorry about that.  You’re right, it was supposed to be 16A.  I can take the negatives back and redo them.  I’ll try to have them out in 15 minutes.”

“FIFTEEN MINUTES!” she growled, “I don’t have such time, young man.  I have to be at the Brainerd Tennis Club in five!”

“Oh, wow,”  I said.  “Okay, I’ll try to get them out as soon as I can.”

I could tell by the fury exhibited by her furrowed brow that anything short of me going back in time and redoing her prints would be unsatisfactory.  Nevertheless, I don’t actually have a timebox in my possession, so I was just going to have to draw a deep sigh and return to my work.

I ran the negatives again, careful to pick frame 15A, and then – the paper jammed in section 7!  The line was growing behind the crone, and every machine in the place was beeping at me.  The Rimage CD writer stuck its tongue out at me in disapproval.

It took 22 minutes to give the old woman her reprints.  “That is unacceptable, young man!” she told me, “All the tennis courts will be taken by the Philistines!  Oh… I curse you.  Curse you for all eternity!”

GULP!

Hey bony finger in the air shaking with ire, she said, “No matter what creative endeavor you partake.  No matter what success you find in business or in life.  YOU, DAN TOUCHETTE, SHALL ETERNALLY AND SOLELY BE REMEMBERED FOR THE DT LOG!”

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

***

I’ve got three binders next to me on the computer desk, each with about 300 pages of the DT Log, starting in March 1989.  I tried my best not to reference them too much online recently, because it sort of makes me feel like a one-trick pony.  I mean everybody blogs nowadays, and that’s all the DT Log really was, a pre-Internet blog.

Since high school, I’ve written constantly with nary a single project published, albeit the two newspaper articles I did for the TCU Daily Skiff.  Poems, short stories, screenplays.  I feel like I’ve improved tremendously since the staccato wording of the early DT Logs, and the smarmy smart-assedness of the senior logs.

I’d like to move on, but I have to admit it was fun to punch out the logs and pass them around in class.  Every now and again, I may reprint from the archive, but really, and trust me on this,

the DT Logs were a lot worse than you remembered them.    But when you have the choice between a DT Log about me wearing Hammer Pants or paying attention to Scott Lieberknecht’s calculus lecture, you know what you enjoyed more.

So, for now, I’ll have to settle for being remembered for the DT Log.  But I will keep everybody posted on the developments that my creative life hopefully will offer.

***

Thanks, everybody for the good words over the years about the DT Log,

and please don’t take action against the gypsy on my behalf.  She might actually have blessed me rather than cursed me.

Oh yes, and like always, feel free to provide public response in the space provided below.

Tom Brokaw of NBC Nightly News said, “This isn’t just United States history, it is world history happening now.”

When he said that, I was watching the happy faces at Grant Park in Chicago, and I became teary-eyed.

Many hours ago, Democrat Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States.

I wasn’t getting misty over shared poltical values with Obama; I’m probably political closer to John McCain.  Being a Libertarian, I tend to side with the Republicans on most things fiscal.

No, the emotion was from the collapse and rebuilding of history before my eyes.  The salve for the wounds of this great country’s unfortunate legacy of slavery: the times when society had not yet caught up with enlightenment.  I was told many times that a black man would not lead this nation.   I am feeling the joy of the downtrodden minorities who now may believe that anything is possible.

So now I look to the next four years, at least the next two in which the executive and legislative branches are held by the blue-staters.  I anticipated this when I designed my goal storyboard, and I believe I can succeed in gaining free time, eliminating debt and building wealth under a government and an economy that may not be conducive to such things.  I can adjust my strategy.

Anything is possible.

(Graphic hosted by ImageShack.)

I can feel my life slipping away, exploding exponentially forward death now that I have come in contact with old friends via Facebook.  This is it: this is the gigantic time-waster that has its talons firmly embedded in me.

Oh, I’ve eschewed the online gaming community.  World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Second Life, those games have evaporated the lives of many people I loved, much more than alcohol or meth.  Nancy Reagan should start a “Just Say No” movement against those RPGs.

MySpace could have done it, but I’ve resisted that as well.  Maybe it’s that the site lets people design their page so that others will end up with a migraine or seizure.  I’ve pimped my space out and rather than continuously updating it obsessively, I’ve let it sit.

Now Facebook is in the process of assimilating me into it’s Borg-like structure.  I found out that I am now BFF with Muku Nizam because we have a 66% compatibility in movies we like.  It’s the continuous updates of what other people are doing.  Now I know I have a sphere of influence.  For example, I become a fan of the Coen Brothers, and then see Muku and Brad Boggess do the same a few hours later!  Fascinating!

I have two days off, Monday and Tuesday, and now I face Wednesday knowing I could have done a lot more around the house before I cruise back to work, making the Man richer.

Damn it, Facebook!  Give me back my life!

Like other parts of the county, Minnesota has sports fans, including football and baseball.  Now that it is getting to be football season, you would expect the countyside to be completely awash in the purple and gold of the Vikings.

Not quite.  You get a healthy dose of green and yellow from Packers fans who live in this state, too.

Where is the state loyalty?

Loyalty to geographical area is not a factor insomuch as following a winning team.  The Packers have won three Super Bowls to the Vikings zero, so it’s not a surprise that the influence of the Cheeseheads extends beyond Wisconsin’s boundaries.

It’s kind of the like the outcrop of Raiders fans in San Diego, though that group is diminishing with every sub-500 season.

I know it’s very obvious and pessimistic – winning teams acquire fans in other markets, making us a nation of frontrunners.  Have I seen one single Milwaukee Brewers cap up here in the Northwoods?  Not a one.  It is about a 90% Minnesota Twins penetration, because they have won a World Series.

I also spotted gear representing the Cardinals and the White Sox.

I expect the Minnesota Vikings to make the playoffs this year, and maybe I won’t experience the general apathy by even the Vikings fans, who after years and years of crushed hopes, have settled into a morass of low expectations.