Blah, you know the standard stuff.

Rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules
3. Share 7 random or weird facts about yourself
4. Tag 7 random people at the end of the post, linking to them.
5. Leave a comment on their blog so that they know they’ve been tagged.

And without further ado, here we go:

• I have a piece of titanium wire glued behind my 4 front teeth. It’s been there so long, they recommend just leaving it ‘till I die.

• I got fired once. It was one of the single best things that happened to me. Having said that, I don’t recommend getting fired. 🙂

• As bad as it is for you, I am totally in love with chicken fried steak. Yumm.

• I have lived in the same apartment since 2000, and on the same street since 1998. (This is about to change, I hope.)

• I am adopted. And undecided whether I want to attempt to contact my one remaining birth parent (the other is dead.)

• I generally toss out-of-date food fairly regularly, but last week I accidentally found a box of pancake mix that expired in 2001.

• I hate internet memes. 😉

As many of you have pointed out, this last weekend was Easter Weekend. So instead of spending the weekend sitting at home, I decided to join a bunch of geocachers at Lake Mineral Wells State Park for a weekend of running around the woods looking for small hidden containers.

The weekend was great – Rebecca and Rick came with. A great time was had by all, but boy was it tiring. 4.5 hours of hoofing it through the woods at high speed, only pausing briefly while searching for the caches.

Sunday morning we slept in (8am for me, hah!) and made hot dogs in biscuit-dough blankets. Most delicious, once you get the procedure down. Yumm.

I was oh-so-sore and oh-so-tired, but boy, was it worth it.

I love the outdoors.

I don’t normally engage in spreading more effluvia about internet fads than neccesary, but I’ll make an exception.

LiveJournal, one of the oldest blog hosting sites, recently was bought out by some Russian company. This is really irrelevant, except for the fact that this new company has enacted a new subscriber policy in which they have done away with the gratis[0] ad-free signup option.

Previously there were several levels of subscribership:

• Basic: Free w/no ads
• Plus: Free w/ads
• Paid: Paid w/no ads (recurring cost)
• Permanent: Paid w/no ads (one time, $$)
• Early Adopters (founders, people who’ve been around for a while, etc)

SUP (the Russian company)’s new policy
did away with the basic-level accounts, still leaving a “free” option, however it is (somewhat) hampered with advertisements).

Most of the people who are jumping on the boycott bandwagon (including, to a large degree the instigator) seem to confuse the difference between the “basic” account type being disabled and all free account types being disabled.

Unfortunately, they are in the wrong on this matter. You can still create a free account, you just have to deal with a few advertisements (or install an ad blocker – works well for me).

Having said all that, I don’t expect the basic accounts to return.

However, I envision a black market on basic (free, ad-free) LiveJournal accounts emerging, and my account will gladly be sold to the highest bidder.

First off, thank you all for the kind words regarding my fledgling photography. Seems I have rather high standards for myself. 🙂

As followup to the free trip to Strictly Business 2: I am sad to report that I did not make the cut.

It’s quite alright, perhaps I will pay my own way some day, when the need (or urge) becomes strong enough.

Okay, I will engage in a flagrant display of self-promotion, and a plea of assistance to all my friends who are willing to help out one fledgeling photographer….

“So, what’s this all about?”

Thanks for asking – Chase Jarvis has offered to sponsor one person to the ASMP Strictly Business 2 conference in Chicago this spring.

From the ASMP website:

ASMP’s Strictly Business 2 is a weekend conference that will teach you real-world business skills and help you thrive in our highly competitive industry.

In order to accommodate this, he has set out the following “rules of engagement”:

Here’s how you win:

1. Put your name, url, and up to 100 words about why you’d be a great candidate in the comments section below.

2. Reach out to friends, family, co-workers, instructors, etc, whomever makes sense to support your nomination. In the comments section below, have them list also your name, your website if you have one, and have them write from 0 to 100 words – not more – on your behalf, why you’d be a good candidate, etc.

So, Dominic, I’d love to help… how?

I’m glad you asked – basically, I plead with each and every one of you to go here and give Chase a 100 words or less pitch about why he should sponsor me to the SB2 conference.

To help you along your way, you can look at my photography here, and here is what I wrote when I self-nominated myself:

Chase,

I nominate myself – Dominic Eidson, www.dominiceidson.com.

Why? Because I love photography. More than I love my current bread & butter IT job. And in order to make (more of) a business out of photography, I’ll have to learn more about photography as a business. And what better place to learn the business side of photography than to be invited to SB2 by none other than Chase Jarvis himself?

I’m currently focusing on portraiture, hoping to be able to combine my love for photojournalism into one of those “unique looks.” However, I also like shooting landscapes, travel photography and the weird stuff that goes into “contemporary.”

Thanks for the support, y’all.

And here you can read why I’m voting for Kermit for President 2008.

🙂