Combating Boredom
Another week of hunkering down. Not much happening here in Denver other than the constant bombardment of political crap and reruns on television. The national election is in a few weeks and I’ve long since made up my mind as to how I’m voting. I try to avoid political discussions with my friends and acquaintances, what’s the point? I’m sure they’ve made up their minds too and it isn’t my job to convince anyone of the correctness of their decisions. I guess that’s what elections are about, everyone getting their two cents in. For the record, I’m an Independent voter and I’m not voting for any Republican on any ticket. I doubt I’ll ever vote for another Republican, ever, for the remainder of my life. If you’re wondering why, you’re probably a Republican. Enough said about that.
The photography is still on hold, more or less. It’s hard to find motivation to make road trips during the pandemic. We don’t go out much, except to buy groceries and necessary supplies to continue hunkering while the world goes mad. I’ll wait it out, sooner or later, things will change.
On the subject of photography, I’ve closed my stock photography account with ShutterStock. A few months ago they changed their payment structure for contributors, reducing the amount paid for any particular download to a paltry 10 cents per image in most instances. It’s a shareholder thing, their stock performance has been lackluster and the people who’ve invested in their company are wanting more money so they’ve decided to take it out of our pockets. Apparently, I’m not the only contributor to feel fleeced as the general feeling amongst us contributors is that ShutterStock has screwed a lot of people who rely on their stock photography to supplement their income. My official top stock sales site is now Adobe Stock. Adobe has been very good to me and other contributors, maintaining a solid payment for downloads and providing top contributors with free subscriptions to Adobe Creative Cloud (Lightroom and Photoshop.) Right now, I’d say ShutterStock is an “avoid” for buying stock photography. They’ve turned to sweat-shop tactics to bolster their profits. The sad truth is the only loyalty a company has is to the share-holders. Since they have no loyalty to the people who actually do the work that keeps them in business, I’m out. I’ll make up the minor loss of income by doing something different.
In a few weeks, I’ll be scaling up the photography efforts though. Even though I’ve skipped the Autumn foliage trip this year, the cycle of subjects is always changing and I’ll be putting more effort into bighorn sheep, and other Winter subjects. The big bummer so far has been that I’ve not had much of a chance to use a new lens I bought specifically for landscape work.
I just received my Senior lifetime National Parks Pass. Wow wee. I tried going to the National Parks Office in Conifer back in August to get one, but their office was closed. Too bad they didn’t indicate that fact on their website, I could have saved four gallons of gasoline and 2 hours of driving, so I applied for one online instead. It only too six weeks to receive. Like everything else with the Federal Government these days, serving the public seems to be low on the priority list of the Trump administration. No problems now though. I’ll never have to buy another annual parks pass. Getting old has benefits from time to time.
I’m still waiting for our vehicle registration from Jefferson County DMV. Apparently the pandemic has put a big crimp in the pipeline for issuing new vehicle registrations. Our first temporary tag expired in September and we have a second temporary tag on the Lexus. I’ve heard that if they fail to send you your registration a second time, they have to give it to you for free. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but we’re good until mid November, what ever the case may be. My expectations are low.
Happy Thought Inventory
Hard to find any happiness in the world these days. People screaming everywhere about this or that. Politics dominating our lives like never before. Crazy people in charge and accountability at a minimum. I guess I’m happy that our family is doing well and staying healthy. I’ll cast my votes in November and continue avoiding people I don’t want to be around, particularly those who believe that they would be better off if my family was sick or dead. The rest is out of my control.
Slacker Status
I have to say that the few times I’ve been out in public, there seems to be an improved willingness by most folks to wear masks and at least give a minimal effort to maintaining public health. For those who don’t give a shit, I say to you, I don’t give a shit about you either. I have no problems avoiding you and your business if you aren’t on board with doing what needs to be done and I really don’t care if you want to get sick and die. My mindset has been solid and constant and it isn’t going to change. I’m not going to be a good consumer if it involves a serious risk of getting sick. I do enjoy the videos of the numb-skulls having fits in public, screaming about their rights and doing things that don’t improve the situation. To me, those people are dumb-shits and I don’t associate with them.
No first responder activity to report.
Still alive and well here in Denver.