Blog | Ryan T. Collier Photography

January 5, 2008

One More Day.

Have I mentioned how much I am a fan of paint, painting, and cleaning up once all the painting festivities have commenced?

It isn’t much fun.

Today should be the last day we’re painting in the house (until Spring, at which time I’m sure we’ll start on the other 2 bedrooms upstairs).

Keziah is at work finishing up a bunch of stuff before her trip to Dubai later this week. Hopefully, I’ll have all the painting done before she comes home as a nice surprise for her. 😉

This morning was a little rough getting out of bed to meet my friend for breakfast. I was supposed to be there at 7:45am.

I made it by 8am.

I have issues with punctuality. It’s really pointless for me to contest it; I think my DNA precludes me from being anywhere on-time, ever. Forget little games like setting clocks forward x-number of minutes, or going to bed early so I’m well-rested. Please folks, do you take me for someone who has never thought of these little shenanigans?

Offsetting time-telling devices works less than 0.03% of the time, most likely because I’m cognizant of the trickery at hand, or because once I’m fooled, I adapt and simply tell myself “it’s not really that time, I probably set the clock ahead.”

As far as going to bed early – pift, please, when have I ever gone to bed at a normal hour and got plenty of rest? Switching the clock forward only buys me 10 or 15 minutes, and again, once I learn of this, I adapt and the Wizard is exposed.

So, really, there’s no point – in my opinion, it’s really the entire planet that’s moving way too fast and should just slow down so I arrive on time. 😉

Damn! I’m late. I wanted to start painting 20 minutes ago!

7 hours later.

And, I’m all done less 1 wall, but only because I ran out of paint. A blessing and a curse as I know have to make a point to run to my second home, Home Depot, to purchase 1 quart of Moroccan Red paint.

Keziah came home around 10pm, about 4 hours later than she thought she would have, and about 2 hours later than I thought she would have; but she was surprised nonetheless. 🙂

Off to bed at 3am.

January 4, 2008

Up Early

I forced myself out of my cozy, warm bed this morning around 7:00am. Now, I know most of the world, well most of the world on the east coast of the United States anyway, gets up a lot earlier than that, but for me (a habitually late-sleeper) getting up at 7am is a feat of wondrous proportions.

Many thoughts moved through my head as I prepared a cup of delicious Blueberry White Tea (a Christmas gift from my wife, Keziah).

Amazing how the mind wonders from thought to thought. It’s like that 6 degrees of separation game. One thought leads you to another, then another, and by the time you end up at your 6th or 7th thought you start asking yourself “how did I end up thinking about this?”

So, I’ve been thinking more about law school, and school in general over the past few weeks. I really need to talk to my uncle Scott about law school – he’s a lawyer up in Rhode Island. I’m sure he can offer some general advice from his own experiences.

I have about 6 classes to finish up at MCC before I receive my associates, which I’ve been working on for the past several years. After that, I’d like to pursue my bachelors, which, if I’m steadfast, should be attainable within 3 or 4 years.

From school my mind veered off into entrepreneurship – specifically, my photography side business and how I need to start marketing it and making contacts. So, if you know of anyone who is in need of photographic services – forward my web site to them. 😉

It’s about 7:40am and I’m going to have my shower. Maybe I’ll leave for work early and get a good parking spot. 🙂

Well, I ended up leaving for work around 8:55am, but I did find a pretty sweet parking spot!

TGIF!

I spent most of the day pouring over financial information from the past 24 months in hope of getting a more-accurate forward-looking view of my spending plan for 2008. I also updated my MySpace page, directing MySpacers over to this blog. I can’t stand MySpace, it’s becoming a giant billboard for useless products marketed toward minors.

I mean really, “Bling-Out Your Page,” “Free Ringtones, “Win a Free iPhone.” This is the cesspool of commercialism that awaits your “Friends” when they visit your little cyber-nook.

Anyway…

Keziah is working late, so I decided to stick around at work and finish up my financial noodlings.

It’s about 6:30 now, and I’m headin’ on home. Fridays are “Pizza Night,” so I’m eager to get home and scarf down a pie.

Sweet Lord that pizza was good. Pontillos “Right around the corner.”

No painting tonight! Yeahhhhhhhh!

Which means there’ll be MORE painting to do tomorrow. Boooooo!

I’m supposed to have breakfast at Riki’s (the local Fairport greasy spoon) tomorrow with a friend of mine, which I’m excited about. So, it’s off to bed I go; 1:53am.

January 3, 2008

A Cold, Frosty One…

Day that is.

It was warmer this morning at mid-night than it was 8 hours later, when I left for work.

Remind me why I choose to live in the Northeast section of the United States.

This morning at 8am, the temperature in Fairport (a suburb of Rochester, NY) was 6Ã‚ÂºF (-14Ã‚ÂºC).

Now, I’m no stranger to cold weather, I’ve lived in the Northeast my whole life – first as a child in Erie, PA, then moving to Rochester when I was 19 to work at a CBS affiliate. Incidentally, kids, if you have even the slightest notion of working in television as a career, allow me to redirect you away from making one of the most horrific decisions of your life.

You will work like a dog.
You will make no money working like a dog.
You will work weekends, making no money working like a dog.

Fortunately, I was only subjected to this abuse for a little over 9 years before finally getting out.

My wish for you is that you learn from the past mistakes, or misfortunes whatever the case may be, of others and choose greener, less dusty and burnt pastures as a means to an end.

If you hear the words, “Bachelor of Communications” from your school guidance counsellor – leave the room. It’s a trap. Don’t become another one of Skinner’s rats searching for a piece of educational cheese.

Do yourself a favour – listen to those who have been there, done that.

Anyway…

It was another day “exciting” day for me at work. Fortunately, there was only 1 commercial to work on. This allowed me to dive into my blog 🙂 I also retouched a photo for a friend of my wife and, I laid out a financial plan for the next several months.

Keziah also forwarded me a link to a new undergrad business program at RIT which looks like a program I’d be interested in applying for – after I attain my associates.

That reminds me, I need to run out to the bookstore to buy books for my classes which start on January 22.

I’d run and do that tonight after work, but:

1.) It’s ridiculously cold out.
2.) I have a date with paint tonight.

I’ll push it off until tomorrow or the weekend 😉

It’s 5:15pm, and I’m heading home!

About 8 hours later and we’re about 95% done with all the painting in the house.

It’s 1:15am and I’m heading off to bed.

January 2, 2008

Paint.

For what seems like almost a year now, my wife and I have been renovating our town-home. Mostly small scale, such as ceiling fans, lighting fixtures, and light finishing work.

We first started in March 2007 with the renovation of the kitchen. The least favourite of the 5 rooms in the house, this kitchen was God-awful. Try to imagine light-purple, almost periwinkle-coloured walls, ragged with an Oz-like green.

Kitchen – Before

Ya. It was pretty horrid.

Also working against the interior decor, was fluorescent lighting – a bane of mine. Why anyone would consciously opt to install fluorescent lighting anywhere in the house is beyond my comprehension – but to decide that the kitchen would be better served with this less-than-a-lighting solution hanging overhead is just plain stupid.

Alas, it was “out with the green-cast monster” and “in with soft, incandescent.” We also tossed in a dimmer for added control as well as a task-light above the sink.

However, the LARGEST improvement (and much more time consuming) was the paint.

Red, with bone-white painted-trim along the window casing. As a final touch, I decided to rip out the antiquated baseboard moulding, and install natural wood moulding in its place. I just realized that we never took an “after” picture, so I’ll try to put that up shortly.

Flash-forward 10 months.

With wedding plans taking priority over the lessor, we decided to use our Christmas break as a time to rekindle our home renovations.

Our outlay was spent mostly on paint. Lots of it.

Our goal: Update the master bedroom, living room, and all hallways.

Over the break, we accomplished about 80% of our goal, leaving only part of the hallways naked and shivering.

Today, we inched closer to achieving 100%, having finished all but 7 small sections of wall from the interior corridors of our home.

Tomorrow evening we should come very close to completing the job, leaving only finishing work to be done on Friday or the weekend.

After we finished up painting for the night, we set off to design a label for the CD of wedding music Keziah made for her cousin Clint and her dad.

It was somewhat of a last-minute job, which I hate – especially so late in the day, but I digress.

In bed by 2:00am.

January 1, 2008

Happy New Year of My Blog

With a new year comes a renewed commitment to branding myself and discovering who I am as an individual.

The past 365 days have been a whirlwind of thoughts, emotions, planning, early breakfasts with friends, travelling, and marriage!

To better involve myself in the day to day, and to serve as a break from the mundane and routine, I’ve decided to put forth a concerted effort to develop, write, and manage my blog.

Sounds easy enough, right?

I thought the same. It isn’t until you sit down at your keyboard that you find a myriad of other things that you could be doing – instead of writing down daily musings. I give much credit to those who have not only maintained their own blogs, but who have done so for several years.

My hat is tipped to you all. Nice work. Well done you.

What will my blog serve to do? What is it’s purpose?

The purpose of my blog will be to document my daily happenings, thoughts, feelings & emotions, as well as elicit those same properties from visitors who crawl my blog.

I’m interested in hearing your comments – so please leave them!

If you see that I have skipped writing for a day, or worse have stopped altogether, please send me an email in all-caps. Shout at me like our mothers used to do for playing with gasoline and matches.

Another function of my blog will be to further market myself, my talents and abilities. I will do this through the use of various electronic mediums, including photos and movie clips posted on my web site https://ryantcollier.com.

But, most importantly, my blog will serve as a grounding stick, keeping me anchored to a goal I set for myself. I can easy gauge how well I am achieving that goal by how many posts I have come March, June, and on my 1-year wedding anniversary.

My success in attaining this goal will be directly related to my determination to succeed; limited only by my own free-will to do just that.

Here’s to the new year of my blog!

Cheers!