Category: general

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Easter

Easter was fine indeed.
My kids were here. The Easter Bunny came and we even colored eggs. Admittedly, it was more fun for some of us than for the others that reluctuntly broke away from their Gamecube game, ran to the table and dyed all three eggs in 20 seconds or less and then ran back to their game, but hey.
And for those of you that think the Easter Bunny should not be a part of Easter, who else is going to bring you chocolate??

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This Week.

Running toilet.
Leaking roof/ceiling.
Incessantly meowing cat.
A week with intermittent internet service — mostly out.

Along those lines, I called the cable company last night.

If you’d like to hear this message in blah-blah-blah.
If you’re calling about a virus in your computer blah-blah-blah.
If you’re calling about the Mormon Conference blah-blah-blah. (?)

me: Hi we’re calling again about the internet being out. Is there something going on this past week?

him: And you are….? Is your name on the account? You aren’t Joe, right?

me: Nope. I’m —

him: Is this Jennifer?

me: Nope. That is his ex-wife.

him: Yikes. Sorry.
(under his breath: ya…this is going REALLY well…)

me: No. It’s fine, really.

him: Well, let me see here. It looks like everything is fine in your area.

me: Um, well, the thing is…for the past week it’s been on and off….mostly off.

him: Huh. As I look at it, it looks like one out of every 10 people in your area is having problems.

me: What does that mean?

him: It means you’re one of the unlucky ones.

me: No. I mean, has something changed? New lines put in or something?

him: I don’t know about that kind of technical stuff. I just work behind the desk.

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We're Screwed

Article
We’re Screwed
March 2003
by James Colburn

Re: digital imaging and the lack of security when it comes to your work.

We’re now no better than caricaturist at the county fair putting big heads on small surfing bodies.

Also in the March issue of The Digital Journalist:

The Realities of Flying in the Post 9/11 World for Photographers
March 2004
by Dirck Halstead

Re: the hoops we go through to fly.

IF YOU ARE STILL USING FILM, DO NOT REQUEST A HAND SEARCH. Better to change to digital.

IF POSSIBLE DRIVE.

IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY TAKING PROZAC, YOU MAY WANT TO START.

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The Weekend

Had the kids this past weekend. It was marvelous.

We took many photos, some of which will be available as soon as my pc stops acting like it’s broken. I know it’s faking.

The kids rode the train back home. Alone. I put four on and four got off on the other end, so I guess it went well.

Will I ever get used to this sharing-of-the-kids world?

Got my first partial sunburn.

Got new socks at the swapmeet.

Got tall, red & pink flowers for the entryway.

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No Time

I looked down to check my watch and found that it stopped at 3:07pm yesterday. It was a weird, eerie moment of no time.

I wish I could stop time for real and take a long nap.

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Shut Down by Frito-Lay

You may or may not know that I was building a site for children’s art. I bought the domain name crackerjackartist.com. You know, cracker jack in the ol’ “a person or thing of marked excellence” way. At any rate, after working on it for weeks and weeks, doing research and making various promotional material, I received a letter from Frito-Lay, care of a messenger that made me sign for it, that told me to cease and desist any further claim to the domain name crackerjackartist.com.

It also included phrases like, “You should be aware that the mere act of registering a domain name which is identical or similar to another’s trademark may be considered an act of “cyberpiracy,” as the term is identified by the Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which is an actionable offense.”
I wrote back:

February 9, 2004
Faith S. James
Re: Crackerjackartist.com

Dear Faith S. James,

It is with surprise that I read your letter. It was in no way my intention to try to rip of Frito-Lay by using the name crackerjackartist.com. In the dictionary, crackerjack is a term used for “marked excellence” (which will be the page heading for every page in the site). Crackerjackartist.com was set up to be a place for children ages eight to seventeen to show their writing, art and photo work. I fail to see how anyone would confuse the two things.

I’m just one person; not a huge corporation with patent lawyers to check things out for me. I guess I’ll have to take your word for it that I’ve somehow inadvertently done some kind of infringement.

Is there anyway I could get you to look at the site and decide for yourself that it in no way is any kind of threat to your company? By perusing the pages, I’m sure you will find that it is purely an educational tool for schools and parents to help their students and children. I have invested so much time and effort in this project and I have so many teachers around the country awaiting the site launch on March 1st that it is a huge inconvenience to me to have to change all my press and published materials. I beg you to reconsider.

If you are interested in finding out more about me personally, as a way of judging my character, you can find out more about me on my on art and photo site here: www.leahpeah.com . I am an artist, photographer and contributing writer.

If, after looking the site over, you still feel the same way, I will relinquish my rights to the domain name, but I’m hoping you’ll see that I in no way pose a threat to you or the popcorn in a box called cracker jacks.

Feel free to contact me by phone to discuss this matter if you wish. Or, I’ll be looking for another letter from you.

Sincerely,
Leah Peterson

I didn’t send it registered mail, which was not smart in retrospect. Last week I received another letter that basically said they haven’t received a letter from me and that they wanted to hear from me ASAP or else. So, I called, got her FAX and email and sent the letter again.

The reply:

“We acknowledge receipt of your email with thanks. Please note that while we appreciate your position we simply cannot allow anyone to register a domain name which will dilute our famous CRACKER JACK trademark, regardless of the content of the website with which the name is being used.

Therefore, we must ask again that you confirm in writing within seven (7) days that you will contact your registrar and abandon this domain name. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

And here is my favorite part. They gave me some suggestions:

“For your convenience, we note that the following generic domain names were available at the time this letter was drafted:

excellentartist.com
greatyoungartist.com
wonderfulartist.com
fantasticartist.com
marvelousartist.com”

It’s funny and sad.

I gave up the right to the domain and I guess I’m moving on.
But I’m a little bitter….