Joiners-- Inspired by David Hockney

A friend is teaching her art students about photographic joiners by David Hockney. It's collage. It's modern cubism. It's something I'm so intrigued by. I'm still reading a book about Hockney by Joyce and probably I'll have something more intellectual to blog about later.

Some of the students are using a collage function in Picasa to create their collage rather than going analog. I thought the whole project so intriguing I thought I would try it, too. I had another small digital camera but no way to hook it up to the computer where I was. I ended up working with what I had found-- a collage app in iPhone. I tried it out and so... more iPhone art as seen above.
This is a really small example but fun to start out with.

Later I printed out some pictures I took with a small digi when I was out for dinner with Hitoshi. The pictures were from a few days before I talked to people about joiners so it was a happy coincidence for me that I had a few picture that I could make a mini joiner of. If had known about this style beforehand I would have taken more pictures to fill out more of the image. I like the cinematic flow of pouring the cola.

Darkroom Finally Up and Running

I bought a second hand darkroom set a year and a half ago. I never had a chance to use it as I needed to buy a lens for the enlarger and soon after I bought it, I moved into a house. Though I unpacked the enlarger I just shoved it in a closet and there it remained for a while.

Over the last year I have picked up various things so that I could print: black out curtains, trays, tongs, 50mm enlarger lens and a window screen to dry prints. The real gems I hadn't yet obtained were an easel and a lens for printing medium format negatives. Finally I was able to get these last two things. I bought a 75 mm Fujinon EX. I love the easel. I don't know if I love the lens yet.

I have printed some negatives that weren't so amazing to start with. They were things that I was really curious about but I can't say I love the image. It was really fun to print and quite relaxing. I listened to some tunes on the iPod and printed away. I think my set-up is working out okay. I'm using Ilford chemistry (I know it has a new name now but it escapes me). I don't relish the idea of mixing powders. Maybe when I get more confident with the whole idea. I have to say, I do like that I just measure out a few liquids. It was pretty easy to move around and the prints look clean at least.

I've decided I will probably never develop my own film. I suppose I could save money eventually if I did it myself. If I lived in Canada I probably would do it myself. I remember taking a roll of black and white film to Black's Camera and finding out it would cost me twenty dollars! I think contact sheet was extra.

I can go to at least one place in Tokyo where I can get the film developed for six hundred yen (about 6 dollars U.S.). Everyone assures me that I would no longer screw up my film if I did it often enough. However, I'm guessing it would take me several rolls of film and heartbreak during the transition period when I figure it's safe for me to try developing rolls of stuff I am really working on.

The second barrier for developing film at home is not easily overcome. I don't have anyplace to keep the film while it dries that is dust free. And I draw the line at spending more money on stuff like that.

I usually go to National Photo in Harajuku to get my film done. They are great. If something is wrong with the film, it's not something they did but they often chat with me to help me figure out what went wrong. Last time was a roll of old film I tried out that had x-ray clouding.

Anyway, the darkroom is up and running and I'm enjoying it. Another point on my to-do list taken care of!

World Fantasy 2008 Recap

What a great con this was. First thing, the organizers did an excellent job. Registration was smooth, programs were interesting and the hospitality was wonderful. Thanks to everyone who put something in the bookbag and the people who donated books to the bag. Mine was filled with wonderful things.

Hades Press had a wonderful pre-party with a band called the Plaid Tongued Devils. I've never heard celtic style ska music before. I loved it and bought a CD.

One of the things that really excited me was to learn about some wonderful Canadian small presses. I bought a beautiful anthology published by Ash-Tree Press called At Ease With the Dead. It's a beautifully made book. I haven't started to read it yet. Super busy processing images from Canada, getting ready for the show in December, NanoWriMo and that book is just too nice to crack the cover on. I know that sounds weird and is something an author doesn't want to hear. It's on the reading pile for December. I'll review it later.

Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy is also making wonderful books and as I'm a Calgary girl, I'm really excited that it is based in Calgary. I had a chance to talk to Brian Hades, the publisher, and he was a very nice and gracious person. It was also nice to make the connection that one of my favorite books, Sojurn, by Janna Oliver, was published by this company. I bought the sequel, Virtual Evil, in the dealers' room.

Speaking of Janna Oliver, I was lucky enough to hear her speak at a panel and later during the conference share nachos with her! She and Jeanne Marie were gracious enough to let me join them for a drink. I had a great time listening to these women. I really mark this as a conference highlight for me. I also appreciate them allowing to to have their pictures taken with Fletcher Wriggley.

I went to a writers' chat hosted by Jo Beverly. It was nice of her to host this in her room and it was great to meet other romance writers doing fantasy writing.

I was also able to talk to my favorite cover artist, John Picacio. I met him at the Yokohama World Con 2007 while doing some translating and general gofer jobs. The artists's panel discussions were really interesting. It's really interesting to hear about creative processes for image work. Surprisingly, I find it really helpful for photography.

Through this panel, I learned about the work of Shaun Tan. I'm so amazed by Tales from Outer Suburbia. I was going to bring home a copy from Canada but my luggage was already at max for both suitcases and I was carrying lots of camera gear. I gave my copy to my friend's daughter and am ordering my own copy from Amazon.com. I have been recommending this book to everyone. I know I really freaked out one of the employees at the Chinook Mall branch of Chapters when I dragged him over to the books and told him that this is the book he should be recommending people buy for Christmas.

Tales from Outer Suburbia is a wonderful collection of images and short stories. I liked the tone of the images, wonderful color and detail and somehow feeling lonely. Almost all the images have an element of humor that I really enjoyed. Then again, I photograph Estello and a clay pig called Fletcher. So, if you aren't willing to take my word about the images (even though you should) then take my word about the poignancy of the stories. The first story is a half page long but it's a really wonderful piece of short fiction.

There was a picture of one of the characters, Eric, for sale in the art dealers' room and now I really, really regret not buying it. At any rate, I really love the book and stories and find it really inspiring to have that kind of fiction and art available as a book.

I met lots of wonderful people at the con and had a lovely time. I found it really easy to talk to people and the atmosphere was really friendly and supportive. I will probably write more about the con later, but I am doing the NaNoWriMo and finally feeling jittery about not doing any writing on it today.

More con later and some pics to come. I actually have a funny story to tell about people from Ducks Unlimited party.

Naked Tokyo 2008

I am entering images in the Naked Tokyo show again. The 2008 show will be held in Shibuya at a gallery called Le Deco.

Images from last year's show can be seen at The theme for last year was to have shocking portraits.　"Shocking" is such a tough word. How does one interpret it? Offensive? Surprising? It was really hard. Last year had a lot of nice images but I think it was hard to really come up with something shocking. 　A few of the images were pretty shocking in terms of the sexuality shown, but they were in a slide show rather than images on the wall.

I ended up going the route of trying to push myself beyond my comfort level. I didn't want to do nudes. I also didn't want to do something really out there and in-your-face. I decided to work on an intimacy theme. My husband was nice enough to model for me. He ends up modeling a lot for me. It was especially nice of him to be okay with me exhibiting the images.I hoped my images were exploring intimacy and just the edge of sensuality.

I had nice comment from the curator of the show via the show producer. He felt my images conveyed a lot of intimacy because most Japanese men wouldn't let themselves be photographed like that. Without knowing me or the model, he felt that the model and photographer must have a relationship. I was really pleased with the comment. Another photographer commented that I did beefcake really well. Hmmm...

This year absolutely no hint of beefcake. There was no theme this year. That made it both easier and harder. I get to shoot whatever I like but it makes it harder to think of what kind of stuff the curator is looking for. Portraits in Tokyo is a pretty broad topic. I decided to go for lone figure in the city for my topic. Even though Tokyo is a pretty crowded place, I am always surprised at how often one can just be alone in the city.

I submitted eight images. I will hear on November 15th if any images will be selected.

I will put up a link to the show after the stuff comes online whether I get selected or not.

The Pen Tool

I love my Wacom Intuos tablet. I have a lot of fun with Adobe Illustrator and I really enjoy the finer control I can get with the pen. What I'm not loving so much is the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. Almost everything else seems to be coming along except for the pen tool. Intellectually, I can understand the advantages of the pen function, but I haven't been able to get it to work for me. It is so frustrating.

I do lots of tutorials and research but I'm not fluent with this tool and I want to be.

Light Tent

I've been interested in doing isolation shots and still life for a while. I was really interested in using a light tent to do some of the work. Way too much money, though. I wanted to shoot fairly large objects, say a vase instead of a watch, but the light tents I was interested in ran to 350-500 dollars.

I've been reading a lot of photography web sites. Favorites are studiolighting.net and strobist.com. If you haven't checked them out, you should.

One of the valuable lessons gained from these sites is that you don't have to have the expensive equipment to make a good photo. You just need to get a good photo. Strobist.com even has an entry about making your own mini-macro studio tent. I checked it out, googled a bit more and decided that I, too, could make it myself.

I tried using the cardboard box, but ultimately was unhappy with the results. They were okay, but still hard to get a good photo. Ironically, the hardest part was getting a box of the right size. Any boxes were either too big or too small. They also didn't wear too well. Not a problem if I had endless access to boxes. Another thing about the box-- a coworker of mine who used to be an exterminator told me that cockroaches love cardboard boxes. They make the perfect happy nest for the roaches when they are in their nymph stage. I hate having cardboard boxes in my house. I don't want them in my house--not even for a photograph. I decided I would make my own light tent from PVC pipe.

I love DIY but because there is no HomeHardware store in Tokyo, DIY isn't so cheap. Tokyu Hands is a fun store, but things are really pricey. I guess because most things come in little plastic bags rather than tossed in a bin. it turns out that PVC isn't so cheap and it's more bulky than I guessed. But mostly, it isn't so cheap. Also I couldn't find any handy connecting pieces.

Enter the store called UNIDY in Lazona Mall in Kawasaki. I had been there a few times and it has a fairly decent DIY section. It is nowhere near the paradise of the big orange store but it's cheaper than Tokyu Hands. I had the burning desire to take another crack at building a light tent and went in search of PVC poles hoping the price would be more reasonable. Didn't find such an amazing section of PVC pipes, but I did find some nice aluminum pipes. The most useful size measured 60cm long and cost about 150 yen. The store also had an amazing amount of little plastic connecting pieces in a huge variety of shapes and purposes. Yeah, baby. THIS is what I'm talking about.

I was able to make the light tent structure for 4200 yen. The diffusing material would be made from garbage bags or drycleaning bags. Perfectly cheap or free. I also have the option of making the tent in different sizes later on by buying different sized poles.

Then I got ambitious. I also wanted to have a light stand. Light stands tend to run about 10 000 yen. I have been trying to improvise various way of putting up the lights I use and it all looked like an accident waiting to happen. I bought a longer pole for 900 yen and the big expense, a little holder for 1500 yen. It needed to be attached to a piece of wood to make it stable. I looked around the store for a suitable piece but didn't find anything in my size range (about 35 cm square) or in my price range (less than 500 yen). Still, I had ideas, so I purchased the stuff. I happily went home and put my bag down and left it for a few days. And then the final piece came into my possession.

Near my house is a local hardware/wood/building store. It is owned by a woman and I always wonder how they stay open. I found out that they make their living by opening early and catering their business to carpenters and builders. This store is a no frills shop. I've enjoyed walking past that shop because they sell a lot of lumber and often one can smell cut pine. Lovely!
I've been in that shop for various things-- a plunger, a screen, a knife/saw to cut a pumpkin, wood and screws to make a drying rack for my futon.

They were selling small pieces of wood in various sizes most of which were the size I was looking for. Best of all was the price--starting from 50 yen and up. I went home, grabbed the pole holder and went back to the store. I found a good size and the shop keepers helped me get the appropriate sized screws.

The last stage was to buy some velvet for photos with a black backdrop. I tried the black paper. I don't like the color I get. There's not really enough space to get the background to be a lot blacker than the subject. Yuzawaya was the place to get the velvet. I got a nice piece, that almost seems to absorb light. It wasn't cheap. The velvet costs 4750yen/meter. I was able to save a little since I only needed a length of 60 cm because the width was 110 cm.

Today, I put it all together. So far, so good. I'm still testing and working out the lighting thing.

Photos to come!

I feel like I should do an update. I don't have a lot of info to update, though.

Lots of travelling so that was nice. Prague in April, Hong Kong in May for three days and another three day trip, to Nagano, in June. I picked up a teaching gig in June and that was a lot of fun but it wasn't photography or writing.

I finally went through the Prague pictures this month. I also have had a chance to go through my Hong Kong photos, and a few of the Nagano photos. I submitted some of the Nagano shots to Getty. It seems I have a pretty positive response. Did some portraits for two people and I think they came out nicely as well.

The website stuff has been going slowly. I learn a lot but I keep changing my design ideas. This is not helpful. I'm trying to decide if it should be just right or just up there. I am going for just right. I decided to do a flash gallery, because in the end it seemed like the easiest thing to make and for viewers to navigate.

I've tried a lot of the free online flash stuff like Coppermine. While I liked it, it seemed that is was going to be harder to get things to look the way I like them then to get a Slideshow-Pro flash plug in to embed in my website.

My power center in my mac went last week so I have been computer free for almost a week. It felt good at first, but then I just wanted to finish the site and when I went outside to shoot, didn't get anything I like.

I don't like that I haven't been writing. I need to be more BICHOK. I have my hands full but need to make more time for it. The only things I have to show for creative writing is a short story challenge with JoeUser and another story about the life of a cantaloupe.

New Blog: NoriNori Studio Blog

I'm working on a new business. I'm going to start doing portraits! I am specializing in families. I found that I really enjoy trying to capture family dynamics. I'm going to shy away from studio shoots in favor of local or home settings so I can get a more realistic sense. I want to capture a moment in the life rather than create an artificial moment.

I've seen some great studio portraits but I like the extra element that the location and home setting will add. My favorite portraits are always done in situ and the location or props always give an extra hint about the identity of the sitter. Maybe this is some remnant from all those renaissance portraits I studied in Art History way back when.

The learning curve has been really steep in terms of putting the website together. It's been really hard to decide on things like palette, and phrasing. And as tough as it's been, it's been amazingly fun! I really look forward to waking up in the morning so that I can get more work done on the photos and the website.

As a result, the novel writing has suffered quite a lot. I'm trying to cut myself some slack on this. Not only have I been trying to get the photography business up and running, the last two weeks have been crazy busy! My mom and dad came to visit in the last week of March. It is their first time back to Japan in over ten years. It was an easier trip this time because I live in Tokyo instead of Niigata (about three hours outside of Tokyo by Shinkansen) and now my husband and I have a house instead of my apartment (which I was moving out of at the time of their last visit). Two days after my parents left, my husband and I took a week's vacation in Prague for our tenth anniversary trip. At least the story plots still fill my brain during an idle moment so I don't feel too bereft.

Prague was amazing. We stayed only in Prague and did a lot of photography. The only problem with shooting in RAW or film is that it takes just that much longer to get things ready to go on the internet. I would love to go back to Prague and do some more photography. It was a beautiful city and now I think I could do more interesting stuff than the usual touristy type stuff I did.

Here is a link to the NoriNori Studio Blog http://www.norinoristudioblog.blogspot.com

Website Confusion

I have been in the throes of making a website for the last year.

It's been an interesting experience. Hmmm... I think I'm using that word as a euphemism's for frustrating. I am a newbie when it comes to this stuff.

I don't have a lot of cash to throw at the problem and don't have any really techie friends so it's just me and the good ol' Google trying to get enough information to put together a decent website.

I thought about getting someone to design my website for me but the friends I have who have done that found that they had a hard time getting updates when the needed to or other problems with designers.

I figured out about getting the domain name and the web hosting. I got a domain name and hosting through godaddy.com.

I choose godaddy because it was the easiest for me to deal with living overseas. I'm sure that somewhere out there a better service is waiting, but I don't want to look forever. The main thing was that it didn't look like a flaky fly-by-night. The last thing I wanted was to chase some company from several time zones away. I looked into local servers in Japan, but got frustrated with the language level required. A friend of a friend is a computer guy and he recommended it so I decided to give godaddy a go.

I got the website tonight program because I didn't have any site builders. It's okay. I am really disappointed with their albums. I asked about editing the backgrounds and got help with that, but the choices are limited and they are all ugly. The Online Photofiler is interesting. There are certainly a lot of templates to choose from, but to be honest, I really hate the layout. It doesn't look professional. It's great for showing family and friends, but I would rather use Flickr than Online Photo Filer. Flickr is much more interesting and easier to embed in blogs.

Finally I figured out how to make a web-gallery from Photoshop Elements. I tried different ways to upload it, only to find out that Website Tonight doesn't allow FTP uploads. Fine. No problem. But after reading and reading and reading the user guides in godaddy.com I never really found that information baldly stated. In fact, I found the help guides to be rather labyrinthine.

I've finally upgraded my computer to an iMac. Another huge learning curve coming up.

I guess rather than spiralling through godaddy's help guide I might as well just mail my questions straight off.

Ah...

Nothing like lots of unclearly defined challenges.

Getting into the Swing

Photography-wise, one of the most frustrating problems I've been having is the lack of RAM. When it takes 20 seconds to open a large file or almost a minute to open a TIFF, editing is not a fun prospect. I tried matching socks and folding towels while waiting for files to open or rotate, but it was just too distracting.

The good news is that I'm finally getting some new computing power and so am looking forward to some quicker processing and better results.

Writing-wise, plotting and planning! Ha. This part goes well, but the BICHOK is a bit lacking. Now here I am with some BICHOK and I'm blogging? Okay, since I'm in the groove, I think I'll get back to writing.

My Website Is Up!

My first real website in it's first incarnation is up for all to see. It doesn't look quite like how I imagined it would, but it will do for a start.

I'm not happy with the way that goddaddy.com makes image albums look in their beginner websites like the one I chose. It actually looks better to embed a slideshow from picasa or flicker. How's that for crazy?

Bit by bit I am picking up some HTML but mostly it's been a trial and error experience. Good thing I'm not afraid to push buttons that I don't know about!

My eventual plan for an online photography gallery is to go to a site like foliolink.com and then have one of the links in my page redirect to the online gallery.

Here's the link: www.loriono.com

Autumn Update

It's crazy that I haven't been updating the blog. With other stuff going on, it seemed more important to get things done and produce than to reflect on what was going on.

Summer was good, but crazy. The Tokaido Road experiment is still unfinished. I enjoyed it but it was both more and less interesting than I expected it to be. I thought I would see more amazing scenery, but I was just starting to move out into a bit more rural areas by the time I got to Totsuka. The funny thing is how I calculated how long it would take me by figuring out how many minutes it takes to do a kilometer and then adding a couple of hours to my travel time so I could take photos. A couple things stood in my way:

1. not starting early enough
2. walking even slower than I thought
3. photos taking longer than I thought
4. HOT weather. It was 38 C the last day I walked on Tokaido.

Then I just ran out of time. With two days left before departing to Canada, I realized I had to pack for my month back home. I planned to continue once the weather had cooled off. It is now mid-October so it's the perfect time weather wise. Now I just need to get out there!

The other thing that was tough was managing all the data. Once I got home, I had to upload the digital photos so I could have a clear card for the next day. The next problem was the writing for that day's journey. Because I was also doing Estello Project I was doing two entries a night. I also tried to process some pictures so that I could post them at the same time to add interest to the blog. Mentally it was pretty challenging. Physically, it was pretty tiring.

My trip to Canada was nice. I got to visit a lot of relatives and go to a conference in Dallas (RWA Nationals). I'd hoped to do more photography but since my license had expired I was dependent on others to drive me around. My brother and I had planned to do some "Gnome and Estello Rocky Mountain Road Trip Photos" but he finished work later than he planned so most of our trip was at night anyway.

Then one month after I got back from Canada, we moved to a new house. So the month before was spent purging the house of accumulated junk and packing. The month after was spent decompressing to fit into the new house.

I've started back at work (part-time) so I am a little busier. Not too bad, just needing to organize my time a bit better.

I feel like I haven't been so productive lately, I haven't even touched my novels. But I've been doing a lot of reading and research for clay animation and quite a bit of work to create a DIY macro studio and refining the off camera flash usage. I've also tried to focus a lot on the stock photo stuff so that's taken up a lot of time. I've also created a new clay character and did a story board for a short movie for him. Lot's of technical problems but I'm researching that too. I guess most of the tech issues could be solved by spending lots of money, but I don't have that option so it's off to research DIY methods. It's times like this that I really miss a good home centre like the big orange place. I've just never found a good home centre in the same scale in Tokyo.


Okay, there's my update and I guess a list of excuses. Now it's time to go and create.

Old Tokaido Road

On Friday I started a project. I am going to walk along the Old Tokaido Road from Nihonbashi to (I hope) Odawara or Hakone.

I am blogging about it at http://traveltokaido.blogspot.com/. I titled the blog "Estello Travels Tokaido" because I created a little character that travels along the road. I just did some massive posting on it, so I will write more about this later.

Rain and Sakura

dango and chicken slide show

Barae Emerging

So it feels like Spring is here. The night air carries the scent of plum blossoms and I don't need a hat and a scarf. To celebrate, I changed the blog colors again to reflect the colors of the plum blossoms.

The latest work in the studio has been with a model named Barae (rose picture in Japanese). She's a dancer and performance artist and has done a lot of modelling for photography. We got to use a very different type of lighting and two set-ups. She used a maiko-style white base for the make-up and Daniel and Maya added stronger colors throughout the shoot.

Barae had hoped to do an antique doll-style but it reminded me a lot of the idea of human dolls as seen in Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell. I tried playing with those ideas a bit, but the new album that I am including ended up more like The Juon or The Ring as it seems that Barae is emerging from a screen.

As usual, it was great to work with my fellow shooters Bonnie, Camilla, Mia and Mumi; thanks to Tim and Mumi for organizing us all; Daniel and Maya for their great make-up; and of course Barae.

2007-- emerging from the holiday coccoon.

It's been a long time since I entered anything. Christmas holidays were good, but not so great for writing. I did get a friend to read a draft of my contemporary and got a lot of good feed-back. It seems that I have a lot of stuff to add but I'm pretty happy about it because these additions will likely get me out of the plot holes I was in. I was trying to write my way out of a rut but I just knew that what I was writing wasn't working. It feels good to have a clear path again.

Most of the holiday was spent hanging out with my husband and watching movies and learning how to use photoshop and my digital camera more effectively.

As usual, the challenge for 2007 is discipline. Getting projects done to the nth level and not letting my personal goals slide by.

Seasonal Color Changes

I've put in new colors for the blog. Just as I started to figure out that HTML stuff, an easier way to do it comes along.

The biggest change is the album I've embedded in the blog. The photography group I'm in rented the Harajuku studio for a Halloween theme shoot.

Credit to Mumi for Justin's pirate style, Camilla for the vampire styling and shoot management, Tim for direction and lighting guidance. Big thanks to Daniel, Kyla and Maya who did an amazing job with make-up. I did a bit of styling with the flowers and dead body and Ryan and I did a lot of the set-up. Okay. I know I forgot people.

I will be adding a few more photos to the album in a few days. I kind of have to laugh a bit at the album cover. It looks more along the lines of beefcake. Yikes.

RWA Conference in Atlanta

Wow, I don't know where to begin. It's been so long since I posted on here that it took four tries to get the username and password right.

RWA in Atlanta was amazingly cool. It's one of those things where you are surrounded by kindred spirits trying to accomplish the same thing so it feels really comfortable even though you are mostly surrounded be strangers. Obviously, since it's romance writing, most of the members are women. I wonder if that is the main part of the dynamic. Everyone was really friendly and helpful. I'm sure that jealousies occur, but that seems to be more in the background. Maybe I'm still to new to it to know better.

I got to meet up with three friends from RT in St. Louis last year. They'd been to the conference before so it was nice to have people to guide me over the rough spots and to hang out with. They are smart and funny women so it was a good time.

I went to a lot of seminars and was determined to avoid the free book signings as I was going to have to lug everything back to Tokyo. Didn't do too well on the avoiding thing. After I went to a couple of publisher spotlights, I decided I wanted to get some books so that I could get a better idea of the different lines. I can get English books here, but the selection is not that great. Mainly, only the big names make it here so it was nice to get some new authors. I also picked up a couple of RITA winners and nominees so I'm pretty excited about that.

I would say that I came away with three really important things.
1. being mentally charged up and inspired to return to my first manuscript
2. finding that I'm really on the right track for a lot of stuff and that I need to stick my ass in the chair
3. looking at writing as a career not just thinking of one manuscript at a time.

I don't want to finish manuscripts and then go, "now what?" True there is no career without a manuscript but a manuscript without a plan won't go anywhere either.

My Writing Membership!

I got my RWA (Romance Writers of America) membership info in the mail today! Yay!

I flipped through the stuff and tried to get up to speed on things. Now I can register for the conference in Atlanta this July. I have a few friends going and so I am really psyched! Actually, I'm gonna go do my registration now!

Getting this is really motivating to me. I guess anything that gets me in the chair and starting to write.