I haven't been posting many - scratch that - ANY photos lately. Work's been running me non-stop. Well, it almost came to a head Thursday. Almost.

I'm a contractor who does 99% of my work for one company's Marketing Dept. I take pictures, do a lot of Photoshopping, make graphics for the web, manage an image database, etc.

If you'll notice, nowhere in there did I mention catalog layout or InDesign.

A few weeks ago, the other graphics person left for a two-week vacation. No problem, I can handle anything that comes my way. Then the catalog proofs came back. She'd screwed up not one, but four catalogs! Having barely ever touched InDesign, and having never done anything with catalogs save the covers, I was now under the gun to fix them.

It took three full days, and a few hours on the weekend before I had everything in order. I'm STILL catching up on a few things because of it. Because of all that, the deadlines kept mounting, while the Marketing Dept. was constantly changing their minds about how they wanted things done. A cover for a trade publication, for instance, which they decided just before lunch ON THE DAY OF THE DEADLINE to switch up the idea.

I'd also told a person at work I'd help her with some photos of her granddaughter, which needed to be done this past Friday.

On Wednesday I had layouts and everything good to go for the granddaughter pictures. I hit print, thinkin' at least I had that going for me. Wrong.

I ran outta' magenta. Thursday at lunch, I went to the store to pic up magenta. Life was good. Wrong.

With everything going on at work, and me ready to explode - but thinking at least I've got the granddaughter pictures under control - the printer told me I needed yellow.

That was it. It was over. Nothing is going right. I walked out of my apartment absolutely furious (and I'm usually a pretty relaxed guy). I decided to hit Meijer - a store that I believe is mainly in the midwest and like Wal-Mart, but generally much cleaner - for the ink, since it's just down the street. I walk to the ink, pick up yellow and photo magenta... just in case.

On my way to the checkout, I figured I'd check out the toy dept. (fairly confident that any search would go the way of the last month, and I wouldn't see anythint) I turned down the aisle and saw all three wave 5 comic packs. Instantly, I was a little less angry.

By the time I got home and put in the yellow to begin printing the granddaughter pictures, I actually managed to smile a bit. Then I opened Nemesis Enforcer and Falcon and got angry again - just kidding - though yeah, Falcon pretty much sucks

To put an end to an already extra-long story, the prints came out (and yes, I did have to use that photo magenta), and I was considerably more relaxed knowing that I had a royal-looking Cobra Commander, Tripwire, and a pretty sweet Iron Grenadier.

It's incredible what some little green army men can do for a nerd like me

Have fun, all!!!

__________________
On a quest to collect and customize the 1985 Joes in Modern Era form. Aaand maybe the Cobras, too.

Holy crap! There were five troop builders in 1985 - what am I getting myself into!?!