I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend. The weekend here at the Schaad Ranch* was exciting. Not exciting like fighting off a hungry bear while covered in honey exciting, but still eventful.

I realized today that I worked all weekend (Thursday night - Sunday morning) on my consulting biz and didn't really earn anything. I was "catching up" on some odds and ends and pro bono work. I actually sandwiched my work around reading "Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life." For some reason that seems either extremely pathetic or extremely dysfunctional. That's not to say that the work I did this weekend wasn't important or valuable. It's just that sometimes it gets to be tiring.

(So far I have to say that "Boundaries" is a good read. I'll let you know if it's life-changing or not.)

I spent some time playing with my camera, an awesome Nikon D70 that I received as a gift from my father-in-law. It's the sort of thing I've always wanted but never thought I would spend money on mostly because of the Schaad Prime Directive, which says we can only buy the second least-expensive type of anything. (For example, let's say that the Schaads need a garden hose. Now, most families would probably spend time researching garden hoses in order to find a quality brand that is a good value and will last a long time, maybe never needing to be replaced. Not us. We will go right to Lowe's and find the least expensive garden hose, which is probably $9.96 and made in the Ukraine by cave gnomes, and then cleverly buy the hose that is slightly more expensive ($9.98). We realize that if we buy the least expensive hose it will be our fault when it unravels like three hundred-year-old yarn. But if the second least-expensive hose unravels like three hundred-year-old yarn well, then we'll be properly outraged.)

So I could never buy a digital SLR camera, unless it was made out of yarn by cave gnomes from the Ukraine. But I've always wanted a nice camera I could use and it's been wonderful. I borrowed a tripod from a friend at AccuWeather (Nick the Camera Genius) and set up a photo shoot with some LEGOs.

The first thing I realized is that a nice camera can make even a rank amateur look pretty good. Since I don't rise to the level of rank amateur, the second thing I realized is that Photoshop can make even an unrank amateur look like a rank amateur. But it's a lot of fun learning. The photo above shows Jar Jar Binks getting robbed by a clone trooper. In the background, another clone trooper is trying to rob a giant lizard. The giant lizard probably has more money on him than Jar Jar, but clone troopers aren't particularly bright, especially clone troopers that rove in bands looking for aliens to rob.

Here's another shot. This is Professor Snape right before two clone troopers jumped out and robbed him:

There are more but I'll spare you. It's tricky setting up a shot - you have to create some sort of neutral background, get the lighting right and then, when you're ready to take the shot, your daughter comes in and bumps the table and all of the LEGO guys fall over. I have about eight shots of LEGOs lying on their sides like turtles unable to flip themselves aright. Well, okay, they're LEGOs and they can't move but you know what I mean.

Finally, by way of the holiday weekend update, carlschaad.com disappeared for some time. I'm not exactly sure how long I was gone, but I checked yesterday and Network Solutions was kind enough to replace my site with a notice that my domain had been suspended. For a brief moment I felt panic, until I realized that no one probably even noticed, and then I felt curiously calm - like this was an opportunity to make a break. I could just let the domain name go and be off the grid. Then I remembered the AccuWeather blog, and the Facebook page, and the Google cache, and Ukrainian MySpace page, and decided that I couldn't run away. When I looked into the problem I found out that my Network Solutions email address was an Earthlink address, which I last used three ISPs ago in 1992. Thankfully my web host, which is NOT made out of yarn, was able to save my bacon and the site is back up.

*We don't really have a ranch, or really any cattle, or horses, or bales of hay, but we do have a cat and sometimes tumbleweeds blow through our yard.