In my article: http://karmagirl.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=580 I mentioned that I ordered a faucet online. I ordered it online Monday *night*, they shipped it out Tuesday, and it was delivered on Thursday. Now, *that* is service! It was the exact faucet that I wanted, it was carefully packed, and was perfect. As mentioned in the last article, it was also $86 cheaper than in the store. I would recommend www.faucetdepot.com to anyone who is looking to buy a faucet. They are linked to from...

I know that there are a lot of current articles out about the different music services. This one is not about any of them in particular, but rather about the concept in general. Now, we all know about the beginnings of this with the original Napster. People say that it was evil, and I agree, but it did start a trend in technology. They record companies perked up and realized that there was money to be made with online music. They realized that people would buy single songs and probably bu...

I would like to start this off with first explaining my stance on Christmas in general. We are not a religious family. My daughter has never been to church, and the last time that I went to church I went with a family friend and that was over 10 years ago. My husband was in grade school the last time he went to church. We got married in a non-religious chapel because we were afraid that we would burst into flames if we tried to get married in a church. So, Christmas is different for us. It...

I think that I have found out how much is too much. Apparently, coffee (well caffeine in general) will actually dehydrate you. If you drink nothing but coffee for....lets say.....3 days, you get a killer headache from dehydration. I thought that I was getting a caffeine headache because it had been a few hours since I had a cup a coffee. Half a pot of coffee later, the headache was worse. So, being the intelligent soul that I am, I decided to drink a bunch of water to hydrate myself. I...

This is actually the second time that I am trying to write this article. The first one disappeared after I submitted it. Not sure what happened, but I don't have enough time or energy to give all the details of the first one, so this one will be the cliff notes version. If the other one magically appears, then you can read the whole story on that one. So, in a past blog, I mentioned the photography snob. The store that I am talking about is Adray (which is a local chain) in Canton, MI. ...

As the holiday shopping season approaches, I a reminded how much I really hate to shop. Yes, it is true, not all females are born with the shopping gene. However, as the years pass, online purchasing has become more and more convenient. You can price shop without having to spend the whole day going from store to store. You can find cheap shipping rates that are less than the sales tax that you pay. And, almost all the store use secure carts, so you feel safer purchasing. After you purcha...

My husband and I are "do it yourself" kind of people. The main reason is that we are cheap, and the other is that we are very picky about how things are done. Our house is not that old. It's not even 4 years old yet. But, there are things about it that I have hated from day one. I have a list. One of the top items that I had on my list was the kitchen sink. Nothing was broken with it- it was just ugly. It consisted of a builders grade stainless steal sink with baskets that were obvio...

My husband and I are "do it yourself" kind of people. The main reason is that we are cheap, and the other is that we are very picky about how things are done. Our house is not that old. It's not even 4 years old yet. But, there are things about it that I have hated from day one. I have a list. One of the top items that I had on my list was the kitchen sink. Nothing was broken with it- it was just ugly. It consisted of a builders grade stainless steal sink with baskets that were obvio...

One of the joys of digital photography is being able to manipulate your images. i only started doing digital photography a year ago (when I got my digital camera). As soon as I started doing it, I started seeing the thing that you can easily do in Photoshop that are really difficult, if not impossible, to do in a darkroom. (I went to school for fine art photography, so I have spent my fair share of days in the darkroom). One "fad" effect (and I say this, because i am sure that it will look...

Since I got my new printer, I haven't been getting much sleep. Last night I tried.....I *really* tried. I went to bed at 11pm (my husband has been working an odd shift, so I've been getting up at 6 instead of 5). I figured 7 hours would be good....and it would have been if I would have been able to sleep. Apparently, if you deprive yourself of sleep for too long, your body has a hard time sleeping (stupid body). So, I have averaged about 4 hours a sleep a night for the past 5 nights...

I've been playing with some images of the wedding that I shot. The couple like "artsy" type stuff, so I decided to take one of my favorite images of the wedding, desaturated it most of the way, then add the sky back in. The thought was that the brilliant sky would bring a happy glow to the picture. This is what turned out: Not exactly a "happy" picture as I wanted. Instead, it looks more like "Dancing Dead". I guess this is the Halloween version of their wedding.

I am sure that everyone has a trick or two for the printer that they use all the time, so please comment and let me (and others) know what they are (you can comment about any printer not just the Kodak 8500). I will be updating this as I run into more tips and tricks. Over the past few days I have been printing excessive amounts of photos because, well, it's fun! A lot of the photos are of a wedding. The pictures are outside with a light blue sky. The bride is in white and groom in black....

In one of my other articles, I mentioned that I had a bad USB port on my Dell. It was suggested by another member that I call Dell. I said that my PC was over a year old. I was wrong. i received a phone call this afternoon informing me that my warranty does not expire until November 17th. (I knew it was before a major holiday...i thought it was before my daughter's birthday, but it was obviously before Thanksgiving...) Dell is amazing. Of course, they would be more amazing if they sent me...

For about the past year, I have been dreaming of owning a dye sub printer (well, they call then "thermal" printers now, but they are the same thing). I have been printing all my digital photos on a photo quality Epson. I can't knock the Epson, because it has been a pretty good printer. But, all inkjets have their flaws. This is what bothers me about inkjets: 1) They are slow. An 8x10 in photo quality takes about 20 minutes to print. 2) The ink cartridges never run out in sync, and they ar...

I spent last weekend in Traverse City Michigan (it's in upper lower peninsula for those not familiar with the area). The reason that we went up there was for my husband's cousins wedding. She asked me to take some pictures for her after the "paid" photographer left (yeah...that's a weird one...but we'll let that one go for now.) Anyway, I took pictures on my digital camera, medium format, 35 mm, and I gave my APS to my MIL since she forgot her camera (I brought it because I thought somebody w...