Greetings faithful followers, loyal friends, and random stumble uponers. I have some good news! A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a particularly rotten weekend... a canceled photo meetup, a washed out anniversary brunch, and that Mrs. DeadGuitarist had lost her job a couple of weeks before that.
Well, she has a new job! Her first day is June 1. She'll be working at the same place I work (My title is Senior Quality Control/Assurance Engineer... fancy way of saying I test and break software). Her official title is Senior Product Manager. While her salary is less (quite a bit actually) than she was making at her last job, it's still more than enough to meet our obligations and not compromise the lifestyle we've become accustomed to too much. Even though, the hiring manager didn't flinch at her salary request, I wasn't surprised that they offered less. They generally pay below market rate (I still feel I'm underpaid despite my raise last year). But everything else about this company is great... They were really good to me when my dad had cancer surgery last summer and I needed to go out to Mississippi to help out my parents for a while. Plus there are some pretty good perks too... decent medical, dental and vision benefits, good people who all get along with each other, everyone helps each other when help is needed, no office politics/bullshit (that's a big one), decent vacation policy, no overtime (unless you work it on your own... I've never been asked to work overtime), free snacks and drinks (though they never last long), and more.
This isn't the first time Mrs. DeadGuitarist and I have worked at the same company at the same time. We met working at an independent video rental store (before Blockbuster drove all the little guys out of business). We worked together at Bally Technologies and Video Gaming Technologies too. So we know how to keep personal and and work lives separate.
That's a relief. We might get a little behind on a bill payment or two until she gets her first paycheck, but nothing near as bad as 2015 when we were each out of work for 4 months with a month overlapping.
IN OTHER NEWS...
I'm still working on getting my Patreon page ready. I made my introduction video a couple of weeks ago and was all set to launch it, but after reviewing my video a few times, I wasn't happy with it. I wasn't looking at the camera enough. I was reading a script, but I had a lot of it memorized enough that I didn't have to look at my prompter constantly, but when I looked toward the camera, I wasn't looking at the camera, I was looking past it. So I want to shoot a new video. Plus, I reorganized my photo drive and accidentally deleted a bunch of processed photos, so I have to go back and reprocess them and add all of the metadata.
I was targeting everything to be ready for June, but it's going to be longer than that. Maybe I can get enough ready for launch in a couple of weeks so that everything is in place for July contributions.
On another note, @starry still needs help with her vet expenses for her chameleons. Please donate if you can, but if you can't, can you share here story and fundraising campaign on your social media channels? Thanks (and @starry thanks you too).
@nebula has a new set coming out within the hour. I'll be writing a new post for it as soon as it drops.
I know I keep promising a PINK MAGIC blog and have yet to deliver. I promise I will, but I really want to get my Patreon page up and running first... and I just have so much to do before I can launch... and I want/need to get out and shoot some more new photos. I belong to a few Las Vegas photography meetup groups, but only one is really active. Someone made a late meetup plan for Monday (Memorial Day) out at Mojave National Preserve for some sunset shots, astrophotography, and light painting. I want to go because it'll be super cool, but it'll be a super late night and I have to work Tuesday morning. If I go, I won't get much sleep, so it's unlikely I'll go... but I could sleep late on Monday (it's only about an hour from where I live). I don't know. I'm so undecided and waffling about it.
Well, that's all I've got for now.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Stay Tuned...
DeadGuitarist
Besides Suicide Girls, you can find me on various other social, photography and music sites, as well as career oriented sites:
FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | REVERBNATION (ARTIST) | SOUNDCLOUD | FANDALISM | TUMBLR | FLICKR | 500PX | VIEWBUG | GURUSHOTS | WASTED YEARS (MY PERSONAL WEBSITE) | YOUTUBE | LINKEDIN | AMAZON WISHLIST | Soon to be on Patreon, a brand new website, and an online store where you can buy products with my photos on them.
I'm also on SnapChat (Gri11Sgt), Periscope (GrillSgt) and Uenme (RhythmGuitarist).
I'm not super active on all of them, but I add stuff to each of them occasionally that you won't necessarily find on my SG profile page.