Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

[Note:  I mentioned it yesterday, but it's worse today and I had to call my doctor.  I have cellulitis (a bacterial infection) in one of my insulin pump sites on my abdomen and am just now starting on a strong antibiotic.  Please pray with me and for me that it will clear up quickly without any problems or complications - like turning into an abcess or causing me to have to be hospitalized.  Thanks.]

Only Tom.  

And we're trying to save all our pennies to build this house, right?  Well, at least that was the plan until he started working on this $10 gift for one of our friends last Saturday.

The whole story actually begins last spring when Tom made his annual trek to every second of every minute of every day of both long weekends to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.  That sentence should give you a big clue to the workings of his mind and spirit when I said every second of every minute of every day, etc, etc. 

From there we learn he took lots of digital pictures of everyone he saw at the big Blues Stage, one of the biggest stages at Jazz Fest (where the food alone is worth going, BTW).  That led to him showing the pictures to everyone who has been willing to look at them.  And lots of people have, including a couple of my ICU doctors and nurses out in Colorado during the ICU vacation trip in September, if you remember.

Anyway, one of our best friends who saw the pictures was greatly enamored over the Bruce Springsteen set.  And they are outstanding photos he took and quite professional looking.  Of course, he is a professional photographer having been in the newspaper business all of these years - nearly 30 now.

So Tom decided to give her a matted, framed photo of Bruce Springsteen in action from Jazz Fest for Christmas.  Great idea, I thought.  My thinking on the subject didn't change until much later, but let me continue.

Saturday started off simply enough.  We'd gone the day before and bought a neat frame with mats in it for 1/2 price (pre-Christmas sale) at Hobby Lobby to put a photograph in to give as the gift.  Our friend is a big Bruce Springsteen fan and had really wanted a photo of him so Tom decided to go with an 8"x10" photo.  Remember that fact, because that is an important factor in the impending crisis.

But so far, so good.  

He spent a good 1/2 hour to 45 minutes picking out (with my assistance) the very best of the lot of photos of "The Boss," and there were a lot.  Then he had to crop it just so and doctor it up just a bit in Adobe PhotoShop so that it would print out just right for an 8"x10" photo for the frame we'd bought.  Fine.  Good.  All is going well.

But that's when things began to slide a bit.  You see, I had to open a brand new pack of glossy photo paper ($20 plus tax) we'd just bought because we couldn't remember if we had any 8x10 paper (actually 8 1/2 x 11) on hand from before our move.  So, already we were at $30 bucks toward the gift (not counting all the days at Jazz Fest, which aren't cheap let me tell you, but he would have gone anyway so I can't count those).

He sets the computer and photo to print and hands me the photo paper to put in my flatbed HP printer/copier/scanner here on my desk to wait for the Christmas gift photo to come out.  It's slow, but it does.  It looked crummy, he thought.  Not up to his standard, although if you didn't look too close (and who would) the 300 dpi (dots of ink per inch) setting was fine.  Although you could, admittedly, see the dots in his face even.  IF you looked really close.

We printed a second one.  Same thing, same lousy quality. 

He thought the printer used to work much better.  I didn't have a clue, but said yeah.  He wanted to set it to at least 600 dpi, but quickly found out he couldn't on that printer.  He was very upset.  He was beside himself with concern over the quality of the photo.  I was laughing, but he was so serious I had to control myself.  It's just a $10 gift, I told him and she'll never look at it close enough to see any of the dots.  She won't know or care, anyway. 

"But, I'll know and care and I can't do it," he said.  Then he tried to figure out how to "fix" the printer. 

I knew that wasn't going to happen with the old, cheap printer so finally told him, "Look.  Just go buy one of those little photo printers that just does photos and do it.  They're inexpensive and we'll use it a lot, too.  We're always wanting printed photos."

"Or you could take it to Wal-Mart, but you probably couldn't get it done in time and it probably wouldn't be any better quality than what you already have and you wouldn't be happy with it, either," I finished.

 He got online at Best Buy.  Another problem quickly arose in that all of the inexpensive photo printers were just big enough for 4"x6" photos.  To go as big as 8"x10", you had to spend more money.  A lot more.  He found a laser one he liked for $500!?!  (You've got to be kidding, I told him, to no avail.)

Luckily for me (and him), it was sold out and he couldn't get it.  Thank goodness.  I then made the rash decision to let him venture out to the nearest Best Buy alone.  (Which is 25 miles down the interstate in Slidell, but I'm not even counting the gasoline and wear and tear on the car in this story, so I'll proceed.)  That took a lot of guts on my part and he was certainly amazed, saying, "You're going to let me go to Best Buy alone?!?"

I said, "I'm going to have to trust you with this, so please behave."  (I mean, is living with men like having to raise kids or what?)

Off he went as I sat and laughed at how funny he was to be so obsessed over it, which I understood completely, knowing him.   I knew I had no alternative to doing what I'd done because he wasn't going to be happy again until he'd done it just right.  He reminded me so much of how my dad used to be that I had to call my mom so we could laugh together over our men and their obsessions for perfection in doing things.

He was gone a long time when the phone rang.  I was concerned for a whole lot of reasons, some of which were getting ready to become really clear.  He needed our "Reward Card" number so he could get "credit" for his purchases, with an "s".  See, he also ordered his new sound system for the house while he was there so that was an additional several hundred dollars, but I can't technically count it toward the Christmas gift.  That was part of our "Christmas gift" to each other.  Technically.

I asked about the photo printer purchase.  It was $199.99, but he got %10 off, so it came to $179.99.  Plus (of course he had to add), the extra color cartridges for later at $35.99.  BUT, it had 150 sheets of 4"x6" photo paper in it so he was proud of himself for having done so well.

I wasn't particularly impressed, but decided it was Christmas after all and we would - eventually in about two years of use - find use for all the photo paper.  Daddy popped into my head again, so I called mom back laughing. 

When he got home he worked and worked to get it all set up to run independent of his computer.  That meant moving about half the stuff around in our living room here in the small apartment, but hey, we needed to dust anyway. 

He had it on a shelf over in the corner near his desk and then discovered it didn't work without being attached to the computer after all, even with all of its sophistication.  (It was Blu-Tooth wireless ready or something, but not the right thing!)  He needed to run to Radio Shack to buy a USB cable he said.  I said, how much.  He said, "Oh, $10 bucks or so."

Upon his return from the second trip out of the morning with the 10' USB cable that barely reached, I asked him how much it actually was.  He responded, "Hunh?"

I repeated my question.  He again said, "Hunh?"

I started laughing to keep from crying and said, okay, how much did the stupid cable cost??!

A small voice answered, "$34."

"WHAT?" I said.  "Thirty four dollars?"  (And 23 cents, he added.)

To finish the story - the picture turned out fantastic (at 1200x4800 dpi and $313.65 it should) and was phenomenal compared to the first two.  He carefully placed it behind the mats after cleaning the glass on both sides, fastened it down, signed it on the edge of the mat and got it in the frame.  It was beautiful and he was happy.

And so was I to have made him happy because I know exactly how he is (just like my dad) and how I am, myself, when I want things to be done right and the best way possible.  We think alike on those things.

But you should have seen us out looking for the parts and pieces of our house yesterday if you think $313.65 for a $10 Christmas gift is bad.  You see, it started with the shower he wants to special build in and tile . . .

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