How long have I been talking about ordering a set of studio lights? I ordered them today from B & H and they should arrive by the end of the week. A simple thing, a request by a friend who needed some head shots to put together a small portfolio, a look at B & H wondering if the rise of the Euro against the dollar had increased the price of the lights I've been thinking about - no, not yet - click!

Click? That was it? Click?

That's right. Nice lights, a single 600W and a single 1,200W monolight with stands, umbrellas, cases and cables. There will be add on's required, but there are always add on's required and I'll deal with those after I've set them up and seen what they're about. My, my. Studio lights. Anyone need a portrait? I work cheap. Free, mostly, but that's pretty cheap. I might even be willing to shoot them in color. In the beginning, anyway, just to see what they're like. I come from the black and white school of portraits, junior member, third class, peripheral associate. And I dig it.

This may be nothing more than seven days of feeling good. Pretty good. The company going through its end of year shed an employee program would normally set me off, but I've developed a better attitude and you never know how much time you may have left. And I need something to play with if I'm going to be sitting here alone sending out resumes. And I have a project in mind. And my horoscope says "go for it". My horoscope always says "go for it" even when it doesn't. Or am I losing my thread?

A party tonight. When's the last time I went to a party? That reason alone is a good enough reason to attend. Bring something to eat or bring a bottle, so I have a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in the refrig. Veuve Clicquot makes a reasonable champagne. In my days working in the wine industry in Napa I would have brought a Krug. Krug was generally considered the best of the best, but I noticed the sale price at the local liquor discount house was two hundred dollars a bottle and I passed. Still, it's Christmas. These people are into food. Veuve Clicquot will generally get you through the door, Krug will get you into the bedroom and Dom Perignon will get you laid. Dom Perignon is good, but not as good as Krug although the local non-wine drinking populace hears "Krug" and thinks Charles Krug. Believe me, not the same continent.

That's more a geeky than a snobby statement. Wine is great territory for snobs. The people I hung with in Napa were wine geeks, serious mono-subject addicts of the grape. Most of us didn't have the money to buy the great stuff, although we always bought the great stuff - how do you know them if you don't drink them? - and I found myself routinely tasting and drinking things I'd only vaguely heard about. We had wine cellars. Well known wine merchants knew us by our given names.

I guess I'm not happy doing whatever I'm doing unless I'm geeking it. Not a lot of snobbery when you're geeking something (there's geek snobbery, but that only counts among geeks), even if it's wine. Interesting to have friends drop by on a weekend with an open bottle of '67 Latour (or, god forbid, '63 Latour) or show up at a birthday party with a magnum of '53 Dom Perignon. They're good. I mean they're really good, but the idea is to consume it with friends and not analyze it to death. We had blind tastings practically every night. It was fun. Really. I'm hoping for a similar hit from these studio lights.