J. Jason Lazarus Blog

So yeah, was watching Tech TV and heard about this video and looked it up. The fact that the woman falls isn’t the funny part, it’s the noises she makes and the fact that the cameraman fails to turn off the camera until she’s almost done screaming bloody murder:
The Grape Fall
Link Fixed!

So this last week was dedicated to me dealing with credit card fraud. And yes, it did take a entire week to deal with it. Two Saturdays ago I looked online at my account and noticed that, oddly, over $800 was “pending” in my accounts as if I had just spent that amount of money. Knowing that this hadn’t happened, I went ahead and rushed over to my bank before they closed and managed to at least stop my account and move what little I had left in savings over to a new account. Apparently my bank couldn’t do anything about it until monday because their fraud specialist (both of them) don’t come in on Saturdays. So, pineing over this all weekend long, which was more than a little agonizing, I resolved that what I was told by one of the in-charge tellers on Saturday would ring true - that Monday ALL of this would be dealt with and finished. Seeing that my bank wasn’t going to do anything till then, I contacted what companies I could out of the pending charges and told them this was fraudulent - and most of them said they’d call me back or not to worry about it cause it would immediately be dropped. So, Monday comes and I’m optimistic. I was supposed to get a phone call by 10am, no dice, so I come in at 10:30 wondering what’s going on. I find out that I can’t do anything about it until the pending charges have dropped off of the pending - but “rest assured” this would happen by 2pm today, so come back at 2:30 and we’ll start signing all the forms we need to to deal with the fraud side of this. 2:30 comes, I go and of coarse, the fraud specialist is on lunch break. I come back at 3:30 and get yet another bit of run-around, told that they haven’t dropped yet and they may drop by this evening, but no matter what, tomorrow we’ll deal with it. Tuesday comes and I’m yet again supposed to get a call “as soon as they drop” and I don’t. I go in and find out that they’ve all dropped but, lookie here, they haven’t dropped from this other list and we can’t do anything till then. Come back later today, I’m SURE that they’ll drop by then. I come in later, one thing has actually gone through and been charged, so this must mean I can deal with this, right? If I remember correctly, I even had to come back on Wednesday and they were ready to even shove me away at that point (note, I’m running on less than an acceptable amount of emergency money at this point) but they finally cave in and transfer the money over. It takes till Monday this week to get the cash back from the fraud charge and we’re just getting back to normal. All in all, I haven’t been pleased at all with how my bank dealt with this and have heard other banks, with the same cards that promise zero liability, make it a lot easier. This isn’t mentioning I had to go to the police station, barely have any money for an entire week, and lost probably a quarter of my remaining hair dealing with all this crap. No apolygies for not calling back, not being there for appts, no nothing. In fact, they had the gull to point out I was a bit late to one of the many meetings we had yet refused to say anything about their own tardiness.
To top it all off, I hear from one of my students mid last week that a construction plan, of which I and many others were unaware of, was supposed to close off the entire first floor, where I teach my classes - and to make it better, the only place in Fairbanks I can teach it. So I got to deal with that as well.
All this happening during my birthday - and not to sound like a pouty ten-year-old, it don’t feel too great when you’re over a particular “hump” of the mid-twenties and that’s bringing you down while you have no money to do anything to cheer yourself up. Wee. Here’s to being 26. Unlike last year I didn’t have any big get-together as most of my friends aren’t really available to get all together at the same time. Plus, it’s a big, big waste of money.
As it was, still managed to salvage the weekend, got some great gifts from Deanna and Heather, went to a movie and the next day went on a glorious hike in Denali (Savage River). The previous weekend we went hiking in Livengood and all over the Chatinika Dredge.
Additionally, I’ve been riding my bike and performing quite a bit of physical labor around our place lately. I’ve ridden my bike to work and back three times in the last week and managed to do a ton of yard work. that’s right about 25-30 miles this week alone!
Going back a little, I was pretty shocked when I got my gift from Heather - it continues to astond me how much that woman knows about me that I don’t even manage to mention to anyone short of my wife - and my wife forgets! Somehow Heather knew I wanted a flask - and I plan to get something to fill it this upcoming weekend.
Going back to the yard work - it’s managed to pay off - my month’s rent has basically been cut in half for this month and with the fraud, the money we spent trying to forget the fraud and this being the low time of the year for paychecks (a la May vacation), this’ll help out greatly.
And now for some actual GOOD news:
The Wood Center had a photo supply sale this last week or so and I actually managed to get something out of it - 4 boxes of 11×14 RC paper, 50 sheets each, and a box of 8×10 RC paper - 100 sheets - all for $30.
I also had to deal with Deanna’s iPod (read: my old one) dying. The hard drive has completely failed and I was int he search these last few weeks for a cheap hard drive replacement, thinking that even a 5G hard drive would work in a 4G iPod, I talked to my friend Kriss, who recently ruined her 5G. A case that she had purchased to carry the iPod had dented the backside and messed up the battery and thus, apple wouldn’t fix it even if it was under warranty. So, I asked for it for spare parts, taking it apart found out that it wouldn’t work as a replacement but tinkered with it a bit and managed to get the 5G to work - felt bad about getting it for free so I offered it or $100 to Kriss, who had already bought a 60 gig replacement. yay for a $100 30 gig iPod video!
So yeah, with all that things have been busy as all hell and frustrating, but things have come out reletively rosey. Hope all is well with you all, would like to get ahold of some of the local folks - the phone does work both ways =P

Although I haven’t actually managed to get a job, short of my teaching, for the summer, I have managed to kill almost all of my freetime with repetitious tasks. Sound boring, don’t it?
Actually, most of my freetime lately, as in the last two weeks, has been spent on scanning in between 600-900 negatives at 2000dpi for archiving. Seeing that I haven’t ever really done a batch scan operation on all of my negatives, if I loose my negs, I lose the pictures - so, thus, this not only gets me closer to to actually getting my ass into a gallery but pushes me in what will probably be a better direction - digitally printing some of my prints. Although I refuse to admit that this would be easier for my b&w negatives, for color it’s really the only option. I don’t have the equipment, patience or time to ever invest in actual chem-based color photography.
And although my trip gallery doesn’t exactly give many good examples of good photography, these pictures I’m scanning will find their way, within the next few weeks, onto my site and they are “real” photography rather than point-and-shoot digitals.
Even so, I do have some new pics online: From our trip in May as well as Deanna’s Graduation .
I’m hoping I’ll be able to sell photography online as well as get into a local gallery by the end of the year. That’s at least my goal.
So other than scanning like a maniac I’ve taken yet another trip outside with my students - took them to Livengood and Chatinika Dredge this time. Livengood, although full of several abandoned houses full of correspondance, Campbell’s Chunky Soup from the 70’s, discarded Tang containers, Nazi Porn (i’m not joking), an awesome couch, and a plethoria of magazines from the ’70s and ’80s, it really wasn’t worth driving 80 miles up there for. Well, there was the “palm reader” sign in the middle of nowhere was pretty unique… but not worth the swarm of mosquitos. Chatinika Dredge, as always, made up for it. In fact, I’ve now been ALL OVER that dredge - more than ever before. Was quite fun.
So yeah, scanning negatives and teaching. And Livengood and Chatinika… yeah, that’s the sum of my summer at this point. Wee. Hope everyone’s summer is goin a little bit better (or at least more interesting) than mine. Ah well! Can’t wait to see you Ashlee!

Did I ever hit the jackpot this weekend at the local yard sales. Spending less than $25 I picked up enough fun and entertainment to last me at least a couple years. Here’s what I managed to pocket:

Original Gameboy System with four games - Frogger, Super Mario Land 2, Pokemon Yellow and Kirby’s Dreamland - all for seven dollars.
A Super Columns game for my Sega Game Gear - for 25 cents.
A mint condition DVD set of King of the Hill Season One - for $3.
An audiobook cassette tape set for Deanna for $2
A CD - Papa Roach - for $1
A Vivitar SLR Camera that seems to only need a battery - $3

And the best for last…

A original Nintendo system that works with five controllers, one arcade style controller, 2 Zappers, and…
Tiny Toon Adventures, Donkey Kong Classics, Super Mario Brothers 2, Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt (x2), Tetris, Dr Mario, Super Mario 3 (x3), Dig Dug 2, Xevious, Contra, Mega Man 4, RoboCop, Dodge Ball, Mission Impossible, Adventure Island, Legend of Zelda (regular and Gold), Adventure of Link, Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Ninja Gaiden, California Games, FINAL FANTASY, Legacy of the Wizard, Fester’s Quest, Wrath of the Black Manta, Wizards and Warriors, Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout, Rad Racer, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mega Man 5, Wizardry, Batman, Side Pocket, Dungeon Magic, Guardian Legend, Solomon’s Key, Whomp ‘Em, Ren and Stimpey’s Buckeroos, Dragon Warrior I, Dragon Warrior IV, Legend of Kage, Demon Sword and Castlevania!
45 games with the system and all those controllers as well as instruction manuals for… $5!

Yeah, I was a bit shocked as well. For those of you who have ever lived in Bartlett Hall at UAF, this just happens to be the actual NES unit that graced that hall for so many years - I went by the Res Life Garage Sale this weekend and managed to pick this beauty up and it works perfectly!

Other than the obvious happiness derived from the 50 games purchased for much less than they’re worth this weekend, I am happy about the camera - if it works, It’ll be able to use some of my old Ricoh lenses that I have and so I’ll have three functioning SLR’s. Speaking of Cameras, the class is going along fine. Completely different group of students this summer - where last summer were a bunch of first-timers and much older, this summer has a majority of teens and twenty-somers, mostly all with prior experience. Nonetheless, I’m enjoying the experience - took a few of them out to Angel Rocks for a hike last weekend and had a blast. Great way to start the semester. I’ve been taking a lot of photos lately and hope to be scanning in the negatives this next week - I’m really going to actually put effort into professionally displaying my work this summer. I’m too old to not have anything professionally released yet. Now if only I could convince my wife and friends to start hounding me and pushing me toward the darkroom to make this dream come true - God only knows that I don’t have enough gumption to do it on my own.

Deanna had her birthday this last weekend and we didn’t do much unfortunately because of my schedule and various situations. We pretty much postponed it till this weekend, actually today, where we vegged, ate junk food and watched movies pretty much all day long (mostly her choice). I feel bad that I didn’t really do anything that special for her - got her some flowers and sweets but she’s always content and happy with the small things. She deserves so much more than that. I’ve been watching less tv and more movies lately, and actually more of a combination of the two - I’m checking out two free months of Starz/Encore and beginning to think it might actually be worth the extra $10/month - might save us from going out so much. Even so, I am getting pretty cramped even in this big place - I think it’s the fact that I still haven’t found a job to take up my spare time. I’ve applied at a few places and am going to try for a few more tomorrow - although we don’t *need* the money, I *need* something to take up my freetime. Possibly I should be more constructive and go on the U during my freetime and work on my photography… hey there’s an idea.