Photographer, small business owner and writer of sorts…
NEW YEARS REVOLUTIONS and CHANGES
I RETIRED FROM SHOOTING (PJ, WEDDING OR POLITICS) Effective January 1st, 2012
I notified my clients I would find someone else to do their work. I can't run with the kids anymore.
And a not so surprise visit from Mr. Arthritis and Mr. Bursitis. Winners of the battle of AGE and no more heavy gear is to be planted on my shoulder. I have a permanent six degree list on my left shoulder, had shooting pains from the neck to the wrist. All from those thirty pound bags I carried as a shooter for years and standing for hours added up in the legs and knees.
The MRI's had confirmed I had a problem in my cervical vertebrae c3-c4. Got the usual n-saids, Ibuprofen, and the deep steroid shots. Stubborn as I am, this time I will listen to the med peeps and let my body heal or I will meet the orthopedic and neurologist guys. Bad is curable and treatable, ignore it and it gets worse. You also know you got a problem when you turn your body and not your neck. My photo marathon days are over.
No more Weddings, I was pinch hitting as a sub for grins and to keep a shooters eye when the company shooters (hired guns) got sick ( 5% ), quit ( 10% ) had cold feet or scared ( 85%) and I know why. I should of brought a 12 gauge instead of a Nikon to the wedding. Someone should take the producer of Bridezilla and hang that jerk from the nearest tree. I will pay gladly for the rope and pull the lever.
GOOD NEWS - BLACK BOXES and TUXEDOS
ARE MY FOCUS, MY CUSTOMERS, MY FRIENDS, I'M BUSIER THAN EVER
For years I have wanted to focus (pun) on my Black Boxes and not be bothered by some political hack or nutcase dragging me out of bed at 4 am because their might be a story there or covering scenes of mayhem, human suffering and pain. I have seen enough from the shootings, crashes, the Terry Schiavo story, Katrina, Casey Anthony, Sarah Palin and lastly to an idiot "bablical preacher" (no church affiliation, they threw him out) who was burning Quran's. All those stories are at www.aljacobsladder.com.
Seek www.aljacobsladder.com for the real sides of fake politicians and fake preachers, and some other nuts thrown in) and if you like to eat...I will continue to hound, bother, and annoy bad food places through the website www.aljacobskitchen.com where I condemn a few common eating places and get thrown out of many. I once accused Steak and Shake for hiring Dr. Kevorkian as their chef trainer. Just watch them "kill" a minuscule dollop of meat on that stupid clanging grill stretching it to cover the bun.
THANK YOU
At my age, working on and building better mousetraps offers me greater solace and I thank all of my customers and friends for their loyalty and friendship, even the kooks. When you get older the phone calls you get are usually, the pharmacy telling you the script is ready, some insurance company, a real estate person, scams, a miss dialed number, the AARP, a political ROBO call, and as many of my friends tell me, their kids looking for a handout or money to pay for their overdue car payment on their 32,000 dollar Infinity they were stupid enough to have co-signed for.
My phone calls are different. Great customers and professional shooters who have fought the wars and survived the transition from film to digital. Sometimes we can look back together. For this I thank many for the nice words and kindness. Its good to hear your voices.
A DEBT TO COUNTRY
The charitable organizations I am affiliated with and on some I sit on the board will now have more of my time. The cause is just, I support the troops through the USCCMF (www.CENTCOMMEMORIAL.ORG) and I will be undertaking more project time to complete the missions at hand. We are affiliated as an initiative with the MOAA and their other iniative, the Helping Hands of Tampa Bay.
My support for the wounded (34,000) starts this week with the announcement of the "SOCK IT TO ME CAMPAIGN". Our wounded in the hospitals need common white sports socks, sounds silly, but it's not. VA hospitals are kept at cold temps (I wear a sport coat there) and warm feet are a crucial part of hospital care. Also they can be easier than trying to navigate in hospital flip flops or sandals. They get used, and abused and pitched, a supply is always needed. The young guys like the shoe top style and the older guys calf socks. More on this later.
I also champion for those who have fallen to Cancer in my late wife's name and for CASA House, a national foundation for the support of abused women and children, some who have escaped the abuse with nothing more than the clothes on their back...
OLD SCHOOL BUSINESS
These are my rules for my small business with a big emphasis on putting customers first. Mantra: In this day and age to be very conservative means staying alive, saving money, better deals, but it only works if the end product is GOOD and does what it is supposed to. My name is on the product I build and I use my own products. This is the exact opposite of the government, they cheat and lie about the conservative part and the end product is BAD.
I answer the phone in English. No number two button to push, no impolite message taker and a callback. I keep it simple. As a small business man and custom builder, I become more familiar with my customers. About a phone call away. Try that with Mr. Big. Since I manufacture battery packs for the WEPP shooters, Wedding, Event, Paparazzi, and Photojournalism market, my clients are frugal, smart, climbing in their league, competitive and know photography, they are students and successful players since they can read past the branding and hype.
I write and shoot, after doing the paper and wedding gig for what seemed a hundred years, I will retire from the action sticking with editorial military and corporate subjects. Just to keep the brains working.
I limit myself, the pack building is labor intensive and I have no real employees to draw upon. My goods are hand built, quality control all the way and no frills, just performance and look for ways to save the customers money and time. I got into this almost 50 years ago because the swanky stuff was overkill, failed more than it worked, overpriced gimmicked to death over-stressed tools that made a job more complex not easier and needing expensive repairs about every two years sometimes as high as 50% of their initial cost.
COST KEEPING
I spend a lot of time with suppliers trying to keep prices down. This is a volatile market and one must plan ahead. Availability is sometimes day to day. I keep prices down but not at the sacrifice of quality. I learned that lesson from working with SOCCOM, at MacDill AFB, Tampa Florida. I strive to build things that work better, are simple to operate, field sustainable or repairable, off the shelf, on budget and can be amplified or upgraded. There are several thousands of the Black Boxes out there, all field repairable and upgradeable.
QUALITY
Even little things are important. I only use Kobicon jacks and Marson high grade steel rivets. Both cost double the price of the Chinese stuff available, but the Chinese quality (vendors will sub you) failed miserably. A one ten cent rivet cost me twenty dollars in postage. An RCA mainland phone jack never properly stayed in place the tolerances were so far off cost me money. I learned my lesson, and fired that vendor. Now I exclusively buy from TAIWAN, JAPAN, with USA preferred when I can. Batteries are tougher to compare in most cases China is the only source.
I am not a fan of some China photo gear knock-offs. Not for me, it's not that tripods break. Just the ten cent screw connector that was tapped from cheap stock and under-threaded by the screw machine. It releases, resulting in the 4000 dollar camera and lens hitting the ground first to save the tripod. I endorse what works. Stuff like Manfrotto, Kirk and Custom Brackets.
POSTAL COST SAVINGS - I use the United States Postal Service (USPS)
Fixed lower rates on a 5-10 pound weighted products saves my customers money. This keeps costs down to customers and with PRIORITY fast shipping, as fast as two day UPS and FedEx depending on location. Our hot seal packaging prevents theft and "slit grabbing" and the USPS offers inexpensive insurance, and packaging materials which they supply. Normally pre labeled CLICK & SHIP means no lost waiting on lines and being located close to a major airport and USPA hub (TIA-Tampa International) means faster times on both domestic and international shipments.
POLICIES and QUALITY - VALUE ADDED
I have held the price line with over the top service, backing up the product and other special jobs I have done for customers, the increases I have had have been negligible. A product is as good as the sum of it's parts. It's called value added. For example, each 2011 pack can power two strobes with the second port into an umbrella or soft box or two strobes floor mounted for backgrounds illumination of large churches or areas.
We do not use cardboard covered vinyl in our cases because they absorb moisture. Our cases are made in Denmark because they are a better molded polycarbonate product. We do not use cheap findings like metal belt clips and miniscule shoulder strap assemblies. Superior charging of the Sealed Lead Acid battery means no days off. My packs stay on the charger indefinitely. My chargers are intelligent, more so than the others and do the thinking for you and make my batteries last longer up to five years.
NO BRANDING, SHILL TALK, OR POLITICALLY CORRECT
You won't get "branded forum answers" from me. We do not accept payment for reviews, nor "door prizes" for good reviews. It's called the truth. Just go to www.aljacobsladder.com and read my reviews on politics, sex, religion, and www.aljacobskitchen.com for comments on food and cooking. I am an equal opportunity insulter of bad food places on TripAdvisor and other blogs and magazines. Bad food like bad products deserves attention.
I work with both Nikon and Canon, and have owned and sold in my store just about any brand you have. I will slam bad stuff, really bad, Most "reviewers" are shills for their magazines and simply don't report bad. When WAS the last time you saw a bad review? Remember those free magazines you get are paid from advertising. I do not push or shill for any brand.
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Photography started for me when someone left a paper bag left sitting on a park bench in the Zoo area in NYC's Central Park. Today we would call the bomb squad. I was fourteen, a junior, and was naturally, playing hooky from school. I grabbed the bag after eyeing it for an hour, artfully dodging the truant officers who carried my picture in their wallets with the big red number one on the front. With no one claiming it, I stood on top of the park bench and yelled the sacred words "finders keepers".
With the legalities out of the way, and instinctively running for my life, I had mischievously become the owner of an AIRES IIIL 35mm Rangefinder Camera, the first of the Japanese clones of a Leica. It took nice pictures of the Dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History in NYC, the Statue of Liberty and other sites when I played hooky and got caught.
That camera saved my arse, showing that I was doing something to help my education and it got me off easier. At 14, for penance I guess, I gave my first presentation to the Science classes in HS. It was about Dinosaurs and I proudly showed off my 2-1/4 x 3-1/4 prints. I was a success! The kids gave me a standing ovation and I got a reprieve since the "science teacher thought the dinos got whacked by the cavemen". She hated me.
THE GADGET MEISTER
I picked up a few nicknames, like
"the Gadget Meister" starting in an obscure camera repair facility, the best in the camera district of New York City. It was where I first found out man could fly if he simply touched a capacitor from a Honeywell 770 Strobe, and when I touched the Eveready 510 volt battery, it sent me to the moon.
Only the Wright Brothers had a better first flight. But I learned early what works and what doesn't work and that you don't get from school or books. Maybe that shaped my attitude toward cheaply made products that fail.
MY DREAM
Maybe aviation was a better way to fly. I can thank the United States Air Force for that. When I got out I swapped Boeing for Cessna and Piper, piling up thousands of hours over 28 years and the occasional heart over stimulation. I owned five aircraft that taught me quality control in maintenance and repair. If you work on it, you fix it, you fly it first. Great confidence builder and test bed for Tide. It does clean underwear better! Two fires on board taught me well and almost got me arrested once for chasing a crooked mechanic around the airport with a tow bar in my hand for causing those fires. He put used fuel lines on my aircraft and charged me for new and they failed fortunately within three miles of an airport. Best no engine landing I ever made.
THE NIGHTMARE
Adding to the excitement and cardiac exercise I worked for a Wedding mill in NYC for several years to learn the business. 400 events later, I was alive though a few times I thought I was on "Survivor" and decided being a bachelor was a good thing. You learn a lot about people during a Wedding.
MASTER MACHINIST
I remember the first tools I made at Wingate HS (600 Kingston Ave for you Brooklyn fans) in the metal shop. We had Zip before the post office. Knives , Zip guns, those career decisions destined to make you acceptable at Alcatraz University. Totally unauthorized program and even today they still talk of the Jacobs Hubcap Remover, not sold in stores, available in Midnight Black Only. You too can have a career in hubcap "restoration" for only $39.95. Make it back on your first job even if you only got the front ones! Comes complete with instructions for both domestic and foreign jobs.
America". BUT WAIT! Order now and we'll double the offer and send you my new book " Guide to the Great Bail Bondsmen of America".
I FAILED IN ENGLISH, SO I BECAME A WRITER, and PHOTOGRAPHER
Why not? Early on I learned some really cheesy folks can and went on to become Teachers, Policemen, Congressmen, Senators, Judges and the President. After all Glen Beck, Carl Rove, Sean Hannity, and a few other nationally prominent "negative crap throwers" can do it. All three never went to college! You don't need a degree to complain, bitch, moan and groan,as long as you call yourself a patriot and you will find an audience of waiting listeners because they not happy with themselves.
I figured I could write about anything I like if I put my mind to it. Unfortunately I was kinda choosey and didn't care for the "writing" in my English class. I referred to Shakespeare's words as "spake as a flake".
That got me out of the grace of the teacher. The killer was a book report on Julius Caesar where I had to read aloud one page from something Shakespeare wrote, I picked a scene where Brutus mentions a questionable and unmentionable act upon Caesar. That got the class roaring and I got the Deans office. It taught me the power of words and how to get thrown out of English class.
OTHER WEB SITES OF MINE
POLITICS, SEX, and RELIGION EXPOSED
"Things not spoken about except at the water cooler"
FOOD, FODDER and FOIE GRAS IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY
"How to get thrown out as a food critic, tell the truth"
THE CENTRAL COMMAND MEMORIAL
"Country Served"
ACCURATE PLATING and WEAPONRY
"Professional Factory Gunsmithing and Plating"
DIAL INDICATOR REPAIR
"Make your Indicator like New"
http://www.indicatorrepairsite.com
AUGUST 2008 I WENT TOTAL MAC: I LISTENED TO MY BROTHER and FRIENDS.
With 28 years doing IT as part of my job, working on computers, certified from DOS/WIN 2 to Vista, I finally gave up on PC's. Thus I am PC Retired, MAC Inspired. I converted an entire business and lifestyle to a loaded three computer MAC network in two days, Air-streamed into a 18 speaker Monster cable room by room sound system in my condo, linked computer and Apple phones to my mail, all of which I did my self needing one call to apple for support which I got in sixty-seconds and the sound came alive and with iCloud, I could link the world.
This resulted in being ten times faster and more proficient not spending my time fixing things or finding workarounds. I run eight websites, my databases, two blogs and write storyline articles about everything daily and process what I shoot and don't spend my time on repairs, burps, upgrades and viruses. I have become an Appleholic.