I'm not bitter.

Well, I got the word on one of my estimates. The job was to recreate a report consisting almost entirely of financial reports and sales graphs. Despite the fact that I've worked for this client for several years, they have proven almost impervious to any kind of education I've provided about the process, techniques, and cost of graphic design work. In practice this means they have some unrealistic expectations.

Bottom line: I quoted them $1700; they had a quote from somebody else for $150. That is not a typo.

I wrote their general manager this evening as follows:

Dear [name],

I value your business, but I'm afraid I can't consider re-quoting the ops report.

It looks to me as if whoever created that 19 pages of financial/statistical tables and graphs gave you an extreme low-ball quote. There's no way I can get anywhere near matching it.

I hope that, regardless of the 90+ percent difference between the figure you're looking for and the figure I quoted, we'll be able to work together on future projects.

If I've lost this guy on price, it's business well lost. At his price I'd be better off working at Wal-Mart for minimum wage.

My life, in a nutshell

Today is the first time in many weeks that I've managed to get up at a reasonable hour to devote a full day to work.

Yesterday I spent most of the day doing estimates for a couple of semi-large jobs. Fun. Today, assuming at least one of them gets approved, I'll start work. I feel better when I'm really working, and the resulting checks, though possibly a long way off, are pleasant to contemplate.

Ron's off to Maryland for a presentation today; he'll be back tomorrow. Dad is in good spirits, though as always very tired and short of breath. I'm taking him out tomorrow to run a couple of errands and then we'll have lunch somewhere.

Friday we're leaving for a week at Ron's sister's beach house (yay!). Somewhere along the way I need to assemble a week's worth of junk-food reading and develop a playlist in iTunes. I also need to call the cat-sitter, buy litter, and start reassuring the kitties.

Life is good.

Uncommon indecency

I'm no fan of Michelle Malkin, but she's dead-on right in her outrage at the antics of Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor Catherine Knoll, who appeared at the funeral of a Marine killed in Iraq and used the event as a platform to declare her anti-war views.

Now that's just low. I don't care what you think about the war--intruding on a family's grief for political gain is beyond the pale.

I don't care what they say: sometimes a flint-knapper is only a flint-knapper

From BBC News: Ancient phallus unearthed in cave

John G. Roberts

What with all the hoo-haw of the past few weeks on who the President would appoint to the Supreme Court, my immediate off-the-cuff reaction is that Judge Roberts is an excellent choice.

Okay, so he's a conservative. That doesn't make him a bad person, and it's hardly reasonable to expect Bush to nominate anyone who's not a conservative.

Roberts' credentials appear to be as solid as anyone could hope for: his judicial career has been brief but he's appeared before the Supreme Court as an advocate almost 40 times and he appears to have earned the respect of the court's members.

If he's opposed by partisan hacks, who cares?

Oh, for gosh sake...

Res ipsa loquitur, from The Smoking Gun.

7/7

Of course the terror attacks in London are unprovoked and barbarous. My heart goes out to the victims and their families.