That’s me (Patrick), disheveled and feeling like a kid opening the world’s greatest present on Christmas morning. In my hands is Red #2464.

Camera tests will follow in the next few days, but I spent a big part of this afternoon figuring all the little bits out and getting the camera set up to shoot.

First project it’ll be used on: exterior shots for Couch Cases.

This camera system will allow us to create tv commercials and video projects that look absolutely stunning, and I’m very thrilled to be one of the “first” Red owners.

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business, corporate video, couch cases, production, red camera, red one, video, web business, tv commercial

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living in los angeles

I love my new environment. I sit on the back porch every morning and enjoy my tea and breakfast, looking out over the city. And each night before I go to bed I look out the french doors and see this huge carpet of twinkling lights. It’s amazing.

Running in the canyon is an interesting experience, definitely a lot harder than running on flat ground. And I saw a notice posted to a streetlamp- we have a roving band of coyotes in the neighborhood, the notice said, so one ought to keep one’s children and small pets close.

It’s so interesting to have all this nature so close to the city. That’s one of the things about Los Angeles that I truly love- in 5 minutes I’m in the middle of the city. And 5 minutes up the canyon and I’m in my secluded haven. It’s very different from the fully-urban world I lived in only a week ago.

We’ve also been given the opportunity to create a couple of new conference presentation videos for a client. So, I’m really busy now. This is good.

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living in los angeles

NOTE: This post is not about the various pro-bono and “friend projects” I occasionally do.

I got an email from a web company the other day, asking me to do some work for them to help them out with an old client of mine. We’ll call this web shop “Zone Y”, the old client “Fish Monger” and the person I spoke with “Tommy”.

So, Tommy at Zone Y wanted me to contact Fish Monger’s hosting company and straighten out an issue. It appears that Fish Monger hadn’t paid for his hosting, so things expired. Tommy at Zone Y saw that one of my employees was somehow still listed as one of the contacts for Fish Monger, and wanted us to get things transferred to him so he could set up Fish Monger with a new hosting situation.

Now, if Fish Monger had been a good guy we may possibly have been inclined to help Fish Monger out. But it turns out that Fish Monger never paid us their final invoice, either. Fish Monger is a deadbeat, and as such doesn’t exactly engender good feelings from us.

So, we told Tommy at Zone Y that we’d be happy to do this work for Fish Monger, but that Fish Monger would have to pay our outstanding invoice and also pay us in advance for our time to do the work. We also told Tommy that we only bill out in 1 hour increments in situations like this.

Tommy from Zone Y then obliquely threatened legal action against us for “extortion” and “holding Fish Monger’s business hostage”. He said we should have been willing to jump up immediately and do this work for him FOR FREE, since it wasn’t hard work to do.

My immediate, well considered thought was “No”.

On the advice of our attorney I then ceased all discussions with Tommy at Zone Y. I guess my lawyer doesn’t like it if I shoot my mouth off too much, especially over such small potatoes. But the thing is, whenever anyone threatens me or my company I do pull out all the stops and get ready to fight back. I hate bullies, and our policy is to never give in to threats or intimidation. Ever.

Eventually Tommy at Zone Y figured out how to do what needed to be done on his own, like a good little web worker. But it didn’t help Fish Monger. Fish Monger is basically still out of business. I guess people are starting to smell the rot when they meet Fish Monger. That guy’s slimy, and if he’s ripped us off he’s probably ripped off many other people as well. Eventually his bad karma caught up with him, and now follows him around like a little black cloud wherever he goes.

Many of you probably know how this story ends- Fish Monger never paid Tommy at Zone Y for his time and efforts, either.

As for me, I’m not saying I won’t talk to someone about their problem and try to help a little. Being helpful is just good business, and I’m passionate about what I do and I love to share that passion with others.

But any business that’ll stay in business needs to draw the line at giving away free consulting time to deadbeats who owe them money.

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web design, web business, web marketing, business