2:30 AM

Why is it that no matter what I do I always need an extra day or week or month to get things done? There's just never enough time. And in this case it's not like I'm pissing it away. It's 2:30AM and I just ran out of color ink. The color ink always lasts longer than the black...until now, when I need it.

I'm now counting down the hours before I get on a plane to New York and if I don't have a mock-up of the book, the trip is pointless. And tomorrow is Memorial Day. I hope Staples is open because I still have close to 150 pages to print. And trim. And bind.

My problem is I didn't get my scans back until 11PM last night. I spent at least two or three hours this morning transferring them to my hard drive and cataloging them. Then a bunch of them needed, or should I say need, adjustments. Which means opening them in photoshop and fixing them and then sizing them into Quark and then printing. Each page prints by itself because I'm printing two-sided and have to back the pages up with each other.

So, I'm hoping I can get it done in time to have it bound - just spiral binding and then taking the dummy along with it. I was hesitant on how it would look when I was glancing at the scans but the stuff I've printed looks pretty darn great. There will still be a ton of work to do when I get back (and while I'm in New York). There are scans that don't match the slides so I'll have to sit with the color people and beat them until they make them perfect. Plus, I have not finished the writing. Some of the mock-up will have fake writing but since people will just be checking out the book, they'll really be looking at the pictures. And the mock-up is not leaving my sight so I can direct them to read the ones that are done.

All right, back to fixing scans and placing the photos until I can't keep my eyes open....