Ooooeee shit!

What a horrible start to April.

I was going to write about how happy I am because I finally got an SSD external hard drive and I did Open Core Legacy Patcher and updated my iMac to Sonoma. DotA was running great. I downloaded the new Luminar “Neo” and it was working smoothly. I did the 7-day trial to edit some photos and it worked beautifully. I did a photoshoot and that was the plan.

And two nights ago…

I was playing DotA… Discord crashed while playing. Weird. DotA acted weird. Weird.

Alright. Let’s restart the machine… And it won’t start… Corrupted OCLP files I’m sure. Ah. It won’t run Time Machine. The HDD must be fried. Oh no. I think I’m completely fucked. Safe mode is not working. Nothing is working. Time Machine gets stuck on Examining Disks and nothing shows up.

Clicked on everything.

Watched hours of tutorials.

Clicked on everything again.

I was up from 4 am couldn’t sleep because I wanted to fix my machine.

And finally…

Almost midnight and it turned on Catalina again. Back to zero. And now I type this in what was the old computer. Before trying to patch it again and running Sonoma again.

I got a taste for it. It was great. It was faster. Every thing ran smoothly… but then it crashed.

I tasted it. I want it again. I need money so I can update Macs with money instead of hacks. But there hasn’t been any tours. There hasn’t been much gigs. There hasn’t been much of anything…

I had to dig into my savings for all of these. But I’ll be fine.

I complained about not having tours on my Instagram and I got a few messages this morning for tours. And a few people gave me leads for jobs. Having a social media following is always a good backup for whatever you need.

Video of tacos and beer and me bitching about the economy:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DIP5xd8ph8_

Everything is so expensive. I’m a bitchy millenial.

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Things that also went horribly wrong…

I got into an argument with my girlfriend. It had been several arguments for the last two weeks. I told her I needed a break. Just a one week break. Settle my head. For her to settle hers.

And I believe it’s good. I miss her a lot. It’s weird to be so alone. She inspires me to do more. But I don’t know if I inspire her. Sometimes I think on the classic: if you love her, let her go. She says all her ex-boyfriends become successful after they break up.

Depression is a bitch. And it’s harder when it’s not yours to handle. But hey. In the good and in the bad, she’s been there for me. And I have to try harder to be there for her.

To respect her privacy, not much after this about my relationship. I’m not that type of influencer. Though people LOVE gossip.

We’ve talked. I’ll see her this Saturday. It will be a full moon. That will be full moon number 19.

Count full moons.

Not months.

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I did a photoshoot on Tuesday. The model said she could do it before 5 pm. I told her the good light hits around 6 pm. She showed up after 7:30 pm, there was no light to be have. It was a night photoshoot with no flash.

I haven’t edited. I will do this after updating to Sonoma. Then I will know how it went.

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I did more content. I crossed the border on Saturday with La Wila to pick up the SSD and he wanted burgers for breakfast. The Balboa South was nearby. Perfect opportunity for more content.

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The owner of the place hit me up and thanked me for the video. I asked her for a job. Not the way to roll. But hey…

Job soon. And a place that serves beer would be ideal. A place near downtown San Diego or south San Diego. Menial tasks that I can do 30 hours a week or more. While doing two or three tours a week. Or a photoshoot.

Or write articles. I wrote to the editor on the Reader letting him know I want back to writing. I need to start writing for money again. Though it doesn’t print and that doesn’t feel… the same…. Just online. I bring good numbers though. They should be happy.

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I’ve been doing a shit ton of TikTok lives. It has helped with new followers that want to see more Paparazzi stuff.

My Paparazzi book is available in English and Spanish!

Paparazzi Daze – Celebrity Encounters. I’m not in love with the subtitle anymore. Or the cover. But hey… I wrote five years ago. Shit. Time flies.

Revelaciones de un Paparazzo: Fotografiando Celebridades. That’s how it is in Spanish. I finished that last year. It never got a proper edit. AI edit in Spanish would be helpful. But at the same time, I rather have a good editor. I still haven’t talked to my editor. She got mad at me over a year ago and that was that… That happens when you have your editor as your friend.

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And that’s been my April.

Shitty.

It’s been 10 days and I’ve only manage to make $100. That’s not enough. That’s $10 a day. FUCK!

I have a bachelor party at the end of the month. I have a different family tour after that. I might have a tour before that. I just got a message for a tour this Sunday. I got someone telling me he will rent me out his Prius as an Uber. Petco Park hires seasonal workers. I have little shit to sell that I don’t need that could be a couple hundred dollars.

So I’ll be fine. More than fine. And surviving cheap comes sorta easy. Just don’t drink. And I haven’t.

I bought non-alcoholic IPA beer by accident. I didn’t read the label. They are called Athletic Run Wild IPA. It’s surprisingly good. It tastes like a basic IPA. It calms the urge to drink for real. I can play DotA and drink that and it’s fine.

I can cook at home.

Groceries are expensive as fuck. But not as much as eating outside.

Every thing is expensive. I shouldn’t talk about my personal relationships. I shouldn’t talk about my finances. I shouldn’t talk about religion or politics. And here I am. It’s what I do most. 2025 is fucked.

You can give me money here:

You can also buy my shit!

I sold two shirts last Friday… so I made $150 so far in April, not $100.

Things will pick up.

This blog needs a photo and I don’t have any new ones except the ones in the camera that I haven’t been able to edit. This will be saved in drafts… I will upgrade to Sonoma, finish editing… then post!

Wish me luck me! You have work to do! So much work to do.

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And…!!!

I’m back on Sonoma! It’s working great right now. I downloaded Neo Luminar and edited around 80 photos in a speedy way. Not that fast, Neo still demands a lot from a machine. But fast enough. Faster than the iPad. And the edit demanded a lot. Neo is a great app for editing. I’m only on the free trial and I am not shooting very much, so canceling before they charge me. Because… no money.

To buy a full license is cheap. And it’s always discounted, so I’ll do that soonish. Better than paying monthly for Lightroom. Which I should cancel as well…

Rather use the iMac and Neo to edit. And Neo is on iPad as well… yeah… buying that as soon as I have some money.

The edit went well. I sent the model her pictures. She hasn’t seen my message. I hope she likes them. It went well for how little I’ve been shooting and how uninspired I was (working for free… ahh!). But hey, I’m happy with the result. At least with five of them. And I needed to do this. I need more photoshoots. I need new gear, but at least I am making this iMac work.

iMac 2013 that I got for free with expanded ram to 24gb at 1600dhz (I can push it to 32 ram for $15). External hard drive with 2 tb partitioned in 1/4 and 3/4 the 1/4 is the boot EFI for OCLP the other 1.5 tb is the machine running and a lot of space to do whatever the fuck I want.

Discord worked great yesterday.

DotA worked okayish. I need a better graphics card and more power to run it better, but hey, playable. My mouse is shit. Still gives me trouble. But hey, we won 2 out of 3 and the one we lost didn’t feel heavy. Okayish DotA players YAY! We almost all fucking forty. Millenials huh?

Getting together online to play videogames. What did your generation do when they were in their forties? Take care of kids.

Fuck that. Rather play DotA.

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This blog post needs a pic!

Not only that, an ad!

I only got three crewnecks left! Two large and one medium. Yesenia posed with the one I own and then bought one. Here is Yesenia modeling (this is not the other model):

Low resolution photo! This blog needs more space.

Which reminds me, I’ve been doing TikTok lives at the same time for days. At 4:00 pm. I’ve gained new fans. And this blog has a tab with hundreds of pictures of celebrities. You can find it under photography or click here.

This blog probably has a dozen new visitors just because the live. Hi new visitors! Though it’s in English and my new fans are in Spanish…

It’s only 1:43 pm. I should start looking for new jobs for May. But for now, sold one more crewneck, got one tour on Sunday, and getting more gigs.

April will pick up. Sorry for the sad ramble. It will all be okay. My computer crashing was more dramatic to my brain than it was worth… It’s all good now. I hope it continues like this.

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Buy my shirts!

Follow me in all the social medias. You know the drill.

Buy my books on Amazon. I’m sure you’ll enjoy them.

Subscribe to my YouTube. The more subscribers, the more money, the more time I have to upload cool shit.

Follow me on Instagram and book me for a photoshoot!

Follow me on TikTok just because it’s the thing we do in the future.

Book a Tijuana tour with Tijuana Adventure! Still doing exclusive tours in 2024. Let’s see how much longer I last.

Read all my articles on the Reader. It is no longer printing! 148 covers and a dozen cover stories in print are now history.

Thanks for reading.