The Paurian Café

who am i?

2009-07-10T06:39:00.001-07:00

I notice myself being drawn to that question - particularly in lyrics and music. The question raises serious naval-staring moments. I'm really nobody; nothing important; dust or vapor in the wind; a shadow before sunrise.

What makes me so important to others? I'm not special or particularly good looking. If there was anti-charisma, you'd certainly attribute that to my character. I'm not being humble here, just honest. So why would anyone find me special?

I think Antoine de Saint-Exupery stated it well in "The Little Prince"

"Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.... It's the time that you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important.... People have forgotten this truth," the fox said, "But you mustn't forget it. You become responsible for what you've tamed. You're responsible for your rose...."

I suppose I'm a little wild, like the fox or the rose and people who have personally spent time chipping away at that to tame me has also acquired a special sense of responsibility and uniqueness for me.

There's a proverb that states "Where your treasure is, your heart is also." The more we work at something, the more of our personal selves are put into it and the more it's treasured. It's what we choose to treasure that alters the world around us and changes other people - and not necessarily because they've changed, but more because of a change in our perception.

Thoreau Was Wrong

2009-07-07T12:30:00.001-07:00

One of the famous signature quotes from Thoreau is "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." However, he was mistaken. It's when men don't lead that they end up in these moments of desperation and if they become complacent in it they ultimately live their lives in quiet - maybe a grunt here or there at the water cooler, but they ultimately die out quietly and unnoticed.

So it's not that most men lead lives of quiet desperation; it's that what they follow leads to it.

In Proverbs 7, King Solomon talks about what happens when we follow our heart rather than lead it. Emotions change; sometimes emotions change as quickly as weather in the mountains. Since our hearts are so indecisive, they can't really be trusted.

I'm not saying our hearts shouldn't be heard. The poetry and beauty that mankind has added to this world depends on the heart, soul and mind down to its core. However, directing life on a series of decisions based on what feels good has a proven track record of causing destruction.

It's like that scene in The Incredibles with the cape discussion. Bob (Mr. Incredible) wants a cape because it appeals to his feeling of a superhero. Edna has to go on a lengthy monologue that explains how capes spelled the demise of one superhero after another. After all that, Bob decides he doesn't really want a new suit.

I'm not entirely certain, but I think the cape on Superman was little more than his baby blanket bound around his neck. You could even say that Superman was the first security-blanket-loving-Linus character.

Back to the point - bright men come up with ideas but often seek bad counsel. They give up and feel hopelessness choke out their creativity. In their shame and reluctance they remain quiet when new ideas come to mind which makes them feel their desperation even more. They followed the wrong counsel - the wrong advice - the insecure heart. So shed that cape, turn off the TV, pick up a good book and change the way you think. Let wisdom and understanding guide you and you won't end up quiet or in desperation.

Cave Photography

2009-07-03T20:24:00.001-07:00

Cave photography is tricky for several reasons. This is especially true if you're trying to use the "natural" lighting that cave tours provide.

I tend to like the orange red glow of incandescent lighting, and taking pictures without a flash emphasizes my personal memory of the experience. While using a flash yields better sharpness, it also changes the lighting to something other than what you remembered seeing. However, it does show the true nature of the rock which tends to be browns and tans. Flash is nice if you're wanting to study the geological formations, but not as nice if you're wanting the feel of that memory.

1. Come Prepared

Make sure you have a crisp-just-recharged battery or even two. These batteries take a beating in darkly lit areas - whether it's to power a flash or to power the sensor that's being exposed for hundreds of times longer than usual. Also put the largest, fastest card you've got in your camera. In those dark caverns, fumbling around with your cards is a quick way to get them lost! You don't want to open up your camera unless you really have to. What lens you use is up to you. I used a moderately slow zoom lens which took me from 3.4 to around 5. The 50mm f/1.8 might have been better, but many of those formations are so far out of reach that to close in on them you must zoom. Switching lenses during the tour increases your risk of dropping one.

2. Expect Grain

Push your ISO to the highest setting your camera allows and disable the flash unit if you have one built in. Even if you wanted to use a lower ISO, the long exposure time will create artificial grain and distortion on digital sensors so you're going to get grain one way or another. Also expect a shallow depth of field. Push your lens to as fast as it can go by opening up to as wide an aperture as your lens allows. (Make that little f-number as low as it can get.)

3. Set To Burst

Set your camera to take a flow of shots instead of just one while you press the shutter button. In this setting, when you take a picture (remember to be perfectly still) hold down the shutter instead of just pressing it to take two or three shots of the exact same thing. This gives you a greater chance of capturing shots like the one you see here (this was the middle shot from a stream of three).

Camera shake isn't as severely noticed in long exposures, but hand-holding a camera means it's shots will be based on your overall stability on those slippery floors. The general rule is anything longer than 1/60 of a second should be on a tripod. Of the four different caves I've gone to, you couldn't bring those in unless you have special permission. Somehow the flow of shots or burst shooting helps improve these odds.

4. Be Polite And Trail Behind

Our guide was rather miffed at anyone who wanted to stick around to admire the view. I think she was paid by the inverse of the hour by the comments she made and the way she wanted to cattle the fifty of us through so quickly. That's another thing. These are usually large tour groups. Most people want to pay their $20 to walk through a cave quickly, learn a couple of things then spend another $20 on a T-Shirt that says they did it. They're not interested in sticking around for an hour to fully appreciate the actual geological formations. What does this mean to you as the photographer? Stay at the end of the group.

In fact, I was so far back that the tour group behind us was just a few feet away - these tours were in 15 minute intervals. I wouldn't suggest this if you were in the last tour of the day. Zoiks! Getting locked in one of these caves with all the lights out would be terrifying!

5. Seek Sensible Stability

If there's a handrail nearby, lean on it with as much of your body as you can, and I mean squat down to the point that your arms, side and back are resting firmly on it. However, don't lean on the walls. Let me say that again ... DO NOT lean on the walls. You can be terribly fined for destroying the cave "life" by doing so.

We emit oils and acids that create a water barrier on these stones. That means the water won't settle on these spots anymore to deposit the minerals that keep these formations "alive". I think the fine here was around $15,000!

6. Protect Your Assets

Did I mention slippery floors? That camera strap better be around your neck. I usually have a small padded camera bag that fits around my shoulder at just the right height for the camera to rest in between shots while it's still strapped to my neck. That way if I fall on my camera, it's protected. I forgot that case on this visit, but it's still good advice.

7. Remember Variety

Take pictures of formations up close and far back. The popcorn photo shows so much detail because I was zoomed into it and only 18 inches from it. Those things are small. Formations often look different looking back. Look up. Look down. Look behind you. Each of these are often missed photo opportunities and in most caves you'll notice differentiations in the lighting that could make wonderfully appealing shots that would otherwise be missed.

8. Be Liberal With Your Photography

Be patient and take lots of pictures and at the highest resolution your camera allows. Out of about 200 pictures, only 20 of them came out with a decent level of sharpness. That's only a 10% success rate. Some great formations could be discerned from the multiple identical shots of them, but not appreciated because of their blurriness.

9. Last words of wisdom? Hmmm...

Deep in the cave where the wind doesn't blow, it's hot. Dress cool. Wear good tennis shoes.

If I were to do this again, it would be by myself instead of with a family of kids and relatives. It's an inconvenience to them. I'd warn the tour guide that I'm a shutterbug so I lag behind, then offer a small tip - like $5 or $10 in advance. In American Indian tours, they usually take a $20 - but a good Indian guide is easily worth that ... some of the great shots in my Antelope Canyon trip were a direct result of advice from the guide! I would also ask the manager what types of accommodations could be made or if there were any special photography tours.

10. Final Words and Thanks

My mother in law was very gracious in buying our tickets. It was an expense she didn't need to take, but it also created some great memories with the kids that they'll talk about for years to come. I wanted to take some good pictures for the challenge and so that years down the road they could see them and recall that first whiff of cool cave air when they were still young.

New Textures - Two Introductory Sets

2009-07-02T19:52:00.001-07:00

When I was young I just wanted to make stuff for the pleasure of it. When I got older I was told that wasn't a way to make a living.

I disagree. God made things for a living so I guess those people's attempts to civilize me into a common worker bee never quite stuck because of my higher childlike "ideals".

My parents were pretty good with supporting me through it. Mom is an excellent painter and Dad is a great musician. They weren't like the other grown ups who usually attended school board council meetings. That is, they weren't looking for a way to build a society - just looking for a way to raise great kids.

If more people took up their personal responsibility to raise their kids instead of handing their kids off to the village (idiots) to raise them, I think they would discover that children are important... they're a joy... they bring back those squishy playdough, colored in fingerpaint, bruised knees from playing in the rocks moments. That imagination is never really lost - not completely, anyway - it's just suppressed. And like a good expectorant, when you have kids that creativity just spits right back up!

Enjoy the free cave and art textures:
Cave Textures
Art Textures

Sour Apples

2009-06-21T05:40:00.000-07:00

Eighteen months old. That's the age of my wife's laptop - the MacBook Pro that we were going to bring with us on vacation. Turns out the day before we leave, all video output ceases. Kaput.

Interestingly, one of the symptoms (we've been told) of this NVidia processor is the computer randomly shutting down. We had that happen a couple of months ago. Something Apple did (or maybe it was just pure luck on their part) made the random shutdowns occur so infrequently (it only happened twice after getting it back) that we felt it was worth the occasional trouble compared to the hassle of the Apple store and their "genius" bar.

I have a feeling that unless you press the issue (and you know you're affected - see the KB article) that they will try to delay it in hopes that they don't have to pay for the repairs that they already publicly admitted the need for.

So we're out a laptop for this trip. Maybe that's for the best. More time with friends and family - less time blogging and flickring. I'll still use my iPhone for tweets, though.

-- UPDATE --

Apple accepted full responsibility for the defective manufacturing and repaired the laptop's motherboard. They even replaced the DVD drive that had been acting wonky since we got the laptop! Because of the problems we had experienced with the laptop and because it has been essentially replaced we offered to buy the extended apple warranty. They refused, saying that if we didn't buy it before the one-year deadline then we can't buy it at all. Too bad. They could have made some extra money.

Resolutions

2009-06-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

I was looking for the top three most used monitor resolutions - pixel width and height - for making desktop wallpapers in my flickr stream. It dawned on me that knowing the three most used pixel counts weren't as important as moderately high resolution images in the correct format ratios.

Here are the top three as of June 2009.

1024x768 ( 1:1.33)

1280x1024 ( 1:1.25 )

1280x800 ( 1:1.6 )

For example, the MacBook Pro supports 1440x900, which is the same dimensions as the 1280x800. Although there will be some scaling, the 26% difference of area between the two shouldn't cause enough stretching to make the image unpleasant as a desktop background.

The Internet Paradox

2009-06-18T22:02:00.001-07:00

The Internet is a paradox. All technology is, but to keep from generalized statements - the Internet is a paradox. I've been told that any element's strength is also its weakness, so I'm prepared to look through this at both angles.

1. The internet draws the world closer together. I have a friend at work who is able to communicate with his friends in Jordan through Skype. Like the Jetsons they can video chat from thousands of miles away. I know another couple who's separated by leagues of ocean between the United States and the United Kingdom.

The paradox: The internet pushes away human interaction.Thirty years ago it was unheard of for psychologically healthy citizens to lock themselves up in a room alone for fifteen hours without physical human interaction ... even without food - they would be called hermits. Some people have noticed this problem and created sites to help people regain their physical humanity through what's called a meet-up.

2. The Internet drives the market towards greater global business opportunities. I have no idea how international business interactions took place before the Internet without plenty of money and an interpreter. Today I could open a web store, tie in a free interpreter and start selling product to Sweden in less than a week.

The Paradox: People have learned to be skeptical of businesses and the consumerist is actually empowered to drive the market down. Where the big business practice was to treat the customer as good as the cow, viral videos (such as "Supersize Me") has provided a means by which businesses suffer consequences for their parasitic actions. This in turn backfires because big government, lobbied by these large businesses, create regulation that kills off all the smaller ones.

3. The Internet makes information more readily available. At no other time in history has there been such a wealth of information across the globe - readily available - instantly available.

The Paradox: Lies spread faster than truth. Pages like Snopes have become a mainstay and students who think Wikipedia has the same credability as the Encyclopedia Britannica are sadly mistaken.

4. The Internet is my friend. You meet people who are friendly, and you open up to them with your life story because of the anonymity you think it provides.

The Paradox: On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Neither do you know if the person you're talking to is one... or worse! Internet perverts and stalkers are literally out to get our children by the throat. The lure has never been so pervasive or perverted.

5. Internet based education! I can get my college degree in communications without leaving my home!

The Paradox: Think about it ... a communications degree ... without face-to-face physical interaction with your professor. Hope you can speak "woof" (see #4).

Don't get me wrong. I love the internet and the wealth it provides - but something it can't provide amidst all that knowledge is wisdom. And wisdom demands direct interaction between man and God - then with man and his fellow men. Noah, through his fear and respect of God's authority, was obedient. The interaction he had with his family saved their lives as well. Noah didn't build the ark completely by himself, either.

Our world is decaying in moral stature and compassion. In the 1920's great depression, people housed strangers because they understood the power of many working as a unit. They struggled, but they made it through. Today, our mantra of looking out for "number one" drives people to desperation and daycare houses turn into meth labs. It's no surprise that the sudden singleness and single-mindedness that the Internet meme has caused leads to people trying to find way to care for themselves without asking others for help ... or just as bad ... being denied help from others because everyone is so wrapped up in themselves to see the larger picture.

Just as much as the Internet represents one of the greatest feats of mankind - a modern day tower of Babel, it also represents one of the precursors to the greatest downfall of the human race.

iPhone 3.0 Update Woes and Work Arounds

2009-06-18T10:32:00.001-07:00

It shouldn't take nearly 6 hours to update your iPhone to the 3.0 OS, but it did for me.

It started downloading the update and seemed to receive that just fine, and it claimed to have backed up my iPhone before installing the update, but somewhere in that mix the iPhone became completely deactivated and insisted on being connected to iTunes. You know - that annoying screen on the iPhone where it shows a USB plug.

It wouldn't give me the restore from backup option, either. It was a core restore to the "original settings". To me that means complete data loss without even the benefit of the 3.0 OS.

So I did what any other person who's sipped from the Pierian spring does... I pressed ALT-CTRL-Shift while clicking the Restore button. Voila! A file dialog box asking me which firmware file to use. I pointed it to the update that just downloaded and it seemed to go well ... except during this process it neglected to restore all my 3rd party apps and their data.

I was furious, then I tweeted, then I denied it, then I tweeted, then I cried (I didn't tweet that)... but you get the point. I looked long and hard and the only restore point that iTunes offered was right before this happened even though I did manual backups a couple of weeks ago.

After a bit of research, I came across a tidbit that said the restore only restores data involving Apple's iPhone apps. You have to restore songs and video clips separately. That got me to thinking ... what if 3rd party apps somehow bind their data to the app during a sync in such a way that syncing the apps would also restore their data.

So I began that process ... and iTunes decided to do a freaking backup! I'm thinking this would take no time at all - it's only 300 megs... but it took nearly an hour. Suspiciously the same amount of time it would take when my iPhone was 4 gigs full. So maybe when the firmware installs, and when we do a restore, the data is present but not accessible until the application that calls it is installed on the iPhone.

I don't know exactly what happened to fix it, but I have nearly all my data back.

Again, the steps - not recommended, but if something goes wrong for you, who knows...

1) Downloaded new Firmware Update
2) Installed new Firmware on iPhone (first generation)
3) iPhone went wonky
4) Restored the last available backup (this surprisingly did *not* revert to the prior iPhone OS)
5) Resync'd the iPhone apps
6) Waited two hours until I got sick of the whole ordeal.
7) Slid the "Slide to Cancel" switch on the iPhone
8) Like magic, the apps were there with their data.

Hope this helps someone else out there. Better yet - hope you don't have to go through the same ridiculous install.

Cheers!

Let's Meditate on Chamad

2009-06-17T23:45:00.000-07:00

In a recent brief facebook encounter with Rabbi Daniel Lapin, he addressed the issue of IQ.

Rabbi: Fortunately, ancient Jewish wisdom rates Wisdom as far more important than IQ, as our IQ is fixed but our wisdom can be increased. No word for "intelligence" in Torah. Wisdom is "chochmah". Increase wisdom? Sure, see tomorrow's Thought Tool.

I then asked about skill, since some people equate skill or talent with IQ:

Me: What about the word for skill? I know artisans were called by their skill to build the Ark. And I noticed more than one hebrew word for skill. What's the difference between "biyn" or "yada"?

He then kindly addressed, not the issue of skill, but of meditation!

Rabbi: There are three terms in descending order chochmah, bina, and da'at (the etymological root of data). Bezalel is spoken of as having chochmah for building the tabernacle. There's much more I'll treat in future Thought Tools which I hope you receive. Otherwise go to www.RabbiDanielLapin.com

The Rabbi is careful not to say anything without much forethought. He had to have a purpose in his answer, and I think it's starting to gel together. Skill is not based on experience as much as it's based on wisdom and meditation.

Wikipedia isn't the best source to get ancient Jewish wisdom, but I wanted some answers and needed to start somewhere.

Wikipedia: Chochma (lit. wisdom) is the mind's ability to come up with a new insight into a concept that one did not know before. Binah (lit. understanding) is the mind's ability to take a new insight (from Chochma), analyze all of its implications and simplify the concept so it is understood well. Daat (lit.knowledge), the third stage, is the mind's ability to focus and hold its attention on the Chochma and the Binah.

Oy! My brain pretty much stops mid Binah. No wonder I hardly ever gain focus and meander from one thought to another! Perhaps this is also the key to a good memory since my Binah is so short term.

So let's see what the actual Hebrew words are:

Chochma - חכמה

Binah - בינה

Daat - דעת

It will be interesting to read what Rabbi Lapin has to say about these words and how they identify the potential of man.

Paurian Elevator Pitch

2009-06-17T22:56:00.001-07:00

Great ideas come scribbled on paper cafe napkins. That's when our souls aren't stiff with starch or choked with a tie. That's when we relax with our friends and a cocktail drink. That's when we don't care how stupid the idea seems. There's magic when the logic is gone.

This spot on the web is my paper napkin in hopes to find that great idea; at least in hope to discover myself. This journey will help to define partly who I am, and in that there is hope to glimpse the meaning of life and what lies beyond.

Music, code, love, food, philosophy, paranoia, responsibility, passion, art, faith, desire, fear: they pull my life into every which way, often times at conflict with each other. It's a bumpy napkin and rips are bound to happen.

Million Dollar Napkin Idea

The Looking Glass Zoo

2009-06-17T17:25:00.000-07:00

During my time in high school doodles were constantly being drawn on the side margins of the class notes. This wasn't unusual; many people doodled on their notes. However, a teacher saw the doodles and felt disturbed enough by them to call in a meeting with my parents. The doodles eventually stopped.

They weren't doodles of any teachers, but rather of myself. More often than not the images resembled Edvard Munch's "The Scream." Why it's considered art on a canvas and a psychological concern on notepaper is beyond me, but there you have it.

A few years later, at the university, these drawings started popping up again. This time I would cut them out of my notes and paste them or tape them in my diaries, which I kept for nearly ten years, and labeled them "The Looking Glass Zoo".

Ignore the words in those years of entries. There might be a tidbit of wisdom here and there, but most of the words in the diaries aren't really worth repeating. That's a part of my past better left buried, only to be exhumed after my death when people can then discover how much of a jerk I was before I matured.

Since I've been getting back into art and drawing, I've gained an interest in looking back through these drawings and sketches - particularly for some raw ideas that never developed back then. I hope to document these images over time and improve upon them. The journaling is more reserved and in this digital form (the blog), which helps to keep me from writing some of the more libel thoughts and gives me a chance to edit the few I do post. I miss the handwriting, though. That's something lacking on the web - too much type and too little personal handwriting.

It Takes Too Long

2009-06-11T16:26:00.000-07:00

An Inguinal Hernia is a medical condition where the intestines seep through a natural between the lower lateral abdominal muscles called the inguinal canal. This can happen naturally, as in from birth, and can happen through sedentary lifestyle, where the muscles aren't being properly exercised. See gratuitous medical gross-out images if you'd like.

I'm an impatient man. Perhaps through being spoiled by the invention of microwave ovens, cell phones and the internet I've come to expect the natural forces of nature to work with the same punctual immediacy.

But I've been learning something lately that God's Word says on the matter: "... let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." (James 1:4). It goes on to talk about asking in faith to receive wisdom, endurance and eventually healing. It mentions that faith without works is dead. It parallels the patience we need to have to that of a farmer, who does his work and waits for the garden to grow. "You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand." (James 5:8).

I have a strong feeling that James is writing to the Jews during the time of Shavuot, known as the feast of first fruits. That's a season when we reflect on God's goodness. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above...". We receive at the feast of first fruits the implanted produce that God brought to fullness. Similar farming allegorical references are made throughout the book of James, which is why Shavout comes to mind.

Back to patience - When a farmer starts he doesn't stop working. He's pulling out weeds, protecting the plants from hail and bugs, and warding off other animals that might devour his hard efforts. Patience takes action, and isn't entirely about waiting.

I've been warned by two different people that this will take at least six months to naturally heal. Poetic that a growing season lasts six to eight months.

There's plenty to do ... and plenty to *not* do. As a farmer, you don't look out at the crop a month after planting it and, not satisfied with how quickly the plant is growing uproot it. I have to remember this stuff - I'm not a farmer, so thinking this way doesn't come naturally. Exercises, meditation, prayer, diet, supplements, rest, acupuncture, and reflexology seem to all play a part in this. Not overexerting myself, not lifting items more than five pounds, not overeating, not eating junk food, not getting upset.

That last one - not getting upset - is the most difficult for me, and one of the greatest causes of my hernia flaring out. I can't explain it other than maybe by getting tense and upset my muscles down there tighten (like stiffening my neck when I get angry) which pushes the hernia, rather than pulls it. Excessive coughing fits have been known to create inguinal hernias where the "patient" hadn't had one before, so this seems feasible.

So to heal, I need to be patient. That seems to mean I don't get angry or upset when healing isn't happening fast enough to my liking. It also means that I take action in belief that this can be cured in time.

As a side note, I am not being foolish about this. I have educated myself on the dangers of this condition and am prepared to move towards surgery in the event that it heads towards a life threatening condition. I also have regular check ups with a doctor. "Watchful waiting" is being practiced intelligently.

The Wanderer

2009-05-30T01:02:00.001-07:00

I've gotten a few comments on Flickr that I must be a great dad. Although it's true that I love my children and relish the good times I share with them, I am equally irritable and harsh with the criticism. I keep flipping from one extreme to the other, always gauging my mileage from the overall health and happiness of my family.

Most of my irritability comes from being medically challenged with a condition that keeps me from being able to play freely and uninhibited. Unfortunately, my anger with myself for getting into this condition turns out with harsh tones and bitter expressions that my children take personally.

I wish I could wander to some remote island and deposit the whole illness - not just medically, but psychologically as well. And return whole and happy and better humored with life.

Time Flies

2009-05-28T16:03:00.001-07:00

I've noticed that the month of May has flown by quickly. No television was my goal. We watched a few movies - about one every other week. Since I've dropped TV, I picked up drawing, photography, photoshopping, flickr networking, more blogging and getting closer to my wife and kids.

Tonight I go to a pizza place that can best be described as something like Dave and Busters, but more family oriented. I hope to have fun with photography there and meet a couple of new people. With more activity in life, it feels more like an adventure. Other than the occasional movie, I'm ready to give up the screen altogether.

By the way, the movies watched were: The last few shorts from the Ray Bradbury Theater, Planet of the Apes (with Charlton Heston) and Les Miserables with Liam Neeson. Ray Bradbury Theater was a real disappointment. I remember him being more creative instead of taking ideas from other writers and putting mild twists on them. Planet of the Apes was

Will Blog For Food

2009-05-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

I love it when people blog and use the photography I post up on flickr. This has got to be one of the best uses of flickr around, and as long as people aren't posting my silly mug up on posterboards or commercials without my consent I have practically no concern on the matter. Some of my photos have even been on pages supporting political groups that I don't, but it was clear from the article that the photo was used to set a visual tone rather than to say that the photographer promoted the material.

The latest blog to use one of my photos is Alan Morantz's Leading Thoughts. In this article he discusses how art can be used to develop leadership skills! Cool! That's actually one of the reasons for the many photographs up on flickr and blogposts lately. I'm trying hard to learn a certain level of diligence that will hopefully lead to better leadership and organizational skills. I'm also trying to put something creative out there that can be used to enrich the world and bring happiness to others. I'm not good enough to make blogging or photography a full-time business, but someday I might learn some great hidden nugget of wisdom and become a world-renown motivational speaker to twelve-year-olds that will allow me to indulge in supplimenting the task with photography and blogs. Then again, reality tells me I should get back to work - lunch break is over!

Snugglebunny

2009-05-23T12:14:00.001-07:00

Every "cute" couple has their set of nicknames, even if it's just "dear". Somehow I got stuck with snugglebunny ... sometimes it visits under the slight variation of snugglehubby, but they're pretty much the same.

Have you ever noticed how most nicknames are tied to food and taste? Honey, sweetheart, sugar, sugarlips, sweetpea, sugar plum, stud muffin, cupcake, baby cakes, coco puff, sugar pie, honeybun, cookie, cheesecake, lollipop ... the list goes on. (Though popular food items you won't see as lover nicknames: quarter-pounder, KFC, dinner roll, ho-ho, ding dong, twinkie ... ok, maybe twinkie.)

No wonder it's a common notion that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

The Detective

2009-05-21T20:27:00.001-07:00

The unexamined life is not worth living. - Socrates

Some days are good days - others aren't. When I look at my good days it's when many accomplishments take place. Most of the time it doesn't matter if they are big or small, and most big accomplishments are accompanied by smaller challenges and supporting accomplishments. On the bad days, it's when more failures and set backs occur than accomplishments.

For example, when I'm trying to code and the development environment crashes. That's a disappointment. If the computer is continually behaving slowly so that what should only take an hour to do now draws out into three hours ... well, that's the makings of a bad day - trudging through the mud of life (in my case that mud is mostly composed of silicon chips) just trying to accomplish what you set out to do.

So the examination part, after the arduous summit of the thick muddy mountain has been reached, is when we look to see what could have made life better? Better hardware? Cleaner system? Maybe a particular coding style, or adding music to drown out the murmuring fans that normally fill the room.

On a broader scale ... if today was good, find out why. Did someone say something great about your work? Did you finish what you set out to do? Did that impossible task actually turn out to be fun and easy? Did you surprise yourself with something you didn't know you could do?

... and if today was bad examine it for gold. Was the noise driving you crazy? Did you get interrupted each time you started to do something? Did the results of your work turn out sloppy and unexpectedly bad compared to what you expected out of yourself?

After examining your day, look for a way to emphasize the good points and judo-turn those bad points for tomorrow. Yeah, the noise was driving me nuts, but I can get the dog to stop barking if I tire him out on a fast walk... that compliment made me feel great, I should ask my neighbor over for tea tomorrow... etc.

Examining our days help us improve ourselves in steps so small we don't realize it, just keep your main goal in mind. I'm working on being more cheerful and to stop grumbling entirely. What's your goal?

Pirate Daddy

2009-05-20T16:56:00.001-07:00

Arr! There are times when I feel like a nut. I had planned for this shoot about ten days ago and kept rolling it in my head how to get it done. A couple of things I learned were:

1. Setting the white balance on manual helps to make the colors more consistent.
2. Check to make sure you didn't forget to reset the manual setting on your lens (oops!)
3. Even waking up at 4:00AM sometimes doesn't give enough time to piece an idea together.
4. I'm never completely happy with my work unless there's tons of positive feedback (by the way - no feedback on this one. humph) - even then, I tend to want to change things.
5. Sometimes you just have to quit and move on to the next idea.

Dirty

2009-05-18T23:03:00.000-07:00

An evil person is like a dirty window, they never let the light shine through. - William Makepeace Thackeray

Today I said some dirty things to people I love. Nasty words, nasty thoughts ... just useless mean stuff. I hate it when I lose my temper like that. What does it take to not only learn how to control my tongue, but to have it so much part of my nature that I don't even lose control of it when I'm exhausted and bitterly angry.

To anyone out there I said mean things to... sorry. Please forgive me. You really are special and important and didn't deserve it.

A Little Light Reading

2009-05-17T19:53:00.001-07:00

I love reading to my children. We just got through reading the unabridged Alice in Wonderland. Before that it was book 6 of the Lemony Snickets series. We intermingle The Boxcar Children, Little House on the Prairie segments and other books throughout the year. I think we've read through the Narnia series twice, or at least some of them keep getting reread.

I find the imagination in books to be better than most movies - particularly in older books before there was TV. My guess is that watching mainstream media saps the creativity out of your brain and back before TV just writing out some crazy dream you had was surreal enough to have people question your sanity, if not your intentions.

A great quote for this photo is from Gallagher the humerist - "Don't you wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence? There's on marked 'Brightness,' but it doesn't work."

[Book pictured: The Annotated Alice, compiled by Martin Gardner - without dust jacket.]

Eww and choices.

2009-05-16T01:01:00.000-07:00

Ok. So I suck at photoshop. The latest few flickr photos show my shame. But this is interesting - it gives me an opportunity. I could either say "eww, this is too embarrassing" and give up on making fantasy photoshop shots or I could say "eww, this isn't what I wanted" and keep trying until I get it right.

Every time I get these choices I tend to pick the safer and less embarrassing of the two. I wonder which way I'll turn this time.

Runaway

2009-05-15T06:21:00.001-07:00

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. - Thomas Jefferson

Lately my life has been an emotional roller coaster. Is this what people refer to as mid life crisis? Maybe I'm just finally getting back in touch with my feelings. I could get seriously mature at this point and talk about politics and religion because that's what adults are supposed to do... but I'm going to take a chance and run with my emotions here for a moment.

I'd have to thank my wife for helping me along that road. Sixteen years ago we met over a poetry group that I founded and moderated at the U. Emotions were fierce and wonderfully inescapable.

These emotions are what drove my creativity ... I think by the time we're adults we've learned to suppress our emotions so much that we forget we have them ... the life that used to be so brilliant and colorful when we were kids has become a sea of lackluster and that dreary adultness points a finger at "responsibility" when being more responsible has nothing to do with losing that edge.

It was that emotion that drove the creativity into writing music, poetry, art and photography. A good friend of mine, Jorge, who had more creative genius in his left foot than I had in both my hands found a girlfriend and was spending most of his time with her. That left me with only geeky buddies to hang out with and visit. Then I found a girlfriend and she was the hottest girl in the CS lab to be sure! Now she's the hottest girl in my house!

So when it comes to emotions, adults are conditioned to forget about them, and that's easy to do with television and computer games. Since I've cut those out I started to see life normal again.

Last night I read a book to my son. It has a picture of a playground and a boy at the top of the slide, looking out. I remember that moment - the first big slide I climbed. I was so high! It was amazing. Then I thought to myself ... all those moments in life that followed where I got used to being taller off the ground made being as high as that slide not so exciting anymore: The first tall tower, the first flight, the first time falling in love... but each of those highs were different. They had different mindsets and observations. And each one is so wonderful they shouldn't be forgotten or compared with the rest.

So why did I suppress my creativity? I was trained into it for one thing. It's the politics, the corporate, the expectation to be proper and civilized. Go ask James Thurber about being civilized! ... but more than that it's childhood fears in an adult form that I haven't faced and shook off.

I can't run away from who God made me, but I'm so paranoid! I'm afraid of people watching me and calling me a failure face just like they did for years in school! Ugh! It still feels like they're watching me and waiting for that chance to laugh at me all over again.

Like the daft Captain Hook - always looking for a chance to choke the life out of Peter Pan just to sneer at Pan's failure. The adult psyche is always trying to kill the child psyche. In more modern terms, it's like the dreaded Count Olaf - always watching ... always near and just waiting to snatch up the little orphans' souls (after all, that's the most enormous fortune anyone's got).

Dear Diary

2009-05-14T21:23:00.001-07:00

I really like Rabi Daniel Lapin. Today's email blast struck a chord on something I wanted to just mention an idea on.

I used to keep a diary. Trust me, it was a scary thing. I'm terribly embarrassed by it, now and have thought of creative ways to destroy the volumes of terrible emotional venting. I also wish that I had kept a journal or diary over the past ten years because so much growth has occurred during that time and some of the wisdom acquired has been lost. I have a terrible memory that serves me as well as an Applebees waiter on Sunday.

So today I've felt mostly down. When asked what's wrong, the only response I could come up with that didn't incriminate against myself was "I'm not living up to my potential."

That statement in itself is true and generic enough to let people derive their own conclusions. Life, work, marriage, fatherhood, worship, leading, following, you name it.

Sometimes it feels good to be emotionally drained. It leaves more room for the happiness in the days that follow.

The Disciple

2009-05-13T07:12:00.001-07:00

Another creative venue is photography. There are some amazingly brilliant works on Flickr and I've long enjoyed it, but the 200 picture limit on free accounts caused me to pull back almost entirely. I shelled out the $25 and am going in deep.

I thought about going into portrait photography, but my skills there are so limited. I've got to think about new forms of expression, and need to learn work flow. So the skills I expect to acquire from this experience will propel me into new ideas, better management of content and more enjoyment than anything the digital airways has to offer.

This is the second of the "365 days" group entries. Not only do I have to take a picture every day, it has to be of myself. That's a tough subject because I've always hated portraits of myself - and now I have to step out of that comfort zone and take one every day.

This picture was inspired from thinking about biblical times and wishing I were any one of those disciples that surrounded Jesus. Well... maybe not Judas Iscariot, but one of those other ones.

Fading Melody

2009-05-11T15:22:00.000-07:00

Years ago, half my life away, I wrote poetry and music regularly. They even won contests. Even though the poetry itself is backed up on some dusty floppy disk, the creative swarms are lost along with most of the colorful friends I had at the time. One activity I was engrossed in, and what helped during uncreative times, was poetry or lyric interpretation. I would go deep into some poem that already had enough levels of complexity that English teachers feared to tread into them because they could alone spawn half a semester of banter and commentary.

For example, T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men", which tends to address the journey of the soul from a newly acquired state of death to its completeness. There are allusions to Dante, Conrad, Morris and Kipling tied together to show political angst supposedly towards the Treaty of Versailles. I'd tend to think, as others do in this trying time, that most politicians are hollow, stuffed and already dead. Didn't Dante dedicate a special canto in hell just for them?

Other poetry was much easier to cypher, like Edna St. Vincent Millay's "A Few Figs From Thistles" which is primarily about blazing through life, though you'll make regrettable mistakes along the way ... and tends to go into typical relationship taboos such as adultery, cheating, lust and bondage.

Rush, Sixpence None the Richer, Tori Amos and Sarah McLauchlin were bands that I frequented concerts to, as news of them came to me, in the Austin area and had all albums available and ready to be brooded upon. The styles of the last two particularly influenced my style of music, though some strong religious differences and some blatant blasphemous songs from Tori Amos sent me on a decade long boycott.

For some time, music was what I breathed, ate, drank, slept. I surrounded myself with music every moment of the day when it made sense. But over the course of the past ten years that craving became more of an emptiness. Music lost most of its meaning and lyrics were chaff in the wind. Some of that is because of the gross amount of bad music that started coming out. But it had more to do with becoming more "responsible". Though the probability of most of these risks are the same, the consequences are much higher.

But what was interesting when reflecting over how the apathy towards music increased was noticing that, as one "civilizing" or "taming" event came after another, my spirit was eventually broken. My passion for much of anything was chopped at - hacked away - by worldly forces and I felt myself become just another work drone. I remember one employer laughing at me after one of those experiences and literally saying: "So you can be broken!"

Ugh!
Yes - but by breaking people you lose ... the creativity, the passion, the responsibility, the fearless risk taking, the adventurous spirit ... you kill it ... it dies like a fading melody into the grave of white-noise that was so easily attainable to begin with.

These are all necessary for art, beauty, entrepreneurship, adventuring, exploring - in short, it's required to really live out life. I have never met a suicidal person who was passionate about life and enjoying it. I have known one or two who were passionate but constantly getting brow-beaten by the world until they had nothing left to live for.

The challenge is to remember these lessons when my seven year old gets permanent paint on my jacket, or looks up longingly for approval on some messily crafted crayon drawing, or her eyes light up eagerly to pick up an expensive clarinet though she hasn't learned how to play a note. Eventually, and directly from my reactions, she'll either learn to love messes like Pollock and Picasso, or dream of it while she passively files papers. She'll either color the grey world like Julian Beever, or she'll quietly beat the pavements with the masses. She'll croon the world with new music like Goodman, or puff out sad sighs and conform. I don't want her to end up like me - at least not like the me that exists today.

Just like how trees that are chopped to the ground can grow back, that root of inspiration is still buried deep in my soul somewhere. It's a mess getting through the scar tissue and it's a fighting struggle to be enough of a conformist to support my wife and four kids, yet have enough creativity to show them that the world God made for us has more beauty in it than the government would have us believe.