Mayday!

In lieu of well-formulated arguments and philosophical musings, I give you FLOWERS:



David and I have been busy little bees. (no fertility jokes, thanks)


We spent the last two weekends at local parks trying out some new techniques with our fab lenses. Say hello to my carpal tunnel (too much photoshop driven mouse gripping).


I know, not flowers. But, pretty!


Ecinacia is the most fun to photograph.






I love purple.





And my favorite, waterlilies:


If you want to see the growing collection of spring photos, go here or here.

Spring!

First, flowers!








It's so great to see all this color.

Work has been really fun lately. It seems like spring has really amped up my creative process. I spoke at a conference in Austin a few weeks ago called RISE, it was really fun. It was especially great to be around a bunch of entrepreneurs. It reminded me of the first time I went to music/arts summer camp in high school. Instead of being a weirdo, I was with my own kind, people who shared my values and ideals. In this case, it was fun to be with other irrationally optimistic, creative, driven people who persistently see our country's financial difficulties as an opportunity for growth and change. It was cool.

My session was on defining and identifying core vision, values, and mission. It went really well, and has got me thinking about some very exciting possibilities to expand on the parts people responded to especially well. Next week, I'm guest speaking at Wisdom at Work, which you can read about here, if you're interested.

Speaking of entrepreneurs, I got to meet one of my idols yesterday, Perez Hilton. What? That snarky gossip blogger who draws on pictures of movie stars in MS Paint? Yep. I have to admit his blog is a guilty pleasure of mine. But what I find more interesting is how he's managed to go from just some dude who writes a goofy blog to a media mogul. Seriously - the guy had one of the hottest shows at SXSW, has a clothing line at Hot Topic, a book, tv shows, and more. I expect him to be in the company of Oprah as far as media influence is concerned in the next ten years. He is wicked smart. Anyway, I'll quit gushing and just show you the picture:



I am such a dork.

I've been better about keeping my business blog updated, but less so here. I've got some new website stuff in the work, so stay tuned for updates. Oh - and I also have a new article in a journal called The Systems Thinker. Sweet! It's on organizational politics and ethics, if you're interested email me and I'll send you a copy.

That's all for now. I have to go wash some terriers.

Holidays 2008

2008 was an eventful year. It was my first year of marriage. There were births and deaths. I started a company. We elected a president I actually like. It hasn't been the year of hell for me that it was for many people, but it certainly was intense. Overall, I'm a lot more comfortable in my skin than I was a year ago, and I attribute that mostly to the necessity of letting go of control that comes with starting a business, and to my marriage, which has been a tremendous blessing.

This year we flew to Los Angeles on Christmas Day, and drove to Santa Barbara. I love not having to take multiple flights. We had celebrated my birthday with friends the previous Saturday, and Christmas with the Quimby clan on Sunday:

On Christmas day we flew to California and spent a few days in Santa Barbara with family and friends. Meeting my new niece Saraphina was especially fun:

Isn't she a doll? Speaking of dolls, check out Miss Maxine, now approaching the ripe old age of two:

It was foodie bliss at my parents' house, as per usual:

Beef Wellington with Celery Root Mashers and Port Reduction

Hoshigaki White Chocolate Truffles

Tortilla soup with fried shrimp

Cajeta Ice cream with Mexican Cookies

And we found some time to get out and do some nature photography:

Shaun and I (mostly Shaun) cooked a dinner for our parents' 40th anniversary:

Then it was off to LA for a couple days of sightseeing and catching up with friends. We had lunch at a dumpling house in Arcadia with Rheia and Dave:

And dinner in Hollywood with Elender and Bergen, who treated us to the Amazing Cat Show:

The next day we did some sightseeing, ate at a fabulous restaurant in Glendale called Carousel, and it was back home again.

We're happy to be home, and happy to be spending time with our Austin friends and family again. Happy 2009!

Happiness Challenge

Cortney posted this on her blog, and I'm going to take up the challenge because I think it's a great idea to think about what makes us happy:

Post 10 things that are going right in your life right now. I don't care how small. You're happy with your cup of coffee. You saw a flock of geese flying over. ANYTHING. Things that make you happy. Things that make you smile. Go:

1. Napping with my terriers
2. Being married to David
   
3. Running my own company
4. Doing work that helps people understand themselves and each other with more compassion
5. Bellydancing
6. Cooking with my CSA vegetables
   
7. Getting better at photography
8. White chocolate mocha and breakfast empanadas at Fair Bean Coffee
9. Remembering to meditate
10. Having great friends

Let me know if you post a list on your blog!

Bokeh Eye-Candy

I've become obsessed with a photography style called "bokeh". It's macro photography, generally, which utilizes a large apeture (shallow depth of field) which results in your subject being very sharply in focus, and the background as blurry as possible. The smoother, the better. The people who are really good at it frame their shots so the composition of the subject, and the contrast with the background is almost like a visual haiku. I'm not at that level yet, but some of my attempts are not so bad:















I'm keeping track in a set you can see here.

But if you really want to see the masters, check out these people:
Naro

okiraku_diver

Yochi

*Sakura* Her stuff is AMAZING. Check out the frog and ladybug sets, particularly.

Long time no blog

My days feel scattered and hard to nail down. Having a day job puts this nice delineated structure around my time, and I'm still trying to deal with the lack of it, much as I enjoy being my own boss.

I realized I wasn't taking enough time for my physical-mental health, and instituted a bit of a morning yoga stretching and meditation routine. To the left is my new Ganesha statue for my meditation altar. I looked around quite a bit to find one I liked. Ganesha is a god of success. He clears obstacles and represents wisdom and intellect. Ganesha is here to help me stay focused on my endeavors, but also to stay grounded.

I have a thing for elephants, I find them beautiful and mesmerizing. It's probably projection, but they seem very soulful and deliberate. One of the most touching things I ever saw was a baby elephant playing by itself at a zoo. It seemed so intelligent, and so much like a little kid just entertaining himself and having fun being little.

So I consider elephants to be my totem animal. I collect elephant stuff, though I'm trying to limit that collection to a reasonable one. David would not be happy if we had elephant stuff everywhere. These are some carved stone elephants. I found both these and the statue at White Crane, a store associated with a holistic medicine school. The store has some cool stuff and the prices are pretty reasonable.

Next weekend we head to Santa Barbara for our second wedding reception. We're really looking forward to seeing people, to Shaun's awesome dinner, and to dragging our camera EVERYWHERE to take pictures. Austin has some nice scenery this time of year, but Santa Barbara has a plethora of vistas. Everything is a vista. So keep an eye on my Flickr page, hopefully we'll have some good stuff up late next week.

Shutterbuggy

I've become a bit of a photography nut over the last couple of months. David started it all by insisting we borrow his dad's Canon Rebel for our trip to Hawaii. Having never taken photos with anything but a point and shoot, I was intimidated. But once I got my first taste of a zoom lens, I was hooked.

I'm finding that photography is a really cool expressive art form. Photographs show others what I see when I look at the world, but they actually show me as well. I start to understand what data I take in with my eyes, and what I disregard, and this leads me to start to question others about the same thing. We all process information really differently, it turns out. Really good photos, like any other art form, illicit emotions from viewers, but those emotions and impressions can vary infinitely. Mostly, I'm just really enjoying the hell out of taking pictures and seeing how they come out.

When we got back, David got us a Nikon D300 for a wedding present. Overkill, to be sure, but this puppy takes some damn fine pictures. Below are a few of my favorites of the ones I've taken so far.


Persephone


Maxine


Manhole cover on our street


Backyard color


Jack


Winter sky and trees


Cabbage flower

A complete, ongoing set of my favorite shots is here.