Filed under: tidbit
I don’t want to come across as bragging but I also firmly believe in celebrating the positive, so here goes:
Today was just about the most awesome day I’ve had in a long long time.
I woke up at the crack of dawn for no reason and I was excited because today was written down as Cat’s First Day Out. I’ve been keeping her inside until I was sure she knew that this was her new home, and also she was trapped in here for a few days over Christmas and I didn’t want her trying to escape on the person watching her for us. So this morning was the end of the crying and begging (on her part, not mine) to go out. That alone made today wonderful.
But on top of that we had a great breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner – you can read all about it here at this picture of our sumptuous repast.
Why celebrating with such good food? Casey – with what appeared to be virtually no effort – scored a job at a coveted location just a short walk down the street from our house. I guess skill and personality really do count.
Also we got the last of our stuff moved here and it is now unpacked and put away. It was a sunny breezy day (mid-70s) and we had the doors open because the cat is now allowed out, so the combination couldn’t have been better.
Throw into all of that some shopping on Magazine St. and some driving around our neighborhood and those nearby to marvel at some of the architecture and … yeah. There wasn’t anything I’d change about today. Not a thing.
I hope your day was just as fantastic. I think we all deserved to have an awesome Saturday today.
Filed under: tidbit
Hey all. I know I haven’t written in a while and at least a hundred thousand of you, my dear readers, are wondering WHAT IS UP WITH KEVIN EH?
Well, last week was hectic. Most of you have heard the story, but here goes:
Monday: one final exam
Tuesday: one final exam, one home sale closing
Wednesday: one final exam
Thursday: packing up the moving van
Friday: driving down to New Orleans, my new home.
Mark and Liz and Kit and Stacie all helped me move, and that was beyond fantastic. They stuck around until Sunday morning, and so I got to show them a bit of New Orleans. I mean Mark and Liz had been here before, several times, but Stacie and Kit hadn’t. I’m super-grateful to them for helping me move and giving me just a little extra bit of home once I arrived (by their very presence).
This past week has been me dealing with the slow sludge that is any kind of involved or bureaucratic system here in NOLA. Monday I went and got my bank account set up, which took forever. Tuesday I was going to go to the Office of Motor Vehicles to get my LA license but there was a screwup with me, cash, the bank, and the ATM so I didn’t have funds to go take care of issues since the OMV doesn’t take credit cards. Wednesday I went to the OMV and suffice to say it was an adventure, being sent to a different office in a different parish (you know they don’t have counties down here, right? right) and then sent to multiple rooms within the second office just to find out that there’s a hold on my old ID because I junked a car and didn’t turn in the tags. Thursday I got up at 5AM to take a friend to the airport and then got over to the OMV at 8AM and got all my problems resolved, finally. I now have my LA license which is important because that’s how I get my employee discount at our stores. I also tried to do some Christmas shopping on Magazine St. but I forgot that nothing opens until after 10AM so I had to go back later that afternoon.
Today for once I slept in, almost until noon. That felt good for sure.
What else have I been doing? I had lunch with an old friend on Thursday and that was great. My neighborhood is great – strange quirky things are everywhere. I make the occasional visit to my new favorite coffee shop, I got lunch at Stein’s Deli, and for a few nights in a row we had amazing fog.
I may be supposed to be meeting (boy that phrase is clunky) Kate from NYC tonight somewhere downtown to go party but I’m not sure. We’ll see if that happens.
And best of all things: Casey will arrive tomorrow, so this place finally won’t feel so lonely – not that it seems like I’ve had much time to sit around twiddling my thumbs.
You all come visit now, y’heard?
Filed under: tidbit
So you know by now that usually I don’t post this kind of thing, but I’m pleased as hell with myself and thought I’d share. How many countries can you name in 5 minutes? I managed to get 69 which surprised even me.
[edit: I would have had 70 but couldn’t for the life of me remember how to spell Kyrgyzstan]
Today I was pointed towards this article by Merlin Mann titled ‘Photography, and the Tolerance for Courageous Sucking’. See, lately I’ve been feeling kind of down because I don’t drag my camera everywhere, and I don’t take a thousand pictures every month, and it makes me wonder if I’ve started to lose interest in photography as a whole.
And then I get a chance to read an article by a guy who is going through everything I went through – that confusion, that feeling of not understand what’s going on inside the equipment, that desire to take pictures every single day knowing darn well that the vast majority – if not all of them – are going to be worthless, and those moments of crazy elation when you get that burst of inspiration and try something a new way, or approach the problem from a new angle (no slight photography pun or article content reference intended).
Reading his thoughts, laid out much better than I could have said or done when I was in that same place, made me realize that I’m not taking a thousand pictures every month because I’ve finally cleared a hurdle I didn’t know I was even approaching. I feel confident every single time I pick up my camera. I feel like I know what I’m doing, I know how to get what I want, and faster. And yeah, I still experiment, but it doesn’t take me 30 or 50 or 100 shots to figure it out every time now. One or two and I can see the problem, a few more to make some changes, and then I have what I wanted, faster than before.
Because of what he wrote I’ve gone from feeling kind of badly about how few pictures I’ve been taking to feeling kind of good about my skill, and said skill being at the level I always wanted but didn’t realize I wanted.
Plus, you know, in one week I’ll be in a new environment with new places and people to photograph, and that’s good. I can’t wait. New things.
So thanks, Merlin. I think I needed that.
[EDIT: looks like Atox enjoyed the same post but with a different perspective]
Filed under: tidbit
I just got sucked in to this article on using the Socratic method to teach kids how to understand binary. Seriously, leading third graders to actually comprehend a two-state system by only asking them questions? I was very impressed. Impressed enough that now I’m running late and gotta go bye
Filed under: tidbit
… this is why I love Creative Commons licensing. Makes me want to shift all my pictures from Attribution – Non-Commercial – No Derivatives to straight Attribution.