i’ve been catching up on all the photography podcasts that i have been neglecting (there is a list on the right hand side of the blog), trying to get motivated again (especially after dropping the cash for the new
d700
i have been putting a bunch of stuff up on flickr, though. so i guess that’s good. but none of them were really of the quality that i would put them in the gallery. i think i need a project…
what a long day.
it started like any other saturday; me, online, playing my game. then i started to do some work. with kerri out of town, i’m dedicating part of this weekend to upgrading all of our servers at work. fresh start for 2009! the first server took a little longer than i thought it would. frustrated, i decided to move on to another project.
and by project, i mean work. i took all the boxes out of our crawl space, moved all the bins of christmas gear to the basement, and then put everything back in the crawl space, organized by season/holiday. man, we have a lot of stuff. there are still a bunch of boxes of wedding stuff we need to go through, but hopefully it will find a place in storage, as well.
the highlight of the evening, though, was getting the ping pong table set back up. pre-wedding, we kept adding more and more stuff in the basement, and it finally started stacking on top of the table. eventually, we just folded up the table and it sat in the corner. until tonight!
so, as soon as kerri get’s back, the whuppin’ can begin. and by that, i mean her opening up the can on me. stupid ping pong.
so here it is, january 2nd. 2 days in the new year. my fresh start! my good intentions!
one of the goals i had set for this year was to try to get a picture published. the likeliest place i was going to start was JPG Magazine. JPGMag is a pretty cool concept: put user submitted, user voted and selected images in to a magazine and send it out. and it kind or worked. every month they had images (not all, of course) that were fantastic, and inspiring, and make you think “i want to do that!”
well, this was in my inbox today:
Today is a particularly sad day for all of us at JPG and 8020 Media.
We’ve spent the last few months trying to make the business behind JPG sustain itself, and we’ve reached the end of the line. We all deeply believe in everything JPG represents, but we just weren’t able to raise the money needed to keep JPG alive in these extraordinary economic times. We sought out buyers, spoke with numerous potential investors, and pitched several last-ditch creative efforts, all without success. As a result, jpgmag.com will shut down on Monday, January 5, 2009.
now, i know. nothing worth doing is ever easy. but come on. seriously. throw me a bone. if all my other resolutions start out this way, it’s going to be a very, very long year.
i’ve spent some time each night since we’ve been back getting organized. i’ve organized all of my photography files, at least by year, and put a new snapshot on my server. i’m starting to burn copies of the backups on to DVD, and i just got in the new portable hard drive. backups are good. the more i do my research and want to get more “pro” with everything, i see the value of backups and organization in not only the files, but the process, resources, and equipment, too.
it’s starting to flow into other areas now, this whole organization thing. i can see the glass of the desk in my office at home. things are finding their way back to their places. i went through the box of magazines i have to catch up on and put into recycling the ones that were irrelevant and outdate and made it easier for me to identify the oldest of the issues i did keep. i organized the units from my photography class, and have the bundle ready for the unit on which i am currently working so that i can jump back in to it.
it feels good. the honeymoon put a lot of things in perspective, and i’m glad the flight back didn’t squash my good intentions. i’ve even started making lists again, which got really long, really fast. but it seemed to make things easier when i actually stayed on top of them, and they still work great at work. i added a photography project to the list that i want to work on, on top of working on the honeymoon “keepers”. i’ve set a few goals for myself in a few different areas, too. they should be realistic, and accomplishing them will give me a rewarding feeling to build bigger goals. perspective is good. realizing it’s a journey and enjoying the trip is better.
the mrs. and i were talking about actors and actresses tonight…the batman preview came on, and she mentioned that christian bale was one of “those” actors of our generation. for some reason, christian bale to me is always american psycho, even thought i really liked batman begins. in case you were wondering, joaquin phoenix and adrien brody were the other ones i came up with.
when we were talking about actresses, she came up with cate blanchett (who, honestly, i couldn’t name 5 movies she was in), and we both agreed on kate winslet. i mentioned one of the first movies i saw kate in was jude, based on “jude the obscure” by thomas hardy. since everything is on youtube nowadays, i found a preview for the movie.
tomorrow marks the end of my glorious vacation. today was a good warm-up, though. kerri and i had a nice lunch and went to the denver art museum to see the louvre exhibit before it leaves this weekend. it was my first time since the remodel of the DAM, and it was disappointing. the layout of the exhibit was horrible. it did not flow at all, and the narrow to wide aisles left people bunched up on the narrow ends while the exhibits themselves on the wide end seemed forced. i appreciate what they were trying to do, and the main lobby of the museum is pretty neat, but at least the main exhibit space seems not well thought out.
tonight i also went back to my guitar lessons. my instructor was out of the country the past few weeks, so it was nice to get back to it. my practice the past few weeks was not as focused as it should have been, but i like that i am playing for fun and just to play, too. i think that shows my interest and enjoyment from playing…but i get a little frustrated because i don’t feel like i’m advancing in some of the other areas as much as i would have liked. i’ll get there, i know.
this is going to be a big year, and it’s already the end of the 1st day of it. i’ll be getting married, working on advancing my career, starting up some photography courses, continuing my guitar lessons, writing, health and fitness, and so many other things. the year has barely started and i’m already trying to figure out how to do it all. i’ll add “figure it all out” to my to do list. maybe somewhere near the top.
