Obsessive Lack of Blogging

Man if only my posting was a bit more sporadic, I could call this blog a ghost town. I've got some amazing and wonderful things coming up this year including a trip to a new continent and hemisphere that I can't wait to write about. But for right now, I thought I'd share some links and things that I'm currently obsessing over in no particular order.

• Dave Baxter - You know how you find a song you like and then you start digging into everything else they wrote and then all of the sudden you're in a music black hole? That's what I've been doing since hearing Whispers for the first time earlier this week. First I downloaded his EP Let It Go and I did it for free, cause he totally has it available on his website here (FREE I TELL YOU!). Then I started buying music by his band Avalanche City, because once you go down the rabbit hole, keep following it down man.
• Veronica Mars - I don't have to explain that I was kind of obsessed with everything on The WB and UPN in my earlier years right? It's just something we're going to accept and not mock. Well imagine my excitement when the Kickstarter started to raise money for a Veronica Mars movie. You better believe that I donated to it. I'll be wearing my T-shirt with great pride.
• Love is Blindness by Jack White - I just can't you guys. This song is so good, I just can't handle it. And I'm a harsh critic when it comes to others covering U2, but this is just great.
• #apageaday - I started trying to write a page a day (more close to 300 words) for 30 days. I'm currently 3 days into it. So far so good. This might actually also result in me writing more here on the blog, but let's not go crazy.
• One of my favorite quotes from Roger Ebert in his handwriting on a Post It Note: "There is no need to pity me. Look how happy I am. This has lead to an explosing of writing".
• People I know personally are just creating amazing things. First up is my friend Crymson who opened up her own Etsy shop for her french beaded flowers. Seriously look how amazing her stuff is here. Her mom also has been creating the most amazing paintings and I was even the subject of one of them. 
• Speaking of Kickstarter, I've haven't pulled the trigger, but I kind of want to buy this kit to buy a kit to make my own pinhole camera.
• The One Fund and Salvation Army for West, Texas - Generally speaking this week has sucked. I always have that hopeless feeling that comes after seeing tragedy. There's no solution or cure, but I hope in some little way this helps even if just momentarily.

What are you obsessing over? 

Bunny Steps

A couple of weeks ago I went up to the Tahoe area for a volunteer retreat (not that I volunteered to go, but it was a retreat for people who volunteer). I've been to Tahoe one time before (see here), but this was my first time in the winter. I even went so far as to take a ski lesson.

Now I'm not ashamed to say that I am a bit of a klutz. I blame the six-inch-boy-like growth spurt I got when I was 16. However, between you and me, I was a klutz even before then. So it's not a surprise that the second time in my life I was on skis and I spent most of it by falling down. At the end I finally started to be able to do some slow slopes and haphazard turns. The good news is that I'm not permanently scarred by my lesson and actually am looking forward to going out and try again. I'm going to hold off on marking the Ski in Tahoe item off my California To Do List, maybe after a couple of more trips.

I got to visit Squaw Valley home of the 1960 Olympics and take the 8 minute aerial tramway ride up to High Camp at 8,000 ft. elevation. Which gave an amazing view of the Tahoe area and was almost worth the $30 lift ticket (Ouch!).

Panorama photo of Donner Lake using Olympus Trip 35mm. Really too pretty to be named after cannibals.

Panorama photo at top of Squaw Valley Ski Resort. (Olympic rings are on the right in front of the skating ring)

Shot from inside the tram taking us to the top at Squaw Valley

Tram Shadow on the Mountain Rocks

Olympic Rings taken with Olympus Trip 35

Reflection on the water at Donner Lake

Before I went skiing. Hence the reason that I can walk. Photo not taken by me obviously.

It was a nice relaxing weekend and it was actually great to breathe the mountain air. I don't see myself becoming a Tahoe weekender, but I'm totally down for heading up a couple of times a season and maybe finally figuring out how to ski without embarrassing myself in front of all the hot workers. Are you good at skiing? Want to take lessons with me? What else have you guys been up to?

Slide to the Left. Slide to the Right

My bestie, Crymson, gave me some 35mm slide film for my birthday last year. Basically if you cross process slide film (aka process it like normal film) it intensifies the colors and just creates some amazing effects. I used both of the rolls last year with my Olympus Trip 35 and I'm so excited. The first roll is from my trip to Turks and Caicos.

I haven't talked a lot about my trip to Turks and Caicos, but it kind of was amazing. We went in the first part of October which is right on the tail end of Hurricane season which means that all the tourists hadn't shown up yet. The water is this amazing green and there was a coral reef right outside our hotel so we could walk outside our room to the beach and swim to the snorkeling area. The colors really didn't need the added intensity of the slide film, but they look so cool. I especially love how it played up the sunset.

Sometimes the rain comes in even in Paradise

Have you ever used slide film? Have you been to Turks and Caicos? What is going on in your neck of the woods?

How To Skype The Golden Globes

Sadly enough, I'm a sucker for awards shows and have been for years. I blame Full House. See Kimmie and DJ were such die hards of the MTV Music Awards they would make bets (with food!) over things like if the artists would arrive on stage. And since there was nothing I wanted more in the world than to be like DJ Tanner, I grew up the same way (a sad comment on society today, I tried to find the video of this particular Full House scene and couldn't. Seriously, Internet, get it together.).

When I'm really lucky I schedule a skype date with one of my besties, Crymson and we enjoy the awards show together. This Sunday that means the Golden Globes. We drink wine, eat food, and complain if someone's television feed is a split second faster (well maybe I just do that). Here's what I'm doing to make sure Golden Globes Skype Fest is excellent:

1) Have several Golden Globe Bingo Sheets at the ready
2) Wine. Very important. Now you don't want a big fancy or expensive bottle, cause really you're probably going to be skyping in your pajama pants. This year I'll be drinking Cupcakes, Red Velvet wine. Because a) it was on sale, b) my friend makes amazing sangria with it and c) I'm too lazy to go buy another bottle before Sunday.
3) Food. Now spending a couple of hours watching actresses and wishing that they would eat really builds up an appetite. If you don't plan ahead of time you'll be ordering pizza from Dominos because you don't want to miss any part of the awards and then being forced to change out of your pajama pants for the delivery person. Don't do this to yourself. Have a well stocked pantry and freezer. You and your lazy self wearing pajama pants will thank me.

Do you have any suggestions on how to do a skype or golden globes party? Anyone else base several of their later decisions in life based on Full House? What is your go to cheap wine?

The Things I Won't Accomplish in 2013

Last year I made a list of goals for things I would like to accomplish in 2012 and I accomplished not a one. Now I accomplished many things for 2012, just not on the list. However, do I learn anything from that experience? Nope, cause here's my list of goals for 2013. But I'm taking it down a notch so that I can better manage it. Five items is totally doable right?

- See if I can create a 1 Second Everyday Video. I seriously am in love with this video and want to attempt my own. However, I'm a little worried that most of my days are going to be me sitting at a computer doing some sort of work. Or laying around reading, which would get old fast. Maybe the fear will give me a kick to go out and attempt to try new things. More than likely I'll forget for several days in a row and decide to quit. I'm officially 1 second in so only 364 days left.

- Read More. I made it through several books in 2012 but there were long stretches where I wasn't reading at all. I definitely want to change that. I'd love to actually complete a reading challenge.

- Photography Challenge. There's some great ones out there and I'd like to try one using my old school cameras.

- Write More. First on the blog and there's a couple of ideas floating around my head I've been wanting to put on paper. I feel I really let my blog slack last year and want to make sure that doesn't happen again.

- Follow Through. I have a lot of projects in half completed states and I want to be able to actually complete stuff (like these resolutions).

How about you? What resolutions are you working on in 2013? What should I do to shake up my 1 Second Everyday? Anyone have any good book recommendations?

Goodbye 2012

It wouldn't exactly look like it based on the lack of blog updates, but 2012 was one of my better years. It was hectic and at points out of control, but I managed to see and do a lot. I just have to get better at documenting it.

Here's some of my highlights that I didn't get around to blogging about yet:

- I marked off a couple of stops on my Things to Do In California List. In a trip to Santa Barbara, I saw Solvang, the Danish Capital of America, and the Santa Barbara Mission. (I also managed to fall in the middle of the sidewalk at 9:30 in the morning. And I ripped a giant hole in my leggings and managed to throw my purse and glasses about 30 feet. It was quite a site).

- I traveled to Turks and Caicos where I got to drive on the left hand side of the road without killing anyone. There might have been a minor moment of terror (or two), but we managed to remain unsullied.

- I saw my first Broadway Show, Once: A New Musical, and got to drink a beer on the stage. 

- I attempted my first handstand as an adult and I didn't die.

What are your favorite things you've done in 2012? Anything you didn't do that you wanted to? Has anyone else have a great falling and ripping your pants story? I've done this at least 20 times in my life. Luckily I'm always ripping the knees of my pants and not the butt of them. That would probably be the one I couldn't overcome.

DC Universe

I know it's been forever since I've posted. My September/October was unbelievably hectic and I'm just now starting to officially decompress. I took an almost obscene amount of trips between work and pleasure and I also was in charge of the auctions (live and silent) at a fundraiser of a non profit that I support. This is my second year being in charge and I once again severely underestimated the amount of time and effort it would take. It turned out really well, but now just trying to get used to my routine before that took over my life.

So now I have a bunch of free time back on my hands and I thought I would try to see if I could revive the blog here. And I need to think of the next project I'm going to work on. But one of the bright sides of finishing that project (and staying in one time zone for longer than a week) is that I got a bunch of my photos developed and scanned. So I can share some more DC sightseeing images and thoughts. I know you all were just dying to see them right?

I will seriously recommend visiting DC after Labor Day, we encountered like one day where it was just miserably hot but then the weather got much cooler and you didn't mind that you decided to walk 3 miles to see National Cathedral. Plus you don't have to fight with all the kids on their school vacation. Most of the sites we visited weren't crowded at all (well you know except The White House, but at least that's a reason to go back).

One of the favorite things I did was watch the Senate and House on their first day back in session. They ended up not actually voting until like 6 o'clock at night, but it was so worth it to kind of see all the activity from up above. When explaining it to someone else as watching C-Span in person, others didn't share in my excitement.

I also really loved seeing National Cathedral. The guided audio tour is so worth the money and I could have spent another hour there just studying the stained glass windows.

Here's a sampling of some of my favorite photos. These were taken with my Olympus Trip 35.

Library of Congress Ceiling

I know that one of the effects of taking film photos with an old school camera is that some of the photos look really dated. However if I hadn't taken the photo above and you told me that it was taken in 2012, I don't think I would believe it. I mean what is the deal with the old time cars stopped at the stop light? I mean they might not even be old time cars, but they sure look it.

Despite the gated windows, you can still get some great shots between the railings from the Old Post office tower. Just make sure you hold on tight to your camera.

This is the moon stained glass window at National Cathedral. Now you can't really tell, but in the middle of it they actually have incorporated an actual moon rock into the window. Seriously how is that not the coolest thing ever?

This is a panorama taken with my Olympus Trip that I stitched together. The scaffolding and stuff is part of a restoration as a result of the earthquake in 2011. When you were in the Cathedral there are all sorts of nets hanging from the ceiling to catch any falling debris. 

I just love the color of the sky in this shot of the Capital.

So begins my blog recapathon. But enough about me. What have you been up to?