Tag Archives: people

Places

Photos from the Bethesda photowalk

On 2/9 at 2 PM, Ligia and I attended the Bethesda photowalk, an event organized by Mark Anderson. It was our first group photowalk — up till now, I took photos by myself and only Ligia accompanied me. The only other similar event I ever attended was the Alexandria photowalk last year, organized by Keith McCammon. I felt much more comfortable there, mainly because there was only one other person in attendance besides Ligia and me: Keith.

I discovered, or rather remembered certain things during the Bethesda photowalk:

  • I don’t like group events. I tend to feel alone and isolated in large groups and feel the need to draw apart and be by myself.
  • I don’t like shaking hands with people when I can’t wash afterwards. This is part of my obsessive-compulsive personality. Even more so, I don’t like shaking hands with people when I’m using my camera and I can’t wash my hands because there’s no bathroom nearby. It’s because I feel their hand germs on my my hand and on the camera, and I can’t concentrate on taking photos. I know it’s odd and probably wrong, but that’s what it is and I have to cope with it.
  • Taking photos in large groups is pretty weird for me. It’s not my bag. I end up feeling like a paparazzi, and that’s not what I got into photography to do. It also breaks my concentration to have all those snapping cameras around me and I don’t end up taking good photos.

None of this has anything to do with the event itself or with the people who attended. The event was a trigger that helped me realize certain things. Everyone was nice, Mark did a great job of organizing the event and mapping out the route, and if only I could enjoy myself, there were plenty of opportunities. But, like I said, large group photowalks aren’t my bag.

Overall, I’m grateful for the photowalk. It got me out of the house and taking photos, and that’s always a good thing. Let’s call this my Week 8 submission for the 2008 Community Challenge.

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Thoughts

Seems quiet, but it's not

I’ve been helping Ligia launch her re-designed personal site over the past several days. While my own site may seem a little quiet (except for the regular Condensed Knowledge posts), I’ve been quite busy behind the scenes.

Ligia has been working on her own line of greeting cards since January. She makes them by hand, from scratch, using only sheets and strips of paper and glue as her materials. Having seen her do the work, right here beside me, I can tell you it’s painstaking, slow and hard. I fear for her eyes if she keeps going like this. All that meticulous work is bound to have an effect. It takes her about a half hour to 45 minutes to craft a single card. It’s hard to understand why it takes that long until you sit there and watch her at work. You can’t argue with the results though. They’re beautiful.

She’s really excited about the cards, and has asked for my help in setting up a little shop on her site so she can sell them. I helped her do just that, and modified her site design to allow her to post nicely-sized photos of the cards. I’m happy to say her site is pretty much done now, and yes, it’s open for business. I made the store within her WordPress install, using the existing options, without extra plugins. Simple is better in my book.

The cards are priced from $2.95 to $4.95. It doesn’t take an accountant to figure out that $5 for three quarters of an hour isn’t optimal pay, but this is a labor of love for her, and I support her in that. She’s not going to get rich selling the cards, but she wants to make people happy with them.

Being the enterprising little woman that she is, she’s already gone into downtown Bethesda and walked around to find stores that might pick up her cards and sell them there. (It’s more than I’ve done for my own photography, and I’m ashamed to admit that.) She found three stores that wanted to keep samples, and she’s going to find out soon whether they’ll be interested in buying first batches.

Wish her luck, and if you like one of the cards, pick it up for your special someone.

Thanks!

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Thoughts

Barack Obama for the win

Barack Obama ‘08I felt compelled to post this after watching Barack Obama’s “Call to Renewal” speech, given on 6/28/06 in Washington, DC. I’ve supported Sen. Obama for the last few months, and after watching this, I know I want to see him as president.

Obama is the kind of man that appeals to my heart and mind. He is a highly intelligent person who takes the time to think through issues that matter. He wants to find the common ground between the various faiths that exist in this country, and to unite us under common moral and ethical goals instead of using the popular (and disgusting) method of “divide and conquer”, employed by most politicians nowadays.

There is nothing moral or ethical in polarizing people’s points of views and creating large gaps in beliefs, which discourages plurality and discussion toward the common good. Yet most preachers and Republicans do it. It’s a filthy practice which has people voting for certain questionable candidates simply because their churches or local leaders endorse them.

I’m going to ask you to handle this election differently. I want each of you reading this to make up your own minds about who you’ll vote for. Speaking as a Christian, that’s the way God would have it. That’s why He gave us the privilege of free choice.

If you’re concerned about faith and how Barack Obama handles his, then please watch this video. He talks in no uncertain terms about religion and politics, about his own faith in God (yes, he’s a Christian), and about the many hot-button issues tied to religion (like abortion) that are at the forefront nowadays.

I would love to see Sen. Obama be our next president. There is such a precedent-shattering contrast between him and our current administration…

Obama can express himself, he can think, and he is a logical, rational person who makes me confident that he will be able to handle difficult situations and make the right choice. Plainly put, Obama is a leader.

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Reviews

Awakenings (1990)

Awakenings (1990)

We watched Awakenings (1990) tonight, and I was left with a newly found appreciation for life. This movie drives home the following point very well: you don’t know what you have till you’ve lost it.

Imagine watching your life, as you know it, become unavailable to you, which is what happens to people who suffer from neurological diseases. Imagine sitting there, trying to fight it, but knowing there really isn’t anything that can be done, while you slowly lose your coordination, balance, speech, senses, and become a catatonic mass, a vegetable, a ghost of what you once were. Through it all (and this point is debatable) you are aware of what happens around you, of what others are trying to communicate to you, but you cannot respond in any way. As one character in the movie puts it, it is “unthinkable”.

As I sat there, taking it all in, a photo of Ligia and I stood by the screen, and my eyes kept jumping to it. What we have is so precious. Much more precious than anything else out there. We not only have life, but we have love. We have so much. So much more than many others. And even if I didn’t have her, I’d still have my life and my health. These are both amazingly precious, and I always fail to realize it until either of them is in danger. Only then do I begin to see all of the things I take for granted.

I can’t put this into words properly. Every once in a while, I get a glimpse of my life from an outside perspective, and then it hits me: I’m a fortunate person. I should stop worrying about the little things. I should be happy. All the time. I have so much. The other things: gadgets, technology, computers, income — these are all insignificant without love, life and health.

Let’s face it, computers may have made our lives a little better, but they’ve also made them more miserable, busier, and more complicated. Gadgets are cool, but we don’t really need them. Technology is nice, but without human interaction and common sense, it only makes things worse. Income is nothing more than an enabler, something that lets you have a place to live and buy food and other things. When you start seeing it as something else, you’ve got problems.

What really matters is life — experiencing it to the fullest, gaining the realization of the gift that it is and being thankful for being alive. It’s so easy to get caught in the busy-ness of life that we lose our self-consciousness, that child-like sense of wonder at the things around us. I know I do that, and I shouldn’t. Every time I get caught up in pointless things, I waste precious time, which adds up. Life is so short… too short.

There was a scene in the movie which was telling for me. It was at the end. Dr. Sayer was typing an article, and the nurse, Eleanor, got ready to head home for the night, but lingered, hoping he might ask her out. He continued working, so she left, quietly. As soon as she closed the door to his office, he fidgeted nervously, knowing what he should have done. Then he jumped up, opened the window, called out to her, and ran out to invite her for coffee. But this wasn’t what struck me. After all, this was what we, as an audience, expected him to do. No, what I found interesting was the way he saved his work. He simply stopped typing, got up and left…

Think about that for a moment.

More information

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Thoughts

But what happens if you die?

Blood on the tracks

This is a bit of a rant, but a recent comment on one of my articles reminded of an argument I sometimes hear as a consultant. It goes something like this: “But what happens if you die?” I cringe when I hear it — not because I can’t defend it — because I find it silly.

Actually, it’s not really an argument or a question at all. It’s a symptom. It tells me that the person making it is feeling very insecure about the deal.

Here’s what I told a recent potential client when I was asked that question:

I understand the “drop dead” factor, and it’s something that my long-term clients and I talked about. The thing is, unless I drop dead while the project is in development, you’re fairly safe. Once the project is completed, another knowledgeable designer/developer can come in and pick up where I’ve left off. Even while the project is being developed, if I can’t continue for whatever reason, the work isn’t lost. It isn’t as if I write my code in some language that no one understands. A good coder should be able to understand what I’ve done and build on it.

And that’s the truth. I can’t see how that argument could possibly stand on its own feet. If you’re a good developer, are in communication with the client, you back up your work, and you have certain deliverables and a timeline tied to a project, how can the project just disappear if you should kick the bucket? Makes no sense to me. Even if I should die, my computer will still be there. My wife or my friends will be there. My source code should be there. Besides, if it’s a website, chances are I’m working on a server somewhere as well, not just in my home, so the files can be retrieved even if my computer were to crash or be locked down.

Isn’t it individuals that have driven innovation throughout the ages? It’s people doing the work and driving toward goals, people that could croak at any point, I suppose, not machines. If the same “what if” argument to them, where would we be today? If a company looking to hire someone stops to think, what if he or she dies tomorrow, where will they be? If you find a good product or a good man, do you wait a few years to see whether or not that product will disappear or that person will croak? You have to take some risk if you want to see results, and sometimes the opportunities are there only for short amounts of time.

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