Passing in 2009

A writer I admire, Chuck Sigars, posted a piece about the people who passed this year that he will miss. I thought I would craft my own. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, just those that strike me.

I must start with Mary Travers. As a livelong Peter, Paul and Mary fan, her death deeply saddens me.



Patrick Swayze



Dom Deluise


Eunice Shriver




Walter Cronkite




On a final note, I was struck by a story I heard on NPR this evening about the very brief life of Baruch Levi. The story of his 10 minutes of life, his mother and the photographer who came to capture those precious minutes deeply struck me.

Exhaustion

Reddened eyes stare back at me from the mirror. Pale glare from industrial lights accentuates my weariness. My child’s disrupted sleep disrupted mine. Finding responses more eloquent than grunts challenging.  Evening now descends, sunlight reflected from the building across the way. The excessive caffeine coursing my veins somewhat obliterates my fatigue while adding a strange, surreal quality. Which combined with a demanding bladder adds to this unfocused day. Hard to point to accomplishments, yet they exist. Simply put, an unfocused and distracted day. One nicely viewed from the rear-view mirror of life.

 

PhotoShop Explorations

I've been taking a PhotoShop class (properly Digital Art and Design) this semester. Exploring all the different elements of PS has been both eye-opening and exhausting. I've fiddled with prior versions of PS, but never done much more than the very basic. Now, we've spent the better part of three months diving deep. And the main thing I've learned is how little I know.

This was a silly thing I zapped out, considering the season. It was fun to make, if a bit cheesy. (For some reason, the animation is not showing up in the blog post. Click on the link and you can see it in it's full glory.)

Puns, the Delight of my Heart

A friend of mine and I developed a rating scale for puns. Rated 1-10 where 1=mild groaning, 10=potential internal bleeding. This warrants at least an 8, and should come with a surgeon general warning. And, of course, it delights me.

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Just in time for Christmas, here’s your link to my Amazon’s Wish List. My family is pretty big on Christmas lists, so this should be a decent tool for them. With this button, you can upload non-Amazon “stuff” to the site as well. Thusly, you have a comprehensive database of all your desires, available to your most fervent fans, 24/7. Now everyone will have the ability to delight you with items that align with your tastes and sensibilities. The universe is now gloriously aligned. You may return to your regularly scheduled shopping.

FriendFeed

Ages ago, it seems, I started exploring FriendFeed. I started messing with it after Robert Scoble sang it's praises. (Perhaps you've noticed the FriendFeed badge on the right hand column of my blog?) I like the notion of consolidating the various social network streams, as well as the ability to combine the comment threads into one place. Currently, My FriendFeed combines my Twitter feed, my Flickr stream, my Delicious bookmarks and this blog. One challenge I've pondered regarding the plethora of social media sites is keeping this mess organized. Heck, I've been wondering how I can avoid neglecting any of them. By smooshing the different threads together, FF provides that common place to follow your work. So far, so good.

I wonder, though, if there is an iPhone app, like Twitter has? It would be nice, if addictive, to have access to these threads remotely. Eh, who needs this "life" stuff, anyways.