Bathroom Gymnastics

Using a public restroom is somewhat of a traumatic experience for me. I really hate the bad hygiene, loose seats, faulty door locks on the stalls, empty soap containers, cheap paper towels and noisy hand dryers. And for some reason most building contractors seem to place the toilet paper dispenser where one has to stand on their head to retrieve it.

Therefore I would like to publicly thank McDonald's of DeQueen, Arkansas for hanging the tp dispenser right where it needs to be! Now was that so difficult?

Crush My Skull, s'il vous plaît

Yes! So far 2010 has been a good year for my kayaking habit. I hope this trend continues. We have been in a drought for almost three years in these here parts.

This past weekend I got to do a rare weekend in Arkansas with some of my good paddling buddies. Between job schedules, family obligations, screwy weather and tough logistics, these type of weekends seem to be few and far between. But we bagged two runs on the Cossatot River before the weekend was over.

Cossatot is a French word that means 'Skull Crusher'. If you check out the terrain along the river you can quickly see why the French explorers who settled this area named it that. And although we had no injuries in our little group, we sure had some interesting carnage.

Every Convenience Creates Two Inconveniences

Someone shared that quote with me back in high school. At the time it didn't really sink in. But the longer I hang out on this planet, the more I have come to realize just how true that statement is.

And NOWHERE does this ring more true than the area of high technology.

Case in point: The other day I took my brother down to the Electronics Mega Store to help him step into the wonderful world of wireless communication. My brother is a special needs kind of guy with a learning disability (think Forrest Gump). Teaching him something of this magnitude is quite an ordeal. It always reminds me of the Guard Scene in Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Knowing I was going to be the one to train him on this newfangled device, and be full support in the future, I wanted to get him into the simplest situation I possibly could. So I had him buy a Jitterbug cell phone. You've seen the ads. They cater to senior citizens and the like, touting simplicity and value.

If a Jitterbug phone is the essence of simplicity, that means it's polar opposite must be the iPhone. One of the 'perks' of my job was a 'free' iPhone. This offer was made because they want us all to have the same communication capabilities. You know what? After one month of non stop communication all night and all weekend, I discovered the off switch to my work email. Now THERE is a great feature on Apple's Smart Phone.

Alright, so I get Big Bro the phone. Now I have to train him to use it. Of course, I have to learn how to use it myself first. This is the most counter-intuitive piece of hardware I have EVER tried to use! It is so backwards from your typical cell phone it's not even funny. It is not like a regular phone either, like the ads and propaganda will have you believe. But the thing that really got me was the documentation. Remember my iPhone? In the box? Nothing. Not even a brochure. The Jitterbug? Three (3) manuals. THREE. One of them is ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY EIGHT PAGES (cap locks on)! Yes, my Brother says he read the whole thing, front to back. But he still can't make a call.

So, back to the original subject: now my Brother has a cell phone, he can carry it with him everywhere, but he can't make calls, he has to watch his minutes, I can't hear him half the time, and we occasionally get disconnected. How convenient.

Surf's Up Downtown

Finally I get to go kayaking and I... forget my waterproof camera. Actually I had it, it was packed in the wrong compartment of my new camera backpack. Yeah, yeah, I know. Any excuse will do, right?

Fortunately my buddy Matt (seen above in a pic taken in November, but it's ok, because he was wearing the same thing, using the same boat, and most surf waves look exactly like this one) and I got a really good day of paddling in. There was lots of rain last night, but not much in the right places. Funny. We ended up driving from one giant congested metropolitan area to another not so big but just as congested metropolitan area to do this. The things you do when you love a sport and live in the wrong place to participate in it.

Freeze Frame

I knew my new camera had some pretty fast shutter speeds, but wow!

Winter has hit pretty early in these here parts. It has actually been below freezing for the last 48 hours. I wonder what the Global Warming people think about this? I hate it when it gets this cold. Makres itt harfd t-oepyytpe/!

So I know you might be thinking 'Wow. Below freezing for 48 hours. Big deal. What a weenie'. Or maybe: 'Geez, put on another layer of polypropylene and quit-cher-bitchin'. Or maybe you're just thinking 'Hmmm, I wonder if the Cowboys are going to hammer Philadelphia two weeks in a row in tonight's game'.

This cold is quite uninspiring. I can't think of anything clever and witty to write. Of course that really has nothing to do with the weather. But I took this kinda cool pic earlier and felt compelled to post. I'm also taking a break from trying to learn layer masking in my defective copy of Photoshop (won't let me save). Perhaps I just need to head on down to Chipotle to get my chips and guacamole for the big game!

Update: Photoshop is still not working, but the Cowboys defense sure is. See you in Minisoooota!

365 Things

No, I'm not going to try and torture you with 365 photos for the rest of the year. My goals are much less lofty than that. Speaking of goals, I try not to make any resolutions this time of year. I do however try to create some type of focus for the next twelve months. The last couple of years I have done something new that has been fun and quite liberating. Each year I strive to get rid of 365 things. Yep, that's one thing a day. Think about it. Surely today there is one thing in your life you just really don't need.

Now, do I ever reach that goal? I don't know. I've tried printing out a spreadsheet and writing it all down, but that lasts until about January 17th. But it is always in the back of my mind as I'm shuffling through crap in my office or trying to make a little more room to work in my garage.

How do I get rid of it? Most of the stuff I just throw away; old clothes, obsolete software, scraps of wood that I'm obviously never going to use for that cabinet I'm never going to build. Some things I give away. There is nothing more satisfying than to hand something I consider useless over to someone who is going to cherish it for the remainder of it's life. Some things, thanks to ebay and Craigslist, I sell. There is nothing more satisfying than to hand something I consider useless over to someone who is going to cherish it for the remainder of it's life- after they hand me a wad of cash.

This has been a fairly easy process for the last two years. I've accumulated quite a bit of junk over my lifetime. Plus, I'm a relatively newlywed. My wife and I have consolidated two complete households. We each seem to have had two of everything, sometimes three or four. Why just this evening I heard her say "Oh, I just grabbed the wrong spatula." But we have done a pretty good job of clearing out the clutter. Now I'm down to the nitty gritty. As I look around I'm now forced to think about getting rid of things like... my Oakley hat! I've had this hat for twenty one years. This is my hiking hat, my paddling hat, my adventure racing hat, my driving hat, my lawn mowing hat. It's been with me all over the US and Mexico. It fits my goofy shaped head and hides my bald spot... almost. But... it's JUNK! It's worn out. It is so threadbare, I don't dare wash it because it would disappear. Therefore, I am going to end it's life with a ceremony and proper burial throw it away.

So now I challenge you to look around and think about all that stuff you thought was going to make you happy, but instead requires your time and effort and money and emotions to maintain, organize and store. Pick up just ONE THING today and throw it away! Or better yet, recycle it! Meanwhile, I'm going to Wal Mart to go hat shopping.

Happy 'TooT'n' New Year!

Well happy new year everyone. Welcome to 2010. So... now, how do we say this? Two thousand and ten? Twenty-ten? Oh Ten? Two Oh One Oh? Think about this now because it will affect us for the next 19 years. This is something I've been worrying about since nineteen ninety nine. Good thing I was born in the twentieth century.

So I've decided to hop on the ol' blog bandwagon for a couple of reasons. First, I bought this bitchin' cool DSLR. This will hopefully get me off my butt and make me take some pics to share. Finally I will get to use that one semester of photojournalism I took back in college. Also, this forces me to embrace new technology so I can attempt to keep up with all of my coworkers who are on the average of 21 years younger than me. Finally since I am learning new areas of Photoshop, Illustrator, getting introduced to Lightroom, CameraControlPro and a host of communication software tools, I need something to do with my spare time.

Who am I kidding? I just like to hear myself type. And hopefully I can entertain some people along the way.

Hope you have a great ten... a great two oh ten... a great YEAR!