For the third year in a row, my photo a day project failed. I have sent out to take a photo every day of the year and have not been able to keep it up. I have a hard time with this for two reasons. I have a hard time finding the artistic drive that the project needs. I start to run out of themes quickly into the year. After a while I started to get lazy. It would have taken a lot of effort to take photos that are new.
Part of the problem is that I have some 8000+ photos on flickr. There are lots of things subjects in this area which I have already shot. It was also hard to find the time. It was not at the front of my thoughts everyday.
Here are a few things I can try next year to make it work better.
1. Pre-plan more photos - Try to have my next week of photos figured out before I get there. This will help me figure out when I need to go out of my way to get a photo. 2. Let myself take photos I have taken before. If I need to take a photo of City Hall or the Mary Statue it is okay. 3. Do not go to the same well too many times. I got bored because I took too many photos of myself in the same way. This got really boring after a while. 4. Put time aside to take pictures. It is hard to find time some days. It might be easier to find the time if I put it on my calendar.
Let me know if you have any hints about doing a 365 photo project.
Today is my 36th birthday. Last year at my birthday I was working a different job and single. Now I have been at my current job for 10 months and I am engaged now. It has been a year of big change of me. By the time I turn 37 I will be married.
The year has moved very quickly. Being 34 really sucked. It was one of the worst years of my life. Being 35 was great. It was a year that really did a lot to redefine my life. It is odd to think there is this person in my life, who I love and cannot imagine being without now. A year ago I did not know her. This year has been about getting to know her and getting to know myself.
I made a list of highlights of my life, but I realized something making this list. The really good parts of this year came in between the highlights. They came in the everyday points of my life. Going to watch Eagles Games in the local Eagles Bar, going to giants games with Kate sitting out in the bleachers, going to lunch with friends, and meeting people in coffeehouses are the moments I am really going to cherish from this year.
When I look back on being 35 I will smile. Being 34 kicked my ass so much, I guess I deserved a good year. I am not sure what 36 will bring me. I know some things I am planning, but there are always surprises.
Highlights of 35 Comic Con Started New Job Meeting Kate Christmas in Salinas Taking Kate to Meet My Parents New Years in Pennsylvania Visiting Portland Getting engaged Planning the wedding
There is an article in today's New York Times about how the rise in gas prices are causing more people to ride mass transit. A few weeks ago I tried to figure this out for myself. The break even point for me is for gas to be $5.25 or 5.75 a for it to be worth me taking the light rail to work.
The big problem is that I would not give up my car if I started to take the light rail. I would still have pay for auto insurance for my car. If I got rid of my car, it would be easy to switch to taking mass transit to work, but it would be harder to do everything else in my life.
Gas has to be very high before it is cause effective. This might be because I live close to work, I drive a car with good gas mileage, or that the price of mass transit is rather high. Right now cost is the number one reason for me to switch.
I like the idea of mass transit. I think it would be great for me to take the light rail to work. The biggest problem is time. The light rail or the bus takes much longer to get to work. Driving takes me 15 to 30 minutes while the light rail takes me 45 minutes to an hour to get to work. Time is important to me. I guess if the price gets high enough price will get less important.
Blogger is finally adding a feature that I have been wanting for year now. I now can schedule future posts. This means I can write a post on Sunday to have it appear on Monday. This feature makes me so happy. Why would I want this feature. Right now I am working on a daily series about flickr views. Before I had to go back every day and post if I get the post done early. Now I can set it and forget it. I am very happy with this.
Note: This was my test post to make sure it works correctly.
A few days before I got my Polaroid it was announced that it was going to stop making instant film. The business has been hit hard by the digital explosion. I cannot think of very many professional uses for polaroids anymore. I cannot see how they make enough money to make Polaroid film worth making. Today a friend sent me a link to a Save polaroid website.
We had a Polaroid when I was growing up. I remember one of my siblings getting a new Polaroid, taking pictures in the front year, and placing the yet to be exposed photos on the bush next to our front door. I remember watching the image expose right before my eyes. I was amazed at what was happening.
I am sad to hear that Polaroid is going away. I think it is a cool technology. It is the everyday world looking like magic. The world will be a little bit more sad without instant cameras.
All that said I will not be able to buy enough Polaroid film for a company to make a business off it. I will not spend the money on a pack of Polaroid film for it to be a specialty item. I think it is fun, I would like it to be around forever, but I cannot say that I will vote with my wallet. I just cannot stand up and say that this is important enough for me to help save it. Some one else will have to save it.
I am love. I am not sure how I can say it any plainer or clearer. That is not the best part. The best part is that the woman I am in love with loves me back. Maybe that is not the best part. Maybe the best part is that I have never felt this way about someone before.
I do not know what to say about my love life. I spent my 20s being alone. I did not have a meaningful romantic relationship from the age of 19 to the age of 30. When I turned 30 a friend told me that it was about to change. Guys like us look better in our 30s than in our 20s. I guess he was right. I am not upset at not having relationships in my 20s. I think it has helped mold me into the person I am right now. I think I am a good person now, ready to love. I am doing my best to use my past to my advantage.
I cannot put into words how I feel right now. I have deleted this paragraph four or five times. Every way I try to describe Kate seems to fall short. The worlds do not seem to live up to the task of conveying the truth. I cannot find words that show what is really in my heart. She is so much more to me than I ever expected.
I have seen Kate very day in the last four months. I cannot not imagine not seeing her everyday. I cannot imagine seeing her more than I see anyone else. I cannot imagine her not being this close to her. I cannot imagine being without her touch, her sent, her voice, or her close to me. I want to spend the rest of my life being close to her.
The state of my heart is very good right now. I am amazed at everything that has happened in the past few months. I was not expecting it to happen. I was not looking when it happened. I was opened to the idea that it could happen. When it happened, I was not afraid of what could happen.
Because of past projects like the Mayfly project, Lisa told me about the Six Word Memoir project. It is an interesting question. Can you tell your story in Six words? Memoir literally means "My Story". My six word memoir is: I feel like a bull, mostly. What would your Six Word Memoir be?
I am trying to figure out what realistic blogging goals for 2008 would be. I know that I will not be able to find the time to blog everyday. Between work and relationships, it is just not a good goal to set. I would fall behind and just about give up. That is not really what I want to do.
Should my goal to be to make three posts a week? Should I be looking for posts that will really be worth my time. I should be making posts that say something I want to say.
I will have to figure this one out. I would like to make a goal and meet it for at least 40 weeks next year.
I keep on saying that this year does not feel like Christmas. That might be because I do not take the time to do anything that is really Christmas themed. I might go to a party or two, but I do not take the time to find my Christmas spirit. I might need to engage Christmas more for San Jose to have the Christmas feeling for me.
My girlfriend wants me to get my hair cut before Christmas. She is worry about what my Dad will say when he sees my hair this long. She also does not want me to cut my hair this short. She says that she does not like me with really short hair. I just want to let my hair get longer. If I get it cut it will have to be soon.
I see this phone now and I wish I did a better job. I wish this was a better photographic. I wonder what I will find if I look back at the photos from this day. I need to look at more of my old photos in 2008. I need to put time aside to look at what I did before I had Flickr.
I am going on a vacation soon, but it will not be a roadtrip. I will have to wait a while until I get to take a roadtrip. The road has been calling my name lately. I have really wanted to see other places lately. I have wanted to get away from here. It will have to wait a few more months. For now my next chance to get away from here will have to be enough.
The hardest thing for me is making it so my life so it is not about what I own. This is a hard thing because owning is such an important idea. Even if I am okay with what I own, other people have something to say about it. At some point it becomes about if I own a house or not. I want to own less, but I am not sure I can.
I do not know when I will get to Portland next, but it has been calling me. Next year I think I will be there. I have visited Portland every even year since I left there. I am looking forward to going again. I know I was not there long, but it still has some of my heart.
Some days I feel this blog is nothing more than me looking at the back of my hand. I must admit that is what Twitter feels to me. Most of the Twitter messages I get are people saying, "Look How Cool I Am." I like some of them, but if you are twittering more than once hour every day you might want to rethink your twitter policy.
The lesson I learn all the time is that time does not wait for anyone. Time is a steamroller. If you try to hold it back you will just get ground to bits. Well, you will get ground to bits no matter what you do. You need to know that time go by so quickly. That is the only chance you have to make good use of your time. That is the only change you get not to waste time.
It is so hard to know this when you are young. At a certain point in life, all young people have is time. When I was 15 I had all the time in the world. Life was just screeched out in front of me. Twenty years later I feel like I never have enough time to do what I want to do. It is an odd thing to need to fight against.
Christmas is not far away. I never feel ready for Christmas. I am not ready so I never do anything special. I never send out Christmas cards. I rarely decorate for Christmas. I could do more, but I don't. I wonder why that is.
This photo is another example of how I lack the photographic skill to get the photo I want. I also lack the Photoshop skill to turn it into the photo I want.
I miss seeing Eric everyday. Even when we were both having bad days he could put a smile on my face. Chatting with him over IM every once and a while is not the same as seeing him face to face all the time.
Note to self, I am the happiest when I find the beauty and humor of the everyday world. Life is not about saving things up for the next trip or the next vacation or even the next weekend. Life it about living it everyday.
The gate is closed on baseball season once again. It is going to be hard to wait for next season. Kate is a baseball fan. I want to take her to games. I guess all I have to do is wait.
This was once the middle of my flickr views Is no longer is. I would like to see it get more views. I am not sure how to get people to look at this photo.
Some days I totally feel like this. Some days I am a bicycle in the rain.
Looking back at 1997 a friend of mine said that time flies like an arrow. I do not think this is quite true. The expression to fly like an arrow means you fly straight and true. It is true that we cannot see the bend of time. It is it measured by us, time always moves at the same speed, but this does not feel true to me.
I have always seen time as a steamroller. It keeps on going no matter what you put in front of it. You cannot hold it back. Time is time.
I also do not think time Flies like and arrow. If time flies, it moves like a bumber bee on the wind. Sometimes it moves quickly and other times it moves slowly. It curves around things, but us never stopped. That is how time flies for me.
I have too much stuff. I like stuff too much. I always want more stuff. Stuff seems to be one of the central themes of our lives. I have a lot of stuff, but I still want to buy more stuff. I want to get camera stuff, computer stuff, electronic stuff, house stuff. It just matters that it is more. I want more and I want it all. That is the hard part. I have to find a way to what less. I do this from time to time, but I always swing back to wanting more. I have to find a way to fix this.
If you have been playing attention to my blog, you will notice I have been backdating for a while now. You will notice that most of my post are photo posts with very little content. I will admit to this. I have been backdating. I see nothing wrong with backdating. This is my place and I get to make up the rules. I know some people see this as dishonest, but I do not really care. I am only a K-list blogger and this is all about me.
To be honest, I have been very wrapped up in living my life. Finding things to actually write about would be very hard. I just do not have that much to say right now. Everything is about my job or my relationship. I really do not want to blog either of those things here.
For right now I will be backdating. The pain here is that my archive system is broken. Things do not show up there correctly. This change happened when Blogger added labels. I could ask Jeremy to try to fix it, but something tells me my $60 did not cover this.
I went to Arizona to meet my parents. My parents no longer make it all the way out to California. Since they will not come to me, I went to them. I do not get to see them all that often. It was great to just hang out with them. I miss seeing them. I have been out here long that I am ready to move back. I am not sure what their health will be like when I am ready to move back. For now I have to take any change I get to see them.
I look at this picture and it feels like a million years ago. It was only taken back in May. I was in Denver for a business trip. I had a really good trip for the most part. I think about where my life was when I took this photo. It feels like more than months has past. I know the past is always far away. I am glad this feels like a long time ago.
I know that the good parts of this world are made up of sercret places. they are made up of place you cannot see from the street, places that are not easy to find. Places that people want to keep to themselves. That is what I know of the world at this age.
Whenever I see this picture I have to remember they were looking at me as I took the photo. Now it feels like they are seeing something in me that I am not seeing in myself. It is that feeling that they are seeing right through me. It is a strange feeling to get from looking at a photo I took.
We take pictures of ourselves all the time. I think it is to answer the question "who am I." The funny thing is I do not think one photo of me has ever answered this question. I do think many photos of myself have answered this question.
I am looking forward to doing national novel writing month this year. I have not clue what I will write. I am working at a start up and will have little time to write. I have just started a relationship and will have to pay some attention to someone other than myself. It should still be fun. I am looking forward to taking on the challenge.
It has been six years since 9/11/01. It might be the biggest thing that has happened yet this decade. I have lived in San Jose eight years tomorrow. Six of those eight years have been since 9/11. That event set the stage for my life here.
One of the things I remember about that day was how quite the streets of San Jose were. I walked around the streets after dark and there was no one around. I remember how the whole city felt empty. That is one of the feels that stuck with me.
My life in California has been mostly post 9/11. For most of 2001 I wanted to move back to Philadelphia. It was not until after 9/11 that I really came into my own in California. I know that day change my life. I know that approached my life in a different way after 9/11. I tried harder to be more engaged in what was happening around me.
I am not sure how big of an impact 9/11 really had on the world. Would George W. Bush found another way to invade Iraq without 9/11, maybe. Would have something else happened if 9/11 did not, maybe. Is 9/11 really that important in the history of the world, it is hard to say now, give it time. I can say that my life is different because of 9/11. That is what I will remember.
Someone I meet recently just looked through all of my flickr photos. I always think someone could learn who I am if they looked at my photos. She took me up on this offer. She said that she learned three things about my from looking at my flickr photos.
1) I love people 2) I love color 3) The little things are important to me
I did not expect her to notice these things. They are all true about me and my photography. Even though I told her that she would learn about me from looking at my photos, I was not sure what she would learn. I think my photostream holds truths, but not truths I could figure out. I am just thinking about how I took the photos and want I am going to post.
My blog is really falling behind right now. I spent a week on vacation with my sister Kathy. We spent a week kicking around anywhere from Point Reyes to Lone Cypress. It included lots of baseball and lot of driving. It was a fun week, but I did not get much blogging done that week.
I have spent much of this week recovering from my vacation. Attending to all those things you cannot attend to while you have a house guest. On top of that I have to catch up at the office. Neither of those things put me in the mood to blog.
Of course in my wisdom I have plans for vacation next week also. That will give me another week where I have much better things to do that blog. I might be able to get an entry or two done, but it is not the kind of vacation that will give me much time to rest.
I guess I am just giving my readers a the reasons my blog is a little under published this month. I hope not to many people will care.
I turned 35 today. It really does not feel any different that 34. That is one of the advantages of a June birthday. I get a few months to get used to the idea of my age changing. As soon as the new year start I think about the change.
I am not sure what 35 means. I had dinner with a friend again. Said that we will never be 28 years old again. I understand what she means, but I would not want to go back anyway. I always see that as arrested development.
I already have enough problems with arrested development. I am 35 years old, but I do not always feel like an adult. There is no one who depends on me. I have no wife or children. My apartment looks like it is lived in my a frat boy. I have not found a reason not to live that way so far. It makes me wonder how long I can live this way.
I was listening to the Neil Young song Tell Me Why. I first heard this song when I was 15 years old. I borrowed a copy of After the Gold Rush from Jeremy's Dad. It was one of those albums that really changed the way I looked at music. The music and the lyrics really impacted me.
There is a line in Tell Me Why that has always spoke to me.
Is it hard to make arrangements with yourself, When your old enough to repay but young enough to sell?
From age 15 to 35 I have always seen myself as the age Neil Young sings about in the song. I always feel that I am old enough to repay but young enough to sell. I am not even sure what it means. It has to mean something different to me in 2007 than 1987, but I am not sure I can explain it.
I guess this is because I feel that I am in the part of my life where I am not a kid, but I have never become an adult. My guess is that I might always feel this way. At least the Baby Boomers have done a good job getting the world ready for kids that never need to become adults.
The other night I watched an episode of Frontline about advertisement titled, The Persuaders. The episode really got me thinking about brand. Which brands are important to and which brands are not. There are brands I prefer, but I do not think they are core to my purchase decisions. There are brands I prefer, but I do not see myself a fan of that company.
The show is all about how companies get people to buy their products. I would like to say that I always buy the best product for me. I would like to say that advertisements never change my ideas. I know that is not true. I know that I see ads and want the product in the ad. I see ads and decide what I am going to have for dinner.
After seeing the episode of Frontline I thought of the idea of the tag cloud of my brands. Seeing which brands are in my life. It is not only the brands I know I like, but the brand I use begrudgingly. I know that the tag cloud below is not accurate, but it is a start. I think it could be an interesting art project.
I have not taken any really good photos lately. There has been nothing that stands out and cries to be posted. I am keeping up my 365 project for this year, but I feel rather uninspired when it comes to photography. I just cannot find anything to geek about. I will have to think about this.
I think flickr is changing the way my brain works. I know this sound extreme, but I think it is true. I think that using flickr all the time is changing the way I see the world and the way my brain processes visual information. I am not sure if this change is a good thing or not.
I have not always been the most visual person in my life. I am usually a word person. I think about the words that I hear and I have a running dialog going in my head. I am a person who thinks about the world by thinking about how I would describe it. I have been that way as long as I could remember.
Using flickr has changed that. More often I am thinking about the world in the ways I would take pictures of the world. When I see something I am thinking about the pictures I might be able to take. I think about something I have seen on Flickr or how another photographer would take the picture.
Flickr is changing the way I see the world. I do not know where the limit of that change is. I am not sure if I should just let it go where it will or try to push for the change.
When I am asked here "where did you good to college?" I get a lot of head scratch when I say Millersville University. Unless someone is from Pennsylvania or Maryland there is a good chance they have never heard of it. The bay area is full of people from elite schools.
I cannot tell you how out of line I think this is. She is over 21. She is a grad student. You cannot even tell if she is drinking beer in the photo. It is not like she is clearly on campus. The school is way out of line on this one. I hope she wins her lawsuit.
I was sure when I first took this picture and started the whole pose with your toaster movement I would be come some level of internet famous for it. The internet fame never came. I never got interviewed by any one about how it came up. I never got to tell my story about how unexpected it all way.
Now I am not even sure people would get the gag. That is what happens when you try to make fun of an advertisement. The joke only lasts as long as the ad stays in rotation.
All I have now is just this picture to look at. Maybe it is for the best.
This is one of my favorite photos of city hall under construction. There is just something about the frame work that appeals to me. Maybe I like it because it is no longer there. I know that I cannot take this picture again. I think that is important to remember. No matter how much you like something from the past, you need to be able to see when it is no longer part of your present.
One of my goals for 2007 is to get 200,000 views for my flickr photostream. I know that is a kind of sad goal, but I am obsessed with flickr. Part of that obsession is how many views my photos get and how many views my photostream gets.
I just figured out that I need to average 350 views per day to get to 200,000 by the end of the year. I know that this is not about averages. Events like Maker Faire and Comic Con spike my views. I need to get as many views out of those events as I can. As long as I can find cool photos, the pub about those events do the rest.
This feels strange because I feel that I can do very little about getting more views for my photostream. I know what having my photos in groups get more views for my photos in general, but I cannot predict how a specific photo will do in a specific group. It is the same thing with blogging a photo. I can never predict how blogging a photo will effect the view count.
As of March 22nd, I have had my Nikon D50 for one year. Flickr has was the main driver for me to get the D50. In that year I have been obsessed with flickr and taking photos to put on flickr. Many times If I know I will not be able to put the photos on flickr, I will not bother taking them.
A year later, I still really like my camera. It is not perfect, but it has served me well. It might be the most useful piece of consumer electronics I have ever purchased. I know that I had a camera before my D50, but it did not inspire me the way my D50 has. It did not make me think about photography or take chances with photography the way my D50 has.
There is still a lot I have to learn about photography. I know that I do my best learning when I go out and take pictures. My Nikon D50 makes me want to go out and take pictures. That is a good thing.
Is there anything I should try taking a picture of in the next year?
I have been to Seattle a half Dozen times or so now. My experience of Seattle is one of being alone. I have never come here with someone else. I have never explored the city with anyone else. I have been on my own every time I have come here.
I am not sure what that say about Seattle or about me. I like Seattle. I feel there is something that draws me here. Every time I go there I try to figure out how I can move there.
It is hard to travel on your own. It is hard to go sight seeing and not share it with anyone. It is hard to motivate myself to keep on going when I get tired. I usually see less when I am alone. I face these things all the time. It is rare for me to travel with someone else.
I left Seattle early today because the weather was rough and I was out of ideas of things to do. Now it is onto the business part of this trip.
This might be the best picture taken of me so far this year. I told Elea that I would use this photo on dating sites if she took it. It is already my LJ icon and MySpace profile photo. Peter told me that he finds this photo to be both endearing and disturbing in equal amounts. I am not sure I agree with him.
Should I put this photo up on my Yahoo Personals Profile? I would think it would weed out a lot of people who would not understand me.
Are you famous enough to be on Wikipedia? I know I am not. As of right now, there is no one named Rich Thomas famous enough to have a Wikipedia entry. There are a handful of people named Richard Thomas that have entries. I know that I am not one of them.
I wonder who the least famous living person with a Wikipedia entry it. There are rules about who can have a page and who cannot. I cannot put up an entry for myself and I cannot put up an entry for my next door neighbor. I know that fame is a hard thing to measure. Someone has to be the least famous. I just wonder who that person is.
I also wonder if I know anyone famous enough to have a Wikipedia entry. Let me know if you have an entry.
