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| Saturday, December 27, 2008 |
| Mandatory New Years' Resolution Post |
Will Take Work on a Daily Basis
- Finish organizing my photo collection (~17,000 photos). Get at least 1/4 of the way through tagging, rating, and eliminating duplicates.
- Get a real start on organizing my old design/writing work files.
- Create a good organizational system for ITP work files.
- Rate 40 days worth of music.
- Average one blog post every 3 days.
- Stay on-budget every month.
- Make some babies~!
- Use my 'power tower' (ugh hate the name) Christmas gift. I have yet to determine actual numbered goals. Get more sexy! This involves about 45 minutes of workout per day in 10, 10, and 25 minute sections.
- Eat well (almost no corn syrum, limited sweets, good snacks like carrots and nuts, more but smaller meals, drinking 2.5 litres of water a day).
- Take 4,000 photographs, including 400 5-star photos. Post the best to Facebook/Flickr.
- Consistently shoot 80% on freethrows.
Will Take Work on a Weekly Basis
- Create a home inventory for insurance purposes, including all photos, reciepts and serial numbers.
- Finish Ignition. This means professionally mastered and with a new website to promote it.
- Start re-learning piano and/or theory (haven't set up specific goals for this yet).
- Go on at least 25 hikes or other outdoor excursions.
- Consistently (at least 2x a month) do little things for my wife that would make her want to date me if we weren't married.
- Stay connected to friends via Facebook. Use it to get together with friends while we're still young and sexy.
- Get a good, highly-productive routine going at work that encourages me to take carpal-tunnel saving breaks and keeps me alert through the day (this relates to the eating and exercising).
Will Take Work on a Monthly Basis
- Begin to learn PHP in depth, preferably through classes that work pays for...
- Set up a long series of doctor's appointments to check for just about everything one can be checked for, to deal with any problems I might have before they're problems. That is - abuse the fact that I have a job with semi-decent medical care.
- Work on some way of respectfully resolving some core differences of belief between me and the in-laws.
- Get out of town 8 times (including at least 5 to family).
- Read a book a month.
- Reaquaint myself with all the outdoors knowledge I had as a Boy Scout.
- Learn to properly tune up my car.
One-Time Events:
Winter:
- Pay taxes by Valentine's Day.
- Visit my co-workers in San Francisco (I work from home 700 miles away and have yet to meet them).
- Use our new toboggan.
Spring:
- For the Prius: Replace scratched rear turn signal assembly.
- Redo my homepage/portfolio again in such a way that it all actually works.
- Create "A Ninja Wedding"
- Create the Impulse Nine TF2 frag video
Summer:
- Get to a water park.
- Write a short (20-page) religous-political treatise.
VW Work:
- January: Scrape off all the tar board from the floors and put down rust-preventing primer. Install aluminum side panels.
- February: Install floor drains. Put down floor lining. Install side brush bars. Install larger brake fluid reservoir.
- March: Create map pocket and cup holder in side panels. Install fire extinguisher holder.
- April: Install Dynamat (weather permitting).
- May: Buffer time.
- June: Begin working with simple fiberglassing by making rear trunk covers.
- July: Replace all the wiring with Jordan, adding circuits for all the new stuff to be installed later. Add gravel guards. Replace turn signal. Install air horn.
- August: Powdercoat rims, bumpers, brush bars, gravel guards, and door panels.
- September: Buffer time.
- October: Replace rims and tires. Raise rear suspension.
- November: Install new headlight system.
- December: Replace door and window rubber.
Labels: basketball, doctor, exercise, food, hiking, holidays, Internet, Leelu, money, mp3, music, organization, photography, Rachel, resolutions, team fortress 2, To-Do, work, Yoshimi |
posted by Steve @ 9:38 PM  |
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| Wednesday, November 12, 2008 |
| Hiking Regularly |
When I was in high school, I was a Boy Scout.
As satisfying as it is to accomplish climbing a 5.10, it's very expensive to go climbing in a rock gym: Rocks & Ropes charges $479 for an annual pass. Because my climbing partner and I are the type that hate gyms, we're going out hiking every weekend instead. We'll see if I keep any self-promises to do some basic exercises during the week to shore up the exercise.
Our first hike was last weekend, and we started quite easy with Aspen Trail, near Summerhaven on the top of Mt. Lemmon. We'd already hiked the trail almost a year ago, but wanted to start out easy. It was basically perfect weather - just cool enough to be chilly when you're not moving, but a little warm while hiking.
There’s something about trees that change color that is endlessly satisfying for a desert-dweller. Having a small lunch at the top was nice as well. Nyssa, Rachel and I actually hiked this same trail a year ago, although this time it was Nyssa, Rhys and me. I took an awful lot of photos, and we capped the day with fudge from the gift shop and pizza in a very small log cabin restaurant. I can’t imagine what teenagers who live in a 100-person town do for fun, but it was a neat little place to visit.
(Clearly, the teenagers kept jobs at the pizza and fudge places.)
I’m looking forward to doing this every week.Labels: climbing, exercise, hiking, Nyssa, Rachel |
| posted by Steve @ 10:37 AM |
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| Monday, November 10, 2008 |
| 1,001 |
Yesterday and today, I took exactly 1,001 photos.
I was a part of two vastly different events – the Dia de Los Muertos parade, and a hike up on Mt. Lemmon.
The Dia de Los Muertos parade is an annual community event that is a wonderful combination of community participation and organized event-making. The actual parade is made of citizens of Tucson, who create fantastic and often monstrous costumes. Some are lighthearted – such as the large paper mache VW bus filled with grateful dead. Others were more morbid – effigies and odes to passed friends and family. The procession wanders along the downtown Tucson streets and ends in an empty lot with a low concrete stage.
And there, every year, some old magic’s made.
A giant paper cauldron, at least 15 feet in diameter, is filled with the wishes, fears, and desires of the thousands of gathered revelers in the field, raised high in the air with a crane, and lit for all to see. Another crane held a dancing troop hundreds of feet in the air. All of this is in addition to the dancing, fire dancers, stilt-walkers and other ceremonial touches.
It’s wild, primal, and very fiery.
Today’s hike was with Nyssa and Rhys and couldn’t have felt more different but still yielded some great photos. As a lifetime resident of Phoenix or Tucson, the notion of leaves that change color, snow, and, well leaves is rather a novel one. So walking through the brisk fall air with the falling leaves on the top of Mount Lemmon was fantastic and fertile photographic territory.
I’m also getting less shy about taking photos of people, although Nyssa is every bit as shy about being photographed as I used to be about photographing others. I admit I do like how sunsets don’t check their hair, though.Labels: community, Dia de Los Muertos, fire, hiking, photography |
| posted by Steve @ 1:56 AM |
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| About Me |
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Name: Steve
Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States
About Me: I like to think about things, and I occasionally like to write what I think.
See my complete profile
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