About six months ago, I got a phone call from a woman in NYC who once hired me for a contracting gig back in 2008. The job back then was supposed to last only a month but it turned into three months work and it couldn’t have come at a better time because in 2008, it wasn’t a good time to living in the most expensive city in the country and going through a world-wide economic collapse.
Nathan and I drove to Colorado to meet some friends and ski just west of Denver, CO. His first time to ski, I was truly impressed. Never had any trouble getting off the ski lift. Took a bit of a wipeout on a blue run, but he did a blue run on his first day ever to ski.
In 2012 I was hired at Devon Energy to work in Corporate Communications. Initially as the Web designer but I began to implement User Experience and User Interface standards with not only the website, but with the applications as well. I was able to design and help launch a new website for not only Devon Energy but for the Devon Energy Center as well. We did great creative work in the community though the arts and community giving and it we had fun. It was one of the best teams I had ever had the pleasure of working with.
In my late twenties, I read a book that literally changed the path of my life. It was called “From Alice to Ocean” and it was the photographic record of Robyn Davidson who traveled alone two thousand miles across the Australian outback, from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean.
Shannon gave me a shout out this morning on her radio morning show as a “long time listener”. Inside joke, it’s a country station. 😉 still, they like to chat about our dates online and it’s slightly weird.
Wyoming in the 1870s. A stagecoach is heading towards the town of Red Rock with two passengers onboard. One is John “Hangman” Ruth (played by Kurt Russell), a celebrated bounty hunter. The other is Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), his prisoner and wanted for murder. Along the way they pick up another bounty hunter, Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L Jackson), and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins). Due to a blizzard they are forced to hole up in a store some way out of town with the occupants of another stagecoach. Suspicions commence and Civil War enmities are reawakened.
When critical information is placed into a simple droid, both the evil First Order and the heroic Resistance go searching for it. Then something neither of them planned for happens: Rey, a scavenger from the planet Jakku finds the droid and keeps it as her own. Finn, an ex-stormtrooper who hopes to leave his past behind him, crosses paths with her and breaks the news of what exactly the importance of the droid is. Next thing either of them know is that they are on the run in order to withhold the droid from the First Order. They meet a pair of old buddies and after a few skirmishes between them and the determined First Order, the droid is brought to the Resistance base. There, multiple plans are hatched against the First Order while the secret information on the droid is slowly and surely working itself out…
My friends got married this weekend and I came back to New York to celebrate with them. During my stay I was given the generosity of a place to stay in Battery Park City, just next door to where I lived for so many years. I was also given the opportunity to see an old friend, to talk about the past and in a way find an absolution for us both. Life is too short to pretend you don’t care about those that you care about.
This trip. This was an interesting trip.
I got the Amazon Echo this week and it’s an entertaining and sometimes helpful device. I geeked out when I realized it could turn on and off light groups by voice command.
I was walking to school. The high school was about five to seven miles from my home but it was a beautiful spring Colorado morning and it felt like the only logical choice to do with my time. My car was broken down, somewhere unknown in Albuquerque, New Mexico with little hope to ever get it back. My mom was pissed off that I had lied to her about driving to Texas to see my ex (first) girlfriend who I was still trying to win back and who never failed to break my heart every time I made an effort. This time, it was her prom. She asked me to come to hers and despite my car breaking down in the middle of the New Mexico desert, I scraped my remaining money together to get a one-way bus ticket to still make the event. Right after the prom, the inevitable played it’s part and I was once again left heart broken, this time stuck in Plainview, Texas.
Interesting story: After years of my friend Will who I knew from AMEX in New York City, telling me I should come visit, I decided to take him up on it and book a trip and see other friends there as well. One of them being another long time friend Vilma who I knew in NYC and another photographer friend whom I never met but had been in touch with for years who said if was available, I should come down and visit in Key West on the trip. What could go wrong?
“A real man” challenges your idea of using that sexist bullshit phrase and reminds you in an age of not defining a woman by my male centric expectations and shaming you for not living up to them, that the same crap doesn’t fly in the opposite direction either.