Why I won't vote for George Bush...

'W' sent ME a campaign letter the other day asking me to vote for him. If that's the kind of judgment he's going to use there's no way I'm voting for him!

random post...

skateboarding...

So I stop off after work at the local skatepark so that I can huff my 41-year-old ass around on the half-pipe for half an hour or so when I meet this Indian. No not the ones from Clint Eastwood movies who lately seem more famous for building casinos than building tepees and sweat lodges, no I mean Indian and is India-Indian. He was wearing all the gear, knee pads, helmet, elbow pads, wrist guards, so he definitely looked like an old-school skater (New school kids don't wear pads. They wear baggy, baggy pants and bleed a lot, for fun apparently.)

So the Indian is on the half-pipe when I ride up. He politely let me take my turn and then I let him take his. The park was uncrowded so the ramp was ours which was cool since often the park is really jammed up.

Anyway the guy couldn't skate. He tried, but he just wasn't getting it. He couldn't get to the top of the ramp, he couldn't turn, he just couldn't grasp it.

But, that's ok. Because you see, he was about 6-years-old. Maybe.

He was definitely intimidated by the park and the kids who were ollie down the rail or kick-flipping on the ramp. Who wouldn't be? And to then have my 6-foot two geezer ass ride up on you, poor kid.

But I liked this kid. He obviously was trying really hard to learn and not only did he have to deal with all the teen shredders flying around him but he had the added stress of being center stage as it were. His family was watching his every move. Mom was inside the park keeping tabs and grandpa and grandma were outside the fence peering in. They looked like extra from a Merchant Ivory film who happened to wander over to the "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" set.

So I stopped skating and started teaching. Ohmagod! and it was almost (Almost...) better than skating itself. He was a really attentive kid and he listened to me. When I told him to try putting his feet a certain way, he did it exactly. When I asked him to try it on flat ground first, he did, no argument. I demonstrated, he copied. He picked it up fast and was really thrilled.

When I went to leave his mom thanked me for taking the time to help her son, but even better he skated up and thank me himself with a huge smile and bright, bright, bright eyes. I was stoked.

I realized that what made this such a great experience not because they thanked me, but just because that kid was not concerned with being cool, a disease we all know I have suffered from in the past. He just wanted to skate like the other kids he saw, so he went out and tried. He didn't worry about what board he had or if he had the "right" shoes. He didn't care that he had to wear safety gear when all the other skaters were too cool to be bothered. He didn't care if looked like a beginner. He just wasn't concerned with any of that. He just wanted to skate. What a wonderful thing to have, that attitude.

I showed him how to place his feet, but he showed me something much, much more...

random post...

capitola

laggin...

obviously i've been laggin...

so here's a bumbersticker until i get caught up

George of the Jungle
yesterday "Watch out for that tree!"
today "Faster!"

photo of the week...

half moon bay

bumperstickers...

I used to like Paris and the Hilton. Now I hate all three.

George Bush is OK. (In that insane nut-job kind of way)

Don't fear sharks. Fear hungry sharks.

Don't feed the bears carbs.

A lake without fish is called a sewer.

My neighbor got a Hummer. I got a Marshall stack. I bet I win.

ipods are like jelly donuts. you know in your heart there are better things available, but you just don't care.

Michael Jackson and Barney Fife are starting to look eerily similar

I can't hear my cell phone, what with all your incessant honking!

can we go back to 1987 when Joe Strummer was still alive and W was a still a drunk?

website of the week: L'Atelier Vert

L'Atelier Vert

I love this site for two reasons, one being that the site is really nicely designed visually. I love the color palette. I love the hard to read font because it actually works on this site. I love the tone of the site.

The other is they sell a really great soap that while pricey is worth the expense. YUM!

photo of the week...

Half Moon Bay...

the book of the week is "Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl

The recent horrors of the Russian school hostage massacre have only served to remind us that there are those amongst us who are truly evil. There is a special place in hell for people who harm children.

But what of the survivors? How will they cope? How will they come to be at peace in such a violent world, especially when they have such violent memories? Reading Viktor E. Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning" may be one way to cope. For those of us lucky enough to live lives relatively free of violence and hardship this book helps us to remember, we should not take life for granted.

Already a psychiatrist when he was forced into a Holocaust death camp, Frankl was uniquely situated to observe the suffering of his fellows and that is exactly what he did. The daily ritual of death and punishment, starvation, un-ending work revealed all manner of human behaviors and Frankly took note of them all. In one of his sadder memories, Frankl relates how men would commit suicide of sorts by simply refusing to get up for work. They would stoically light a cigarette and lay in bed enjoying it, knowing full well the Nazi guards would not tolerate insubordination. No amount of pleading from their comrades would convince the men to get up. By the time Frankl and his companions would return from a days' work, the smokers' bunks would be empty, the men exterminated.

But for all the cruelty and death Frankl witnessed, he also witnessed the coping skills of the survivors, the ones who made it through each horrid day, day after day until liberation finally was at hand. They did get up to work, they did survive the senseless rounds of killings, the beatings, the hunger, the cold. They survived it all.

But how?

Frankl posits a simple but profound idea: a man who has 'meaning' in his life, can survive hardship. Even in the face of untold hardship man, if living with meaning, can find the strength to cope. When you have meaning in your life, you have life. When the meaning leaves your life, when you can longer find meaning, you light a cigarette and you die.

website of the week... a day late... orange photography

orange photography
A collective that does a lot weddings, the lensmen at Orange Photography are nonetheless far from the usual hack wedding grinders. I really liked their united visual style, you can tell they push each other professionally and inspire one another creatively.

A lot of the work has that very contemporary/urban feel so popular today in advertising, sort of a post dot-com crash coolness, but it also has a depth that lifts it up out of the hip dustbin. I guess it just proves that for as long as people have put emulsions on paper, a great portrait remains a great portrait.

Be sure to check out the Travel and Pushing Perspectives sections of the online portfolios, very nice indeed.

Check them out at http://www.orangephotography.com

photo of the week...

at the Stanford Pow Wow