Monthly Archives: September 2010

Which One Should I Wear?

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A typical morning conversation in my house.

My eldest daughter walks out of her room holding two shirts.

“Daddy, should I wear my skeleton shirt or my marshmallow shirt?”

“I have no preference. Either one is fine.”

“But I can’t decide. I need your help.”

“Okay, I like the skeleton shirt. Wear that one.”

“Awww. But I don’t want to wear that one.”

(Good grief.) “Okay, then wear the marshmallow one.”

“Okay. Don’t be sad, Daddy, I’ll wear the skeleton one tomorrow.”

“Sounds fine. So what do you want for breakfast?”

“I don’t know … I can’t decide …”

And so it goes.

No Regrets! Well, maybe just one …

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I try to live with no regrets, but every once in a while I screw up.

For some time now, I regret not shelling out three bucks for the GV Mobile iPhone app by Sean Kovacs before it was unceremoniously pulled from the iPhone App Store way back in July 2009.

GV Mobile+But now, due to recent changes Apple made to the App Store approval process, it’s back as GV Mobile+!  So if you’re a Google Voice (and, really, why aren’t you?) and iPhone user, GV Mobile+ is a great tool and well worth the $2.99 price of admission.

Not Enough to Waste

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Water.

We’re crazy for that stuff here in Los Angeles, and for at least three years now, we’ve been handed news, more news, and even regulations telling us we’re living in drought conditions.

But Green LA Coalition has put forth a contrasting idea. In Not Enough To Waste: Securing L.A.’s Water Future, a smartly designed and deftly written booklet (and accompanying website), they put forth the idea that Los Angeles is, in fact, not in a drought. Rather, the conditions of recent past years are simply a function of the climate in which we live.

Not Enough to Waste

The explanation from page four:

“You may have heard that Los Angeles is in a drought, but the fact is L.A. has a semi-arid climate, similar to the Mediterranean, where dry years are historically more common than wet ones. If we use our water resources wisely, we can find permanent solutions for a more reliable supply that reduces our dependence on imported water and maximizes our local water resources.”

They go on to explain the various sources of water that flow into Los Angeles, how we can use less, and how to be smarter about what we do use to make our current water resources last for years to come.

If you live in Greater Los Angeles, it’s well worth a read.

Download a PDF copy of Not Enough To Waste for yourself here.

The 2010 Photo Project

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A Photo a Day for 365 Days

I have a rather large and varied set of interests. One of those interests is photography.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no professional photographer by any measure, but I’ve always had a working fascination of what goes into taking a compelling photo. So, finally, late in 2009, I started carrying my beat-up (and by beat-up, I mean coming apart) Canon SD700 IS with me and actually using it for more than the occasional picture of the kids.

Canon SD700 IS on some rocks.

The (retired) Canon SD700 IS on the rocks.

As the end of 2009 approached, I decided that I was going to take a picture a day during 2010. I remember feeling a bit creatively adrift and sort of wanted to take on a project. And I wanted to figure out how to actually use all these different settings built into the Canon point-and-shoot cameras.

The initial idea was I’d take a picture every day and post it. This idea soon fell apart; I didn’t have time each day to search out an interesting image. Instead, I started taking a lot of pictures at one time, usually over the weekends, and pop them up on flickr, one per day, as the week unfolds. I only cheated once when I used a photo from 2009 that I was particularly fond of.

So, anyway, here’s how that’s going: 365 from 2010.

Some are contrived, some are accidental, some are good, and some are bad.

But they’re all mine.