It's 21C here today (I know) so took the dog for a long walk and spotted this bird - it keep attacking gulls and sweeping low across the park...
Used a digi zoom to get in close - hence the noise and blur but if anyone knows what kind of bird it is I'd love to hear from you
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Thursday, January 04, 2007
I need to take better pictures
I've been spending too much time in Flickr recently - getting turned on to really good photography... and by really good photographers.
Having no co-ordination means that attempts at drawing always end in frustration so photography is the closest I get to real artistic expression. Not that I've done much good photography it has to be said - but I like that too.
There's a discipline to photography that makes it an art that I feel I can attempt to master the art. A mixtire of science and dumb luck that means I always feel as though I have a chance of taking something great. And that practice can improve those odds of lucky accident.
I always said that lives need some passion and some beauty... and now I think that I mean it. I can think of nothing sadder than a passionless life and nothing crueler than an absence of beauty.
But that might be the wine talking. Time I think - for bed
Oh - scans being booked for January... a couple of weeks late - change of insurer and all but all in hand... this time am gonna photograph my innards and post them... nice huh?
Having no co-ordination means that attempts at drawing always end in frustration so photography is the closest I get to real artistic expression. Not that I've done much good photography it has to be said - but I like that too.
There's a discipline to photography that makes it an art that I feel I can attempt to master the art. A mixtire of science and dumb luck that means I always feel as though I have a chance of taking something great. And that practice can improve those odds of lucky accident.
I always said that lives need some passion and some beauty... and now I think that I mean it. I can think of nothing sadder than a passionless life and nothing crueler than an absence of beauty.
But that might be the wine talking. Time I think - for bed
Oh - scans being booked for January... a couple of weeks late - change of insurer and all but all in hand... this time am gonna photograph my innards and post them... nice huh?
I'm starting to miss the summer
mainly because this summer was the first since childhood that I'd had completely free. I was cancer free but still on 'sick leave' so I was healthy and being paid healthy amounts of cash... whiich meant that I could go and allow the grass to grow under my feet - an experience made all the sweeter by the knowledge that millions upon millions of people were locked under flourescent light, wasting time at cubicles and waiting for the weekend or a 'summer Friday'
I guess that this was the first summer that I actually appreciated. And now it's gone. Sure it's terrifyingly warm for January but I'm still left reaching for a coat and trying hard to negotiate my way out of at least one dog walk a week.
I think that's why I'm kinda yearning for a more flexible gig. I don't want to be bored in the office or too busy to notice life happening beyond the walls of my service. I wnat to be able to step outside when I want to step outside and have some time to think, to contemplate, to lay down in the sun and do nothing. I'm hoping that Jude's return to the workplace will allow me some of that freedom as it will probably move us out of the city and me into consultancy. There again we may decide that New York is too hard a place to leave... in which case I think that we'll both go 'part time' and enjoy longer, more languid days in the sun.
Here's to summer '07 huh?
I guess that this was the first summer that I actually appreciated. And now it's gone. Sure it's terrifyingly warm for January but I'm still left reaching for a coat and trying hard to negotiate my way out of at least one dog walk a week.
I think that's why I'm kinda yearning for a more flexible gig. I don't want to be bored in the office or too busy to notice life happening beyond the walls of my service. I wnat to be able to step outside when I want to step outside and have some time to think, to contemplate, to lay down in the sun and do nothing. I'm hoping that Jude's return to the workplace will allow me some of that freedom as it will probably move us out of the city and me into consultancy. There again we may decide that New York is too hard a place to leave... in which case I think that we'll both go 'part time' and enjoy longer, more languid days in the sun.
Here's to summer '07 huh?
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Another resolution
"Half as many meetings... twice as many decisions"
Feeling very chipper today - baked bread, took the dog for a walk, made the cat sneeze (somehow) and heard from some people I'd not heard from in an age... must be all of those speculative Happy New Years I've been throwing out to people that I've met and liked over time.
Work has yet to really kick in for me though I can see the start of some projects on the horizon - in the meantime I'm going to use the idle hours to do the research that I need for the books... that ought to keep me going.
Anyway am later than James Brown here (does that pun work?) so have to run to the JMZ - which will taunt me by holding the train I need just one stop away for hours on end - its headlights ablaze with possibility as more and more people arrive, lean out over the platform and - by force of collective will alone - drag it ever closer. It's long been my theory that the trains here don't run by electricity or diesel but by the collective nervous energy generated by people waiting. Should I have shared that? Oh what the hell - I shared Stool Softners, bloody bread baskets and the texture of the pieces of lung I coughed up - why start being coy now?
Feeling very chipper today - baked bread, took the dog for a walk, made the cat sneeze (somehow) and heard from some people I'd not heard from in an age... must be all of those speculative Happy New Years I've been throwing out to people that I've met and liked over time.
Work has yet to really kick in for me though I can see the start of some projects on the horizon - in the meantime I'm going to use the idle hours to do the research that I need for the books... that ought to keep me going.
Anyway am later than James Brown here (does that pun work?) so have to run to the JMZ - which will taunt me by holding the train I need just one stop away for hours on end - its headlights ablaze with possibility as more and more people arrive, lean out over the platform and - by force of collective will alone - drag it ever closer. It's long been my theory that the trains here don't run by electricity or diesel but by the collective nervous energy generated by people waiting. Should I have shared that? Oh what the hell - I shared Stool Softners, bloody bread baskets and the texture of the pieces of lung I coughed up - why start being coy now?
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
My new business card pic
limited in choice by the amount of pics showing my quadruple chin...
still here's the one I picked.... what do you reckon?
Hi-Ho
hi-ho... it's back to work I go - and whilst it's true that I won't be skipping merrily towards the train station this morning it's also true that I won't be crawling toward it full of dread and half baked reasons to turn around and head for home.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes before I really get busy on something - in the meanwhile I'll throw myself into a couple of minor projects and see just how shiny I can make them.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes before I really get busy on something - in the meanwhile I'll throw myself into a couple of minor projects and see just how shiny I can make them.
Monday, January 01, 2007
2007....
I had planned on heading down to the Coney Island Polar Bear Dip today - but as it's pouring with rain and 12C I don't think that I'll be able to get a picture as good as this one - so I'll use it instead and stay at home readying myself for a return to work tomorrow.
last night was fun - which is more than you can generally expect of a New Year's Eve. I didn't see the ball (or World Famous Bob's breasts) drop at midnight, I didn't see the fireworks - or hear whether Ryan Seacrest really said "2006.... out" but I was surrounded by bright, bubbly, drunk people - great wine, okay food and a glow of goodwill.
So here's to 2007 - thanks to all of you who have managed to stick with this increasinglt ego-centric blog over the past 6 months or so.... better writing to come this New Year I promise
last night was fun - which is more than you can generally expect of a New Year's Eve. I didn't see the ball (or World Famous Bob's breasts) drop at midnight, I didn't see the fireworks - or hear whether Ryan Seacrest really said "2006.... out" but I was surrounded by bright, bubbly, drunk people - great wine, okay food and a glow of goodwill.
So here's to 2007 - thanks to all of you who have managed to stick with this increasinglt ego-centric blog over the past 6 months or so.... better writing to come this New Year I promise
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