I’ve been working with a gallery generation application for Linux. This one is a duet between Google’s Picasa and SimpleViewer.

Click on image for gallery
Use browser’s back button to return.

Moscow Mountain Christmas Eve

At first glance the phrase ‘Abandon Mediocrity’ seems to be about not being mediocre. Looking closer I see that this phrase is more about renunciation rather than being ordinary. Ordinary really means normal and together, normal and ordinary point to reality. Just what is real. Not a question but an seeing. Reality is very ordinary and can’t be anything else. ‘Ordinary reality’ is redundant but you get the point.

‘Abandon reality’ — wasn’t that the battle cry of the 60’s and 70’s? Most of us who were alive then, went about abandoning reality in not so healthy ways. Abandon your clinging to your mental construct of reality and just live. Live and let live. Still a good plan.

This morning I read a little piece about how a pine tree supports the other trees and the forest just by being. The tree doesn’t expect an extraordinary existence. It is a fine example of mediocrity abandonment. The birds come and go — insects come and go — water is transpired through its needles — the nutrients that support growth are returned when it falls. Never any expectation of recognition. Perfect accord with reality. Mediocrity Abandoned

Earlier in the year I was contacted by Noah Schoenholtz. Noah is an artist in Oregon and worked with the Oregon Community Credit Union to create this year’s Christmas Card for their customers. The card came out wonderful. Thanks so much for sending me a copy.

Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii); Illistration by Noah Schoenholtz; Photograph by Will Simpson

The reason Noah contacted me was because of an image in my Open Source Image Bank. The image below was used as a model for the card. Cool ay!! See what can happen when you give yourself away.

Dr. Drang over at ‘And now it’s all this’ pointed me to a pair of command-line program call pcal (for regular calendars) and lcal (for lunar calendars) that creates neat little calendars. As a photographer, having some knowledge of the lunar cycle is helpful. I was able to convert this to a OpenOffice Draw document and size it of my HipsterPDA. Here is a copy for you! lunar-2007.odg

The idea of applying the concept from economics called “Opportunity Cost” to our personal life can be helpful in a provisional way. The idea is can be expressed as the ‘cost’ of lost opportunities incurred when we choose to do one thing instead of something else.

Fellow photographer and podcaster, Brooks Jensen, podcasted about this today (click here to listen to the podcast — ~5mins. long). He more eloquently explains how to apply opportunity costs to our goals. Brooks used the example of the artistic costs lost because we choose to watch TV instead of get out and photograph or work on a print or read a inspiring book.

It is what you could have had but have given up in order to have something else. It is up to us to decide if it each thing is worth it or not. We often don’t look at life this way. We can slip into letting life happen to us. As we mature (code word for become old) and we begin to get a sense of our end, the idea of looking at the opportunity cost of doing things can be helpful. Everything we do has an opportunity cost. We only have so much time and energy to accomplish our goals so we look of ways to be skillful and choose wisely.

What we achieve is largely a function of how we use our resources. How we use our time and the actions we do. More examples include — blogging instead of exercising, reading poetry instead of science fiction, buying a new Canon 5D instead of saving for retirement.

It is not that one thing is always better than another. We have to remember that part of the ‘costs’ in terms of time and energy of reading poetry is that we are not doing any of multitude of other things we could be doing to grow. We grow to become more vigilant, watching ourselves, seeing that we don’t become lazy.

Like all the other beliefs, theories and axioms that we use to become more skillful in life, this one is provisional and only gets us so far then we have to let it go. We have to be open to living in the moment and not worrying about so called lost opportunities. In the absolute realm we only have our actions and this moment.

I was going to blog this morning on a cool little CLI tool I found but instead I looked at the ‘opportunity cost’ and decided to blog on this topic instead.

As I have said before, I’m an avid podcast consumer. In the right hand column of willsimpson.org, I’ve updated the listings of the various podcasts I subscribe to. I’m continually adding and subtracting podcasts and my interests and the topics of the podcasts morph. If you listen to podcasts, what are you listening to?

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Foggy Sunrise on Driscoll Ridge Road

   Today start off much like any other day. I enjoyed the rhythms of the cold morning. Snagged this one out the kitchen window. Fog rolling in, sun coming up.

    This afternoon I had a little dental work done. Not a fun thing
usually and not this time either. Last time I visited my dentist I
remember it being not a satisfying experience.  I can not put my finger
on why that was. I originally choose this guy not because of his great
reputation, I had no idea whether he was any good or not, but I choose
him because his office was on route of my usual noon time walk. It is
7:10pm and I just got off the phone with him. He just call to see how I
was doing. I am surprised by his personal touch. He was genuinely
interest in how I was doing. I can recommend my dentist Gregory
Bengtson, of  Implant & General Dentistry on Eleventh Street in
Lewiston Idaho.

Holiday Abstract

Just a quick photo and related link. Nothing of interest here so just move along.

I’ve posted about how I do this before. Abstracts are very difficult to do effectively but I’ve proved that they are to easy hack at. One of the best at abstract photography is Sophie. A French photographer that creates little projects for herself in the abstract realm and really has the touch. Each group of images ties together nicely and none seem out of place. Each image evokes a feeling and is not stale. Louis is her newest model and what a fine one indeed!

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Broccoli/Bell Pepper/Onion/Garlic Pizza

More pictures in the kitchen. This is the best of a series I took while cooking pizza for dinner last night. Actually, Mary is the cook, I just roll out the dough and manage the pizza’s transition from counter to oven and back again. Mary is such a wonderful cook. A true foodie.

Technically there are problems with this image. Mostly, it has too narrow of a depth of field (area of sharp focus) and the position of this depth of field is on the wrong part of the pizza (it should include the front of the pizza to about half way through it). To improve the next time I’ll close down the f-stop on the camera to get a greater depth of field which will probably require the use of the flash.

Mary and I just finished discussing Christmas dinner and she suggested pizza (Spinach and Sun-dried tomato). So I’ll get another chance to make a great pizza picture. Maybe I should practice some before then? Won’t that be fun!! By the way the pizza was delicious.