Journal : OpenRoadWorks

Funny that it has been over three weeks since I have last posted an entry - that is just about the amount of time that I have spent looking at houses. Over the course of the last month, amidst calls of distress and alarm in US real estate markets, under barrage of advice from family and colleagues, amongst slippery real estate professionals, somehow I ended up deciding to buy a house. With my girlfriend. All the way in :) If you would have asked me a year ago what I would think about making such a decision, I would have told you to whisk your insane notions off the doorstep. Then again, times do change - and people change, too. That goes for Wendy and I, who have decided to put a tick in the "grown-up" column and jump feet first into homeownership. Years of traveling and milling about the globe have taken care of the wanderlust; now, I am excited to be a bit more domesticated. For those that know me, a long and winding road, indeed - but I like where it's headed. A...

The business world is literally highjacked with metaphors and expressions, something that seems wholly unique to the white-collar office environment. I cannot speak for all environments - factory, school, home, and "out" - but I can speak for offices in which I have worked that have "put lipstick on the pig", "played hardball", "played the field", "stuck to the knitting", and other such expressions that allude my memory in the moment. No worries - the other laundry bin of quotables will come to me and others in a meeting when the proper moment arises - and everyone agrees to the right usage. There is hardly ever debate as to this point, only proper usage - and an alien tongue to those who may not have experienced the phenomenon. I quickly ponder over this thought as I pack up my computer for the day. I saw a picture of a pig putting on lipstick that prompted the thought. Another day in the books leaves this comment lurking in my mi...

The mundane of the every day is often fertile ground for artists to mine for either surreal re-interpretation or worship through an idealization of the common form. Case in point - I was flipping through some of the older photos I had on my hard drive in order to organize and archive them. I came across a few pictures from 2003 that I took in Australia that showed a coffee cup sitting solitary on the table, with a spinning camera giving motion to the saucer on which it sat. With the blur of the surrounding table and setting, the cup sits poised and extraordinary, with a slight residue of fine coffee beans and candied sugar on the bottom. Perhaps I have gone too far to describe something so simple as a finished cup of coffee, but I still remember that moment at the cafe' where the picture was taken; sitting with friends, there was a lull in conversation. At that point, I looked at the cup and realized the beauty in the experience that lasted only as brief as it took for me to whirl ...