May 2004 Archives

Funny how not long ago I was interested in blogging about a certain topic and now it seems as boring as ever to me to write directly about.

It was based on this thought: at the wedding Friday the newly-weds were counseled that "you can run into debt but you will crawl out of it"-- basically that it takes almost no effort to dig yourself into debt, but that it's generally much more difficult to get out of debt.

Though this concept applies to debt, I realized that it can actually be applied to many other things in life. I watched Empire Strikes Back on Sunday, I love that movie for both Yoda's silliness and also his wisdom when he's serious. Luke asks "Is the dark side stronger?" to which Yoda replies "No... Quicker. Easier. More seductive." Ponder those words for a moment.

Ok, so what I was thinking about wasn't quite so heavy, but the concept applies, and that's physical fitness. It really is easy to put on the pounds and get out of shape, and much harder to get the weight off and stay fit. For example, it takes almost no effort to me to eat a medium Frosty from Wendys. But it takes so much more to get reverse the effects of that frosty-- probably a good 30 minutes of cardio at the gym. Not to mention the motivation and energy required to get to the gym, which I generally don't have after eating something like that. It kinda goes back to something else Yoda said when he was training Luke-- "Control, control! You must learn control!"

I think that really is one the biggest challenges of this life-- learning to master one's self.

I love transcendence and transcendent experiences. Yet again a situation in which I cannot put words to thoughts or feelings. Uplifting. Edifying. Music is one of my favorite ways to find transcendence. Some experiences take me higher than others...

Today was one I hadn't really anticipated. I attended my cousin Spencer's wedding this morning in the Salt Lake Temple, and it really was a transcendent experience-- it completely transcended the world I live in in a way I can't describe. I've seen other weddings, both in temples, outdoors, and in reception halls, but this time was impressive to me. The fact that the spiritual aspect of this marriage transcended the typical emotional atmosphere of weddings was impressive. It's not to say it wasn't an emotional wedding, I'm sure it was-- but it was also much more than that, which is why I was caught a bit off guard. My deeper thoughts and impressions aren't really appropriate for blogging, but needless to say it was unlike any other wedding I've seen, perhaps partly due to my own attitude (I guess a little humility helps).

(sorry there aren't pics-- I had to get back to work and couldn't hang around after the ceremony. If I go to the reception I'll try to get a pic of the newly weds just for the sake of the blog ;-)

You can see that they shaved his bum to do surgery on his leg, and look at how huge that cast is!

Completely unrelated to the previous post, but since I posted a picture of the dog I thought I'd give a puppy update. Back in January I posted some pictures of some really cute puppies (sorry I don't have my old blog quite in shape to link to it). They've grown a lot since then and some names have stuck. I call them both "stinker" ;-) Because puppies really are... they're always looking for mischief and wreaking havoc. But you can't hate them because they're just so cute. Anyways, their real names are Indy (the yellow lab) and Bo (or Bobo as he's generally called). If you ask Steven, Bo's full name is "Boris Maximus", but I doubt Boris or Max or Maximus will ever stick because we've just called him Bo and Bobo for the last 4 months.

Anyways, I wanted to post these pictures back when they were taken, but obviously I didn't have my blog up and running. Being the stinker that he is, Bo think's he owns the joint and hops all over the furniture. One day early in April his leg slipped between the arm rest and the seat of a reclining chair as he tried to jump off of it and he started yapping like crazy. Of course Indy's response to this was "attack Bo!", so we had to shut Indy up in another room. Bo's reaction was kinda scary-- you could tell something was wrong with his leg, though from what I'd seen I didn't think it could be that bad. I figured maybe he'd dislocated it or something. Well we took him to the vet and he had broken his leg.

He's back to his old self now, but we had to keep his movement restriced for weeks, which meant most of the time he sat in his cage, since we couldn't let him wander free. At the time I felt sorry for him-- a young energetic puppy restricted to his cage all the time. But looking back, I bet it was not just unhappy but perhaps psychologically damaging.

There's a stark contrast between Indy's personality and Bo's. Indy, though not needy, is lovable and he'll snuggle up to anyone (he sometimes thinks he's a lap dog though he's far too big.) He's generally a happy dog.

Bo, on the other hand, acts really paranoid and distrusting. I don't think he understood why he was relegated to his cage all the time. For example, on Sunday we made a demonstration of his personality. A few members of the family were sitting in the living room at home, Mom in her usual spot, me across the room, and Dan on the couch between us. I tried calling Bo to me, in response to which he just retreated to Mom's side. Dan tried calling to him as well, in response to which Bo gave us a more worried look and pressed up against Mom's leg and put his paw on her ottoman. You'd have thought we were threatening him, the way he reacted. It makes me sad to think that he's messed up like that.

I tried to build up a little trust after that, but then I'd snap at him for being a stinker (we can give Indy and Bo identical chew treats, and Bo will just drop his and try to take Indy's from him. Without fail. Bo wants whatever Indy has... maybe that's just a puppy thing. Of course, Gus isn't a puppy but he'll still try to drag their toys away when they're not looking and bury them somewhere, hehehe. He's just a senile old geezer.)

In any case, Bo has issues like I've never seen in a dog. Fortunately he does trust Mom and perhaps Kato... doesn't change the fact that he's a stinker though ;-)

On his blog recently, Joel wrote a post about how carrying a camera with you helps you recognize beauty in the world around you, sentiments I very much share with Joel (I probably wouldn't be wrong if I said that it's the reason both of us started blogs. I can't believe I've been blogging over 2 years now). In any case, in the comments section for that post, a visitor linked Vagablogging.net in reference to a quote about traveling with a camera by Pico Iyer. Another quote I enjoyed from Pico listed in that blog entry reinforces my own issues with writing:

“Words are the way we complicate the simple. The deepest aspects of life are about wordlessness – something you can’t articulate.” - Pico Iyer

Ironic that I would quote a writer in defense of my desire to not write but merely show visuals ;-) I have such trouble conveying my thoughts without becoming really wordy and rambly. Alas, I should probably continue to try to develop my writing and communication skills.

I guess this is an entry I've been meaning to do. Joel has asked me a couple times what camera it is I use on my new blog, since I got a new one in March (since then I have been shooting many more pictures than I used to).

Here's why I bought the SD10:

- Quickshot mode: for really spur of the moment pics, shoots like a regular point and shoot without needing to focus first like most digital cameras.

- Super Macro Mode: as you can see I can get much closer to my subjects and get greater detail than I was able to with my PowerShot S40. I've always loved macro shots.

- Overall portability: You can kinda tell from the second picture (taken with my camera phone) how big this camera is. Less than 3/4" thick and about 3 1/2" long x 1 3/4" wide, it's the most pocketable toy that I have-- more so than any cell phone or MiniDisc / mp3 player I've had. This means that I just keep it in my pocket all the time-- always have my camera handy and hence take more pictures for ye ole blog.

- Bonus: This tiny little wonder is a 4 megapixel camera, so I'm not really sacrificing image quality for size. In fact, I feel like it often takes more vivid photos than I generally got with my S40, though perhaps that's just my perception.

Though of course the camera does have it's drawbacks.

- No optical viewfinder. This means I only have the LCD to frame shots, and sometimes in bright daylight it's hard to see the LCD to frame photos properly and see what the exposure is like. I can live with that.

- No optical zoom: if I want to get in close to a subject I've gotta hoof it if possible. Means that I can't zoom in on distant subjects such as the players on my brother's Lacrosse team (where I can't just run onto the field and get an action shot of the game).

- Less control over the shutter speed than I'd like. I can set it for longer shutter speeds but not really fast shutter speeds. No biggie.

I can live without the above features simply because I do have another digital camera that does have those features when circumstance calls for them. It's just not as convenient. Perhaps one of these days Canon will make a successor to the SD10 that has optical zoom. Until then, I'm loving the portability of this baby and taking tons of pics with it.

Joel, this might replace your digital elph if you wanted to get one, since both would probably serve similar function. I guess it's up to you whether you can handle the lack of optical zoom (since you have much better optical zoom on your bigger camera it shouldn't be a big deal but who knows).

Update: Joel asked what memory this uses-- it uses secure digital (SD) memory. Another thought I'd like to add is that the battery life on this thing thus far has been great. Granted I tend not to use the flash very much, which could account for some of the longevity of the battery, but I've shot hundreds of photos with this thing since mid March and I've recharged the battery only twice-- the included rechargable lithium ion battery lasts like a champ.

Beautiful spring day today-- clear blue skies, green grass, a light breeze and a perfect temperature in the low 70s / high 60s. These are actually some pics I took a few weeks ago (May 1st). Remember that my camera does not have a zoom-- I was literally inches away from those bees, hehe. I normally hate bees but I guess I love macro shots more than I hate bees.

It's been almost a month since I've gone to Sam Hawk (mainly because school has been out and I avoid going to Provo if I can help it). I mentioned this in the Cafe Rio post, but there's just something so damn good about some of the dishes there-- like the spicy dalk-kalbi (a spicy grilled chicken dish). I don't know how they make this stuff but it's sooo good. Though I think I'm becoming a wuss because this stuff had me in tears. I jokingly said "tears of joy" (if you've seen the Disney flop "Haunted Mansion" just imagine the butler saying it like he does near the end of the movie), but it really was just that the spiciness was making my eyes water.

In true sloanie fashion I've taken a few pics of food recently. Today was my brother Shawn's last Lacrosse game of the season-- bittersweet because although they won the game and ended the season as the #1 JV team in their division by winning, the coach was a jerk and only let the second string play one quarter when they really aren't any worse than the first string. They were lucky to win because when he had first string stay in during the 4th quarter, you could tell they were tired. If it were merely about winning I could understand, but apparently he was just playing favorites... oh well, that's life huh.

During Lacrosse season Shawn had been abstaining from carbonated beverages, so to celebrate the end of his carbonation abstinence, he wanted to go to Hires for some good root beer. Oh man it's good root beer. Anyways, I couldn't resist the bright colors of the cheese fries-- these things will probably kill you, but they were good, hehe.

Random food-related post. Ok so it defeats the purpose of eating a banana as a healthy snack, but I'm eating a banana with some cadbury mini eggs and it's pretty good, hehe. Anyone else enjoy bananas with chocolate?

You know you're hard up for interesting things to blog about when your brain starts fabricating things in your sleep to write about. Problem is, when you wake up you realize none of it was real and half of it doesn't make sense anyways. But if you were thinking "I'll blog about this in the morning" while asleep, you know you've been thinking about blogging too much.

I was once good or at least decent at writing. That was back in my late teens / early 20s, when instant messaging wasn't what it is today, and when I would either be writing analytical essays for school, writing lengthy e-mails to friends (I used to love e-mail... now I'm lucky if I respond to them), or writing letters/e-mails home from Korea. Writing was always thoughtful and I seemed to be able to organize my thoughts more easily and naturally.

I think I subscribe to my friend Schmidt's theory that you get dumber as you get older. It honestly takes a lot more mental energy these days to form a well thought out analysis than it took 7-8 years ago, and it's a task I'm not often up to anymore. Blog entries are often spontaneous and hence not very well thought out and poorly written. It also seems like logging on to create an entry is an instant mental block-- I can't remember anything I wanted to write about within the previous hours.

Maybe part of it is that for the last few years my studies have been focused mainly in the right-brain area (creative). It's not like I spent 14 years focusing on left brain or anything, heh. I still think about things and analyze them in my head, but I've just become less and less adept at expressing those ideas or thoughts, and so I refrain from attempting to write about them.

Another problem, as you can already see in this post, is that when I do start writing I often tend to ramble on and on about nothing, I go on too long.

So I leave you with this thought for the day:

I like orange Hi-C.

A Fajita Grilled Steak salad at Cafe Rio

Of course this topic is only relevant to people who live in, may have lived in or visited Utah, as this chain is local, but it's fascinating nonetheless.

Cafe Rio is this Mexican grill that seems to be enormously popular in Utah. I use the word "phenomenon" because I'm not really quite sure why it's so popular and so addictive. Why is it so?

Everyone has their toys-- this BMW motorcycle is one of my dad's.

So I decided to watch Shawn's Lacross games today as they were a couple of his last. His team won both games, by the way. In the process of watching the first game, which went from about 11am to 1pm, I managed to royally toast my face, scalp (thanks hair gel), arms and knees. I'm just grateful it wasn't my back or chest, I wouldn't be able to move.

"Stick a fork in me Jerry! I'm done!" - Cosmo Kramer

Had a nice change of pace today, spent a good chunk of my work day at Rivers at an Adobe seminar. I though it was going to be an InDesign seminar, but it turned out to be about the entire Adobe Creative Suite. So while they focused mainly on InDesign for the latter half of the seminar, they demo'd the new features in Photoshop CS during the earlier half-- I have to say I'm stoked to start using Photoshop CS.

It's also good news for me as the user of a sucky Mac. The design team-- and lets face it, the designers opinions count more than mine-- though a bit hesitant at first to consider ditching QuarkXpress, are actually quite excited now about InDesign. This means I.T. will migrate us Mac OS 9 users to OS X sooner (as they save a ton of money if they don't have to buy a whole new version of Quark-- the current version we're using doesn't work on OS X), which in turn means that I will get a new computer sooner at work... some G5 goodness.

Yeah, all this geeky stuff gets me excited. I'm such a geek.

We were baffled by this sign. Who or what are they recruiting?

So today I took off a half day of work to hang out with Llew in Salt Lake City. I mean, one must have their priorities, right? Slacking w/ Llew > work. Man, I never take vacations-- I need to get out more. In any case, it was a lot of fun and Llew almost didn't get up out of the Lovesacs she sat in. Prior to today her only exposure to Lovesac had been a pic or so on my web site. At lunch (before visiting the store) she mentioned that they just looked like bean bags and that she didn't care for bean bags, to which I replied "It's not a damn beanbag", heh. Oh she knows better now.

Llew also let me win at air hockey, though to be honest I almost won it for her with my sucky air hockey skills. Final score was 4:3... I took a pic but unfortunately omitted the score from the photo's composition, doh.

Good times-- I was glad that Llew had some time in her schedule to hang out. Keep on keepin' it real Ll!

One of the reason's I've been itching to get my blog running is one of my newer toys: The Canon PowerShot SD10 Digital Elph. This baby is so small that it fits in my pocket better than even my wallet-- so this thing goes everywhere that I go, making candid and spur of the moment shots a reality. So far I'm impressed with the image quality, and as you can probably see by these pics, I am loving the super macro mode it has. It by far outshines the macro function on my other Canon (the S40). Though the broccoli is a bit blurry (I only made one attempt at it at lunch today) I can usually get pretty detailed pics up real close. Hence my statement in my previous post that I'd like to explore texture and color more-- the super macro mode makes it possible to pick up textures on all sorts of things, and I've been taking pictures for the last month and a half already.

This thing is also so small that it's fairly inconspicuous when I take pics with it-- it looks a lot like a small cell phone.

Drawbacks of the camera-- no optical viewfinder (rough when it's too bright outside to see the LCD well) and no optical zoom (I can live with out it as long as I have another camera that does have it).

In any case, let me know if you have any problems viewing the site. I'm sure I'll be gradually updating and tweeking it. Right now it doesn't display properly on my CSS impaired POS Mac at work (Mac OS 9.1 and IE 5.1 suck), but it seems to display fine on PC's elsewhere. Let me know if you have any comments or problems. (Yes I know the header is huge-- hehehe... that was intentional.)

Josh sorta chuckled in unbelief when I told him I'd post some pics today of something I'd just told him about. Not hard to understand given the number of times I had told people "yeah I may get my blog up and running this weekend".

It's been almost 3 months since I took the old version of my blog down. The truth is, there is not real great feat of design going on here, I haven't been slaving over a new look for months. I've had one in mind, yes, and this is far from complete as far as functionality goes, but I so frequently feel like writing or posting pics that I figured I'd get the bare bones up and running. Frequent distractions have kept me from working much on my site, and since I've had more free time, most the time I've spent has been on the new header, hehe... that and re-figuring a few things with CSS out.

Anyways, I think many of my posts will be sparse on writing and focus more on visual elements such as texture, color, and form. Of course I'll rant if I feel like it, but in general I'm a pretty crappy writer so I'll spare you, heh.