Category Archives: Doing

In Praise of Culebra

Can­not stop think­ing about our trip to Cule­bra. Tak­ing the fer­ry there was like tak­ing a vaca­tion from vaca­tion. Prob­a­bly the most remote, beau­ti­ful place I’ve ever been. Hard to believe that I was on gor­geous Fla­men­co Beach just 8 days ago.

Cule­bra is mag­i­cal. Home to beau­ti­ful beach­es, the island tran­scends your typ­i­cal beach des­ti­na­tion. Nev­er have I felt so relaxed and free of typ­i­cal tourist trou­bles. Can’t wait to return next January.

What a fun trop­i­cal get­away in the mid­dle of win­ter! Char­lie and Helen loved it, too. Ask Char­lie about his “igua­na hunts” next time you see him!

My 2011 Tech Resolutions

Would you believe I made good on my 2010 tech res­o­lu­tions just this week? Sure did. When the year began, I vowed to sell old and upgrade my equip­ment, name­ly my MacBook.

After wast­ing a whole year, I sold my Mac­Book and Xbox 360 this week. I’m ful­fill­ing my res­o­lu­tion next year by upgrad­ing to the new Xbox 360 Kinect and a 13″ Mac­Book Air. Real­ly excit­ed for both of them.

Addi­tion­al­ly, I’m tak­ing a Final Cut Pro course in Feb­ru­ary for work that I hope to use in my per­son­al life as well. Think­ing video Christ­mas card in 2011!

I real­ly fol­lowed through on most of my tech res­o­lu­tions, like redesign­ing my blog and — more impor­tant­ly — post­ing to it more often than ever.

What are your tech res­o­lu­tions for 2011?

In Praise of December

It’s cliche, but hav­ing a baby real­ly changes every­thing. I’ve been see­ing our hol­i­day prepa­ra­tions through Char­lie’s gleam­ing eyes and it just fills me with joy. Hear­ing him say “Han­ta” or “ho ho ho” puts a smile on my face. Can­not wait to see his reac­tion to the tree once it’s com­plete­ly decorated.

Thing I can’t recap­ture is that feel­ing of life slow­ing down. Decem­ber used to feel so long to me as a kid. Not sure if it was that the days were grow­ing short­er, or if the time spent inside meant more time with fam­i­ly, but the sea­son could real­ly sink in. Feel like I could just soak up the Christ­mas music blar­ing out of our lit­tle GE cas­sette play­er, the smell of cook­ies fill­ing our old farm­house. It was a warm, safe, wel­come feel­ing that maybe only a kid can feel.

Try­ing to re-cre­ate that mag­ic isn’t easy, but we’re try­ing. Helen and I have been burn­ing obnox­ious­ly-scent­ed hol­i­day can­dles, crank­ing up the Christ­mas tunes on the TV and get­ting every­thing togeth­er for our annu­al Christ­mas par­ty this week­end. Real­ly look­ing for­ward to see­ing friends and enjoy­ing their com­pa­ny. Can’t wait!

All Hail Purling Hiss

Read about them a few weeks ago. Lis­tened to some tracks on their MySpace and fell in love. Hard to believe, but they’re even bet­ter live.

How to describe their sound? Does a south­ern rock-tinged Jay Reatard make sense? Skynyrd meets the Ramones?

Bought two albums and intro­duced myself to Mike, the lead singer and gui­tarist, at the merch table after the show.

Some­one please sign this band and make them famous, okay? Think Mata­dor would be a great fit. Make it hap­pen, people!