me

for this week’s throwback thursday, here are two pictures taken in my hometown of overland park, ks. in september 1993; i was 15.

my mom has been sending me, slowly, stuff from her house that i want to hold on to.  among other things, this has included pictures. so sitting in my apartment in honolulu is a growing pile of photos and negatives. they’ve been either given to me by family, friends or that i have taken over the years.

i used to dabble in photography, though i won’t claim to have been any good….

i’ve been looking through them off and on and contemplating how to most efficiently digitize them. in the short-term, kinko’s is sufficient, though not cost effective. i’ve found a home scanner that is very good for both negatives and photographs. but it’s not inexpensive, so that’s going to have to wait.

 

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more than usual, i’ve been giving thought to my where i want to be in five years. hell, in two or three years.

as i’m staring at my 40th birthday rushing headlong toward me, i look around and feel that i haven’t accomplished much. or, at least not as much as i’d like.

so, the struggle in my brain currently is this; do i resign myself to my professional position, abandon thoughts of graduate school in exchange for finding a meager home i can actually afford, or do i risk future (and potentially current) financial stability and try my hand at an exciting graduate program that will likely leave me with a six-figure debt?

a few years back i stumbled across a newly minted online program being offered by george washington university. a great school for politics and government, i inquired for additional information. though the program was exactly the kind of thing i was looking for, i hesitated to apply for two main reasons: i didn’t think i could get in and i hadn’t the foggiest clue how i’d afford it.

now, a little time has passed and i’m in the process of the completing the application for this masters program. feeling increasingly dissatisfied with the arc of my career path, i figure i’ve got nothing to lose by applying (except time and the $75 application fee).

there are parts of my brain that keep telling me the risk is too great. the financial burden i’ll be left with, should i be accepted and then actually graduate, will be a certainty, while the career benefits are implicit at best.

but no risk, no reward. isn’t that what they say?

on the flip side, i have a job that is, at least for the next few years, secure. and while it doesn’t pay a whole lot, its enough that, if i tightened my belt a bit, i could possibly afford a place of my own for the right price. i like that idea; it wouldn’t be big or fancy by any definition, but it would be mind.

of course, if i go the graduate school route, at a minimum i’d be adding years to the time it would take me to get to a place again where i could afford my own home, if ever.

i guess we’ll see what happens with my application to gw. i’m honestly torn between the excitement of the potential opportunities the program could provide (not to mention all the cool stuff i’d learn) and the stress graduate school work and paying for it would create.

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as promised, i’ve got a new format for music mondays… me!

though i’m pretty happy with the final result of this first attempt, i sure my performance can be improved going forward.


this was also the first video i’ve done using adobe premiere pro, instead of iMovie. i can see how premiere pro can be a powerful tool, but it’s going to take some learning. and i won’t tell you how long it took me to sync the video to the song.

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i’ve been consciously trying, for a little while now, to lose weight. between my doctor saying i’m technically “overweight” and a minor scare with rising blood sugar, losing weight became a more immediate goal that kicking my smoking habit.

with one chronic illness already, the idea of adding type 2 diabetes was a chilling one. almost immediately, i gave up soft drinks altogether (ok, maybe one 3 or 4 times a year); it was much easier than i thought it would be. just that one relatively minor change put my blood sugar back in a normal healthy range, but did little to lower my weight.

at 5’7’’ and, as of this morning, 188 pounds, some medical chart somewhere has labeled me as “overweight”. i’ve felt fat for a long time, but didn’t think too much about it until he told me that. for my height i should be somewhere in the 145-160 pound range. i’ve been shooting for 155 and clearly still have a long way to go.

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you’d think with something like 8000 pictures to choose from, i wouldn’t have any trouble finding something to share on thursdays. but i have been struggling the last few weeks….

so, this is from mid-october 2007. i don’t recall for what celebratory reason we’d gathered at kona brewing company. from the lei emma has donned, i’m guessing it was her birthday. or it could have been something school related…. can you graduate in mid-october from a masters or phd program?


from left to right: dean, becky, me, emma, beks, katja.

i miss these guys.

and can’t help but think… i’m the only one pictured that’s still single.

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