The Facebook Developer Garage Program
September 15th, 2009Exploring & Building
September 10th, 2009I wanted to choose a different title other than “sorry – under construction” or “pardon the dust” because those are just apologies or excuses. Why should I apologize for adding improvements and keeping things fresh? That’s right. I shouldn’t, so I won’t :)
The reality is I’m trying to do some exploring by building on my site and playing around with some new color schemes, features, designs and Facebook Connect widgets. So in the near future you might see some things that look different or maybe aren’t complete. Thanks for continuing to come back and stayed tuned into my world and I hope you enjoy the new developments!
Also, stay tuned for more consistent posts. I’ve got a list of ideas on things I’d like to share so make sure to subscribe or come back often.
“Anything can be cured with Saltwater…”
September 7th, 2009
“… Tears, Sweat, or the sea.” – Isak Denison.
It’s true. Yesterday, in the spirit of the holiday weekend, I got to venture down to Monterey with some friends to enjoy the warmer weather that summer has brought us. It was a beautiful site and a wonderful feeling to walk out onto this sunny, inviting beach that was virtually empty. When I got there I stood on the shore, letting the foamy tide wash over my feet, thinking to myself “damn, this is cold…”
Later on while sitting back up on the shore, enjoying a cold beer, I watched a friend walk down to the water to test out the water and then it hit me. I couldn’t leave without jumping in. At that second I put down my beer and sprinted for the water then took the dive. It was like a combination of jumping into a bucket of ice and championing a great feat with an even greater prize. Exhilarating. I opened my eyes under the water for a moment with the sound of water passing by my ears and all of a sudden everything made much more sense. I then pushed down on the water to lift my head above the waves and stand up with the sand between my toes. After wiping the salt water from my face I turned around to the shore, smiling at my friends, fist in air as a sign of my victory.
It felt amazing as I walked up to the shore after splashing and jumping around a bit. When I got to shore I told the others about how amazing it felt to be back in the water while I toweled off. It was as if I had just seen a best friend for the first time in years. Barely any drier than I was, something came over me and I dropped my towel to run back into the water. There wasn’t even a thought behind it. I was just so compelled to go back. As I jumped over the waves, doing back flips and throwing my body around, the only thought in my mind was about how happy I was at that moment. Jumping around in the water felt more like catching up with an old friend than anything else. After a while I stood up and looked out over the horizon and realized that I could never live far away from the ocean.
Appeal to All the Senses
June 26th, 2009
I love magazines. There. I said it. With a capital < & 3. This is probably surprising for somebody that is notoriously glued to a computer screen and falls asleep within seconds of opening just about anything with pages in it. Maybe it’s out of frustration due to my inability to stay awake long enough to enjoy a book or because it takes too much effort to really get a good bite of any juicy knowledge from a book, but they’ve just never been my thing. I bet a lot of avid page-flippers would belittle my intellect for this, but I have a lot of reason to believe that’s uncalled for.
These days I really don’t believe the difference b/w books & magazines to be an affair of intellectual might or cerebral stamina. Recently it’s become more an issue of wanting to arouse the rest of my senses. You might very well criticize me for this but I kind of hate the fact that when I look at a book I don’t get excited by the idea that the value is all in the interpretation and visualization of the words. Instead I’m bothered that there just isn’t more effort into making that book attractive. Now more often than not it’s probably an issue of practicality or budget, but what happened to putting effort into quality binding, picking just the right font, or finding that paper that really complimented the subject-matter well?
What I like about magazines is that not only do I love the information I’m getting out of them, because it’s quick and to the point, which suits my lifestyle (and naturally regulated attention span) but also because the good ones look good, feel good, and smell good. It’s as if the craftsmanship that used to go into books is being injected into magazines now. When I say “look good” I mean the typeface is appropriate, the colors make sense, the layouts are well designed and it’s great to be able to grab information at varying levels of focus. When I say “feel good” I mean the paper literally feels good at my fingertips, and when I flip through the pages I actually want to preserve its structural integrity. When I say “smell good” I literally mean you can tell the paper selection was a priority – that smell helps give the magazine an identity.
Based on all of the above, I could almost make the claim that picking a magazine is like picking a partner. It’s very important that she have something to say and be able to keep my interest when she opens her mouth, but if she looks good, feels good, and smells good, then I’ve got the whole package. Some may call that greedy or ambitious, but I just call it knowing what you want.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and already love that you read this.
Cheers!
Edison
Some magazines that helped inspired this – Monocle, Antenna, Surfer’s Journal, Wired, Saveur, The Economist, Esquire, & The Standerd.
Their path is not your path
December 17th, 2008When you’re growing up, trying to figure out the next step in your life, the easiest and most logical strategy is to look at what other people did when they were in the same situation. The fact of the matter is, that’s not always the best idea. Along the way that can create a lot of false expectations. When you come upon a point in your life when plans seem to mysteriously deviate, it’s easy then to get down on yourself and wonder why things didn’t work out like they did for everybody else. The reality is that their path was not necessarily made for you, and that’s okay.
Traveling is the analogy that makes most sense here. If I’m traveling from California to Florida, logic would tell me that the only way to go is by plane, but the reality is, that’s not true. I can drive, ride a bus, take a train, bike, walk, run, take a cruise, hitchhike, or make it a million other ways. All those means of getting to the end destination of Florida of course have their pros and cons. But the fact still is that there’s a countless amount of ways to reach the desired destination.
The same rules apply to getting to a certain point in your life or attaining certain goals. Yes, most people would fly to Florida because that was the best way for them, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the best way for you. Don’t think of moments in life as failures when they don’t follow suit with everybody else’s plans, but rather as deviations in the path that gave you the opportunity to learn something that everybody else didn’t get to learn themselves. In the end, if your path was the same as everybody else’s you’ve got no story to tell.
Finally, since I’m talking about life paths, I couldn’t finish this off without mentioning Robert Frost and his famous ‘The Road Not Taken.’ Cliché? Definitely. But I’m okay with that.
