Weekend and Weekbeginning

Gotta keep those 'writing juices' flowing, so I gotta keep blogging. For some more quality, thought-out reading, we've always got well cooked contect over at spunkybean, but if you like randomness and A.D.D., this is your place.

ADMIRING: My friends and their work. I have two friends who keep blogs devoted to their hobby of photography. The first, Darrin Wassom, who's taken nearly 4 decades to turn his unique observations on the world into art, quickly turned his hobby into a small business. Make sure you click around his site and through to his blog, and then to his flickr account. I enjoy Darrin's photography for the same reason I enjoy Darrin's friendship - he will say or observe the thing you least expect. I wish I would have noted where I got this reference, but I think of Darrin as one of my toy-ship friends. A toy-ship person is a person who could sit and watch toy ships float on a pond or in a fountain for hours and enjoy every minute. He'd enjoy the randomness of their movements, the pride of the ship owners, the interactions between the children, their parents, and everyone sailing these ships. While you would see only ships floating on a pond, Darrin sees ships on the sea battling currents and waves, he's sees a son and his father forging bonds that will last lifetimes, and he sees perfection in Chaos Theory and Archetypal Patterns. Now he owns a camera and he can share what he sees with the rest of us.

The second is a business colleague and friend who simply added photography to his already lengthy list of amazing hobbies. He carves and builds woodwind instruments, he practices Transcendental Meditation, he built an amazing home in concert with a spectacular natural setting, he writes poetry (I'm pretty sure he does), and most recently he began capturing the world he lives in and the world he sees by way of his Nikon camera. I get many emails to my inbox advising me of the latest business trends, the best ways to build wealth, or a task I need to complete immediately, but none are more welcomed than Michael's weekly collection of photos that put it all in perspective. The world is beautiful - enjoy it. Take a moment and click around Ananda Soup ...at the very least I'll bet the images here are better than most of the views outside our office windows.

BRAGGING: My daughter is fast! Period. My wife spent Sunday monitoring a women's 10K and then told me to bring the family out to Kensington Parks for a Kids Fun Run. I've always thought my li'l 4-year-old was fast, but this was beyond my expectations. The other 5, 7, and even 9-year-olds had their work cut out for them to keep up with my recently-turned-5-year-old. Better yet ...she loves running and is proud of herself and how fast she is. My 3-year-old son impressed me by running the entire mile without stopping and also doing the pushups, the boxing, and punch-cards. Isn't there some race across the desert of Saudi Arabia? I'm entering my daughter in that.

Ya know, I like to be 'funny' (I try, at least), but sometimes I'm just not in the mood. Don't worry. Check back tomorrow. I'm sure I'll have something crass or slightly clever to share. For now, just remember ...the world is beautiful.