Dear Photograph

I love this concept by Dear Photograph. Some of these will surely bring a tear to your eye...

Dear Photograph,
Her love was my chemo. I beat cancer.
Eric Richter

Dear Photograph,
Thank you for everything we had.
@jonathanstampf

How Cool is This?

While I don't particularly want to own this Egg-Bot myself, I do want to get it for my graphic design sister so that I can put her to work making me things with it. It's an intro to robotics type of machine that lets you map out a design and then draw it onto a (mostly) spherical object like an egg, ping pong ball, or Christmas ornament.

Can you imagine the fun you could have with this?

Pictures from Egg-Bot site, www.egg-bot.com.

A Honeymoon for the Birds

Our original honeymoon was to be in Japan, but then the tsunami interfered with our plans. We went ahead with our trip to South Korea, but I told Nathan very firmly that a trip spent with my in-laws (much as I love them) and sleeping on someone's futon did not count as a honeymoon.

But he was befuddled at what would actually count as a "real" honeymoon. We (or rather, he, since I wouldn't mind it a bit) don't do the lie around on a beach type trips, so if not one of what is typically thought of as a honeymoon trip, then what kind of trip lives up to the status of a honeymoon? Never one to miss an opportunity to look like I know what I'm talking about, I suggested that we go to Belize and stay in a treehouse.

Ariau Amazon Towers, Amazon Rainforest

Not a particularly serious idea at the time, as the thought floated around in my mind for the last couple of months, I have begun to REALLY want to do it now. And it doesn't really need to be in Belize. I'm not picky when it comes to my treehouse stay; I'll stay in Nairobi or Papua New Guinea or even in India.

Ngong House in Nairobi, Kenya

I'm definitely leaning toward this place, Parrot Nest Lodge in San Ignacio, Cayo in Belize. It seems the nicest of the affordable options. I'm not sure that I need to stay right in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest if it means spending $1500 a night, even if it is the trip of a lifetime. And not only does the location of this treehouse look amazing for site-seeing, but the parrots who nest above the treehouse eat all the mosquitoes! Talk about full service.

Parrot Nest Lodge in San Ignacio, Cayo

Picture 1 from Aria Towers website, www.ariautowers.com

Picture 2 from Ngong House website, www.ngonghouse.com/homepage.php 

Picture 3 from Parrot Nest Lodge website, www.parrot-nest.com

run with the hunted

my doom smiles at me 

there’s no other way:
8 or ten poems a
night.
in the sink
behind me are dishes
that haven’t been
washed in 2
weeks.
the sheets need
changing
and the bed is
unmade.
half the lights are
burned-out here.
it gets darker
and darker
(I have replacement
bulbs but can’t get them
out of their cardboard
wrapper.) Despite my
dirty shorts in the
bathtub
and the rest of my dirty
laundry on the
bedroom floor,
they haven’t
come for me yet
with their badges and their rules and their
numb ears. oh, them
and their caprice!
like the fox
I run with the hunted and
if I’m not the happiest
man on earth I’m surely the
luckiest man
alive.

by Charles Bukowski, from the book The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain.

 I love this eloquent description of the feeling that you have so much to do before your time runs out, but still feeling so full of happiness and luck. 

The poet wrote this as he fought the cancer that eventually took his life. Bukowski wrote masses of poetry over the course of his life, and many reviewers say the best of his work came during this time.

art: Woodcut of Fox from AllPosters.com