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help

intensity

Aug 6th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
5 comments

I can be intense. Too intense for some people, I think. I’m trying to work on this and figure out how to control it more.

Twice this week people I don’t communicate with very often have commented on how fast I respond to emails. A friend mentioned that she had forgotten while I was out of town how quickly one email turns into ten when I’m around. It’s true. I write fast. I think fast. I know what I want before it’s asked for. Everything I do is on overload and it’s this way constantly until i turn it off. Then it buzzes around in the back of my head as I block it out with TV, food, sleep, or the constant refreshing of internet pages that don’t update fast enough.

Sometimes, a big enough distraction (sensuality, art, passion, etc) comes along and focuses my attention for a time. This is when I really start to feel how intense I can be. My mind is still working at the same speed, but instead of jumping around from thing to thing inside and waiting for other people to catch up, it’s almost entirely focused. It feels good — REALLY GOOD — but it certainly takes some getting used to.

With the right intoxicants and in the right situations, my mind can slow down enough to allow me to enjoy several things at once and take in an entire situation in the same way that I see most people doing most of the time. It’s not that I don’t enjoy what I’m doing or the conversations I’m having when in my normal state, because I do. It’s just that my mind works through things quickly by default and it requires a lot of energy to slow it down. Like a good meal, I can still enjoy life when taken in small, fast bites, but it doesn’t taste the same as it does when I chew slowly and savor each bite.

So, I need to work on focusing more of my attention and intensity inwards. This will help me to decrease my expectations from others and will lead me to be less disappointed on a regular basis. It’ll also help me get a more constant feel for how intense I can be.

At the same time, I need to cherish those people who enjoy my intensity and allow myself to be wrapped tightly with them until they’ve had enough. I need to learn to encourage people to let me know when want the intensity and also to tell me when enough is enough before it becomes too much.

I also need to explore more methods for slowing myself down and focusing myself. I need to seek out more distractions: projects to channel energy into, people to share myself with, art to get lost in, sensuality to center myself with. I need to find people I trust to get into situations I am comfortable with to allow myself more opportunities to enjoy life under the slight influence of intoxicants. And finally, I need to find methods of slowing myself down and focusing internally so that I am able to control myself when I do not have friends to help, distractions to focus me, or chemicals to free me.

It’s a long road. This is the first step. If you can help, I’ll happily accept it.

motivation and commitment

Jun 12th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
8 comments

Part of me wants to think that I’m just lazy. But if I really look at it I start to see that really, I lack motivation and commitment. I realized this after reading a post from a friend having a similar problem.

Look at yesterday. I got up at 6:30. I got caught up online, did a little work, wrote, edited a photo, and got myself ready by 9am. I walked to breakfast then walked to work. I was there by 10 and worked until 7pm taking only 45 minutes for lunch. After work I drove to dinner. Then I took some photographs of the city, drove around a bit, and ended up at the hotel by 10pm. I went to bed reading at 11:30 and spent the time in between online. While I could certainly stand to cut back on my time online, it’s not like I’m even a little bit lazy. I do plenty of stuff. I just lack the motivation to do the things I know I should do that also tend to be time consuming or require some form of commitment.

At least for the first year or so, my goal is to take photographs of Celeste every month on or near her month birthday. For a photographer one quick and easy photoshoot at home should be no problem but, somehow, I keep putting it off. Two weeks from now she’ll be 6 months old and I still haven’t even come up with an idea for her 5 month photos. I did take her 3 month and 4 month photos but I still haven’t printed them or mailed them to anyone. The only reason they are edited is because my mother-in-law forced me to do it while they were here. Something so simple and rewarding shouldn’t be difficult to convince myself to do.

Look at all the abandoned photography projects or photo adventures. With the projects, I just keep saying I’m working on them. For the photo adventures, I always have a good excuse. I can find the time and I certainly have the energy. It must be motivation that keeps me from doing these things.

I think I actually have the opposite of motivation: anti-motivation. Maybe you could even call it inertia. I think it is fueled, in part, by a fear of commitment. These larger projects have so many aspects to them. They require planning and dedication. There are people who expect them and are waiting patiently for them. There is something in my head that clicks in all the wrong directions and pushes back on these things. I think I’m afraid of letting myself or others down so much, that I don’t even bother to get started. Give me a series of small tasks to perform today and I’m fine. Give me a larger task to accomplish over a period of time, and somehow, it never gets done.

I have great time management skills. And I’m more than capable of managing very large projects with intricate time lines and rushed due dates. I do this all day every day at my day job. But, when I get home, some how that all shuts off.

At work, the reward for accomplishing large projects on time is obvious: a paycheck and the promise of more work. However, at home, it’s harder to find motivation to make these personal commitments. Most of the people I know undertake projects that benefit themselves and possibly their immediate family. Going beyond that is rare. This isn’t a complaint at all. It’s just the way it is. But the projects I undertake are generally intended to impact more than just myself. I think that maybe the reason I find it so hard to commit to this work is because the rewards are not nearly as obvious.

So I’m looking for help. Someone to share a project with or someone with a goal of their own so we can keep each other in check. Someone offering a reward (silly or serious) for the completion of a project. Or someone to monitor and praise my progress during a project.

Here’s what I’m working on: Skins editing, summer camping trip, celeste monthly photos, wet/water shoot with model, website redesign and migration, sensual anonymity (more models and more photos), rural night photography, clean studio shots of random objects (hi tech catalog type work).

sleping alone

help: portable bus-powered USB hard drives

Mar 28th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
8 comments

The last time I looked into Portable USB hard drives, in the end, I simply gave up. I ended up purchasing a 160GB Acomdata drive unknowning what a nightmare connecting it to two USB ports would be. This particular drive requires either an external power connection, or two USB ports to be occupied in order to supply it enough power to operate. The fact that my (old, terrible, crappy) work laptop only has two USB ports, means it’s basically unusable.

At that time, Justin clued me in to bus-powered USB drives that are capable of working when only occupying one USB port. However, he also warned me that they were a bit expensive and can be problematic and unreliable because USB power isn’t always reliable. I poked around here and there, and the prices were enough to scare me away, let alone the worry that, when I needed it most, it wouldn’t work.

So I dropped it.

Until yesterday.

Sheridan pointed out that bus-powered drives are affordable and work well enough that his employer relies on them in heavy use by multiple developers. A couple of links later and I had several very affordable, seemingly reliable options for moderate capacity, portable, USB powered hard drives that didn’t occupy more than one USB port.

But there is a catch. First of all, it has to be a USB 2.0 port. Secondly, if it’s a port from a non-powered hub, if your USB cable is too long, or isn’t up to the standards required, it may not work at all, or may only work for small files and fail on larger files or during extended use. Finally, even if your USB hub is powered, if it isn’t built and operating in a certain fashion, it may still fail. On top of that, not all laptops are created equal. Some laptops don’t supply the right amount of power the right way so even using one of the built-in USB ports and the USB cable supplied with the drive, you can end up with a drive that just can’t get enough power.

So I’ve got two questions for you.

1) Do any of you use bus-powered USB drives? If so, do you have any problems with them? Are you using the cables supplied with them? Do you use them with a laptop or a desktop?

2) Does anyone have any use for a 160GB portable USB drive that requires two USB ports to operate? It even comes with a special cable that connects to two ports on your computer and leads into one port on the drive.

help: portable, internet capable devices

Mar 26th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
23 comments

Long story short, my day-job is locking down our company laptops leaving me with no computer for personal use when on business trips. Not really eager to carry two laptops on a business trip and already having one laptop in the family,  I’m not really considering buying another full-blown laptop. However, I am potentially in the market for a small, portable, Internet capable device or an alternative. Here are my options.

Nokia N800. This ultra portable device can be had for $220. It has built in WIFI, Bluetooth, and webcam. It has a touch screen and an onscreen keyboard and is also compatible with a bluetooth keyboard which can be had for about $50. It has upgradable SD Card storage and features two slots to make using only one of them as removable storage a breeze. There is a huge user community and lots of available applications as well. Plus, it’s linux based, so it’s a hackers dream come true. Assuming the audio on it is decent, it could also potentialy replace my iPod and maybe even let me trade my smartphone (currently a Blackberry) in for a tetherable dumbphone. To be fair, however, I’m going to need a few SD Cards for storage. 8GB SDHC cards run $40 right now.

Nokia N810. Very similar to the N800, this device includes a slide-out keyboard, a GPS receiver, and 2GB of internal flash ram. On the down side, the webcam is in a fixed position, it looses one of the card slots, and only accepts MicroSD. Additionally, the keyboard is very small and would be difficult to use for any real typing. I already have a Bluetooth GPS receiver if I need that functionality. And, at $400, it’s almost double the price of the N800.

Asus EeePC. On the surface, this appears to have a similar feature set to the N800 and N810. However, unlike the handheld, pocket-sized N800, this device is quite clearly a laptop, although a very small one. It has a larger screen (though the same resolution), a faster processor, a full (though small) keyboard, and a built in wired ethernet port. It looses the touchscreen in trade for a touchpad and also loses bluetooth connectivity. With a more laptop-like stance, this device comes with more offline style applications and the processing power to handle running them. Like the N810, I can pick one up for $400, if I’m willing to go with Pink.

Linux bootable flash drive and my work laptop. I would have to have a fairly large card and a VERY paired down Linux distribution. Storing data on the laptop’s hard-drive is not an option due to part of the lock down. Additionally, a full-blown portable hard-drive is not an option because it takes up both of my USB ports and is far more wires than I’d care to deal with. The plus side is that this would be fairly inexpensive. At average prices, I can probably find a 16GB card and small card reader for $80-140. The downside is that I’d have to roll my own when it comes to fine tuning the Linux installation. My work laptop is a bit lacking in features so this would mean I’d have to find PCMCIA wireless drivers, and the bootable flashdrive would take up one of my two available USB ports.

iTouch.  For $300, an 8GB version of the iTouch can be had. This has the apple seal of approval, which all of the apple kids say is a good thing. I’m not too familiar with anything other than my iPod which I find acceptable but not exceptionally so. While there are very few 3rd party applications available, Apple’s recent release of the SDK means there is likely to be many more on the way. With what little time I’ve spent with the iPhone I can say that the user-experience is quite simple, intuitive, and fluid.  I have no doubt that the applications that come with the phone will be easy to use and perform as expected, if not better. The touch-screen keyboard isn’t the easiest thing to use from the get-go, but iPhone users say you get used to it pretty quickly. I lose the Bluetooth connectivity offered by the N800 which means that a fullish-sized keyboard is not possible and neither is a mobile, tethered network connection. Additionally, I lose the ability to expand my available memory or swap out my storage by using SD Cards. To counteract this, a 32GB iTouch can be purchased, but the price goes up another $200. While this is the “coolest” option, it is also most likely the least flexible, least future proof, and most expensive option of the bunch.

So, what are your thoughts? Is there an option I left off? Which of these makes the most sense?

Make Your Wish

Dec 19th, 2007
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

I believe this is a beautiful idea during this gimme-gimme holiday season.

1) Make a post in your blog/journal containing your 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from something cheap and simple, to a your very own country. Include a method of contacting you if it isn’t already well know.

2) Look around amongst your friends and the blogs and journals that you read and see if there are any wishes you can afford to grant. If there is, and it’s in your heart to do so, then give. If you have the ability to “tag” in whatever you use to blog, you may considering using the tag “makeyourwish” so others can find your list more easily.

There are no rules, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you’ll have the joy of knowing you made someone’s holiday special.

My list:

1. original art by YOU and other LIVING art
2. photographs and drawings of animals for the baby’s room
3. human subjects for photography projects
4. A Nikon D300
5. a hiking/camping partner
6. peace within and without
7. large, empty-ish, enclosed spaces for photography projects (warehouses, barns, garages, photo studios, etc)
8. mostly natural land to use for photography projects (fields, pastures, woods, etc)
9. secrets
10. a device to allow for nearly instantaneous transportation (see any number of sci-fi series for reference design, i.e. Star Trek, Star Gate, etc)

email: jim at revjim dot net

I need some spare muscles

Oct 6th, 2007
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

If you’re not doing anything tomorrow around noon-ish I could really use a hand picking up a piece of furniture at a place near my house and bringing it home. It’s not all that heavy, just a bit too awkward for me to lift alone and Jess is a bit too pregnant to help.

Thanks in advance!

send them all to me!

Sep 27th, 2007
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

I have a new phone email address. Well, no. I have a new way of getting email to my phone and I’ve now altered the old address to use the new method.

If you’d like to help me test it, that’d be great. Just locate or create a recording of yourself making lewd sounds or statements. Or, instead, find or take a suggestive photo of yourself that you’d just die if your family ever saw them. Then email those items to the following address:

danielNOSPACEHEREphone@inklog.net

You will, of course, need to remove the part that says “NOSPACEHERE”.

Thanks in advance.

Good advice

Sep 25th, 2007
by Jim Reverend.
1 comment

Thanks to those of you who chimed in to my call for opinions regarding our moving situation. (Actually, most of the responses are on the LiveJournal version of that entry, if you’d like to read the discussion yourself.) And, if you haven’t yet, your opinion is still considered valuable so, please, let me know what you think. At least until I make up my mind. Then just keep it to yourself, cause if you start changing my mind I’ll be pissed.

To sum it up for you, the discussion brought forth the following very good points:

  1. If we don’t move into this house and yet we still move to NY, given the time table of buying a house there, our only option will be to get an apartment until after the baby is born. Short version of the math: it will take 9 weeks to get to NY, find a new house and close on it, putting us at moving in just 3 weeks before the baby is due, which just isn’t going to happen.
  2. Logically, staying in Dallas makes the most sense.
  3. Emotionally, getting to Syracuse as soon as possible makes the most sense.
  4. Jess and I really dislike the location, commute time, layout, size (both too small and too big), and neighborhood of our current house, yet moving somewhere else in Texas prior to having the baby is not an option. Moving to this house in NY makes all of that go away.
  5. We just sank money into buying carpet we don’t even want which we will, logically, be stuck with for 3 years or so if we stay here.
  6. Karma/Fate/Destiny/Meant-to-be-ness seems to be steering us toward staying. (This was mentioned twice in comments, and once to me in bed last night by Jess).
  7. As *BIG* as moving and location stuff is, it really is all superficial in the grand scheme of things. My wife, my new baby girl, my family, my friends and our happiness is what matters most.
  8. Boobies make it all better… at least temporarily.

At this point, I think the best moment of clarity came with Nic’s comment, which said:

My take is this, you wanted to move to Syracuse because a couple of things fell into place to make it possible. Those things have all flipped since then, leaving you with pretty much only the desire to move. The problem is, the means to move seem to be slipping away.

So, why not take your foot off the sinking ship now. There are way too many gambles and what-ifs, and with your special circumstances, you really should be thinking about security right now. A while down the road, where things are less chaotic and you have the time/means to make a safe move, you should go for it. I would just hate to see you guys gamble and lose, especially at this critical time in your lives.

So that’s where it all sits now.

Here’s what I’m leaning towards. Call the powers that be and find out if staying is still an option (since I’ve already officially indicated that we’d still like to go). If it is, then wait out the current housing situation until 2 weeks after our rough closing date — which would be 10/15. At that point, if there’s no house, then we just stay here. Meanwhile, go about our lives as though we are staying. Start getting the house ready for a baby, making changes we’ve been putting off, etc. If staying is no longer an option, or isn’t an option I can drag out until 10/15, then just move into an apartment in NY and consider that “done” until March or April of next year.

Thoughts?

House News; Old Fashioned Internet Poll

Sep 24th, 2007
by Jim Reverend.
1 comment

I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing any more.

Jess and I were worried sick that our house would never sell. Especially after hearing that some friends of ours with a similarly priced house in a different neighborhood have had more visits than they can count in the past month and yet Jess and I have not even had one in 2 weeks. So, we worked it all out and decided our best option would be to rent the house at a loss and that that would make much more sense than selling it at a loss. This way, we don’t have to compete with the foreclosures and, potentially, will lose less money.

We no more than decide that one day when our lawyer in New York has some bad news the next (i.e. today). It seems that the seller’s lawyer is being slow. Hence the reason it’s taken so long to even get this information. However, now that we have it it seems that there is an uncleared lien on the property that is over 10 years old. It is from the owner of the house before the current owner. Logic would indicate that the current owner couldn’t buy it without that lien being cleared, so, more than likely, there really isn’t a lien on the house. But, in order to find out, Chase bank, the holder of the lien, has to dig through their records to find out. To make matters worse, our Lawyer’s assistant has indicated that working with Chase on this type of thing is generally very slow. Further more, since these records are over 10 years old, they may potentially be paper records in a box that someone has to track down.

So, this could take weeks — maybe months. So, Jess and I have a few options.

  1. Sit around and wait with our thumbs up our asses until someone tells us the house is ready to close on. This could be 2 weeks, 2 months, or 2 years.
  2. Wait until the proposed closing date of 10/1 and then submit a “Time is of the Essence” statement and wait out the 2-weeks required there and then start the house hunt all over again if we haven’t closed by then.
  3. Withdraw our offer, eat the earnest money, and start looking for another house now.
  4. Just say “Fuck It” and stay in Texas.

Also of note is that, any of the “look for a house” options actually entail moving to an apartment in New York and then looking for a house from that apartment while keeping our belongings in storage. There’s really no other way to manage it at this point.

As Joel suggested on Sunday, everything is best decided by a good old fashion Internet poll. And I think I agree. But I’m too damn lazy to figure out how to do a poll that will span the 5 or 6 different outlets this information might show up on, so we’ll do this the old fashioned way: just comment with your choice. Choose any of the above options or feel free to submit one of your own. Feel free to elaborate on your choice or let it stand alone. Bribes and suggestive banter will earn your vote extra weight in the final tally.

Game on!

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