Dogs Rule

Sweet Girl and Her Bag, originally uploaded by jasonham.

Saw this sweet girl helping her special needs child on a recent trip last week @ SEATAC. She has been doing it for 10 years.

Submarine Pillow, originally uploaded by jasonham.

Pinto chilling in the studio.

Power of Venn

In the process of thinking about the Power of Venn^{(ideation by Zeroin)} constructs I have been thinking about advice and motivation. I am frequently asked for advice and (I think) almost as frequently I ask for advice.

I have a belief of that advice is "packaging the past and selling it to the future", which is something that I came up with after internalizing and repackaging the adage from that old Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) tune

Below are 2 interesting forms of advice I found useful for inspiration and motivation

From the Jazz great Wynton Marsalis

1. THINK BIG, BUT DON'T BE IMPATIENT. Deferring the rewards of long-term success is difficult but necessary if you are going to have the mental fortitude to achieve them.
2. BE PERFECT IN INTENTION; YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT IN EXECUTION. Mistakes, by you and your staff, will happen.
3. YOU CAN ONLY DO THE BEST THAT YOU CAN DO.Keep your goals high, but don't set yourself up for failure. Be patient.
4. DON'T APOLOGIZE FOR A MISTAKE. APOLOGIZE IF YOU DON'T PLAY. Knowing that effort is what matters gives people the courage to always try their hardest.
5. STAY INSIDE YOURSELF; WHEN YOU DO, YOU'LL TAKE A RISK-BUT YOU'LL MAKE AN INTELLIGENT DECISION. Know your strengths and weaknesses.
6. BELIEF IN OTHER PEOPLE'S CREATIVITY ALLOWS PEOPLE AROUND YOU TO BE THEMSELVES AND ACHIEVE THEIR INDIVIDUALITY. If your staff members have the freedom to achieve as individuals, the returns will be manifold.
7. APPROACH YOUR TASK VERY SERIOUSLY-BUT WITH HUMOR. Discipline should never come at the expense of closing one's self to new ideas, and vice versa.
8. SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO MAKE TOUGH DECISIONS, AND MANY TIMES THEY ARE UGLY. It's best to be very direct.
9. IT ISN'T MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY. Learn to compromise and be flexible.
10. WHEN YOU'RE A LEADER, SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW, TOO. Good leaders know they don't have a monopoly on brilliant ideas. Be objective and willing to follow Insights you may have missed.
11. HUMILITY INSPIRES PEOPLE; ORGANIZATION INSPIRES A STAFF. Always try to give your staff clear plans and goals, but allow them room for self-empowerment.
12. RESPECT THE FREEDOM OF OTHER PEOPLE AND THEIR CREATIVITY. JAZZ MUSIC TEACHES THAT ABOVE ALL ELSE. Giving your staff the freedom to improvise opens the floodgates on innovation.
13. YOU CAN'T LOOK AT ANY PERSON AND TELL WHETHER THEY CAN PLAY. ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE CAN PLAY. Some of the best talent can be found in the most unexpected places.
14. THERE IS A LIMIT TO WHAT YOU CAN DEMAND FROM SOMEBODY ELSE. Nothing erodes the spirit like a boss who can never be pleased.
15. BE FUNDAMENTALLY TRUTHFUL. Without truth, your success will unravel.

Just keep doing it by Ira Glass

Look Out You Rock n Rollas

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself - Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade - through May 16th 2010 @ Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

DFWinter

Snow-days in DFW... an ensemble....

Given time there is always something that "Bubba" will do to amaze me. The truck ran over a telephone pole and was upended by the remaining wires attached to the adjacent pole.

Bubba & the snow, originally uploaded by jasonham.

Jackson Pollack alive and well under the bridge in Trinity Park.

Jackson Pollock Inspiration, originally uploaded by jasonham.

Some light snow accumulation on Twain in Trinity Park.

Some light reading, originally uploaded by jasonham.

The beginning of the day and the storm.

Serenity now, originally uploaded by jasonham.

Geared up and ready to go with Pinto.

Ridin' deep, originally uploaded by jasonham.

You might be a redneck if you have a coke machine on the front porch.

Coke & a smile, originally uploaded by jasonham.

Frolicking in the backyard...

Fetching Snowballs, originally uploaded by jasonham.

Buff in the Fluffy Stuff, originally uploaded by jasonham.

Ciao

Green Chimneys

Tammy and I are suckers for Bruce Weber's Moncler campaign. I don't think I'd buy a 1K+ down jacket for Texas but the ads are cool + they support a great cause Green Chimneys

"At the outset, Mr. Stoppini wanted to include Mr. Weber in the campaign, and not simply have him behind the camera. Mr. Weber, naturally, was skeptical about being a subject. “I said, ‘No way!’ ” he recalled with his bearish laugh. But then Mr. Stoppini proposed a donation by Moncler to one of Mr. Weber’s favorite charities, and the photographer agreed to do a self-portrait. (According to Mr. Stoppini, Moncler will donate 100,000 euros, or about $140,000, to Green Chimneys, which provides animal-assisted therapy to young people.)"

Buttoned Up

Graffiti ⋂ Sewing = Public Embroidery

Eno Experimentation

Is that duplicative...?

Not this cold but feels like it last few days. Picture courtesty of a old team member who scaled Mt Rainier around 10 years ago. Cant imagine actually being there

A stark short ~1 & 1/2 minute experimental track as corresponding soundscape using:

• Guitar Rig tape loops effects through keyboard
• Kore 2 for ambient sounds and dub keyboards
• Heavy and purposefully dirty non quantized isolated Maschine beats
• Mixed down in Pro Tools pushing the drums to the front of the mix

Inspired by Eno and the dirty snow

EnoTrippin by 5321Studio

Log and Roll

Cool space designed by Piet Hein Eek for Hans Liberg for secluded space to make music

From Keys of Grey

Inventor of Ambient

Great article on Eno in the Guardian (from Beyond the Beyond)

On the end of an era

"I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn't last, and now it's running out. I don't particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you'd be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history's moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it."

Bird's Breakfast

Bird's Breakfast, originally uploaded by jasonham.

Flock of what we believe are Double-crested Cormorants have been flying into the cove diving for minnows attracting the gulls. We fed the birds this morning attracting gulls in their pseudo-symbiotic relationship with each other

Stark White

Winter Wonderland in Texas on Christmas Eve. More on Flickr. Stark White Gallery and their blog located in New Zealand.

Better On A Stick

Now thats some hot chocolate. Leave it to the Dutch to mix food on a stick with cool design. Bravo.

Sky Blue Sky

Yesterday I was in serious holiday mode, puttering around, playing piano, guitar, surfing (web), and staring at the tube. Into the Wild came on and after re-watching a few minutes of it I realized I needed to be outside enjoying the 67 degree weather on Nov 23rd. Pinto and I headed for the upper deck of the dock and watched the birds flying over.

Sky Blue Sky, originally uploaded by jasonham.

I snapped this great photo and posted it to Flickr while listening to a playlist, while the birds caught the warm breeze from the south drafting above the cove (yea...so its my own version of the wild...there's an app for that)

One of the sub-themes of the movie, where he cant get far enough away to stop seeing jets fly overhead, made me me aware of the flight pattern to the north east corner of the skyline from DFW airport. I fly a lot but only once have I knowingly flown that pattern on the way to Seattle. It was pretty cool looking down on your own house.


View Larger Map

It made me look for the Eddie Vedder track below in my collection



I have also noticed lately that a lot of folks who have chosen a very unique path, Chris McCandless Alexander Supertramp, Wes Anderson, and Spike Jonze, were born in that '68-'69 timeframe.

To finalize this "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events", (Vedder, Wild, Surfing, Interesting people), lets cap it off it with someone who share the great last name of Hamilton ;-). Another great Iconoclasts from the Sundance Channel



"I've found the best way to take advantage of what a day offers is if you just really let it unfold, let the day dictate it" - Laird Hamilton

"I look forward to what I haven't seen yet..."

Ciao

Hut Hut

Are You Ready For Some Football?



Fall is in the air and Pint's ready to play



Hut Hut...Spotted Pattern Double Zero....HUT!



Can you say spoiled? Dont Buy Adopt

Dog Days Of Summer

Summer is nearing its end....


...And while the lake was low this year Pinto had fun while it lasted.


"I Get Around...Round Round...I Get Around"

Running The Numbers

If this doesn't make you recycle unclear what it would take

Examples of consumption and disposable nature of consumption depicted via photos and art

One such example is "Cell Phones, 2007" which depicts 426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day.

Check out the Toilet House while you are there

Make Something Cool Every Day

Cool Pics For Your Smartphone

A Rorschach Collective

Spacial madness in layout, orthoganal or related links, Gyson & Burroughs mets new media... In their own words...

"We visit art galleries, listen to conferences, cover art and design events, take a lot of pictures, interview creative people, and we document these findings in order to share them with you"

Good for a Sunday cruising + love the title We Make Money Not Art

A Day In The Life

I Just Had to Laugh, I Saw the Photograph...

This image just struck me. It personifies the admiration, love, and memories that must be swirling through Sir Paul's head at that particular moment.


Art lives forever.

I have been on a pretty strong Beatles and overall nostalgia kick this summer brought on by reading an 800 + book The Beatles A Biography by Bob Spitz which I just polished off a week or so ago.

Lessons Learned

Paul was more creative than given credit for next to Lennon post the early Lennon-McCartney joints and also craved the spotlight and fame

John exemplifies the fact that personal and emotional turmoil makes for great art.

George was the original cynical hippie

Ringo was well...Ringo

Throughout the reading its prompted me to see how much "my house was in order" wrt to old stuff, Beatles, Wings, Solos, and The Stones in my near terabyte collection. Not bad but could shore up some early George and Wings... Expect that to show up in some upcoming streams.

Because the Wind is High...It Blows My Mind

For Those About To Rock

...We Salute You

Bark For Barack

(Click Photo For Larger Image)

As Pinto points his way to the White House, I've been thinking about some of the smart political moves and the ability of Baracks team to a) mastermind them & b) completely adjust when things go wrong.

The strategy of making McCain compete for Evangelicals, splitting up the group in subsections by age demographics comes to mind. This forces McCain to compete head on and spend money/energy/time in place that his campaign was hoping to get as much for free based on the republican logo. It forces McCain to delve into a place where he has a personally awkward and tenuous relationship (see last election), while simultaneous recognizing the voting bloc is more than crusty ol' folks (math matters), and tackles the religion BS thrown at Barack in a directly relational but indirect way (translation he doesn't have to answer the Muslim = Terrorist nonsense that unfortunately worked so well in places like West Virginia).

This combination of smarts, energy, and adaptability make a persuasive argument for the folks that will presumably surround the next President of the United States (hopefully), which is nearly as equally important as having the right leader in the position. Smart people want smarter people around them. The recent Rolling Stone articles with Barack on the cover (again) suggest a well oiled machine that focuses on the right strategy and message without trying to be rock stars in their own right.

I was also struck by the uncanny nature of Barack to answer questions in a political way (some truth, with a message (or staying within to maintain constituency) , with a pinch of bullshite thrown in. My BS meter still fires when he tries to "slip stuff by" but its not of the same visceral nature from over the last 8 years of ineptitude. Politics and leanings of one party aside, only the diehards think that Bush has done a "heck of a job".

Lets just pray Barack isn't like a puppy that the American Public has buyer remorse and puts it up for adoption (we all know what that really means).

Rescue Don't Buy Animals

T-Shirt courtesy of Ruff Ruff And Meow

Grand Ol' Hamilton Lust

Grand Ol' Hamilton Lust over the H391 Series

"You may say that I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one"

Hot Rod

Thomas Klementsson is one Sweden´s most prominent photographers. His work is everywhere but I stumbled onto his site from the Concretes site with the French Bulldog in Burberry . More can be found @ CameraLink