text:
I did it. I was crafty this weekend for THE first time in months!
I haven't even touched my sewing machine since early December. Not cool, people! I have really missed it. I've seriously needed a creative outlet, and I've just had nothing to really do that with.
Because it's messy. Sewing isn't a neat little simple task. Depending on what you make, it can produce quite the mess. And since our dining room table doubles as my sewing table, it's not as easy as just going in and sewing my little ol' heart out. I wish it was!
I have visions of a neatly organized sewing room, pretty much a blank canvas except for the pops of color contributed by my openly-stored fabrics, and a chair that I dream of finding and recovering, someday.
*le sigh
I've told McStudly that I want a "craft room" in our next house. Wherever we go from here. Because it even bugs him that I'm just chugging along on the dining room table while he's trying to watch TV or something.
Have I mentioned that this house is NO longer conducive with our needs? 'Cause it's not. Our poor not-so-little pup has absolutely nowhere to exhaust himself. I have 1 place to do any form of craft, and it's right in the middle of everything (literally in the dining room, which is in the great room, between the kitchen and living room - and Austin can reach things left on the table).
We have to go all the way downstairs every time the poor dog needs to pee, and then stand there and wait for him to finish sniffing around and decide he's bored in our little 8x10 expanse of mud and stone, back there (and the only thing down by the basement door to keep us company while we wait is the washer and dryer... not exactly a good time).
Our bedroom is large and awesome, but the 1 full bathroom is very inconvenient, letmejustSAY! The spare bedroom (aka: 'spar-oom', aka: 'Austin's room') does quadruple duty as an office, game room, guest bedroom, and storage room. It also happens to be where all of my crafty stuff is stored until I need to use it, and then lug it all downstairs to the dining room table (typically making at least 5 trips, if not more, just to get what I need).
If you can't already tell, the thing that is most lacking in this lil' ol' townhome of ours is storage space. It's awful! We get as creative as we can, but there's no room for much of anything, really. Even our very basic and small living room furniture seems too big in the space, sometimes.
Especially if you ask the pup.
Those couches just get in the way when he's in the mood to buck around like a bronco with a toy in his mouth... giving us a heart attack when said toy goes flying in the direction of the television. AWEsome.
And don't even get me STARTed on the whole neighbor situation!
Sorry! I didn't realize that this post was going to turn into a rant about our current living situation. And to be honest, I really am grateful (ugh - foot. in. mouth.).
It was our first purchase, ya know.
We have learned SO much about what is important and what isn't when house shopping. We've learned what's easily fixable, what to overlook, and what we will absolutely NOT accept as our responsibility in our next home purchase. It's been a great experience.
We've also had a great time making this house our own. I love doing projects and such, even though Studly doesn't exactly feel the same (he doesn't mind it, just doesn't dream it up like I do, either... it's one of the many ways that we balance each other out). Our next (and final, really) big project is the kitchen. We saved it because we knew it'd be the most expensive, and probably the most time consuming.
And we also plan to get out of debt before even beginning. We want to save up the money and get it done. We want to get out of the habit of using credit and loans to do these kinds of things (I could do an entire post on our financial goals, alone, but I'll spare you for now), but we've got great ideas, that's for sure.
So now that I've filled the urge to do something crafty, this weekend, my mind is a-turning with loads of ideas. I'm hoping to blog about quite a few of them, but it'll all depend on when time allows me to finally sit down and get started.
And as for this past weekend's project, I plan to post pics, but they'll have to wait until after the birthday girl opens her gift. **fingers crossed that it'lls fit... :-D
Anywho, that's it for today. As usual, there's lots I'd love to share with you, but little time to do so.
Someday, friends. And hopefully that someday will come soon.
Toodles! :-)
Monday, March 28, 2011
Scratch That Itch
I did it. I was crafty this weekend for THE first time in months!
Labels: crafts, home sweet home, plans, sewing
Posted by - Sarah :-) at 3:32 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
I think it happens yearly, to be honest. I'm not quite sure why, but it seems that as soon as the sun start shining through the chill in the air, and days get a little longer, and I don't have to wear my big ol' coat to work everyday...
I get antsy.
There's no rhyme or reason for it. And I don't really know what it is that finally snaps me out of it, but what I DO know is that it happens. And it's happenING. Right now.
I just get restless. I dread work even more than normal (which is saying something). I start dreaming up all of these grand ideas. I start thinking about a lot of "what ifs" and about how different things could be.
I start to dream bigger.
It's almost like my eyes are opened to this rut that I've been stuck in all. winter. long. It's both freeing and frustrating, all at once.
Am I the only one?
With everything that's we've got going on right now (I promise I will fill you in eventually... be patient, friends), I think it's making this year's case of ants-in-my-pants even worse than usual.
Who knows.
But seriously - does anyone else struggle with this? Is anyone else dreaming even bigger these days? Are there any suggestions? Any recommendations for a good cure?
I'm going CRAZY, here!!
Labels: cabin fever, craziness, Dreams, ideas, plans, spring fever
Posted by - Sarah :-) at 3:27 PM 2 comments
Monday, March 14, 2011
Why I Love Goodwill
It's no secret that I'm a big fan of the local Goodwill... and by "local", I mean the 2, soon to be 3 stores closest to me.
PS: Who decided it'd be a good idea to put one within 2 minutes of my house? I thank you, dearly... but "thrilled" isn't exactly the word I'd use to describe McStudly's reaction to the news.
Now, Momma Bear and I don't play when it comes to Goodwill shopping. We are serious about our bargain shopping. Most of the people at our local stores know us by name (especially, Momma's). And we don't shy away from haggling attempts.
Example: I found a dozen of these mini Ikea mirrors at the store closest to Mom & Dad's house.
They wanted $3 a piece for these MALMA mirrors (regularly $2.99, direct from Ikea). Bump that ruckus! I told them I'd give them $1 a piece, and they agreed! Holla!! I haven't even used all of them, yet, but you'd better believe that all 12 of them came home with me. 1/2 are currently hanging in formation above our love seat, and the other are stacked away, just waiting for a purpose and/or to be refurbished into something more creative. ;)
So now fast-forward to this past weekend. We got some Panera for lunch (Yummm!), and then headed over to the Goodwill nearby. They had some great stuff!
For example, one great item that didn't make it home with me was this baby:
Brand new. In the box. And for how much? Only a whopping $69.99, baby. And that was BEFORE any haggling. Oh yeah... and did I mention that it could do this:
Oh yes. Yes it can. And if I had a place to put a coffee table, it would've been MINE! But, Studly insisted we didn't need one, nor have space for one. And as much as I argued that one day we WOULD need one, spending money on something you DON'T need, no matter how good of a deal, is a waste of money. And that's one of the biggest things to learn when thrift-shopping. *sigh
But there were a few things that did make it home with me from that store. And item was this awesome piece that I can't find a picture of. Oddly enough, as soon as I saw it, I remembered seeing it in an older pottery barn ad, not even that long ago!! But it's no longer listed on their site. Ugh!! Nor does it's picture exist anywhere on the internet by how I'd described it in google (not exactly rocket science, but not the easiest task, either). So the closest thing that I could find to the piece was this:
But here's how it differs - mine is a more clean-lined modern style than this more traditional version. Instead of the horizontal bar being rounded, mine is straight. And rather than the 5 vertical bars, mine has three - one of each length: small, medium, long. Also, none of the bars on my pieced are round, either, but flattened pieces instead, and the vertical bars literally hang on the horizontal bar.
Wow. That's super confusing. But I promise to try and post a picture when/if I hang it in this house. (Have I mentioned before that's it's UBER hard to muster up any desire to decorate a home that you know you won't be living in forever? Yeesh. Not easy at ALL!)
But my proudest purchase of the day came in the form of another brand new target furnishing, still in the box. Here she is:
At first look, I thought for sure that this beautiful cardboard box included 2 of these babies. But upon further review, I discovered that the box, although it said "set of 2", also said "60 of 120 pieces". If you do the math, which I did... that means only 1 of the "set of 2" was included in the box. No biggie. I wafted back and forth about whether or not to purchase the gorge brown leather parsons chair, and decided to go for it.
Now, this is where it pays to be observant. It was originally marked as $69.99. Which is still cheap, mind you, for a brown leather parsons chair. But examining the packaging uncovered a target discount sticker STILL stuck to the box. and it was marked $45.99. Woot! When Goodwill accidentally misses these babies, they have to honor the lowest posted price. Yeah, baby!! BUT they also saw me sweat. And this part is key. I "wafted" right in front of them. Which brings me to another important lesson in Goodwill shopping. Not only is haggling super important, and keeping things in perspective essential, but don't be afraid to let them see you sweat... even the small stuff. It wasn't an act. Believe me (I've done that, too...).
I was up near the register while deciding whether or not I was going to purchase the lone chair-nger, and after pointing out the beautiful red target-sale-price sticker, the fabulous lady at the register walked it back to the manager. When she returned, I really expected her to just give me the shiny sticker price, but Nnnooooo... she took out that GLORIOUS black Sharpie marker and crossed through the hand-written $69.99 on the box and wrote "$34.99".
*insert Hallelujah chorus*
I got that beautiful baby for $34.99. And you know what that means? Even if I purchased a matching chair at FULL price (which is SO not going to happen... for the record...), That would bring the brown leather parsons chair pair total to a whopping $170, and thus break down to only $85 a chair.
Eat that full priced box stores!! I mean you can't find that good of a price ANYWHERE, for parsons chairs. It was beautiful!! And even with the lone chair-nger, my dining room table will already look updated. And if I decide not to stick it in there (that'swhatshesaid), then it'd still look absolutely gorge in front of a desk or something to that effect.
Have I mentioned that I love Goodwill?
And the day almost got EVEN better after stopping at another local Goodwill store. I found 4 boxes... 4 BOXES, people!! ... of this beautiful hardwood flooring. REAL hardwood. And it was the absolutely gorgeous Antique Walnut color. Each unopened box included over 24 sq ft of flooring, and guess how much they wanted for them?
Oh forget it... you'll never guess...
A whopping $10.00 a BOX! Only $40 for over 96 sq ft of GORGEOUS Antique Walnut real hardwood flooring.
I scurried home toot sweet and measured, only to discover that I needed twice that much to do our kitchen, entry hallway, and half bath, which all share the same flooring and all need to be replaced. We even tried to find a way to just purchase the remaining amount needed, but they stopped selling that color. UGH! Do you know how CHEAP that is, people?! Less than $.42 a sq foot.
Helloo Goodwill. Goodwill... Das a nice name. Can I getcho numba? Can I?! Can I havit?!?! Can I have yo numba?!
Sorry... got carried away.
Along with the above-mentioned items, I also walked away with a cutesy green t-shirt that I was oddly drawn to, an absolutely aDORable little girl's leather jacket (for sweet baby Abby, of course!) and a coordinating pair of jeans, a brand-stinking-new pair of fabulous black dress shoes (with minuscule heels. wootwoot!), a super-cute full length summer dress (you know... that fun springy style you wear with flip-flops?), a few wrap-around headbands, and a couple of other things that I'm totally blanking on, but still loving, if for no other reason than their cheapness. :-)
Anywho - this is just ONE Saturday, and only 2 of our local Goodwill locations full of reasons why I love the place.
So what about you guys... got any favorite thrifty places? Any thrift store finds that you looove to brag about? Come on... spill. We're all friends, here. ;-)
Labels: Goodwill, gorgeous, love, Momma Bear, thrifting
Posted by - Sarah :-) at 4:06 PM 6 comments
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Today, I Hate Stairs.
McStudly and I decided that it was way past time for us to get healthy again. We're lazy. We eat like crap. And we've each gotten a little bit rounder, to prove it.
Not to mention that we want to feel healthier. That's the main thing for us, really. To not feel like "bleh" all the time. You know that feeling, right? Well. We know it all too well, my friend.
So Studly got this genius idea a little over a month ago to order P90X and give it a shot. I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea, especially after hearing about how intense it is (the "X" does stand for "Extreme," people!), but I figured I'd go along with it. I honestly didn't think it would happen, since that is the pattern for us... but alas... it did.
Monday evening was my first crack at this exercise regimen.
It SUCKS!!
I didn't even finish. I got through the first 30 minutes (5 of which are just warm-ups!), and was just done. I mean... I knew I was out of shape, but I felt like an IDIOT!
I don't do well with workout routines. I do fabulously with running (but only when it's not freaking cold outside... can't do it), and even run every other day... without fail. But when it comes to working out along with a DVD, that'd be a negative.
Now, I did workout to a pilates DVD a while back. And LOVED it! Not only did I see results after the fist week, but it is the kind of workout where you don't really feel much while you're doing it, necessarily, but then the next day... when you're unsuspecting and go full-force to sit up in bed - HOLLLYY mamaa!!!! You feel it.
And I seriously was able to SEE results, not just feel them, but actually SEE them (and other people, too) when I did it.
Now... back to this P90X mess. It's not for me. I know I only tried the 1st day. And though I'm typically a stubborn mule when it comes to things (ask anyone... they'll tell ya), I just don't see a point.
I don't want to be ripped.
I don't want an eight-pack.
I don't want guns (the muscle kind, people... focus). :-P
I don't want to look like a man (no offense, body builders... it's just not for everyone).
I don't want to be able to lift heavy boxes easily. What fun is that?!
But here's what else I don't want:
I don't want to be out of breath after walking up stairs... even slowly.
I don't want to choose clothing based on how NOT tight it is around my midsection (which may be unavoidable, due to the hiatal hernia I have, which causes food-babies after almost every meal).
I don't want to dread bathing suit shopping (this may be wishful thinking, I know).
I don't want to wait until hubby gets home to open some jars.
And most importantly...
I don't want to jiggle!
I mean... who does, right?!
But alas... I agreed last night, with Studly, that I would give it a week, IF he promised not to give me a hard time if I still chose not to continue. He kept trying to convince me that yesterday's workout wasn't as hard and that even HE wasn't able to finish the first workout, but felt much more encouraged after Day 2.
Bleh. FINE!
So here's my thought on workout routines.
It's all about what works best for you.
Now, that goes without saying that it can't be a cop-out. Saying "it only works best for me to walk once a week" is lame. Well... unless your goal is purely to maintain circulation. In which case - go for it, girlfriend. But if your goal is to improve your health, then find a routine that works for you... WITHIN reason.
In order to improve health, you have to retrain your body. And taking a walk once a week won't accomplish that.
You know how, when you go to the doctor, they ask if you workout? This is because doing some sort of regular workout is good for your OVERALL HEALTH! Not just to be skinny. Not just to wear fun workout clothes. But to keep your body doing what it's supposed to do... you need to maintain it, just like you would your home.
I'm not the best at maintaining my home, but it isn't a pigsty, either. And I'm sure you know that if you NEVER vacuumed, and NEVER washed the dishes, or did the laundry... your house would start to resemble an episode of Hoarders.
Who wants that (beyond the typical neighborhood hoarder, I mean)?!
In the same way, you have to take care of your body. It can't do it's job properly if you don't do yours.
**steps off soapbox**
So what was I saying? Ah yes. P90X sucks. For me, at least. I will try to finish out the week, as I promised Studly I would... but I won't like it! Sike. I really will try. But I will not rule out returning to my running/pilates routine if it's not my jig.
And Studly promised he'd be okay with that, too.
For those of you scoffing at my idea of pilates as a workout - try it first, and then we'll talk. McStudly seriously used to always mock me. He thought it was a joke (he also thinks that the elliptical machine is "only for fat people", but I gave him 'the look' and told him that he needs to keep his mouth shut until he actually uses one, because it IS, in fact, a SERIOUS cardio/leg-toning workout!)... but then he had to take a pilates class for PT one week, when he arrived to late for the ultimate frisbee (or whatever sorry excuse the Air Force had for PT that day)... And the next day? He was HURTING!! He said it was WAY more intense than he thought it'd be and he has not even ONCE again said anything negative about it.
One of the things I love about pilates is that on top of toning your muscles (not bulking, toning) and making you feel amazing afterwards... you also stay flexible. And there aren't a lot of workouts that successfully do both. I literally feel like I've lost range of motion with just my .5 of a P90X workout this week.
Stairs and I? We're not currently friends.
But to summarize - I don't want to overheat again, and feel like a failure when I work out. I want to be encouraged and feel GOOD. I want to look forward to my next workout, not dread it and look for any sliver of an excuse not to accomplish it.
Anywho... that's that.
I suck at P90X, and I'm okay with that.
So what are you all doing to be healthier these days?
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
What's Next
I mentioned before that there's a lot going on in the Puhl house. A lot of what, you may ask?
A whole lot of waiting. And praying. And wondering. And begging for direction. And guidance. And... just... something...
There's still a lot of waiting to be had, but I wanted to share with you a part of the talk that Studly and I had this weekend.
sidenote: Isn't it just so refreshing sometimes to connect with your spouse on a whole new level? Or maybe not as "new" as just... it's been a while. We have had a great time together the past week or two, and I feel like we're both growing so much through all of this. But individually and together, as a couple. It's just like a breath of fresh air.
Anywho - back to what I wanted to share with you. But in order to tell you that, I need to share with you a story, first. There are many versions, but here's the basic idea:
An older woman, known for her faith, is in her home when she hears an emergency notification on the radio. An obviously concerned news person alerts everyone in the small valley-town that the local river's dam is in danger of breaking any minute and all should flee to higher grown immediately. Not a moment passes after the old woman's prayer to God is finished and there's a knock on her front door.
A younger neighbor, one who regularly assists the elderly woman with yard work and basic house maintenance, tells her that she needs to grab her purse and nothing else and get in the truck with their family. They are heading up the mountain to higher ground to wait out the coming flood.
"No, you go ahead. My Lord will save me."
He pleads with her for a few moments, before realizing that it's useless, and reluctantly leaves, driving his family to the safety of the higher ground.
Sure enough, not 20 minutes later the water is rising around her home. It begins seeping in under the doors, and eventually the windows, as well... so the elderly woman heads upstairs, praying for rescue still, in order to stay dry.
Upon reaching her bedroom and closing the door behind her, she opens a window to the sounds of an approaching speed boat. A fireman calls out to the woman, "Climb into the boat! We'll take you to safety. The waters are rising fast. We have to hurry!"
"No, no," she says stubbornly. "My Savior will rescue me. You go save the others!" Slightly annoyed, yet extremely concerned, the fireman insists that she climb into the boat, but she closes the window and turns away. The fireman drives on, saying a prayer for the woman as he leaves.
As the water begins to slowly trickle into her room, she pulls down the attic steps, climbs up, and then climbs through the low window out onto the roof of her house. Once she settles into a spot near the peak of the roof, she closes her eyes and begins humming and singing the hold hymns that she sang growing up. Songs of God's incredible faithfulness and abounding love. Songs of his provision and salvation.
From a distance the sounds of a helicopter grew louder and louder, until the wind created by the beating blades could be felt on the old woman's face. A rope ladder is thrown down from the open side door, and a voice shouts over a speaker, "Ma'am! Grab onto the ladder, we will pull you up!"
"Leave me here! My Jesus will rescue me!"
"But, ma'am, we just came from the river and the rain up north is causing even more flooding than we expected... you must come quick!"
"No. I will be fine! My Lord will not forsake me!"
Defeated, the pilot orders the ladder pulled up and turns the helicopter away.
Sure enough, the waters continue to rise, and the woman is ultimately swept away by the raging waters. Unable to keep herself afloat, within moments she finds herself standing in front of Jesus.
"My Lord!! My Lord, I waited for You! I thought surely You would hear my cries and save me from this flood... why didn't You come for me?"
With more love than anyone could imagine, and without the even the smallest amount of frustration or annoyance, he looked her in the eye and said, "My child, I sent you an urgent warning, a neighbor's car, a fireman's boat, and ultimately a helicopter. I did not forsake you. I would never leave you, nor forsake you."
Whew. Pardon me while I wipe the tears away... that story gets me choked up even just thinking about it. I mean, don't get me wrong - there's a whole comedic aspect to it, too. But just thinking about God's faithfulness, even in the midst of our stubborn ignorance... it's just amazing to me, the God that we serve.
Our decision to believe in him means nothing in the concept of his existence. And with that comes his grace - he is not an angry God, casting out punishments, and sentences for our actions, but rather a loving God that allows us to make the decisions we choose, even knowing that it would end in our hurt and ultimately his heartache. All of the anger and wrath and disappointment he had for us died on the cross, and now we are left with nothing but forgiveness and his amazing mercy and grace beyond anything we're capable of comprehending in this life.
That's how much he loves us!
Sorry. I know I got off topic, but that story is just such an amazing reminder of his faithfulness, to me.
So... back to what I originally planned to share with you -
There are a lot of possibilities swirling around the Puhl house. And we're really eager to jump at one of them... for a lot of reasons, but don't want to force it. We really truly want to be where God wants us. We want his will to be done in our lives and want that so much.
We believe that he puts desires in our heart for a reason, but we also know that at times we are the ones burning those desires, ourselves.
Basically, we're feeling stuck in this place of wanting to push for it, but not wanting to force it, either. We want to put forth all energy and effort that we can to make it happen, but at the same time we don't want to MAKE it happen, ya know? We're praying about it. Praying that God's will be made clear to us, but we know that sometimes we need to learn patience in these situations.
But we also don't want to sit back and do nothing, expecting God to literally force it on us, either. He won't do that. Sure, he can... but I don't believe that he would... not in this situation. SO we also struggle with not wanting to be like the old woman in the story above, where we insist, to a fault, that God will intervene, when that could be exactly what he's doing right now.
Either way, we're in a holding pattern. We'd appreciate any prayers you'd be willing to give for us, at this time. Prayers for patience, and peace in the situation. Prayers for God's will and his direction in the decision-making process. Prayers for sanity and strength through it all.
And I'll update you as I can. I promise.
But that's it for now... just a little tidbit of what we've been dealing with. Trying not to over-think things, and trying even harder to remember that we are so very small compared to our larger-than-life God.
...And finding peace in knowing that.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
That Person
Have you ever worked with someone that just never seems quite that genuine? They have a smile on their face, but you can just tell that somethings not right?
Well, I do.
We've been understaffed for more than a year in our office. And when I say understaffed, I mean by several people EACH. For example, me and my coworker were each doing close to the FTE (full time equivalent) of 4 people.
Now THAT is insane.
But to be completely honest? I'd take that over this new girl that they finally hired, any day. Because we at least worked like a team and covered each other. Things got done. As impossible as it seemed each and every day, somehow we made it happen.
That's a true team, I tell ya. We didn't always agree, but it didn't stop us from obtaining that end goal. And now there's a kink in that team. A hole. A gap. A missing piece. And that is New girl.
Don't get me wrong. It's not that she can't do the work. And it's not that she isn't getting things done, either.
So what is it? I'll do my best to explain.
There are projects that we've been working on for over a year. Projects that, because she just joined us, she knows nothing about. And these aren't just simple little projects, but are very intricate and it's taken us a LONG time to set up the processes and build the relationships that we now have. Everything was moving along fabulously, and then she came along.
She started interjecting herself info parts of the projects that she had no business touching. She's taken on tasking that she is not only not qualified for, but has been told to step back off of. Yet somehow she involves herself and somehow convinces other key players that she is supposed to be there. This not only makes our organization look disorganized and poorly run, but it also makes me look pretty stupid when I go to take care of something that I've been working for some time, now, and she's already stepped in and tried to do it. The customer is confused. I look moronic. And she has me fumbling to come up with a reason for it all. And a reason for why the way that they were told to do things wasn't correct and they need to do it this way, instead.
She's causing confusion and making us look incompetent.
I'm not a mean person. I don't throw people under the bus. And I would absolutely not stand in front of a customer and say "Well, [New girl] may have overstepped her bounds by telling you that so prematurely, and not only is that not the case, but it's also not her call to make." Because I am a team player. I don't believe in stepping on other people to accomplish a task. It's not right, and it doesn't just make that person look bad… it tends to make YOU look like a giant jerk-wod and still somehow make them out to be the good person, possibly even the victim.
Homie don't play dat.
At least not this homie.
However, it's extremely stressful. I've been in my position for almost 3 years, and have maintained a Level 3 in my title that entire time. The only reason I haven't progressed is because there are only 3 positions above me, all with the same title, and just this past week was the first time any of those 3 people have left, and they replaced them with a girl that is not only fantastic (and I'm thrilled for her, in fact!) at what she does, but has been here the longest and absolutely deserves the promotion. I wasn't even eligible because I actually work for a company that was reached out to in an order to fill my position, and the main company won't allow "subs" to fill these top positions.
It's annoying, but I get it. That's just the way these things work around here. Not shock there, really.
But I've said all of that to say this: New girl is only a Level 2, and has only worked here in this environment and in this line of work for less than a year. Less than. So for her to come in and take over things, all personal annoyances aside, is just ridiculous. She's not qualified. She doesn't' have the experience. And she needs to just take a step off.
Am I crazy for thinking this way?
I'm not one of those territorial kind of people. Trust me. Not with this stuff. Ask any other person I work with. I am all about getting things done, and if that means other people doing it? Well, then by-golly that's what'll happen.
Nobody wins when you're only concerned about yourself. I've heard it said that "it's a lonely road to the top", and I have no interest in getting there.
But when you are going around to other people and making comments about me, and that you don't like how I do things, well then grow a pair and talk to me about it. But noo.
What does she do?
She sends these e-mails with our bosses CCd, and tells me in this anything-but-genuine way how I need to do things this certain way that she wants me to.
My response?
I reply to all. I say "we're doing things this way for a reason" in MUCH nicer wording, and throw in one of those "if I'm wrong about any of this, can you guys just let me know? I'll gladly change things up if this is the case." Because I have nothing to hide! I have a great relationship with our bosses. That's what happens when you learn people and you forge working relationships with them.
Being all sneaky and conniving just makes you look like a tool.
And where I would normally be okay with letting her make a fool of herself, with no help from me, and having her just walk around like said giganto-tool, she's messing up the relationships that we've built with the customers. And it's taken us years to get to this point.
So basically, I'm just tired of it. It's stressful at work all the time, these days. I'm constantly second-guessing myself because of it. And no one above me seems to notice the ridiculousness of it all (then again, they could possibly just not care, since I'm already doing enough damage control on my own to hopefully cover up all of her mistakes and over-eagerness).
And now I feel like I sound territorial and like I'm over-reacting.
It's just not a fun situation. I dread going to work, now, and honestly don't ever want to stay a full 8 hours. I've managed to make myself stick it out, but it's a fight almost every day.
So pray for me… For patience. For wisdom. For kindness towards her. For energy to make it through the day, with some energy to still clean and make dinner at night. For a little extra dose of love to hand out when I'm feeling particularly un-loving. And for the ability to not take out my frustrations with her on other coworkers or my husband.
I'm really trying to work on loving her. It's just SO hard when I feel like she seems so intent on ruining me and taking over everything I've worked so hard to build up.
It's so hard to work with people like that. Am I the only one?
Labels: growing pains, love, work
Posted by - Sarah :-) at 2:50 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
I know I said I'd post more info on all of the "stuff" that we had going on, but to be honest - I lost it. All of it. It's gone.
We (and by "we" I mean my amazing husband) transferred all necessary documents onto our newer computer to completely wipe our old one and re-image it to stat from scratch.. basically, it'd be like we never had the computer before... except that we did.
Anyways, this worked SWIMMINGLY and our awesome newer computer took all of the junk like a pro and didn't miss a beat. The old computer is now up and running with a completely different operating system and so far so good.
However, My blog drafts got lost in the shuffle, somehow. No clue how. Nothing else seemed to go missing... I'm thinking it may have been put in the "delete" folder by mistake and them WHAM! It is no more.
I do hope to get around to re-writing it, because some of it is not only interesting (if you ask me, anyways), but also could be pretty informative to some of you.
... and is it too presumptuous to think that maybe some of you missed me?!
We'll just pretend that it's not and you did. :-)
There's actually a lot of pretty cool stuff happening right now in our little family, but I'm just not comfortable putting it out there, just yet. I promise I will as soon as I can, though... and perhaps then I'll have more to blog about, since it's kind've absorbing most of my mental space, at the moment, and not leaving room for much else.
...until next time, lovies. :-D
Posted by - Sarah :-) at 2:44 PM 0 comments


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Immigration officials briefly detained the Palestinian director of an Oscar-nominated documentary on his way into Los Angeles for Sunday's Academy Awards.
Emad Burnat said that when he arrived at Los Angeles International Airport from Turkey with his wife and 8-year-old son late Tuesday, he was told he didn't have the proper proof that he was a nominee.
"I had many emails from the Academy Awards and the invitation in my iPhone, but they didn't pay attention to what I was saying," Burnat told NBC4 News.
U.S. & World
In a written statement, Burnat said he was detained for 40 minutes but in on-camera interviews, he doubled that to an hour and a half.
"They want me to give them more proof and more documents. I told them I had the visa, and I had the hotel reservation, and the flights, and everything," Burnat said. "They told me if you don't come up with the documents, we would send you back."
In a written statement released Wednesday, Burnant said he could "see his (son's) heart sink" at the possibility that the group would have to return to Turkey and forgo the awards ceremony.
Burnat had just been in the United States two weeks earlier doing interviews alongside his "5 Broken Cameras" co-director, Israeli activist Guy Davidi.
He and his family were ultimately allowed access into the country.
Several questions remain about Burnat's version of the events. He told others that he was not allowed to use his cellphone, but somehow managed to get a text out to fellow director Michael Moore.
In a statement, U.S. Customs officials said they cannot speak about specific cases but, in general, people are referred for further inspection if there are questions about their identity of their intent to travel.
Burnat said that though the questioning was "an unpleasant experience," checkpoints and travel barriers are common for Palestinians in the West Bank.
"5 Broken Cameras" features footage Burnat shot in his occupied West Bank village, from everyday activities with his family to protests and shootings.


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LR/PS - The Advantages of the DNG File Format
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[♪upbeat music♪] [ADOBE TV Presents] [♪♪] [The Complete Picture - with Julieanne Kost] Hi, and welcome. My name is Julieanne Kost. In today's episode of The Complete Picture, we're going to be talking about the advantages of the digital negative file format. Just to be clear, we're not going to be discussing whether or not you should shoot raw versus JPEG. I'm actually going to assume that you're already capturing raw files, and we're just going to talk a little bit about the advantage of using DNG, or the digital negative format, when you're working with the files as well as when you archive your files. So I want to start by asking you a question, and that question is, which of these are raw file formats? There's a lot of different file formats here, so can you tell me which are raw? Well, it's actually kind of a trick question because they are all raw file formats. So the term "raw file" is kind of loosely used in the photo industry today, and it kind of refers to just the file format that the digital camera captures and saves its data to. However, not all raw files are the same. So even though the Nikon shooters capture in raw and the Canon shooter captures in raw, those two file formats, the CRW and the NEF, are not the same. However, all the raw files do contain similar information. It's just that they're stored differently. So let's take a different example than a photographic example, and let's just assume that you and I both own four pairs of shoes and four pairs of pants and four shirts and four hats. You're going to store those in your closet, and I'm going to store mine in my closet. Now, how are you going to sort all of these clothes? Are you going to put the pants and shirt that go together, are you going to put them next to each other? And are you going to put your shoes on the floor, or are you going to put your shoes on the top shelf? And will you put your hats on the top shelf, or will you put your hats on the back of the door? And how will I sort mine? Am I going to put all my pants on the left side and the shirts on the right side? So you can see that even though we both have the same content, we can both store that content very, very differently. So now, to get back to the DNG file format-- and I'm sorry if there's any programmers watching this because this is totally, completely oversimplified, so I apologize in advance. But we're just going to imagine that this raw data on the left-hand side here, this is from Manufacturer A. And it doesn't matter who it's from, but you can see that it's got information like the file name and the date and then it's got the image orientation and the image width, which are TIFF properties, and then it's got some EXIF information and even some keywords down here and then some camera raw settings. It's even got a private maker note right here, which means really, if there's something that a camera manufacturer wants to encrypt that they don't want to share with anyone else, they can put it right there. Okay? So these are all things that can be stored inside a raw file. Now let's just take a look at another one. This would be raw data from Manufacturer B. All the same information is there--the private maker note is there, the camera raw settings are there, the EXIF data is there, the keywords are there--but they're just stored in a different order. So this becomes a problem if you think about it. I mean, it's not that difficult for a software company to read these files, but when you start supporting the number of cameras that Adobe does-- I think we're up to somewhere near 300 different camera manufacturer makes and models--what becomes very difficult is when you make a change to the file, how is it that we will know how to save back the information and put it in the proper place in all these different raw file formats? So you can see in this example here that we don't actually write back to proprietary raw file formats. Instead what we do is we create a secondary file called an XMP sidecar file. The XMP is just the file format. It's a standard file format. And the sidecar file is just kind of what we name it because it goes alongside the proprietary raw file format. So you can see here, for example, in the operating system, the CR2--that's Canon's raw file format--and there's the XMP file. Or over here we can see--this is actually in Bridge that we're viewing this, and what I've done is I've gone under the View menu and I've asked Bridge to show me the hidden files. So we can see the CR2 file right here plus the XMP file. Okay. So how is it that we can solve this issue so that we don't have to work with all these XMP sidecar files because they really do kind of complicate the workflow in that if I'm going to hand off my files to someone else, now I have to worry about these sidecar files. If the sidecar files get lost, then all my changes get lost. And this is when the DNG, the digital negative file format, comes into play. It's just a file format. What it does is it specifies exactly how a raw file should be written so that everyone knows what order to put things in, so they know where to put keywords, and they know where to put IPTC information like your copyright information or your contact information or your URL. They know where to put all of that. It is an openly documented and openly licensed file format. Adobe did make it, but we've promised to never license it or never charge a fee for it. In fact, we've even submitted it to the ISO Standards Body, and it's already supported in the industry by several dozen software manufacturers as well as camera manufacturers. And of course the big advantage to photographers here is that there's going to be an increased likelihood that you'll actually be able to open these files far into the future. So these are really the big advantages, but let's talk about some kind of secondary smaller advantages. First of all, a DNG file is typically going to be significantly smaller than the original raw file, anywhere from 15 to 50 percent smaller. They retain all of the original proprietary file format's information, so we don't throw anything away when you convert from raw to DNG. As new cameras come to the market, if you have a camera like a Leica that automatically captures in DNG, then it's instantly supported by the software industry because anyone who supports DNG could open those files as soon as that camera is available. There is potential with DNG that there could be several competing raw processors, and so as a photographer, that's fantastic because competition is always a good thing. It always leads to better technology. And if you're working in maybe education or in a studio that has multiple shooters with different cameras, it's really going to help simplify the workflow. Plus it's versionable technology. That just means that as we move forward-- for example, in Lightroom 3 you can now do the nondestructive lens correction-- all of that information can be stored into a DNG file format because we can update it with the technology so that it won't become obsolete. Okay. So how do we convert to DNG? There's a variety of different ways that we can do this because everybody's workflow is different. We're going to take a quick look at how you can do this with a DNG Converter with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, with Adobe Bridge and Adobe Photoshop. So I'm not actually going to launch all those applications and walk through them, but we'll be able to see enough with these screen shots. So the DNG Converter, this is a free converter. You can download it from Adobe.com You can either use this URL right here or just Google "Adobe DNG Converter" and you'll find it. There's the little icon for it, so it's an application. You double click on it, and it will launch the DNG Converter. It's very easy. You select the images that you want to convert, you tell it where you want to put the converted images-- if you want to rename them that's fine-- and then there are a few preferences, so let's actually look at those. If you click Change Preferences, you would get this secondary window where you can choose the Compatibility, JPEG Preview size, and whether or not you want to Embed the Original Raw File. I'm going to point this out just because some people are very conservative and so when they convert their images to DNG, they also want to embed the original raw file. Obviously, this is going to make your file size quite a bit larger. So I think if I was really conservative and I, for some reason, still wanted my original NEF files or CRW files, I think I would just archive those to a hard drive and then batch convert all of my other images to DNG and use the DNG files as my working files and then just kind of archive those. If something really bad happens, I would still be able to go back to my original proprietary file formats. There might be one other reason as well, and that is the camera manufacturers' software today does not support DNG. So if I did want to use the camera manufacturers' software, I would need to use those raw files; I couldn't use DNG. So that might be a reason to save it. But again, I would probably do it. I would split them out. So I would have my originals in one folder archived somewhere, and then I would have my DNG files, and I would not embed the original raw file because that would just make the file size twice as big, and I don't want that. Okay. So once I'm done with the Preferences-- and you actually don't even really need to go in here, you can just leave them alone because these are the defaults-- then you just click the Convert button and it brings up a little Conversion Status, and you just watch them convert or go get a cup of coffee, and when they're done, they're done. You've converted from proprietary raw file format to DNG. So that's using the free DNG Converter. Now, what if you're in Lightroom? In Lightroom I'll show you three quick ways that you can convert. The first way is on Import. So as you import your files, in the New Import Dialog box you can Copy as DNG, so that would be the first way. The second way would be after you've edited your files-- I don't convert on Import just because I don't want to spend the time converting on Import when I know I'm going to throw away a lot of files. So I actually go through my edit sequence. I import my files and I just leave them as the proprietary raw file format, I add my star ratings, I make all my changes, I go to the Develop Module, I throw away all the files that I don't want. And then when I'm finished, I convert to DNG underneath the Library menu, Convert Photos to DNG, and I get this Dialog box, and it just says Convert Only Raw files. Yes. I don't want to convert my JPEG files or anything. And then I just Delete originals after successful conversion because that way, I'm not spending the time up front to convert all the files that I'm just going to throw away, because I throw away a lot of files. Okay. All the other options are here, including that one to Embed Original Raw Files. So that would be if you want to convert after editing. And then the last one in Lightroom is on Export because maybe you want to keep your images in the proprietary raw file format but when you hand them off to someone else, that's when you want to hand them off as DNG files. So I wouldn't do this to the end client. Like, if someone bought some images of me, I'm not going to send them DNGs, I'm going to send them JPEG files. But if I was handing them off to a retoucher who wanted the highest quality and wanted to see all the things that I've already done-- maybe I've already made tonal adjustments and I've done some dust spot removal or something-- then I can send them the DNG file, which is going to be so much better than sending them the proprietary raw file plus that sidecar file because the sidecar file could get lost, and then they wouldn't see all the changes that I've made. Okay, so that's Lightroom. If you're using Bridge instead, you can download using the Adobe Camera Downloader. You can download your images from the camera, and you can see right here that you can Convert to DNG. If you've never used this, it's really easy. You just go under the Edit menu and you say Get Photos From Camera, or there's a little icon that you can just click in Bridge, and it will bring up this Dialog box where you can Convert to DNG. You'll notice that there's a little Settings option, and if you click on that, you get basically all the same settings that we've been looking at. All right? And that would be how you would do it. And then we can look at Adobe Camera Raw. So if you wanted to do this, this is kind of like analogous to after you've edited it, after you've edited your files in Lightroom. And the first one, obviously, when you're downloading the files would be equivalent to Lightroom when you Convert to DNG on the Import. So this would be after you were editing. So you've gone through and you've edited your files and you've made all your changes. You'll notice in the lower left there's an option to Save Images. And if you click on that, then what you get is this Dialog box where you tell it where to save the files and then you can choose a file format. So here's where you would choose the Digital Negative. And if we wanted to embed an original raw file, we could here too. It's not letting me at the moment because I'm starting with DNG files. It's kind of silly, so it grays that out. All right. And that's it. That would be using the DNG Converter using Lightroom, using Bridge, or using Bridge or Photoshop, the Adobe Camera Raw Dialog box, to convert your images. Well, excellent. I hope that answers all your questions about DNG and the digital negative file format. As you can see, it's important for me as a photographer because I want to make sure that I can still open the files that I take today and the photographs that I capture--I want to make sure that I can open those in 20 and 30 years. And I think the fact that the DNG or digital negative is an open standard and is accessible and is publicly documented is really going to help with that. Thanks for joining me. I'm Julieanne Kost. I hope you'll join me again next time on The Complete Picture. [♪upbeat music♪] [Executive Producer - Bob Donlon] [Producer - Karl Miller] [Director - Kush Amerasinghe] [Post Production - Erik Espera] [ADOBE® TV PRODUCTIONS] [♪♪]
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Posted by: adobetv on Oct 7, 2010
Discover the advantage of working with and archiving to the DNG raw file format over proprietary raw file formats as well as choose which tool to use to convert your files as you move through your workflow.
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McDonald's New Maple and Fruit Oatmeal
Earlier this week, McDonald's officially launched their oatmeal. Unlike the other breakfast items, the oats are available all day, further proving that oatmeal should be eaten at all times of the day. But not these. Nope.
The tub the Maple and Fruit Oatmeal ($2.29) comes in says "Undeniably Delicious Oatmeal" under the Golden Arches logo—not the case. Part of me was rooting for the McOats. More oatmeal for the world! But it's just so disturbingly sweet. McFlurry levels of sweet. I'd rather eat an Egg McMuffin any day of the week. And with a whoppin' 290 calories, which is pretty high considering there aren't even nuts involved, you might as well.*
Have you ever tried the Quaker instant oatmeal in the Fruit & Cream flavor series? Peaches and Cream, Bananas and Cream—they're especially popular among the fourth-grade-and-under demographic. This is that sweet. Make-your-teeth-hurt sweet. And it has the same artificial milk powder taste.
The little oat flecks have no discernible texture, swimming in a watery swamp when served. Like other instant oatmeal, they eventually thicken up after sitting out. While McDonald's gets points for mixing in the mini apple cubes, which stay impressively crispy and even fresh-tasting, you hardly taste anything over the straight-up sugar. And it's not mapley sugar, it's just sugar. The thing is sitting next to me right now and all I can smell is sugar.
Of the grab 'n' go oatmeals out there, Jamba Juice does it the best, hands down. The steel-cut oats are slow-cooked in soymilk and pop in your mouth. These are not those.
Stick with the Egg McMuffin.
* Egg McMuffins have approximately 300 calories.


text:
- Art Deco - Frederique Constant Watch Art Deco D (FDC-023)
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Apple Second Retail Store Opens This Saturday in Hong Kong
Apple's second retail store at Festival Walk opening this Saturday, see you all out there.
Source – Apple
Emily Soto Seminar & Workshop Tour 2012 Hong Kong Session @ PASM Workshop – 25 & 26 August 2012
[Excerpt from PASM Workshop]
Emily Soto is an up-and-coming international fashion, celebrity and lifestyle photographer based in southern California. Since beginning her career only two years ago, her work has been chosen by editors to grace covers of countless magazines on newsstands worldwide. In the process, she has gained tens of thousands of followers on Facebook and receives thousands of hits a week on her website.
Emily is handpicked by fashion editors to shoot their models and has experience working with the top model agencies and clients. She is sponsored by Mola lighting and last year received a "Best of Photography" award from Sigma.
Emily collaborates with creative directors to create one-of-a-kind photographs, whose look, feel and style sets them apart from everyone else. Soto also does her own editing so that from its inception, each photo is truly her creation. Emily cites Tim Walker as an inspiration for her whimsical, dream-like images. "I absolutely love what I do," Emily says. "To me, it just comes naturally, so I decided a couple of years ago to do what I love full time.
Emily will embark on a multi-country tour this summer and lead workshops across Asia that includes Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines & Malaysia.
PASM Workshop will be hosting Emily's Soto's Seminar and Workshop Tour 2012 in Hong Kong on 25 and 26 August 2012. Admissions is now open and will be on a first come first serve basis. Emily has now over 35,000 likes on her Facebook Page and her YouTube Video Channel just rocks.
Workshop: 25 & 26 August 2012, 10am to 4pm
Admission Fee: HK$2,350
First Day (25 August 2012)
The Overview
-How to put together a professional fashion photo shoot
-Overview of my experience and how I started in the industry
-How to become a fashion photographer
-How to plan a professional fashion photo shoot
-Planning concept
-Casting Models, Hair and Makeup Artists, and other creatives
-What is expected of you as a photographer
Hands on Interactive Fashion Shoot
-Start to finish hands on experience for attendees to create their own images through live fashion photo shoot
-Overview of my favorite lighting techniques
-Posing a model
Second Day (26 August 2012)
Post Processing & Lectures
-Start to finish of professionally editing an image using Lightroom and Photoshop
-Tips and techniques for added fashion flare
-How to make your images stand out against the crowd
-How to approach modeling agencies and magazines
-Favorite lighting techniques used
-The benefits of social networking
-Questions and Answers
What to bring:
First Day: something to write and a pen, DSLR camera with Portrait Lenses. In the range of 50mm to 135mm. Prime Lenses are Preferable but not required as a must.
Second Day: Laptop computer with CS4, 5, or 6, Mouse or a wacom table – Please bring your laptop charger as well.
To enroll, please deposit the correct amount for the workshop to the following bank account and email us the copy of the deposit slip via return email with subject stating "Payment for Emily Soto Workshop". Upon receiving your deposit, we will issue you a confirmation.
Bank: HSBC
Account Name: Million Scene Limited
Account No. : 015-374010-838
Should you have any queries, please email to firstname.lastname@example.com or call Victor at 3693 4044 / 6627 5277
The Workshop Facebook Event Page is up.
Emily Soto Fashion Photography Workshop from Purple Glass Studio on Vimeo.
Creative Asia Photography Awards 2012 – Entries Now Open
The Creative Asia Awards is revolutionary in its vision to evolve, include and educate its entrants. The Awards are open to photographers from all countries at all skill levels.
Entries are accepted online as digital images. The entries will be judged online in a pre-elimination round to determine the top 25 images in each of the 8 categories, and all images judged online will receive feedback from the judges.
These 200 finalist images will be judged live by our panel of experts during the Creative Asia Conference.
New for 2012 – a broader range of categories;
- Wedding Photojournalistic
- Illustrative/Abstract
- Landscape
- Wedding Open
- Commercial & Fashion
- Street & Travel
- Portrait Environmental
- Portrait Open
Andy Strachwsky's Asia Photography Tour 2012 @ PASM Workshop – 2-3 June 2012 – Special Discount for Readers
[Update: 17 May 2012] Special discount for PASM Workshop members, now for HK$1,980. Email to email@example.com to enroll.
It's finally here, Andy Strachwsky from unknownphotographer.net is finally bringing his new LIGHT workshop to Asia and PASM Workshop will be hosting the Hong Kong seminars and workshops. S$375 (HK$2,320) for early bird registration, definitely a bargain for a 2-day workshop. Check out the following video where Andy will tell you what this tour is all about.
Andy Strachwsky, a lighting specialist and a professional retoucher for many years taught photography, lighting and retouching workshops around the world including Colombia, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Ireland, Germany, England, Spain, Canada, Singapore, Honk Kong, Malaysia and the United States. He also did a workshop for a company called creativeLIVE which was transmitted LIVE globally over the Internet with thousands of viewers.
During the tour Andy Strachwsky will conduct a seminar intended for the beginning photographer. Professional lighting adviser and retoucher Andy Strachwsky from unknownphotographer.net will go over the basics that you need to take your photography to the next level. His simplistic, laid back and real approach to photography is a refreshing breath of air in this industry that is polluted with marketing. Andy will go over everything you truly need to be able to take the photographs you want. He will be talking gear, lighting, composition and how to further yourself in the industry. If you are just starting out and you feel like you don't know where to go, join us for this one of a kind photography seminar!
He will also conduct different levels of photographic and post-processing workshops. Begins by understanding the dynamics of light, explore complicated multi light scenarios using a variety of modifiers. Andy will also cover the topics of color and light, as well as balancing different temperature lights. The whole workshop will feature a high fashion workflow with a heavy lean towards posing and communication with models and pre-visualization as well as a complete understanding of the physics of light with special participations of Fashion Photographer Richard Chen, Beauty & Glamour Photographer Borj Meneses and Stylist Don Cristobal.
SINGAPORE | PHOTOGRAPHY SEMINAR – Date: MAY 26, 2012
SINGAPORE | ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTOGRAPHY LIGHTING & RETOUCHING – Date: MAY 27, 2012
HONG KONG | INTERMEDIATE TO ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY LIGHTING & RETOUCHING Featuring Don Cristobal – Date: JUNE 02 to 03, 2012
PHILIPPINES | PHOTOGRAPHY SEMINAR Featuring Richard Chen & Borj Meneses – Date: JUNE 08, 2012
PHILIPPINES | INTERMEDIATE TO ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY LIGHTING & RETOUCHING Featuring Don Cristobal – Batch 1: June 09, 2012 / Batch 2 :June 10, 2012
MALAYSIA | PHOTOGRAPHY SEMINAR – Date: JUNE 16, 2012
MALAYSIA | ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTOGRAPHY LIGHTING & RETOUCHING – Date: MAY 27, 2012
To sign up and know more about the detailed Itineraries please chose the country you wish to enroll at the following link, http://purpleglassstudio.com/portfolio/andy-strachwskys-light-workshop-tour-2012/.
Langham Short Film Competition – Winner Gets to Go To Sundance Screenings
Was at the Langham Place Short Films Screenings last night and they showcased three feature shorts, namely, the Club, the Spa and the Room and the most interesting part of it is that all three short films were shot with the iPhone. Check out the making of videos here and have a taste of what's it all about.
The other highlight of the evening was when Sean Seah, Vice President – E-Business, Loyalty and Partner Marketing of Langham, announced the Langham Short Film Competition where the winner of the competition will be flown to London, stay at the awesome Langham London, be able to attend an exclusive networking breakfast with the heavy weights of Sundance Institute and other filmmakers, attend Sundance screenings and if lucky, have access to other Sundance panel events as well. So all budding filmmakers and videographers, this is definitely a competition that you want to look into.
More information on the competition and the three short films mentioned earlier after the jump…..
iPhoneography Exhibit – Hong Kong Instayay – Tonight, 14 March 2012
Yet another art event tonight apart from ArtWalk, this iphoneography exhibit is scheduled tonight at V13 Vodka Bar on Old Bailey in Sheung Wan. Drop by if you have time to check it out or if you are participating in ArtWalk, this is just around the neighbourhood.
ArtWalk Hong Kong 2012 is Tonight, 14 March 2012
This is it, the long anticipated event of the year is here.
Now entering its 12th successful year, Hong Kong ArtWalk is Hong Kong's biggest charity art event; a great one-night experience showcasing a range of visual arts in a variety of Hong Kong's art galleries in the SOHO, Wan Chai, Sheung Wan, Central, Aberdeen and Happy Valley areas of Hong Kong Island.
Artwalk is simple: 66 galleries will open their doors between 5 pm to 12 midnight on Wednesday, 14 March 2012. ArtWalk tickets are on sale from early March from one of the ticket-selling galleries and you will receive a comprehensive ArtWalk brochure, map and entry badge allowing entry at any of the galleries on ArtWalk night. You can then take any route in any order to visit (or re-visit) galleries and can sip free wine, beer and mineral water in all the participating galleries – and enjoy 'finger food' provided by our generous sponsoring restaurants.
The ArtWalk benefiting charity for 2012 is, as last year, the Society for Community Organization (SoCO) – last year, a donation of HK$400,000 was raised from tickets sold from ArtWalk and donated to SoCO. Since the first ArtWalk began in 2001 over HK$5 million has been donated to Hong Kong charities.
The volunteers helping 'man the doors' on ArtWalk night are fine arts students from the Academy of Visual Arts of Hong Kong Baptist University and the Fine Arts Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong – in return, ArtWalk also makes a donation to fund their yearly graduation shows.
ArtWalk Extra features additional displays of art that you can also see while walking from gallery to gallery: photography, small-scale installation and artists' performances. SoCO will also introduce their social action & policy work to the public and ArtWalk participants in a one-week exhibition.
For more information and ticketing information, head to ArtWalk's website.
Source – ArtWalk, Mediamrare
Liberatum Hong Kong International Festival of Culture – 27 to 29 April 2012
Founder and Artistic Director: Pablo Ganguli
Creative Director and Co-founder: Rosey Chan
Participants include Pharrell Williams, Khalil Fong (方大同), Thomas Heatherwick, Philip Treacy, Marianne Faithfull, Daniel Wu(吴彦祖), William Orbit, Nobel Laureate Sir VS Naipaul, Neil LaBute, Paul Schrader, Terence Koh (許漢威), Mike Figgis, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble and many others.
Liberatum Hong Kong will bring together international cultural icons, creative leaders and acclaimed artistic minds to Hong Kong to connect them with their counterparts in Asia through an original and captivating programme.
After the great success of Liberatum festivals in different parts of the world including Istancool in Istanbul, Liberatum's founder and artistic director Pablo Ganguli and Liberatum co-founder and creative director for Hong Kong and Mainland China, Rosey Chan (陳小莉) will bring leading artistic personalities from the world over to Hong Kong, with a programme aimed at captivating and opening global minds. Some of the participants confirmed to attend include legendary singer Marianne Faithfull, Grammy Award winning producer, musician and designer, Pharrell Williams, renowned American screenwriter and filmmaker Paul Schrader, innovator and visionary architect Thomas Heatherwick, Nobel prize winning author Sir VS Naipaul, photographer Wing Shya (夏永康), singer Khalil Fong (方大同), fashion icon and hat designer Philip Treacy, Grammy Award winning record producer and musician William Orbit, composer and pianist Rosey Chan, Chinese-Canadian artist Terence Koh (許漢威), actor Daniel Wu (吴彦祖), American film director and playwright Neil LaBute and Academy Award nominated director Mike Figgisamong many others. In addition to the festival programme, Liberatum will present "Just Tell the Truth" short films made by Mike Figgis featuring David Lynch, Marina Abramovic, Jonas Mekas, Paul Auster, John Berger, Sir Peter Blake and Siri Hustvedt. Liberatum will also present a special showcase of legendary photographer' Guy Bourdin's work.
Liberatum Hong Kong promises to be a mesmerising festival of art, design, fashion, literature, film, music and ideas. Building on the achievements of the previous global festivals, our vision is to produce an awe-inspiring three-day cultural convention, featuring a diverse and stimulating programme, and further raising the profile of Hong Kong as a forward-thinking world city. Liberatum HK will enhance the reputation of Hong Kong as a great cultural city and pay tribute to Hong Kong's cultural heritage. It will present an ambitious and original programme, which will aim to place Hong Kong firmly at the centre of the international cultural scene in 2012.
Hong Kong continues to evolve and an event such as Liberatum Hong Kong 2012 will serve to nurture the city's cultural identity locally and on the world stage.
Full programme after the jump…..
Apple Red Friday Sale – Today – 6 January 2012
This is it, Apple Red Friday Sale, hop over to this link to check it out, http://store.apple.com/hk/browse/lunar_new_year/red_friday. The following are some of the hot items at a not so much surprise discounted price –
- iPad 2 starting from HK$3,888 reduced to starting from HK$3,578, savings of HK$310 to HK$410 for different models
- MacBook Air starting from HK$7,688 reduced to starting from HK$6,918, savings of HK$770 for all models
- iMac starting from HK$9,188 reduced to starting from HK$8,418, savings of HK$770 for all models
Stingy is the only word that came to my mind. Apple, thought you could do better.
Source – Apple
BarCamp Hong Kong 2011 is Here – 12 November 2011
My new entry over at CNET Asia Community Blog is up. This week's entry, "BarCamp Hong Kong 2011 on tomorrow".
To signup, head over to the BarCamp 2011 official website at http://barcamp.hk/ For directions to the venue, click into the following link (they have Chinese directions as well), http://cmc.scm.cityu.edu.hk/en/venueaccess/index.html
Source – BarCamp
AsiaD: All Things Digital Hong Kong Full Agenda
Registration just opened up 45 minutes ago and since it's still lunch and more than 3 hours away from the start of the conference, not too many people at the registration desk. Picked up my kit and pass and rushed back to share the Conference Agenda with you all out there.
[updated: catch the latest tweet from AsiaD at #AsiaD]
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
1:00pm-8:00pm Conference Registration
5:00pm-6:00pm Opening Reception and Science Fair
6:00pm-7:30pm Opening Session – Andy Rubin
7:30pm-9:00pm Opening Dinner
9:00pm-11:30pm Nightcap Gathering
Thursday, October 20, 2011
7:00am-8:00am Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:00am-9:30am General Session – Jerry Yang, Rose Tsau, Tech Demo: Lytro Inc., Jonney Shih
9:30am-10:15am Coffee Break and Science Fair
10:15am-11:30am General Session – Jack Ma, Andy Lees
11:30am-1:00pm Lunch and Science Fair
1:00pm-3:00pm General Session – Jack Dorsey, Brian Chesky, David Goldberg, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy,
Tech Demo: Korea Telecom, Tim O'Shaughnessy, Daniel Shin, Paul Srivorakul
3:00pm-3:45pm Coffee Break and Science Fair
3:45pm-5:30pm General Session – Al Gore, Won-Pyo Hong, Bradley horowitz
7:00pm-9:00pm Dinner
Friday, October 21, 2011
7:00am-8:00am Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:00am-9:30am General Session – Kazuo Hirai, Peter Chernin, Tech Demo: Cerego Japan
9:30am-10:15am Coffee Break and Science Fair
10:15am-12:15am General Session -Cher Wang, Tech Demo: Enswers Inc., John Roese, Jen-Hsun Huang
12:15pm-1:30pm Lunch


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ROCHESTER — Traditional Russian artist and lecturer, Marina Forbes, will offer a unique workshop on the rich Russian folk tradition of Matryoshka (wooden nested doll) painting. The workshop is scheduled at the New England Language Center Art Gallery, 16 Hillside Drive on Saturday, May 10 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and is open to adults, teens and families with children 6 and up.
It is a great opportunity for adults and families to work together and learn about Russian crafts and culture. Participants will hear the story of the Matryoshka doll and will learn about her traditional Russian dress and customs. Traditional Russian painting techniques and floral and berry designs are also introduced.
The goal is to produce a finished piece of Russian folk art on wood. Students can work on 7-piece, 5-piece, 3-piece or 1-piece matryoshka sets. Throughout the workshop, students will be listening to traditional Russian music, and, during a brief break from the painting, there will be a demonstration of a few steps from a traditional Russian "matryoshka dance."
To pre-register or for more information please contact Marina Forbes by phone at 332-2255 or by e-mail at email@example.com.


text:
It was just two paragraphs in the Boston Globe that morning in October 2008:
Slain Professor's Widow Dies
Eugenia C. Devoe, wife of the late Schell M. Devoe─a prominent Harvard music professor who was murdered in his Boston home in 1996─died Friday in Canada. She was 78.
Mrs. Devoe had separated from her husband shortly before his death. Under an assumed name, she had moved to the small farming community of Curien, west of Montreal. Until now, her whereabouts had been unknown. The couple had no children.
By dawn the next day, though, the isolated cottage that had been Eugenia Devoe's hiding place lay in ruins. Even the boards had been stripped from the ceilings and floors. Yet when the intruders left, they took only one thing from the house─a letter Schell Devoe mailed to his wife just hours before he died.
One week later
When the lights dimmed, a tall, trembling silhouette stood in a doorway to the East Room. The audience gathered there waited expectantly.
"Miss Bower, are you all right?" whispered the President's valet as he straightened a beaded clasp on the back of her gown.
Liesl nodded absently, but all was not right. From a time and place long buried, an alarm had just sounded, causing her gifted hands to tense and her mind to flash the unbidden image of a dark alley in Moscow.
A voice inside the historic room spoke, momentarily dispelling the fearful image, and the valet stepped aside. "The President and First Lady wish to continue this evening's festivities with a performance by one of the world's most acclaimed pianists. Please welcome the recent winner of the coveted Messenhoff Award for the Performing Arts, fresh from her victory recital at Carnegie Hall─Miss Liesl Bower."
A chilling inertia threatened to abort her entrance, but the stimulus of applause propelled her slowly forward. Her head held high, she passed beneath chandelier prisms that now, to her wary eye, cast a distorted light.
She had performed in royal courts around the world and in this very room before two sitting presidents. It was not the dignitaries and other guests of the President assembled before her, not the white-knuckle jitters that still plagued her no matter how often she performed, not the powerful scherzo she would soon unleash onto the keyboard. What had stricken her just moments earlier was a face in the second row, the same face she'd seen burn with rage that night in the alley. What was he doing in this place?
As she crossed the room, the clapping hands ringing in her ears, she risked the briefest glance at the man in the second row. But even in that instant, she felt his eyes breach the barricade she'd constructed around herself so long ago, that bulwark about her soul that isolated her from the hurtful world outside.
Though her mind was in turmoil, her slender body, now slick with perspiration inside her black velvet gown, slid with practiced poise toward the piano. When she reached the imposing Steinway concert grand with its three gilded-eagle supports, she placed a steadying hand on its fine, aged wood and turned to face her audience, knowing where she must not look again. She nodded to President Travis Noland before bowing grandly, then seated herself at the keyboard, the only thing in the room she was sure of.
As she always did, Liesl closed her eyes to summon the music, to place herself in the hands of the composer. Sometimes she would hope for the faintest breath of God. This was one of those times.
To settle the after-dinner crowd, Liesl began a warm and rippling etude by Moszkowski. Later, like the times she had driven for miles in deep thought and couldn't remember anything about the route she'd taken, she realized she'd finished the etude without inhabiting it─a transgression for any concert pianist.No more of this! she scolded herself.
She rose from the piano to accept the audience's appreciation. Careful to avoid the troubling face, she looked around the room and noticed one or two guests beginning to nod off. Even now, that amused her because she knew what was coming.
Moments later, the long, silken hands lifted like graceful swans from the even-tempered opening measure of Chopin's Scherzo No. 2 in B-Flat Minor only to strike with a fury that caught her audience off guard and swept them into the stormy yet lyrical piece. It was President Noland's favorite and his special request for the evening.
Now, Liesl escaped her audience and plunged so deeply into the music, she no longer sensed if anyone else was there. Except once. After the pounding clash of the first passage, she was midway into a peaceful interlude when she surfaced long enough to dare look into the second row. Gone! He's gone! But where? No time to wonder; the music wouldn't wait. The storm was gathering again. It demanded she channel it down the length of the instrument and release it to the room. But in the finale, in the resolution of the strife, the victory of peace prevailed.
It was then she suspected why the President had selected this particular composition. She knew who else was in the room. The Russian ambassador and others from his diplomatic corps were seated so close to her, she could hear them breathe. She knew the strife of recent negotiations between the U.S. and Russia, knew that the delicate balance of power between them sizzled ominously. Of course, Ambassador Olnakoff would know the scherzo she'd just performed. A music scholar himself, a devotee of Chopin, he would surely translate the conflict-to-peace narrative of the music into the political message of reconciliation that Noland must have intended.
When it was over, Liesl rose from the piano to exuberant applause, her eyes falling on the empty second-row chair. Though she usually allowed the applause to roll over her in tingling, uplifting currents, at that moment, she was numb to it, feeling only the need to warn someone about the man she'd just seen.
She scanned the crowd for Ben Hafner, assistant to the President for domestic policy, perhaps her closest friend since their Harvard days together. I've got to reach him!
But the audience wouldn't let her go. They begged for an encore and Liesl knew she must oblige. But as she lowered herself to the tufted bench, she looked out once more and caught Ben's mop of brown hair, his toothy smile beaming her way from a side door to the room. Read my face, Ben she silently implored, then raised a summoning brow.
Once again, Liesl lapsed into the spell of the music, having chosen something she hoped would reinforce President Nolan's mood for the evening: the disarming Clair de Lune by Debussy.
The piece had been a recital offering when she was just twelve. Under her grandmother's tutelage, she had refined her performance of it in the centuries-old house beneath the live oaks. Now, as she gently stroked the keys, she could almost smell the briny wind off Charleston Harbor; hear the creak of the kitchen floor as her mother and grandmother prepared the evening meal. And hear the bells of St. Philip's.
Was this selection for Noland? Or for her need in this hour?
As Liesl took her final bow, she was set upon by admirers, her path to Ben still blocked. The reluctant celebrity with the amber hair and eyes to match always drew more attention than she welcomed. She'd been photographed around the world, not just at the piano in one of her regal gowns, but in baggy sweats leaving a produce market in Paris, even swimming in a remote grotto in Greece.
The White House photographer approached and asked her to pose next to the piano, between President Noland and Ambassador Olnakoff. When the President swooped in with the ambassador in tow, more than a few observers raised an eyebrow over the unnatural chumminess the two men displayed toward each other. Liesl overheard one tuxedoed gentleman comment to another, "A beautiful woman can bridge many a gap, eh?"
After the photos were taken, other admirers now moved toward Liesl. Between the heads of those gathered about her, she made eye contact with Ben. Finally, she excused herself from some wanting to discuss the finer nuances of the scherzo, and quickly left the East Room.
"What's up?" Ben asked when Liesl reached him. "I still read you pretty well, don't I?"
"Right now, that's a good thing." She took his arm and pulled him down the hall.
"Whoa, take it easy. People will start talking again."
She stopped abruptly and turned into him. "Ben, you've got to listen to me!"
He stared down at her, then put both hands on her shoulders. "You're shaking. What's the matter with you?"
Before she could answer, he steered her across the hall and opened the door to a small, tidy office, then closed the door behind him. "Sit down and talk to me." He remained standing.
"Did you see the man in the second row wearing a red ascot? Black hair slicked straight back, hollow cheeks?"
Ben thought a moment, then nodded hesitantly. "Probably Evgeny Kozlov."
"Do you have a picture of him?"
"No, I don't have a . . . what's this about, Liesl?" he asked impatiently, his forehead bunching in creases.
"Who is this Kozlov?" she asked, her tone urgent. "Why was he here tonight?"
Ben took a seat opposite Liesl and looked intently at her, but didn't answer.
She knew there were many things Ben could never talk about with her. Perhaps this was one. She drew a hurried breath. "Ben, do you remember that last trip I took to Moscow with Dr. Devoe?"
He nodded solemnly.
"It was January 1996."
"I remember," he said softly.
"The last night we were there, Dr. Devoe came to my hotel room. He pulled me out into the hallway and asked me to take a walk with him. I was tired. I'd just played a concert that night at the conservatory. But he insisted. He said he had something to tell me. I asked why we couldn't talk in my room, and he said, 'Because they're listening.'"
Ben reached for one of her hands and held it.
She squeezed the hand of this burly, compassionate man she loved as a brother. The media had tried hard to make something more of their relationship, daring to suggest that Ben might stray from the wife he adored.
Liesl continued. "I had no idea what Dr. Devoe was talking about." She steadied herself. "When we walked out of the hotel that night, the snow was blowing hard, but we kept going. He was taking me to a small coffee house in the next block, he said. Before we got there, though, my scarf blew off and I ran after it. Just a silly thing. I chased it into the street."
"But when I turned back, Dr. Devoe was gone. I ran to where I'd left him and heard voices from an alley nearby. Angry voices. Dr. Devoe and another man were arguing in Russian."
There was a knock at the office door. Ben put up a hand to silence Liesl as he moved to answer it.
"Mr. Hafner," said Ben's chief aide, Ted Shadlaw, "sorry, but I happened to see you come in here."
"It's all right, Ted," Ben said calmly. "What is it?"
"Miss Bower's car is here."
"Tell the driver to wait, please." Ben closed the door. "Keep going," he told Liesl, returning to his seat.
She didn't know how exerting this would be. She wanted to curl into a ball and draw the barricade closer. "I didn't know what to do," she said. "I was afraid to approach the alley until I heard a scuffle and just went charging in. Dr. Devoe was on the ground. His mouth was bleeding, and a man stood over him. By the street lamp, I could see him clearly. Then the man came at me. He pointed his finger in my face and yelled, 'Don't ever come back to Russia!'"
Ben flinched.
"I never saw that man again," Liesl said. "Until tonight. In the second row."
Ben breathed a heavy sigh and stared at the floor. When he looked up, Liesl saw his frustration.
"Liesl, what happened to Dr. Devoe, that terrible thing you witnessed, is history. Twelve years ago. It's over."
"But, it's─"
"It's like it happened yesterday for you, I know," he interrupted. "And now, after what you just told me, I understand even more why you disappeared after the murder. But why didn't you tell this to someone during the investigation?"
Her eyes clouded and she looked away. "You know the way they treated me. Like I'd done something to betray my country."
"The police?"
"No, the others."
Ben nodded quietly. "Liesl, lots of people were questioned. Dr. Devoe had many associates, many students. None as close to him as you were, granted. And none of them had to watch him die. I'd do anything to erase that trauma from your life, but I can't. And you can't." He paused. "But you can break its grip on you. You have to let it go."
Liesl straightened her back as if a steel rod in it had just snapped into place. "Tell me who Kozlov is?" she persisted.
Ben stood up and raised both hands in surrender. "Someone Olnakoff recently brought over for counsel. He's a lawyer in Moscow."
"He's a punk!"
"Liesl, keep your voice down. And try to understand what's going on. Russia is back on a collision course with the U.S., and President Noland is dealing every diplomatic card he can to keep our countries from a showdown. We can't go accusing one of their diplomats of brutish behavior over a decade ago. From your account, that's all it was. Scared the wits out of you. Probably had everything to do with Devoe's treason, though maybe not his murder. But that chapter's closed. What do you want from this man? An apology?"
Ben moved toward the door. "I know you think I'm insensitive. But you've suffered long enough. Make it stop. The man isn't here to terrorize 'one of America's classical darlings', as that Post reporter called you." He smiled brightly as if trying to coax the same from her, but she fixed a stony eye on him.
"Liesl, come with me," he finally said with a hint of begging in his voice. "Your coach awaits."
Liesl let him pull her up from her chair and hug her gently, though she barely returned the gesture. When he let her go, she said, "Mrs. Devoe just died. Did you know that?"
Ben went still. "Yes, I know," he said, then tried again to lead her to the door, but she stood her ground.
"That warm, vivacious woman was living alone in the backwoods of Canada under a false name, Ben. Why did she have to do that?"
He looked down at the floor then back at her as though he'd had to compose the impassive face he now showed her.
She searched his eyes and understood. "You know something more about that, don't you?"
Ben straightened stiffly. "Liesl, please let this go. It doesn't concern you anymore." He waved an arm toward a draped window. "There's a whole world of beautiful music and adoring audiences out there for you. You've worked hard for it. Now put this behind you once and for all and go live your life."
The limousine that had transported Liesl to the White House on that Tuesday evening pulled back onto Pennsylvania Avenue and headed toward her small, rented house in Georgetown. She wrapped her velvet cape tightly about her and sank deep into the plush leather of the seat, resting her head against its high back. Ben's right. It's over. Time to put it away.
Soon, she gazed out the window at one of Georgetown's stately old houses, and her mind raced back to her childhood home. She wished she could climb the worn stairs to her room, to wander the neighborhood where she'd been just another kid on the block, not the prodigy others had labeled her. She wanted to go back in time and skip rope with her friends, canoe into the marsh, and catch fiddler crabs. It had all come too quickly to an end.
A few blocks from her house, the driver turned toward her and asked, "Miss Bower, are you expecting anyone at your home tonight?"
Liesl looked at him curiously. "Why do you ask?"
The man hesitated before answering. "I just thought you might have arranged for someone to follow you there."
The impact of what he was saying suddenly hit, and Liesl turned quickly in her seat to look out the back window. A few car lengths behind was a set of headlights, nothing unusual, she thought. "I'm not sure I understand," she said, though something quickened inside her.
"So, you're not expecting anyone?"
"No, I'm not."
"In that case, ma'am, I'd like to call Mr. Hafner and tell him I'm returning you to the White House."


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