Tag Archives: IPhone

What Was Saved

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Please consider donating to the Red Cross to help them prepare for and provide shelter, food, emotional support and other assistance in response to the wildfires burning in our area.  For too many people, this is not an interesting exercise, but a reality.

HOW TO DONATE:

  1. Online: go to:  http://american.redcross.org/NorthwestResponse
  2. Visit:  U.S. Bank branches in Western Washington  [ find a branch near you ]
  3. Mail a check to:

KING 5 Northwest Response

P.O. Box 24525

Seattle, WA 98124

Since the Taylor Bridge fire began on August 13, dozens of homes near Cle Elum have been destroyed.

Earlier, I posted an entry about a book called “The Burning House: What Would You Take?” by Foster Huntington:

Your house is burning. You have to get out fast. Suddenly you are forced to prioritize, editing down a lifetime of possessions to a mere handful. Now you must decide: Of all the things you own, what is most important to you?

  • The practical? Your laptop, your smartphone, what you need to keep working and stay in touch?
  • The valuable? Your money, your jewelry, the limited edition signed poster in the living room?
  • The sentimental? The watch your late grandfather gave you, the diary you kept as a teenager?
What you choose to bring with you speaks volumes about who you are and what you believe in—your interests, your background, your view of life.With contributions from all over the world, The Burning House is an eye-opening pictorial meditation on materialism; an in-depth, intensely personal interview contained in a single question; a revealing window into the human heart.I put forth a challenge to everyone to try and do it themselves, grab everything you think you would grab when your place is burning down and photograph it.
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Oddly enough, a couple years ago, the neighboring building caught on fire in the middle of the night and our building was evacuated.  So, including waking up, getting dressed and waking up the rest of the building, I think all I remembered to grab was my wallet, keys, and phone.  I think I was wearing that super-warm extra large parka I “borrowed” from the Nordstron valet parking guys years ago.  In all fairness, I was pretty sure our building wasn’t going to burn down.
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I recreated that night tonight and grabbed all the stuff below.

Clockwise from upper left: my great-grandmother’s small wooden box sitting on my grandfather’s wooden box, an old whale vertebrae, two Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera with sonar focus, reading glasses, passport, MacBook Pro, red scorpion paper weight, photo booth picture of Rick and me drinking beers, external hard drive, iPhone, wallets, two white ceramic artichokes made by Rick, small metal frame and art made by artist and friend David Hamlin.

I guess I am going to put all that stuff in the wooden boxes?  To be honest, the whale vertebrae and ceramic artichokes were already sitting on the table and I found the Polaroid cameras when I was searching for my passport.  I know that if I had a bag and five minutes, I would probably not stop until that bag was full and the time had run out.  I mean, how could I forget external rechargeable speakers, iPod, and more books that I could even count.  Then, there is that pair of elephants my sister gave me and that elf head cookie jar I bought at the junk store in Navy Yard City.

I made a photo slide show of items I would try to save from the lake house if it was burning, here it is (naturally, I used a LOMO filter on all of them):

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Rick created his own collection of things he would save from a fire, between the two of us, the only thing we would be prepared for is international travel if our place burned down.  Here are his:

Dogs, Pia and Bear, passport, assorted love letters, photo album, Gucci sunglasses, running shoes, and ceramic artichoke (made by Rick).

I am not sure how he managed to get the dogs to sit still on the table.

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The Burning House: What People Would Take If The House Was on Fire

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I found this article last night and fell in love with the idea for a photo challenge:  Give yourself five minutes and a bag.  Rush through your place and collect everything you think you want to have, knowing that everything else will be lost/burned/destroyed.  What would you grab and why?  Make it quirky.  Make it unique.  Make it meaningful.  Take a photo, include a short description of what and why you chose each thing, and email it to me here at spa@waldina.com.  I will post mine and any others I get.

The Burning House: What People Would Take if the House Was on Fire

by Maria Popova

A pictorial meditation on how we construct our identity through objects and material possessions.

If your house suddenly caught on fire, what would you grab as you fled out the door? That’s precisely the question Foster Huntington asked himself, so he gathered the belongings he himself would take and photographed them, then asked a few friends to do the same. Then, on May 10 of 2011, he launched The Burning House with 10 such photographs. Within a few hours, he got his first submission from a complete stranger. Within a few days, he was making headlines. But he soon realized the self-selection implicit to the project engendered a certain psychographic homogeneity in the responses he was receiving and, driven to make people of various walks of life feel included, he decided to seek out more diverse submissions himself.

So, for five months, he drove thousands of miles up and down the West Coast and around the Rockies, in search for people “other than typical blog readers,” in an effort to expand the project generationally, geographically, and socioeconomically. Using Richard Avedon’s In the American West as inspiration, he set out to find those rare specimens who “had never heard of Tumblr, had never seen an iPad” — in other words, the kinds of people with whom he would’ve never crossed paths had he stayed in Manhattan. The results — rich, surprising, refreshingly human, from people separated by 80 years and spanning six continents — are now gathered in The Burning House: What Would You Take? (public library), based on the Tumblr of the same name and a fine addition to this running list of blog-turned-book success stories.

Huntington writes in the introduction:

Today, developed countries are consuming more than ever before. This culture of consumption is often fueled by people’s desire to define themselves by the possessions they amass. The Burning House: What Would You Take? takes a different approach to personal definition. By removing easily replaceable objects and instead focusing on things unique to them, people are able to capture their personalities in a photograph.

What emerges is part Material World, part Things, part wholly singular lens on the human condition, bridging the practical and the sentimental in a way that bespeaks our constant see-saw between rationality and intuition.

Name: Miguel Age: 36 Location: Porto Occupation: Bike shop owner List: The picture you gave me and the leather box we found together. Mom and dads old camera and mom and dads old leather bag. The shoes I can’t live without. Your smell #1 and your smell #2. The notebook where I draw while you laugh. My iPod to listen to beautiful tunes while thinking in our next home.

Name: Brody Age: 6 Location: New Hampshire Occupation: A kid List: Wedgehead Garfeild cup Lego helicopter Bumblebee Transformer Chip yellow belt piggybank wallet weaving (not pictured) Lego Camera used to take photo

Name: Kate Molins Age: 26 Location: London, UK Occupation: Clapper / Loader List: Buster Kitten – 2 yr old cat My mum’s ashes Photo album / scrap book iPhone Grandmother’s watch Dad’s watch My watch – 16th birthday present from my mum Macbook Passport 8mm Camera – 24th birthday present from all my friends Dad’s “I Love Tits” Mug – in small print, “from the British Ornithological Society” Limited edition GONZO, Hunter S. Thompson photo book – 21st birthday present from my mum Lemmy, Buster Kitten’s brother My uncle’s old Leica CL Diary & notebook of VALUABLE ideas & info from the past year Portable hard drive with millions of photos and other important things

Name: Joshua Lee Bacon Age: 20 Location: Boone, Iowa Occupation: Student List: Favorite pants. Favorite underwear. iPhone. Box full of all my prints and negatives. Buffalo box full of treasures and special snapshots. Passport. Chinese cigars. Some cash. Photo of my grandparents. Photo of a friend. Field notes and pens. Vivitar and telephoto lens. I would want to take more records, but the first one I would grab would be this Envy Corps 7 inch. Some old letters. Wallet.

Name: Brenda Bell Age: 60 Location: Pinetop, Arizona White Mountains (wild fire country May/June) Occupation: Homemaker List: My dog, Baby Val and treats for him My husband Larry and treats for him Peanut butter and crackers, peanuts, candy and gum Bumblebee Transformer A spork (spoon/fork) Hand warmers Wool hat Lots of money (small dimensions) and change Emergency first aid kit and zip lock bags Matches

Name: Kristi Dahlstrom Age: 27 Location: Germany Occupation: Literature Teacher List: Great Aunt’s Violin (& Bow) US Passport Photograph of Siblings 2 Letters Journal New American Standard Bible Rilke’s Book of Hours T.S. Elliot Collected Poems MacBook Pro Black Flipflops

Name: Luca Age: 42 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland Occupation: Pricing analyst List: My collected writings My Field Notes still to be used My current notebook the Midori Travellers Notebook On Writing by Stephen King From Hell by Alan Moore Important photographs The stove moka I had for the past 10 years (because nothing looks as bad after a proper coffee) The belt my dad had when he was in the army The beret I had when I was in the army Fountain pen and pencil, with my favourite brown ink My grandad’s petrol lighter Opinel knife Bookbinding tools Reading glasses and sunglasses iPhone 4S (used to take the picture)

Name: Alejandro Sosa Age: 36 Location: Venezuela Occupation: Technology consultant List: Everything is recoverable, except my daughter

And in case you were wondering, here’s what I would take:

  1. Wallet (recycled newspaper and plastic bag, from HOLSTEE)
  2. 1935 edition of Ulysses with sketches by Henri Matisse and 22-karat gold accents (Sure, the hefty tome would weigh me down — but I decided against the replaceable iPad and pair of giant Canon cameras in its favor.)
  3. Glasses
  4. Passport
  5. MacBook Air
  6. Phrenology bike helmet hand-painted by artist Danielle Baskin
  7. Makerbot-printed space invader, a gift from a dear friend
  8. Two-finger yellow LEGO ring from C+
  9. iPhone
  10. 1993 edition of Gertrude Stein’s 1938 children’s book, The World Is Round
  11. Owl necklace from the 1950s, found in a middle-of-nowhere California vintage shop en route back from TED
  12. 1 TB external hard drive with all my personal data, 15 years of photos, 100GB of music, and just about every piece of digital content I’ve ever owned (Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1 TB USB 3.0/2.0, for the record)
  13. Original drawing of Paula Scher, one of my big design heroes, by my friend and illustrator extraordinaire Wendy MacNaughton. It reads: “Impossible happens.”
  14. My Vibrams

via The Burning House: What People Would Take If The House Was on Fire | Brain Pickings.

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David Bowie – Style Icon

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David Bowie’s “Ashes to Ashes” was playing on my iPhone and in my hears when I got a call from W telling me that J had died.  It is just a coincidence, but I think that J would be happy it wasn’t Hillary Duff.  He has played a role in the soundtrack of many people’s lives for decades.  Ladies and gentlemen, David Bowie.  Style Icon.

NAME: David Bowie
OCCUPATION: Actor, Songwriter, Drummer, Guitarist, Pianist, Singer
BIRTH DATE: January 08, 1947 (Age: 65)
PLACE OF BIRTH: London, England
ORIGINALLY: David Robert Jones

BEST KNOWN FOR: David Bowie is an English rock musician who was incredibly innovative and popular during the 1970s. His distinctive voice and depth of work endures.

David Bowie (born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947) is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He is known for his distinctive voice and the intellectual depth and eclecticism of his work.

Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in July 1969, when his song “Space Oddity” reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single “Starman” and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie’s impact at that time, as described by biographer David Buckley, “challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day” and “created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture.” The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona proved merely one facet of a career marked by continual reinvention, musical innovation and striking visual presentation.
In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single “Fame” and the hit album Young Americans, which the singer characterised as “plastic soul”. The sound constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the minimalist album Low (1977)—the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno over the next two years. The so-called “Berlin Trilogy” albums all reached the UK top five and garnered lasting critical praise.

After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single “Ashes to Ashes”, its parent album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and “Under Pressure”, a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He then reached a new commercial peak in 1983 with Let’s Dance, which yielded several hit singles. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including blue-eyed soul, industrial, adult contemporary, and jungle. His last recorded album was Reality (2003), which was supported by the 2003–04 Reality Tour.

Buckley says of Bowie: “His influence has been unique in popular culture—he has permeated and altered more lives than any comparable figure.” In the BBC’s 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, Bowie was placed at number 29. Throughout his career, he has sold an estimated 140 million albums. In the UK, he has been awarded nine Platinum album certifications, 11 Gold and eight Silver, and in the US, five Platinum and seven Gold certifications. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him 39th on their list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”, and 23rd on their list of the best singers of all-time.

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Daydream Believer

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Every since I gave up my previous blog with various privacy settings, I am not sure where I am supposed to write my daydreams anymore, it all seems so exposed writing them in a blog that is completely open and available for anyone to read.  Even though I get very little feedback on the blog and for the most part, it is like writing into a vacuum, I think that writing everything openly may be a bit of a step outside my comfort zone.  Here it goes.

Last week, I got a voicemail from a recruiter for Amazon.com, he was inquiring as to my interest in a position that is currently open.  I called back today and spoke with him for a while and it sounds interesting, the pay rate is good, and I will be looking into it further.  But the real daydream comes from the idea of returning to a family that I left nine years ago.  I know that it is a total fantasy and that most of the people I interacted on a daily basis with are no longer with the company (let alone in the department where the position is), but in my head, I have created this wonderful completion.  In it, I meet back with my old boss and we hug and talk privately and quietly about the loss of one of our mutual friends, he tells me that whatever I need, just ask.  I am given my old email address back.  From there, it sort of skips around, this day dream.  I am able to use and build upon my skills and abilities and my efforts and work is recognized.

I mean, of course in my daydream it is a perfect job environment, why would it be any less?

It is all because of the current employment situation that I daydream about something new and exciting.  Here, I work hard and work smart and the only recognition I ever get is when I do something wrong.  It is tiresome.  I know that I they do not see me as becoming anything more than what I currently do, so there is no career trajectory of any sort.  Even though the tasks I do here are far beyond those required of people in my position in other stores, I know that none of it will amount to a promotion.

I guess dead-end jobs, no matter how glamorous, have a way of feeding daydreams about something better, something different, or at least something with potential.

The sad part of this daydream is that I probably will not even try for the position at Amazon because it is only a two month contract and then I could be out of a job.  A bird in the hand and so forth, health insurance and the like, stability.

So, even as I daydream about the potentials of what might be, I know pretty accurately what will be.