Ode To A Wild Flower - NOT!

I fancy myself a good photographer and usually have a camera with me most places I go. Take enough pictures and some fantastic photos ought to come about. Such as this photo of my son seven years ago at a bench near Plumb Beach in Brooklyn's Sheepshead area. I used a rather simple 2.2-megapixel Kodak digital camera, my first one ever. The result is quite good - you see the ocean in the back, there's sand, and the innocence of a child hold some wildflower.

Fast-forward to 2009 and I was equipped with a fancier camera. Still a Kodak, but now the camera has video capability, many modes, timer, 10x zoom, etc. Yet the photo came out not as good. Somehow I totally replaced the ocean on the left side with a washout white area. Probably too much sunlight. And the child, same one as before, is now one active 9-year-old who would not sit quietly to pose for the camera.

Fuhgeddaboudit!

Days before my office moved from Downtown Brooklyn to Newport, Jersey City, I went around the area to snap a few photos for memories. Apologies to the sculptors but I don't have any names to associate them to.

Reading Not Done

After joyfully completing a book on clutter control, I thought I would give David Allen's famous book Get Things Done book a try. I regularly proofread articles for ATPM magazine and GTD appears in almost every issue. My life is so busy and my work is so depressing I thought I can use some help in organizing the two.

I couldn't finish the book. Despite Allen's attempt to be abstract so that his ideas can be applied to any situation, not just in cubicleville, I am so entrenched in the idea that my work stinks. Cutbacks, even before the economy was declared in a recession, resulted in the remaining bodies taking on more work. There may be new bodies to help out, but they are on the other side of the globe working at a cheaper rate, always a menace to some day taking over our jobs. Not just them, mind you, as there are others in U.S. cities where the living standard, thus salaries, is lower than the Northeast. Even if you overcome all the obstacles and clean your plate, you just end up getting more. We all are supposed to lend out some free cycles whenever we have them. There is only so much efficiency the poor corporate grunt can do.

In drawing this cartoon, I got a kick out of applying cartoon physics. With real-world physics, as we know, gravity pulls everything down to earth. In the world of cartoon, it is possible to be in midair for a few seconds before actually dropping.