Chris

“Is not this a glorious time of year for your deep inward fires?”

Henry David Thoreau

November is a great month to stoke those internal fires.

Over the past thirty years, I still struggle in figuring out the ideal camera which will best suit my photographic needs.

I want a camera to always be ready to shoot, but I can’t always bring along a DSLR or mirrorless camera because they are bulky. And who wants to carry a big camera bag everywhere? This leaves out, my Nikon, Canon and Sony professional cameras.

The digital camera that does fit those criteria is the iPhone but it is not perfect, however it is currently the least bad camera which exists for my needs. This is the main reason I purchased the iPhone 13 Pro Max- not perfect but it is portable and does not need a bag.

I don’t plan on printing images taken from the iPhone so I can go ahead and minimize the format and the size of the photographs taken with it. Sure, I could shoot RAW images with the iPhone camera app, but why? Space is a premium, even though I have plenty of storage space on the iPhone and my external drives (future-proofing.)

DAM

I discovered too late, what it means to have a digital asset management (DAM) system. I can create all these photos, and publish/share them to but am currently limited by my hosting plan. This is not sustainable. Should I invest in an unlimited subscription to Flickr or SmugMug again? So for now, I’ll just shoot in a small, .jpg format to save space.

Future Usage

I want to eventually explore other platforms for publication such as audio and or video podcast, e-books, newsletters, digital zines, etc.

A scary thought occurred to me during a 3AM quick stop to the bathroom and back to bed: “Do I want to maintain or keep my 22 year-old website?” I woke up a few hour later and wondered if I dreamt this, but then realized this was an idea worth considering.

I have always considered this website as a public journal. Yes, I have posted a ton of articles regarding my experience with the latest gadget or software. These were designed for me in mind to help look back and think, “okay, this was cool”, or “what the hell was I thinking?” But others throughout the social internet (NOT social media) have come to appreciate these articles as well.

I do not want to give up writing or journaling altogether and am thinking of keeping it local. Keep it simple, private and future-proofed in a .txt format inside Brainiac, the self-built database.

I’ll keep my web domain name and personalized email address, however. Having your own slice of the WWW is fantastic. My server hosting subscription runs out in late February 2023 so I have until then to decide.

That is in the future, I want to look at the present. Today is November 1 and instead of the usual crash and burn delusions of writing a novel every November, I’ll focus on writing a post here every day for thirty days in a row.

No-shave November is off to a great start. The beard is growing out every direction on the compass but it’ll trim up nicely. That’s it for today. Stay tuned for the 2nd of November’s post.

If you’ve been reading along the past few years, you know I am into wall murals in a big way. I finally had a chance to fully appreciate one of the world’s largest augmented reality (AR) murals right here in Tulsa.

Scan the nearby QR code and you become immersed into a new world right there on the sidewalk.

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.”

– Mark Twain

Reading a book on a Sunday allows you to travel and escape. It will get you to think and think more and to ponder and sometimes have an epiphany. It will cause you to want to finally create that plan, write that long over-due letter and go on that hike. Sometimes it’ll get you to cry, to become a page-turner and/or laugh out loud.

Add some light jazz, a good beverage and perfect company and you get that Sunday bliss.

Currently reading “Rising Tiger” and listening to Julian Lage’s “Squint” album.