This morning I stood on the Cape Coral beach looking southwest waiting to see a rocket ship fly over us. I was there at Starbase observing the tallest, most powerful rocket ever to be launched up close. 100 yards away we camped on the beach where the Rio Grande emptied into the Gulf with Mexico on the other side. We were asked to leave the beach the next day before the test fire of the 34 Raptor engines. That was delayed so we made our way back home and missed that one. But it was exciting to see!
Still can’t believe how close we were permitted to get. Boca Chica Beach, Texas.
Today I had hoped to see this gorgeous rocket in flight and one day go to the Moon and Mars.
Starship’s fourth flight test launched with ambitious goals, attempting to go farther than any previous test before and begin demonstrating capabilities central to return and reuse of Starship and Super Heavy. The payload for this test was the data. Starship delivered.
On June 6, 2024, Starship successfully lifted off at 7:50 a.m. CT from Starbase in Texas and went on to deliver maximum excitement for the next hour until it arrived in orbit, re-entered orbit and then corrected itself for a splash down in the Indian Ocean successfully.
Liftoff
Alas, the flight trajectory that Space-X typically takes is in between Florida and Cuba. Today, the flight path took it south of Cuba. I didn’t have a chance in hell of capturing it. Not even a trail in the sky.
Too Far South
In the past few years, there have been 353 (!) launches from three launch sites from Cape Canaveral Florida, to Boca Chica Texas and Vandenberg AFB in California. 287 of those launches have been re-flights using rocket boosters that auto-land back to earth (!) No one has been able to do this before including NASA.
My View, Pre-launch, Launch, 33/34 raptors firing, In Orbit! De-orbiting, Re-entry burning through a fin, Splashdown, Success!
I can only hope that Starship 5 will be launched at night. Space-X’s other rockets are launched from Florida at night and we can see those easily.
Welcome to the first newsletter sent from Cape Coral, Florida where a new latitude calls for a new and different photo project. In the past I would capture unique faces, diverse neon signs, wall art, etc. Anything that is in abundance and varies will do for me. Today is the start of “Palm Sunday”, where once a week I will share images from all the Florida frond foliage found and photographed, and probably even share a few words about them.
Palm trees are usually what comes to mind regarding beautiful, exotic islands and vacationing. But with all trees, there is so much more to learn and think about.
The Cuban Royal Palm can grow as tall as 75’. Taken on the banks of the Caloosahatchie River at sunset.
A lot of civilizations use products made from these trees such as cosmetics, cooking oils, lotions, jelly, wine, and biodiesel. However, not many know about the symbolic meaning of these large, evergreen plants.
There are over 3,000 species of palms, making them some of the most common and easily recognized plants. They thrive in tropical regions and are considered among the hardiest trees in the world as they’re resistant to most pests and diseases.
Coconuts are some of the most popular palms, with their nuts known for their nutritional benefits and distinct taste. Their hard brown shells protect the nut from damage when they fall from the tree, and the white flesh inside is used for making oil and cooking in many Asian countries. Coconut oil is considered the healthiest oil made from palms.
And because today is a Sunday, here are a few quotes: In Psalms 92:12, those who are righteous were compared to palm trees. It states that righteous people shall flourish and grow “like palms and cedar trees in Lebanon…” In Psalms 7:7-9, the palm tree is associated with victory, where getting hold of its fruit was compared to triumph.
Next week, I’ll share some palms taken from either Sanibel Island or Fort Myers beach. Oh, and as a little bonus, here is an image of a girl chasing seagulls on the shore:
“When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” – Lau Tzu
This will be the last newsletter for a few weeks until I have completed another cross-country move. Once I am done with relocating to Florida and have unpacked and then organize, I can start thinking about cranking out a newsletter and podcast.
During the past few weeks of sorting, organizing, and packing, I’ve had a chance to reflect on a few thoughts that help inspire me to live and maintain a minimalistic lifestyle.
We all would like to live in a nice, spacious home. But when you really think about it, we just want to allow “Our Things” to live in a comfortable environment.
Our things are living rent-free in our homes
Our homes are not museums. It doesn’t need a collection to curate.
Our collections are not priceless, and they take up too much space.
Dust tells you how much you value your things.
Less things = less chores.
One thing in = one thing out.
What if you had to start all over?
Discarding memorabilia is not discarding memories.
Things tend to bring in more things.
Somewhere in the back of our minds, we’re thinking that we haven’t gotten our money’s worth yet. But the reality of the matter is that we most likely never will.
Discarding things can be wasteful. But the guilt that keeps you from minimizing is the true waste.
“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” -Tyler Durden, Fight Club.
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Because of recent news of events on the island of Hispaniola, I’ve recalled a lot of memories from a few years ago when I was invited to photograph, document and serve the ongoing Christian missionary works based in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic. Towards the end of the trip, I had an opportunity to head north to the Caribbean coastal town of Sosua for some R&R, but in-between the two cities were mountain jungles and tobacco plantations.
Welcome to the jungle
Our gracious host and founder of the mission insisted we stopped for a cigar factory tour, and of course, this was accepted!
The La Flor factory tour follows the path of the tobacco leaves from the fields to the packaging of handmade cigars. The first thing I noticed, was the aromatic tobacco in enclosed spaces. Then I noticed, but was not allowed to photograph, the floor announcer. His job is to simply read the newspaper and magazine articles into the factory microphone to entertain the workers. Imagine a news barker with a derby cap, smoking La Flor’s finest with outstretched arms holding up the paper and talking through his cigar into the microphone.
I was then allowed to select from a stack of conditioned, classified, browned, aged leaves and then hand them off to the smiling worker. She then began the long process of turning a leaf into a freshly rolled cigar.
I followed my leaves around the various stages from station to station, watching and photographing workers as they blended, bunched, pressed, rolled, sealed and then allowed me to slide the La Flor Dominica ring around my fresh cigars. The entire process took about an hour to craft my box of the Caribbean’s finest.
Uninformed individuals would say that Cuban cigars are the best, I disagree. Cubans are only sought after because they are illegal in the USA, and I think they smell and taste like Castro’s dead feet. My clandestine incursion onto Cuban shores is a story for next time.
Oh, and because Haiti and the Dominican Republic are neighbors and both currently in the news, here is a young Haitian toddler playing in the road, on the Dominican side apparently abandoned, shortly before I snapped this photo. There are strong racial tensions between these two countries, and I found this to be the only fault I could find on the Dominican side of Hispaniola. I was blessed to see the missionaries find him shelter and food. Just look at that handsome face.
When trying something new, it is okay to feel uncertain and hesitant, right? Well here I go anyway.
Connect-
My content lives here, on my one-man publishing house. Everything here is under my control and it’s then dispersed through three distribution channels.
The first, and most obvious, is the world wide web itself. My content is distributed to you via the Internet. You can ask your browser to get this page you’re reading right now and get access to my content.
The second is RSS. You can tell your RSS reader to fetch the content available on my website and you can then consume my content inside your app of choice.
The final one is email. I send my newsletter via email because some people prefer to stay up to date that way as well as reply back with further comments and discussion.
These three methods only take care of distribution and distribution of content is only part of the equation. You then have interaction. The point of putting content out there is to connect, to interact with others, to exchange ideas, and to grow. And interactions, through my website domain, happen mostly through comments on an article here or by email.
Support-
In the past twenty-two years that I have owned a website, never, not once, have I subjected anyone to spam, affiliate links or advertising. It’s repugnant and distracts from the messages I want to get across. Nothing has changed in that regard. You now have the option to support me and this website (self hosting costs aren’t cheap,) in many ways such as contributing to the conversation in the posts, adding me to your RSS feed readers and by dropping me a line into my e-mail inbox to hello@chrisdenbow.website.
After all these years of building websites and working on side projects, I realized that this is the only way for me to approach the whole donations/monetization part of what I do. $0 per month gives you access to the articles and newsletters I post. If you want to support for $5 or $10/month for all that plus extras, that’s awesome as well. I’d be grateful either way and your kindness won’t go unnoticed.
Between you and me, there is no obligation and I certainly don’t have an expectant hand out, but the options are out there now.
Hello and welcome to the second edition of this newsletter. Every Sunday morning, I intend to send an update or insight to things that I find interesting from the previous week, just like your Sunday morning newspaper. It is entirely possible that you may find it appealing as well. If you have something to share based on what you’ve compared to reading here, certainly, comment and share.
It has been one week since I returned from the road and turned in my notice to end my career, so I am in limbo. When people ask what I have been doing, the response is always “keeping busy.” For some reason, a quote from the excellent novel and movie The Shawshank Redemption is percolating in my brain lately: “Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin.” I prefer the former, of course.
I miss the idea of creating and hosting small photography conferences in several cities — RIP PhotoCamp. The same goes for photography clubs such as the Texas Shooters (I love seeing it grow larger after I left Houston, knowing it is in good hands) and also Shots here in Tulsa. Photowalks with friends where we just walk, talk and shoot. I learned so much from those people. So when someone asked me what my dream job would be? Owning a small studio/office space for me and with a community photo lab for analog & digital photo labs. With space for individuals to sit and work on their projects surrounded by fellow creatives, a meeting room, maybe even have a space carved out for a small café during the day and a mini bar in the evenings. I’d call it “The Dark Room”, naming it after the film photo labs where the images are developed in darkness and the smell of developer chemicals are in the air.
Expired: book clubs. Tired: coffee & book clubs. Wired: Content Club. Where people gather to discuss things of interest that they have discovered such as a book or articles they are reading, the podcast they have been binging, even something they have seen and found share-worthy. The idea being someone from the group could be inspired to read/listen/watch what was shared. The ongoing goal being natural, organic growth in the group and not from an algorithm on a social platform.
“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”― Ernest Hemingway. Do you want to save the world and resolve problems? Start with yourself.
And that is it for the edition #2 of the newsletter. Each week I will share something of interest, well, things that I find interesting in hopes that you discover something interesting as well. I will also, in the future, share photographic stories. Hopefully, to your enjoyment.
There have been some questions/discussions about my research-thinking-writing process and I thought I would address them here. First step is to gain input. I read voraciously- not just books but articles from other critical thinkers on a wide variety of subjects up and down the Dewey Decimal System. There is zero chance I can remember all of this input so I dump them into my custom built personal database that I call “Grey Matter” where I can retrieve at will.
The process is extensive but worth it. I’ll read something of interest and make notes and highlights which immediately transfers into my digital brain. Inside there I wrote code scripts to organize and catalog these ideas to be referenced for later.
Connected ideas on one subject in a customized graph viewAnother view of connected ideas on a specific subject for easier referenceHighlights & notes automagically imported into my digital brain for reference
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Mesmerizing look inside my brain at how ideas are connected and grow on each other.
Personal knowledge management, or digital asset management can be daunting but if it is set up correctly to connect ideas and go down the rabbit hole of new thoughts. It is amazing to me to come across an article and then be immediately capable of connecting those thoughts expressed into my own while completely connecting them to other thoughts for an entirely new line of thought.
Last week I ventured out to celebrate the ancient “Chinese New Year”, and then realized that a majority of Asian nations also celebrate but collectively call it “Lunar New Year.”
Parade on the Avenida de Americas in downtown HoustonDragon + Lion dances through the paradeAsia Town/International District/Houston/TexasRed envelopes filled with small money bills are gifts to signify wealth & prosperity for the new yearAsia Town/International District/Houston/Texas
Now on to Houston’s Galleria District for indoor celebrations
All this walking and shooting had me ravenous for some wok pork and noodles. Washed down with Tsingtao beer of course.
While editing this article I was enjoying this soundtrack:
Next week I’ll share some highlights of the nearly 1000’s of murals decorating Houston.
*Author’s Note: I have published this e-mailed newsletter here on the website as a preview/promotion of what to expect when you subscribe For a grand total of $0. Forever.
Hello and welcome to the first edition of this newsletter. Every weekend I plan on sending an update or insight to things that I find interesting from the previous week. It is entirely possible that you may find it interesting as well. If you have something to share based on what you’ve compared to reading here, by all means, comment and share. Now, on to those interesting things…
Lost Libraries Of The Silk Road https://www.servinglibrary.org/journal/12/lost-libraries A British researcher drives solo on a motorbike at the beginning of the silk roads trade routes of China to Italy on a quest to discover ancient Chinese libraries.
Banksy, the infamous mural artist and political provocateur visits and paints up the war-torn Gaza Strip. “A local man came up and said ‘Please – what does this mean?’ I explained I wanted to highlight the destruction in Gaza by posting photos on my website – but on the internet people only look at pictures of kittens.” – Banksy https://streetartutopia.com/2024/01/18/street-art-by-banksy-in-gaza-palestine/
A quick view of the word Derive. “a mode of experimental behaviour linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9rive Great for those of us who enjoy walking through urban areas to discover everything around us.
“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” ― Ernest Hemingway. I recently ended a ten year, 100% accurate and technically perfect career last week. How do I top that for the next decade?
I have been doing a deep dive into the longest #1 album on the charts and a technically perfect LP, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon#Background I’ve been fascinated by the continuity, the operatic music and more.
And that is it for the first edition of the newsletter. Each week I will share something of interest, well, things that I find interesting in hopes that you discover something interesting as well. I will also, in the future, share photographic stories. Hopefully to your enjoyment.
Until next week…
Chris
Thanks for reading. This newsletter is an algorithm-free, advertising-free, monetarily-free, completely reader-supported and hand-rolled joint of a publication.
Hi! In case you are new around here, I am Chris. If you are new around here, here is something About Me and why you should read my newsletter. In this letter, I share what’s on my mind, my latest writings, articles worth reading from around the web, my recommendations & sometimes my photography.
The first edition of the newsletter is here, so thanks for subscribing! I’ll try to keep it concise and interesting.
Did you know that one of the possible origins of the April Fool tradition goes back to 1500’s France? When they switched calendars to celebrate the new year on January 1 instead of April 1, the spring equinox, a lot of people were slow to catch on or recognize the change. Those people were the butt of jokes and hoaxes because they still celebrated the new year on April 1st. These gags included having paper fish attached to their backs and called “April Fish.” As in an easily caught fish or a gullible person.
I finished a novel called “Station Eleven” which is now a series on HBO. Following that up with “Sea of Tranquility” that sums up three distinct time periods but are somehow linked.
If you enjoy vintage sci-fi stories, there is a podcast called “Relic Radio” Sci-Fi that re-broadcasts radio dramatizations from the 1950’s- 1960’s. It is amazing that the same hopes and fears are realized back then and now. We haven’t changed all that much.
Currently watching the Battlestar Galactica space drama remake. This is a brilliant series that touches every aspect of human ethics, emotions, religion, politics all while fleeing annihilation from the relentless, equally brilliant Cylon race…the machines that humans created.
Hi! In case you are new around here, I am Chris. If you are new around here, here is something About Me and why you should read my newsletter. In this letter, I share what’s on my mind, my latest writings, articles worth reading from around the web, my recommendations & sometimes my photography.
Every now and then I receive an email stating “I think your readers would be interested in _____.”
While I am grateful for the comments and feedback, that is not how this personal website works. Initially I write for myself and occasionally people agree with me and find it useful. Thank you! I can fill this website with all manner of interesting topics to maximize an audience but by then it becomes click bait. Instead, I write about topics and themes that I am interested and then others may find interesting as well then they decide to share it. See the difference? By all means, keep sharing topics of interest so we can all benefit. This is the heart of the social internet.
The articles I write here are infrequently consistent. They are written when time allows. When silent I am either working the day job or reading/researching topics of interest to myself and then saved for later use and sharing here or in the newsletter. Ah yes, the newsletter. Every member (free!), will get an inbox notification for each post created here. I’m contemplating a weekly round-up of the aforementioned topics of interest and sharing them. The format will loosely a bit like this:
An Image List of 5-10 topics, links, etc
Interesting article from web
Interesting article from web
Another subject
Link to interesting subject
What I’ve read
What I listen to
What I watched
A photo of something I discovered that week
A relevant video
Personal update
First, I check my website and see if there’s anything that I think is worth linking to. Then, I’ll check my log/journal for interesting topics, music, movies, or books, etc. Then, I’ll review my Twitter feeds that I’ve saved to share. After that I will scour the feeds I’ve saved in ReadWise, Matter or Feedbin.
I want to send out a newsletter to interested parties about topics that I have actually read and am genuinely interested in.
If you don’t already, you can click that subscribe button the website header or at the bottom of this article. I promise no spam, no advertising. Ever.
This was first posted on my website back on May 31, 2022, and I’ve added some new thoughts.
Anyone else noticed that today’s WWW is insufferable? I don’t specifically know when it turned, or why most users became jerks, but I’ll go ahead and guess about 2010. Making money off of content became more important than the content itself. This is a long post, but in short, the best way to fix it is to write good stuff and to be nice to other people. As the WWW was intended.
In the past, enjoyed content-rich websites created by people from all walks of life. They built and hosted their websites and networked with others to share their stuff, and it worked. Internet = interconnected. We learned from others, and we benefitted from other’s unique knowledge. Nowadays, there are advertisements everywhere, clickbait headlines as well as the tracking and selling of your private data and browsing habits. Where did all that good stuff go? To Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. etc.
Content creators, webmasters, and anyone with a hobby blog generally gave up and went the easy route of 180 character tweets and generic posts about what they ate and where on Facebook. Boring. People used to write, or photograph, or paint stuff that others would want to read. People used to write blogs, whether they were read or not, no one knew. Aficionados of every imaginable topic would research and post their findings for all to see.
When the tech conglomerates started to gather and consolidate web properties, the content was squeezed out. These platforms were nicknamed Web 2.0 as if version 1 needed upgrading. Version 2 was not an upgrade in my mind, in fact, it made the internet worse. Ad-driven content became a thing. You had to pay to play. The more eyeballs and attention on your stuff can be monetized to the widest possible audience. The internet became deceptive and, oddly, less social. Users became mean and divisive because now there was perceived competition.
It is almost impossible to find good content on the WWW now. Type a topic of interest on a conglomerate-ran browser, and you’ll have to sort through at least two pages of the search to get to anything that isn’t ad-driven and would be relevant to your search. When you do come across an interesting link, you are bombarded with sneaky and not so sneaky tactics to get your attention and your data. Web windows will pop up blocking the content, asking you to submit your personal info and subscribe. Pleas to purchase something that is offered. Advertisements litter the site with most, overwhelming the content you want to see. “Like me on Facebook”, Comment! Subscribe! Retweet! That is just what we see, but goes unseen is the amount of personal data that is collected and distributed to the tech conglomerates. Did you do a search on a medical symptom? Well now, the next website you visit will have a pop-up advertisement on a specific cream to help remedy that. It’s disgusting, invasive, and intolerable.
Where are people writing now instead of their own homegrown webpage? Social media. If you write on Facebook or post images to Instagram, the only people who can see it our the users on the platform. Have a business and your “website” is only a Facebook business page? Half of your potential customers cannot see it unless they are a Facebook user. No, thanks. Instead, people are writing out their limited thoughts on a limited platform that does nothing to further a conversation. That is, if you can actually see it on the FB platform. Facebook’s algorithm guarantees your content will be buried in favor of something they claim is more interesting (read that as attention-getting and therefore more potential ad revenue for them.) I won’t continue on about how the political and social media outlets combined are divisive and spiteful. I stopped both after the 2016 election, and I am blissfully ignorant. All this wasted time, effort, content, and energy spent on these proprietary platforms do nothing for the individual except to make themselves money.
So, what’s the fix?
Create your own website. There are a few free (with ads) hosting options as a start. Or you can use WordPress on your own hosted site. Web hosting and your own domain name will make it yours and on the cheap.
💻
Write or post anything you’d like. It’s yours to do with as you please. Network. Reach out to other like-minded people and build each other up. If you must use social media, put your content on your site first, then distribute to those outlets. Add a link back to your website and point potential followers there instead. We call it POSSE: “Post On Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.” Send the website owner an encouraging email. Comment on a post of theirs. Subscribe to their RSS feed and don’t miss a thing. Use ad-blockers, browsers that promote privacy and mean it, and a VPN.
One of the pillars of the internet , next to e-mail, is the personal, humble blog. This is defined as the social internet, not social media. Creators, writers, photographers, video hosts, and podcasters all need to put their works on a site that they own and fully control as opposed to posting on restrictive social media outlets. These personal websites will then generate what is called a feed for syndicating their works out to the internet (RSS or Really Simple Syndication). That is step one.
Step two is reminding their followers, their fans and their audience to embrace RSS aggregators, or feed readers so they can continue to enjoy the creator’s content. Sounds simple, yeah?
These RSS readers pull the website owner/creator’s latest articles into an easily readable format that the individual controls. Think of it as a podcatcher…but for reading! Not some algorithms that are driven by social media control or advertising. RSS has no advertising unless the creator mentions their sponsors, that is. You are in charge of what you want to read, who you want to read it from and to save it later for reference- or discard. You are in charge of your intake.
Screenshot of my RSS feed aggregator of choice- Reeder 5
Start by adding sources you know and trust. A source is a place where information comes from. When you add sources to your feed reader, you’ll be able to monitor them all in one place. By sources, I don’t just mean news sites. Sources can include:
Websites/Blogs Subscribe to the RSS feed of any source or publication. Get new posts from industry thought leaders, medium authors, or personal interest blogs like this one.
Magazines Follow everything from major industry publications to niche magazines.
News publications Follow major news publications or local news sources.
Research journals Keep up with the newest literature in your area of study.
Twitter
Pull content from Twitter accounts, hashtags, Lists, and searches into your feed reader. No ads!
Newsletters
Get email newsletters delivered to your reader so you can declutter your e-mail inbox and read without distractions.
Reddit
Get posts from subreddits and searches in your feeds.
Youtube
Subscribe to YouTube channels or playlists and get new videos in your feeds. No Ads!
Podcasts
Follow podcasts and never miss out on new episodes of your favorite programs.
Which feed reader should you use?
Start simple and free- try Feedly ( no, this is not a paid endorsement) In fact, I started to use Feedly a long time ago but opted for a cleaner, more personal aggregate called Reeder and FeedBin. These are one time purchases for me. Feedly has iOS, Android and web apps so you can access your feeds. Your news, your way.
It is way past time to delete your social media accounts and rejoin the social internet, like we used to do. The World Wide Web is a much better place and it starts with all of us taking control of our websites and consuming them our way. And of course I would appreciate being one of the first web sources you add to your new RSS feed reader. When you do, drop me an email to let me know. It is the social internet after all. If you have a website, I’d be happy to subscribe to it in my feed too.
Finally, make good content to share for anyone who may take an interest and be nice to others.
