Two Cents and a Thousand Words

February 5: “I also want to … take my best-ever photograph”

Yesterday: “It dawned on me that I’d love to spend my time traveling (around Maine, or maybe even farther if I could afford it) and doing photography.”

Done and started.

(I’ve always believed that wonderful models / actors / whatever make a good image, not always a good photographer – and in this case, Hans-Stefan Ducharme, Joshua Schmersal, Matthew Bessette, Dominick Varney, Anne Schmidt, and Rebecca Bailey (l-r) did all the amazing work in the University of Maine School of Performing Arts’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar)

“Our high school guidance counselor used to ask us what you would do if you had a million dollars and didn’t have to work. And invariably whatever you’d say, that was supposed to be your career. So, if you wanted to fix old cars you’re supposed to be an auto mechanic.”

Once again, the quotable Office Space comes to the rescue.

I’ve had quite the history of dream jobs throughout my life. As a kid I wanted to be everything from a meteorologist to an oil man to a postmaster to a shopkeeper to a miniature golf course owner. I’ve tried my whole life to figure out some sort of common thread between those childhood dreams, but I’ve never really been able to pinpoint it. There was definitely a pretty noticeable sense of entrepreneurship in those aspirations, though.

My dreams matured as I did the same. During high school I thought that being an educational technology coordinator would be a very good job to have. It’s always stayed in the back of my mind as an option, but college led me to a purer Web design track. Though I don’t think it’s my ideal job, I do enjoy it; two fairly long-term (over a year) jobs have proven that it’s something that I can do well. I’d love to do more of my own projects, too, but working a full-time Web dev job unfortunately leaves you a little sick of HTML and PHP at the end of the day.

This begs the question: what would my current dream job be? After a bunch of thought, it dawned on me that I’d love to spend my time traveling (around Maine, or maybe even farther if I could afford it) and doing photography. I want to go to places where I’ve never been. I want to show people what they might never see. I want to go to events and gatherings and shows and everything and provide some sort of record – an emotional record that portrays the feeling of the time. Above everything else I want something that I can call my own and take some pride in my work.

When’s it begin? Well, hopefully tomorrow night I’ll be able to take some photos of a play. Next month I’ll take my yearly trip to New Hampshire and back and hopefully get a pretty wide variety of shots. I’ve always found it’s helpful to diversify. Maybe this could be a hobby to which I can really connect.

(6 pounds of spaghetti, 6 English muffins, a roll of toilet paper, 2 pounds of pretzels, 20 waffles, 2 pounds of ziti, 2 frozen pizzas, 2 boxes prepared macaroni & cheese, a gallon of juice, 24 ounces of yogurt, 8 ounces of cream cheese, 3 oranges, 3.5 quarts of ice cream, and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream)

I think everyone has at least one song that really conjures some sort of memory inside of him or her. I’ve believed for a long time that the best songs – or the best use of songs – stay with you forever and continue to produce this imagery.

The wonders of randomness tonight played three songs on my iPod that reminded me of unique times of my life. I’ve been wanting to write something about songs that produce vivid imagery in my mind, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

The first category of these kinds of songs is film music. Film music has a special role – it’s often secondary to the movie itself. A good song or score, though, stands on its own but may force you to replay the scene of the movie in your head while you listen. There’s no better example of this to me than “Lexington Hotel, Room 1432″ by Thomas Newman, featured on the Road to Perdition soundtrack. Newman’s composition follows Tom Hanks’s character as he, well, goes to see a guy about a thing. Also in this category is “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” by Annie Lennox (from Medusa, which itself has many very good tracks). This song provides the background to, well, Kevin Spacey seeing Mena Suvari about a thing in American Beauty.

Even more powerful than film music are the songs that remind you of certain places, events, or periods. My list is lengthy for this category. “Another Night” by Real McCoy (from Another Night) always reminds me of the bus ride home in middle school; bus 7 was the first place I ever really heard pop music. I remember the driver, the kids, and everything when I hear that song. Kosheen’s “Hide U” (off Resist) always reminds me of Becky and the wonderful, long X-Power days back at ASAP Media Services in college (there was a good chance it would be playing if you walked into the main development room).

And then there are the concerts. I vividly remember pulling into a parking lot outside of the FleetBoston Pavilion with Amber and hearing Ben Folds playing “The Boy with the Arab Strap” on the piano and hearing Guster sing “All the Way Up to Heaven” (off Lost and Gone Forever, easily one of the best albums ever). It was about 2:00 in the afternoon, and we both listened intently as we heard the voices of Ryan Miller and Adam Gardner singing to the music.

Bumstock. Headstart’s “Can’t Wait” (from Headstart!) brings me back to the preparation process in 2004: creating the site, doing the meetings, doing photography. No song brings back a memory more than Eve 6’s “Leech” (from Eve 6). With my camera around my neck and weary from a long day’s work, I remember looking at Erin, seeing the widest smile I’d ever seen her wear, and then looking back up at the stage and screaming “sucking on my brain, you’re the teacher, I’m the student” with a few thousand of our closest friends.

Finally, there’s the group of songs that reminds me of my friends. These mean the most to me. There’s Nickel Creek’s “The Lighthouse’s Tale” (from Nickel Creek), one of the saddest but most beautiful songs in the world; Tom Lehrer’s “Wehrner Von Braun” (That Was the Year That Was) and his “once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That’s not my department”; Guster’s “Come Downstairs & Say Hello” (Keep It Together), which makes me smile and think of having three or four cats tiptoeing around me; and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits), one of my favorite Dylan songs and the first song my Dad taught me on the keyboard.

So I have a wide range of musical tastes. Yeah. Who says that’s a bad thing?

Maine has a unique culture. It’s a place where you might wear shorts in the morning and a sweatshirt by dusk. It’s a place where you might get your lobster trap lines cut if you set them down in the wrong place. It’s a place where duct tape can solve just about anything. But nothing is a better indicator of Maine culture than a good ol’ fashioned Nor’easter. In fact, it happens to be snowing as I’m writing this.

If you ever have the fortune (or misfortune, depending on your point of view) to visit Maine during a snowstorm, you might be thrown off a bit about how the storm ranks in the eyes of true Mainahs. To aid you in this hypothetical unlikely situation, I’ve prepared a guide of three tests I use to gauge the severity of a Maine snowstorm.

The Stocking Up Test

The day before the storm, head down to the local gathering place (grocery store/”mahket”, convenience store/”cahnah stah”, transfer station/”dump”) and just listen to some of the locals talk about the storm. If a large portion of the people you see are either gathering water, shovels, and an unreasonable amount of reading materials or talking about the storm (”I’m glad I came back from so-and-so last night”, “stocking up just in case”, “hope the snowblower still works”), chances are it’ll be a big one. In fact, having these community conversations sometimes seems equivalent to doing a rain dance.

The Plow Test

As the storm winds down, look out onto a main road and tally the first ten cars you see. If two of ten are a truck with a plow on the front, it was a pretty good storm. If seven or more have one, you’ve just experienced something almost historical. Bonus points if the majority of the vehicles are municipal or state plow trucks. The only exception to this test is the case where no cars are driving because there’s five feet of snow covering the road and/or all the cars. At that point, though, do you really need to ask about the severity of the storm?

The “Remember That Storm” Test

After the snow has fallen, head back to the gathering place you selected for the Stocking Up Test. If a majority of the people talking there compare the storm to a past one (”almost as bad as the storm in ‘98″ or “eh, the storm in ‘92 was worse”), you’ve just experienced a good storm. Double your points if the person talking is over 50 years old and compares the storm to one before 1965.

I hope this guide was useful to you in the event of a Maine storm visit. If you ever do come on up to see the snow, remember your Bean boots, your hat and mittens, and your duct tape – just in case.

Sometimes I hate PageRank. and comment spammers.

It’s pretty bad when your mom visits your blog and sees sex spam comments. My grandmother reads this blog. Kids might read this blog. Sheesh.

Maybe I should just turn comments off – the last valid one I got was in November.

I’m not the type to do new year’s resolutions; a few disappointing December 31sts led me to skip the tradition over the past few years.

In 2005 I went through some of the biggest changes of my life. I’ve been taking a lot of time to reflect upon who I am, who I want to be, and where I want to go in the future. All of the thinking led me to make some goals and principles for 2006; they’re not really resolutions, but they’re more guidelines to think about throughout the year. You’ll most likely notice that most of what I say and do will reflect these principles. In the interest of organization (who, me?), I’ve broken them down into a couple categories.

I want to BE…

• less rushed
• less stressed
• less attached to the computer
• less obsessive (about some things)
• less worried about the little things in life
• more patient
• more outspoken
• more social with friends
• more responsive to people
• more diversified and open to new things
• honest
• creative
• true to my morals and beliefs

I also want to…

• travel more and farther
• find new things that I enjoy doing
• do more things that allow me to meet new people
• do more things that I want to do, no matter what other people say
• complete better Web projects
• photograph more (and possibly create a business)
• take my best-ever photograph
• show people why I respect them
• show people why they are valuable
• breathe more
• change the world (and/or save it)

Questions? Thoughts? Comment!