I’ve been asked many times by many people why I am so involved in the belly dance community. I always answer the same “it keeps me out of trouble”. Everyone laughs, thinking I am joking. Actually, “keeping me out of trouble” is the the gods honest truth. Hanging out with belly dancers, being involved with them as friends, as a photographer, and on a number of other levels, helps keep me sane, lowers my stress level, and improves my life…
Sometimes I find I just have to let something go. When Claudia, my late wife, was very sick she could not leave the house. So I searched for things that could keep her mind busy, to help her creative side, so she could have some happiness in spite of the illness. I found a graphics program called Poser 3D and bought it for her. Now the thing about Poser is it’s like a Barbie Doll; once you have the main…
The internet is an interesting place. Using various social media and other systems, you can meet people from all over the planet, talk to people ten thousand miles away, without leaving your chair. It’s fascinating how people who have never physically met can become the best of friends from hundreds, thousands or even ten thousand miles away. I’ve gained many close friendships with people in other countries via the internet. These are people who are now part of my life…
Once a year I get all three of my free credit reports, as is my right under credit law. Today was the day I could get the newest reports, and this morning that produced a huge surprise. When Claudia, my late wife, passed away, I was left with a huge mountain of debt, and the method I used to handle the mountain was a debt settlement program. I would not recommend this method for the faint of heart. It was…
I find it amusing, in an ironic and sad kind of way, when people try and figure out why an insane person did something. It’s insanity! Shooting a whole bunch of school children is the act of an insane person. You can come up with all the reasons you want, but the simple fact is the act was not rational, it was not sane. For all we know, he thought the space aliens were invading and he was doing his…
Photoshoots are one of the most difficult things I have ever had to confront in my life. I know that sounds odd, since I’m a photographer and I do a lot of shoots these days, but at the beginning it all seemed so difficult, so incredibly hard that for the longest time I felt like I’d never be good at it. I found shoots difficult because I was painfully extraordinarily shy and introverted. For those of you who didn’t know…
I am doing something a little different this year with my New Years resolutions. I want to make some life changes, some minor some more significant, and the goals are not going to be easy. So this year I’m making my resolutions as a kind of contract with myself. I’ve done that before, and it’s worked well. So I’m spending today looking over my life, reviewing what I like and what I don’t like, looking forward and seeing where I…
There is a simple fact that I have had the immense pleasure of discovering over the last few years. The biggest lie in the universe is that we are all bodies, we are mud and dust and carbon. Most all of us have bought into that lie so much that we even say things like “I have a soul” at best to “I am just a monkey” to “I am just mud”. Bullshit. We don’t have a soul. We have…
Lately I’ve talked to a few people about giving up an addiction: a woman who smokes and another who drinks too much. While I was chatting with them about it, I realized one of the things that makes giving up the addiction even more difficult. I remember my late wife, Claudia, had to take major pain killers, Vicodin and two triple prescriptions, for years to fight chronic severe pain. When that pain was gone, the underlying issues handled, she couldn’t…