History Adventuring

Since I've always enjoyed looking at old photos, I've often wondered what a long life would feel like. I remember my dad being disgusted by people who never seemed to learn, and he would often say that "there's no fool like an old fool", and "we grow too soon old and too late smart". He was very impatient with people who never learned, and while he never actually showed me a tin of shoe polish and compared it to something that a dog had left on the lawn, I know that he taught me well. I never wanted to be an old fool. Of course, you can just get old and never learn beyond a certain point. I've known people who call it "dropping anchor", maybe after high school, or whenever they feel that they're too old to learn. Speaking for myself, I wanted a long life to empower me, the way that Chiang did in the book "Jonathan Livingston Seagull". Chiang was not an old fool, he was a wise old master, and I wanted to grow from Jonathan into

As a time-traveler, I like to go into the past, and also into the future, and it's really all the same to me. And today I'd like to go to the future, and then look back on today, before the new building was built. Stay with me on this, and I'll try to explain. I collect old photos, and quite often people ask if I have a photo of, for example, their neighborhood before all of the houses were built. Or it could be a photo of what was there before the building that they work in was built. And sometimes there was something old, but especially in a fairly new place like Phoenix, there was nothing. And who takes a photo of nothing? Well, I did this morning. I was talking to the pastor of the church on 67th Avenue just south of Cactus in Peoria, and she showed me where they would like to build the new sanctuary. And it's the first time that I had noticed that there's a large open area right next to their parking lot. So I took a picture of it. Of nothing. When the sanctuar

In a long life, I've spent a lot of time sharing the world with transient people. I've always been an urban hiker, and whether it was in Phoenix, Santa Barbara, or Los Angeles, I've seen a lot of transients. You can, of course, call them by other names, such as hobos, or drifters, and you can even call them homeless. And the one thing that is consistent with them all is that they're always on the move. Some of them sleep on the beach, some of them drift from town to town, some stay with people until it's time for them to move on (this is often called "couch surfing", by the way). If your only encounter with these people is seeing them as you drive by with the windows rolled up, I really don't blame you. Quite often these people are very dangerous. Depending on the neighborhood, you can compare it to "Lion Country Safari", where you're fine inside of a car, and sometimes even that isn't enough - you need to stay away from those places!

I live in a spectacularly beautiful world, suburban Phoenix. And as I stood in the parking lot of Crossroads Plaza in Peoria this morning, sipping my coffee from McDonalds, I got to thinking how lucky I am, and have been since I was nineteen, and first came to Phoenix. Although you really can't see it in a photo, the sunrises and sunsets here in the desert are amazing. Back when I was going to ASU, I lived in a converted garage that was across from an open field, and I'd try to get out every evening and watch the sun go down. I'd been influenced by the Seer in the book Cannery Row, and sometimes felt as if the sun wouldn't go down if I wasn't there. Yes, they're just as amazing as you've heard, it's not just Chamber of Commerce stuff, or trick photography in Arizona Highways. If you've seen it in real life, you know. If not, I can't blame you for being skeptical. Of course, to really be able to see the sky you need wide-open spaces. I'm not c

Nowadays whenever people start talking technical stuff, or math, I tell them that I was a Fine Arts Major, and they usually stop. I actually have made some good progress with what most people call "Left Brain Thinking", like making sure that I pay bills, go to appointments, but it's not easy, and it never has been. Creating art is easy for me, and a pleasure, and my goal at ASU was to learn how to turn it into a living, which is how I ended up as a graphic designer. There are a lot of ways to describe someone who is a "Right Brain Thinker" - you could call them creative, or artistic, or daydreamers, or flakes. They tend to have their head in the clouds, are not good at paying attention, and the whole time you're talking to them they're probably doing a drawing of your head in their minds. Well, that's me. Yes, it took me seven years to get my four-year degree, but not for the reasons that may spring to your mind. I wasn't partying all the time, I

Yep, that's me, standing there waving while an audience looks at the clothes that I'm modeling. And this falls into the category of "did people really do that kinda stuff back then?" And since I was there, I can say yes they did, but if you remain skeptical, I really can't blame you. Stay with me on this, because it really had nothing to do with me, I was just one of the "dashing and dapper escorts" wearing a tuxedo, who escorted the beautiful girls onto the stage to show off their beautiful clothes. Sadly, I don't have a photo of me in a tux, which would have been nice, as it was the only time that I ever wore one. The whole point of the fashion show was just to show people who worked in the building what they could go buy at the mall next door. Yes, that was a thing. And the guys, like me, were just so much background for the girls - you know, like the men in the background of Marilyn Monroe in "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend", or