TED

There are some really good ideas flowing about the world. They're not always in your face or apparent, though you may be thinking along with them without even knowing it. The funny thing is, the most applicable and seemingly form changing ideas about our actions, communities, way of life, psyche, etc. are just brilliant moments of clarity in common sense. Unfortunately, the bureaucracy of profits tends to have a dissolving effect on collective benefit, on those ideas that, mutually beneficial, could really have a chance to make the forward progress that our world is hungering for.

"Good Ideas" are a dime a dozen on paper, so to speak, but I once read that a 'good idea' isn't a good idea until it works. I believe this and, amongst other ideas, have grown to understand why it annoys the crap out of me when I hear "communism is a good idea on paper" ... no, its not, it doesn't work, its a bad idea (not to mention a lame one). Good ideas have to work in the world as it is, not in some fictional, hypothetical, ideal world.

Someday I would like to be a part of a good idea, someday I would like to be involved in an idea that changes peoples minds, that stops them in the street, that makes them smile and, at the end of the day, sends them home full of something they were missing. I suppose everyone wants that and most fail to ever achiueve it, who knows.

Down from the clouds I sit here typing away letting you all know that, on June 3rd, I will have an exhibit of my photos in a local book store in Hendersonville, NC (near Asheville). Needless to say I have been busy planning layouts, photos, taking photos, pricing, printing, and other things. It's really my first showing so I am pretty excited, though feel very under prepared and a little overwhelmed. It is a few months away, but my photos are a veritable disarray of confusion and I am struggling to get my thoughts focused.   

Sections of Fire Hydrants, Scenery, People, Climbing, Architecture and Still Life will surely be involved. I will have large prints, small prints, medium prints and perhaps cards too. Get myself seen and purchased is the idea.

The climbing season is coming, though it seems to have got distracted 80 miles south of Boone somewhere, probably sniffing the flowers and lollygagging about the small towns, blooming their Dogwoods and Flowering fragrant their quaint streetwalks. Here, today, it snowed.

Work is ok, I tire of working in 20 minutes intervals before interruption comes waltzing up to my door with idiocracy and menial endeavors. It's hard to complete a thought process and think something out when your day is filled, split, and caked in a sludge of microtasks who's solutions are heard and forgotten time in time out day in day out employee in employee out. This is not the job for me, and my patients wanes with each passing day. Its a roller coaster of interest and agitation. In one hand i get to explore, learn, and create; in the other i get the surely benefits of a manager, those of eye rolling employees, selective hearing, selective productivity, selective maturity, and selective sanity. Though never a dull moment, the office here is something fit for television, not reality (or perhaps reality TV, though a little less rating racking).

The winds will change, and if they refuse to blow I'll fashion a fan, put the wall behind me, and create a little breeze to get me started, office junkie is not my calling nor my forte. I want to talk to people, I want to help people, I want to interact and participate, I want to exchange, I want to create. This I cannot do in an office like mine. I want the wind, I want my camera and a force to pull my eye. A target. I feel a bit like a pole dancing compass, motivated to direction with no clear idea where. I know that, given current circumstances, the end of June (Mid-June really) will bring forth the spring of my move onward and away. It is time to change my scenery and hopefully give a, however brief, calming to the confusion.

In the meantime, away from existential ramblings, life is good. I am happy with my friends, happy with my hobbies, happy with my photography, and happy with my relationship. Melise is doing well and I really enjoy her company. We make bread, hike, climb, motivate, and relax. We will soon be learning Chinese together and she will be teaching me French, as she has been studying it for years now.

I recently learned of more opportunities for photographic work here in Boone come winter again, though I somewhat hope not to be here by then. However, should I remain I do have some more plans. There are a few galleries, local businesses, and venies for photos around town here, plus a few ideas that I could foster here while I hvea proximity to such a place as this. If I can find a well paying job here in town perhaps I can stay, perhaps I can find something that gives the satisfaction of a good day's work with the satisfaction of a good day's bank account.

I hope to see the universe fall together sooner rather than later above me.

foie gras

Me taking a Pizza break from taking photos
 at the Climbing Comp on 2/26/2011

Greetings and Sal-U-Tations!

Another day, another dollar I suppose. The price of gasoline will be going up up up so I hear. The disaster, and continuing disasters in Japan are affecting the world markets... and not just the Store! And unrest in the middle east doesn't spell hope for cheap travels for a long time. Hopefully Mt. Ranier and St. Helens don't decide to go go kaBoom! anytime soon as well, that good ol' ring of fire can be just a doozy! I want to leave Boone, sooner rather than much later (preferably in July), but the way of the economy, bills, college loans, and the job market are making moving on a path of dreams like swimming in syrup, I think soon it will turn to molasses. But Boone is great for climbing, great for the outdoors, and perhaps being here for a while longer isn't a terribly bad idea. Who knows, I suppose that exit will come upon the highway as steadily as anything else stuck on I-Time. 

Have not actually used this one yet, will 
just keep it in the bank for now.

Today I went back to the climbing gym on campus for the first time since it shut down for Spring Break this past week, must be nice, eh? It was good to see friends and get back on the... "rocks." A sopped and dreary week kept me company over what so many of my friends were able to call Mardi Gras, Florida, Spain, or intensely awesome rock climbing. We even got some snow as you saw in my last update. Hopefully the winter has hiccuped its last bout of sputtering snow and will now relinquish its grip to spring. Hopefully. 

In the meantime I have been organizing my photos, working on design, and continuing (as always) my photography. I have been doing a lot of poster and t-shirt work, to the right is some of what I have done for the Climbing Team. It has definitely been a good experience and I think I would really like a job doing Photos and Graphic Design, I think I would be good at it. Perhaps I will start a Coffee, Beer, Bread, Tea, Photography, Graphic Design, Local Art Gallery, Delicious Apéritif, and sometimes live music... shop.venue.restaurant.cafe.studio....place. It's going to be great!. Such a place would be a wonderful realm to study, read, look at cool local art, talk, get together, have good homemade foodstuffs, and work too! Oh to make that happen, perhaps I'll do some research. 

Things are going well with Melise and I. We are just doing the regular Boone thing; friends, tea, coffee, climbing, lazing, working (school/job respectively), hiking, photographing, and playing. We plan to begin learning Chinese soon, should be a good fun time. I hope to someday make it back there, aside from the experience and possible business opportunities (?), there is a massively large amount of great climbing. 

She's a great person. I am happy to know her. I hope you all can meet her at some point, I think the world'd be hard pressed to find a flaw. 

As I said, another day another dollar. Work is work, though its not terrible. I am getting paid to learn and navigate the topsy turvy world of Officeland and its quite a place. Drama, Excitement (usually grossly over exaggerated), politics, and projects. 

I am learning how to work Google's PayPerClick (PPC) advertising called AdWords. Its interesting, but I feel a little overwhelmed sometimes with my workload. I am doing AdWords advertising for 3 companies now, working on the website ( www.steelbuildinggarages.com ), learning organizational aspects, applications, and functionality quirks of Microsoft Excel (great program!), and the ever wonderful office coordination. Its a load, that's for sure, but never a dull moment. 

We have our old man Jim who forgets much, laughs much, and is just a great, large, enormous presence in the office, it would be a duller time without him. We have the recovering drug addicts, the continuing prescription pull abusers, the Alcophiliacs, the hard workers, the lazy smart kids, the know it alls, the abrasive high pressure sales people, the completely oblivious to reality ones, and much much more. I plan on writing a play about the place, I expect many awards. 

All in all its not a bad first job out of college. I love where I am, Like what I do, and have a great group of friends. Spring sends its roots through the thawing tundra and the sun coaxes shoots skyward towards yon summer. Life is good. 

NOTE: To post a comment, just click on "Post a Comment" at the bottom of any post that I have made. The posts are in reverse chronological order with the most recent being at the top and the oldest at the bottom. There is also a Chronological Navigation bar to your right where you can search for posts by month. I look forward to talking, sharing, and enjoying all that you might care to share. 

-CP

Melise climbing a problem called "Center 45" on the '45 Boulder' out at Blowing Rock
Boulders off of Hwy 221 just outside of Blowing Rock, about 15 minutes from Boone. 
It was a chilly but good night

at large

outside my apartment 3/6/2011

More Climbing, work, photography, and anticipation of an outdoors free from solid moisture. The weather is warming, but we're far from out of the storm completely. Just Sunday I awoke to a blustery horizontal snow blow (not quite a squall, not delicately falling flakes). After a great Saturday of climbing and well, perhaps, earned loot in prizes I was not too worried about the state of the outdoors. I spent the day relaxing, baking bread, and working on photos.  The sudden blast of snow after many of us had the tales of an early spring and hopes for an extended beginning to this year's green climbing season on our lips was a rude slap on the wrist from good ol' reality of Boone winters. Bipolar, Moody, Unpredictable, and sometimes bitter. 

New River Gorge (not my photo)

Soon comes spring, the beginning of an amazing climbing season I hope, very well, very well. A trip to far away and exotic climbing places such as the New River Gorge in West Virginia,  the Red River Gorge near Lexington, KY, or even down the road to the Linville Gorge is duly in order. I would love to get some shots out there, let alone climb the walls. I missed out on a great trip over Fall Break this past year and, now that I have some vacation time, will not be tendering the same unfortunate absence for some of the trips coming up amongst my friends in the not too distant futuredoms. 

My Sunflower Pumpkin Seed Wheat Bread with your choice

of butter, cranberry Wensleydale or aged white cheddar. So 

very good for sandwiches or warm yummy honey toast too! 

In the meantime between work and climbing, I am baking bread. I have really been enjoying my bread making experiments. From whitewheat, to sunflower pumpkin seed whitewheat, to Cranberry Pumpkin Bread, to some sort of French style baguette. I am currently in the process of drawing out a delicious recipe of whitewheat that incorporates sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, amaranth, and buttermilk. The first loaf was good, but a bit dense and I think the Amaranth needed a bit more soaking. My revisions to the recipe should be yet another step closer to the delicious concoction I know is hiding just beyond the tip of my nose.

The wild card, Amaranth, I chose because of its deliciously healthy healthums. Not a particularly delicious grain, it does add a little something something to the bread. I think, for hearty wheatwhite v3, I will soak in a pot the buttermilk mix of goodness the Amaranth for a medium sized bot longer, around 10-13 minutes I believe. Softening them up may help digestion of the little guys and also may impart more of their flavor, if there is any within them, into the bread. We'll surely see.  

Melise climbing on the Cereal Butress at 

Rumbling Bald in Asheville, NC Winter '11

Many of these activities have been shared between myself and another, my girlfriend, Melise. We have been dating for about a month now, its been great. She's fun, laughs a lot, loves the outdoors, camping, and climbing. She likes to and is a good cook, we bake together. She is independent and intelligent. We share a lot in common and I look forward to spending more time with her. At the moment, she is out of touch on a service learning project leading a trip of volunteers working at the Exotic Feline Rescue Center in Indiana... middle of nowhere Indiana. It's an ASB (Alternative Spring Break) thing, students go on volunteer community service trips rather than heading out to Panama, Mexico, Spain, Florida, or just Wilmington. It's raining all over the southeast's rocks, so scrapping the service for climbing wouldn't have done much anyway, its going to be a wet spring break for a lot of people.