Easy Fast and New Year's Milestones

If you were observing the Yom Kippur fast yesterday, I hope you had an easy one. Fasting is no one's favorite thing, but for one day we give up food (among other things) and ask for forgiveness.

New year's celebrations in any faith or calendar system serve as an opportunity to take stock and prioritize anew. Spiritually, it's a chance for a fresh start and a clean slate. Practically, it's a time to look around a make changes based on what's working and what isn't.

We do it at year's end, we do it at birthdays, month or week's end too. We collect our thoughts and create a new strategy for next time, whatever the duration of time is.

What has the empty plate given you the opportunity to see?

Fasting is a way of taking you out of your most structured routine, to free up time to examine how you treat others, what you want to be doing, etc. I spent yesterday journaling, bringing closure to the events of last year and reorienting myself for the coming one. I also dedicated some time to putting my actual beliefs to paper (screen, really).

When was the last time you actually wrote down exactly what you believe?

The Wedding in Big Sky

As I discovered in May, Montana is a beautiful place.


The Winding Road

























Canadian Flag Over Missoula Mall

























Read the Bumper Sticker Over the Bar


It says, "I'm hung like Einstein, And smart as a horse."




That's comically unfortunate.











The Bridal Party

The Wild Wild West: Pictures from Seattle

Every time I travel west, I wonder why I left this place. Although I'm from the suburbs of Portland, not Seattle, it's the same vibe and it feels like home.


Growing artichokes
Only in Seattle, would you find artichokes being grown as decorative plants in a person's front yard.





















Graffiti at TUBS
Art is certainly subjective, but this building's graffiti is delightfully colorful.















Kickball
Apparently, there are three kickball leagues in Seattle. Here Ball Deep (yes, you read that correctly) is leading the Monster Squad, just barely.













Sunset Over a Lake
I've seen some beautiful sunsets in my day. But this one makes me want accidentally miss my flight home.














Don't worry Boston, I'll be back soon. I promise.

Upcoming Travels: Seattle, Montana & NYC

Sometimes you need to pack you bags and hightail it outta town; other times, you have these things planned for sometime. Thanks to some serendipitous pull of the universe, I find myself with a lot of pre-planned travel at a time when I could really use a get the heck out of dodge vacation.

As most of you know, I am an expatriot Oregonian. So I couldn't be happier to be launching my travels next week in the Pacific Northwest. My first port of call? Seattle--although I was looking forward to the soothing rain of this city, it's supposed to get up to 105 degrees. From there I make my way to a very small town in Montana for my pal Angie's wedding. I'm looking forward to the wide open spaces, mountain backdrop and the ease of conversation of the country...

I get back to Boston on the 11th of August and leave for NYC two days later. My client PigSpigot.com is throwing a launch party on August 14th and I'd love to rally the folks from the Boston to NY Australia Day trip of 2008 for the party--@paullyoung @sarahwurrey, can it be done?


Here are the important dates:

• Seattle: July 29-31
• Montana: July 31-August 11
• Boston: August 11-13
• NYC: August 13-17

• PigSpigot Launch Party: Friday, August 14 (client)
  

After August, who knows?!? But I'd love to see you while I'm traveling!

Gratitude: A Meditation for Now (and Later)

Gratitude is one of those words that comes up in yoga. Depending on how you're feeling towards the spiritual / emotional side of things, gratitude could be what the teacher is talking about while you're holding an awkward pose or it could be a meditation you seek to live by.

Sometimes when I'm feeling a little cynical, I think to myself, "gratitude pose--I'm grateful I can even get into it today." (See photo on right from yogajournal.com.)

When I'm teaching parsvottanasana (gratitude pose), I like to remind the class to be grateful for something external but also something inward-facing. For some reason, self gratitude is often perceived as a lack of humility, as a negative. It can be challenging to retrain ourselves to think, "well gosh, thank you for looking out for me today." Despite all of our external responsibilities, our first priority should always be providing for ourselves (or we can't be as useful to the external world)!

It's a beautiful idea, all this gratitude. But it's easy to forget to be grateful for yourself and others that really are always there should you need them. Right now, I'm incredibly thankful for all my friends.

This post is an incredibly round about way of saying thank you.

The Internet Has a Spine?

I've been hearing the words Internet backbone a lot these days. And it's a phrase that does nothing for me, save conjure an image of Atlas holding the globe on his shoulders. However, I've learned that much like Atlas, backbone is what holds up the interwebs for us to play on.

With all the recent talk of cloud computing, we think less and less about the physical infrastructure that makes the world as we know it work. Wireless connections support this idea that we don't really need to be tied down to anything. And yet, we're always using backbone somehow.

Internet Backbone is the physical connections between various networks--large corporate, military and educational ones-- that allow information to flow between them.

Logically, it makes sense. The interwebs have to touch, have to be connected. But it is a little mind-boggling to think that we're so locked in, so bound together, even as the networks themselves are like ever expanding stars in the universe. Atlas still holds us up.

Procrastinating Relationships

Have you ever had something uncomfortable to say that you kept putting off in the hopes that the issue would resolve itself or that you'd come to terms with it in some other way?

It's not a pleasant place to be. It's like cleaning house--you forget to pick up a few things here and there and suddenly the whole place needs a deep cleaning. Relationships are the same way. You can't procrastinate. Once you've let things build up, it can spiral out of control. And no one wants to be stuck with the all the dishes, laundry and scrubbing the bathrooms at the same time.

Whether it's contract negotiations or highly an emotional issue, putting it off never helps.

For better or worse, relationships require at least two people--so what do you do if the other player doesn't contribute? Knowing that the issue needs resolving, how many times can you follow up, ask to talk, etc. without being a nag?

Something I'm thinking about on this Monday morning, because as much as we talk about procrastinating our work. It's procrasting relationships that'll really come back to bite you in the butt.