Recent developments in the linkerjpatrick world

It’s been a few months since I posted to to this blog but I have been working on some things behind the scenes. The image to the left is of a social card I am handing out at times as opposed to the traditional business card. I have listed on it my linkedin profile, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter accounts as well as a linking to my business blog and phone number.

I would have listed this blog but historically I have not posted to her as often. I may however link this blog on some of the social networking site to test out how the traffic is coming to this blog.

I have also been doing some thinking about some of the online communities I have been active in the past and wondering what I can do to rekindle my interest and participation in them. One of them being the the Mystcommunity Forum and another being the Planetside Forums that focus on the graphics program, Terragen.

I have become active on the GSPN Community Forum which is related to the GSPN family of podcasts and the Greenville section of the Urban Planet forums. These are the places you can find me and hope to integrate my participation within these various groups on this site.

Developing a Habit of Recording Life’s events

It hit me last night that I have not done any serious photography work for either my business or personally in the past couple of weeks. I have been preoccupied with other business tasks or personal issues however I have been able to capture a few images with my iPhone like this image of military helicopters that went overhead when I was sitting in the park other other day. Thankfully I do have a phone that has a camera built in as I often do not carry my larger digital SLR around with me.

I seem to talk about my iPhone a lot because it is the mobile device I use most of the time and since the 2.0 software and other free application became available it has been much easier to post photos, write to blogs, record voice message, etc. Having a mobile device you can carry in your pocket is very important to capturing images and sounds on a frequent basis.

How else can you “find the time” and develop habits to record life’s events? To me it’s important to remember that recording events grow in meaning and value when done more often. Posting to a micro-blogging service like Twitter doesn’t make a lot of sense but if you make a regular habit of it you will story to see trends and a story of your life unfold. If you want to do anything creative in terms of recording your life in audio, video and text consider the following;

1.) Have something portable you can record your thoughts, sounds, photos. Even if it’s only a small blank journal it’s worth it.

2.) Make a commitment to saying or recording something daily even if it’s just a short sentence. Over a year’s time just doing that will produce a record of things you may have otherwise have forgotten.

3.) Have a goal in mind like a Christmas present to give family members in a finished format like a self-published book or DVD.

4.) Use what works for you. Don’t feel you have to have the best quality cameras, audio recording equipment or leather-bound journals. For recording video you can use something very inexpensive like the Flip Ultra.

Have you developed a habit or recording life’s events on a consistent basis? If not what are your struggles both in terms of practicality or technology learning curves?

This is just a pit stop…

You will find me more actively posting on my other blogs;

SpinningSilk Multimedia Blog

and
My personal blog at linkerjpatrick.com

Past Fulfillments

In the mid 90’s I began my Internet career, not an official company mind you but began my journey of design web sites and related services for friends and family before going setting up a full-fledged business. Some of the early challenges involved not having all the technology needed to photography and other items. They were digital cameras at the time but nothing like what we have today. At that time I didn’t have a way of getting images into my home computer. I didn’t have a scanner or digital camera and had to resort finding free images or umm what I thought were freely available on the Internet and make enough edits to make them my own so to speak.

Times have changed and I not only have a good digital SLR but also an older digital camera, an iPhone which has a digital camera on it, my laptop has a digital camera built in as well as having a scanner and access to official freely or fairly inexpensive digital content online.

Where does this lead? I have set up a collection on my Flickr account called, Past Fulfillments. In this collection I will feature images I wish I could have photographed digitally before I had access to the technology and who knows I may actually bring back the projects they were intended for in one way or the other.

Things that make me tick

We have all heard the term or question, “What makes you tick?” I know at times I can be a mystery to a lot of people. If you think you know me by the computer I use, church I go to, house I live or business I run you may know a little bit about me but I’m unsure if any of those give a full picture of my personality, what I value and what interests me. I think about this “ticking” thing a lot because I do wonder how I come across but maybe this list will help out and also inspire me to write some future posts as well;

* I’m an “information hound” – I love keeping up with current events by reading the news, I listen to talk radio (both conservative talk and NPR – take that demographic people), podcasts and reading blogs
* I love to be organized even though I don’t always put it in practice
* I love photography and strive to perfect it as an art
* I go to a traditional, reformed, Presbyterian church but deep down I am more contemporary
* I prefer the music I listen to have soul, no matter the genre. I don’t care much of anything from the 90’s, 80’s were fun, like 70’s rock, 60’s Motown, big band, Classical, Bluegrass
* I like to know where I am in the process, I hate working on a project with blinders on.
* I love animals, especially dogs – for example see my photos of my last pet Darby who died last year and our current dog, Abby.
* I hate the “party system” of government. Ideally I’m more libertarian, generally vote conservative and get extremely frustrated when my views on government and the rest of my life conflict.
* I love Apple computers but my “standards” are more Internet based. I think all file formats, etc. should be open to the greatest audience possible.
* I prefer long walk in the mountains as opposed to long walks on the beach because I like the diversity in views and elevation.
* A lot of my favorite shows or movies are in the sci-fi genre but it’s not the whiz bang effects that attract me. It always how well a story is told in a clever way.
* I am sentimental to the extreme, be it my first computer experiences, when I first got our dog, or memories of family and friends.
* I find the oddest things funny. If you want me to laugh do a clever twist on language and say something unexpected. Good examples include Steven Wright and Jack Handy.
* I love spicy food. Salsa, Tobasco Sauce, Hot Chinese Food and I go crazy with a pepper grinder on my food
* I love coffee but it has to be freshly ground from the beans, both black and green tea
* Favorite food include Salmon, broccoli, Krispy Kreme Donuts, Lemon Pepper Chicken, good bar-b-que, pizza, water with lemon and ice cream.
* Technology in general – I love gadgets, computers and reading about the latest programming languages, etc.
* I’m oddly ambidextrous. I can only write with my left hand and can only throw or carry a lot of stuff with my right hand.
* I hate think about house work and yard work I need to do but strangely I have a hard time stopping once I start!
* I’m really reserved when you first meet me. You might even think I’m being stand offish but really once you do get to know me we can develop a deep friendship.

So, did anything I said surprise you? If you know me is it pretty much what you expect? Do some things I mentioned not fit into a box you like?