I'm moving...

I've decided that I'm moving my blog. "Doodles in My Brain" has been a good first attempt at a blog. I've enjoyed the learning experience. I decided to start a new blog on a different service. I think I'll have a bit more flexibility and, most of all it's a fresh start. You can find me here:

http://ricsieben.wordpress.com

It's pretty basic right now but I'll be spiffing it up a bit in the coming weeks. I'm going to work harder to be more consistent with my posts. Go check it out...this page won't go away, but all the new stuff will be at the new location. You know...this one: http://ricsieben.wordpress.com!

Fall Colors '09

One of my favorite places in Colorado is Breckenridge. It's a great town that Lisa and I try to visit at least once a year. We just got home after spending a few days there and got to see the start of Colorado's beautiful Fall Colors. Here are a few pictures I shot when we took a day trip over Independence Pass to Aspen. If you can, I would highly recommend getting up into the mountains either this weekend or the weekend of Sept. 26. It's going to be amazing up there!

Take a listen...

Take a listen to the new Imogen Heap album "Ellipse" - it releases next week but you can listen to it right here, right now before you buy it. She's an innovative and very talented singer/songwriter...at least in my opinion!

Senior Portrait

Last Friday was d-day. Or maybe I should say, "P-Day" - "P" for portrait. As in Senior Portrait.

As an amateur photographer I've been able to capture some pretty cool pictures. Around Memorial Day sister-in-law, Lori asked me if I would be willing to take my niece's senior portrait for her. I accepted and then proceeded to feel my stomach tie itself in knots almost immediately. As a friend so readily pointed out to me, I must've been crazy to accept the assignment. There's a lot of bad that could've resulted from the whole experience – angry parents, a disappointed niece, a family rift. Of course if I pulled it off I'd be rewarded with gratitude from the parents, appreciation from my niece, and the family...well, things would be business as usual with the family.

So here they are...Savannah's Senior Portrait pictures. She hasn't chosen the one she's going to use for her yearbook picture yet but these are a few of what she has to pick from. And, if I may say so myself, I think I did an ok job for my first time as a portrait photographer!

Amateur Photographer

I've been making moving pictures professionally for nearly 24 years. Over the past year and a half or so I've tried my hand at still photography and have become painfully aware of the differences. I'm still very much an amateur photographer but I think I'm developing a good eye.

Yesterday I bought a Canon EF 50mm lens. This is my first lens that has a fixed focal length (for all the non-photographers reading this, it doesn't zoom). I made the purchase because my niece has asked me to take her senior pictures for her and it came highly recommended by the young lady in the camera store. Quite honestly, this project scares the crap out of me. The vast majority of my picture taking experience is wildlife or scenic shots. Portrait photography is sooo much different in sooo many ways. Plus, these will be the pictures that she'll have to commemorate her final year of high school. No pressure! The good news is she wants her pictures taken outside and I do much better with natural light.

I took these pictures after buying the lens so I can start getting used to how it shoots. One is a Lily I spotted blooming in our front yard and the other is my friend Lee, the aspiring painter.






















What do you think? Do I have a shot at making her happy or will I suffer the wrath of a 17 year old for the next 9 months?

One in a Million

I work at Compassion International. Today we celebrated a major milestone, our 1,000,000th concurrently sponsored child. My team and I put together this video for the occassion.

One in a Million


The millionth sponsored child, Fellow, is from Togo, the newest country that Compassion works in. His sponsor is Jang Mi-Ran, an Olympic gold medalist in womens weightlifting, is from South Korea, the country where Compassion's ministry started in 1952.

It took 57 years for Compassion to reach the 1,000,000th sponsored child mark. We're estimating we'll hit 2,000,000 within the next 5 or 6. The sad part is that's a very small number when you're talking about children living in extreme poverty around the world. Will you help us reach one more?

Thunderbirds

Colorado Springs is an awesome place to live for a lot of reasons. One huge benefit is every year the USAF Thunderbirds perform at the United States Air Force Academy graduation. Here are a few photos I took of today's event. Enjoy!

Skies Around the World, Pt. 2

People seemed to appreciate my Skies Around the World post from a few days ago. Here are a few more that I thought you might like. Without further adieu, Skies Around the World, Part 2.

Rift Valley Moon


Otavalo, Ecuador


Another from Frisco, CO


I'd love to hear from you if you enjoyed viewing these.

Skies Around the World

Having the opportunity to travel around the world means I've gotten to see some beautiful scenery. Here's a little collection of photos I've put together to share with you called Skies Around the World.

Uganda Sky


San Diego Sunset


Masai Mara Sunrise


Mt. Kilamanjaro


Frisco, Colorado


I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.

What's the Point?

Earlier this week my mother asked me this question, "What's the point of all this social networking stuff?" (I know I did similar blog a few weeks ago but trust me...this is different.) I have a FaceBook page, I'm on LinkedIn, I Tweet and I write this blog. It's a world that a lot of people in my parents generation just don't "get." For me, each serves its own purpose: FaceBook is for casual, personal use, LinkedIn is more for work or business related relationships, Twitter and the blog are mostly just for fun and tie into my FaceBook page. From talking to other folks, I'm not that unusual in how I use these different social tools.

Since I've been using these various resources I have been able to reconnect in a variety of ways with friends I had in high school, college and with previous employers. No deep, long lost relationships have been reestablished but it is nice to find out what old friends are up to these days and learn something about the journey they took that brought them to where they are now. These people influenced my life at some point in time. It doesn't need to have been some huge, earth shattering, deep rooted, significant impact but none of us can help but be affected in some way by the relationships we have had over the years.

One of the more amazing outcomes of all this social networking is the realization that I literally have friends all over the world. It's no surprise that I have friends spread throughout the US...that's the nature of our society and Colorado Springs is a pretty transitory city. What is truly awesome is taking a look at the various countries where some of my friends live: United Kingdom, Netherlands, Canada, Colombia, Austria, Uganda, India, Honduras, El Salvador, Indonesia, Australia, Switzerland, France... Then I think about some of the friends I have made that aren't using these social networking tools - or at least we haven't connected through them yet. These friends live in places like Italy, New Zealand, Kenya, Rwanda, Ecuador, Germany, South Korea, the Dominican Republic... WOW!

As I was graduating from high school and college and having a go at making film and video production a career, I never dreamed I would travel to so many places and meet so many people. These fancy new internet based social sites have allowed me to continue to keep in touch with so many more people than I ever would have without them. Sure, it may be just a short comment on someone's wall or a quick tweet but to me it serves as a reminder that says "Hey – I remember you! I haven't forgotten you and the time we spent together. You still mean something to me and I appreciate our friendship."

That's the point.

Swine Flu

With all the publicity about the potential Swine Flu pandemic in the media, I thought I would pass along this helpful tip from the Center for Disease Control that should help you avoid catching this very deadly virus.

CDC Alert: Do NOT do this:

You're welcome.

Compassion in Action

There is a group of people visiting India right now. For many it's their first trip outside the US. Talk about a leap of faith to literally go to the opposite side of the planet! They are blogging about their experiences and I would recommend that if you want to see people's lives being changed for the better take a few moments to read what they are experiencing...compassion in action. Even though I've seen what they are seeing many times, it's still very moving.

Click here to see what they are writing. You won't regret it.

A Blog about Tweeting a LinkedIn Post for FaceBook

I had an interesting conversation with my friend Keely while we were in the Dominican Republic last week. I told her that I'm already on Facebook, LinkedIn and am writing this blog so what additional advantage would I gain by adding Twitter to what has already become a time consuming list of social networking? She talked about the advantage of being able to get micro bursts of information from not just my friends but organizations that I'm interested in. We went back and forth for a few minutes and pretty much left without resolving much of anything.

Over the past week I've kept thinking about our conversation - playing it over and over again in my brain and actually debating with myself over the whole issue. So today I took the plunge. I signed up with the handle "colorado_ric" so if you tweet feel free to follow me.

Ironically, my best friend signed up to check out the Twitter movement at almost the same time that I did and we hadn't even talked about it. If you just can't help yourself you can follow him, too!

While I'm at it I'll toss out that I'm working on an idea for a small business/hobby type of idea. Guess what? It's a social networking thing, too! As some of you know my wife and I own a Mazda Miata that we not only enjoy driving but have been having a good time fixing up, too. I am pretty sure that there are quite a few other people that enjoy the same things we like doing with the Miata so I'm working on a fansite that I hope to launch in the not-too-distant future. The biggest question becomes, "Where am I going to find the time to do all this stuff?!?"

Reconnecting

This week I've had the opportunity to reconnect with some friends I hadn't seen for awhile.

I saw my niece Savannah and helped her celebrate her 17th birthday.

I spent a little over an hour with JoAnn hearing what's happening with her and her husband Jeff.

I spent half a day with Steve, Susie, Mike, Mark and Janelle working on a new video for Compassion.

I ran into Randy and was able to spend a few moments with him just saying hello and chatting about life.

There was Stephanie, Steve and Suzie - different from the Steve and Susie above - who I am in contact with fairly frequently by email or telephone but I got to see them in person this time.

I met some new friends, Mike and Jeff. Great guys with great hearts and a lot of energy!

Next week I get to spend time with Keely again. I haven't had the chance to talk with her in...well, it's been too long. My friend Spence will be there, too.

Overall, I would have to say it's been a pretty good week! I hope things continue to go this direction.

Misery Loves Company

I'm noticing things about myself these days...more than the obvious like my hair is falling out or that it wouldn't hurt for me to lose two or three or thirty pounds. I'm noticing that I have to work hard not to have a negative attitude about things. Instead of looking at the good things happening around me I tend to focus on the bad. Being negative seems to come naturally. Sometimes my sarcastic side comes out before I can stop it – or maybe I don't want to stop it. Other times I'm just plain mean. If there's something going on that I don't like I'm going to make sure others don't like it either. Misery loves company.

Where's the joy in my life? Why is it so easy for me to focus on the negative rather than celebrate the positive? I really have a lot to be happy about - a beautiful and loving wife, a caring family with a whole bunch of fantastic nieces and nephews, great friends that I can share life with, a stable and fulfilling job, the opportunity to see beautiful places and meet amazing people around the world, a comfortable and well built home, an abundance of food, reliable transportation, the freedom to openly worship and talk about God...I could go on and on about how blessed I am and yet more often than not I find myself dwelling on the bad. What's up with that? Where does this negativity come from? Why can't I be content instead of grousing about insignificant things or looking for someone to blame for my unhappiness and trying to bring others down?

Maybe that's it...perhaps I've stumbled onto something as I write this. Why do I need to assign blame to someone or something instead of taking responsibility for my own actions or feelings? If someone does something that I don't particularly agree with why do I let it bring me down? I can't control what other people do or say so why do I let it affect me as much as I do? I'm the only one who can really control how I react to situations or something someone says. It's up to me how I respond to any given situation that I find myself in. I can either live my life thinking the worst about people's motive's or intentions or I can choose to look for the positive. If I choose to wallow in the negative, why shouldn't I expect my life to be negative? If I choose to focus on the good things that surround me doesn't it make sense that my attitude will mirror those positive things? Too often I let my attitude be affected by external influences that are completely out of my control. The only person who can truly make me happy is me. I can find joy in the people around me and we can share good times but ultimately it is my responsibility to choose whether I am going to be positive or negative in how I approach life.

I'm not naive...I know that sometimes bad things are going to happen. There will be difficult times and situations that come up more often than I would like. How I've reacted to those situations in the past has determined whether I'm in a funk for an extended period of time or whether I've picked myself up, shaken off the dust, learned from the experience and moved on. If I dwell on the negative and try to control what others are doing I end up trapped in a cycle of self pity and that's exactly where Satan wants me. If I give it over to God and let Him be in control things tend to swing back toward the positive a lot faster. Everyone has different life experiences that shape how we think and feel. I may not have had an "ideal childhood" (whatever that is) but it was far better than what a lot of other people had and I believe my parents did the best they could given the circumstances. I would be taking the easy way out to assign blame for the situations of my upbringing and using them as an excuse for my behavior instead of taking responsibility for my actions and making an effort to change how I respond to challenges today.

Does that mean that I'm going to be so optimistic that I begin to believe I'm living in some sort of utopia? Hardly. I have enough life experience to know that there is no heaven on earth...that comes in our next life. I also know that God never said our lives would be easy and without pain. What matters is how we react to the challenges we come across and ultimately how we live our present lives as a result. I'm tired of being negative and focusing on the bad or dwelling on the past. From this point on I choose to look forward, to search for the positive things in my life and to not get caught in the undertow of the bad things that will most certainly continue to happen. With God's help I will change the things that I can change within myself and stop focusing on what is beyond my control and allowing it to pull me and the people around me down. I am truly thankful for everyone and everything that God has placed in my life and it's time for me to start expressing that appreciation.

Thank You!

I want to thank everyone who stepped up and became a hero yesterday during Compassion's Global Food Crisis Day. The totals are still coming in but as of this post more than 15,000 people donated over $1.6 million and nearly 1200 children were sponsored.

THANK YOU, HEROES!

Please

About a year ago there was a lot of talk in the media about something that became known as the "Global Food Crisis." Reports were coming in from around the world detailing how the rising cost of food in developing countries was making those living in impoverished conditions struggle even harder to feed their families. It was becoming a serious issue and thousands upon thousands of people were in danger of starving to death.

Then the worst thing possible happened. The media got distracted by the US Presidential elections. The mortgage crisis hit and the economies of the First World Countries tanked. Suddenly people were more concerned about their devalued retirement accounts or their mortgages and the people starving to death around the world were pushed to the back page. Unfortunately, they have remained there as the media focused our attention on the inauguration of the USA's first black president and the billions of dollars in bailout money being dolled out for failing banks and automakers. In the meantime, things haven't gotten any better for the starving. In fact, it's gotten worse in a lot of countries. As prices rise and we worry about inflation here in the US, the developing countries are experiencing hyper-inflation and the cost of food has risen dramatically. Some of the original factors that turned this trend into a world calamity recently include unstable oil prices, increased meat consumption in countries like India and China, droughts in major crop-producing countries, and increased production of biofuels. When someone is only making a dollar or two a day and the price of a bag of rice increases by 50, 60 or 100% that's a huge deal. The UN World Food Programme calls the current global food crisis “a phenomenon, a silent tsunami,” that is affecting millions of families in every nation on every continent. This global food crisis is more rapid, urgent and devastating than any other in the history of our planet.

March 11, 2009 is a significant day. It's the day that Compassion International has dubbed "Global Food Crisis Day." The goal is simple. Raise money to provide food to families around the world who are starving. Compassion is partnering with radio stations, media, churches and bloggers to spread the word about the Global Food Crisis and raise funds that will make a real difference to those impacted by it. Here's the best part. You can help. You can make a donation that can literally save someone from starvation. Go to compassion.com/please and make a donation. Tell your family, friends and co-workers about it. Your donation will provide food vouchers to children and families needing immediate relief, buy seeds and agricultural tools so that families can grow their own food as well as earn extra income, and provide supplemental nutrition services at Compassion-assisted centers around the world. Be a hero - give, spread the word, save a life. Do it now.

Please.

Shhhh...Top Secret!

Here's a first glimpse of an upcoming version of the iPhone. Don't tell anyone where you saw it and don't spread it around to too many people. We wouldn't want to tip off the folks at Microsoft or RIM.



Pretty cool, isn't it?! Too bad this is just someone's dream - someone with access to some very nice 3D software!

Of course I want one – you know you do, too!

Real Life, Real Change

Today is a big day. There's a big event happening and someone's life will never again be the same. As with most life changing events there's a ripple effect. Other people's lives will change, too.

While lots of people around the world will experience change today, I'm talking about one specific event. My nephew, Travis, and his wife, Lindsey are becoming parents. Talk about a real change! Travis and Lindsey are 20. He's in the Marines and is currently stationed in Georgia. Travis' parents and grandparents are there for the birth...I'm sure Lindsey's parents are there, too. So, today Travis and Lindsey become Mom and Dad to little Gunner. Lori and Kirk become Grandma and Grandpa, and Travis' 16 year old sister becomes Aunt Savannah. Bob and Karin become Great-grandparents and Lisa and I become Great Aunt and Great Uncle. We, of course, feel we're far to young to be "Great Aunt Lisa" and "Great Uncle Ric" – we'd prefer to just continue to be the "great" aunt and uncle. I have to stop and think what Lori and Kirk must be feeling about becoming grandparents because Lori is only a year older than me. Kirk's got a few extra years on top of that but I know he's thinking he's not old enough to be Grandpa Kirk yet...he prefers to be called Captain Kirk.

Little Gunner will make his first appearance in the world sometime today. I love him already because I love Travis. I know there are a lot of other people who feel the same way. Even though we probably won't to be able to play as big a part in Gunner's life as we have with our other nieces and nephews it doesn't mean we won't love him as much. I'm proud of Travis for pursuing his dream to become a Marine and serve our country. I'm proud of both Travis and Lindsey for committing to being the best parents they can be. I wish I could be with them to give them both a big hug and to welcome Gunner into the world, but we can't always get what we wish for. There will undoubtedly be bumps in the road as life moves forward for this new young family. Lisa and I, and the rest of our family will do all we can to support and love them.

Happy Birthday, Gunner!

Wallpaper is from the Devil

I hate wallpaper. Worse yet, I hate having to strip wallpaper off the walls. Whoever invented wallpaper was an evil, evil person inspired by Satan himself.

I must have been feeling guilty about something when my wife asked to put up wallpaper in our family room and master bedroom. That was about 11 years ago after we moved into our house. The first indication that it was a bad decision came about a year ago when we remodeled our master bedroom. Fortunately the bedroom was wallpapered on one wall with a chair rail height strip around the rest. Since we ended up doing a beadboard wainescoat and covered the big wall with beadboard paneling we ended up not having to strip absolutely everything off. That's not the case in our family room in the basement.

The family room is three walls, floor to ceiling...two different wallpapers with a border around the top and one around the middle where the two different wallpapers met. It looked fine and was an easy thing for me when it was installed - Lisa's mother was a professional wallpaper hanger in a previous life and was more than happy to install ours. The unfortunate part about having someone with professional experience install wallpaper is that it wants to stay on the wall...forever. You strip the top layer off - that's the easy layer - to reveal the satanic monster underneath. You score the walls with this obnoxious little clamshell device, spread glue dissolver all over everything and pray that it comes off cleanly. It doesn't. You then spend hours and hours gently scrapping and pealing and gooping and scrubbing. We're at a point now where we have about half of it done. Half done after approximately 12 hours of combined time trying to get rid of the stuff. If this experience doesn't catapult us into divorce, we're good for the rest of our lives.

Once we get this devilish mess off our walls we'll be painting. I enjoy painting a little bit more than removing wallpaper but I'm really looking forward to how it will turn out. I'm also looking forward to never having wallpaper in my house again. Ever.

Word of advise. Don't hang wallpaper on your walls. They'll tell you at the store that "it comes off easier, now...not like the old days." Take it from me. They are lying. They want you to experience the torture they have inflicted upon themselves over the years, to share in their torment. Don't do it. Go to a paint store. Find some great colors that go with the current trends and your personality. In a few years when you change your taste and the world has decided some other color is cool, it'll be a lot easier to update your walls. Trust me. I wouldn't wish wallpaper removal on my worst enemy, except for maybe my mother-in-law.

New Post for a New Era

The new era of change has begun for America. Barack Hussein Obama became the 44th President of the United States. So far his administration seems more balanced than I expected it would be. His words more moderate. There may be a whole bunch of Democrats who are worried that they didn't elect who they thought they did and a whole bunch of Republicans wondering why they were so scared of this guy. As an unaffiliated, self-described moderate and political pessimist I'm thinking things seem to be going pretty well...but it's early and only time will tell. There's a whole lot of stuff that needs to be cleaned up. That's not a statement against the previous administration as much as it is a statement about how the world has been thrown into chaos over the past decade. It's a very different world.

It's funny listening to some of my conservative friends who are already grousing about the amount of money spent on the inauguration. I'm pretty confidant the Republicans would most likely have spent just as much if McCain would have won the election. Personally I'm disgusted by the amount of money thrown around by everyone involved in our most recent election. Just think what good that money could have done for the AIDS orphans in Africa or fighting preventable diseases that kill children all around the world. How much food would we have been able to provide for the starving? At least our new President said he is going to help.

"To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it."

Amen to that. 

The new White House website declares "Change Has Come to America." I sure hope so. 

Most of all, I hope it's a change for the better.

Vail Ski Lift Naked Guy

If you haven't heard about the guy who almost fell off the Ski lift in Vail, Colorado you must be living under a rock. He was saved from physical injury by snagging his pants on the apparatus only to find himself suspended upside down exposing himself to what has now amounted to the entire world. I'm sure psychiatrists in the Rocky Mountain region are hiring private investigators to find out who this guy is. The bills for his mental rehabilitation will be huge!

850KOA, a radio station in Denver played a hilarious spoof spot about the poor chap this morning. You can listen to it by going to this link. Scroll down the page a bit to find it...when you see the picture from above, you've found it.

An Amuze-ing Post

I've been lax on the whole blog thing for the last few weeks. I have good reasons...really. 

Ok, maybe not. I took the last week and a half of the year off from work so I must have lumped blogging into the same category as. I really enjoyed my time away from the office. I didn't even check my work email once. Really. No, really – I didn't.

I had a great week off with my wife. She had to go back to work the day after Christmas so it really was only a week with her. We did a lot of relaxing. We shopped for new furniture to replace our 18 year old living room set. Did some more nothing. Had a couple of great meals with friends. Those actually deserve a paragraph or two of their own.

On December 26 we went to dinner with a couple of our closest friends, Lee and Donna. They celebrated their 24th Anniversary on December 22. Lisa and I celebrated our 21st Anniversary on January 2. December 26 seemed like a great middle date to have a dual celebration. We went to this intimate little restaurant in Palmer Lake called the Amuze Bistro. By little I mean tiny. There are four tables. Two seat four people each, and two seat two people each. We had an outstanding meal with great service and even better conversation. If you've got a special celebration coming up I would highly recommend Amuze. I would also highly recommend that you make a reservation.

The next night we were treated to an  early anniversary dinner by my parents. They head southwest to Phoenix for three months every year to get away from the Colorado winter so they weren't in town for our actual anniversary. We dined at a restaurant in Castle Rock called Uniscali Food+Wine. Uniscali's is a little larger than Amuze (I counted 10 or 12 tables) and the food is every bit as good. The service was right up there, too. It's not what I would call intimate, but I would recommend it for a great meal for a special occasion as well. We're going to take Lee and Donna on a little road trip to Uniscali's one of these days. Reservation's would be a good idea for this place, too.

The rest of our time off was spent with various family members, more searching for furniture and more relaxing. We eventually found our new furniture. We spent more than we wanted but if it lasts us another 18 years it will be another great bargain. I'll post about the new furniture once it's delivered sometime in February. In the meantime we've got a great, lovingly used sofa and a couple of arm chairs that need to find a good home. They really are still in pretty decent shape (one of the many benefits of being DINKs) so if you know someone who's looking send them my way.

On January 5th we found ourselves back at work and looking forward to what's in store for us in 2009. We've already started planning for our next vacation...most likely to Phoenix in March to visit Mom and Dad. We may have to take in a baseball game or two while we're there. It will be Spring Training after all.

As I formulate ideas for upcoming posts I would love to hear about your favorite "special occasion" restaurants - what makes them special to you?