I stepped outside this morning for a short walk and had the strangest sensation... couldn't put my finger on it... and then about halfway down the block I realized, for the first time in months I'm outside in a t-shirt without a coat on. Trees were budding. Birds singing. All the cliches. After years in LA, a city without weather, I was experiencing spring and it felt almost too good to be true.

need I say more...

Do you like photography and dogs? The first issue of Snaps magazine is for you: http://www.snapsmagazine.com/

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that flickr was rotating in my favorites on their homepage (favorites are images from other photographers that I have marked). My guess was that they rotated in people's favs at random, but someone emailed me today (asking if I had done anything to be featured. [answer = no]) and I was surprised to see my favs still up. Apparently there are about 6 versions of the homepage which they rotate each time you click. My picks are on one of the 6. The current set of pages has been up about a month. Pretty cool. So check out some of my favorite photographers. You won't be sad.

For some reason all this talk of the conclave electing a new pope has reminded me of a book I read in high school. Set in the time of Frederick Barbarosa the Holy Roman Emperor when there were rival popes, it follows a group of Robber Knights (unlanded German knights, who preyed on merchant travelers) on an adventure north where they encounter a group of Asian barbarians. The thing about the book that struck me is that these Robber Knights all thought of themselves as ruthless characters (they would often leave merchants nude and penniless by the side of the road), but the barbarians were infinitely more cruel. They would castrate their enemies and leave them nailed to a tree by their tongues. There is this great shift in the book as the hunters become the hunted. Anyway I don't remember the title, so it's neither here nor there.

As an aside, I always found it amusing that Frederick Barbarosa managed to unite the German tribes, captured Rome, and brokered the peace of Constance but drown in a river after he fell off his horse while wearing full armor.

Just when you thought google maps was almost perfect, they went and added something else totally cool: Satellite photography. And of course google being google, you can drag the sat images just like you can the maps. Unlike Microsoft owned Terraserver which is arcane/buggy/ugly, this just works.

Super super cool. And it was all done using good old DHTML and not some proprietary MS garbage. Blogger Joel Webber did an excellent job figuring out how they did it.

This is image of our old house in LA (the dot is actually on the corner, the house and pool are behind it). The detail is fantastic. Nice to see the old pool again and the shadow of the palm tree across the road. Gosh what I would give to have one of Jenn's organic meals made from vegetables from our garden.... Or a plum from our wonderful old tree... but I digress.

Michael Chertoff scares me.

Also why does a military jet keep flying in circles over Brooklyn.

Le Grand Voyage- A spectacular film the kind you wish they made in Hollywood and never do. Deeply funny and moving (so moving an audience member died. No really, he was quite dead).

Junebug-Southern, sexy & mildly funny.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston- top notch documentary, also really moving (I got choked up), but I'm biased, I love Daniel Johnston and the director is a cool guy.

South of the Clouds- WTF? Maybe I'm too dumb to understand but this film seemed like a meaningless mish-mosh. Couldn't wait for it to finish.

Starlit High Noon- This film obviously influenced by Wong Kar Wai is slow and beautiful . 3 people in love with the wrong person.

. . .

The year was 1978. The Yankees were the league champions and entire 1977 team was returning so the coaches only had two draft picks, last round. The picks: Yours truly and a kid named Alec who would pee his pants when he got really excited (he got excited lots).

A year or two younger than everyone else, uncoordinated, and of course the only kid with glasses, I spent practices in mortal terror. There was the coach who would hold a hand missing two fingers in front of my face and say "How come I can throw better than you with this?" There was the chubby kid, now a cop, who punched my arm black and blue every time I stood too close to him. There were the older kids dipping snuff, sending tight streams of dark wintergreen scented spit at my feet. And how could I forget Joshua, the kid with the soft spot in his skull. I was always scared of throwing a ball wide, beaning Joshua and killing him, something he constantly warned was a possibility. "Right here," he would glare and point behind his ear, "get me here and I am dead. D-E-A-D dead. Understand?"

I didn't play much, but it was required I sit in for at least one inning. Because my fielding was terrible I felt I had to make up for it at the plate, and the easiest way to get on base was to simply lean into the pitch and get nailed. One of the coaches would silently encourage me from the bench if I had two strikes. He would lean his head over and give me a thumbs up and wink. I knew that the best strategy was to make it look good, so when I got myself pegged I would always fall to the ground for dramatic effect.

Out in left field there was little I could do right. Being vaguely dyslexic and massively nearsighted didn't help. I had a tendency to daydream and would spend my time in the out on the damp night grass busy trying to identify constellations and would forget to focus on the game. I dropped countless fly balls, had a weak arm, and was generally feckless. But all those little failures contributed to my greatest accomplishment: Big championship game. My inning was up. Two outs and bases loaded. The kid at the plate was a slugger who went on to spend a few years in the minor leagues. I remember praying: "Don't hit it to me. Don't hit it to me. Don't hit it to me..." But of course on the first pitch came the crack of the bat and the ball arced up straight at me. I could see the dismayed faces of my teammates and the people in the stands jumping to their feet. For a moment I was frozen. Then cursing I ran, jumped and stretched and channeled Willie Mays.

The game was won and I had won it.
I was carried around the field a hero. The kid who spit on me was chanting my name, my coaches were jumping up and down hugging each other, my parents were beaming. I knew it would all vanish quickly and I would be runt again in a few days, but it didn't matter because that moment was perfect, so I closed my eyes and just let it wash over me because even then I knew perfection is the rarest of all things.

Photoblogs:
http://www.temastauffer.com/
http://www.darkshapesprowl.com/
http://www.lackadaisical.com/
http://www.waytoblue.org/?entryID=92&sort=8
http://www.danamillerphoto.com/secondnature/
http://www.jenbekman.com/bdonaldson/
http://www.lowresolution.com/

Other cool stuff:
http://postcardx.net/
http://skyscraper.org/timeformations/transparent.html
http://www.theircircularlife.it/
http://t2.technion.ac.il/~snoom/c2.swf (Flash — no longer works)
http://amaztype.tha.jp/US/Books/Title?q=hello
http://davidbyrne.com/radio/index.php (on your itunes radio under eclectic)

Random:
http://www.prisonpenpals.com/
http://www.srtopiary.com/tabletop.html
http://www.airsicknessbags.com/cgi-bin/miva?Walk.mv
http://www.ghilliesuits.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=12
http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/knudsen2/2.html

we were married in the amazing town of Parras De La Fuente in Mexico.

One year ago today we were celebrating our anniversary in Belize and discovered Jenn was pregnant.

Today I think will be considerably less dramatic.

Ever wonder why people around the world think of the US? I do and because of that I read lots of foreign newspapers online. My friend Tbone pointed me to a site that collects translated foreign newspaper articles in one place. WatchingAmerica.com