Photos Please: COFFEE or TEA & the spaces in which you enjoy them

I made a request on Facebook and I’m going to repeat it here: please share your photos.

Specifically, I’m looking for some images to use at an event in June. I want to create an atmosphere that is like the ones many of us love in our favorite Starbuck’s (like the one in Broad Ripple…on the sofa in front of the fire place). So, as part of that, I’m collecting images of those favorite spaces (with the coffee or tea potentially in the photo, but not so much people).

I few people have sent me some  already and I’m loving that these are not going to end up being stuff I find trolling Google Images, but rather photos taken by people I know in places that mean something to them.

(Please send these to me using my email address which I’m not going to post here for various reasons but which is on my Facebook INFO tab for those who are FB friends. Any email address you have for me is okay to use, however. AND, if you we don’t actually know each other but you want to share an image, I hope you’ll understand why I suggest you send me a URL to it on Flickr or your blog.)

The photo of Starbucks on the beach is one that Kelly Martin sent yesterday.

I’m digging through my own photos for ones I can use as well. I found a few last night when I did a quick look in my own digital stash. I love this one from Haarlem (the town outside of Amsterdam where the ten Boom family lived). Somehow the cat and the bike make it feel like more than just a couple of rows of tables & chairs. That, and the fact that I can remember how good the sun felt that morning as I wandered about on a free day between meetings on the one side and travel to Manila on the other.

I also quite like this one from a little cafe on the main drag in Evergreen, Colorado where I had breakfast in December 2008 before heading back to Orlando. It was a quaint little place, but mostly it was about the mountains and the memories. Some of our favorite places are like that.

So, if you WANT to share the story of the photos you send, I’d love to hear those. Don’t, however, feel like that’s an expectation. Some images tell their own stories — or at least evoke in us a story of our own. At the same time, I’d love to hear your stories because they are yours and then you will have shared a good bit more of yourself than just your photos. Somehow, at least for me, the spaces where I enjoy coffee or tea are often MORE about the stories and the relationships than about the comfortable chair, the view through the window, the color of the walls…

Brian sent this photo via Facebook (a link to an album there) so I could read the story of it within the context of the album from his vacation in California. This is a cool coffee shop with lots of books to read while you’re there. Hmmm. Books on shelves.

Languages Die

It’s not something I thought about until this last decade of my own life during which I’ve been serving with Wycliffe Bible translators, but it’s part of the reality of our world: LANGUAGES DIE.

Last week a number of news outlets reported the death of Boa Sr who was the last speaker of the Bo language in India’s Andaman Islands.  One of the first articles I saw on the topic was posted on the BBC New site. This article includes an audio recording of Bo speaking her language and I agree with the caption that describes her voice as “haunting” as well as “unique.”

That audio comes from the audio that is the soundtrack for this video which records Boa telling the story of the 2004 tsunami.

[Sorry, the video I tried to embed just didn't work. Here is a link to the article on CNN on this topic -- also good -- and their video. It was the source, I believe, of the one posted on YouTube which did not work. Happier to be using the original source. Still not able to embed. If I get that worked out later, I'll swap this text out for the video.]

Another article which explores the significance of this event appears on the SIL International website.

These two articles together provide a rather good tutorial for why this matters within the context of the world of language and culture.

Super Bowl Commercials – where to find the reruns

I actually enjoyed the game last night as much as (maybe even more than ) the commercials. There are likely a number of reasons for that, starting with the fact that it was a good game and the commercials were B+ at best and D- more often than you’d imagine considering the budgets involved. In my opinion, a few get the big Twitter tag #FAIL.

If you missed some (and most of us missed SOME of the commercials), you can view them in a few places. Superbowlads.Fanhouse.Com was up and running during the game. This site is sponsored by Turbo Tax (timely) and lets you view them and see a “TOP TEN” list. It also includes lists from past years. It does not make it easy to SHARE or EMBED the videos onto your own blog or other social media sites. Too bad.

USA TODAY has a page with the ads and a way to vote on favorites and see your vote compared to the masses. I often don’t vote with the masses, apparently, and I’m quite okay with that. The videos are smaller than on the Fanhouse page. This one has ways to SHARE to Facebook and Twitter or to grab the URL of a specific commercial to email to someone.

Anyone find other sites that have better options/features?

10 in ‘10

As an American, I am genetically predisposed to organize my life and thoughts into lists of 10. When my DNA encounters the cosmic coincidence of a year that can be abbreviated as ‘10, production of more than the usual number of such lists is nearly unavoidable.

This is a list of ten things I’d like to do in ‘10…and since it is already the second month of this year, I have given myself permission to have one of the things be something I’ve already done. These are not listed in order of priority, probability or purposefulness. They are also not in chronological or alphabetical order. To say that they are in “no order” would, however, be ridiculous. The fact that they are listed PUTS them into an order.

1. Ring in the NEW YEAR @ URBANA. This is the one that is already checked off the list.

2. Enter & complete a 5K Walk/Run. I know that it might seem more list-worthy to say “run a marathon” but for the things on this list that are more about commitment and dedication than they are about planning and opportunity, I have to be realistic in the reach.

3. Travel to Siberia. I’ll be visiting friends — taking advantage of their temporary residency there as an opportunity to visit a new place. It will be MORE about visiting them than experiencing Siberia — but I’d be crazy to think that experiencing Siberia will be anything less than an adventure. I’ve never been to any part of Russia.

4. Start wearing reading glasses. The last time I got contacts, the doctor decided to put me in contacts that focus one for distance and one for close. Yeah, I’ve hated it. Long story — I thought I’d said NOT to do that — but in the end, I still don’t like it. More than a year should have been plenty of time to adjust. I have not adjusted. So, next Rx will be for distance and I’ll start wearing readers. I’ve earned it.

5. Reach my goal. Many of you are aware that I’ve been working on health issues — with cholesterol and weight being at the top of the list of things that needed attention. About 18 months ago I started participating with Weight Watchers. While I’ve had some marked success in the process, I’ve been hovering within about 5 pounds of the same weight for far too many months and need to get serious about finally reaching my goal. I’ve set a date by which I want to be to my target. This is part of my personal journey which I’ve not blogged about for various reasons, but it’s time I say this out loud and either do it or quit pretending.

6. Paint the front door of the house black. I just want to. I have the paint and just need to get it done. Throw caution to the wind.

7. Put my feet in the ocean on at least six different occasions. One down, five to go. And this is one which is really a lot more about getting myself to places where I am restored and energized with some consistency. It’s not about tan lines or salt-water so much as it is about the way that being surrounded by certain displays of God’s creativity and wonder and power in nature awaken in me something that otherwise lies dormant. Sleeping under the stars by a campfire, hiking on trails in the woods, sitting by a mountain stream, wandering with my camera through gardens…all of these fit the bill really.

8. Host some sort of gathering at my house at least quarterly. First one is on the calendar for March. I love having people around the house and creating an environment for relaxation and fun. For all sorts of reasons I’ve not done that as much in the past few years as I’d like. Some of this is about “busyness” and some of it is about…well, it’s about all the insecurities that most people have like not wanting to make people feel obligated to do something by inviting them to it. Like fear of rejection. And all the other stuff that paralyzes us when we’ve let our lives get too much compartmentalized and isolated.

9. Read more. Okay, that’s too ambiguous to be something I can check off a list. I’ll quantify it by saying that I want to read at least one book for pleasure and one book for professional development each month. That may sound like nothing to those of you who read a lot — but I generally do more of my developmental stuff through conferences and seminars and discussions that I do through books. And the reading for pleasure thing — that goes in cycles for me. It’s time to cycle back.

10. Make stuff. Okay, I’m not really crafty in the way some of you might think of crafts. Mostly I don’t like someone telling me how to make things — so Creative Memories party hosts cringe when they see me coming.  I need creative outlets that have low risk and quick turn around and lots of freedom to fail. This can actually be expressed in cooking and gardening as well as making stuff.