jen+tommy™ | a blog about us.

new ways to connect, read and follow.

2011-03-15T10:34:00.003-04:00

well, hello again everyone. this is just a quick little note on where to find us these days, since, as you can plainly see, the blog has gotten a bit *ahem* dusty, to say the least:

• tommy is still frequently seen on twitter, using @tommypez rather than @jenandtommy these days.

• jen is less of an onlineophile, but she does have a twitter account that she occasionally updates: @jenmeyerart.

• jen is relaunching her Etsy store soon with a new line of prints, illustrations and paintings. for now, it's up and running with some previous stock, but you never know what she might be adding on any given day. her store name is: nspire.

• since tommy discovered tumblr and it's relative ease of use...compared with certain other blog hosting sites...he's been merrily posting away once again on his new personal blog packed with goodies, places and thoughts, called "Urban + Man = Urbman".

• another good way to contact us if you aren't on tumblr, twitter, etsy or facebook is just to leave a comment on this blog, any post will do. we get notifications to our email whenever that happens and can write back or answer any questions.

We're planning to move back to Miami from New England sometime in 2011, so we'll try to keep anyone who's interested up-to-date, but the methods listed above should be fairly active over the coming months. Hope everyone is having a great 2011 and is happy, healthy and prosperous.

Cheers!

jen + tommy :)

happy new year! 2011 update/2010 review

2011-01-01T21:30:00.003-05:00

well, it's a new year once again; and, once again, we've gone through some dramatic changes this year...

we started out the year as vegetarians. new to the path, we were still living on cheese pizza and bean burritos much of the time. but as we started learning more about factory farms and dairys, we decided to completely eliminate all animal products from our diet - including dairy & eggs - and practice maintaining a fully vegan diet for all of 2010.

this turned out to be one of the best decisions we ever made, as not only did we feel 100% better physically, we also felt better emotionally and spiritually as well. though it may be nothing more than coincidence, ever since we went to visit the "hugging saint" Amma in summer of 2009, we felt some kind of heart opening that resulted in more compassion towards ALL living beings, so the vegan lifestyle, in retrospect, seems inevitable to us now.

we learned a ton of great info from books like The Kind Diet and websites like VeganCoach.com, and we've cooked at home more than ever before. as a result, i (tommy) lost over 30 lbs of fat and jen (with the addition of running daily) has lost nearly 50 lbs. another benefit is that when we experience a cold or sniffles, it now passes after only a day or two instead of dragging on over a week or more, like it used to when we were carnivores.

we also found out that probably some time in 2011 we will be moving back to Florida, specifically Miami, as my design business down there is flourishing and i'll need to be available to meet with clients in person more often - i've currently been flying down there every month for meetings, which is fun but can become tedious after awhile, so the move will give me greater flexibility. we've thoroughly enjoyed our time in new england, and we're both thrilled to have been given the opportunity to reconnect with jen's family out here, as well as forge new relationships with the many people we've met since we moved north back in 2008.

jen is about to complete one of her largest projects to date: "the sketchbook project: portsmouth". this project entails her filling an ENTIRE Moleskine® notebook with sketches, drawings, watercolor paintings and writings from our time in portsmouth, and the resulting finished piece will be displayed permanently in an art library in brooklyn, ny. next month, we'll be traveling down there via coach bus to attend the opening party and see jen's work and the work of the other artists who participated in the project. as our first trip to nyc, it should be a blast.

in 2011, we're planning a return trip to colorado for the first time since we left in 2007, and it will be great to see all of our old friends and family members again. it feels like 30 years since we left, thought it's only been 3, so it will be interesting to see how things look to us now after all the changes we've gone through since we left.

we'll also continue our spirituality studies, sharing what we think is relevant and writing updates on what we're doing in our personal lives as well. 2010 was a period of intense growth and goal accomplishment for both of us, on many different levels, and as such left us with little time for blogging. that's an area i hope to change in 2011, so expect more frequent posting as well. the content will be varied, that's all i can say for now...

so that's the latest jen+tommy update - hope you enjoyed it, and hope to hear lots of comments from everyone over the next year. have a wonderful, safe, healthy, abundant, satisfying new year, and we'll talk to you soon!

with much love + gratitude,
jen+tommy

the power of gratitude.

2010-11-25T10:04:00.002-05:00

there is a family in ecuador that lives in a one-room hut made of mud bricks, straw and chicken wire – but don't pity them, because they don't pity themselves. they are actually closer to God/the Universe/All-That-Is than the majority of those living in so-called "first-world countries".

they do not have a pantry, per se, from which they decide if they want to eat cereal for breakfast, or waffles, or bacon and eggs, or pancakes; rather, what they eat that day they either have to pick, find, catch or hunt. they literally do not have any idea what their next meal is going to be.

it would not be surprising to find out that, upon waking each morning, the first thought on everyone's mind has to do with what the next meal is going to be, or what the family needs to do in order to survive that day. what is surprising, however, is that instead of thoughts like that first thing in the morning, this family, consisting of a mother, father, 2 teenage boys and 2 young girls, begins each and every day with a prayer of thanks.

they immediately thank their concept of "God" for another day, for in their world, every day of life is literally a gift, and is treated as such – and the moral of this story is their their thankfulness is the cause of their daily blessing rather than a result of it; they are actually living day-to-day via their own gratitude...

if they can do this with food, imagine what we can do if we apply this same level of gratitude towards every area of our lives!

thanks for reading, and have a great Thanksgiving weekend. :)

SugiPOP! at Portsmouth Museum of Art

2010-10-15T10:39:00.001-04:00

*** showcasing cutting-edge Japanese anime, manga, comics and contemporary art -- runs through January 2011***

This show is a collaborative effort, featuring the work of nearly 30 established artists, and includes some awesome examples of original manga and comic art, plus original cels from somr of the coolest anime films made to date, like Cowboy Bebop and Princess Mononoke.

This show also features some original Edo woodblock prints from the likes of Hokusai and Kuniyoshi -- work that helped lay down the early foundations of today's modern Japanese style.

"Sugi", the Japanese word for "too much" or "excess", represents the extreme characteristics of Japanese manga and anime, which has then merged with the American phenomenon of Pop Art, to become SugiPOP!, a blend of Japanese and American contemporary art shaped and defined by over-the-top pop.

Cutting edge pieces have even been specifically created for the show, by such well-known personas as Mike Shinoda - lead singer from Linkin Park.

(more pictures after the jump.)

awesome epoxy work on this one.

"nice to meetcha."

pastry party.

you have to see this one in person to really appreciate the depth of it.

is the room too small, or is the bunny too big?

Astroboy anime cels.

teardrops/raindrops

About the PMA:

The Portsmouth Museum of Art is a community-centered museum presenting the work of emerging and established artists - local, national and international. We offer exhibitions and programs that educate the public about art, as well as to use art as a tool to generate conversation about current events, other cultures, social issues and a wide range of other topics with a diversity of viewpoints. Our goal is to enrich the local cultural landscape by developing partnerships, creating collaborative opportunities among artist and art organizations an by presenting a complete art experience that includes literature and poetry, performance art, film and other technologies and to initiate an on-going public dialogue around art.

Museum Hours:
Wednesday - Sunday 11:00-5:00
Open late Fridays until 8:00
Closed Monday and Tuesday

Location and General Information:
One Harbour Place
Portsmouth, NH 03801
603-436-0332

Visit the PMA's website for more information about the show or to become a member! At only $25, it's a steal. :)

this is a test post, but you can read it if you want to.

2010-10-09T16:31:00.005-04:00

today we went for a drive to see some of that crazy fall foliage we keep hearing about. we headed up route 16 north through dover, nh, where we immediately hit traffic as (big surprise) the lanes were merged from two into one due to traffic – a common occurrence in new england.

jen then had the idea to get off the highway and get coffee in a small town called rochester, so we could wait for the traffic to end. rochester is a tiny town with a dunkin donuts, two irish bars, and, today only, an oktoberfest celebration. the celebration consisted of a mini-punkin patch for kids to select and paint faces on, plus a table outside one of the irish bars with steamed hot dogs in a big glass jar, and a vat of coffee and some cookies i think. also there was a live band and some women wearing traditional "german-style" dresses walking around.

the atmosphere was quite festive, as you can imagine.

further, there was a small "traveling barnyard", which happened to have the same animals that we saw a week ago when we went to the harvest festival at the apple crest apple farm in hampton falls, nh. so, jen got to again say hello to the three alpaca, two baby cows, 1 jackass, two chickens and several tiny goats and sheep that she spent over 30 minutes petting a week ago.

then we stumbled across an art gallery called artstream. it's a very cute little gallery with some nice art selections ranging from paintings to paper art to ceramics to one-of-a-kind jewelry. the creaky wooden floors and back room filled with bustling gray-haired women making crafts "live" added greatly to the kitsch and charm of the gallery. inside, we spoke with an employee who, upon learning that jen's name is what it is, gave her a book called jen 11, which showcases arts and crafts from 11 different artists who are all named jen.

this greatly inspired jen to create even more art pieces so she can hopefully be selected for the next issue of jen 11.

after this, we hit the road again to see some leaves. it was a gorgeous, crisp, sunny day with a chilly wind, just enough to keep you feeling refreshed and your cheeks a little rosy all day. we came across a pond with some railroad tracks alongside of it, and being the lover of railroad tracks i am, we decided to park at a nearby gas station and walk the tracks.

we had a nice walk through the woods, eating apples and kind bars and sea salt & vinegar chips, then decided to head back to portsmouth. i'm writing this post now just to get (back) in the habit of documenting our experiences in new england, so we can look back on them later and have a good laugh or stir up some fond memories.

i'll add a few pictures from this experience in the next post, and i'm working on another post that describes the harvest fest we went to last week as well. we also have some halloween parties coming up (wait until my costume is revealed), along with the book fest and veg fest in boston over the next two weekends. all in all, fall can be a very busy time in new england.

until then, keep exploring!

what happened to @jenandtommy?

2010-08-09T14:45:00.006-04:00

just wanted to make a quick announcement that we'll be maintaining our own individual twitter accounts from now on -- but still posting unique content to our old @jenandtommy from time to time. just don't expect an immediate response from us if you send a DM or something to that account. (don't worry -- jenandtommy.com will live on!)

what started out as a simple experiment: "is twitter fun/useful/simple/educational?" turned into a semi-passion (especially for tommy), and as time went by we both realized we wanted to promote different things at different times, follow different types of people and engage in different sorts of conversations.

so, to help eliminate the frequent question, "is this jen or tommy i'm talking to?" we just started two new accounts. we've had so many fun memories and relationships and adventures from @jenandtommy, however, that there's no way we can give it up -- it will just be sort of in the background, mostly lurking, at least for the time being...

so now, without further ado, let me direct you to our new twitter usernames: @tommypez and @jenmeyerart.

as always, we look forward to tweeting with you about anything from art and design, to urban hiking, to modern spirituality. come on over and say hi!

Timbuk2 Classic Messenger Bag Review.

2010-07-06T10:45:00.000-04:00

They simply do it right.

Pros:

Good Strap Length, Roomy , Durable , Lightweight , High Quality, Attractive, Comfortable

Best Uses:

Light loads , Cycling, School, Short travel , Airplane travel , Commuting

Describe Yourself:

Classic, Comfort-Oriented, Practical, Modern, Career

Bottom Line:

Yes, I would recommend this to a friend

I use my Small Messenger as a daily bag and it is perfect. Some things I carry are a large and small moleskine, various city maps, pens, usually a magazine or book, a small first aid kit, business cards, iPod touch with two sets of headphones, and most of the year i have a winter facemask, gloves and a beanie. All of this fits nicely with room to spare, yet the bag is not so huge that it's bulky or cumbersome when I'm browsing in a store or riding the subway.
Over the past several years, I have tried and tested every kind of messenger bag EXCEPT a Timbbuk2 bag. Maybe I was resisting it because it was so popular. Now, however, I know why it is so popular. They simply do it right. Not too many bells and whistles, but it's not just one big open space either. Like I said, it's just right.

I also have a Medium Messenger that I take when traveling, usually by plane, because the Small is just a bit too small to be useful when out of town and you never know what yoou might need to carry. The Medium is also great for when you know you are going to a bookstore or might need to put your jacket inside, or if you are a student. But the Small bag is perfect if you just have to carry a few things around all the time and won't necessarily be doing much shopping.

Having two different sized bags eliminates the impossible quest for having "just the right bag" for all your needs. Overall, I do use the Small bag the most, though. I love it. I've probably gone through at least 2 dozen other brands of bags and not only did they not quite fit my needs, they all invariably had some kind of annoying feature that was so annoying I had to re-sell it or give it to someone else. This one is perfect.

Remember, this is an URBAN bag. If you're looking for something specifically for hiking or moutaineering, this is not for you. But if you live and work in a city or town, and this is what you will use the bag for, please save yourself a HUGE amount of time and money and just get one of these. You will not be disappointed. :)

Favorite feature: it stands up on it's own when you set it down! Yay!

Cool bonus: the add-ons that Timbuk2 makes allow you to customize your bag if there is a specific feature that you must have.

What it's missing: It could use a briefcase-style handle to make it easier to grab when you're on the fly, or if you need to pull off a more "professional look" going into a meeting.

Not mandatory, but it would be nice if: there was a elastic strap inside to hold a water bottle upright against the side of the bag. I say not mandatory because i use a leakproof bottle anyway, but it would be nice to know where it was. Also, I don't carry water everytime I go out anyway, because in today's society you can usually find or procure some H2O if you need it.

*NOTE: this would also make a great "Dad Bag" for diapers and stuff as well, without looking lame when you're out with the kiddos. ;)

Isles of Shoals cruise + tour

2010-06-27T18:48:00.005-04:00

today we boarded the "Thomas Laighton", flagship of the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company, and set sail for the isles of shoals - an archipelago of 9 islands first settled in the 1600's. unfortunately, we could only go explore 1 of the islands, because the others are privately owned or something, but we had 4 hours once we arrived to explore every nook and cranny.

the cruise out of portsmouth harbor was nicely narrated, and we got to see our beloved town from a new and unique angle. the isles are about 6 miles out from shore so it only took 30 minutes to get to Star Island, home of the Oceanic Hotel which is now a shabby conference center for churches and businesses. after a short guided tour of the history of the islands, followed by a vegan "hot dog", kettle chips, spark* vitamin water and some swedish fish, we headed out on our own to discover the secrets of the island.

our main objective was to locate Betsy Moody's cave, a small chasm along the cliffs on the NE side of Star Island, where supposedly Moody hid from some Natives with her small child, accidentally smothering it by trying to keep it's mouth covered. Ouch.

little did we know it was seagull nesting season, and the seagulls were extremely vicious whenever we tried to walk past them and their nests. one even flew at my head from behind and batted me with its wing! so we circled way around them, eventually finding a small trail that led to the cliffs and we discovered the "cave" area, which turned out to be just a slit in the rocks.

after a short rain burst, we found a nice secluded cove with beautiful blue water that looked very carribbean-esque due to the shallowness. there, we laid out on the rocks and took a nice long nap in the sun while waiting for the steamship to return.

overall, i woould not recommend taking this voyage. Star Island is very boring and there's not much to do or look at, and there are always tons of kids and families raising all kinds of ruckus all over the tiny island. that, combined with pitiful food options and lackluster, indifferent teenage service attendants, make this day trip less than seaworthy for most.

Up next...WHALE WATCHING! That should be fun. Plus, we've got invited to an enormous 4th of July entirely vegan barbecue at a huge house on the Charles River in Boston, where we should also have a sweet view of the fireworks display. Two years in a row for Boston 4th.

Stay tuned!

boarding the ferry

jen enjoying the slightly overcast morning on deck

heading under the Memorial Bridge, Portsmouth NH

Oldest continuously operating Naval shipyard in the US

old, abandoned Naval Prison - "The Alcatraz of the East"
(Walt Disney worked here as a Red Cross volunteer. Steamboat Willie, anyone?)

Lighthouse at Fort Constitution (or was it Fort Stark?)

arriving at the dock on Star Island

wildflowers

old shack-turned-museum to Celia Thatcher's art and poetry

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

See the eggs?

This is old Betsy Moody's "cave" area. Not so much.

Jen enjoying the view from Moody's Point.

they call this "Old Man of the Sea"

this guy was huge! much bigger than Miss Kitty.

...waiting for a ride home.

how to get a passport

2010-06-25T15:09:00.004-04:00

so while there's not too much big news to report on, my birthday was this week (monday) and i decided this year we would finally go apply for our passports so we can start looking at some int'l travel options. we've been fortunate enough to have seen and experienced so many parts of this country already that we both want to start venturing out beyond our own borders, and getting the passports was a necessary first step.

typically it's quite simple to get one - just bring your birth certificate (or a certified copy), plus your social security card and a valid state-issued i.d. or driver's license to the post office. many po's now even will take the picture for you so you don't need to go to walgreen's or cvs for it. although at the drugstore, the pictures are only 6.99, while at the p.o. it's $15. there is a $75 fee that goes to the dept. of state and $25 goes to your p.o., for a total of $115 when all is said and done.

if you've been putting off getting your passport, you've also been inadvertently putting off any possibility of international travel. so if you ever hope to leave the u.s. for a trip, i suggest going to get your passport now instead of waiting for a time when you might really "need it" but not have it. they say it takes 4-6 weeks, but you never know. on the plus side, their website allows you to track your application status, and you can even get email updates as well, if you are in a hurry.

the whole process ended up taking all day for us, because we had to drive to nashua, nh to get a certified copy of jen's birth certificate. they were very cooperative at the city clerk's office in nashua, and we were lucky to be living so close to jen's city of birth that we could just drive over there and get what we needed!

now we wait, and in the meantime, start scouring the internet for some awesome international travel deals...

taking out the trash.

2010-05-21T16:51:00.002-04:00

yesterday i was on my way to take the trash out to the community dumpster. i had three bags plus a large bag of recycling stuff. normally, i would have been grumbling about how "jen forgot to take the trash out the last three days on her way to the gym, etc.", but this time was different. i decided to mentally and verbally affirm (for an apparently unknown reason) that "most people are friendly and want to help me, and everyone is a potential friend."

sure enough, i had only taken ten steps on the normally 150-yard hike to the trash area, when a pick-up truck pulled alongside me and the driver said, "throw it in the back, i'm in a good mood today."

i was stunned.

he must have noticed my dumbfoundedness, because he went on to say, "i'm driving over there anyway, i work here, etc." until i was struck from my mini-trance and said, "OK, great. thanks!" before hoisting my baggage into the open bed of his truck. as the mystery driver rolled slowly away, i thought you couldn't ask for a better example of what i had just affirmed right before leaving the house.

just imagine if i did it every time!

Aikido Surprise on Train Ride

2010-05-10T09:20:00.003-04:00

dear friends,

as you've noticed, our last blog post received a slew of comments from readers all across the scale. thank you for participating! i never know if anyone's even going to read a post, let alone be moved enough to write their own comments. anyway, in response to the popularity of the last post, i wanted to repost a story that i read the other day on the Japanese art of Aikido. you'll see it is very much related to the previous topic of discussion.

enjoy!

"A major turning point in my life came as an unexpected surprise one day in the middle of a quiet spring afternoon on a sleepy train in the suburbs of Tokyo.

It all started as the old train car was clanking and rattling over the rails. It was comparatively empty – a few housewives with their kids in tow, some old folks out shopping, a couple off-duty bartenders casually glancing through the sports section of the local newspaper. I was gazing absently at the drab houses and dusty hedgerows.

Then as the doors opened at one unremarkable station, the calm afternoon was suddenly shattered. A man on the platform bellowed at the top of his lungs, yelling violent, obscene, incomprehensible curses. Just before the doors closed, the still yelling man staggered into our car.

He was big, drunk and dirty. He wore laborer’s clothing. His ragged shirt was stiff with dried vomit, his hair crusted with filth. His bloodshot eyes were bugged out, beaming scorn and hatred to all who caught his glance.

Screaming obscenities, he swung his big fist wildly at the first person he could reach, a scared young woman holding a baby.

The blow glanced off her shoulder, sending her spinning into the laps of an elderly couple. It was a miracle that she was not badly hurt and the baby was unharmed.

As the frightened young woman ducked for cover, protecting her baby, the elderly couple jumped up and scrambled toward the other end of the car. They were terrified.

The big laborer aimed a wobbling kick at the retreating back of the old lady. “You old whore!” he bellowed, ‘I'll kick your ass!” He missed, as the old woman barely scuttled to safety. This so enraged the wretched drunk that he grabbed the metal pole in the center of the car and tried to wrench it out of its stanchion. I could see that one of his hands was cut and bleeding, likely from an earlier scuffle.

The train lurched ahead, the scattered passengers frozen with fear.

I stood up.

I was young then, and in pretty good shape. I stood six feet, weighed 225 and spoke fluent Japanese. I’d been putting in a solid eight hours of Aikido training every day for the past three years. I liked to throw and grapple. I thought I was tough. Trouble was my martial arts skill was untested in actual combat. As students of Aikido, we were not allowed to fight.

My teacher, the founder of Aikido, taught us each morning that the art was devoted to peace. “Aikido,” he said again and again, “is the art of reconciliation. Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection with the universe. If you try to dominate other people, you are already defeated. In Aikido, we study how to resolve conflict, not how to start it.”

I had listened to his words. I tried hard. I wanted to quit fighting. I had even gone so far as to cross the street a few times to avoid the the pinball punks who lounged around the train stations. They’d have been happy to test my martial arts ability.

My forbearance exalted me. I felt both tough and holy. Yet in my heart of hearts, I was still dying to be a hero. A part of me still wanted a chance – an absolutely legitimate and justified opportunity – to save the innocent by destroying the guilty.

'This is it!' I thought to myself, as I stood up tall and proud to confront this menace to society. 'This slob, this cruel animal, is drunk and mean and violent. People are in immediate danger. If I don’t do something fast, somebody is going to get hurt. It's time to take his ass to the cleaners.'

Seeing me stand up, the belligerent drunk relished the chance to focus his rage. “Aha!” he roared, “A foreigner! You need a lesson in Japanese manners!” He landed a heavy punch on the metal pole beside him to give weight to his words.

Holding on to the commuter strap overhead, I gave him a slow look of disgust and dismissal. I gave him every bit of pissed-off nastiness I could summon up. I planned to take this filthy turkey apart, but he had to be the one to move first. And I wanted him mad, because the madder he got the more certain my victory. I puckered my lips and blew him a sneering, insolent kiss.

It hit him like a slap in the face. “All right!" he hollered, “You're gonna get a lesson.” He gathered himself for a rush at me.

Yet just as he was about to lunge, a single-syllable shout pierced the air.

“Hey!”

The word instantly sliced through the thick intensity of the moment. I was stunned by the strangely joyous, lilting quality of it – as though you and a friend had been searching all over for something important that was lost, and he had suddenly stumbled upon it and loudly shouted to you, “Hey!”

I wheeled to my left; the drunk spun to his right. We both found ourselves staring down at a little old man. He must have been well into his seventies, this tiny gentleman, sitting there immaculate in his kimono. He took no notice of me, but beamed delightedly at the laborer, as though he had a most important, most welcome secret to share.

“C’mere,” the old man said in an easy Japanese vernacular, beckoning to the drunk. “C’mere and talk with me.” He waved his hand lightly towards the seat next to him.

The big man followed, almost as if on a string. He planted his feet belligerently in front of the old gentleman, and towered threateningly over him.

“Talk to you!” he roared above the clacking wheels, “Why the hell should I talk to you?”

The drunk now had his back to me. If his elbows moved so much as an inch, I’d drop him in his socks.

The old man continued to beam at the laborer. There was not a trace of fear or resentment about him. “What’cha been drinking?” he asked lightly, his eyes sparkling with interest.

“I been drinking sake,” the laborer bellowed back. “And it's none of your goddam business!” Flecks of spittle spattered the old man.

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” the old man said with delight, “absolutely wonderful! You see, I love sake too. Every night, me and my wife – she’s 76, you know – we warm up a little bottle of sake and take it out into the garden, and we sit on the old wooden bench that my grandfather’s first student made for him. We watch the sun go down, and we look to see how our persimmon tree is doing."

"My grandfather planted that tree, you know, and we worry about whether it will recover from those ice storms we had last winter. Persimmons do not do well after ice storms, although I must say that ours has done rather better than I expected, especially when you consider the poor quality of the soil. Still, it's most gratifying to watch when we take our sake and go out to enjoy the evening – even when it rains!”

He looked up at the laborer, eyes twinkling, happy to share his delightful information.

As the bewildered drunk struggled to follow the intricacies of the old man’s conversation, his face began to soften. His shaky fists slowly unclenched. “Yeah,” he said slowly, “I love persimmons, too…" His wavering voice trailed off.

“Yes,” said the old man, smiling and leaning slightly forward, “and I’m sure you have a wonderful wife.”

“No,” replied the laborer to this so strangely friendly man in a softer, sullen voice. “My wife... she died last year.”

The suddenly changed drunk hung his head in heavy sorrow. Then, gently swaying with the motion of the train, this big, burly man, who was so threatening just a moment ago began to sob. “I don’t got no wife. I don’t got no home any more. I lost my job. I don’t got no money, I don’t got nowhere to go. I’m so ashamed of myself.” Big tears rolled down his cheeks. A spasm of pure despair rippled through his body.

Above the baggage rack, a brightly colored ad trumpeted the virtues of suburban luxury living.

Now it was my turn. Standing there in my well-scrubbed youthful pride, with my make-this-world-safe-for-democracy righteousness, I suddenly felt dirtier and more ashamed than he was.

Just then, the train arrived at my stop. The platform was packed with bustling humanity. The busy crowd surged into the car as soon the doors opened. Maneuvering my way toward the door, I heard the old man speak sympathetically.

“My, my,” he said with heartfelt care, yet undiminished delight. “That is a very difficult predicament, indeed. Sit down here and tell me about it.”

I turned my head for one last look before leaving the now-crowded train. The laborer was sprawled like a sack on the seat, his head in the old man’s lap. The old man was looking down at him with smiling compassion, his hand stroking the filthy, matted head of this confused soul.

As the train pulled away, I sat down on a bench dazed with all that had just happened. What I had wanted to do with muscle and meanness had been deftly accomplished with but a few kind words.

What I had just witnessed was true Aikido in combat. The essence of it was love, as the founder had always said. I determined then and there to practice this beautiful art with an entirely different spirit. I yearned to be able to move from the heart like this old man in using the deep principles of aikido. Yet it would be a long time before I could fully embody what I had seen on that unforgettable ride.

Written by Terry Dobson.

***

Note: Terry Dobson was a highly respected Aikido master until the time of his death in 1992. For more on his life and history, click here. Thanks to David Sunfellow, founder of NewHeavenNewEarth, for sending this moving story. For an inspiring follow-up to the story experienced by David himself, read the second essay at this link. And for David's most excellent email list, click here.Story reposted from WanttoKnow.info.

first meat-free, now gun-free.

2010-05-08T10:21:00.005-04:00

then (2001). me and my old "friend".

yep, that was me. circa 2001, about 3 days after 9/11. i was just as caught up in the hysteria, fear and panic as everyone else, and thought having a gun would bring me a sense of peace and security. i was a huge gun fan and advocate of gun rights and gun ownership, even going so far as to obtain a Concealed Weapons Permit in CO so I could carry a gun all the time. At first, I carried a huge .45 caliber Glock, later switching to a smaller, lightweight aluminum .38 S&W. I loved my guns and my shoulder holster, and wouldn't leave home without it - even if I was just going to the grocery store! it's crazy to think about how i was before, but i can't beat myself up over it. i was only acting with the knowledge that i had at the time, to the best of my abilities.

as i mentioned in an earlier post, one of our favorite hobbies was going to the shooting range, nearly every weekend in the summer to blow things up. as time passed, however, i began devoting more of my time to studying spirituality and promoting peace, tolerance and acceptance, and i realized that owning guns was very converse to what i was now interested in. i felt that speaking about peace but secretly owning guns was like being vegetarian but keeping frozen hamburgers in your freezer -- "just in case".

well, there can't be a "just in case" anymore. imagine for a second if, when Mohandas Gandhi was killed, he had instead pulled out a .357 from his robes and said "go ahead. make my day." before blasting the punk who shot him. for someone who always said "my life is my message", what kind of a message do you think that would have been? ;)

now (2010). me and my new friend.

as jen and i have further deepened our commitment to ahimsa, or non-harming, we started with eliminating meat from our diet, then eggs, then dairy, then honey, and finally all leather products in our home. now i am at a point where i couldn't imagine using a gun on another human being, regardless of the circumstances, so this week i finally got rid of my last "security blanket" by turning my .38 handgun over to a licensed gun shop owner, so i could legally have my ownership erased from the books. i'd already turned in my Glock and shotgun previously, but was holding on to that little .38 as if my life depended on it. somehow, it seems like having it in the house was holding me back in my growth and i feel as if a burden has been lifted from my back.

anyway, just wanted to share this latest little experience of mine, in hopes that it might resonate with someone out there who might be going through something similar.

peace!

competition in the workplace.

2010-04-19T10:36:00.000-04:00

the REAL "secret" is out...

2010-04-16T13:22:00.001-04:00

we once were LOST...

2010-04-14T09:46:00.001-04:00

Since there are only a few episodes left in the epic series known as LOST, i thought it might be fun to see how much we've changed along with the "losties" over the past 6 "seasons" of our lives.

ABC's LOST premiered in 2004. I remember watching the pilot and thinking, "Wow, finally a good show on TV!" As usual, we were in the process of moving, and had (as usual) just sold our couch and easy chair to lighten the load, since we were moving into a smaller loft in downtown Colorado Springs. So we sat on the floor and watched the show and couldn't stop talking about it for days.

Through thick and thin, we've hung in there with the characters and haven't missed an episode. But, just like the characters on the show, we are completely different people now than we were then.

Here's a recap:

**2004 jen+tommy**

• ate meat. lots of it. i grilled steak, chicken or burgers at least 3-4 times a week, and we often ate pepperoni and sausage pizza. egad!

• we smoked. alot. at least a pack a day for both of us. at that point it was 6 years for me and 10! for jen.

• our main hobbies included going to bars, the shooting range and hiking. we thought we were healthy, but....

• we blamed everyone but ourselves for the condition of our life, in everything from financial standing to happiness to "security"..

• i was very angry in general because i'd been out of college for 3 years and was still working as a landscaper and janitor. design was just a glimmer in my eye, and jen's art consisted of stained glass mosaics and hemp necklaces. she was working as a waiter at Carrabba's at the time. i also felt "trapped" in colorado springs and that i would never be able to move, as if "someone" was holding us back other than ourselves...

• we had no spiritual practices whatsoever, although i was starting to develop an interest in buddhism and was reading quite a few books about it from a historical and philosophical standpoint.

So then, just like on LOST, the plane crashed, we were left stranded on a deserted island, and we had to "sink or swim" so to speak...6 years passed...

**2010 jen+tommy**

• 100% vegetarian, 90% vegan. our favorite meals now consist of grilled vegan burgers, stir fry veggies, sweet potato lentil soup, polenta casserole and Ezekiel bread. Mmm! Never felt better on the inside. It all started with practicing mindful eating, and really thinking about what you're chewing up and how it got to your mouth. Then, jen's sister cindy came to visit (vegan) and taught us more about why it's bad to eat meat, eggs and dairy - all in a very peaceful, non-judgmental way. The closer was going to hear alicia silverstone speak about her new book, The Kind Diet, and then meeting her in person afterwards to discuss being vegan and how great she's felt ever since.

• we've moved 8 times since 2004 and have lived in 3 different states besides CO, including south florida, right on the intercoastal; lowell, mass, just outside boston; portsmouth, nh, a cute, cozy new england postcard town located on the tiny NH seacoast.

• we quit smoking in 2008, while living in florida. jen now jogs over 5 miles per day and we both do yoga at least twice a week.

• i finally hooked up with a design agency in florida, worked at the office for one year, then moved out of state, keeping my job, and i now work from home 100% via skype and email. jen is now able to stay home and pursue her art career full time as well.

• we bought, lived in, fixed up and sold a cute 1950s home for a nice profit - "coincidentally" right before the market took a dive in CO...

• our hobbies have changed to include walking around towns and cities (flaneuring), meditation every day, reading spirituality books and/or listening to podcasts on metaphysics and spirituality, and attending various spiritual and religious groups such as online kabbalah courses (sunday night), jewish shabbat at the local synagogue (fridays), lectures at the local christian science church (wednesdays) and group meditations and discussions at the local buddhist sangha (tuesdays).

• we no longer blame anyone or anything for the conditions our lives are currently inside, whether they seem positive or negative. we've learned that we can either choose our path or someone else will choose it for us.

quite possibly, the largest catalyst for all this change was when we watched 'The Secret' on Dec 30, 2006. keeping in mind that the film is merely intended to be a starting point, not an end result, that was really the key turning point for us that launched our using the law of attraction (and all the other laws) to create the life we wanted - more importantly, it opened up our desire for spirituality, which i think was the real goal of the filmmakers anyway.

you see, as you start acheiving your goals in the physical universe and getting what you think you want, you start to realize that those things can't ever fulfill you. thus, by satisfying your earthly desires, your desire for spirituality becomes greater as well. this gives you the fuel you need to seek -- and believe me, if you seek, you WILL find.

we're living proof.

welcome back, me!

2010-04-05T10:33:00.000-04:00

i'd like to welcome myself back to the blogosphere with apologies for leaving such a huge gap between the most recent posts. we've been busy exploring (both externally as well as internally), and with the weather turning upwards again i thought it was high time to get back on the horse.

but busyness (business?) isn't the only reason for the shortage of posts in 2010 - i must admit i've been a little gun shy with writing lately.

we never intended this blog to really "become" anything - i'm not even suggesting it "is" something now - but when i saw that there were over 1,200 people per month that were stopping by regularly to spend a few minutes reading our latest posts, i guess i got a little stage fright. ;)

i started thinking that the things we were doing around new england were not "blogworthy", and thought only if we go on an wild african safari or take one of sir richard branson's space flights would i have something that was interesting enough to write about that other people would want to read. (this goes completely against the logic i used to write the most boring blog post ever back in april 2009.)

at any rate, i decided that the best way to break out of my slump and get back to writing again was to remind myself of the main reason we started this post to begin with - to let our friends and family (mostly out west, granted, but more and more here on the east coast) stay updated on what we were doing out here if they're interested. i decided it wasn't fair of me to censor our activities just because I sometimes didn't think they were very exciting, forgetting that some of the things we do might be truly interesting to someone else, especially someone who's never been to the northeast.

most of the blogs i read aren't anything special, either, but i still reasd them and appreciate their candor, sincerity, honesty and most of all, consistency.

anyway, here's to you, mom - if you're the only one who's still reading, that's fantastic. ;) it was your old daily email updates in florida (the adventures of jenny) that actually inspired our blog to begin with. since our first blog post, we've gotten to know jack kerouac (kind of), given visitors private tours of boston and cambridge, swam in walden pond, met famous authors and movie stars, become vegetarians, been hugged by an actual saint, moved two more times, cruised around boston harbor with pirates, seen a UFO, walked paul revere's trail, had a sam adams across the street from sam's actual grave, visited a syrup farm and a dairy farm, picked apples from an actual orchard...the list goes on. i know you've enjoyed many of our posts, as we've enjoyed writing them (including the random spiritual off-shoots) so we'll keep at it. ;)

to the rest of you, if anyone else finds our sometimes-weird-but-most-of-the-time-pretty-normal lives interesting, we're glad to share them with you, and we're glad you've stuck around long enough for the blogging drought to finally come to an end.

next post: three beaches in two days as we search out tommy's first slushie of the 2010 beach season!

Removing your own splinters.

2010-03-19T11:10:00.003-04:00

Have you ever had a splinter?

Most people have, and so nearly everyone can relate to this analogy.

When you have a splinter, let's say, in your fingertip, it can be so small it's nearly invisible, yet so painful you can't touch anything without hurting yourself. Sometimes, it can be easy to forget about the splinter if you aren't doing anything challenging, like if you're just sitting on the couch watching TV. You might even start to think, "Hey, my splinter must be gone! Maybe it "worked itself out" and now I don't have to deal with it."

Then you go to grab something or push a button and you're reminded that yep, it's still there.

At this point, you've got 2 options: 1) you can try to live your life with the pain (it's only minor, right?) and/or pretend that it's not there, even though it's really hurting you sometimes, or 2) you can grab the magnifying glass and tweezers, turn on the Light and really take a closer look at the source of the pain.

Yes, option 2 can sometimes generate even more pain - momentarily - than if you just left it in there, but you'd only be fooling yourself if you thought it would magically work itself out. For those of you still reading this far, I'm sure you've figured out that I'm not really talking about splinters.

Angry thoughts, jealous feelings and complaining can act like splinters in your mind and your soul - you may not always feel them, but whenever pressure it applied to a certain area, BINGO, the pain starts. You can try to take your mind off it and/or numb yourself through distractions like TV, sports, movies, parties, drugs, alcohol, books, fad diets, even religion, but the splinter will still remain as long as you refuse to examine the precise spot where the pain is coming from.

Only by examining you personal splinters under the Light will they become visible, and by reaching towards spirituality (meditation works best for me) you realize you hold the tweezers that can remove this tiny but pointed source of pain from your life.

Positive thinking is great, and it can truly have an antibiotic-like effect on any old wounds you have inside that need healing and protection from infections, but it's not healthy to pretend that something isn't there when it constantly continues to surface in your life.

So grab your spiritual tweezers and let the Light shine on your splinters Once they're gone, you'll wonder how you were ever able to live with them for so long in the first place.

New art for me! YIPPEE!

2010-03-12T10:19:00.002-05:00

So I've had this page from a magazine torn out and hanging on my 'things I love that inspire me board' for months now. It even made it through our move from Mass to NH. It shows a couple of inspiring paintings from artist Jessica Gonacha/Swift (recently married) that I just fell in love with and really connected to. They remind me of a series I'm working on called 'interconnected'.

Well, One day Tommy and I were walking the streets of downtown Portsmouth and passed my favorite art gallery Nahcotta. Of course, I had to stop and peek in the windows. And to my utmost surprise, there was my favorite painting from Jessica Swift right there on the wall!!! The original painting of what I've been staring at on my inspiration board for months was on the market for sale right in front of my very own eyes! Proceeding to squeak and squeal, Tommy wondering if I was choking on something, I showed him the piece through the window.
When we got home, I took him right over to my board where the painting was printed in the magazine. wow.

So life got busy, new art was by now up at Nahcotta and I figured I missed my chance to get it. After yoga class on Sunday, I was napping in the car while Tommy was walking around. When I opened my eyes from my nap I saw the painting right in front of my face! Tommy had sneaked over to Nahcotta, found it and surprised me! He said he just had to get it once he saw the title, 'You Simply Glow'.
What a lovely surprise indeed :-) It makes me smile everyday. And it is my first official, original piece of art in my collection. Oh Happy Day!

'You Simply Glow'

sitting around the ol' electronic fire.

2010-03-10T10:47:00.009-05:00

Image courtesy NY Times/HMI Report/UC San Diego

I just read an article in the NY Times describing a study from the University of California that calculated how much information the average American ingests per year.

The results? A staggering 34 gigabytes per day, or roughly 3.6 zettabytes. To get a grip on this, a zettabyte is 1 with 21 zeros after it, or one billion trillion bytes. That's a lot of data.

The study also said that about 100,000 words enter our field of vision every day. Not that we read that many words, but still, if you think of cereal boxes, car commercials, billboards, skimming magazines, etc., there's a TON of stuff out there that our brain is constantly trying to process.

Perhaps most disturbingly, nearly half of that data ingested comes from television - "bubble gum for the eyes", as Steve Allen called it - with a scant 8% coming from printed media like books.

However, this information does not suggest people aren't reading anymore, according to U of C researchers. They found that a majority of time spent online actually was reading, in the form of blogs, articles and other forms of research.

This leads me to two questions: 1) What are we reading and 2) When do we give our brains a chance to "unplug"?

In the old days, the end of the day ("sunset" to us old-timers) signified when you stopped working. Not so much these days.

Since the introduction of electricity into our homes and lives, all we have to do now is flip a switch and we can keep working or doing whatever we were doing. While this benefit is not evil in and of itself, the repurcussions of our frequent misuse of such a blessing can lead to a constantly distracted mind, filled with other peoples ideas, complaints, desires, worries, adventures, failures and successes.

Sitting around the fire, in the past, was an opportunity to unwind, almost meditatively, and reflect on your life and your day, usually while in the company of others. Our replacement for this has become TV and the internet, conjuring images of individuals hunched over their computer in a dark room, the pale bluish light penetrating their eyes and souls, further blurring the line between what is "real" and what is "virtual" (not to mention blurring their physical eyesight as well".

In "Wherever You Go, There You Are", by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the author describes this phenomenon in great detail:

"Fire was a comfort to us, our source of heat, light and protection–dangerous, but, with great care, controllable. Sitting by it gave us relaxation at the end of the day. In it's warm, flickering light, we could tell stories and talk about the day past, or just sit silently, seeing the reflection of our minds in the ever-changing flames..."

Sounds nice, right? The point is, when we didn't have a choice, but rather had to stop working because we couldn't see, we stopped. We paused. We separated our "work" from our "relaxation". The problem with having the ability to be connected, online and lit up all the time is that many of us abuse the privilige like junkies. We check facebook on our phones while in the bathroom. We email in bed. We watch tv during dinner. We listen to the news while making breakfast (if we even make breakfast).

Going further, Kabat-Zinn recalls how "fires are impractical [today] or an occasional luxury to set a certain mood", rather than something we humans need for survival. "We can light up our world as brightly as we want and keep going with our lives, filling all our waking hours with busyness (busy-ness > busi-ness > business) -- with DOING. Life gives us scant time for BEING these days–unless we seize it on purpose."

Let's use this study as a wake-up call to remember that just because we CAN keep working and chatting and buzzing and tweeting at all hours of the day, doesn't necessarily mean we should. Take time to just BE. Relax. Stare at the mountains, or the ocean waves, or a gentle stream, or watch the wind carry through the trees.

Better yet, sit down, close your eyes and look within your self. Rather than consuming more and more information every day, see if you can get by with less, and let your inner voice be heard. A daily meditation practice can be a potent antidote to the disease of "information-itis".

It may take a little while to get started, just like a real fire, and it may go out occasionally, but if you continue to stoke the flames, give it plenty of fuel (time) and oxygen (your breath), I promise it can be just as good as sitting around an actual fire - without getting any smoke in your eyes.

***

Mt. Major Trail

2010-03-08T11:04:00.004-05:00

It looks like a painting, but that's the actual view from atop 1,700 foot Mt. Major, located on the south side of Lake Winnipesaukee in central New Hampshire.

This weekend, we were desperately in need of some big views and wide open spaces, so we headed up Route 16 from Dover, caught Route 11 north at Rochester, and found the Mt. Major trailhead, located just north of Alton. As soon as you pass Jesus Valley Road, there's a scenic viewpoint on the right side of the road. Immediately after this, you see a sign for Mt. Major Trail, next left. That's the parking lot.

It wasn't too busy, considering the trail was so slushy and icy, but the weather was beautiful. It was in the 50's the whole way up, but brutal winds on top made the weather almost unbearable, were it not for the little bunker that exists on the summit. We brought kabocha squash & black bean stew with wheat pitas, and the stew was still steaming hot in our thermos after the hour and 1 minutes it took us to reach the top.

Though not as large as some of the Colorado mountains we've summited, Mt. Major is definitely a great hike - thanks mostly to the panoramic views of Lake W. and Mt. Washington beyond that. Also, it's a hill you can bag in one morning or one afternoon, so it's great for novice hikers who want a challenge, or experienced hikers who don't want to spend an entire day climbing. On a summer day, you can lounge on top and watch the boats on the lake, or spend the night on July 4th and watch the firewakrs from towns all around the region.

You'll love this little stone hut if it's windy!

Lake W was totally frozen solid. There were lots of people skating in the bay and ice fishing. A fellow climber told us they will build little huts around the ice holes, called "Bob Houses" or something, and will place a generator outside for TV, computer, heat and even a couch, and spend several days at a time in there. Makes me wonder what else they use the hole in the ice for! ;P He also said that so far this year, one truck, one snowmobile and 2 huts have been lost through the ice. No one has been injured or killed though, luckily. I'll stay on shore, I think.

If you go, here are some technical specs regarding the hike.

And here's a link to the Google Map, which also shows elevation gain.

***
Look how thick the ice was on top of this stream we crossed (about 6 inches):

Harvard Art Museum

2010-03-02T16:50:00.002-05:00

Last weekend Tommy and I spent most of the day at the Harvard (pronounced "hah-vahd") Art Museum. What a delight! We got to see the best of all three exhibits. Of course it was all wonderful, but my favorite was the last room upstairs. THE most famous art I've ever seen in one room in my entire life!

I am surprised we could take pictures of most of the pieces.

Self portrait by Van Gogh.

Lichtenstein! always a favorite.

The original "moleskine".

Monet's Pear Tree

One of Tommy's favorites...don't remember who did this one.

The Buddah Room - also a favorite.

The last room, full of Van Gogh and Degas and Monet and Picasso and Matisse and more, was so breathtaking. All the pieces in that room were donated by ONE person! Yes, all of that wonderful art was in one house. It was donated to Harvard with one rule, that it all must remain in the same room at all times.

If you get a chance it's worth a visit. Definitely. And it's only $9! ;)

Until next time, this is Jen signing off...

It's all about the love.

2010-02-17T13:28:00.000-05:00

With February being crowned official Love Month, thanks to Valentine's Day being smack dab in the middle of it, we've adopted a love-related mantra to repeat throughout the month and possibly longer if it continues to be effective – and so far, it has been :)

Here it is:

"Love conceals all blemishes."

The mantra is based in part on Proverbs 17:9, which states, "He who covers an offense promotes love; but he who repeats a matter separates best friends." (World English Bible)

In modern terms, love is like the make-up worn on the face of your relationship. It's the part that everyone sees when you're out in public, with your friends, at your church, in a bar or at the grocery store. A lot of people spend hours getting ready to go "out" but pay little consideration to how they look at home. Similarly, like make-up, we often rub love off the minute we get home, allowing past transgressions, hurts or resentments get the better of us.

This is where the February mantra comes into play.

Make-up is used to accentuate the best features of your face. Love can do the same thing to your relationship. By repeating this mantra whenever you may be tested by your spouse or Other, it not only reminds you of this point, it also reminds how you would like to be treated by the other person. Wouldn't you love it if your spouse/bf/gf just overlooked all your little flaws and faults and only focused on your best features? By doing that for them, you will be creating the potential for them to return the favor.

Love conceals all blemishes. That means ALL blemishes. Think of love as the foundation (notice a theme here?) for the face of your marriage or dating relationship. From this foundation, you have a nice, smooth, EVEN surface to work from as you locate and detect the best parts that are worth drawing attention to.

In summary, by thinking of your relationship as one body with a visible "face" that is present both in public and private, you can artfully use love as the make-up that conceals all the blemishes that you both have to bring out the true beauty of your relationship and share it with the rest of the world. This means DON'T point out every little thing that needs to be corrected -- let the other person work on themself -- and instead try to conceal those blemishes by remembering that true love is unconditional; whether the toilet lid is left up or not ;)

Every relationship has the potential to be beautiful, especially with the right shade of make-up -- unconditional love -- applied to it in an authentic and meaningful way. A little dab here, a swoosh there, and before you know it, your relationship will be runway-ready in no time.

For further lovie-dovie inspiration, listen to "Fade Into You" by Mazzy Star, turn down the lights, pour two glasses of wine, and...well, you know. :)

***
–Tommy Pesavento is an Addy® award-winning copywriter, graphic designer and avid blogger based out of Portsmouth, NH. He also currently serves as Chief Creative Officer and Social Media Consultant for spark* Creative Services. Tommy lives with his wife and creative muse, Jen, and their tabby cat/adopted daughter, Miss Kitty Lee.

Brought to Life!

2010-01-28T11:09:00.000-05:00

As most of you remember I did a series of illustrations that were inspired by my sister, Crystal. I mailed her one illustration a day for the week of her birthday (12 total I think). It was the most creative fun involving another person that I've had in a awhile.

To my utmost amazement...I received these beautiful, gorgeous handmade treasures. Half on my birthday and half on Christmas to complete the set, from my sis. They have really made these illustrations come to life!

How absolutely adorable are these!?
I love them and the excitement and sweetness put into making them. They have a home right by my desk so I see and am inspired by them every day.

Thank you Crystal!

Happy Endings = New Beginnings.

2010-01-25T14:35:00.017-05:00

I'm at the end of another journal. This has been a wonderful journal for such a long time. As always when I come to the end of a journal I feel a bit sad to finish it and a bit joyous to have completed and filled what was once empty pages with life and love. Experience is the essence of living and without it we'd all be blank pages.

Here's a glimpse of a few pages from this journal. This book has been filled mostly with notes from books I've read, lots and lots of dreams with vague half sleepy sketches and questionable handwriting. It's full of notes from Kabbalah classes and a few drawings here and there. Notes from life, doodles and reminders.

- Jen

inauguration day

reminder notes

notes
doodles

a world of dreams...........

So, what do you do when you reach the end of a journal? Do you toss it out, file it, label it, read through it immediately, lock it up in a fireproof safe, or take pictures and post it online? We're curious -- let us know by leaving a comment and you could win a free brand new journal of your own to fill up with all your thoughts, inspirations, ideas and doodles.

*** We'll select one winner from all the comments to receive a cool journal of our choosing, shipping included. Contest is open through Feb. 2nd, 2010! ***

Water

2010-01-18T17:16:00.009-05:00

Tommy and I just watched 'Water: The Great Mystery'. A documentary about how scientists are discovering the properties of water. Water is not just H2O, it also is 'structured' based on a memory that it has. Yes. Water apparently has a memory. They did lots of experiments and tested human emotion and intention projected towards water and discovered some amazing results.

So this lead to our very own water experiment. We weren't sure if we'd be able to see anything, since it's just water, but we figured why not try and see...

I filled 3 glasses of water from our filtered kitchen sink faucet. Under each glass I put a piece of paper with a word written on it:

We let them sit over night and here are the results:

(from left to right: love, pencil, hate)

We were surprised to see any results at all. It is obvious that the 'love' has bubbles, the 'pencil' has a few bubbles and the 'hate' had not even a trace of one bubble at all.

I find this super interesting...anyone else have thoughts on this? Please post them in comments.

Voluntary Simplicity

2010-01-11T15:07:00.004-05:00

hi everyone. long time no see... but happy new year!

2010 has started off busy, fun and sometimes challenging for us as we begin another year of learning, writing, exploring and having fun. we have a lot of things planned for 2010, and we'll do our best to keep you all posted.

as with the start of any new year, month, or week, i know the tendency is to try to fill it up with "stuff" and see how much we can do over the time period. sometimes, however, quality trumps quantity, and the following passage from Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" expresses this dilemma better than I ever could - regarding the "impulse" to just squeeze in one more task item here, or another appointment there. See what I mean:

I've learned to identify this impulse and mistrust it. I work hard at saying no to it. It would have me eat breakfast with my eyes riveted to the cereal box, reading for the hundrreth time the nutritional value of the contents, or the amazing free offer from the company. This impulse doesn't care what it feeds on, as long as it's feeding...

...it scavenges to fill time, conspires with my mind to keep me unconscious, lulled in a fog of numbness, just enough to fill or overfill my belly while I actually miss breakfast. It has me unavailable to others at those times, missing the play of light on the water glass, the smells in the room, drifting in through the open window, the energies of the moment...as we come together before going our seperate ways for the day.

Can you resist the urge to JUMP when the phone rings? How about skipping a night of TV and just talking with your spouse or children, or playing with your pet? Some people can't be alone for 1 minute without whipping out the cell phone to call someone, check email, etc., instead of just experiencing the moment. Some people will even answer a vibrating cell phone right in the middle of a conversation with a live person. I'm not condemning anyone. I'm just suggesting that we be aware of what we are doing, in the moment, in order to really get the most out of that moment.

Choosing simplicity whenever possible adds to life an element of deep freedom which so often eludes us, as well as many opportunities to discover that less may actually be more.

As Thoreau said: "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen." Is multitasking really making your life better, or is it just bring more stress into your life?

Just something to think about...

The Flâneur

2009-12-19T14:25:00.004-05:00

This is a re-post from another writer named "Eric" on his blog called "The Elliptic Blog", circa 2003. You can link to his original post here. In it, he provides a great definition of what it means to be a flâneur, as well as offering some additional insights from a sociologist named Walter Benjamin. It seems Benjamin was a strong proponent of modern flâneurism in the early 20th century, and championed the more positive connotation to the oft-misunderstood term, severly under-utilized in modern language as a synonym for "idleness".

So please, enjoy Eric's writing, and feel free to comment at the bottom of this post. If nothing else, hopefully this article will inspire anyone who reads it to break out of the back-and-forth-to-work mentality and try exploring your own city, or a neighboring town, just for the sake of (and the joy of) wandering. Happy trails:

The Flâneur

"Let's start with a discussion of what it means to be a flâneur. A simple definition would be 'one who strolls aimlessly through urban spaces.' Often, being a flâneur is associated with idleness and with the decadent luxury of having enough time to take those meandering strolls.

Though the original use of the term might have applied to folks that were decadent dilettantes with plenty of idle time, several writers, theorists and philosophers have appropriated the term and have used it to refer to a more complex activity. Walter Benjamin, in particular, has done the most to bolster the meaning of the term. Instead of assuming that those who have the time to wander aimlessly through urban landscapes are only engaged in a cursory and leisurely survey of their environment, Benjamin brought attention to the cognitive value and pleasures associated with urban strolling.

A flâneur, under this interpretation, becomes an active sociologist or reader of the environment around him or her. As urban landscapes become more dense and the architecture more complex, opportunities to observe and interpret events and objects have increased in number and complexity. Unfortunately, this has occurred in tandem with accelerated industrialization and the entrenchment of the capitalist work-ethic.
More often than not, we spend time in our cities commuting to and from our work places; too preoccupied or tired to take note of the visual complexities around us. We rarely have time to pause and admire small details in the architecture or to pursue a reverie caused by some stranger's facial expression. Our workplaces have also become barren environments where, more often than not, visual complexity has been replaced by monotony -- all in the name of economic efficiency (i.e., cubicles).

This lack of engagement is worrisome since we are not exercising our cognitive skills to read our environment. Whether it is the result of the pressures of commuting, of our inane habit of completing errands at break-neck speeds or of simple laziness, our visual intelligence is becoming rusty. Whether it should be deemed an aesthetic and/or political movement, it is time to rekindle our abilities to engage actively with our immediate environment and resist the tendency to let it pass unnoticed as the rhythmic swaying of our bus or train lulls us into a stupor."

Eric then closes his post with a quote from Walter Benjamin himself:

“The street becomes a dwelling for the flâneur; he is as much at home among the facades of houses as a citizen in his four walls. To him the shiny, enamelled signs of business are at least as good a wall ornament as an oil painting is to a bourgeois in his salon. The walls are the desk against which he presses his notebooks; newsstands are his libraries and the terraces of cafés are the balconies from which he looks down on his household after his work is done.”
––– Walter Benjamin, “The Flâneur”

If you've never heard of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), he was an amazing writer who, in his monumental work The Arcade Project, presents a montage of quotations from, and reflections on, hundreds of published sources, arranging them in thirty-six categories such as "Fashion," "Boredom," "Dream City," "Photography," "Catacombs," "Advertising," "Prostitution," "Baudelaire," and "Theory of Progress." His central preoccupation is what he calls the commodification of things--a process in which he locates the decisive shift to the modern age.

***
Special thanks to Eric at The Elliptic Blog for writing this post (01/06/03).
TrackBack URL for his original entry is here:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834544b5369e200d83502a2a453ef

Holiday Update

2009-12-17T10:16:00.004-05:00

Hi everyone!

Well, after 3 crazy weeks which involved moving out of state, unpacking and organizing our new home, lots of deadlines for me at work, and a surprise visit from my sister, we are finally starting to settle back into a lite routine, just in time for it to (probably) get shaken up again for the holidays! Joy!

For anyone who doesn't know, we moved from a loft in downtown Lowell, Mass, into a 2-story apartment in Portsmouth, NH. So far, we've only been downtown PM a few times, but we've been going for walks along the beach again and are getting to know the area rather quickly. Things are laid out so sensibly around here, we're already down to only using GOS about 50% of the time.

Another cool thing is that there's a private airstrip just across the highway from us, and although there aren't many landings, the flight plan is directly over the skylight in my office. As such, the huge cargo planes, fighter jets and private planes come in at about 500 feet and I can see every detail as they come in. We've also seen some submarines and a GIGANTIC freighter in the harbor downtown. It's a great little town so far :)

Admittedly, we also love the combination of big-box retail and local businesses/restaurants available here. You really can find anything you want or need, from a mom & pop or a corporation, and there's a surprising amount of people out downtown, night after night, cold weather or not.

We had a fantastic time with Amy last weekend. We took her downtown, to the beach, and into Boston for a day, where we explored the USS Cassin Young, the Old North End, Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market, the top of the Prudential building, Newbury Street, Cambridge, Harvard Square, Harvard Yard and the financial district for some skyscraper viewing. It was her first ever trip to Boston or New England, so we tried to cram in as much as possible while she was here.

We also took her to Lowell on a cold, rainy Sunday to show her around our old digs, and enjoyed a free holiday photo shoot with Anne Ruthmann at her studio.

So now we can breathe a little bit and prepare for the mad last couple weeks of 2009. It's been another fun-filled, action-packed crazy year for us, and we're looking forward to even more adventures in 2010.

See you on the other side of New Year's!

-Tommy

Zen and the Art of Tweeting.

2009-11-20T09:14:00.000-05:00

If you're anything like me, you love diving into new things headfirst, all or nothing.

Sometimes, that's a great asset; other times, it can cause a serious drop in productivity, especially if you work from home or if you're at a computer most of the day.

You guessed it -- I'm talking about Twitter.

It's hip. It's fun. It's addictive. "But I'm networking to build my home-based entrepreneur business," you say. Great, I say. More power to you! Just as long as it doesn't come at the expense of whoever's paying your salary right now.

How I started.

Probably the most difficult part of learning to use these new types of social media is learning how to manage their proper usage, rather than employing a "kid in a candy store" approach. I'll be the first to admit, when I first discovered the "world wide web", back in 1995, I was amazed by the fact that I could "chat" with someone in Indonesia or Australia as if they were right next to me. So amazed, in fact, on that first day a friend introduced me to Miss Internet, I spent 12 hours straight chatting. I was hooked.

I tell you this story only to use it as an extreme example of how e-socializing can zap your productivity down to naught. Over the past 14 years, I've seen a lot of internet trends and fads rise and fall. Social Media is definitely here to stay, so it's important to have this discussion now while the phenomenon is still "relatively" young.

Social Media can be a wonderful tool if handled properly. For you DIYers out there, I know you wouldn't try to use a drill as your only tool when remodeling a kitchen (well, maybe some of you would, but that's for a different post). Similarly, Twitter must be considered one tool in a full toolbox of networking and marketing tools. With that said, we'll now discuss how to properly use said tool.

Just our inventions.

Many authors bludgeon the phrase "time is money" when referring to how social media affects productivity, but I disagree. I believe time is time, and money is money, and both are simply inventions of mankind as ways to measure the value of something. As in, "this must be good, it (took a long time to make / cost a lot of money)," choose your own answer. Either way, neither existed before us, and both will evaporate when we're all gone.

I use this argument as a way to show that productivity doesn't simply mean you spend more time on something, but rather, of what quality was the time you spent on the assignment? Were you focused on your task, distraction-free, really aware of what you were doing in that moment? Or were you trying to write an article with one eye (ahem) and follow your tweep's updates on TweetDeck with the other? (Who, me?)

My conclusion, based on a decade-and-a-half of online networking, is that you don't always get better results from something just by spending more time doing it. The solution isn't as easy as "spend less time on Twitter and more time working". I would suggest spending less time doing both, but being more focused on the task at hand so that the work you are doing is quality work. (This leads to more free time, which as we all know, is the best way to increase productivity.)

The Zen approach.

Zen students would call this approach "being in the moment", and I must admit, it's an approach that has worked well for me. I used to be a strong believer in multi-tasking, having a dozen or more tabs open in my browser, reading an email while waiting for another site to load, then squirting out a couple of tweets in one tab, skimming a blog entry in another and reading headlines scrolling across the bottom of my window...did the other page load yet?...need to open a new tab...

...BREATHE!!

My proposed solution to this mayhem may sound archaic, but what works for one sometimes works for another, so here goes: devote 30 minutes twice a day to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn (or your favorite other forms of social), and when you're through, close it.

Shocking, right? I know I'm not the first to suggest this, and at first it can feel like you're cutting your own umbilical cord, but it does work. For extreme cases, there's even a program you can download that forces whatever programs you choose to be closed during certain times of day, just so you can get things done.

My proposed solution works from the inside-out. It's a conscious decision to organize and prioritize your daily goals instead of trying to do everything at the same time. This way, instead of trying to "do more" in "less time", as some other sites would suggest, you are taking steps towards improving your quality of life as well as your quality of work, by simplifying your current task and giving it your full engagement.

Get it done early.

Personally, I always try to accomplish one semi-important task each day before I read any emails or even open my browser. Then, I'll spend a few minutes reading and responding to emails, followed by a 30-minute Twitter session. If I'm focused, all my social marketing, networking, and email responding is done by the first coffee break, plus I've already got one task done off my daily list (which I always make the previous day, right before leaving the office.)

Then, after lunch, I'll do another *shorter* social media stint, catch up on replies, and see what the rest of the world is up to. What I've discovered, ironically, is that even though I'm not "connected" to Twitter all day long, I'm really not missing that much. Don't get me wrong, though -- Twitter is a fantastic resource, albeit one that is easy to abuse (as many tweeters do). The key here is, as with almost everything in life, finding a balance.

In closing, this discussion isn't supposed to induce a magical cure-all to relieve the symptoms of Social Media overuse and indigestion. It's purpose is simply to suggest that by being in the moment whatever you're doing, whether it's tweeting, preparing a new business proposal, or writing an article for your company blog, you'll be more productive if you stay completely focused on the task at hand.

And you'll only need one tab to do it.

[CONTEST] Win an OWL art print from Jen! (winner announced)

2009-11-10T10:31:00.008-05:00

We have a winner! See comments for details. Thanks to everyone who entered. It was fun!

It's that time again -- contest time!

This month, we're offering some very special illustrations from Jen's Etsy store. These cute, matching owls are named Harry & Bernadette, and they are going as a pair because they are lovers and didn't want to be separated.

They are printed with archival ink on acid-free paper and come in protective plastic sleeves. Also, they will be mailed in a sturdy cardboard mailer to ensure safe arrival.

So what do I have to do to win?

Good question. There are actually three different ways to enter this time, and each one will earn you a unique entry for a total of three. The contest will run for one week from today, meaning we'll have the randomizer random drawing on Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at noon Eastern time.

Here's how to earn up to THREE entries:

1) Re-tweet the following message on Twitter:

@jenandtommy are giving away 2 FREE "Owl" art prints!
http://jenandtommy.com #etsy #owls

2) Leave a comment on this post telling us why you think Owls are so darn cute.

3) Send Jen a convo on Etsy telling her you saw this blog post and why you should win the Owl illustrations.

That's it! So now you know how to earn up to 3 unique entries in the contest. You can only get 3, but the more you RT and spread the word, the more the randomizer gods will probably smile on you. (don't laugh, it's true. it's worked for me in the past.)

If you love Owls, you will love these prints. And by the way, be sure to check out Jen's Etsy shop, nspire, from time to time to see her latest work! She's got everything from illustrations to handmade buttons to felted ipod cases to reuseable coffee cup cozies, and she's ALWAYS up for some good old-fashioned trading.

Good luck! *hoot*

Meat-Free Monday.

2009-11-09T08:55:00.009-05:00

One of America's most famous vegetarians: Lisa Simpson.

What do Pierce Brosnan, Anthony Kiedis and Einstein have in common? (besides an "ie" or "ei" letter combination.)

You guessed it - they all choose to live meat-free, and not just on Mondays, either.

As of June 15th, 2009, "Meat Free Monday" was officially (re)launched in the UK and support has spread worldwide as the day has become more well-known.

The Independent, a UK-based newspaper, reveals: "The McCartneys have attracted support from across the worlds of showbusiness, science, business and the environment. The singer Chris Martin, Hollywood stars Kevin Spacey and Woody Harrelson, actress Joanna Lumley and Sir Richard Branson are advocating meat-free Mondays."

Support has also come from comedians Ricky Gervais, David Walliams and Matt Lucas, the poet Benjamin Zephaniah and Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman.

Another supporter, Sir David King, the Government's former chief scientist, said: "The carbon and water footprints associated with producing beef are about 20 times larger than maize (corn) production. Eating less meat will help the environment."'

Sadly, about 1/3 of the land mass of the entire planet is used for livestock or dairy production. Eating a veggie burger every week can reduce as much carbon monoxide emissions as driving a Prius! So think about it, for many different reasons.

The Meat Free Monday Song:

To further help spread the news that going meat-free is catching on, check out this partial list of well-known vegetarians and vegans, compiled by HappyCow.net (in alphabetical order):

Abraham Lincoln

Adam Carson of AFI

Alanis Morisette

Albert Einstein

Albert Schweitzer

Alicia Silverstone (vegan)

Allen Ginsburg

Andre 3000 Benjamin of Outkast

Anne Hathaway

Anthony Kiedis (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

Avril Lavigne

Ashley Judd

Barry White

Bill Walton (NBA)

Billy Idol

Brad Pitt

Brandon Boyd of Incubus

Buddha

Casey Affleck

Charles Darwin

Chris Evans (Fantastic 4)

Chris Martin of Coldplay

Christian Bale

Deepak Chopra

Diane Keaton

Dustin Hoffman

Ed Asner

Ellen (vegan)

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (same hometown as me)

Eric Roberts

Eric Stoltz

Erykah Badu

Fiona Apple (vegan)

Forest Whitaker

Franz Kafka

Gandhi

HG Wells

Henry David Thoreau

Jack Johnson

Jamie Kennedy

Jared Leto

JD Salinger

Jeff Beck

Jesus Christ

Jim Carrey

Joaquin Phoenix (vegan)

Joel of Good Charlotte

John Cleese

John Lennon

John Tesh

John Salley (NBA)

Johnny Cash (!)

Kelly Clarkson

Kevin Nealon

Kim Basinger

Kirk Hammet of Metallica

KRS-One (rapper)

Leo Tolstoy

Leonardo Da Vinci

Lisa Simpson (had to throw her in)

Mark Twain

Mary Tyler Moore

Michael Bolton ;)

Michael Franti of Spearhead

Michael Jackson

Mike Gordon of Phish

Moby (vegan)

Mr. Fred Rogers (!) - not surprising. can you imagine mr. rogers eating a steak? i can't.

Nelly

Nikola Tesla

Oliver Stone

Omar Epps

Paul McCartney

Peter Gabriel

Peter Max

Pierce Brosnan (James Bond)

Pink

Plato

Prince

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ricky Williams (NFL player)

Rivers Cuomo of Weezer

Robert Smith of The Cure

Rosa Parks

The RZA of Wu-Tang Clan

St. Francis d'Assisi

Samuel L. Jackson ("That IS a tasty veggie burger!")

Seal

Shania Twain

Sir Isaac Newton

Steve Vai

Steve-O

The Roots (yes, the entire band.)

Thom Yorke of Radiohead (vegan)

Thomas Edison

Toby Maguire

Todd Oldham

Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine

Tommy Lee of Motley Crue

Tony Gonzales (NFL player)

Vanna White

Vincent Van Gogh

Weird Al Yankovic (vegan!)

Willem Dafoe

Woody Harrelson (vegan)

Yoko Ono

Zooey Deschanel

I tried to select a nice cross-section for this abbreviated list, so that everyone could find someone they relate to, and think to themselves "Oh, if so-and-so can do it, I can too." etc. You can find an even more comprehensive list here, updated October 28, 2009 as of the writing of this post.

Go meat-free!

Arnold Arboretum.

2009-11-06T08:30:00.011-05:00

Last Sunday we were hanging out in Jamaica Plain and Brookline, so we decided to check out the Arnold Arboretum in Boston.

The oldest arboretum (tree sanctuary) in the country, AA is named after its financier, whaling tycoon and horticulturalist James Arnold. Visitors come primarily to stroll amongst the exotic greenery, which includes bonsai and lilac trees, along with several other non-native plant and tree species. Because Arnold left most of his estate to Harvard (HA-vahd), and the school uses the arboretum as a nature museum, it's only fair for the city to allow the university to rent the land for just $1 per year.

Open every day until dusk; visitor center open 9am-4pm weekdays, 10am-4pm Sat, 12pm-4pm Sun. Closed holidays, entry always free!

Link to Arnold Arboretum website.

Jen thinks I look like a vampire when I wear this coat.

A mid-century-style gazebo for chillin.

All the plants and shrubs have these metal tags to tell what they are. I thought they were American Express Gold Cards at first!

Click any of the images for a full-screen version.

Check out this teeny bonsai Japanese Maple! How cute!

Picture of a dude taking a picture of a sign. Funny.

'Tis the season for Holly!

I never knew holly trees were so huge!

The AA is part of Boston's famed "Emerald Necklace", a string of green spaces that Beantown wears proudly and especially shines throughout Summer and Fall. The Necklace was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, who also designed Central Park in NYC. Olmstead designed the park system in 1883 after moving to Brookline (a seperate town that's really "part" of Boston) from New York. The Necklace was originally designed to be an uninterrupted 5-mile walkway from Back Bay to Franklin Park, where Bostonians could stroll barefoot and without worry. While I probably wouldn't recommend walking the route barefoot today, it remains as an incredibly well-thought-out system of greenways, ponds and trails throughout the city.

Unfortunately, the necklace has been broken up over the years, thanks to increased traffic volume, overpasses, bypasses and roads, not to mention construction and other urban blight, but there is good news on the horizon: the city planners and conservation groups are putting together a master plan for the severed sections of the Necklace and together are trying to balance path restoration with traffic concerns. The idea being to re-link all the green areas back into one complete necklace.

***
(some text excerpted from the NFT Guide to Boston, 2009, published by Not For Tourists, Inc., © 2009. www.notfortourists.com)

Immaculate Conception Church: Lowell, MA.

2009-11-05T10:00:00.002-05:00

In our tradition of exploring the many incredible churches around New England, we recently came upon the Immaculate Conception Church located on East Merrimack Street.

This church sports some amazing architectural features and is a popular wedding site as well. It's very well-maintained, and is a great example of what appears to be an extremely gothic design. The interior layout can be seen at several other Lowell churches, including St. Patricks over in The Acre. Although we only went for the photos, the few people we interacted with were very nice, and most of them had been attending the church for decades.

Have a look inside:

Amazing, right?

A ridiculous blog post. [ contest alert! ]

2009-11-04T09:00:00.001-05:00

So a few months ago, I entered a contest presented by Stride gum.

The contest was to develop a new name for their "ridiculously long lasting" gum's newest minty flavor. Right up my alley, right? The grand prize was for $25,000, plus a year's supply of gum. What more could a guy ask for?

Anyway, I submitted my naming suggestions and began to wait.

Weeks went by, until the day of the announcement drew closer. Then, inexplicably, Stride announced they were pulling the contest do to some kind of error on the back end. BOO!

Needless to say, I was QUITE disappointed. But, in a similar fashion as the great Dr. Pepper Gold Coin Hunt we partook in a few years ago (some of you know about this - if not, ask us and we'll fill you in), the fun was in the journey. I was 100% sure I was going to win, but as a consolation prize, Stride was kind enough to print two cases of gum featuring the unique names that I submitted for the contest.

I decided to have my own mini-contest between the two names to see which one would have won. Comment on this post and let me know which one you like better. If you're on Twitter, RT this message for one entry:

@jenandtommy are giving away extremely rare packs of Stride gum! Details: http://jenandtommy.com

If not, just voting on our blog will earn you one entry.

After we decide on a winner via random drawing, we'll send that lucky person one pack each of the two unique packages which can be seen below:

"InfiMint"

"Mintfinity"

Good names, right? I know I would have won! Maybe next time... But at least I have these totally rare packs of gum to share with our loyal readers.

*Remember: for you collectors or gum fans out there, these packs are not available in stores! The normal name for this gum is called "Nonstop Mint" (I know - kind of lame, right?), so you'll have something that no one else will have. Plus, it's a really good gum, too. You can either save them as trophies, or just chew 'em up and brag to your friends bout your special gum. The choice is yours.

So start voting and re-tweeting, and then you too can look forward to receiving some chewy goodness in the mail. Remember, re-tweeting earns you an extra entry, so get to it.

Hope you like red!

2009-11-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

Last week the trees across the street from our building reached the absolute peak of their color. A color that can only be described as "flaming blazing fire engine cherry fruit punch red". Our point & shoot camera clearly does not do them justice, but here they are anyway for your limited enjoyment:

Jen loves leggin's!

2009-11-02T14:16:00.003-05:00

Self-explanatory. Long live the 80s, I guess.

Aiming Low in Boston.

2009-11-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

Tommy, why are you "aiming low", you say? Well, it's not what you think.

Aiming Low is a blog site made up of over 17 talented moms/wives/writers/etc who - well - aim low week after week. Their dedication is staggering. For example, they try to do as little as possible when creating business cards for themselves, which is why they love how easy HP makes business card printing with their new line of home and small business printers.

In light of this fact, HP decided to sponsor an event for the Aiming Low team. Two, actually. One in Boston, which we were lucky enough to get invited to by @AngelaAtHP (via Twitter), and one in New York City.

The Boston event was held at the Sheraton downtown. In honor of the gals at AimingLow.com, I decided to "aim low" myself and put off writing this blog post for an entire week after the event! Ladies: am I hired as a guest writer, or what? ;)

So anyway, I will now post a bunch of random pictures from the event, entirely out of order because it would take way too long to organize them:

Pre-event mingling: free food + booze!

Lots of the freshest, sweetest fruit you could ask for.

Boozing it up.

Bartender hard at work: he was a blur all night!

They had a bunch of printing stations set up everywhere so you could print free photos and try out the new equipment. They asked attendees to bring flash drives with photos on them for testing.

Not every Aiming Low blogger could attend, so the crafty clique created "virtual" aiming low-ers!

Technology at it's finest: they had a live Twitter stream on the big screen so we could all read each others tweets throughout the event....

There's one of ours!

They even had a real camera crew filming for the HP website - we were interviewed at the end of the evening, because......

.....we won a brand new HP PhotoSmart Web Printer! (Click the link to learn more about this amazing printer. It's SO cool.) Holy cow, talk about lucky. Some of you may know I won another HP printer earlier this year through a totally different website, but that was an OfficeJet printer - the HP 8500 Wireless OfficeJet. This one is from the PhotoSmart series, meaning it's specially designed for printing photos. Let me tell you, the photo print quality is unmatched for home printers. In fact, I'd say it even outdoes drug store photomats.

The big feature is that this is the first printer to connect to the internet - no PC needed to print directions, photos, etc. straight from the web! Plus it has a huge touch screen, similar to an iPhone. Thanks again to @AngelaAtHP for facilitating the event! WE LOVE our new printers!

More loot from the event: office goodies from @StaplesTweets, plus a $100 gift card to Staples and HP gift cards as well. All in all, I'd say the night was quite a success.

Plus, we met some hilarious, hot women who had no problem teaching us to "aim low". Thanks again ladies!

Go climb a tree!

2009-11-01T10:30:00.000-05:00

Here's a cute pic from our friend Anne Ruthmann: we were climbing trees in the rain in Lexington, MA, in the very same field where the Revolutionary War began.

Thanks for the pic Anne! :)

For more pix of us from photgrapher Anne, view the cute slideshow she created below:

More foliage pix.

2009-10-31T10:54:00.000-04:00

These are a few more bonus pix from our Fall Foliage 2009 Tour, from Jen, that she absolutely wanted to add to the mix since she likes them so much.

NEW HAMPSHIRE!

AMAZING VIEWS!

PICTURESQUE COUNTRYSIDE!

Into uncharted territory. As usual.

2009-10-29T21:57:00.003-04:00

When we are lost, we typically look at a map to figure out where we are and how to get to our chosen destination. This works well, assuming that there is a map of the territory in which we find ourselves, and assuming that we know our destination. However, this is not always the case. At this time in human history, we are all venturing into uncharted territory, whether we know it or not. And as individuals, we may find ourselves covering ground that our predecessors never even knew existed. When we look to them for guidance, they often come up short. Not knowing exactly where we are, we find ourselves unsure of which way to go, and eventually the uneasy feeling that we are lost presents itself.

The beauty of being lost is the same thing that makes it scary—it asks us to look within ourselves to find the way. If we have no map, we must go on instinct, relying on our inner compass to show us which way to go. This can be scary because so much seems to be riding on it. We fear we might go too far in the wrong direction, or become paralyzed and make no progress at all. And yet, this is the very challenge we need to develop our ability to trust ourselves. We are also learning to trust that the universe will support and guide us. We may believe this intellectually, but it is only through experience that it becomes knowledge of the heart. Learning to be okay with being lost and trusting that we will be guided, we begin our journey.

We can support ourselves by confirming that we don’t need to know exactly where we are going in order to take our first steps. We are learning to feel our own way, rather than following an established path, and in doing so we learn to trust ourselves. It is this trust that connects us to the universe and reminds us that no matter how lost we feel, and even as we journey, on the inner level we are already home.

***
For more articles like this, visit DailyOm.com, an online spiritual community.

Take a chill pill.

2009-10-28T09:04:00.000-04:00

"To everything there is a season."

one thing i've (finally) learned in life is you have to get comfortable with the ebbs and flows of the universe.

just as surely as there will be "down time", there will also be hectic time. when you have faith in this concept, you can really enjoy those moments of peace, when it feels like "nothing" is going on, instead of worrying that we don't have anything to do.

i always tell everyone this at work whenever it slows down. they fret that there's no new business coming, then suddenly there will be a surge of new projects opening and we all end up having to work more and faster.

enjoying the slow periods helps us to better handle the hectic periods, because we'll be well-rested and ready to face whatever challenges are piled on our plates.

***
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven" - Ecc. 3:1, Holy Bible

Boston Book Festival 2009.

2009-10-26T10:00:00.002-04:00

Went to Boston on Saturday, 10/24/09 for the first anual book fest. Rode in on the commuter train from Lowell to North Station, which comes out right at the entrance of the TD Bank Garden, home of the Celtics and Bruins. The fall colors were blazing on our ride in, despite the clouds and persistant mist mixed with spitting raindrops. It was an unseasonably warm day as well, with winds coming from the south.

Upon arrival, we jumped on the green line to Copley Square, where the bibliophilic activites were taking place. With a fresh cup of Dunkies coffee pumping its way through our veins, we first entered the sanctuary that is the Boston Public library. Our destination inside was the ublic reading room, where actress-turned-author Alicia Silverstone would be speaking about her new book, "The Kind Life", which is all aboout taking better care of yourself from the inside-out.

Yes, we bought the book, and yes, we hung around for the book signing afterwards. Mostly though, we were excited to tell her about how Jen's sister Cindy inspired us to go veggie, and ask her to write a special dedication to her in her own copy of the book, to which she energetically obliged. Cindy was instrumental in our conversion, and we owe her a HUGE debt of gratitude for her non-invasive techniques of education and letting her actions inspire us.

In her message to Cindy, Alicia wrote: "To Cindy: Thank God for people like you!", which we thought was a very fitting response. We hung around and chatted for a bit - she's very nice and very well-spoken, and she really has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things vegan. She also suggested I become active on her website because "they need more boys on there."

Anyway, after the successful signing, with stars in our eyes we headed across the street to the Old South Church to hear John Hodgman - PC himself - speak on his path to becoming a writer and a "famous minor television personality". The sanctuary of the church was completely packed by the time we arrived - standing room only, unlike on Sundays - but when the Q & A session began at the end I jumped at the opportunity.

My first question was whether he planned out the "John Hodgman Brand" at any length before he became the minor celebrity he is. His response was that while he did indeed put serious thought into how he wanted his career as a writer to turn out, he never really envisioned the TV and movie stuff, so his "brand" sort of morphed out of that, along with a series of very lucky, happy, fortuitous events which he was more than happy to feed along the way. He is, in essence, just being himself, albeit to a slightly more staged version.

My next question was in regards to social media. As everyone who has ever had to create a unique and memorable username knows, finding something that hasn't already been taken is more than half the challenge in venturing into a new media. How often have you went to join an online site, only to have your username already taken?

(As I'm writing this, I can hear a Mac/PC commercial playing in the background on the living room TV.)

As an intelligent, humorous writer and social media superhero, I wanted to see what the great Hodgman would do if he were to find himself in just such a position. My question was phrased as follows: "If the name @Hodgman wouldn't have been available on Twitter, what would you have picked as your username?"

PC's deadpan response was instant: "Probably @Hodgman with an -E-" (@Hodgeman). The genius of it all.

So that was a fun way to spend an otherwise dreary morning in Boston in October. Up next was a walk through the Common for some unbelievable fall colors pictures. We cruised around Swan Pond, and ended up in Beacon Hill for a late lunch at Panificio. Not-so-great service, but great food makes up for it.

After lunch, I wrote out this blog entry, we walked the entire length of Newbury Street (up AND down, stopping at the farthest point West to salute Fenway Park), and then hurried to catch the 8:00 train back to Lowell, where we were meeting a friend for dinner at a new sandwich place downtown, called Dharma Buns. (See my Yelp review here.)

So that was our Saturday. Today, as I'm writing this, it's Sunday, and Jen's cooking a vegan eggplant dish from Alicia's recipe section of her book. We're taking it easy today because tomorrow night we're heading back into Boston for an HP-sponsored event for bloggers and internet writers, which we will definitely be reporting back on later in the week.

Until then, make it a good one and don't forget to take some time out for yourself to have FUN!

J&T

The Old South Church, where we saw the reverend John "PC" Hodgman speak.

Close up of sculpture detail at Trinity Church, which is caddie-corner across Copley Square from Old South.

We loved this shot of a deserted State Street so much, Jen stood behind me and stopped traffic so I could get the shot. It was well worth it! Check out the ghostly outlines of the buildings in the distance.

Top of the Pru not even visible most of the morning due to fog.

The BPL has a gorgeous atrium for chilling with a good book.

Here she is: Alicia Silverstone makes a special guest appearance on our blog - in the process of signing her book for Cindy. If we lived in LA, I'm sure we'd be friends with her and her husband. :) (Photo posted courtesy of Alicia Silverstone.)

Strolling along through Boston Common.

We loved this tree. And look how green the grass is! It's practically glowing.

Make way for Jen!

Urban Hiking.

Heading home - Jen walks down the tunnel at Arlington on Newbury Street to catch the green back to North Station. What a day!

***

Click here to buy the book "The Kind Life" by Alicia Silverstone.
Only $23 to change your life? Come on, how can you pass up a deal like that? ;)

New England Apples

2009-10-25T18:25:00.000-04:00

It's our first New England fall together, I had to take Tommy to the place I picked apples as a little girl. Mack's Apples.

I LOVE this place! It's so magical and peaceful in it's own way. We had a great time picking apples. Mack's has so many different apples, but our favorite to eat plain is hands down the Honeycrisp. Favorite to bake with Courtlands.

These are the strongest bags ever! We packed it to the brimm.

MMMMMMMMMM! This is the first of many pies to come!

Stream of consciousness.

2009-10-25T10:00:00.000-04:00

photo © Allen Ginsburg, 1953.

For Jack Kerouac, writing was all about creating a mood, feeling or picture in someone else's head. To do this effectively, he developed a technique of writing called "Spontaneous Prose", in which he strived to "write without consciousness" allowing subconscious, uninhibited thought to be expressed. In the manual, Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, Jack provides us with a list of thirty "essentials" for creating yr own stream of consciousness writing samples:

Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy
Submissive to everything, open, listening
Try never get drunk outside your own house
Be in love with your life
Something that you feel will find its own form
Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
Blow as deep as you want to blow
Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
The unspeakable visions of the individual
No time for poetry but exactly what is
Visionary tics shivering in the chest
In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
Like Proust be an old teahead of time
Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
Accept loss forever
Believe in the holy contour of life
Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
You're a Genius all the time
Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

Ironically, many of these tips can transcend far beyond simply writing. Try using them in yr every day life and see how much more connected and open you feel to new experiences, places and people, and you'll be able to see the world the way Jack did.

Jack Kerouac memorial walk.

2009-10-24T11:59:00.001-04:00

Kerouac: Brooding, but sensitive.

On October 21, 2009, we honored the 40th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's passage into the non-physical reality. Considering he was born and raised right here in Lowell, MA, we figured it would be fitting to join the "Lowell Celebrates Kerouac" committee on their tour of Jack's favorite haunts around town. Joining us on the walk was our good friend and exceptionally talented photographer, Anne Ruthmann, who supplies the photo slideshow you will see at the bottom of this post.

One of the highlights of our time in Lowell was learning more about this mysterious figure known as Kerouac. Part man, part legend, part myth, part ghost, part Canadian but all-American, the "King of the Beats" has left an indelible mark on scores of budding writers all over the globe.

What Jack's doing now, no one knows. But what he did while he was here is a true gift to all of mankind. Kerouac thought of writing as his "duty" while here on Earth, and he performed said duty as well as anyone could in such a brief time. From The Town and the City, his first published novel which loosely describes his growing up in Lowell (and out of it), to the "bible" of the Beats, On the Road, Kerouac not only transcended genres, he created his own.

There are many creative storytellers; however, there are few who create a completely new style of writing. Jack's spontaneous prose, rambling alliterative inner dialogues and prolifically poignant poetry established a writing style so unique, so current, and yet so timeless, it spawned an entire generation of blessed Beatniks who are still reeling from the era known as the 1960s.

For Jack to write was for him to expose his very soul, leaving himself utterly vulnerable to the world at large and no doubt leading to his premature exit at the age of 47 in 1969.

I leave you with a passage from On the Road as a small sample and salute to Jack's style:

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and in the middle, you see the blue center-light pop, and everybody goes ahh...

For more biographical information on Jack Kerouac, including a complete list of his published works, you can link to his Wikipedia entry here.

Support Lowell Celebrates Kerouac, and help keep Jack's memory alive.

Every day a celebration!

2009-10-23T09:30:00.000-04:00

We all know someone who keeps plastic covers on his or her couch in order to protect it. The irony is that many of these people may live their lives without ever having actually made contact with their own furniture! This is a poignant and somewhat humorous example of the human tendency to try to save things for special occasions, as if everyday life weren’t special enough to warrant the use of nice things. Many of us have had the experience of never wearing a particular piece of clothing in order to keep it nice, only to have it go out of style in the meanwhile.

It’s interesting to think of what it would mean to us if we let ourselves wear our nicest clothes and eat off the good china on a daily basis. We might be sending ourselves the message that every day we are alive is a special day and a cause for celebration, and that we are worth it. There is something uplifting about treating ourselves to the finest of what we have. It is as if we rise to the occasion when we wear our best clothes and set the table beautifully, as if for a very special guest. We are more mindful of where we place things, what we are eating, and who is with us.

Using the good china, wearing your favorite outfit, and taking the plastic off the sofa might be an invitation to be more conscious of the beauty and grace inherent in our everyday lives.

Want to read more articles like this? Join DailyOm.com, and online spiritual community.

Clear your weeds. (quote)

2009-10-20T15:22:00.000-04:00

developing a routine can help make things start happening again.

good things.

transformations.

just look at nature - the seasons represent the "ultimate routine", year in year out, seemingly the same, but always filled with cycles of growth, death, rebirth, change, decay, seeds, colors, surprises, repitition, wonder...

i've noticed that just when things seem to become "normal", soon after that's when everything is shaken up a little bit so we can move on to the next step. so be prepared for the next great opportunity in your life, it may be right around the corner. always moving forward. the destination IS the journey.

today's quote:

"Life is like a garden. Quite naturally, leaves wither and flowers fade. Only if we clear the decay of the past then and there can we really enjoy the beauty of the new leaves and flowers."

(Mata Amritanandamayi)

Are you starting to be able to see and enjoy the beauty of your new garden? Fall is a great time to remember that are all right where we need to be right now, in order to clear out our past weeds and dead leaves, to make room for the new.

Sometimes it's more obvious, but it's happening all the time. We are cleaning house. So take time now to enjoy the changes. Appreciate how far you've come. Notice where you've advanced.

Really see your changes and give yourself a little pat on the back.

Are you a little bolder now? A little more flexible? More easy to accept change? More forgiving? More adventurous? More daring? Nicer, funnier, stronger? More grateful for things in the moment? We all probably have several areas that have grown a great deal recently. Let's notice them this week and appreciate how we've advanced as people. That's the only way we'll be able to continuously move on to whatever's next.

Have a fantastic rest of the week!

***
–Tommy Pesavento is a freelance writer and commercial artist currently living in New England with his wife Jen, who is also an artist and illustrator. You can find Jen on Etsy (shop name: nspire), or explore Tommy's online design studio, Atomic Lime Creative Lab. Feel free to share this information with anyone - just link back here if you please. :)

Image Copyright © 2002 - 2009 Desktop wallpaper Fantom-XP Inc. All rights reserved.

Peak Foliage Weekend in New Hampshire - 2009.

2009-10-18T21:48:00.005-04:00

Columbus Day weekend we went up for the proverbial Fall Foliage drive through New Hampshire. Although it was a bit cloudy that day, the colors were in prime form, and the lighting actually creating some interesting effects with the contrast.

We started out in Lowell, headed north on Route 3 into NH, past Manchester, then split off onto 89 at Concord towards Mt. Kearsarge. Once there (after a gorgeous drive) we climbed half the mountain for some awesome valley shots, then continued on to Lake Sunapee region.

On the road around Lake Sunapee, an interesting thing happened. We noticed there was another Audi behind us. No big deal at first, but as we crested a hill we saw there were two. "Wow, three Audis in a row," we thought. Then on a straightaway, the two we had previously se revved up on our left to pass -- then another -- then another -- then another! Five Audis passed us at high speeds, but there were still 3 or 4 behind us! It was like being in a commercial.

The line of matching cars seemed to be in some kind of unofficial race around the lake! We held down 5th place for about 10 minutes, approaching speeds of 80 mph on a twisty, turny lake-hugging road, before the 4 behind us eventually had an opportunity to pass.

Although Jen was cheering me on to stay with the grouping, I pulled over by the Lake Sunapee sign for some photos, knowing they'd soon be long gone.

After this excitement, we wound down in Concord, NH, for tofu-based burritos as Dos Amigos before heading back to Lowell. Fantastic weekend for peak foliage in mid-New Hampshire.

Lake Sunapee.

Stopped off in Concord, capital of New Hampshire, for some late lunch...

This is supposed to be a drawing of Tommy - looks more like Van Gogh!

Home.

2009-10-16T15:15:00.007-04:00

Lost in cheap delirium
Searching the neon lights
I move carefully
Sink in the city aquarium
Sing in the key of night
As they're watching me

Take me somewhere we can be alone
Make me somewhere I can call a home
'Cause lately I've been losing on my own

Wrapped in silent elegance
Beautifully broken down
As illusions burst
Too late to learn from experience
Too late to wonder how
To finish first

Take me somewhere we can be alone
Make me somewhere I can call a home
'Cause lately I've been losing on my own

Take me somewhere we can be alone
Make me somewhere I can call a home

Won't you take me home
Won't you take me home
'Cause lately I've been losing on my own
Won't you take me home

~ Lyrics from the song 'Home' by Zero 7.

The HOME LYRICS are the property of the respective authors, artists and labels, the lyrics are provided for educational purposes only , If you like the song, please buy relative CD to support Zero 7.

Buy this album on Amazon for $14.

Buy this album on electronically for $10.

Planning for change.

2009-10-14T09:45:00.003-04:00

This post is dedicated to anyone who might be contemplating making a change in your life.

Every day, I receive an email from MorningCoach.com, and since today's email was all about change (something we're fond of) I wanted to share with you the key points of the article:

Change may be something drastic, like changing careers, cities or partners, or it may be as simple as driving home from work on a different route, or parting your hair the opposite way, or ordering a tofu-based dish instead of the fried chicken.

Mike Magdaleno, the author of today's article, suggests that the common thread in all of these is the importance of making a plan.

Sometimes this aspect of making a plan seems like such an uphill battle. Far too often we get caught up in the details of form, substance, etc. Simplification is the secret. When we break it down to simple steps, and perfect those simple steps, then we begin to see the thrill in making these plans. Then, making the plan is more fun than a chore.

I am a huge advocate of writing your plan down. Don’t be scared, this is the fun part. To make it easy, just write it down ANYWHERE. It could be a fancy notebook or simply a cocktail napkin – some of the best plans were hatched there! Magdaleno shares the story of how Wayne Gretzky's first contract was handwritten over dinner on sheets of notebook paper! All of his great accomplishments in the game of hockey began with that very first plan.

Some savvy computer users put their plans on their hard drives, portable devices, iCal, etc. All that is great, but remember that Gretzky started from just plain sheets of paper. I want to stress ever so strongly that it can be written anywhere; the main thing is to just write it. Whatever works for you, then do it. 39-cent spiral notebooks are great, because you aren't afraid to use them. Moleskine-brand and Picadilly are nice if you want something a little more substantial, but whatever you choose, you can't let the price (whether low or high) have an effect on how often you write your plans.

After you have written it down, the thrill comes into play. The plan is written and it is so thrilling that things you are doing are moving in the direction of the changes.

I have personally had this happen to me. For years I struggled with the idea, but then as I wrote things down, my subconscious was able to go to work developing the plan into something real, and the Universe took care of the details.

Some examples for me have included becoming a freelance graphic designer, landing a full-time job at a creative agency, living on the beach, moving to New England, getting paid to write, and so on. Don't underestimate the power of writing down your plan.

I even know someone "personally" who once wrote that they would find their soulmate, and within a few months, she did.

The bottom line is that we will all have change as a constant companion throughout our lives; your choice is whether or not you want to resist it or embrace it. I suggest that if you're going to get wet, you might as well go swimming. So grab your snorkel, dive in, and don't forget to write down what you want so everything can start getting into place.

I love it when a plan comes together. ;)

Sunset bike tour of Lowell.

2009-10-12T09:17:00.000-04:00

While Tommy's decided to take a little break from writing so much, we're not taking a break from blogging. As such, here's a little mini-tour around some parts of Lowell that are going to be changing soon...

Since we're definitely moving to Portsmouth at the end of November, we're trying to take in as much of this area as we can while we're still here.

No, that's not an ancient ruin from a lost civilization in South America. It's Tommy standing in front of the ivy wall behind the Masonic Temple in downtown Lowell.

Here's a shot of what Tommy calls "The Warzone", soon to be "resurrected" as part of the Hamilton Canal Project in Lowell.

Close-up of "the wall" (not Pink Floyd's wall, but whatever). They'll try to keep this stuff intact and build all around it and next to it so the old decrepit stuff can stand as a reminder of what was.

This is a fun building to photograph because there's no roof! Apparently, no roof = no taxes so they just took down the roofs (rooves?) and left the rest.

Hope, even in the midst of all this wreckage. I truly felt like I was in Iraq for a moment when I was shooting this, especially since I heard 3 or 4 gunshots just a few minutes prior. Weird, but not really.

Hey, the canals are empty again!

Tommy: "This might be my last chance before we move."
Jen: "Last chance for what?"
Tommy: "To boldly go where no man has gone before."
Jen: "You don't mean..."
Tommy: "Hold my bag. I'm going in!"

Heading into the canal - the NPS boats are "beached".

He'll be comin' round the corner when he comes...

...a little closer...

Got it! "The Shot." The mud in the canal is SO sticky it's like a vacuum with every step, and it's EXTREMELY slippery so that you almost fall off the wall with every step. Don't try this at home kids.

My shoes still stink from this adventure.

There's my bag and trusty steed waiting for me. Jen was off in the field picking flowers when I came back up.

Awesome sunset over our soon-to-be-former building, the American Textile History Museum. Check out the sweet circular rainbow!

New Target in Lowell opened today.

2009-10-07T11:17:00.016-04:00

Expect more. Pay less. Drool.

We went to the soft opening of the brand new Lowell Target this morning at 8am! The actual opening is this Sunday, October 11th at 8am (there will be a ribbon-cutting at that time as well).

But let us tell you - there's nothing quite like the experience of going into a brand-spanking-new Target. It was like a supernatural experience. Everything was slick and shiny (including the spic-and-span toilets), the employees were crisp and helpful, and the aisles were painstakingly stocked and organized to perfection.

We had a chance to talk to several of the managerial staff, and they are all very proud of how the store looks, as well they should be. We complimented everyone on how great the store looked, then made our rounds around the store behind the smoothest, lightest, quietest carriage (pushcart) we've ever used. It was the first time we actually fought over who gets to push!

"They built this city..."

Super-nice employees!

(First non-friend-or-family-or-employee customers at the new Starbucks inside Target!)

Jen filling out the first ever customer survey for this Starbucks.

Of course, we started with Pumpkin Spice Lattes, a blueberry muffin and a cinnamon twist.

Karen and Jose were super nice!

The "Cadillac" of shopping carts.

Built-in cupholders are so nice.

And they're off!

Everything in the store is super perfect, clean and in stock.

It's like Target shopping in Heaven:
we only saw a handful of people,
no crying babies,
everything was clean and well-stocked,
an employee on every corner asking if we needed help...
pure bliss!

"Ready to help."

Target's new store brand looks great on-shelf. It's called "up&up".

Tommy's company designed this POP decal for this Oster toaster oven. Cool atomic lime green color!

The lights inside the freezers are motion-sensors, meaning they turn on one row at a time as you walk down the aisle. It's really spectacular.

Chips!

Candy!

Jen prepares for another harsh, wet New England winter.

Shoes!

For all of our fellow Lowellians...happy Target shopping!

You're going to love this place :)

Journaling as meditation. [+contest!]

2009-10-05T12:37:00.000-04:00

(*note: free Moleskine offer at end of article!)

Of the countless forms of meditation we can use, journaling offers its own unique benefits. Most meditations help empty the mind of concerns and bring positive ideas from our mental landscape, but journaling helps us anchor that experience in the material world.

Not every person is attracted to meditating in seated silence, and journal meditation is a nice alternative as an active meditation. It allows us to trace our journey and see where we have grown and what lessons we may be repeating. By employing a different part of the brain than creative or inspired thought, writing or typing a journal can create a greater sense of connection and union with our physical selves and the world around us.

In working through challenges, it can be helpful to first empty all worries from our heads onto the safe pages of our journal. Fears can be brought to light rather than allowing them to haunt the dark corners of our subconscious. We may even feel heaviness dissipate once our heads are free from clutter, leaving space for inspiration and the creation of positive images in their place.

Often in the process of writing out all the details of an event that troubles us, something that had been forgotten will come to the surface, providing a missing piece of the puzzle. Then we can truly begin to come up with answers, and write them down beside the worries to map the way from concern to constructive thought.

For capturing guidance and flashes of inspiration, journaling is ideal. This is especially true in the case of dreams, which often fade as we awaken. While working toward goals, keeping track of progress as well as guidance from readings or divination tools can be encouraging. Though it can be difficult to keep all of our guidance in the front of our minds, if we write it down it can serve as a reminder whenever we need it.

We can also use our journals to converse with our higher selves or even the universe. Journaling offers yet another way to unburden mind and spirit, while also creating a record of the present and preserving our hopes and dreams for the future.

(This article re-published courtesy of DailyOm.com, an online spiritual community.)

Tommy's take:

I keep a "ramblings" journal near my bed (titled "Night Writer" ;) so if I ever find myself laying there awake at 3:30 in the a.m. with a running dialogue of things I have to do, things I wish I didn't have to do, things I "should've done" and things I want to do, etc., I can write them down and be down. Usually, the reason we can't fall back asleep is we keep repeating the same thoughts over and over again in our heads. Writing them down allows your brain to release the thoughts so you can fall asleep with a clear head and wake up fully rested the next morning.

In my "ramblings" journal, you might find lists of things I need to do the next day or week, or story ideas, blog topics, even grocery lists. Sometimes it's just a stream of totally random thoughts like what the Bears need to do on offense to be more productive.

I know. You don't even need to say it. I'm weird.

But we all have those little oddities that make us unique and that can also keep us awake at times. Using the journal as a place to dump your thoughts and lists can really free up a lot of space on the "hard drive" that is your brain, and allow you to do more important things at night, like sleep.

The contest:

We want our readers to be able to practice what they learn immediately. As a bonus for anyone reading this article, we're giving away one free Moleskine® Large Ruled Reporter-style notebook, just like the one I keep by my bedside, to have as your personal dumping ground/list maker/dream journal/idea log/story book/etc., so you can go back to sleep, or fall asleep to begin with. Don't be surprised if it becomes your best friend, and if some great stuff ends up coming out of it. You might even find that you'll sleep better as well.

It's simple to enter the contest. By now, almost everyone is on either Facebook or Twitter. As such, we'll offer three ways to enter:

1) Re-tweet the following post on Twitter:

@jenandtommy are giving away a FREE Moleskine notebook! Visit http://jenandtommy.com to enter.

OR

2) Become a fan of Atomic Lime Creative Lab, Tommy's donation-based design agency, on Facebook, and write on the wall that you joined through this blog post.

Click here to become a fan of Atomic Lime Creative.

OR

3) Lastly, if you've shunned both Facebook AND Twitter, yet you like reading our blog, become a follower and leave us a comment at the end of this post, letting us know how long you've been reading, what you like/dislike about our blog, and what you think we should cover in the future.

So that gives you 3 ways to enter, and yes, if you do all 3 tasks you will get 3 entries. We'll randomly pick a winner out of Tommy's hat next Monday, October 12th at noon EST, then notify you through email, facebook or twitter if you've won.

Good luck! And happy journaling ;)

You can't please everyone.

2009-10-02T11:04:00.005-04:00

There's a famous quote from Bill Cosby that goes something like, "There is no guaranteed recipe for success, but you're guaranteed to fail if you try to please everybody."

Often, when we have a passion to do something or be someone, we start coming up with a long list of excuses as to why we "aren't ready" to do it. Things like: "I don't have a website." or "I don't have business cards." or "I don't have room for an office." or "There's already enough (blank) in the market." are some common ones. This is just our mind playing games with us. Your soul speaks softly, but persistently, while your mind tends to come across as a stereotypical "used car salesman", listing all the reasons "not to buy" a particular goal or dream.

We set up roadblocks for ourselves by trying to figure out or "guess" what everyone else's reactions are going to be to whatever it is we're wanting to do. You always have to start somewhere, and the best way to learn is from experience, out in the field.

Most importantly, we have to do the "thing" for ourselves first. Whether it's painting, blogging, acting or juggling, if you don't get any enjoyment out of it, no one else will, either. Whatever you do, it has to be the kind of thing that you'd be willing to do even if you weren't getting paid for it.

For example, Michael Jordan often said that if he wasn't gettiing paid to play professional basketball, he'd still be playing somewhere, anywhere, because he got so much enjoyment out of it. He never started playing with the intention of "I'm going to get rich and famous from this". Rather, he did what he naturally felt inclined to do, and look what happens when you're in the flow of doing what you are here for -- magic happens.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

2009-10-01T09:19:00.001-04:00

It is our natural inclination to judge people, since it happens without our even thinking about it. We take one look and summarize a whole person—overweight/too skinny, pretty/ugly, stylish/sloppy, etc. This habit comes from the mind’s need to categorize the world in order to be able to function without becoming overwhelmed.

When we judge, we are looking for pertinent information, trying to determine whether the person approaching is a threat, an ally, or someone we don’t need to worry about. This way of looking at people makes sense in a dangerous context, but in our daily lives it leads to an overly simplistic reading of the people we meet.

If you have ever judged someone dismissively, only to have them become a dear friend once you got to know them, you know the hazards of the judgment cycle firsthand. An experience like that may have led you to soften your natural tendency to believe your first impressions. We will always notice things about the people we meet, but as we become more conscious of the shortcomings of judgment, we won’t be satisfied with our surface observations.

We may notice that someone is driving an expensive car, but we will decide whether to befriend her based on getting to know her over time. We will not rule out a friendship with someone with messy hair, especially if he turns out to have a great sense of humor and a kind heart. Liking or disliking a person is a choice you will naturally make, but it will be after you have gotten to know them.

Next time you notice yourself judging somebody, try to send love, light, or blessings to the person you were judging. Then try to listen to them openly or look them in the eye and learn something about them. If this is not easy for you, remember not to judge yourself either. Trust that with practice, you will successfully disable your habitual patterns. As you do, you will find a whole new dimension of perception opening up to you, allowing you to see beyond the surface and into the essence of the people you meet.

(This article re-published courtesy of DailyOm.com, an online spiritual community.)

Biking the Minuteman Trail

2009-09-26T11:50:00.000-04:00

A couple weekends ago, we went for a ride on the Minuteman Bike Trail from Bedford MA all the way to Davis square. It ends up beiing about 30+ miles round trip if you ride around Davis a bit (like we did), and it's a great way to spend an afternoon.

Arouond Massachusetts, they've started replacing many of the old, unused railroad tracks with nicely paved bike trails. It's one of our favorite features of New England. Since most of the roads are simply too curvy and dangerous for novie riders, like us, the rails-to-trails program offers tremendous riding potential with minimal hazard.

Here is a beautiful stretch of clear road ahead of me. It's harder than you think to get a straight shot while riding a bike!

Stopped off at Spy Pond. Why it's named Spy Pond, I have no idea.

What I do know, however, is that it was a great place to have a mini-picnic. The pond is located about 5 minutes away from Alewife, so it's pretty much a good halfway point if that's where you're stopping. Once you get to Alewife, you can either park your bike in the cage and ride the subway into the city, or bring your bike on the train and toodle around town on two wheels (as long as it's not during peak hours).

Came across three little ducks hanging out over by Alewife station...

...then we saw this monster turkey come from out of no where! Right in the middle of the city!

The large Tom (another name for a male turkey) headed into the bush...

...so this Tom headed in after him for a closer photo!

Back on the trail again, all turkeys aside, Jen and Tommy ride off into the sunset.

-----
THE END

*(For more info about the Minuteman Trail, click the title of this post - ed.)

Yelp Elite's End of Summer party at Scampo.

2009-09-23T21:37:00.007-04:00

As some of you know, Tommy was selected to the Yelp Elite Squad this year for his awesome writing and reviews on Yelp. It seemed like a match made in heaven, as anyone who knows Tommy also knows of his infamously strong opinions he has about anything and everything.

Now that he's been putting his talents to good use, I've been reaping the rewards! Yippee! Tuesday night was another Yelp party, similar to the cruise we went on earlier this summer. Once again, we were wined, dined and romanced by Yelp Boston as a thank you for all the hard work of the summer's Yelping, and to bid farewell to summer as the party was also the last day of patio operations at Scampo.

Scampo is an awesome restaurant/bar/lounge nestled underneath the famous Liberty Hotel in downtown Beantown. The hotel is so cool is deserves it's own blog post (coming later this week) because it used to be (catch this) a JAIL. Even as recent as 1990 it was a jail! Gotta love New England for re-using old buildings like nobody's business.

Anyway, here are a few highlights from the event:

Yelp always has the best schwag, like these super-soft, super-comfy American Apparel t-shirts (I'm wearing mine as I type this! And they had girl sizes!!)

We were greeted by two nice hostesses who signed us in and gave us the lowdown on the party, after which we were again greeted by Leighann F., who is known as the Yelp Boston "Ambassador". She was really cute and very nice to uall night.

Fancy place-settings and little cute buttons were everywhere! We must have like a dozen buttons on our bags now. ;)

More schwag-bags. These contained HUGE cookies with apricot chunks and white chocolate, plus coupons for free lunches at Scampo and an invitation to yet another dinner party at the hotel next week. It never ends!

The place was wall-to-wall packed!! We headed outside for some fresh air and stayed out there most of the night.

Buttons, buttons, buttons!

The bartenders were dishing out all the white wine, red wine, vodka cocktails and Heineken we could drink.

The patio was cool, breezy and very cozy.

"Table for two, please!" Once the waitstaff heard we were vegetarians, they went out of their way to bring us special creations from the chef that weren't even on the menu! The head chef even came out and talked to us about the veggie selections and brought samplers for us. Talk about service. Local joints could take a tip from these pros.

Me with my free t-shirt at the end of the night! I love it :D

Tommy has to get Yelping again soon so he can earn his elite status again in 2010, this time from a different town probably. The next post will be a review of The Liberty Hotel itself. Although we didn't stay there, so it's not really a review, but wait until you see the pictures! That place is incredible.

Bye for now! -Jen

(For more information about Yelp, or to learn what it is and sign up yourself, just click the title of this post. -ed.)

I'm coming out of the art closet...

2009-09-22T14:17:00.022-04:00

OK. I'm finally coming out... I'm releasing my drawings for sale to share them with the world instead of hoarding them to myself and my bookshelf. I've never shared my drawings to the public before, so hopefully I won't self combust by doing this. Here's the scoop...
This first series of illustrations were inspired by my sister Crystal. Her and her hubby, Andre came to visit Tommy and I this past spring. We watched old home videos at Yaya's house and laughed and cried. The cutest was her 1st birthday party. Her cake hade a dog made out of frosting. She loved dogs. In fact, 'dog' was her first word. She would jump and point and say 'DOG!' over and over whenever she would see one. Her stroller would shake all over and you'd almost drop her if she was in your arms cause her little legs would be kicking like crazy. She wouldn't stop screaming 'DOG! DOG!' until someone else recognized that we also saw the dog and that it was cute.
Funny thing is, when she came out to visit us (20 years later) and we were touring them through Boston, she pointed at every dog we saw. And she told us over and over, 'I want that dog....no I want THAT dog.' And she didn't stop until we acknowledged that we saw the dogs and that they were cute. Some things never change ;0)

My imagination started to think in pictures, what would my little sisters life be like with no boundaries and unlimited fun and adventure?
My hope was to inspire her to do whatever she wants in life.
So, I hope you'll enjoy the thrill and tickle of excitement in the tummy that little Crystal is having in her imaginative world of fun with her friends.

Here's the link to see 9 more and order a print if you so desire:
nspire.etsy.com

I'd love to hear some feedback and opinions.
Thanks!
XO Jen

P.S. Stay tuned for a print giveaway...

From Lowell to Portsmouth.

2009-09-22T10:56:00.005-04:00

So here's the latest news on our relocation status:

After our third visit to Portsmouth, NH, we really decided we liked the atmosphere and layout of the town. It's got a lot of places to hang out, it's close to the ocean and there's a nice artist community as well.

Right after we decided we wanted to move there, we got notified by our landlord that she's not renewing our lease because they want to sell. Confirmation that we're making the right choice.

As a back-up, we met with our Lowell realtor, Steve, who showed us a few places on the market here in town. Let's just say the places we looked at only added to the confirmation for moving. There's really nothing else available to rent that even comes close to the place we've been lucky enough to call home for the past year.

So we're making the official announcement here on our blog that by the end of the year we'll most likely be in Portsmouth. I say "most likely" because I don't ever want to close doors or burn bridges if there is something in the works that pops up at the last minute. Long and short-term planning must be liberally sprinkled with flexibilty to be effective and practical.

Plus, with PM only being abour 45 minutes from Lowell, we can still see our friends, visit Boston and be close to Jen's family at the same time.

So why Portsmouth, you ask? Check out this article from the NY Times. They explain it much better than I could. Calling it a "mini-Boston" on a small slice of coastline, and naming it one of their 24 "havens" to escape to, the real question is "Why wouldn't we move there"? Here's a short excerpt from the article:

"Residents describe Portsmouth as a mini-Boston. The city’s historical section is loaded with Cape- and Colonial-style buildings from the 18th century, and the commercial focal point is Market Square, where the tall white steeple atop the North Church is the town landmark. The streets radiating from the square bustle with shops, galleries, cafes and restaurants like the Portsmouth Brewery, which bills itself as New Hampshire’s original brewpub."

Got opinions or advice about Portsmouth? Share it with us on the blog. And if you know anyone who's looking to buy a sweet loft in downtown Lowell, let us know so we can hook you up with a finder's fee! It's available anytime.

We'll do our best to keep the blog updated during this busy time of moving, packing, exploring and everything else that Fall brings.

Our Top Green Websites of 2009.

2009-09-18T11:40:00.003-04:00

Hi everyone!

For our more environmentally-conscious readers (and really, who isn't these days?) we've put together a listing of what we feel to be the most important, best designed and most useful "green" websites of 2009.

These websites cover a variety of eco-topics, from where to find green products to analysis of global climate shifts and even how to travel greener.

While this list is by no means comprehensive, we felt these sites were the most relevant for green-minded web surfers to get the most information about the widest variety of topics, resources and information.

Know of a great site that we missed? Dropp us a comment and we'll be sure to give it a look for the next packet.

In the meantime, stay green!

Click here to download the free PDF packet. (3.5 MB)

Perception is everything.

2009-09-17T11:54:00.003-04:00

Wonder what Baby Kitty's perception was when she entered this world?

There is no secret recipe for happiness and contentment. The individuals who move through life joyously have not necessarily been blessed with lives of abundance, love, success, and prosperity. Such people have, however, been blessed with the ability to take the circumstances they’ve been "handed" and make them into something great. Our individual realities are colored by perception—delight and despair come from within rather than without.

Situations we regard as "good" please us, while situations we label "bad" cause us no end of grief. Yet if we can look at all we have accomplished without dwelling on our perceived misfortune and make each new circumstance our own, the world as a whole becomes a brighter place. A simple shift in attitude can help us recognize and unearth the hidden potential for personal and outer world fulfillment in every event, every relationship, every duty, and every setback.

The universe is often an unpredictable and chaotic place, and the human tendency is to focus on the negative and assume the positive will care for itself. But life can be no more or no less than what you make of it. If you are working in a job you dislike, you can concentrate on the positive aspects of the position and approach your work with gusto. What can you do with this job that can turn it around so you do love it. When faced with the prospect of undertaking a task you fear, you can view it as an opportunity to discover what you are truly capable of doing.

Similarly, unexpected events, when viewed as surprises, can add flavor to your existence. By choosing to love life no matter what crosses your path, you can create an atmosphere of jubilance that is wonderfully infectious. A change in perspective is all it takes to change your world, but you must be willing to adopt an optimistic, hopeful mind-set.

To make a conscious decision to be happy is not enough. You must learn to observe life’s complexities through the eyes of a child seeing everything for the first time. You must furthermore divest yourself of preconceived notions of what is good and what is bad so that you can appreciate the rich insights concealed in each stage of your life’s journey. And you must strive to discover the dual joys of wanting what you have. As you gradually shift your perspective, your existence will be marinated in happiness and contentment that will remain with you forever.

*Reprinted with permission from DailyOm.com - Nuturing Body & Spirit. © 2009 All Rights Reserved.

Preventing anger.

2009-09-15T11:03:00.004-04:00

Why we get angry, and what is the best medicine to prevent it

By Angelo Geonie

http://arjunaspath.com/

Anger arises when we experience the feelings of unhappiness. These feelings are brought on by unpleasant circumstances, such as not getting what we want or by getting what we do not want.

If we examine our mind, we shall see that most of our anger arises from the first item: not getting what we want. Whenever someone or something prevents us from attaining an object of desire we become first unhappy, but then anger towards the person or object arises.

The other condition that is common is getting what we do not want. There are many situations during the day that give us what we do not want, from sitting in traffic to stubbing our toe, or losing an object that is precious to us. We cannot prevent these events, but we can prevent the mind of anger from arising.

If we understand that it is impossible to fulfill all, or even most, of our desires, and it is impossible to prevent many of the things that we do not want from happening to us, we have only one choice: the practice of patience. A patient mind cannot be disturbed when things do not go our way.

Just think back to when you were a small child, and you were always told to be patient or wait your turn, or you cannot have that right now. How is it that we have forgotten those lessons of patience? This is a practice we must cultivate, for it does not come naturally in a world where immediate gratification is being fed to us by society. Patience cannot help you once anger has arisen, it is like taking a vitamin to prevent illness. It is a way of understanding our mind and how it reacts to our world.

Patience is becoming a lost art. To some, the practice of patience is seen as a weakness, but this is an incorrect view. Patience takes great strength and wisdom, especially in a world where most minds react in anger very quickly. The art and practice of patience will create more peace in our lives and benefit all of the people we come into contact with.

So, do your best.

Please do not take my word for anything that I write. We must all try to see for ourselves if a practice works. That is what I will do, continue to master this art of patience.

Angelo Geonie has spent more than a decade studying and integrating the metaphysical principles that enhance and transform the quality of our physical, mental, emotional, and energetic life. A protégé of multiple enlightened masters from Korea and the Philippines, he has honed his skills in breath work, acupressure, chi energy healing, movement release practice for past life and contemporary stress, and coaches others to integrate these into their personal rituals for life-long change. You can find Angelo at his website (http://arjunaspath.com/ ), and Morning Coach (www.morningcoach.com).

Hoot hoot! Owl iPod® cases are here.

2009-09-14T10:16:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone! This is Jen with a quick update on some new items in my Etsy store.

I've been hard at work on a new series of unique owl iPod cases. They are hand-knitted from sturdy and protective wool, hand-felted by me and then embroidered with a special owl design that I made.

Custom colors are also available - just ask!

Protect your iPod! Look at that nice, tight, custom fit.

Hoot hoot! ;)

Bye for now!! - Jen

Don't jump to conclusions.

2009-09-11T14:30:00.003-04:00

I love this story that comes from an old Taoist parable; many of you have already heard this from other sources, but for anyone who hasn't, it's a powerful lesson regarding our tiny views of reality and how hard it can be sometimes to see the big picture, especially when we're in the midst of some turmoil in our own lives:

The story.

It begins with a poor farmer in ancient China who worked a small plot of land with his teenage son. During this time horses were considered a sign of wealth; the richest person in the province owned no more than a few of them. One day a wild horse jumped the poor farmer’s fence and began grazing on his land.

According to local law, this meant that the horse now rightfully belonged to him and his family. The son could hardly contain his joy, but the father put his hand on his son’s shoulder and said, “Who knows what’s good or bad?”

The next day the horse made its escape back to the mountains and the boy was heartbroken.

“Who knows what’s good or bad?” his father said again.

On the third day the horse returned with a dozen wild horses following. “We’re rich!” the son cried, to which the father again replied, “Who knows what’s good or bad?”

On the fourth day the boy climbed on one of the wild horses and was thrown, breaking his leg. His father ran to get the doctor; soon both of them were attending to the boy, who was upset and in a great deal of pain. The old farmer looked deeply into his son’s eyes, and said, “My son, who knows what is good or bad?”

And on the fifth day the province went to war.

Army recruiters came through the town and took all the eligible young men to fight the war, including the neighbor of the old man and his son. All except for the young man with the broken leg.

As the old man's neighbor watched his own son get taken off to fight in a war he didn't even really believe in, he said to the first old man, "You are lucky that your son was injured, so he did not get taken for the war. Now I may never see my own son again."

With a twinkle in his eye, the first old man turned and said to his neighbor, "My friend, who knows what's good or bad?"

The Conclusion.

Bankruptcy. Foreclosure. Lay-offs. Dis-ease. Sickness. Divorce. War. Things break, people get old, and circumstances change sometimes beyond any possibility of recognizing even a faint glimmer of hope.

However, as the old man in the story so wisely said, "Who knows what's good or bad?" It's only after the fact that we are usually able to see how a seemingly "bad" incident may have worked out in our favor. Even then, it's important to still not label the fortunate events as "good", because that will also defeat the purpose.

Just remember that we are here to learn, we are always taken care of, and the things that "happen" in our lives have no relative meaning other than the ones you assign to them. Ask yourself repeatedly, "Who knows what's good or bad?" like the old man in the story.

Your most uncomfortable moment may inevitably lead to your greatest triumph, so just "keep calm and carry on".

Have a great weekend!

The Big Blue Blog Post.

2009-09-09T11:53:00.009-04:00

One of my favorite stock photography companies, Veer, is hosting a contest through one of their Twitter accounts (@VeerUpdate). Entrants must submit links to photos they've taken that follow today's theme. The theme for today's contest is "BIG and BLUE".

Since I needed a place to host the photos to enter the contest, I thought I'd throw 'em on the blog as a sort of creative post. It's also a fun recap of some of the traveling we've done over the past few years. I thought it was fun going on a mini-mental vacation as I sorted through all my photos looking for ones with BIGness or BLUEness, so why not share the fun!

All photos are somehow related to BIG and BLUE, and I'll add captions so you understand the context of each image.

Wish me luck!

P.S. If you want to enter the contest yourself, check out the Veer blog by clicking here.

a BIG circular rainbow in front of a BLUE sky - Lowell, MA

the BIG BLUE sign in front of the S&W headquarters - Springfield, MA

this BIG BLUE body of water is also a literary legend: Walden Pond - MA

the BIG BLUE line train from the T - Boston, MA

a BIG BLUE wall mural of a clipper ship - Cambridge, MA

someBIG trees with BLUE Christmas lights - Harvard Sq., Cambridge, MA

it doesn't get any bigger than the BIG Apple, with a relatively BLUE sky to boot. - New York City

nothing represents BIG better than an IKEA store, which also happens to be BLUE. - New York City

a BIG BLUE ship in the harbor on the Savannah River - Savannah, GA

when I think of BIG and BLUE, the first thing that comes to mind is, of course, the ocean. - Boynton Beach, FL

this high-mountain reservoir, 10,000 feet above sea level, is as beautiful as it is BIG and BLUE. - Colorado Springs, CO

turquoise BLUE waters of the Atlantic grow darker as a BIG tropical storm rolls in. - Jupiter, FL

No one can deny that this steer is BIG; ironically, the rancher told us his name was "Old BLUE", and that always stuck in my head, so I took his picture. - Nebraska, USA

a BIG mammatus cloud formation, photographed by me while wearing a BLUE raincoat. - Monument, CO

they say Colorado has some of the BLUE-est skies around; viewed from up near the summit of this BIG mountain (elevation around 11,000 feet), I can definitely see why. - Front Range, CO

a BIG view of a bright BLUE sky: Springtime in the Rockies. - Colorado

a BIG BLUE ladder in a friend's loft while under construction. - Colorado Springs, CO

you want BIG? Try Chicago. Both the foreground image (John Hancock Building) and the background (Lake Michigan) are certainly BIG, and the Lake (other than where the Chicago River empties into it) is most definitely BLUE. - Chicago, IL

a BIG BLUE sign in front of the visitor's center in Maine. - near Kittery, ME

A BIG picture of a pure BLUE sky, taken while laying in the grass in my backyard. - Colorado Springs, CO

some BIG white birch trees overlaid on a BLUE summer sky. - Colorado Springs, CO

a BIG thank you card (addressed to President Obama in the days following the 2008 election) with a BIG BLUE headline (I even used a BIG BLUE marker to sign it.) - Washington, DC

a BIG phallic symbol pointing up towards a crisp BLUE sky in late fall. - Washington, DC

the BIG BLUE wall we see every day when we walk into our offices at spark* Creative Services. - Boca Raton, FL

simple, but effective: the BIG BLUE sky of Colorado with some wispy clouds lazily drifting around. Serenity now! - Colorado Springs, CO

Happy Birthday Jen!

2009-09-07T21:51:00.001-04:00

30-some odd years ago...in a little town in New Hampshire...

Ah, what can I say about Jen that hasn't already been said by a hundred others?

Creative, smart, beautiful, a joy to be around...inspiring, funny, happy-go-lucky...always optimistic, never boring, and ready to blow bubbles at any moment!

Living with Jen is a riot, to say the least -- and I mean that in good way :) One of our old friends used to say, "Man, I love getting in the car when Jen's driving; you just never know what's going to happen!"

Now take that same sentiment and apply it to everyday life -- it's pretty much still that same way 24/7 and I wouldn't change it for the world.

Jen is adventure; Jen is art; Jen is bubbles; Jen is a fresh pack of Crayola® Crayons; Jen is an ice cold lemonade on the hottest summer day; Jen is a crackling fireplace, cozy blanket and steaming cup of hot chocolate on the coldest winter's night.

Jen is all of these things, but also something more -- she's the "spark" that inspires myself and countless others to do, be, create, have and go wherever and whatever they want to do.

So now I ask all of you: what inspiring, funny or cute thing has Jen done for you? What moments are most memorable? Let's use this post to make a huge birthday card for her and let her know what we think.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEN! WE LOVE YOU!

Sincerely,
Your fans.
;)

And now, a little trip down Memory Lane...

Awesome!

Very sophisticated...

Smile!

Ready to go out and play in the snow!

No fear...

Just look at that smile.

Trick or Treat!

The Jen we all know and love.

Mt. Monadnock multimedia extravaganza!

2009-09-04T12:14:00.012-04:00

Last weekend, in the midst of an offshore tropical depression named "Danny", we decided to head up to New Hampshire and conquer what many say is the "most climbed mountain" in the entire world: Mt. Monadnock.

At roughly 3,800 feet, it's probably not going to strike fear into the heart of any experienced mountaineers. However, coming from Colorado and summitting my share of 14ers, I can honestly say this mountain nearly pushed me to my limits - mostly due to the weather - but it was an awesome challenge and a fun adventure for sure.

The views were limited to only about 200 feet in front of you, which made for an eerie "feels like your inside" type of mood as we were going up. We literally enshrouded in mist and fog the whole time, not to mention steady rain which made everything slicker than a baby-oil-drenched newborn. It finally stopped raining when we reached the summit, but we were greeted up there with gusts up to 35 mph and temperatures in the low 40s -- in August!

Here are a few highlights of the trek (we'll put the rest of the photos on Tommy's facebook page):

The "trail" is literally just piles of small to medium-sized boulders all the way up the mountain.

It's a gorgeous hike in the rain - lots of waterfalls everywhere you look.

Our first wildlife sighting - these little guys were all over the trail! We had to be careful not to squish them.

"Sammy."

Taking a pit-stop after about an hour for some roasted edamame beans. The total hike was about 2.5 hours up, 2 hours down. On a regular day, it would take less than 2 hours to summit, and 1.5 hrs down, for an average hiker.

Jen has a moment staring out into the mist. From here, usually you can see the whole town of Jaffrey, NH and much of the surrounding forest land.

Yes, Jen. We have to go up that slick rock face. There's literally no way around the boulders.

Made it! It's hard to tell here, but it's taking all my strength to not get knocked over by the wind gusts. See how my pants and jacket are full of wind like pillows? It was freezing up there!

Jen standing by a small pile of rocks. Piles like these are typically found at the summit of mountains all over the world.

View of Monadnock from a distance.
(Aerial photography provided by New England Aerial Photography.)

Monadnock, with the town of Jaffrey, NH in the foreground.
(Aerial photography provided by New England Aerial Photography.)

The tax system: explained with beer (reprint).

2009-09-02T10:11:00.003-04:00

(Originally posted on October 31st, 2008)

I came across this great article on another blog, ironically titled jenandtom.net and it made so much sense I wanted to share it. It does a great job of explaining how the tax system works here in the US and offers a valuable lesson at the end...

"Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. 
The fifth would pay $1. 
The sixth would pay $3. 
The seventh would pay $7. 
The eighth would pay $12. 
The ninth would pay $18. 
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers,’ he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. ‘Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings). 
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
 The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings). 
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings). 
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free.

But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

‘I only got a dollar out of the $20,’ declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, 'But he got $10!’ ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!’ ‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’ ‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!’ The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes do get the most benefit from a tax reduction. But it's all relative. Tax them too much, or attack them for being wealthy, and they just might not show up anymore.

In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

(Reprinted from jenandtom.net © 2008)