I ended up getting some APC’s at Nordstrom but I also have my eye on some Imogene + Willies that are made here in Nashville. They’ve got a great creation story and a great online presence. They have a tumblr called “Love Fades” that pairs owners with their jean fades.

Once I break my APC’s in I might have to try on a Barton Rigid from Imogene + Willies, shown below.

For the past year I’ve been working on a platform to tag products in photos, this is an example–just hover over the picture. Soon we’ll be launching this platform for anyone to use and I’ll be able to explain more.

First, a majority of mail door to door delivery must completely go, be reduced, or be charged a premium. It’s much more efficient to group mail boxes together–it requires less time, less man power, and less transportation costs. The biggest problem is that it is less convenient for customers. Well maybe.

Things have changed, a lot less important information comes to us through the mail and a lot more junk and ads, which are becoming more important to keep USPS afloat. How often do you receive something in the mail that you actually need or want? Then, how often do you actually need the physical contents of the letter? Could you just have easily gotten the information from an email or a scan of the letter? For most people they only get something that matches that criteria once a week and even then it’s not time sensitive.

Imagine being able to use an app to remotely view all the mail you’ve received or that’s on its way and pick what gets thrown away, saved for pick up, and even auto scanned to read from your personal computer–all before going to pick it up. There would be no more guessing to what is waiting for you at the mail box, no more junk mail in your home trash, and a much more efficient mail system. You could potentially even stop mail being sent to you before it leaves the originating station, substantially saving transportation costs. A smart system could also make more efficient use of mail boxes, let the app know where you want to pick up and they could have your mail waiting there in a temporary mailbox for you. It sounds more convenient than what we have now, and definitely “greener”.

There is a company doing something like this right now, http://www.earthclassmail.com/. I would love to hear the government consider something like this.

Around my sophomore or junior year at George Mason University, Paul and I were bored and decided to go shopping at the grocery store. While we were there we started picking out random items like pretzel rods, pickles, pizza. We made the connection that they started with a “P” and started thinking of all the awesome food that starts with a “P”; popcorn, peanut butter, pie… (go ahead think about it). We decided right then we were going to have a “P” party and started calling up all our friends in Cru, a Christian Organization on Campus, to meet us at a friend’s dorm with some food to share that started with a “P.” An hour later we had a party going that lasted into the night.

Eight years later, Paul just called me to say he talked to someone in Cru at Mason who was planning this year’s “P” Party. I’m kind of amazed. Honestly though, it’s one of the smallest and most irrelevant impacts my friends and I had the honor of making at Mason. I went to school with some amazing people who continue to have an impact on my life and family. Community is a powerful thing.

Last month many of us got together to spend a weekend at the beach, we had 4 kids in between us.

That’s not a knock on it.

Great way to illustrate the changes in fashion and dance throughout the past 100 years. via Kottke

Last month I had the pleasure of visiting and hanging out with one of my best friends and his family in Emaus, PA.  I took lots of photos and got to meet their daughter for the first time.  As much as I enjoyed being a kid, I’m loving being a father.  I get really excited to see my friends become fathers too. Amen. Check out some of the other photos we took that weekend on Danielle’s Blog.

I love the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. and for the past year I’ve had two ideas for installations–both of which are highly interactive and deal with getting every day people’s photos preserved and displayed in a respectful way.  Much like the idea behind Story Corps, in which they try to captures and share the stories of everyday people, I believe that photos of everyday people are worth recording and sharing in a way that shows respect equally for all people independent of wealth, age, location, background or education.

Human life is amazing, and portraits are a great way to capture part of that feeling.  Our ability to cheaply capture and share portraits of ourselves and nearly every human being on the planet doesn’t need to diminish the impact of admiring the beauty and uniqueness present in every person.  Instead, we should take advantage of how easy it now is to take and share portraits to both gather and record a snapshot of human history and to enhance our own cultural value and respect for all human life.

Facebook is now the number one place in the world to share and view portraits of people.  I’m confident that there are more pictures of more people than ever before in history on Facebook, but it seems like just an after thought.  Imagine giving profile pictures the dignity of being shown in world renown gallery, separate from all of the distracting ads and status updates usually associated with them.  On Facebook people are a commodity that we collect, easily dismissed, but stripped of that commodity mentality and displayed respectfully you begin to think more about them as a person and perhaps begin to imagine their story–I do.

Well, my idea is to create an interactive digital installation at the National Portrait Gallery where people can connect with Facebook and submit a photo of themselves to be recorded and displayed on a large digital frame in the gallery, along side some of the best portraits in the world.  Not only is this an interesting idea, I think it has the ability to bring a lot of people into the gallery to see themselves displayed on the wall.  Users could “check in” with their phones when they visit and be moved up in the queue and given a certain timeframe they’d be displayed.  People in the gallery could login into their Facebook via their phone or possible iPad display to add themselves to the installation right then and there. Maybe even see info on the people that are currently displayed, like name, age and city.

This installation would have a big wow factor, garnering lots of news and tech publicity, but I think perhaps it would also help positively reenforce our value and respect for all people, regardless of their status. (Pun intended)

———————–

The other idea, was similar, but instead of using Facebook to pull portraits, part of the installation would be to have your portrait taken with a professional setup designed by some famous photographer, perhaps automated by computer.  They idea being, no matter your economic status every person deserves to be viewed in a respectful way.  This would also offer a unique opportunity to preserve photos of everyday people in a very high quality and controlled way.  I believe it would be exciting as a photographer to be a part of the recording of thousands of people’s portraits–designing the look and lighting of a massive collection of portraits.  One publicity stunt could allow users to tag their portrait on Facebook. Anyway, I believe there are great opportunities to reach new audiences with this installation, but perhaps the Facebook installation is easier and more publicity friendly.