hello.

i admit it. i’m addicted to information. i love reading interesting stories, watching funny videos, listening to new music, seeing what’s going on in the world regularly. i follow far too many blogs, read far too many articles, follow too many people on twitter and i’m always looking for more. i inundate myself with information. most of the time i enjoy it – i love feeling “in the know” about things relevant to what i do and what i enjoy – but mostly, i feel overwhelmed. there is no way to keep up. there is just too much out there. too much going on. too much for this feeble brain of mine to take in.

my career revolves around a fast-paced (light-speed sometimes) environment. people are coming up with brilliant new ideas every day and i’m glad. i’m excited about what progress we can make to improve things in the world, but it seems that only about 2% of what’s going on is an improvement. the rest is just noise. loud, make-your-ears-bleed, noise. i can’t point fingers. i contribute to the noise. i blog, i comment, i retweet. we seem to all be yelling and shouting at the moment, but hopefully we’ll calm ourselves and start talking soon. even better yet, perhaps we can take time to just listen.

but where do you draw the line between contributing to the discussion, the progress, the community, and just adding to the noise? is there any real distinction? what is pure drivel to one person, is valuable information to another.

this is so beautiful and peaceful to watch.

powerlinerflyers from wes johnson on Vimeo.

(found via kottke.org)

i recently got a new desk and finally had a chance to set it up over the weekend. i’m loving it. amazing what a well organised, pretty work space can do for you. and yes, dual monitors are vital. i’m not sure how i survived with only one monitor for so long.

my husband cracks me up. we go to the gym to swim laps 5 days a week. today, when we got back, we couldn’t help commenting again on the “music” (i use that term loosely in this case) that continues to play every morning. so, G sent an email to the gym to let them know. i had to share, since it cracked me up:

Hello,

I have enjoyed the Oxford facilities for nearly a year now. The staff are always friendly and helpful, and the locker rooms and pool are clean and well maintained. I swim laps five times a week.

My only suggestion (read: plea for mercy) is to change or eliminate the upstairs music. Downstairs the music is upbeat and very conducive to exercise, but as soon as I get in the pool I’m treated to the most downbeat, depressing drivel I’ve ever heard. And it’s the same songs every week. By the end of my laps I find myself wondering whether drowning might be a better alternative to surfacing and hearing the banal, lifeless piffle that oozes from the overheads.

Please can we bring some upbeat, exercise-worthy music to the pool.

Cheers,

Gordon

i hope this encourages them to make some changes. i don’t think i can handle listening to the same whining, whinging, depressing crap every morning for much longer.

it’s snowing and i am one happy bunny! i adore snow. we went out to enjoy it all this morning at about 5am. walked around for about an hour or so and then headed back in for some breakfast and to defrost. now, it’s 9am and back out to enjoy it again before it melts (which it seems to be doing pretty rapidly) and grab some shots.

yes, a very useless blog post, but sometimes you have to just share the sheer joy of snow!