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The Westin Hotel Downtown Atlanta (the black spots are windows broken during last year's tornado)

Our apartment is a mess. It’s kind of been a mess since our wedding. After our wedding we got a lot more stuff. Just lots and lots of stuff. Boxes and appliances and stuff. On top of all of the stuff we already have - we’re kind of overflowing, especially for our small apartment.

Now, we’re moving in a month and we really need to start packing. We’re going to try to not make this one of those last minute things like we’ve done before - because that’s just not fun for anyone. SO, since we have a lot of stuff that we don’t use anyways - and it just sits there in my closet - we really need to go through everything, throw out junk, and pack up the rest… And then we also have half a garage full of things too.

At least we hire movers to move everything - so we just need to box it all up and let them drop it off.

Street 21 Level

You’ve probably noticed (or not, I don’t really pay attention to things here either) - but we don’t ever post photos of things very often. By ‘things’ I mean photos of stuff not people - or photos without people. I’m generally not interested in things not people - or people and their surroundings - but lately I’ve re-started reading/visiting MelissaMaples.com and now with her revamped website and the rotating header images - I am constantly reminded that I don’t take photos of things or landscapes (like she does) - so I figured I should start and practice. (Even when I shoot anything resembling a landscape, I have to have a person in the shot… and it’s almost always Leah.)

I’ve generally avoided it because I see lots of macro photos, or still life photos, or landscapes that are really boring.

So right now, I’m just working on looking for shapes and um, I don’t know what part of ‘Photo 101′ class this corresponds with - but that’s where I’m at.

Youth at OutReach Center

I also visited the Atlanta StandUp for Kids outreach center last night - it’s their new street outreach center and I hadn’t gone down to visit yet.

As stated in an earlier post - I’m working tomorrow - while many other people have the day off - but that’s okay ’cause we’re going to Lake Allatoona on Saturday. That should be fun. Last year when we went, the boat died. We weren’t in the middle of the lake, but we were a good distance from our dock, and a good distance from any other docks or roads. Eventually a friend of our friend who owned the boat came to rescue us - but not after we had been stranded for a few hours, and had run out of water to drink. Still, lots of fun. Look here’s a video from last year.

A Little More Atlanta from LeahAndMark.com on Vimeo.

I’ve burned all of my vacation time for the rest of the year. In fact - I’m negative five days. Cool huh? I’ve never worked at a job where they actually gave me the vacation time up front (and where they let me use it!) So technically - other than some sick days (which I don’t ever use… well, rarely) - I don’t have any vacation time. However, since July 4th is on a Saturday this year, July 3rd the Friday before is the day that my company is giving to everyone as their day off. Everyone except me. I have to work that day. Me and one other person.

But it’s alright because in lieu of working that day, I get a free floating holiday. A floating holiday that I can use at any time - outside of my vacation time accrual. So even though I’m negative five days of vacation, I still have 1 more day of vacation. Which makes for another opportunity for a long-er weekend. I know. Sounds like I’m grasping at straws - one more vacation day - but I’ve also worked at jobs where I never had the time or opportunity to take anything resembling a vacation day - at least not taking it and actually going away on a short trip.

Of course - what I did was just take off the 3rd Friday of every month. That was kind of cool.

Thriller Tribute from LeahAndMark.com on Vimeo.

Did you know that I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon? I lived in Phoenix, Arizona for something like 16 years and I never did make it up to see the Grand Canyon - and I never made it to Meteor Crater or Monument Valley - AND I never made it up to Utah (to see the desert landscape - not the Mormons.)

Now I’m here in Georgia - which isn’t a bad thing - it’s just that it doesn’t seem like the ‘natural wonders’ around here compare to what’s available in the Southwest. However, I did discover that there is apparently a list of the ‘Seven Natural Wonders of Georgia’ - and I guess we’ll make the rounds sometime.

Although we’ve seen one of them already - Amicalola Falls - and really as far as waterfalls go… it’s kind of a sleeper. I mean, it’s nice…. but not really impressive. You’re not going to see the falls and be wowed.

What else is on the list? A ‘mini-Grand Canyon’, a gorge, some hot springs and then the Okefenokee Swamp. Kind of interested in seeing the swamp (I’m from Arizona, not Florida - so my swamp exposure has only been what I’ve ever seen on TV.) But we would have to Kayak through the swamp - not just some stop at a scenic view and see the swamp set up. I wanna paddle. That’d be, neat - well, for a few hours.

And then we’d have um, swamp video.

But we’ll still knock out this list of 7 sometime, because there are so many weekends between here and forever.

Tomorrow. A. Real. Post. I Promise.

Goodnight.

Blueberries from LeahAndMark.com on Vimeo.

After a busy week of running around and/or calling various Official Places for the somewhat lengthy process of changing my last name, I was ready for a fun weekend.  And it was!

Recently, I reconnected with Diana, a good friend of mine from middle school - and she and her husband and sister and niece and daughter are all super awesome and invited us to go blueberry picking with them at a small farm in Hiram, GA.  Some other folks had beaten us to the punch…er, bush(es)…but we still managed to find some.  And the few I’ve tried were quite tasty.

Not only did we pick blueberries, but we also had lunch and then ventured over to Cacao, a chocolate “laboratory and boutique” in our neighborhood.  Mark and I hadn’t been there before, but Diana and her family suggested we go…and I certainly don’t need much convincing to eat chocolate.  Especially really, really good chocolate.  Mmmmm.  After a few moments in Cacao, I think we all had smiles on our faces.  The chocolate buzz is oh-so-nice.  I even broke into a little dance.  Since Cacao is a rather fancy little place, I thought ballet would be the most appropriate style.

Anyhow, I start work tomorrow morning at the coffee shop.  While I’m looking forward to it, I’m also a little nervous.  I’ve gotten used to working nonprofit jobs.  Jobs where I have an office and a computer and… well, a better salary.  Haha.  I guess I just feel kinda…old.  But back in 2000 when I worked at Starbucks, I was an awesome barista.  And I still have my winning personality.  And I’m quite competent.  So once I get the hang of things and re-learn how to work a cash register and make all the drinks, it should be fine.  Fun, even.

Oddly, though, I am more nervous about this coffee shop job than I am about my internship or other nonprofit jobs when I technically had a good deal more responsibility, and got compensated significantly better for my time.  Go figure!

It’s difficult to really write anything that I feel would be worth saying, on topics such as the struggle in Iran, or any of the many other battles going on all over the world. And while we know things are getting considerably worse in Iran right now… this week I’ve been writing about going on vacation again. It sounds petty - but then you consider the fact that there’s little anything we can do - and there are so many more people dying in the different conflicts all across the entire continent of Africa.

And of course you don’t see Congressmen and Governors calling for intervention in these areas on the basis of ‘Human Rights’ and ‘Democracy’ - because that’s never the reason we ever enter militarily into any part of the world. I suppose there is the added factor that Iran is strategically a million times more important than say, Sudan right now - but I’ll still be irritated when people call for intervening in Iran on a moral basis connected to upholding Democracy and/or Human Rights - while denying that it’s about strategic power mongering, and taking this opportunity to grab some more control in the region.

… so while we’re on the topic of the People’s Struggle in Iran - I’ll shift over to what we’re doing tomorrow.

We’re going to a farm to pick blueberries. Leah recently reconnected with one of her middle school friends after all this time - and amazingly, she and her family live here around Atlanta - so we’re all going to pick blueberries.

And actually, one of my 5th grade classmates recently found me on Facebook. And for that reason alone - the ability to find people from your past that you otherwise could not find without a great deal of effort - that is why Facebook is a good thing and not something to be avoided… unless of course, you’re in hiding.

Well, there’s that, AND the part where you can check out everyone from high school and see if you’re winning at life more than they are… (but you know, that’s just me being petty… whatever! I’m winning!)

See you tomorrow.

Mexico Extras from LeahAndMark.com on Vimeo.

DirtyTruth.org FLM from LeahAndMark.com on Vimeo.

Alongside our regular gifts wedding registry, we used HoneyFund.com - so that people could ‘buy’ us pieces of our honeymoon. What you do is break your honeymoon into individual costs, like dinner on the beach, or you know, swimming with dolphins. Then you break it down even further. So if it costs $100 to swim with some dolphins, you break that up into four $25 pieces - and now four people can get you a gift of $25 that goes towards something you really want.

For friends and family that would rather get you an actual gift instead of just handing over cash, this is a pretty good middle choice. As you can see, one of the things on our list was to swim with dolphins.

There are several ‘eco-parks’ between Cancun and Playa Del Carmen where you can swim with dolphins and they’re all in the range of $130-$200 per person for an hour. Yeah. It’s not exactly a low cost activity.

Leah did this at the eco-park Xel-Ha (Shell-ha). We choose Xel-ha rather than Xcaret (owned by the same company) because Xel-Ha seemed like it was the more ‘eco-park’ and less ‘eco-Disneyland’. We were only there for the day and we weren’t bored at all. These are all-inclusive parks so you get to use all of the equipment AND you get to eat and drink all you want (this is Mexico so alcohol is included!)

It was a lot of fun - and I think everyone should go and spend a day there at least once.

Swimming with Dolphins at Xel-Ha from LeahAndMark.com on Vimeo.

Now, it may seem kind of weird but one of the restaurants in Xel-ha had really, really good food. Many of the dishes were prepared as they are in the Yucatan and not as they would be up near the US/Mexico border - so the difference was nice. Even at our all-inclusive resort the mexican food wasn’t as noticeably different/local. (But maybe we should keep it secret that I really liked the food at a theme park.)

The snorkeling is fun - although it’s really just for beginners - since if you’ve ever actually snorkeled anywhere near a reef… you’ll be bored here because there aren’t that many fish in the main inlet area - but for kids, it’s great since they have lifejackets that you wear and you don’t have to worry about actually ’swimming’ - you can just float and kick. And of course they have several cenotes there (underground cave/rivers) - but we didn’t even make it out to those because we were doing other stuff, AND honestly we figured that they couldn’t be any better than the one that our tour guide took us to after we visited the pyramid at Chichen Itza.

At all of the eco-parks they have ‘photographers’ strategically placed at different points to take your picture. At the end of the day you can choose which photos you want to purchase - and they’re all $12 each. Yeah. $12. We ended up buying 3. And that’s just for the two of us - you can imagine how easily buying these photos can rack up. But even with me bringing my waterproofed camera(s) - their photos were really good and you when you realize that you already spent $200 just to get there, what’s another $12 to have a great photo.

Oh yeah, swimming with dolphins? An hour costs $150 - AND THEN if you want to buy the photos it’s another $60 (you haggle to get it down to that much) and if you want the video that’s something like another $100. We opted to just buy the photos (these two are some of the 26 we got) - and then just be satisfied with the video I took while standing on the shore.

In other news… I’ve actually gotten a bit of interests from different people about working on videos with them - some musicians/bands and a nonprofit. This should be cool. We’ll see.

You know what’s dangerous? Having travel tour brochures lying around the house. We have a couple from IntrepidTravel.com - and they have the intended effect - they make you want to take a month off from work to go wandering around south east Asia, or spend 51 days making a circle of India, or trekking through Nepal and Bhutan. Of course they do that! (we have the booklet covering Asia) - I ordered the one for South America but that one hasn’t arrived… I think it got lost somewhere in the mail. That’s probably a good thing.

While waiting for our flight to Mexico - I bought a National Geographic Traveler and Adventurer magazine. I’m not sure if there’s a clear difference between the two - but they have the same effect. And while it’s a form of self torture to be this envious, and to want to just pick up and go… aside from not being able to pay for it - Leah’s in school right now, and we’re paying down debt. So no flying away until we can go next year… because if anything, unlike many Americans - we’re doing everything we can to leave the country at least once a year on vacation.

However, until we’re debt free and we have another round of ample vacation time - we’re going to have to settle for extended weekends (or regular ones) and the roadtrips we take around the deep South. It’s obviously a challenge - because it’s dumb if we spend money on hotel rooms traveling around the south when we’re trying to save up to go to Brussels and Turkey and Nepal. Luckily - there are actually hostels around here - and there are enough cities that are half a day’s drive away that it’s feasible to get there and have a day looking around before we drive back.

Because we never did believe the hype in Staycations. Staycation? Staycation!?… Why?! There are so many places in this world (and the South) we have to visit and see.

(if you wanna join us - let us know, we’ll split the cost of fuel - but we’ll probably only give you a week’s notice at most - life’s better that way - trust us.)

Savannah. New Orleans. Asheville. Charleston (again)… and that’s just the road trips. With some of the really low airfare deals - the whole east coast is open as long as we have someone to stay with for free. Staycations suck, we’re against them and we think you should be too.

(Hey Jill @VacationExpress.com - have any flights to Cuba?)

Vertigo in China from LeahAndMark.com on Vimeo.

Over the weekend I started replying to craigslist post for video editors. You know, editing film/video/tv/web junk - whatever. I need practice and I need to work on something other than my absolutely awesome home music videos! While something paying was hardly what I was going for - I went with the free (unpaid!) gig and now it looks like I’ll be working on editing episodes of a web series filmed here in Atlanta (there are many.)

So that’ll be cool if it works out and I actually get to work on that.

I’ve been editing these videos and stringing them together since we got back from China last April - it mostly started out because I had taken some video and wanted to show it to our friends/family - but we didn’t want to just throw it up on a screen and hit play. Because as interesting as our trip was - it’s not like you wanna watch hours of raw video of us walking down the street or eating… (you may think you do - but no, you really don’t.) So I started cutting clips and stringing them together in time with music - well, mostly in time.

But then it got to be really time consuming. My process just wasn’t fast and if I wanted to throw in a series of fast cuts, in time with the music, it got to be a big deal and it would take me much too much time to finish any video. Eventually I stumbled upon a way to pre-cut the music and leave markers in time with the music so that I basically just had to drop clips into the pre-defined boxes and I was done. It cut down a process that was an all day affair down to 2 hours. The earlier process was to visually make cuts while looking at the sound wave peaks - which can get to be really slow - compared to just hitting the ‘cut’ button like it’s a drum while I listen to the music.

Of course - editing for a storyline is a little different - since you have to deal with the narrative and pacing and tone and other junk like that y’know. Still. It’ll be fun.

These two videos were made a year apart and although it might not seem like there was a lot of progress between them… there was.

Birthday 30 X 2 from LeahAndMark.com on Vimeo.

Still Learning.

Mark and I don’t share our fathers’ DNA.  Our dads might not have genetically contributed to our stunning good looks, but in every other aspect of our lives, these men are our fathers.  There are a lot of not-so-great dads in the world.  A lot of kids do not have the good fortune to be raised by men who both want and commit to being a father.

Mark and I both hit the jackpot, though.  Our dads have been there for us every step of the way.  Playing games, reading books, taking trips, and…most importantly…walking the fine line between steering us in the right direction and letting us find our path in life.  We have fathers who go above and beyond.  Who love us, support us, and who we can always call on whenever we need money.  (Joke!  Okay, not really.  We do sometimes need money.)

Happy Father’s Day, Dads!  We love you!

Our Wedding Photographer Jason Spruill is running an ultra-marathon today. 100 miles in one go… well, in a 30 hour go. He posted this article about Dean Karnazes that started his transition from biking over to running… and more running.

While I’m not about to start running with ultra-marathons in mind, the part that sticks out is this:

If you’re going to explore the boundaries of human endurance, you’ll have to learn to adapt to more and more pain…. This training made the extreme seem ordinary and made the impossible seem the next logical step.

And then in the most recent issue of National Geographic Traveler:

Even while I was planning these trips, I knew that my behavior looked foolish, irrational even. Friends more sober and practical than I counseled me to stay home, hang out, and keep plugging. But I didn’t. I flew out of my trap like a bird, spent eight hours riding from Pondicherry to Kanchipuram in a bumpy Ambassador taxi with marigold garlands bobbing on the rearview mirror. I ate street food, slept on sheets with holes. When strangers invited me home to dinner, I said yes.

What happened, after a while, was that the logic of traveling took over my life and became a habit. Taking a series of little risks over and over every day meant that, in time, risk-taking became no big deal.

Making a hundred small decisions - what to eat, where to stay, how to get from here to there - made decisions in general seem less terrifying. And when I finally returned to a home and a world that looked much smaller and less daunting than when I’d left them, finding a job seemed more like a game than an ordeal.

I have a theory about travel that’s sort of an economist’s argument. In order to travel, we need time and we need money. Ideally, there’s a balance between the two, but when one element is in short supply, an excess of the other will compensate. In the past decade or so, the travel equation’s been out of whack. Too many trips have been about squeezing as much as we can into the few precious vacation days we have and paying a premium for the experience.

There is a certain degree of risk taking and self challenging that I’ve lost. Not that I was ever that big of a risk taker - but there was always an underlying current in the back of my head that repeatedly reminded me that I should be doing impossible things.

Somewhere along the line I stopped thinking in terms of doing the impossible. I’ll admit that some of this is because there are some thoughts that I just KNOW are possible and will happen - and then other things… I started thinking about too logically.

In my head, I took away all of the unknowns. Whether I planned them into oblivion or I delusionally just accepted them as fact - that space in my head where things float around because I can’t put them in a logic box of problem solving - that’s where magic happens. Some how I rationalized all of it away.

I’m sure it’s tied in with the level of risk I take on. It makes sense that the less risks we take on, the less chance we have at experiencing truly great things. Obviously.

… and I suppose I would finish this thought if I didn’t have this nagging feeling that I need to get up and do something. Right. Now.