Cosumnes River Preserve

I went to the Cosumnes River Preserve today with my photography meetup. We enjoyed a foggy morning that soon became sunny with several different species of birds. Our hike was aptly lead by Jim Dunn.

"The Green Hornet"

It was a hoot! I really enjoyed the action scenes, they were very inventive. Kato is funny, clever and stole the show. I highly recommend that if you like comic book movies this is a complete roller coaster. The script is clever. I enjoyed the classy comedic performance by Cameron Diaz.

The only thing is the actor playing the hornet really reminds me of "The Ninja" on the podcast Talk to a ninja. Its the way he makes hand gestures. Is it the same guy? Anybody?

"MegaMind"

On Friday I went to see Megamind with my Mom at a second run theater in Citrus Heights, CA. It was a fabulous movie. The story was good and the asides were pithy and grown up. It was perfectly suitable for youngsters, the jokes weren't inappropriate for children. I loved the graphics. It is most definitely a post-Toy-story animated feature. It feels like an actor's script rather than an animator's script which of course makes perfect sense once you realize who wrote and starred in the production. The score, by Hans Zimmer, was reminiscent of mid 1900's film scores starring Audrey Hepburn and huge sun glasses.

I give it 4/5 paws. 1 being bleh and 5 being awesome!

Re-assess

Sometimes a journey includes lots of twists, turns, round back on itself, 'gee that wasn't such a good idea' tangents. Its quite rare to have a straight path from over weight to that final destination, weight maintenance. Its like Sandra Ahten says in her Reasonable Diet podcast, "Thats ok." Its ok that its not linear or that you don't lose weight at a steady 1-2 pounds per week. Yeah. Thats ok. But you know what isn't ok? Expecting your body to be thinner when you aren't even trying. If you are doing everything right, then you need to switch it up, I know thats a broken record. Everybody says it. For me that meant taking a break. For 6 months or so I ate at my bmr. I weighed/measured. I only ate 400 calorie meals. I did my exercise. I did not lose a single pound. I just reset my body. I stopped the low calorie diet days. I ate mostly clean food. Then, come this month I went back to my calorie cycles. I am setting my intent to charge downwards toward my maintenance weight.

The last year was not a failure. It was a vista off the highway. I took a rest. Now, I'm ready to be back in it. Last year I weighed in just once a month. This year, as soon as my tummy settles down, I plan to go back to weighing in 3x a week. In the beginning of the month I had some See's candy from my stocking, I had some organic dark chocolate ice cream and some corn chips (natural, no weird flavoring.) But as of today, I'm setting the treats aside for a more reasonable diet. I may have a commercial meal out due to professional requirements or I might just carry a little cooler with lots of cut up veggies, fruits and home made dressing with those little ice packs that kids have.

The concept of a reasonable diet is basically setting aside all or nothing thinking. You set up a plan for yourself with several back up options that accommodate the possibility of real life getting in the way. Doing the very best that you can is a lot more effective than only doing something if it will be perfect. Some is much better than none. Pointing in the right direction is better than pointing in the wrong direction. Try asking yourself before you eat something or before you plan your day, what would the most reasonable and best choices that I could make just for today be? Not the perfect ones. Not the 'I will never have a chip again or I will never have chocolate again.'

My reasonable plan for today included acknowledging my soreness, so I'm walking not running. I had oatmeal for breakfast (GF, steel cut.) I had an apple with two pieces of home made chicken. That was easy for me, the chicken was already cooked. Try looking for the easy. Often it just pops right up.

What excites you?

Its a new year, its time to plan for your coming calendar year, to consider what kind of photographer or artist you want to be? What events do you want to catch? What do you want to be certain you got in? What just absolutely turns you on visually? Auditorially? In anyway? Don't be afraid to start thinking ahead, its not a bad thing to keep an eye on your end of year calendar of shots now while you have the chance to think about it. What do you want to shoot in the next weeks of this winter? What about spring? Summer? Fall? Was there something you missed that you have been kicking yourself over?

Do what you want

I am serious, in your heart of hearts, do what you actually want to do that will actually make you happy over time. Do it! If you want to paint, do it. If you want to write, do it. If you want to direct a film, do it. Stop wasting your time with schools and faux castles in the sky. Design it, build it, do it. I am so tired of hearing about people wasting time on education, you will learn on the job, I promise!

Caprica

Can you believe it????? They cancelled Caprica!! Why couldn't they have just aired the last 5 episodes? What harm could that possibly have done? I love that show and I am deeply disappointed in Syfy for not supporting it enough. It is a complex, story driven show that requires more than two brain cells put together to follow. I realize that this may require more intelligence than the demographic that Syfy has grown accustomed to, but do they really need to kill it? I deeply regret that Syfy is mostly fantasy driven and that they are taking away the best example on their network of actual science fiction.

I really enjoyed the many layered symbolism throughout the whole piece. The score was impeccable. The acting lacked for nothing. Nuance abounds throughout each element. The graphics were excellent. The references to Greek mythology, Japanese drama, Farenheit 451, terrorism in our own world, and early Christian history were not lost on me and made it a much more entertaining television drama than the average spy or cop driven show. It was more than just another hospital drama, it was a commentary on where we might be heading. Was that the problem? Did it cut too close to the bone?

The only thing that the writers on Caprica could have been doing wrong was degrading into day time drama land. The first season was definitely better than the second. I wish they had written it like a mini series or like a tele-novella with a clear beginning, middle and end. I really want to know what happens to the Graystones, Zoe, the Adamas (other than young Adama becomes Admiral Adama, I do know that.) I became a fan of Sasha Roiz, its impossible not to watch him when he is on the screen.

Does everything have to be for the average students? What about those of us at the top of the class? Where is the entertainment for us? Don't we have money too? Can't your advertisers figure out that we eat, sleep, wear clothes, buy cars, computers and entertainment just like everyone else? We do! We really do! I may be above average, and Caprica may be a show intended for people like me, but darn it, we have money and don't we deserve a fair shake? I think the Syfy channel would be in much better shape if they were in the habit of presenting actual science fiction on a more regular basis. I suspect that Caprica didn't pull the ratings they were looking for because there hasn't been much of precedent for such a program on the Syfy channel, not enough people really knew to look for it.