Alex Polson's Personal Blog

The day after Christmas, Seattle and the surrounding areas were hit with a large enough amount of snow that we avoided going very far from the house (the city is famous for not being great at dealing with any snow fall though it has gotten better over the years). As is tradition in our household, we got bundled up, got out the shovel and built up a snow slide off of our back yard deck to sled down. We spent the afternoon (and a few afternoons after) enjoying the snow, and the hot chocolates that would usually follow.

Just finished the first season of Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia and I have to say the highlight for me was seeing Dennis Haskins (Mr. Belding in Saved by the Bell) in the season’s last episode.

This is a follow up to my Goals for 2013 post from earlier this week.

I've given my goals for 2013 some thought and have come up with some good and reasonable ones. I've tried to make them as measurable as possible so it will be easy to decide how well I'm doing throughout the year. These are mostly related to personal improvement of the usual new years resolution sort. Without further ado here are the goals I have for 2013 so far (obviously subject to change).

Almost 4 years ago, around this time I wrote about doing new year's resolutions differently. It's funny to look back that far and read about my good intentions in that single post but not reading anymore about my goals that I mention again. This year I'm going to attempt to identify what I've done wrong in the past and do things differently so that I can feel like I accomplish more in the year and avoid insanity.

They get you through television, radio, mail, and by calling you. For the last few months we've all been bombarded with half (or less) truths from an array of candidates and groups supporting one initiative or another. With every election I find myself becoming more and more cynical. So cynical in fact I've threatened to not vote just out of spite though I know that won't solve anything.

This has been an interesting few months, to say the least. It's been quite the roller coaster ride.

A few months ago my Mum was diagnosed with colon cancer. She started chemo and radiation treatments right away and has been dealing with the related side-effects since. I have to confess I've been in a bit of denial about the whole thing. I've never been really close to anyone with the cancer, or any life-threatening disease for that matter so it's been new territory for me.

At around the same time we found out our house was infested with ants, we found out we made a mistake on our tax return for 2008 (I won't go into details except that it was a stupid mistake) and as all four of our animals are getting older we're dealing with one health issue after another, one of which required minor surgery just last night. It has truly felt like a constant shit-storm of negativity.

For those of you that I'm close to you know that I recently picked up a camera and committed to doing Project 365. That is taking and sharing a picture a day for a year. So far the undertaking has been a lot of different things. At times it's been exciting and inspiring and at other times frustrating and desperate.

Unfortunately for the last few weeks (or month even) most of my "efforts" have been pure desperation to get photos for each day. At just over 100 days in this is, from what I understand, I pretty classic place for project-goers to get stuck. I've spent the first few months of this project exploring my neighborhood and around where I work. It's been really great to see these two areas from a different perspective but it's become more and more clear that, as far as my inspiration is concerned, I've almost completely exhausted the possibilities of this limited scope. At least for the time being.

I've always loved photography. I got some of that love from my father and sister who are both incredible photographers. Until just recently however 100% of what I've done has been simple point and shoot. I've been able to get some great quality pictures but really wanted to take it to the next level.

A couple of months ago Chase Jarvis, a professional photographer, came to Amazon to promote his latest book "The Best Camera is the One You Have With You". He was clearly very passionate about his work and wanted to get everybody else in the room fired up about photography too. That's really when I started to\u00a0 give photography a bit more consideration.

I've been noticing lately how significant my desire to travel is. It's been just over a year since we left for Europe and that has been a bit difficult to digest. A whole year!? Where has the time gone? Over the last several years I've come to realize how much I love exploring. Not only from a physical stand point but also a cultural one.

On the bus tonight three foreigners (Scandinavian I think) boarded the bus and elicited help from the other passengers to figure out how they needed to get where they needed to go. It was fascinating to watch them ride the bus constantly being distracted with things which were likely brand new and wonderful to them. It's certainly a far cry from the everyday, boring ride which I experience.

This morning Amazon had an "All Hands" meeting. I thought it was at Benaroya Hall so I took my normal bus downtown and it conveniently dropped me off right outside the Hall. Upon arrival I quickly noticed that the normal throng of people outside was just that; normal. No Amazonians in sight.

Checking my trusty iPhone I was dismayed to discover that it was actually at the Paramount Theater! I walked quickly through several city blocks downtown and eventually ran into the migrating masses of Amazonians headed to the theater. On the way I ran into something curious; a smell. Yes, a smell, a pleasant smell by the way. Not just any smell. A smell that reminded me of walking through the streets of Paris . I'm not sure what it was that I was smelling. Pipe smoke? Fresh baked... stuff? It doesn't matter really. I love the fact that something as simple as a smell can trigger memories for me (for us) so overwhelmingly.