Chip’s Blog

We’ve had the best weather this spring. Weeks on end of nice 70-75 degree days, beautiful mornings -a few clouds, even a few sprinkles of rain - and nice cool evenings. I know I’ll think back on these nice spring days when the blast furnace months of August/September roll around.

Recently, I re-connected with an old friend from the bad old days back in Pensacola. I haven’t talked to her in years, but we were both amazed at how our lives have taken wildly different, and yet oddly parallel routes.

She’s a professional photographer, just like I am occasionally, she’s married now for almost 20 years, and her husband is from the same area as my sister’s husband, She lives north of Seattle close to the area where I used to live when I was up in the northwest, etc. etc.

One really strange coincidence is that she was living in Ventura, CA at the same time that I was up in Santa Barbara, and very nearly went to Brooks Institute at the same time that I was there - now that would have been a crazy meeting!

I tend to try not to revisit my past too often, but every now and then you get a real surprise and find that old friends can be new friends too. Of course none of that has anything to do with the sign in this picture - I just liked the way the light was falling on Casey’s sandwhich board, and I’d have to agree, it is a beautiful day for a beer.

Thanks for contacting me Becca, its good to know you again after all this time.

Los Angeles Lakers point guard Derick Fisher dropped a big three pointer with four and a half seconds left in game four of the NBA finals sending the game into overtime, and the Lakers on to a 3-1 lead in the series. After the game Fisher talked to reporters and said,

“I was just going to take over and kind of survey the situation but Nelson was giving me a lot of space and I like to step into those 3s,” Fisher said. “Even though I wasn’t making them, I felt like I could do that. I felt good to help the team that way.”

Prior to his game tying shot, Fisher had missed on five other three-point attempts. 5 chances to put the game to bed and he failed at every one, yet with less than 5 seconds left he found the guts to let another one fly. Sure, he’s a pro and knows that some of his shots will go in and some of them won’t, but this is the finals - how do you blow it five times and still find the heart to take a shot one more time?

“My teammates and my coaches kept giving me that confidence to continue to believe in myself,” Fisher said. “I wanted to come through for the guys.” (source)

Sometimes you’re the person who gets to make the shot that keeps you in the game, and sometimes, you have the opportunity to give someone else the courage to take their shot. Take your shot when it’s there, even if you’ve missed before; and when you have the chance give your friends the confidence to take theirs.

Game on.

There are no homemade donuts in downtown Los Angeles.

She was standing at the corner of seventh and Los Angeles Street, a laundry basket wedged inside her pushcart, a thin sheet of cellophane draped over the top. I thought she was selling burritos or maybe corn - though usually corn is sold fresh from the grill - but as I got closer, I could see dozens of little brown bumps under the plastic wrap.

“Donuts?” I looked up from the cart at her smiling eyes. “You brought donuts?”

You have to understand, donuts are hard to come by in downtown L.A. we’ve got churros, and tacos, burritos, and those little bread pastry things that I can’t remember the name of, but to get a decent donut you have to go all the way over to “Spudnuts” by the USC campus.  There are no homemade donuts in downtown Los Angeles, and yet here was a whole cart of them, thick and heavy, deep golden brown, covered in sugar, and right there on the corner in the middle of the afternoon.

“How much?” I asked
“Two for one dollar.” She said, “You have a dollar?”
“Yes I do!” I replied fishing in my pack for a bill…

Living downtown I don’t get a chance to see stars very often. Its easy to forget that there is more out to the night sky than a few dirty smudges and the lights of jets circling LAX. This video was made by an astronomy club out in Texas, and is a great reminder of how beautiful our universe is. Check out the 30 second mark when the Milky Way swings into full view.

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

Thanks to everyone who wished my Pop a happy birthday. He’s getting ready for an early hurricane season this year, and reports that its been raining for nearly two days and ‘they’ are getting ready to send a “hurricane hunter” plane out over the atlantic. Stay tuned…

From Left: Pop, Grand-Pop, Not-a-Pop

You may have seen him around if you read the comments on this site. He usually signs his name “The old man” He signs his email like that too. He used to mostly send me hurricane updates and those bad forwards - you know that lame joke that you’ve already seen a hundred times, or political crap that he knew I would have a response to. I always enjoyed the hurricane updates - they were funny and full of the type of writing that unless you knew the writer made you a little unsure as to whether or not Florida would still be there after the storm had passed.

A few months ago, he was laid off from his job and being close to retirement anyway, he decided to ride out the depression for a while and see what happened.

He started writing more of his own emails. And they were better than the jokes. The more he writes his own mails, the more I look forward to reading them.

Last week he turned 65 and can officially tell the world to go to hell - though he’s been telling good portions of it to do just that for longer than I’ve known him. I’ve got a feeling my pop will be spending more time out on the back porch with a glass of tea and the dog by his side, his good ole boy’s good ole brain spinning away and coming up with more questions than life has answers to.

His latest Email came in the other day - here it is, maybe you can help the old man answer his question…Take a shot at it and leave your thoughts in the comments.

“I need a little help here. I was watching the dog this afternoon & a thought crossed my mind. “Why are humans the only mammals without a tail?” We have a tail bone, but nothing attached to it. If we had a tail, people would know what kind of mood we were in & would know how to act around us depending on the action of the tail. Might prevent a lot of murders & other bad things, or we could know when the right time was to make a move. Especially between males & females. Got any ideas?”

Happy Birthday Pop, sorry I forgot it as usual - I always think it’s in June. Are you sure it isn’t in June? I’m pretty sure it is.

Robert Duvall is old too and I wouldn't want to fight him either.

I got a call from a potential new client on the morning he was scheduled to leave on a week-long trip back east. His normal sitter had backed out at the last minute (you’d be amazed at how often that happens) and he was in a bind. The only problem he told me was that his dog was a trained guard dog who definitely didn’t like strangers coming into the house.

“Do you have insurance?” asked the new client.
I started to explain our coverage when he interrupted me. “No, not for the dogs, for yourself.”
“Excuse me?” I said.
“He’s gonna bite you. At some point during the week, he will bite you. Are you sure you want to take care of him?”

I looked across the room at the 14-year old Boxer dog watching my every move from under the kitchen table.

“Yeah, I’ll watch him, we’ll be fine.”

I left the client with some paperwork and we set up a schedule of visits to start the following morning.

The next morning at 6:30a.m. I arrived at the house ready to greet “Tyson” the guard dog. I carried a heavy towel wrapped around my arm to give him something to chew on if he decided not to let me in. It was quite in the house, and I had to look around before I found him sleeping soundly on the bed. This wouldn’t be so bad, the old guy just wanted to nap.

“Wanna go for a walk?” His head snapped up - instantly alert and he growled a low warning.

I walked over to the bed with his choke collar and leash and reached to slip it over his head.

That’s when he bit me.

I’ve been bit before. Basenjis, Yorkies, Jack Russels, a lab, they can all be snippy when you walk into their home the first time, but this guy was serious. His head whipped around and he snapped down hard onto my hand. Fortunately, I pulled it away before he got a good grip on it and we stood there looking at each other.

“Dude, what the hell?” I said. “If you wanna go outside this week you’re gonna have to get along with me.” He growled again and showed me his ancient yellow teeth.

I threw the towel over his head.

“WOOWOOWOO!” he said jumping up and down on the bed.

I grabbed the free end of the towel and made a loose loop around his head. He was still mighty unhappy, but with the towel covering his mouth I was able to slip the collar over his head and pull the towel away.

He looked at me, looked at the leash in my hand, followed it with his eyes to where it was attached to his collar, looked back at me, then hopped off the bed and walked towards the door looking back as if to say “Well you got the leash on, let’s go for a walk.”

So we did.

It’s been almost a week now, there is a happy boxer dog behind his tough guy façade, and I can see him in there trying to get out sometimes. His person is due home tomorrow and I’ll miss the grumpy old guard dog. I still can’t put his collar on without the towel (Though he lets me take it off with no problems) but now it’s almost a joke between us. I put the towel over his face and he stands there and growls while I rub his neck and put his collar on. After we get back from our walks, he “accidentally” bushes my hand with his head when I put his food bowl down, and this morning after he finished breakfast he walked up to where I was sitting on the couch, laid his head in my lap, leaned against me, and let me pet him, and scratch his ears.

A few more days with him and I think we will be friends. I hope that business will call his owner back to New York soon and we can hang out again. Good dog Tyson, don’t eat your walker.

UPDATE: The last three times I went to visit T he hopped off the bed and came trotting over to greet me, no growling, and his little boxer nub-tail wagging happily back and forth. He let me put on his collar without the towel and leaned against me to be petted. I think I’ve got a new friend.

Here’s a fun little thing… “Where are you in the movie” plots the time-line of your life along with the time-line of a movie. There are some cool tools that you can use to calculate your life expectancy, then you plug the numbers into the site, pick a movie and suddenly I’m with “The dude” getting pushed into the back of the Big Lebowski’s Limo..

Check out “Where in the Movie Are you?”

I call Quinn my timeshare dog. I’ve been walking her since she was just about 12 weeks old and she fits into our happy little group very nicely. Her owner has offices on both coasts so in addition to walking her, I get to keep Q-dog at my place on a regular basis. Holly, was like a second mother to Quinn when she was a pup, and now that she’s bigger than Holly they just play play play all the time. Summer is the best, as all the dogs love the water, and we’ve got the best roof-top dog run in all of L.A. Here they are: Quinn, Daisy, and Holly playing on the roof.

When Pit-Bulls smile it’s like their whole head is splitting open to let the happy out. Nala in L.A.

Wildlife photographers Anup and Manoj Shah spent 6 months in the Masai Mara photographing a pride of 20 lions. How did they get such intimate shots? By hiding their cameras in piles of elephant dung and using IR sensors to trip them. The photographers are have lived most of their lives in Kenya and have studied this pride for over ten years. read the full story here

Whats kind of crap is lying around you today? And how can you use it to create your story?

My job doesn’t pay much. I know I could charge more, or walk 15 dogs at a time, but that’s really not the point. The great thing about my job is that I get to play with dogs all day, and people give me money. Well that and they tip me nicely too. I’ve gotten bottles of wine and whiskey, bones for my dogs, furniture, gift cards, you name it. It’s my little secret that people think I’m helping them out by taking care of their pups when the reality is that I’m just putting off growing up and getting a real job for another year or so.

Today was a nice breezy spring day - only about 60 degrees outside - so I was totally stoked when I walked into Trevor the dog’s house and found a note from his person, Kevin, that said, “There is a container of stew in the fridge for you. Be sure to take some bread and a brownie too.”

I ate most of the meat and potatoes with some rice I had in the cupboard, and mixed the bulk of the gravy and a couple of hunks of meat in the girls kibble for dinner.

Some days my life is golden. Thanks, Kevin & Trevor!

Creativity is about seeing things from a different perspective. Sometimes a persons unique perspective is intentional like those tilt-shift photos that make the whole world look like a miniature set, and sometimes its just a matter of physics. My friend Josh is valued by his clients for his unique architectural images - his vision first came to light when he realized that at 6′6″ the world just looks different to him. It seems there is a certain orderliness in altitude and other than the tops of refrigerators, the world Josh sees is a much more organized sleek place than it is for those of us with our cameras hovering inches above the debris strewn streets.

Evelien Lohbeck is another artist with a unique outlook on the world, this one coming from an intentional mash-up of the digital and analogue world in her video “Notebook.”

Noteboek from Evelien Lohbeck on Vimeo.

There is a certain magic that comes from looking at things from a fresh perspective. The more you use your creative mind, the stronger it gets and eventually you too may find yourself looking at a sketchbook while saying “I wonder if this thing could cook toast.”