We’ve begun sorting the massive amount of photos from our recent trip to Kyoto. In the mean time, you can view a gallery of my iPhone photos at Flickr.

Kyoto Mobile Gallery

Even after I left home, I continued to go to salons. To be blunt, I was afraid of the traditional barber shop. As a teen, I loved my long blonde hair and the potential damage that would be inflicted by electric razors was unfathomable. Age has relieved me of the burdens of vanity, and the cost associated with getting a salon cut was just getting to be ridiculous.  Last week I threw caution to the wind and entered an honest-to-god barber shop.

The Barber Pole (real name) is a short walk from the office. I’d passed it dozens of times, never looking in the window. The first step across the threshold was greeted with a shoe-shine stand. Past that was a row of chairs, running the length of the shooting-alley styled shop. There was a sign-up list on a desk in the middle of the room. No receptionist, no reservations. The waiting row faced the five barber chairs, all of which were occupied. Christmas songs were on the radio and there was a buzz of electric razors. Other than that, silence. There was no gossip about the day’s events. No meaningless chit-chat. No mouths were moving. The shop’s magazine rack wasn’t filled with styling magazines, just copy after copy of Maxim.

My wait was brief. Dialog with the barber was limited to a question and answer. “How short can I go?” I responded with a half-attempt to describe what I wanted. Mostly, I just wanted it to be over. 15 minutes later, I had a fresh haircut.

The best part was the neck shave. Hot lather and a straight blade. That and the not talking. I never realized how uncomfortable that made me. I wasn’t even told the price. She just pointed to the dollar amount on the register. $16 and I was out the door. And I’ll be back in two weeks.

Ginger spent the day at home with Camille, so I made the work drive solo and settled in for several coding projects. For once, I actually got everything done on my to-do list and feel at-ease going into the three day weekend. I built out a pretty cool Six Degrees of Separation template and CMS addition for my cable TV client, wrapped up some revisions to the New Orleans hotel and started work with a new client that specializes in marketing a large (and impressive) stable of authors. I also had an energizing meeting with a potential client about a great idea for a new social networking project. Very niche and based on good existing models. We’ll see what happens.

Headed home to meet the girls coming in from their second play date of the day. Chowed down on frozen pizza and then played with Cami in her room while Ginger took Millie for a walk. I hooked up my Telecaster for the first time in over a year and introduced Cami to the electric guitar and its best ally, distortion. She was not impressed. Night after night of strumming along on my acoustic guitar informed her that was how a guitar should sound. Now, it was wailing, screaming and her response was to cry “Fix it – Fix it!” while I played. Oh well, she’ll come around. Bath and bed ritual followed the botched one-man metal concert and Ginger and I went downstairs to clean and deal with the Millie situation.

Millie is my ten year old basset hound. To say it in a nice Southern way, Millie has never been right in the head. She’s special and we’ve made many adjustments in our lives to deal with her needs. Lately, she’s decided that the rugs should be used as latrines and with a very active two-year-old, that is not okay. We built a new, large dog run for her in the back yard. It’s fenced and mulched, with a layer of chicken wire underneath the surface to discourage digging. We went out to visit her with more food and water and shored up some of the defenses. Then, we left her outside for the night.

This is a very big deal for me – and I feel like I’m a horrible parent. She’s had ten years of living inside, being integrated into the family to the best of our abilities and now I feel like I’m abandoning her. And apparently, she feels that way too. Ginger and I fired up the Tivo Unboxed Into the Wild and sat on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and glass of sweet tea. And then, the barking began. Constant barking. And banging of wood and metal. And crying. Every ten minutes for the first hour, we’d stop the movie and check on her. She was digging feverishly, trying to work the corner of the gate open. Wanting to get caught in the act and brought inside. We held firm and she eventually went to sleep.

As for Into the Wild, Emile Hirsch was great. In fact, all of the performances were stand-out and I’m always a sucker for anything with Hal Holbrook. I could watch that man read Superfudge and be enthralled. Stylistically, I felt that it lacked focus. Too many visual devices were used that didn’t add to the storytelling and felt out of place. Some of the cinematography was beautiful. Some of the effects were pointless and served to dumb down a complex story.

But that core story is something that I’ve had a problem with since I read the book a few years ago and the movie only amplified my concerns. Into the Wild is the real-life account of an affluent new college graduate who gives up his material possessions and travels cross country, eventually arriving in Alaska where is goal is to live a hermit-like “natural” existence. Eating berries, shooting game – the epitome of roughing it. I have no problem with any of that. It’s very romantic and kind of sweet, if naive. When reading the book, I had the very clear impression that the kid was:

1. Spoiled. Spoiled to the point of being absolutely impossible to be around. Constantly criticizing his parents, society and anyone that would listen about how horrible the world was. This from a kid who had everything handed to him on a silver platter and had no concept of real hardship.
2. Mentally ill. While he excelled in academia, his social skills and easily developed obsessions indicated much larger psychological problems. In the movie’s overt attempts to glamorize his decisions and actions, I think the truth of much greater underlying problems was ignored.
3. A general, all around jerk. I feel bad writing this, as I know the book and movie were based on a real person. But the character portrayed in the book and movie had a smugness-level that would have been intolerable. The complete selfishness that he embodied while making his trek is so unforgivable that he immediately becomes unlikable.

The movie glossed over these problems, instead portraying the lead character as being a large-hearted and kind-souled misunderstood who simply knew more about life than you and me. I can’t help but feel that was irresponsible, but it’s a movie and I simply have to let it go.

So, did I like Into the Wild? Yes and no. I thought it complemented the book (which I still enjoyed more) in some ways and detracted from it in others. It was nice to see another take on the source material which is very engaging and worth new interpretations. The performances and soundtrack were superb. Eddie Vedder’s word-less chanting and wolf-like howling really emboldened some of the most beautiful visual scenes. But at the same time, it failed by simply glamorizing the main character. At two and a half hours, there were many times when the film felt long, if still serving as beautiful wallpaper. Taking the good with the band, I’d recommend a rent. If you’re interested in more of the Alaska part of the story, pick up the book.

Ginger spent the day with Camille, so I got dressed and headed into the studio, stopping at the post office (nothing in the PO Box), depositing a few checks and grabbing a snack on the way. Today was filled with working on client projects: a hotel in New Orleans, a major cable television channel and a medical technology company. Leftover pizza for lunch and lots of phone call follow-ups and code tweaks in the afternoon.

Moving the studio out of the house was a great move. With all that’s going on as the business grows, it would be very tempting to work on projects constantly. When the “office” was in the living room – I could have easily fallen into that trap. Now, I keep regular hours and try keep the minutiae of client work out of my mind. I don’t always succeed, but I try to keep home and family time sacred, as it should be

I grilled flank steak with mozzarella and peppers for dinner and nursed a Blue Moon. Camille ate like a champ and we headed upstairs to listen to music and play with her stuffed animals. While Bucky the bulldog danced with “Oscar Baby”, I bought a Dell D400 laptop on eBay to use as a test machine for the office. After her bath and bedtime ritual, I headed outside to shovel dirt in our basset hound’s new outdoor accommodations. Saturday was spent installing a new fence and all of its doggie-proof accoutrement. The last-minute work tonight was prep for her bed of cypress mulch that will be delivered in the morning. In her old age, she’s becoming less concerned with her house-breaking and that’s just not acceptable. So, she’s going to be an outside dog. Wish us luck as we try to withstand her barking.

Took a shower, folded some clothes and watched a bit of Lester Holt’s documentary on the crystal skulls. I never cease to be amazed at the world’s willingness to believe incredibly absurd things (UFOs, ghosts, that chicken nuggets might actually contain chicken). The sad sacks in this documentary were so depressing. The excuses they made to defend these artifacts from hard, real science would have been funny if they weren’t so invested. Still, I’m looking forward to seeing the new Indiana Jones movie and what they do with the motif.

Ginger’s making more felt hair clips (tonight is a really great elephant) and I’m in dire need of some sleep. Closing laptop and falling asleep to some Tivo’d Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law.

What to say? While we’ve kept in touch, I’ve spent the last few years speaking solely on the behalf of my clients. It’s about time I called you up and let you know what’s been going on with me, on a personal level.

The big news is, my wife and I have a baby girl. She turns two this summer and is our world. And to be honest, she’s the main reason I stopped writing. While I could make the excuse that business has been too brisk, that I can’t stand to look at a computer when I come home, that I just got tired of the whole blogging thing, truth is that I didn’t want to broadcast her life online. I wanted to respect her privacy (and besides, my wife does a fantastic job of mommy blogging and I simply can’t compete with that) and frankly, nothing else was going on besides tending to her.

As she’s getting bigger, I’m starting to reclaim more of my me time. Ginger and I have started watching movies again. I’ve discovered some amazing music. And my paper journal sitting in my bedside table is just kind of sad in the age of multimedia overload. So, I’ve decided it’s time to start putting some things online again: A rundown of my day (bo-ring), the food we cooked (lately fantastic) and snapshots of the pop-culture milieu that I wade through.

Just wanted you to know I was going to be around a little more often, and I’m looking forward to catching up. You know, on a personal level.

Yours,

Lee