filtered info... feast your eyes on this beauty

For a visual explanation of why this is better than google see here. I like Dan Roam so this is just a fun visual either way.

Not sure if I'm the last to find out about this site, but Guy Kawasaki and a couple other information superheroes have created this great resource to help you find your little nuggets of goodness (all the news/resources for whatever topic you're searching for).

Enjoy and tell me if you've seen this already...

x L

I was in Spain this week...

I get bored at work sometimes. I need a little spice in my life and oftentimes my cube doesn't suffice. I go places. Each week I pick a different picture from my adventures, change my background pic on my computer, close all the windows and pretend I am there.

From Spain '07

This week was Spain. In the fall of '07, while living in England, I was fortunate to visit my friend Jason in Granada for a week. Since finishing up college, I made a decision to visit him every year he lived in Spain, so I did. This was my 3rd and final trip to see Jason since he just moved back to the states before heading south for the winter. Back to my escape... we were standing on a ledge in order to look out over the tourists at the captivating sunset. To the east was the Alhambra, sitting in front of the snowcapped Sierra Nevada's, and the west were rich orange, violet, coral hues spreading across the sky. These were the colors that inspired me to get pastels when I was in elementary school (I have yet to come close to recreating a good sunset, but I still try). We had hiked up the cobblestone streets, bought a couple Alhambra beers, chatted with the gypsies until the cops ran them off and then we watched. We stood and soaked it all in.

missin the music

Martin Sexton is playing tonight at the Boulder Theater. He's one of my favorite people to see live. Dang it I wish I was going to be there but I'm heading to the homeland... piss. Go if you can or make it to another show he's doing around colorado these next few days. Love him.

did you swallow a balloon, ms. miller?

an excerpt from an email i sent to my dear friend and former boss, aaron:

I spent all day till 4 with a bunch of kids who crack me up and tell me things like “ms. Miller what happened to the big bump on your belly… it looks like you swallowed a balloon” to which I responded, “well, Akolda, I didn’t actually swallow a balloon.” And I jumped to catch the football (recess duty for 2 hrs:) as one kid exclaims, “You can jump and catch the football?!... You’re not just a normal teacher?!” Yes, my days are full and it reminds me to take it all a little less seriously. I cook a lot and tried a chianti the other day that was yummy – I think I emailed it to you. I don’t have a lot of spare cash but its oddly freeing to be so frugal. I probably, no definitely, needed to learn something in that area of my life.

No good man stories of late. I had a boy drunkenly express his infatuation, while sharing his insecurities about his relationship with current girlfriend. Kinda over that whole genre of man... i get that they struggle with what to do but i am over attracting them. I know i have some responsibility in there since this is becoming a trend so I need to evaluate my interactions. I have been trying to get my work/money situation squared away so I haven’t had a ton of time to invest in finding a mate or anything but I know if I took too much time to sit still I might be a little lonely for a life partner. I went on a walk around my neighborhood (super sweet/freakin awesome) with a friend from home that was in town for meg’s bday and I had forgotten how nice it is just to have someone of the opposite sex to share life with like that, wandering down the streets talking nonsense or serious stuff. I look forward to that. In the meantime I’m meeting some cool people, and hearing new thoughts on life/love/Jesus, which is usually a good thing for me.

I miss the house parties and leisure mornings of tea and hippie flakes at Sacred Grounds… I never thought of Ruidoso as a mountain town, probably because I hadn’t spent much time in any others, but now that I’m in the land of plenty in that genre, I appreciate the intimacy of our circle of local love – the fact that you can email my mom something and the whole town knows, and that Landlocked has become a staple for our local and tourist economy. I do miss the homeland, in a way I haven’t before… when I think of home my heart is warmed at the thought of people I know and fellowship with friends who might not hang out in a big city but have found camaraderie in each other, all coming in sync in an unusually attractive town.

x Miller

EDIT: I realize that for some people the paragraph about "the type of men I'm attracting" may have been vague... I have not been dating or entertaining these types of men, but have been discouraged by a trend of attracting them for reasons which I am exploring.

Bridges||Basketball||Bicycles

I got in a car accident earlier this week. I had just called my boss to explain that my usual 20-minute commute had turned into an hour because people didn’t know how to drive in the snowish ice thing we woke up to that morning. Within a couple minutes there I am, exiting off the interstate and unable to slow down on the iced ramp. Thankfully the light was green as I looked up, but then it was yellow and then it was red while I slid through… crossing through a six-lane intersection without anything to do to stop. Thankfully a few lanes saw me and though they looked at me like the idiot person running a light, they still saw me and stopped… then the last lane had a truck in it that didn’t see me. She maimed my right front side of the car (in front of the passenger seat) and thankfully we were both fine. It took them awhile to get our cars apart, her hitch was hooked into my car apparently.

I have insurance which is great… a deductible which isn’t, but at least the car is fixable and I’m alive. I have generous friends who have let me borrow cars and taken me places and even one who said I could borrow her car to go on my trip to the homeland next week:)

Sooooo I’ve been riding my bicycle more frequently than before. Yesterday I was riding around and I smiled more. I noticed things I hadn’t before on my trek home from work. I was going on the cherry creek bike path, which took me under a bridge and suddenly my face lit up… it startled me, “leah, why are you smiling a little fat-kid smile?” I thought. I LOVE bridges! I mean I really really love bridges. Ever since I was little there was something soothing about a bridge – the fact that water is there, the one we had to cross over before hiking up to the hot springs. You can usually find some good fishing under the dark places. In Arkansas we would jump off the bridges. When I was little we would float down the river and hang out under bridges. I like them. I smile under them.

The fam in front of the bridge up to the hot springs a while back

My dear friend Bodie was celebrated last night with drinks and holla’s at GooseTown Tavern so I rode my little bike over to join in. On my way I passed by a blacktop with an older man and two boys shooting hoops. The man, I assumed to be the dad, was trying to show the boys his mad skills as he went for a jump shot. I smiled. I love the way sports can bind a family together. Some of my favorite memories with my dad are from little league games he coached, watching he and my cousins and uncles play games in front of the house and shoot from the cloud (part of the pavement was missing so they filled it in with concrete) for extra points. Or the games he played for the Chiefs, in their short shorts and tube socks – my dad was a badass bball player. I smiled a lot yesterday. Not that I want my car to be in the shop for the next few weeks but I do look forward to the things I’ll notice on my bike… the moments I’ll smile.

this is my meager attempt at taking a pic of a pic minus the scanner...
me as a wee little lassie giving my dad a good luck kiss at his bball game:)

grrrrrrrraaaaaaa

that is me groaning from the thoughts of life on a sunday. as a friend mentioned, sunday's are not for existential discussions. I have fell victim to such a discussion, but more in my head and somewhat filtered by Tracie. My head can't really handle going into all the details, but basically a collision of thoughts happened over the weekend. It was bound to happen, I know, but when I start thinking it really just goes till there's resolution. A special thanks to Ben and Travis for spurring more reflection during the Frozen Dead Guy Days in Nederland.

The topic of these thoughts: simplicity.

simple living according to ____.

I wrote about my window washer friends this summer, all educated and capable of succeeding in corporate america, but opted for a laid-back, take-off-when-you-want lifestyle. I want to "reach my potential" but I also cherish the house parties with homemade food from the community garden back home... and the friends that come with a 'simpler' life (not simple people, but a more pure approach to life).

Ideal life - live in a commune, grow our own food, brew our own beer, have deep meaningful discussions about our little economy, etc. The friction comes in when you look at a greater purpose behind our lives - does all of that good energy from the commune just recirculate or are you pouring out that which was poured in? I literally have a headache so I'll stop, but this is where my mind has been wandering.

Pontiac

My first car was a Pontiac Sunbird SE Wagon. A few words to describe this car:

• red
• station wagon
• wrecked by older siblings
• windows didnt work
• started without a key
• standard with stripped clutch
• "ghetto-glider"
• eventually towed off our lot

OK. I've spent half an hour searching the web for a glorious picture of this wonderwagon but alas, no one photo-documented this bad-a (the little "a" was intentional) car. It would be helpful to have a pic to compare the subject of my next paragraph. ** edit... just added the link to a similar model as my little beauty. Picture that one in red.

Enter me driving down the highway to work... not one, not two, but three Pontiacs. Not just any Pontiac, these were
Pontiac Solstice's. Seriously, are these people ignoring the fact that a recession is taking hold of our economy? Either way, I was fighting a kindred connection with the operators of these vehicles since I was once a proud owner of a fine Pontiac.

The point of my story is not that I drove a ghetto-glider, but that Pontiac has some big sale going on or something.