Well … cell phone pictures SUCK … but it’s all I had today. This gives you a hint of what I mentioned in the post below… The first is this beautiful little barn that I see everyday. It was amazing with the fire colors. (The pic was taken out my window as I drove … very low-res, surprising that I got anything at all.)

… and a couple more pix when I stopped on the side of the road …

No … it’s not cocaine* … nor is it that cold white stuff that they have in other parts of the world (you know, the parts where no one should really live because it’s so cold) … ‘California snow’ is the ashes falling from the sky after a 24,000 acre brush fire raged past [content removed — the ’secret’ place I’ve been consulting**] today, sadly killing 4 firemen.

It seems shallow to say now (knowing that lives were lost), but I was bummed earlier that I didn’t have my camera. As I drove towards the fire zone, the sky was the most amazing orange color from smoke. But in front of me were huge fields of green, sunlit and vivid. The colors contrasted, and it was just beautiful, and moving. And yes … me without my camera … ugghhh …

And in other news … I want to “shout out” to jasontopia’s farthest known reader … Erica King. Hey, Erica! Say hello to Hong Kong for the rest of us, and bring us something cool when you come out… you know, like some Chicken Feet Earrings … or maybe some Dog Jerky or something!

*So … now that my blog has been discovered by a client, it makes me wonder everytime I write any potentially objectionable word “Who, now, is going to be reading this?” I mean, does using the word ‘cocaine’ (twice, now), flag me for some DEA action? Does mentioning the DEA (twice, now), really, really flag me? It’s a little strange, and it makes me constantly wonder why, exactly, I’m putting this up. What is it that I expect to get out of it all? And what — all this said — do I truly feel free to say on here anymore? I mean … should I really be making jokes about Dog Jerky when my professional career is on the line?!?!

**In case you’re wondering what this is all about, there are previous links below that weren’t “in harmony” with the needs of my current consulting client. So I chose to remove them, and the whole “content removed” thing has just become a personal running joke. But it’s probably not all that funny anymore, especially if you’re not a regular reader. And — back to the previous paragraph — I’m guessing they’re still reading, so the joke may even be mildly offensive. Hmmm … this was supposed to be a simple place for fun, light, personal chats … and now I really have to think about it all. Comments?

Just wanted to post a few new architectural shots for fun. Shooting interiors is a relatively new field for me, and it’s very time consuming. The first interior shot is really composed above about 12 differently lit photos, all composed into one. (I think it doesn’t really work small here). The second is an exterior shot, which I think is the more fun style to shoot…

Well… I owe some updates from the several days. Last Friday I hosted the Vice President of El Salvador, Ana Vilma de Escobar. She was fantastic, and we had a lot of fun. More on that later…

Tonight our local Entrepreneurs’ Organization hosted Steve Forbes (CEO of Forbes Magazines and also former presidential candidate). To be honest, I thought the event was overpriced and would be somewhat of a letdown. I was wrong.

Steve was engaging, funny, insightful, and probably the best speaker we’ve had ever in our local chapter. (Maybe that’s too big of a statement… but he clearly ranks up there with or above Frank Abignale, with or above Jack Daly, etc… and even in the same neighborhood as Jack Welch.) His thoughts on world affairs: watch out, Iran will be a big problem — bigger than N Korea — in the next year … and probably Israel (or we) will take out their leadership. On the Fed: If you want to know if our economy is being managed well, look at the price of gold… if it’s in the mid-$300s, then inflation (and the economy) is good … and if it’s lower or higher, there are problems. On oil: Oil and gold prices are pretty closely linked. He covered far more, but it’s bedtime … I have an 8:30 am press-check way up in Santa Fe Springs… ugghh.

Oh yeah… the venue (the Nixon Library) was impeccable, beautiful and very interesting… the food was perfect … and seeing all the EO members from OC, LA and SD made it all worth the expensive price of entry.

I’ll leave you with one more pic… here’s me; Mike Caito (Restaurants on the Run); Rachel Koenig (President of EO Orange County); Mr Forbes; Adam Glickman (President of LA); and Schmiddy (Pres. of San Diego) for the “official shot.” (Forbes must have posed for a thousand pix… but he was a good sport.) And somehow or another, I kind of feel like I wasn’t dressed appropriately.

Currently in the throes of planning all the details for the VP of El Salvador … it’s so much crazy detail work. Thank god for Erin, Cindy, the OC Office of Protocol, etc… they’re handling most of it. Friday should be fun, though … private meetings, a luncheon, Disneyland and dinner …

What are the odds?

The #1 calendar that I’ve been wanting to do next year is a sponsored calendar for the Kenya Tourism Board. And the way to make that happen would be to talk to the top decision-maker in the country … the Minister of Tourism. So how completely random and rare that His Excellency the Minister would show up in Orange County, and — and!! — that I would have the opportunity to host a luncheon in his honor. AND that I would sit next to him and talk to him for 2 hours?

Sounds like a 1 in 6 billion chance to me … but that’s what happened last Wednesday. It was great, the Minister was a very nice man, and I think there’s an excellent prospect for the calendar… oddly, even better than the calendar for Honduras, and I spent nearly 10 full days working on getting that one to happen.

In other news, I’m still working with [content removed] in [content removed] … have had some less-fun personal issues that I don’t want to cover here … and have had some good things going on as well. (What’s the famous line? “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.”??) This Friday is the visit from Madam Vice President Ana Vilma de Escobar … should be fun …

Well, I’m home — kind of. I’ve been working on the “Project formerly known as [content removed]” still in the “City formerly known as [content removed]” … which takes up a ton of time. Also, the calendar business is busy, I’m behind on everything from being gone for one week, and then random opportunities keep coming up.

For instance, there’s one person in the world that I really wanted to see about calendars next year … but figured there was almost NO chance of it happening: The Minister of Tourism for Kenya. (I really want to do a tourism calendar for them). However, I got a random invitation to have lunch with His Excellency the Ambassador from Kenya, and guess who’s in the entourage? Yep … the Minister himself. How random and odd .. and very very cool. So that will eat up 1/2 of tomorrow … the other half will be eaten up by a photoshoot (architectual) and a morning meeting … and tomorrow I have SO much to do other than those 3 things!!

I guess what I really need to refocus on these days is balance in my life. But I’m waaaaay too busy to do that right now … I’ll focus on balance next week.

Well — for all it’s worth — I’m home again! This concludes basically 5 weeks of travel. I’m exhausted, but at least I’m home. I’m making it a point not to leave again for a bit … to stay at my house for a while. I am working like mad, and I still won’t have a day off for probably 2 more weeks, but at least I won’t look around and say that I missed a lot of the great opportunities in my life.

For updates on the MC1000, I’ve just finished the blog. There are tons of pix there …

www.mc1000blog.com

…enjoy.

My personal thoughts on the rally? Well, the events were incredible. But it was hard hard work. On Friday, for example, I worked all day photographing, etc, then stayed up until 7 am prepping things for the video. I slept for 2 hours, then slept a little bit more in the car ride down to Santa Barbara. Then … 7 hours of editing — and a hell of a lot of stress — later, I finished the video. (It was a miracle, though, that we even got it done… technical issues almost killed it at the very last minute.)

Anyway … the trip was kind of like Kilimanjaro … really fun in retrospect, but really difficult and hard at the time. I’m not sure that I’d do it again in the same way … not without some different parameters and conditions, I think. So check out the other blog for pix. And here’s one that didn’t make the other blog, but that I like: