Without my calendar I would be lost, there’s no question. I live by my iCal on my personal laptop and even more so since I purchased an iPhone. Having my important dates moving between my mobile phone and laptop has become an essential part of my everyday life.

Up there with iCal is the simplicity and ease of use of Google Calendar. It has had the ability to subscribe to my iCal feed from my personal computer for quite some time; a handy feature when I needed to check up on an important date. Though one draw back is that any iCal subscription in Google Calendar is read only; a frustrating limitation when I need to change a date, time or create a new event.

Obviously, even though I like iCal and Google calendar - it’s not very productive to use both when the conversation between the two is not a two way street. Especially when you have at least six different calendars like I do.

Enter BusyMac with their system preference BusySync. Loaded with a slew of features to help you sync, subscribe and publish your iCal with various calendar protocols and services; BusySync has finally allowed me to fully connect my iCal with Google Calendar. I can add an event in Google Calendar and have it show up when I get home in my iCal and vice versa.

I was reluctant, at first, to drop the $25.00 on something that was only a preference pane. But during the trial period I found how convenient and reliable it really was to have a connection between Google and my iCal. I also found a coupon code (Hint: Daring Fireball) that knocked off five dollars. I always suggest doing a google search for coupon codes before you buy something online, example: BusySync Coupon. Doing this always makes it a bit easier when you find a deal on something, and it’s no different than looking for coupons in the Sunday paper.

My Flickr Pick is back with an all to awesome sci-fi twist. I know I’ve been all over Flickr the past week or so, but a website that holds millions of images is bound to turn up several humorous imagery gold mines - and this one does not disappoint.

Cindi Geeze has been taking pictures of her storm trooper figurines in what would be described as normal everyday snap shots, if it were real life. At dinner, in the snow and during valentines day; Cindi’s imagination has been able to convey emotion through the mask of a storm trooper toy… as weird as that sounds.

I can tell you all about what is there, but as they say, a picture says a thousand words; so you best check it out for yourself. You can find it on her Flickr page in Storm Troopin’ which has already been viewed over 100,000 times as well as her other toy shots. You can also find an interview with Cindi on the Star Wars Blog.

Whoa, sorry I’ve been a bit weak on updating the past week, I have no idea where the time has gone. Honestly, I have four half written articles that I started with the intention on being short and sweet but are quickly mutating into something bigger than anticipated. Some very cool things are in the works though, more on that later.

I’ve really been immersed in Flickr and my photography lately. The other night I dug out my “archives” that date back to 1995 when I first got into the whole picture thing. I’ve started scanning some of my favorites and posting them on Flickr. There is something very satisfying about finding old photographic gems of my past. It’s a great way to see how my eye for photographic design has changed, evolved or remained the same.

So a good rule of thumb would be, if I’m lacking at updates here - check out my Flickr page and you are bound to find something new that I have recently created or something I have uncovered from my past.

Stay classy, internet people…

The thing about most caricature is that they all pretty much look the same in style and proportion. They accentuate facial features and have similar cartoon qualities even when drawn by different artists. I normally use a caricature of myself as a profile image (avatar) for most social websites.

Damien Weighill is an artist who is breaking the mold of non-realistic portraiture with this interesting project. Drawn from a submitted photograph and his imagination Damien illustrates people, real people. You can send your picture to him and he will create a drawing of you for his weblog titled Your Face and, if you make the cut, for a tea towel he plans to have printed (space is still available).

Real people don’t read your blog.

A fact that I wasn’t made aware of when I signed up for these things; It now seems so obvious.

If you are reading this and you do happen to be a real person then why not send me a photo (one which includes your real face) and I will draw a picture of you and post it here to serve as everlasting proof that sometimes facts are wrong.

You can view all of the faces Damien has drawn so far as well as his portfolio of other work. Maybe I’ll see if he’ll draw my portrait…

One of the most important lessons we can teach our children in sports is the true value of good sportsmanship. A better example of this could not have been made than what was displayed in the women’s division two double header pitting Central Washington against Western Oregon this past Saturday. In one of the last games of the regular season, these two teams displayed a virtue of kindness that all could admire and should follow.

Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky had never hit a home run in her career. Central Washington senior Mallory Holtman was already her school’s career leader in them. But when a twist of fate and a torn knee ligament brought them face to face with each other and face to face with the end of their playing days, they combined on a home run trot that celebrated the collective human spirit far more than individual athletic achievement.

In the face of heckling fans, Sara blasted a home run hit over the center field wall. As her two teammates already on base jogged past the third base coach with celebratory hi-fives Sara rounded first base just missing the bag. She stopped to turn back in a motion that ended up tearing her ACL and brought her to the ground. Sara, on her first home run of her last college game would not be able to continue under her own power.

To make things worse, the rule book states that if anyone from Sara’s team touched her she would be called out and her hit would be for nothing. This left her coach, Pam Knox, with only one option - sub in a pinch runner at first base in place of Sara and record the play as a two run single.

“And right then,” Knox said, “I heard, ‘Excuse me, would it be OK if we carried her around and she touched each bag?’”

It was the voice of Mallory Holtman, the starting senior for Central Washington who holds nearly every offensive record for Central including career home runs. Having been one of the most senior players on the field, Mallory knew that there is nothing in the rule book that states the other team can not touch or aide an opposing team’s base runner around the bases.

Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace lifted Tucholsky off the ground and supported her weight between them as they began a slow trip around the bases, stopping at each one so Tucholsky’s left foot could secure her passage onward. Even with Tucholsky feeling the pain of what trainers subsequently came to believe was a torn ACL (she was scheduled for tests to confirm the injury on Monday), the surreal quality of perhaps the longest and most crowded home run trot in the game’s history hit all three players.

For her part, Holtman seems not altogether sure what all the fuss is about. She seems to genuinely believe that any player in her position on any field on any day would have done the same thing. Which helps explains why it did happen on that day and on that field.

Simply, amazing…

I found this story on ESPN and felt it needed to be shared, read the entire text written by Graham Hays at: http://espn.com

I’ve had my Flickr account going on almost three years now. Admittedly, it’s not something I’ve used a whole lot in the past - but recently, with my latest photo surge, I’ve really become involved in the culture and community surrounding Flickr.

This is mostly attributed to what you could call “being discovered” a few weeks ago. Random people started commenting on my images and marking them as favorites. The feedback was encouraging and only magnified my urge to get out and shoot combined with my new found enjoyment for cycling photography. I’ve also started doing my part and letting other photographers on Flickr know what I think about their images through marking my favorites and commenting on their technique and composition.

I woke up this morning to find two of my images included in the Flickr Explore pool. This is monitored by a super secret algorithm that measures the “interestingness” of an image through the swarm of Flickr users interested in a particular image; loosely based on such aspects as comment count, user favorites, views and overall frequency. Included in the Explore pool are the top 1,000 Flickr images that have been deemed interesting by Flickr’s secret sauce. One of my cycling images is currently number 69 and one of my tulip images is number 105.

You can see my photography on my Flickr page as well as what images I like by visiting my favorites list. It is my favorites list which I draw from for my weekly Flickr Pick, that of which, I know I have been slacking on lately. I promise I’ll get back to more frequent updates…

I went to take some shots of another cycling race that my brother and the team he rides for was in on Thursday. The weather wasn’t the most ideal for what I was looking for, but I feel I made due with what I had… overcast, slow shutter speeds and experimenting with my flash to get any sort of shadow or depth.

It’s rather difficult to shoot fast moving objects on an overcast day surrounded by trees. I walked the course during the 5:30pm race to get a feel for what lines the riders were taking and where I should best position myself for my brother’s race. I found one stretch that offered a decent amount of light, a pleasant background - away from ugly sign posts - and where the riders came very close to the curb that I would be standing at.

The first few test shots proved to be mediocre at best. They were flat and boring due to the aforementioned lighting conditions. So I decided to experiment a little bit with my flash (Nikon SB-800). I was already shooting at a 30th of a second, forced to only take pan and blur shots; I figured it wouldn’t hurt to break a few rules and start popping my flash. This idea brought me some fairly interesting and great looking shots and hopefully I didn’t annoy any of the riders with the flash.

You can view the images on my Flickr page along with the rest of my photography…

We take snap shots of vacations, events and every day occurrences. We record our experiences through imagery and video; but what about all those hours spent cooped up inside the office, cubicle farm or the meeting room? Is it really all that boring? Sure, you spend a lot of time at work; it’s the same scenery day in and day out, nothing special. But what if you tried looking at it from a different perspective? Maybe through the eyes of your first day… or a visit to someone else’s office for the first time.

Office Snapshots is a weblog that collects pictures from places people spend most of their week. Though, most of the images are of Web 2.0 internet startups/companies, some are readily familiar to everyone. You will find Web 2.0 offices like Craigslist, Google (Zurich), Threadless and Tumblr. They also have some large corporations as well: GAP Inc., The New York Times, Adobe and my favorite Pixar. (Who wouldn’t want to work at Pixar!?)

Call me a nerd, geek or weirdo… but I find these pictures pretty interesting. It’s a view into a professional world that isn’t familiar to me where others work (and sometimes play) in their own everyday “mundane” environments. Mostly, it turns out to be a case just like dog owners look like their pets. I was surprised to see the Craigslist HQ look like it did, but then it really makes sense when you think of what their website looks like.

It makes me wonder how interesting people would find the office I work in… and how interesting your office might be.