favor

a co-worker, dezra, needed a favor today and i told her i'd try to come through. she was having a small birthday get together for her daughter, who had turned 17 a couple of weeks ago.

unfortunately, dezra underestimates her own creativity and was very worried about what to do about the cake. so she brought in a cake that she baked and i iced it for her and did a bit of an amateur decorating job. my writing needs serious work but it's the thought that counts eh?

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i know this photo is less than stellar but i've been thinking of a new project, inspired by briaan - i was looking over some of his blips that i had missed recently and saw the project he was getting up to leading to his 365th.

my 365th will be february 18th, 2012, which is the day before i will run the austin marathon (knee injury or no knee injury). funny how these things work out at times, eh?

beginning 50 entries prior to this (which will be december 30th, 2011), i am going to do a series of photographs with the idea of showing you the best parts and aspects of the place i am from: texas. so every photograph between that and my 365th will be a tie-in to this in some way.

this comes from a conversation i had with brian (the other one, who lives here in FTW as well) some time back, and i really do think it's worth making a go of it. i grew up in texas and have a lot of love and respect for this state. sure, i hate the politics and think a lot of the services here are lacking. but there are so many good and amazing things about this place that it is so fucking easy to just choose to ignore because of the bad things.

so, yeah. day one will be december 30th, 2011. i'm not sure if i will be able to upload that day (i will be in big bend) but i will be in the heart of what makes texas wonderful so what better place to start. and i will end in austin, the best town in all of texas.

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i guess my last thought is: thank you all for the good wishes yesterday, and thanks briaan for giving me this idea. one thing i love about blip is this connection i feel to many other places in the world, and how much i have learned about those places.

by the time i hit a year i hope i will have been able to give you a george bush-free view of what makes the lone star state unique and worth seeing. and i think it'll be good to have a daily challenge to seek out these things.

wish me luck.

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one last thought: by no means do i want to live here the rest of my life, i am rootless at heart and ever-wandering. but i was raised here and ultimately i feel a deep connection to texas that i think i can share through photographs. so let's see, shall we?