I got this shot of Honolulu, looking out towards Diamond Head in July of ’79. During that summer, we moved from Washington, DC to Subic Bay Naval Base in The Philippines, but the journey was as exciting as the destination since we had a three-day layover in Hawaii.

I was between 2nd and 3rd grade, but all through 2nd grade we had studied Hawaii. I learned all about the various islands, King Kamehameha, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the humu­humu­nuku­nuku­āpuaʻa, and had even tried poi. We were in Arizona visting my grandparents when we found out that we were going to get to go to Hawaii.

I was very young, but I remember it all very clearly. I think it was the combination of spending a year studying it before actually getting to go that had the effect of searing it all into my mind. Unfortunately, I was recovering from chicken pox and had some kind of infection on my foor that prevented me from getting to go to the beach, but we saw quite a bit of Oahu anyway.

Just plodding along on the treadmill at the gym listening to the ipod go through the big shuffle, something happened when “Sailin’ On” by Bad Brains came screaming through the headphones. Perhaps it was the speed-of-light intensity of Dr Know’s guitar racing to the end of the world against HR’s vocals, but suddenly, I wasn’t moving.

When the song finished, I reprogrammed the ‘pod to play Rock for Light and immediately I was thrown into that chaotic world of early eighties hard core punk where no band seemed to ever play faster or with more passion than Bad Brains whose punk fueled Rasta love was the hardest, most searing music I’d ever heard. I kept speeding up the treadmill, and extending the time. The music kept me moving, a big takeover, and when I looked down my feet looked like they weren’t even moving so extreme was the disconnect between sound and light in that strange return to Heaven.

Not until I ran out of songs did I want to stop, but I ran much longer and much faster than usual. Good thing I don’t have the whole album on the ‘pod. I could see myself speeding the treadmill beyond all reason and flying off into the ski machines behind me. That would have been so punk rock stage diving cool in a suburban thirtysomething kind of way, but then they might have banned me from their club.

This sunrise was taken from the summit of Mt. Monadnock, New Hampshire during the summer of 1988, just before we moved to Texas.

It was the last thing I did as a Boy Scout and it was probably the coolest. We started hiking to the summit around 3am and arrived just before dawn. All around we could see the tops of other mountains poking out of a sea of clouds.

It’s the best sunrise I’ve ever seen.

Last year’s Christmas posts about the various holiday traditions still stand whether it’s decorations, Christmas music, movies and TV, or food and drink. We even packed up the pups again and drove to Orange for a few days with my in-laws, though we’ll be back in Austin tomorrow for Christmas with my family.

Perhaps I’ll post a picture of this year’s tree, which relies on a far different decorating strategy than last year, though it’s still the same artificial tree.

Until then, the tale of how I learned that Santa was really my parents…

One day in the mid-70′s, seemingly months before Christmas, but possibly only a few days I snuck into my parents’ closet looking for a place to hide from whichever kid had been designated as ‘It.’ I crawled across piles of shoes and boxes and as I neared the back, I discovered some paper bags.

‘It’ was getting closer and things were happening fast, but I noticed a Wonder Woman action figure in one of the paper bags. I thought it odd that my parents had a Wonder Woman action figure, but I wasn’t going to lose a game of hide-and-seek worrying about it.

I forgot about the whole thing until Christmas morning when I saw that Santa had brought a Wonder Woman action figure to my little sister. Odd, I thought, but I filed it away until I could investigate further.

Days must have passed in which I tried to avoid the truth, but eventually I had to know. I entered the closet and snuck to the back. Naturally, there was nothing but open space. No paper bags. No Wonder Woman. No more Santa.

When I brought this up to my parents, they let me join the conspiracy and asked me not to tell my younger siblings. It only took a few minutes after that to figure out the truth about the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, and the Great Pumpkin.

Note: This post is part of the Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-a-Thon in honor of the tenth anniversary of Sagan’s death.

When I was a kid in DC, I used to love visiting the Air & Space Museum. I collected everything I could get from NASA and thrilled to the images that came back from the Vikings, Pioneers, and Voyagers. I also watched Cosmos even though I didn’t understand half of what Dr. Sagan was talking about.

What I did understand, what came through loud and clear, was that sense of wonder. That awareness that there were whole worlds happening out there. Here was a man who was humbled and in awe of this grand universe of which we’re only a small part. But here, too, was a man who wanted to know all the mysteries of the universe, who seemed to be seeking knowledge for its own sake and yet possessed of a desire to share that knowledge as if in sharing it he could fill us all with the kind of wonder that makes one recognize the preciousness of life.

I gained much from joining Carl on the deck of the Ship of the Imagination over the years. I found a love for knowing, not to be a know-it-all or to amuse friends with an impressive command of trivia, but for the kind of knowledge that fills the soul, fires the imagination, and makes us whole.

As an adult, I read Cosmos and Billions & Billions and was struck by not just his passion for scientific discovery but by his compassion for his fellow beings. One thing he said or wrote (I can’t remember) that has always stayed with me was something to the effect of� ‘if we find life on Mars, then we must leave and not go back because then Mars would belong to the Martians.’ It’s this desire for knowledge, this thrill of exploration tempered by a profound respect for and love of life that I most admired about Carl Sagan.

There’s another Carl connection in my life. When I was first getting to know the woman I would later marry, we found ourselves in a video store uninspired by the shelves of recent releases. Finally, she said, “Let’s watch a Carl.”

“A Carl?”

“You know. Cosmos. I love that stuff.”

I couldn’t believe it. Something in me knew that I’d found the person I wanted to share my life with. Here was someone who was as moved by the vastness and wonder of the universe as me. Someone who had gained at least a part of that from Carl Sagan.

I hadn’t seen Cosmos in years, but we rented “Blues for a Red Planet” and fell in love cruising with Carl on the Ship of the Imagination.

Thanks, Carl.

When I was a kid, the story of the lost dutchman who disappeared while searching for a legendary gold mine on Arizona’s Superstition Mountain fascinated me. I remember looking at those mountains whenever we visited my grandparents in Phoenix and imagining all the stories that they must hold.

I like this photograph, taken with my old 110 in 1982, because faded with time and dirt, it reminds me of the myths of the old west and the magic they still hold for me.

I’d love to follow that old dirt road leading along the telephone poles up onto that mountain and search for that old mine myself even though I know it would be as futile as searching for the Loch Ness Monster or the Seven Cities of Gold. Hopefully, though, they wouldn’t some day spin yarns about the lost Austinite’s gold mine.

We lived in The Philippines from 1979-1982. I joined the Boy Scouts in ’82 and the first big trip I went on was a reenactment of the Bataan Death March. The real march occured in 1942 when Japanese soldiers marched 10,000 American and Philippino prisoners of war to their deaths in one of the uglier events of the war.

We spent most of spring break with American scouts from all over the Far East Council as well as scouts from The Philippines and other Asian nations. We camped on the beach each night and each morning we were bused to where we had left off the previous day. The picture above is of a carabao, a kind of Philippine water buffalo, along with a few of the guys from the troop taking a break.

We saw a lot of the Phillipine countryside and one day walked through a village where heavily armed men – I’m talking ammo belts around their shoulders like Mexican revolutionaries – stood cradling their machine guns and smoking cigarettes while we hiked past. Our scoutmaster told us to just keep walking and “don’t stare.”

It was one of those experiences that has stayed with me, that made history come alive and through sore feet and tired legs, we all got a small taste of what those brave soldiers endured during World War II.

Update: I have now correctly spelled carabao. Thanks to Heather for reminding me of the difference in spelling between caribou and carabao. It would be odd to actually see caribou in The Philippines. But who knows, there is at least one tropical island that has polar bears.

These are the stairs leading down from Mt Bonnell. I took this picture sometime in the early ’90s when I had access to a darkroom because I did the print as well.

I used to ride my bike up there pretty regularly when I was at UT, and despite many attempts to capture the views of the city or of Lake Austin and the hills, this is the only picture I ever took there that I liked.

I guess that’s how it is with photography: sometimes the best images are the unexpected ones, the subjects that weren’t your main intention but for whatever reason call to be photographed. Sometimes an ordinary set of stairs leading down through the cedar trees says more than a whole city spread out before you.

As much as I love the view from up there, especially at night when the city lights disappear out into the plains, I haven’t been there in years. I should probably do something about that.

This is from my days as a camera assistant. It was taken on the set of The Substitute Wife, a movie-of-the-week that was filmed around Austin early in 1994.

That’s me with the slate standing next to Lea Thompson. Of the three stars on that set, Lea was the only one who wasn’t full of herself. The other two managed to make life miserable for everyone from the director all the way down to the lowliest film loader (me), set PA and sound assistant (my friends).

It was my first gig on a big budget set, and for the next few years, I got quite spoiled by all the perks. It was a fun and exciting career when I was younger, but as it turned out not something I wanted to spend my life doing.

With the fifth anniversary of September 11th so close, it seemed fitting for today’s Old Photo Friday to go back to June of 2001.

I took this picture from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Earlier that day we had discussed whether we wanted to view the skyline from there or from the World Trade Center. I’d been to both on previous trips, but my wife and our friends (who live in New York!) had never been up the Empire State Building so we decided to go there since it’s more iconic.

We figured we’d catch the World Trade Center another time.

I have clearer shots of the WTC, some quite good, but I think this one fits especially well today considering that as we get farther away from that awful day, our view is getting blurrier, more obscured. Thanks for that, Disney and ABC.