Leslie and I went paddleboarding a couple days ago. We haven’t done that the last couple summers, and it’s not clear to either of us why. I know I thought I might be losing my ability to stand on the board because the last time out I recall it was choppy and windy and I had a very hard time staying upright.
We went to Union Reservoir which is very close and accessible from our home; it’s also a very nice body of water with lots of flora and fauna to enjoy. The water level was pretty low as is the situation this year, but that didn’t get in the way of enjoying our trip.
We both started out feeling pretty shaky and insecure but we got more stable as the day went on. We launched from the south and visited the west and north shores. Next week I am hoping to go there again and visit the east shore. Here are some pictures from our outing.
Yesterday we drove around the town of Erie to see homes that were featured in Erie’s annual “Cultivate and CO-Create Garden Tour”. There were many inspiring displays by people who really put time and effort into creating their beautiful gardens. I expect to incorporate some new ideas into our garden as a result.
While I didn’t focus on taking pictures to highlight all the cool things we saw, I did capture a few as shown below.
In a recent post: Finding Balance in Retirement, I indicated the need to explore the answer to: “Why do I blog”. Answering this question will help ground my thinking, my motivation, and my style for future posts.
Motivations for blogging
What are my motivations?
Having Fun
Without overthinking it I will state the obvious: it’s fun!
It’s fun because it gives me a creative outlet. I love deciding which visuals to include and preparing those visuals.
I also enjoy the creative writing challenge, doing my best to keep it entertaining and readable.
Making Myself Findable
If anyone out there actually wants to find me, I would like my blog to help them do so.
My recent Google search for “mark pastor” did not go very well, which highlights the need to work on findability.
My strategy is to have straight forward URLs like “markpastor.com” and “markpastor.blog” and a link to those from platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. The good news is I have done all of that; now let’s see if anyone actually looks.
Journaling
I have over 100,000 photos stored in the cloud. I do not expect anyone to take the time to parse through those pictures. Even now that Google, Apple and Adobe have come a long way with search tools, the effort it takes to peruse the pics is still detracting. And, without a narrative to accompany the photo’s, their value is further diminished. With that said, perhaps a journal (i.e. blog) that is searchable, focused on the highlights, and provides a narrative for the visuals, has a chance of finding a reader. Who might that be?
Who is the Audience?
Ahhh… the always present questions when I pursue any creative project: “Who cares?”
Me
I love the occasional look-back.
Where have I been?
What was I doing at the time?
What was I thinking 🙂 ?
The Possibility of Someone Else
Over 6 billion people on earth have active access to the global internet1. It’s possible that one or more of those people might find some of my blog interesting. At the moment I have no idea who they are or why they might be interested, but here are some possibilities.
Someone who knows me: a friend, family member or acquaintance: perhaps they’re curious about “what has become of Mark?”, or “what has he been up to?”. I believe in the possibility that there is someone like that.
A stranger from the blogging world. Often after publishing a post, someone from out there will comment on or like my blog. Sometimes they may just be looking to gain their own visibility. Might there be others looking for interesting content from strangers? I hope that’s a possibility.
Someone who finds my content interesting. Do they like the artistic approach to photos or other art? Did I write about a topic or say something that actually took flight? I dream of the possibility.
The truth is out there.
Summary
I blog because it’s a fun and creative outlet where I can produce a searchable repository of images and thoughts for anyone out there that might be interested or that might want to find me.
Now that I am fully emersed in retirement I am surprised by how much time there is to fill. I no longer have to squeeze my hobbies into the weekends along with all the other obligations that needed to get done during non-working time. Weekends, that were once coveted for getting out to do all the things I wanted to (and needed to) do, are now reserved for doing things at home to avoid the always prevalent weekend crowds. That means weekdays are now my playground!
With all this freedom I find it useful to categorize my activities to help me strive for balance (until the day comes where I find I no longer desire such balance). I came up with the 4 E’s that seem to work well for me, at least for the time being: Expressing, Educating, Exercising and Exploring. I find that all the things I have ventured to do so far fit nicely into one or more of these categories.
This post is sort of a kick-off for what I hope are many posts to follow. One of the first posts to follow will be “why I blog”. With free time and a clear mind I look forward to exploring that question, which will help guide me on who exactly my audience is. Is it just me? My friends? The public at large? I don’t know… yet; I look forward to working on that question soon.
For a few years now I wanted to add Mount Blue Sky (formerly Mount Evans) to my list of 14ers (primarily because you can drive to it). So, we finally had the opportunity to drive there this year. The access road has been closed for maintenance for the past couple of years, so I believe this was the opening of a new window in time to take the drive.
It was an awesome drive. The road, while safe, had a lot of exposure at various times and the views were spectacular. On the way to the peak we stopped at the visitor center that had interesting displays inside and a really nice set of nature trails out the back.
We walked along the nature trails and in addition to beautiful scenes and views there were awesome Bristlecone Pines which are known to be among the oldest living type of trees on the planet.
Further up the road was a parking area with restrooms and trailheads and mountain goats.
When we got to the parking lot near the peak we saw the observatory as well as the trail that goes up another half mile or so the peak. We headed up the trail and as we got to the top the wind and sleet were hitting us really hard. Nevertheless, we captured a few nice pics and hurried down for some shelter. The people that were just getting to the parking lot at that time were not able to climb to the peak because the precipitation and wind got too strong.
Leslie and I visited Yellowstone National Park this February. It was the first time I have seen Yellowstone in the winter. We had a great time exploring the park and taking in all the great sights. While the park was mostly covered in snow and ice, it wasn’t nearly as deep or cold as typical years.
We took a bus tour to get a good look at the geology and wildlife around the park.
The next morning we took a walk to catch the park at sunrise.
What an awesome place to visit with spectacular views, lots of geothermal activity and wildlife everywhere.
I started creating a blog post for this trip, the old way. There was so much packed into this trip that I would never get that done. So, I’m going with a different approach to make things go faster.
I have separated the trip into 14 locations (listed below), and each location has its own photo album covering that area. The collection of those photo albums can be found on my Adobe site: Mark Pastor – Morocco. This approach allows me to organize photos as I normally do, in Adobe Lightroom. Then I avoid the next steps of converting them and transferring them to this blog site. Instead, I just link to the Adobe photo albums.
It was a 17-day trip, starting in Casablanca and wrapping up in Marrakesh. We covered a lot of territory visiting many cities and locations during that time. We arranged the trip via Intrepid Travel.
Here is a high level view of the path we followed. (Map courtesy of Intrepid.)
Below is a list of the location/albums, each one links to that respective photo album. These are listed in chronological order of when we visited those locations.
I recently completed this animation from which I learned many new techniques. I needed to create and piece together several small video snippets to get the desired result. I also learned how to use Garage Band, which is how I created the soundtrack.
I tried something new with this one. Most of the animated elements are pixel-based (i.e. paint) rather than vector based (i.e. pen). I really like the effect and will likely do more in upcoming productions.
I hope you enjoy this one. I was also looking for a closing message, and I like what I came up with. This one leaves a lot to personal interpretation.
Today Leslie and I took advantage of the beautiful autumn weather by riding our bicycles on Leadville’s awesome Mineral Belt Trail. It’s a wonderful 12 mile loop at 10,000 feet elevation and you can see the timing was right for fall colors.
I started this one just like the last one. My initial intention was to create something visually appealing on a 4×6 post card. Like before, once I had the initial content created I came up with ideas of where I can add animated features. And that’s how this one was created, once again. The lesson to learn is when I design for a small card the resolution is not good (I.e. get pixilated) on larger screens. Perhaps I will learn my lesson for the next one.
This project started out as a 4×6 postcard, looking for some inspiration on the hearth above my fireplace. Then the urge to add video content took over, and this is the final result. I posted an earlier version on Instagram and Facebook but wanted to fix some shortcomings in this version.
