8 Flights, 5 States, 14 Days

Tending to this blog is a bit like tending to a digital garden.  Weeding, maintainence and upkeep see ideas here bloom like flowers while neglect and long pauses let everything wilt like the plants in my bosses office.  My pause for the last couple weeks was busy with work and family and I just arrived home yesterday.  I’ve been sifting through photos and journal entries I scribbled along the way and reflecting back on the 8 flights, 5 states and 2 countries I passed through for a week of work and a week of family…

The 36 hour layover in Jersey with my Popi and Mother was short and sweet.  I was able to restore my gramps Skype set-up so we’re back on track for video chats.  This makes us both very happy.  Mia came by for dinner which was an extra special treat for me and for her…having a chance to finally meet my mom and gramps she can now place two more pieces of the Beana family-fun puzzle.

Tucson was a great wall of work and I am still digesting a lot of what happened there.  Competitive intelligence, market feedback, design inspiration, walking 17 trade shows, customer visits and some desert air all combined to re-stoke my motivation and get the wheels spinning so I can hit the ground running when I get back to work on Monday.  I worked most hours of most days I was there with some prickely pear mojitos here and there and QT with colleagues and customers who sometimes felt a lot like old friends….The pictures and nitty gritty details are not something I’m gonna share with you here but I will show you a few photos I shot between meetings.  If you’d like to see the whole album of non-working Tucson, click here.

push the button

running with bare feet into the future

prickely pear

2009, it seems, is the year of the desert for me with some arid, contemplation finished in Arizona and the vast, open Gobi in the very near future.  Exhausted from work it was time to head to Ft Myers where the stars aligned and more members of my family were in the same place than at any other time in the last many years.  It was special for me to see my nephews and niece and sister and parents and cousins and aunt and uncle and also a tad overwhelming.  I took enough photos there to fill me up for the next year and a half that I will likely have to go without seeing any of them…here’s a link to the whole album.

Believe me when I tell you I have lots to say about the whole adventure and I may get to that one of these days but for now, I’m just going to share some of my favorite shots from FLA …

I told you I took a years worth of kiddie photos…theres a lot more cuteness where that came from right here.

Now comes sleeps and perhaps tomorrow will see some more stories….