Hubris

Six letters, heavy word. A friend dropped it on me today.

The footnote when I read the classics in college, dubbed hubris "overweening pride."


It was the downfall of lots of Greek guys who were greater than I can ever hope to be. Heroes. Warriors. Kings.


But I guess that doesn't make me exempt.


I had written a friend, thinking she might enjoy my blog.

She wrote: "I saw it once... I'll be truthful.... I feel some personal things don't need to be put out there on the internet where they could hurt people. It's a bit too much hubris for my taste."

Whew! Got it. I thanked her for being straight with me. Whew!
My brother had me read Boomeritis. Is there a theme going here?


(Full moon in Aries tonight. Good time for starting new things, turning over new leaves.)


I looked at my blog again, and she has a point. One could easily get the impression from it that I'm pretty self satisfied, even smug. And there are those I've encouraged to read the blog who, I can now see, may be hurt by some parts. Hmmmm. Sorry. Really. And please, forgive me for being insensitive.

Guess I hadn't thought it through. Guess I'll think it through.


One thing I'm going to do right away. I'm going to rewrite my Bio. If you're reading this, it's changed.


We'll see if I do. :-/

Who is this masked man?

Haunted

I had a terrible scare this morning... I opened up the Haunted House Flash file (that I've put at least 20 hours into)...




and the only thing there was the parchment graphic I created yesterday to go under the event info... and no way to access anything else that might be there.

Worse: I hadn't backed up the file!

I tried several things, and nothing worked. Finally, in desperation, I exported the file as a movie... and could tell that the whole piece was running behind the graphic.

So I eliminated the parchment from the library... and it was totally there. Whew!

I reimported the parchment and placed it. And backed up the file onto the server.

How'd it happen?

Gremlins have been blamed.

Senseless

My friend Dave Kelly called me yesterday as L. and I were editing wedding pictures.

I could hear in his usually well-modulated voice some anger, frustration and some sadness.

Someone had just stolen two of the three really nice aluminum signs that I'd designed and had Kinko's print for him. They were stolen from the intersection of Sandario and Orange Grove.

Man, I get his anger and frustration, don't you?

Dave and Karen have a really nice small business, selling well-loved trees and other plants at prices even L. and I can afford. They're dedicated (by motto, even) to service and quality and education. And they live what they believe.

They're not rich, they live in small place in the middle of their nursery, and they have two kids. They're hard-working, honest people making a living by delivering quality, education and service. I think I can say that they want to make the world a better place, to assist people in having Better Lives Through Plants. Really.

And yesterday someone made off with the signs between 3:00-4:00 p.m. Dave knows this, because he learned years ago to leave nothing on that intersection overnight. So he went to bring in the signs at 4 o'clock.... and they were gone. A friend of his says they were there when he drove by about 3.

These aren't the first signs that have been stolen from them. Dave says any time he's put anything nice down there, it's disappeared.

You feeling the anger and frustration yet? How dare someone do that? I'm angry and I'm frustrated!

Then, I can relate to the sadness, too.

For me, it would be because Life isn't fair and some people aren't nice, and, by golly, it should be and they should be, no matter what anyone says. Maybe that's just me.

So, now what? Dave says the local police won't do anything. He can't afford having the signs reprinted only to have them disappear again.

He's thinking of reverting to the handmade signs he's so meticulously lettered in the past. He's also considering adhesive letters. Or he was telling me about some old guy who hand-letters cheap signs onto postboard, not really caring about how they look. They're crap, but he's very prolific.

Personally, I don't think Dave could handle turning out much less than the best he can do.

She da one

So, this is one of 1241 pictures Lisa and I took at Debbie and Eric's wedding at La Mariposa. We worked Friday from 2:40 to 10:20 p.m.

Wow, the Big Guy loves that woman. He looks like he's not even touching the ground! It's such a blessing that they found each other.

The wedding was fabulous, a great party, even though L. and I were working. Dream setting, intensive planning, and great people who mostly behaved themselves. :-) It was casual and elegant at the same time. What fun everyone had. There are lots of pictures I'll Web publish soon. Promise.

Hey, Debbie and Eric: Mozoltov!

IN RELATED NEWS: The Arboretum was temporarily closed Saturday, as Lisa and I stashed ourselves away with iPhoto, Photoshop and 1200+ pix, for a marathon edit. We worked pretty steadily from 10 a.m. to 9:15 pm, when we hopped into my car and drove to Debbie and Eric's open house carrying some prints and two hot-off-the-burner DVDs. We just made it in time to put the goods into their hands.

We missed food and drink though, as they were just closing down the Clubhouse. So I drove us to La Parrilla Suisa for dinner. We'd worked all those hours together, two creative artists with strong opinions, and were still delighted to be together. And then we came home and Lisa gave me a full body massage.

You know what? For me, she da one.

The last work sunset, really

I was in working early Tuesday, so I left the building 15 minutes early last night.

What a fabulous sunset!

Hieroglyphics

This is my friend Eric Peery. He works with Lisa at Access Tucson. The first plant named at the Arbor-etum was a saguaro named after The Big Guy.

And he's getting married today.

I took this picture Wednesday night at his "Guys Night Out" Party.

Eric's a good guy. One of the reasons I know he is, is that Wednesday night he sat next to the first kid he met in first grade... who said he was. And is.

Bunches of Eric's childhood buddies were there: David and Bubba, and Mitch, Ricardo, Paul and Jim to name a few. And his big brother and his nephew. And Brian and Don, friends met through Access Tucson.

Eric told a story about everyone there, and then had us tell stories about him. It was warm and funny and mythic. All we lacked was the campfire.

The Arboretum wishes him and Debbie every good thing.