The Intangible Benefit of Giving

In my last post I said I would write a poem each night throughout April. Turns out I write best when the incident or reason is recent and raw. So when the following happened last night, I wrote out the details during the train-ride home. Tonight, rather than poetry, I am writing a short story. Like any good short story, both the middle and the end relate to the beginning.

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I gave about $5 to a homeless guy about 7pm last night, almost by accident. He quietly shuffled beside me as I was waiting the the North Terrace tram-crossing. There was I dressed in my corporate attire, and him wearing a combination of various attires.

“Hey Buddy, can you spare a few dollars. I need something to eat.”

I looked at him, looked at my new Crumpler bag – then reached in and brought out my coin-bag.

“Put out your hand. Whatever falls out is yours.” … I poured out almost $5 in silver coins.

He was happy, and I must admit to feeling quite proud of myself. I give as often as I can, because NOW I can. I don’t earn a lot, but I remember when I earned a heck of a lot less.

I remember the time in my life when…

• … unemployment-benefits was my main source of income – for almost eight years!
• … the fortnightly payment being just enough that the bank would fine me for having so little in my account. I thought I would never win.
• … eating 5-minute noodles every night of the week, and sometimes for breakfast. At COLES, the more you buy, the less you pay. Bulk prices rock!
• … I was invited to go scrounging in a COLES dumpster with a guy who claimed you can find amazing stuff or expired cans of food! You can, but you don’t want to keep nor eat it. (And the best I ever found was a miniature pine Xmas tree.)

Yet when I had next-to-nothing, I still managed to push myself every day. I found a way to get a cheap jacket, pair of slacks, shoes, shirt, and brief-case so I could look decent each day when I visited the job-centre looking for that illusive job. The brief-case rarely had anything in it – except my ever-growing CV and a bottle of water.

I was invited to atend all the free training and courses available at the Commonwealth-employment-service: clerical, computing, retail. Some proved superfluous before the ink dried on the certificate. I attended interesting finance courses. Futures marketing is most interesting when geeks with worse suits sit than me .

And in the end I got offered a 3 week temp job with a government department. I am now a 14-year veteran. After 13years of doing an interesting variety of duties within 3 roles, I now have a job that challenges me, actually enables closure of some of my tasks (whereby I can say at the end of a day or week that something actually changed because of my suggestion, teamwork or autonomous work/input).

So every so often I give of myself.
I give up 5 hours a fortnight to the govt, and I don’t care. Sometimes a job just has to get done.  I give a free smile and ‘Hello ‘ to anyone who serves me Coles where I used to buy my $10-pack-of-5 noodles. And when I am somewhat-sure the money isn’t going to buy drugs, I give a homeless guy money for dinner.

The Beginning of a Poet, Again

Upon discovering that Mike Hopkins is following the example set by Jennifer Liston to post a new poem every day throughout April, I decided I’d like to follow suit.

UPDATE (15 April 2012):
I am delaying this project until October 2012, when I get my new computer.

Yes, I am a poet. Have been for almost thirty years. I don’t publicise this fact all that often, and I haven’t published any of my work. At least not yet.

Ok, that’s not quite true. I’ve compiled all my poems into book-format. Did that about 18 years ago. Back in the late 1980′s, I hand-typed them all. In the early 90′s I spent hundreds of hours typing them into computers and saving to floppy disc drives. In the late 90′s and early 00′s I then saved them to multiple CD’s.

I even followed advice given by the SA Writers Centre many years ago to mail to myself, but not to open the mail. Thereby giving a stamped date to prove I was the writer and owner of the work, only to be owned in a court of law. This is the reason why I continually choose not to publish online. Because, seriously, who wants to go through the hassle of proving to be the writer of text you hold near and dear?

I wrote a lot to express moments of my life, to display the inner workings of my mind, and to vent issues that have annoyed me over the years. A few are about happiness, others about time spent trying to become a church-goer, plus a few are about finding and losing myself. A great many are about love, both the gain and the loss. And a portion are simply cryptic interpretations of life, the universe and nothing important.

But I let it all slide away many years ago. Life took over, I got a job, I found someone willing to marry me and my twisted complex mind, and I turned toward a corporate working life.

These days I mostly use my photography to stay sane and to remember moments of my life that mean a lot to me, much the same way I used poetry all those years ago.

Which means I have a huge backlog of written-work that I may consider posting online. Personally, I’d like to skip all this and move to straight to publishing a book. Much of my poetry has been read by a woman who has not only published a few of her books, she has written biographies for my father’s grandparents, plus has worked with the SA Writers Centre – and continually wonders when I will take the next step.

Before I do anything else, I’m looking for your thoughts:

Should I post them individually as
~ text;
~ PDF’s; OR
~ or as an image? (which means I screen-dump the text and save as JPEG’s then display within separate posts.)

How do you post your poetry online, and how should I present mine? Feel free to respond here, upon Facebook, even Twitter. Or chat with me tomorrow night (3rd April 2012):

Friendly Street Poets Presents – 36th Annual Anthology Launch

Venue: Malcolm Reid Building
Address: SAWC, 2nd Floor Atrium, above Cafe Brunell, East Rundle Street, Adelaide, Australia

Lunch with Mentors = Motivation & Money

Mellissah Smith has written a great post with which I wholeheartedly agree : Never Eat Alone

The best line from the article is…

A lunch date with someone can change your outcomes.

I find that lunch with friends is often a simple way to get motivated. Being able to talk through one’s ideas, thoughts and any general chit-chat is a great way to both vent one’s mind and then refresh and rebuild.

I take every opportunity to have lunch with a local entrepreneur whom I call my ‘mentor’ (though he doesn’t really know that).

We use the opportunity to share our current and future goals, then discuss where things might be modified or amended. If the opportunity arises or is deemed necessary, we combine forces to complete ideas.

So I agree with the sentiment that lunch equals money, but I primarily use the time to stay motivated!

That being said, I also enjoy quiet time to mull over ideas. Not mull in a bad way, but so as to think through new ideas to determine if they are cost effective, ethical (and I mean in line with both my own ethics plus to some degree what society deems morally acceptable) and what I really want to do.

Being able to step out of oneself to see the ramifications of a new venture is always important. Asking yourself if you really want to do a thing is vital when in the startup stage; There is nothing worse than being halfway through a project to discover that the result is not what you had in mind at the beginning.

That’s my two cents for the day. Check out Mellisah’s site, she has many articles worth reading! This is one that has reminded me to stay motivated!

Getting more Photo Opportunities!

Amused with myself and life. I said a few days back that I would have a photographic-hiatus for the next 12-18 months, all while our first child grows up. Yet it appears that cannot happen, or may not start for a while.

Read on to discover how busy my photo-calendar is right now:

1. Last night I had such a great time shooting people at the Hotel Richmond that I’m keen to do more event and people photography.

Having the opportunity to compose and shoot photographs of people (mostly) willing to stand still for a few moments is a lot of fun.

Being able to chat, laugh, and get people whom I’ve never met before to smile perfectly for a seemingly candid photograph seems to be quite easy for me – and I never knew I had that in me!

Yeah, some days I am extroverted, some days I am shy. But with my camera in my hand, I am in my element.

2. A month ago I was asked if a few of my photos on Flickr could be used in a book for the ‘South East City Stories Project’. I agreed.

The book is being launched next weekend at the ‘Box Factory Community Centre’. To which I have been invited to attend. Yes, same place and time as the Cupcake Camp Adelaide ! Going to be a good night.

3. I have been asked to shoot a wedding for some new friends whom I only met a few months ago – in Aug/September 2014. (Date at last correspondance with client, so it may come forward.) I’m looking forward to it, they are nice people so it will be fun to organise and shoot lots of different styles of

So much for having a photo-hiatus. But I don’t mind. Being able to hold a camera in public is not only fun, it is good for the soul. Or at least it is for me.

Photographs at the Adelaide Clipsal500 2012

Have you seen my photographs from day 1 and 3 of the 2012 Adelaide Clipsal500? I didn’t shoot as many as I have done in previous years.

I feel they didn’t have enough for the average punter who wanted to eat and go on show-rides, or check out the various car-brand marquees. There was about 3 big show-rides and throughout the entire open area I traversed three foot-bridges (that I recall) that led me between the many coffee, meat and cold drink stalls.

Whilst those that bought grandstand and corporate tickets might have thoroughly enjoyed themselves, the thousands of spectators I saw standing at 3metre high fences were lucky to catch glimpses of car-races. There was more spoken-noise coming from the few mega-speakers strapped to the fence than there was car-noise coming from the track. I recall standing in the shade of ugly seating listening to commentators, for over 30minutes, discuss the activity in their compere-box rather than the action on the track. I eventually walked away asking myself what I had paid for!

I tried to stay for the evening concerts, but at the times I left the encaged parks both the weather and the atmosphere had gone stale. I was going to stay for the INXS concert on Saturday night, but at the first hint of rain I decided to get my camera-equipment out of danger. Pity, because I heard the rain stopped.

Yet I didn’t leave empty handed. Check out a few of the many photographs I shot throughout the day. Where I couldn’t find sufficient breaks in the mesh-fencing, I manually focused on the tarmac beyond and swept my camera as the cars flew by. Thankfully, said with tongue in cheek, I captured the cars a few times. Hope you enjoy, check them out below:

Again, check out my full collection of Clipsal photographs within my Flickr Gallery. You can also view a few that I liked so much that I have added them to my Redbubble photo collection.

The Value of Social Connectivity

I don’t post comments/responses on other blogs as often as I should. Tonight I found an article where I found myself agreeing so much with the writer that I felt it important to respond.

Nothing bad, I totally agreed with the article. Check out what I wrote. Respond if you feel the same or otherwise.

LinkedIn and the Meaning of Connections « PR and the Social Web.

Oh, wait, my comment may not appear straight away. It’s being moderated by the writer. If it doesn’t, no matter, the article is still worth reading.

All Within Three Months

One month from now, the most amazing change in 15 years will happen in our house.
Three months from now, the first will pale into comparison as the most amazing event in 43 years will happen.

What?

1. New bathroom, laundry and ensuite. I’ll then be able to have a bath – for the first time in over ten years! Photos will be supplied when completed. I expect they will blow your minds.

2. A baby. Without a doubt, this will blow my mind, my budget, and everything in between. Yes, photos will be supplied.

Relatively speaking, nothing else matters.

So I may not post as often between now and then. When I do, it will relate more to baby’s and associated subjects.

PS: The child in the photograph is one of my gorgeous nieces.