Pictures

Sometimes it’s good to just stop everything and enjoy the moment.

When I have the chance to walk to or from the office, I prefer to walk along a new-ish park that follows the path of the railroad tracks, which haven’t been in use for decades. The city created some lovely green space and it’s worthwhile to enjoy it.

Now imagine this: a light, cool breeze to counter the sun warming your skin; the scent of blooming trees and flowers passing by on the breeze; the lush green as a background for beautiful flowers; and birdsong as background music to the conversations of relaxing people. It would be perfect if we all had pineapple flavored popsicles cooling our tongues (trust me on this one).

When I stop to take these pictures, I make a point of being grateful for experiencing this specific moment.

(I took these pictures at different times of the day over the past few weeks.)

Optimizing

I wasn’t going to bring this up, but my phone froze while I was trying to take pictures in town today. So, like with any computer, turn it off, turn it back on. Then my phone decided to optimize 131 apps. I certainly don’t use 131 apps, do I? Urg. So annoying!!

Optimizing 131 apps apparently takes a REALLY long time. So I stood in the shade with my overheated phone in my hand. Every time I checked, a two or three more apps optimized. Should I just go home and come back later? Should I overreact and throw my phone into a wall? I got a fruity popsicle and calmed down. I decided to walk around while I waited for my phone’s soul to come back from its journey in the Underworld.

Downtown today was filled with students raising money for their various summer camps. It was a mobile bake sale. Religious people were giving away Shabbat candles to women and helping men wrap tefillin. I passed at least five street musician groups in the space of one city block. Every few steps there was a different vibe – oldies, Israeli, Spanish, ballads, and more. Phone still optimizing.

I went into a bookstore and had a revelation. I was browsing and found two books that caught my interest and realized that whatever the algorithm is that brings up ads and suggestions on my computer would have never suggested these books to me. Going out into the world helps me to change the parameters of my algorithm and see things I might not usually see. Staying in and expecting to have my preferences handed to me on a silver platter just encourages me to have selective vision. There’s a whole world of things that I know nothing about simply because I’ve never seen them before and they’re all out there just waiting for me to open my eyes and see them. Whoa!

Finally, my phone apps were optimized and so was I.

Join me downtown!

I don’t know what the municipality has in mind for downtown, but so far I like it! This week the overhead decorations are celebrating different countries and cultures around the world. I’m sure I didn’t find them all, but here’s today’s selection.

Streets of the World

I happened upon some amazing murals down one of the streets.

This is also a good opportunity to share the pictures I took during Passover. The municipality brought artists to the center of town to create 3-D art. Some really worked, others didn’t, but it was fun to go around and discover the artwork. (I needed a map, Google maps with GPS, and two days to find them all.)