September 11, 2007-
First, I would like to thank those of you who have already bought calendars (Mom, Dad, Micky: you guys are all awesome!) Second, I would like to gently encourage those of you who have not already bought a calendar for yourself and everyone you know to do so. You know, now.

Third, on a totally different topic, it has somehow escaped my notice for more than a month that Evocations of Absence: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Void States, edited by Paul W. Ashton and with a cover photo by yours truly, is up for sale, both direct from the publisher and (for slightly cheaper) from Amazon! Now, I make no money off of sales from this book, so I won't hit the hard sell on this one, but pick up a copy. It'll make you look smart, and probably makes for some great bedtime reading for the little ones.

In other news, later today I will be flying way the hell over to Sicily for several days, courtesy of my wonderful, beautiful, and loving sister, Kathy, and her husband. If I have my way, you guys will have a huge new gallery to look for in the not-too-distant future, because this will be my first time leaving the country with a digital camera, and I plan on tearing that up.

August 22, 2007-
As you may have noticed from the subtle announcement on the main page, the Varied Perspectives 2008 Calendar is now available!

That's right, the aforementioned secret project has come to fruition, I received the proof copy in the mail two days ago, necessary changes have been made, and it is now available from the good folks at Lulu.com for the low price of $12.99, plus shipping. Included are twelve of my favorite photos, not including the cover, a wide variety of important dates, special events, holidays (both real and imagined), and a small profit for me.

You are, of course, encouraged to buy one for every member of your family as a holiday present, and two for yourself.

In other news, in response to my request for ideas on how to make this site more interesting, I have been told to "update more than once every two months." Yeah? Well... shut up! And go buy calendars.

August 19, 2007-
Once again, long time no see! Yes, I once again put stuff off, and once again have quite the backlog to sort through. If it makes you feel better, a few Important Things kept me busy:

1. Back towards the end of May, I was contacted by the publisher of Spring Journal Books ("the book publishing imprint of Spring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture--the oldest Jungian psychology journal in the world") to ask permission to use my photo "Void" on the cover of their forthcoming book Evocations of Absence: Mulitdisciplinary Perspectives on Void States. I can't honestly say that I know exactly what that means in context, but to me it means the first time I got paid for a picture by someone with whom I was not already friends! Pretty cool. Wanna see? Of course you do.

2. Late in June, Rebecca of Skepchick ran a contest in honor of the late, great Mr. Wizard. Being a fan of Mr. Wizard since I can remember, and currently woking in the field of infomal science education which he essentially invented, I entered. The contest is long since over, and while I made it to the final round, some other worthy jerk won. Here's my entry anyway, for posterity.

3. I've also been working on a SUPER SECRET PROJECT that hopefully I will be able to unveil by next week at the latest. I don't want to say any more about it yet, not until everything is definite, just in case things don't actually pan out.

4. In case that's just too tantalizing for you and you need something to tide you over, This weekend I whipped up a Google gadget that will put one of my pictures on your personalized Google homepage every day (assuming you have a personalized Google homepage, and that I update it properly every week). Enjoy!

Along these lines, I'd like to make other things sort of like this, so feedback time: What else could I provide to make this place more interesting and interactive? Screensavers? High-res wallpapers? Other? Let me know!

May 28 2007-
The Balloon Creations section has been massively rearranged and minorly redesigned because it once again became just too bulky and unwieldy. Since the new sections are divided by themes instead of straight alphabetical order, they have all been cross-referenced to other sculptures of interest that are not actually in that theme. You may notice that the redesign of the Balloons main page sets it apart visually from the rest of the site; this is part of my overall plan for the future of Varied Perspectives. Stay tuned for further instructions.

May 23, 2007-
There we go: new gallery! The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore! Too many pictures to put in the Baltimore gallery, not quite natural enough to go in Nature, so of course it gets its own page in Places. Despite the fact that it was overcast, and a very large proportion of the animals were asleep, I still managed to get some of the best pictures I've gotten in a very long time, owing in large part to the fact that I am making much more use of the wonderful Nikon D70 digital SLR camera pictured with me on the About page. It had originally been on loan from my dad, but he actually told me that I could keep it the night before we went to the zoo. Hopefully, you can look forward to more and more pictures coming from it, and fewer and fewer coming from my more portable but far inferior Konica-Minolta dImage X1. In fact, I have a good number backed up, waiting to be sorted and posted. In addition, there are plans for another photo session with my favorite model, Annelise.

So, lots to look forward to!

May 22, 2007-
Of course, that'll teach me to claim that I might possibly conceivably get caught up on my backlog. Don't worry, in another day or two I plan to post a whole brand new gallery with 39 brand-spanking new pictures. In addition, I have a couple of new but seriously awesome balloon creations that will go up soon.

In other news, I have received word that, after months of waiting, the issue of "The Raven" with my pictures in it will be sent out sometime this week, which means there is still time to sign up to receive it! And, of course, Peter Beagle still needs your help.

Oh! This news item is two weeks old, but this site celebrated its second anniversary on May 8. Much like last year, I was lazy and stuff. At least I finally got that About page up!

All other news items pertaining to possible future major developments on this site remain to be announced.

March 5, 2007-
I am slowly but surely getting caught up on the constantly regenerating backlog of pictures that I've had since this site opened. Perhaps I'll actually be all caught up before too much longer. In the meantime, I've been kicking around a few ideas for how to expand the scope of this site that I may or may not implement. But, knowing how lazy I am, it may not happen for a good while yet, especially since I can only seem to update this site around once a month or so.

On an unrelated note harking back to the previous news item, the issue of "The Raven" in which my pictures appear has not yet come out (as I said, it is published irregularly), so there is still time to sign up for it. In addition, and far more important than my little pictures, Peter Beagle needs your help. Go buy some of his books or of The Last Unicorn movie (all autographed, if you want) from Conlan Press, so that he will get more money, faster. I know I plan on it.

February 5, 2007-
As you may or may not know, The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle is one of my favorite books. This is why, upon posting a picture of a balloon unicorn, I quoted a passage from the book describing the title character (primarily to highlight the difference between his graceful creature and my, um, horned horsey).

So anyway, last week I got an email from Connor Freff Cochran, Peter S. Beagle's business manager. Wait, what? He told me how he loved the balloon unicorn and asked if I would be willing to let them use it in the next issue of Peter Beagle's free newsletter, "The Raven," to which I happen to subscribe. Naturally I said yes, and in a follow-up email he said "if only there were a red bull to match..." So of course I spent the next day designing, building, and (more than you might think) photographing a balloon Red Bull to send him, which he also appeared to enjoy.

Now, "The Raven" is published irregularly, so there's no way for me to tell when the next issue will be, so you should sign up to receive it now. When it does go out, I expect there'll probably be a sudden surge in traffic here, so in the meantime I'm going around, dusting, tucking in the hospital corners, finally getting around to unfinished business, etc. 'Cause company's coming.

Oh, and really, go read The Last Unicorn. Seriously now.

January 31, 2007-
It's been a long time coming, but I don't want to give it a huge build-up.

The About page is now live.

More exciting, super-cool announcements are forthcoming.

Back to 2006