“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.”

Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, 4 March, 1861

There was never such a thing as freedom of speech. In order to speak freely you had to have access to a printing press, a newspaper, a radio or a TV station. And everywhere you had to get past the editors. Only an elite ever did ? the articulate and well-behaved representatives of ordinary people. But ordinary people themselves never had a chance to speak publicly.

Not until now. Today the Internet revolution ? led by a ragtag army of bloggers ? has given us all a chance to be irreverent, blasphemous and ungrammatical in public. We can reveal secrets, blow whistles, spill beans, or just make stuff up.Of course the old elites don’t like it. Of course they really, really hate it. Blogs are shut down left, right and center, and bloggers are silenced, reprimanded and fired from their jobs. Suddenlymodern liberal society reveals a repressive face few of us knew existed.

Should we behave ourselves? Should we fall silent? Hell no! Let’s call them on their hypocrisy. Let’s demand that modern liberal society lives by the principles it claims to embrace. Bloggers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your gags.

I am not a good photographer and realize I’ll never make a living at it, and really don’t want to. I don’t take photos to be popular, famous, or even cool. I take photos because I love doing it. I like the photos and my family may like some so to me that’s what is important. I’m a Christian and believe “to each their own. “What goes around comes around” has always held true with me.

I’m happily married with 2 awesome boys. I’m friends with young, old, male, female, mixed, photographers. If I comment of your photo it’s not because of who you are it’s because I like your photo(s).

I take a lot of photos because I don’t discriminate on what I’m shooting. I might take a photo of my dog, tree, ferret, flower, kids, young people, old people, bugs, whatever I see. I’d like to think of being a swimsuit photographer but it’s not me. I ride a motorcycle and stop when I want to take a picture, or to eat (which usually comes first). LOL When I have to take photo because I have to, I’ll quit.
Some people ask, have you read the owner’s manual of your camera… duh NO! Only sissy do that right? I have read a couple photography manuals, and yes I’ve read through the manuals. I play with Photoshop CS4, with a few nice plug-ins. I have a DSLR Canon XT, Canon 770IS for my pocket camera, and my old trusty Olympus C5050 WZ. Oh I also have a Flip Mino HD but it doesn’t get much use but it’s nice to have. You’ll typically never catch me without a camera in hand or pocket.

You may take better photos than I do but are you having FUN doing it? It’s not about the quality of photos but the smiles per photo.

I love to read, play on the internet (flickr), and watching movies (preferably Sci-Fi), riding motorcycles, and seeing whatever there is to see. I love anywhere NEW that I haven’t been before.

When was the last time you simply stared at a tree, a cloud or a flower without trying to analyze or understand, instead just being glad that they are? Notice the world around you, especially the small things you’ve been overlooking since childhood.

*  What odors can you smell around you at this moment? Can you push past the coffee machine, the new furniture smell and notice other less invasive odors? Is there a plant near you perhaps, or a lovely perfume lingering on the air? At lunchtime, go for a walk and smell the fragrances of the local streets, a park, the waterfront. Focus on your sense of smell.

*  What can you see? Not just the cubicle walls and your neighboring co-workers. Can you see the sky, see across a street, or see a beautiful plant in the office? Can you see beyond what is in front of you to things that really matter to your mind?

*  What can you sense? The hum of machines, the working of other people, the vibrations of other people’s thoughts?

*  What can you touch? What textures, patterns and surfaces around you awaken a new approach to seeing your daily seat and desk? Find something new about the usual dullness you feel confronted by.

Too often we are so preoccupied with the destination, we forget the journey.

Have you ever sat at your desk and thought… wow, life is so short, what am I doing here? I’m sure we all have but you never do anything about it…

Try to take a slightly different view. In changing your perspective, you can begin to see adventure, even the ability to create adventure, in that very daily routine of life. While there is nothing wrong with harboring the dream of the grand adventure, in the meantime, life still remains to be lived. How do you make an adventure out of it? How do you go about creating adventure from your everyday life? When we figure out that our life becomes one big adventure.

Trips do not end when you return home–usually this is the time when in a sense they really begin.  –Agnes E. Benedict