Today I arrived at the bus stop to find newspaper all over the ground. My initial thought was “that’s unfortunate.” There are a few little newspaper machines around the bus stop, several of which are free local rags, so this isn’t a completely unusual event. It was colder last night, so I imagine someone used them as blankets and slept on the benches under the shelter. Alpharetta doesn’t have much in the way of homeless, but any sort of shelter and free ‘blankets’ will get found by those who need them on a cold night.

I noticed some of the edges of the papers were charred, so I looked around to see where someone had lit a paper on fire, and found a small, black pile right where the bus stops to load passengers.

I road around on my bike for a little bit, like I always do, slowly circling the area. 7 or 8 other people stood under or around the shelter, waiting for the bus like they do every morning. But I kept thinking about the paper. Not really sure why, perhaps cause it was all over the place, but it being there just sorta annoyed me.

I thought about picking it up, but a few thoughts kept running through my head, giving me pause.
1) If I pick this stuff up, will I look like I think I’m better than everyone here?
2) Are other people not picking it up cause they don’t want to look smug?
3) Is it kinda tragic that many people might want to pick it up, but don’t because they don’t want to look preachy?

That was one line of thought. The other line was more judgmental, thinking that if I had passed this group of people and saw all the paper lying around, I’d think to myself, “Gee folks, not one of you can take 2 minutes and pick up a little trash?” I think like that a lot. It’s one of my least favorites traits.

But how could I think that if I was not willing to pick it up myself?

But then the biggest point: I ride my bike to work every day. If I start picking up newspaper off the ground, am I gonna look like some super tree-hugging hippie? I certainly don’t want that. Plenty of people associate bike riding with dedication to the environment. I do it cause I’m cheap, gas is expensive, sitting in a car for an hour sucks, and riding a bike is fun. Sure, I believe in stewardship, but I’m not gonna stop eating meat and switch to single-ply toilet paper any time soon.

Finally I just thought, “The only way I’m gonna shut my brain up is if I pick this crap up.” So I put my bike against one of the newspaper machines and started picking up paper. I felt like a kid that got pantsed in the lunchroom. I was sure everyone was watching me, and they all knew what my favorite super hero underwear was now. I tried to just get paper around me, like I’m not putting a ton of effort into it. You know, “I’m just doing this ’cause whatever, it’s not like I need to pick up paper.” The same way the cool, mysterious guy is about dating girls.

But the paper was dispersed perfectly to lead me along the entire length of the bus waiting area, picking up every sheet of newspaper. By the end I had a heaping hand full, and I had walked past every person standing there. As I stood up to head for the trash can, an older woman looked at me and said, “That’s so good of you.” My first thought was, “If it’s so good, why didn’t you do it yourself?” Again, quick, judgmental thoughts, not my favorite. I just smiled and shrugged. I was too nervous about how I was being perceived to have anything real to say. My options were “I’m not a crazy tree hugger!” or “I’m just anal, that’s all.” or maybe “If it’s so good, why didn’t you do it yourself?” As you can see, none were good answers, so I’m glad I had enough self control to not say anything. Looking around I saw that the trash can was all the way back by my bike, so I had to walk the gauntlet again, every set of eyes judging my choice of Spider-Man over Superman.

Now, I didn’t post about this to brag or anything. It was a minute and a half of effort, nothing worth even a “that’s so good of you.” I just find it weird that I often find myself over-thinking these kinds of situations. I literally become embarrassed when I want to do something that I think is good. Don’t get me started on offering a woman your seat on the train. You’d think it’s a simple “of course.” Well, trust me, it’s somehow become and incredibly complicated dance that often leaves me feeling like I’ve insulted the woman I was trying to be nice to.

Or I’m just completely insane. That’s always an option too.

posted on 06.30.09 @ 9:36pm
tags:good, hippies, mass transit, neuroses, philanthropy
3 Comments »

Ok, so I’ve been dreading this post. I’ve put it off over and over again. While there’s not a horrific amount of photos to go through, I feel the need to have all the photos, and the most recent videos put all together in one post. And video editing is less than fun. Worst thing about it is it’s like credit card debt, the longer I put it off, the worse it gets. Noah just keeps doing more and more cute things that we just have to video. He’s such a jerk.

I think I’m just going to put off the video. I’ll just make the minimum payment and ignore the growing problem. Here’s hoping stops being adorable.

So, on to the birthday (I can hear Kathie saying, “Finally”. I hate her.) Noah’s birthday party went very well. I heard several people say it was a great party for a 2nd year birthday. Now, it may have been lip service, but it makes sense to me to just take kids to a park and feed them. The less activities I (read ‘Teresa’) have to plan and administer the better.

Not a whole lot of highlights to relay. Everyone had fun playing in the playground, which, again, was the plan. Comma. Sorry mom.

So, PICTURES.

No, we did not use already-burnt candles, Noah just started blowing as soon as the lighter came out. What you see here is the first-lit candle already extinguished. Only one way to solve this issue, really.

As we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ (all rights reserved, copyright 1935, Summy-Birchard Music.) I literally had to deflect Noah’s constant attempts to blow out the candles. The song ended, my hand removed, Noah was free to blow out candles, but then had issues with the second one going out. Not a trick candle, I promise, he’s too young for that kind of evil. Not to say he won’t be old enough soon. But finally…

Awww…look at that smile. Crap. There’s gonna be so much video to edit before I finally get to it.

posted on 06.23.09 @ 10:19pm
tags:birthday, noah, photography
2 Comments »

Apparently I work inside a college dorm room.

posted on 06.17.09 @ 9:43pm
tags:mo, mobile, phot
1 Comment »

Welp, here it is. Only 6 or so months after the last revision, I’ve once again changed the look of tb.com.

This time it came out of sheer frustration with my own disregard for proper web design. You see, when I first launched the blog version of tb.com, I simply hacked apart someone else’s WordPress theme (the files associated with how a blog looks) and altered it to my liking. I went at this knowing nothing about wordpress or the markup used for their themes. I had to teach myself CSS just to get by. So as you can imagine, the resulting website worked, but just barely. I put plenty of effort into you not knowing how shaky it’s foundation really was.

But as time has passed, and I’ve worked on other wordpress blogs, I began to learn more and get a better idea just what was going in inside all those .php files.

Even six months ago, when I altered the tb.com design slightly, I stuck to the original, hacked together layout, doing with it what I could. I didn’t want to redesign the whole thing, but it did need some change.

But a month or so ago I tried to make one small adjustment, changing a link in the header, and found that I couldn’t do it. I have no idea how, but essentially my blog was so fundamentally backwards in it’s construction, I had actually forgotten when there header files where, and was unable to find them. Anyone who knows anything about web design either thinks I typo’d, or their scratching their head at “header files“. You only need one header file. That’s how horrific this was put together.

So, this disgust came conveniently at the same time as I decided to build a new website from the ground up. TonyandJuan.com has expanded to TonyandJuanandAdam.com (coming soon) and I didn’t want to do another tear down of someone else’s theme. So I learned how to build a WordPress blog from the very first file, all the way to what you see here. Well, I learned on what you will see at TonyandJuanandAdam.com in the future, but here’s what I practiced on afterward.

Overall, the functionality of the site is the same, with one small change. The photos ‘page’ is no longer a static page with those scant four galleries. It is now simply a way to find all the photos I’ve posted. It’ll list them with the title of the post they belong to, and they’ll link back to their original post. That’s all really. With that feature I plan to start posting more short-form posts that are picture centric. Like this one. Really it’s best for us both. I still feel like I’m entertaining you, and you don’t have to read so much. That’s a win in my book.

Oh, one more thing that I want to ask of you. I have a tag over there on the right called “classic.” These are posts that I think are the creme of the crop. At least in my eyes. If you happen to find a post that you feel in quintessential tonybullard.com, then please, let me know in the comments. This is for two reasons: 1) this helps me keep my falsely inflated ego afloat. 2) It’s a nice way for new-comers to get an idea of what this site is all about. On rare occasions.

So there you go. New tb.com. And by “new” I mean, “same, but different looking.” So you know, it’s like tb.com got a haircut. Heh, haircuts.

posted on 06.11.09 @ 3:36pm
tags:blog, design
1 Comment »