Meet the Man Who Discovered Lucy
Thursday, April 26, will see the Institute of Human Origins 30th Anniversary Gala Dinner take place at the Phoenix Zoo. This year’s featured speaker will be world-renowned paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, Ph.D., founder of the Institute of Human Origins and the discoverer of the famous “Lucy” skeleton. Read more
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
A few weekends ago I visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson. If you like the Phoenix Zoo and the Desert Botanical Garden, you’ll like this place too, since it’s something like what you’d get if you put the two together, plus added a natural history museum. There’s a lot going on. Read more
Circulating: Unlock Your Closet With Cloth
I recently reviewed an app called Cloth for iPhone.AppStorm that makes it possible for you to save and share photos of your outfits. It’s a great tool to help you remember which of your looks you like best.
For every photo you take, you can assign it to a category, such as Work, Vacation, Evening, Event or Everyday. This means all your work clothes can be found in one (virtual) place, all your vacation clothes in another, and so on. Just think how much easier this could make the task of packing for your next trip. Read more
Whale Watching in Newport Beach
Image via Newport Landing Whale Watching
Over Labor Day weekend, a group of friends and I drove from Phoenix to Newport Beach, Calif., for some ocean time and cooler temps.
Twelve of us stayed in a rental home right on the beach on Balboa Peninsula, where everyone gets around using beach cruisers and longboards, and where you can practically taste the salt in the air. (In a good way.)
One of the (very few) activities I made plans for ahead of time was whale watching, since I’d never been before, and well, being driven around on a boat in the Pacific for a few hours didn’t sound like a bad deal. Read more
Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence, Italy
This is the Basilica of Santa Croce, which my family and I visited it during our trip to Florence. It’s a very complex church, famous for its sixteen chapels (not to be confused with the Sistine Chapel, of course, that would be in Rome) — one of which belonged to the very powerful Medici family — and for the many famous Italians who are laid to rest inside, including Michaelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli and others. Read more
View From Castello di Verrazzano
Photos of Florence and Tuscany will be coming soon, but in the meantime I thought I’d post this teaser. The photo at left is one I took from the Castello di Verrazzano, outside of Florence in the Chianti region. Click on the snapshot for a slightly larger version. Read more
Junks and the Jumbo Floating Restaurant
During my trip to Hong Kong in March, my fellow traveling companions and I took a short sampan boat ride around Aberdeen Harbour.
Two things this particular area of the harbor is well-known for are the Jumbo Floating Restaurant (if you’re a kung fu movie fan, you may recognize it from a few Jackie Chan films) and the “junks” – junk-rigged sailboats that are people’s homes. Read more
Toward Hong Kong
Today I leave for Hong Kong for one week for both work and play.
This will be my first trip to the city — in fact, my first trip to Asia, and words can’t really describe how much I’m looking forward to this experience. Read more
Trove Wallpapers
In my daily meanderings across the internet, I recently came across images of some whimsical wallpapers by Trove that charmed me. Of course, I had to learn a little more about who and what was behind them. (Not the walls, silly. The creative team.) Read more
For When You Miss Paris (or Any Time)
Photo by Yanidel of "Street Photography in Paris" (www.yanidel.com)
I have made it to Paris once, for about a week in 2005. The minute I got there, I knew I was always going to want to return.
Breathtaking in the best possible way, the city offers postcard scene after postcard scene. I couldn’t believe my luck when, just recently, I stumbled upon the website of a street photographer who manages to capture these snapshots so perfectly. Read more
TrekEarth
"Sony Nightshot" by rio_de_janeiro on TrekEarth
There are a lot of good travel photography sites out there (do you know of some? please share!), but I just recently discovered TrekEarth, and I have to say, I like it.
The website’s layout and presentation could be better — its navigation just doesn’t mesh well with my own train of thought, I guess — but I appreciate the quality of photos available for browsing. Sometimes it’s fun (and maybe even necessary, right?) to go on an armchair vacation. Read more
Circulating: Haute Flashes: Kimberly Jarman Photography
In dire need of some professional headshots, I went to the Kimberly Jarman Photography studio in Downtown Mesa last month to determine whether or not I was even capable of taking a good portrait (haven’t had that done since high school senior picture time), and I wrote about the experience for Haute Living Phoenix. Read more
