Scientific reasoning aside, color is my obsession. This is most obvious in my apparel, as I try to incorporate every shade into my wardrobe. No pigment is left behind, except for the (very) few shades that I’ve deemed unflattering, which I can assure you, is far less than my Mother would claim for me. Of course, I prefer some more than others, but as far as I’m concerned, every hue has its own spot on the color wheel, and in my closet.

And what about black? It’s not that I hate it (every girl’s got to have her go-to LBD), I just tend to reserve it for formal occasions or mourning periods, like when the Niners lost the Super Bowl. But don’t even get me started on white. For a sloppy eater, there’s nothing more intimidating than the plain white t-shirt. The only time you’ll see this girl sporting white is on her wedding day, and even then, I’ll have fashioned some sort of bridal bib to protect me during meals. After all, I was a dog once.

From a young age, I became aware of the effects of the chemicals we put in our hair. It became very damaging to it. I’d try many different kinds of shampoos and conditioner to tame my mane. I also visited the hairstylist regularly to help with the weight of my hair and ease the tension on my neck. For this reason, I wore my hair short for many years. Long hair seemed like something I just couldn’t do without any sort of hassle. On the plus side, it cut the time in half that it took for me to get ready in the morning. Still, my scalp was overproducing it’s natural oils that I was too the norm and shampooing daily.Then, it wasn’t until a year ago that I found out about the no poo do method.

The no poo do method allows you to clean your hair without stripping your scalp of its natural oils. In addition, it keeps your hair healthy, shiny and adds the moisture your scalp needs. All it took for me to achieve this was an all natural shampoo bar and apple cider vinegar. Apple cider vinegar also has some excellent benefits on the skin and overall health but we’ll save that for a whole other article. I’ve got some friends to try the no poo method and they are benefitting from it as well. I’ve bid farewell to the conventional shampooing more than a year ago and can easily say this is the healthiest and longest my hair has ever been. The no poo do method has changed the life of my hair.

Whatever it may be, it is nonetheless inspiring to see all these things come together in one place for your viewing. For me, it is an example of design and visuals that are defining the hot trends of right now. It is an easy way for me to think of current design elements and color palettes being used, that way my designs don’t feel dated. I encourage everyone to find a source in which you can reflect on current trends no matter what field of work you are in. It is always easier to start at a base in which you can jump from rather then building one yourself.

By the middle of the first century AD, man’s use of makeup was common practice. The Romans were known to make-up their eyes with kohl, use chalk for whitening their complexion, and rouge for their cheeks.

Even the feared and ruthless Vikings liked to wear make-up as the Arab traveler Ibrahim Al-Tartushi who visited the Viking trading hub of Hedeby in 950AD wrote: “there is also an artificial make-up for the eyes, when they use it beauty never fades, on the contrary it increases in men and women as well.”

In Elizabethan England, people favored a more natural look, with less heavy rouge and lipstick, while in the Regency era, both men and women used rouge heavily. Native American men traditionally painted their faces for ceremonial events or battle.

You see, there certainly is precedence for my behavior. That being said, this is not me waving my metro flag or embracing a new fad. Truth is, it’s a 15-year Dean family tradition where I make my kids give me a mani-pedi – not a regular occurrence for me – for Father’s Day. As a dad, I feel it is my duty to periodically embarrass my kids in harmless ways. Sometimes I’ll wear a stupid T-shirt with cartoon squirrels on it or dark socks with Bermuda shorts or yes, even wear fingernail polish in public.

I have found no evidence of permanent damage. If the kids are honest, they all would admit loving to hate it. The polish wears off in a week or two. All is forgiven and forgotten. The kids won’t think twice until next year, mid-June, when I begin to remind them, “It’s that time of year again.”

As odd as you may think this is, it get’s worse. You should see my toes.

My initial read was “This is kinda fun! It’s a facebook for dummies who don’t want to write anything and just look at pictures!”

Pinterest appears to be a female dominated world. Most of what I saw was; Recipies I’ll never make, Outfits I’ll never buy, Crafts I’ll never make, and Pithy posters that made me chuckle – but not want to buy. From a marketing standpoint I didn’t see much promise. But as I dug deeper I noticed there are so many layers and players.

Among the layers and pages, you can eventually find things that specifically interest you. For me that’s design, photography, architecture, humor and tech gadgets. Soon I began re-pinning things I found on Pinterest, which is like announcing “Hey I like this too, and it defines me to some degree.” Often I even grab something I found on Pinterest and repost it on Facebook.

As far as the players, I’ve noticed many other like-minded pinners out there – some quite serious about what they gather and post. Some with Boards that are very deep (with hundreds of posts on a single subject), others have hundreds of boards on increasingly specific sub-categories. Where I might make a board about photography, they’ve made boards about specific Photographers or styles or techniques.

Pinterest is quite unlike Facebook or Twitter in a few key ways. In my estimation, Twitter is a place to somewhat blindly broadcast very recent happenings and share your opinions on those happenings with the hopes that someone is listening. I believe Facebook is a place to gather with those you already consider friends and share more detailed happenings and interests, and even play games, with people you know are listening. I think Pinterest has found a subculture within Facebook with a dash of Twitter, these are the “creative post-er” or in their world a “pinner”.

Pinners broadcast their likes in a somewhat similar way as Twitter users Tweet, yet they use a medium that is more like Facebook in that you can visually see what it’s about. I believe pictures are more powerful than words, at least on quick glance, and Pinterest capitalizes on this. The striking thing about Pinterest’s approach is that it’s made up of images. That’s it. There’s often more to the story if you click the picture, but the picture has to bring you in. The picture has to “win” your attention.

For me, a visual guy, it’s a fun break from the world of words. But it’s also become a place to peruse some real creativity. I now follow pinners who’ve gathered samples of excellent typography, vintage posters, minimalist product and furniture designers, and some real stunning photography. Most of the creative work I see here is not created by the pinner, but rather work they appreciate. So it achieves 2 goals: promoting someone elses work you appreciate and then allowing you the ego boost of saying “hey I found this and I think it’s cool”. What intrigues me most is that, when I leave, I feel a little more ignited and insipred to be creative.

“With nothing more than hand tools, friends, family and a desire to avoid an expensive, unsustainable home, Simon Dale built his own. As a staunch advocate for low impact living, and with only a meager income, 32 year-old Dale decided to build a home in a hillside in Wales, one that he and his family could own outright and was sustainably hand-built directly in the middle of the forest. The design has an uncanny resemblance to Hobbit homes in the Lord of the Rings films, which has contributed to its rise in popularity…” see full article

Far from the sad puppy that I saw on the kill list back in 2009, Cali now lives a happy and active lifestyle filled with swimming, hiking, squirrels, and lots and lots of love.

before:
video of Cali on YouTube

after: see image above

Reprints of famous and not-so-famous photos, and memorabilia and actually any photo that was ever printed or featured in the pages of the New York Times. This is an overwhelming idea – all of these photos available to buy (and for what purpose?). So, joining all of the other existing photography archives that I know of: Conde Nast Vogue, Vanity Fair, National Geographic and those that I don’t, another plethora of images. So who thought of this business model and how successful is it? We now have millions of photos from the past to enjoy (and purchase) along with our daily dose of Instagram.

http://livelymorgue.tumblr.com/