2013 National Geographic Photo Contest

"Although this woman stood at the center of a jam packed train, the warm glow from her phone tells the strangers around her that she's not really here. She's managed to slip away for a short moment - she's a node flickering on the social web, roaming the earth, free as a butterfly. Our existence is no longer stuck to the physical 'here'; we're free to run away, and run we will." - Brian Yen, regarding his submission to the 2013 National Geographic Photo Contest.

See more submissions here. (Put down your mirrorless camera and start uploading, rocky; the contest closes today at 11:59:00 p.m. EST.)

Happy Birthday, rocky dennis!

I wish I were there with you to celebrate!

The Portable Rex Otto?

Not as lovely as an Airstream, but possibly cuter and certainly less expensive: The Cricket pop-up trailer created by a former NASA designer.

Read more about it here.

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Road to Burma

Well, rocky has talked to a couple Clockers about traveling to southeast Asia this year. The nexus seems to be Burma (or as FB prefers to call it Myanmar, although I always thought it sounded like a nonsense word spoken while eating taffy or peanut butter).

The country beckons. Their recent democratic reforms merit the grace of our presence. What say you, Burmese Summit in 2013? The best time to go in terms of weather is November through April. If we can work out a mutually agreeable schedule, it should be Serious Fun (trademark pending). Time to get cracking on the visa applications and shopping for a saffron robe. (You don't have to be a monk to wear one, do you? They look so cool and comfortable.)

rocky adopts a child

When I turned 16 my father called me into his study for a talk. This talk was more serious than most. It was a moment that colored my view of the world for the rest of my life. In this talk, at a time when I was two or three steps from the gate of adulthood and forming a secure sense of who I was, my father revealed to me that he had bought me for two dollars from a baby-seller on the black market. You can guess how devastating this news was to me, more devastating than any article that could have been in the issue of U.S. News and World Report that my father turned to after he dropped the bomb on me. Apparently he wasn’t taking any questions.

I returned to my room, flopped on the bed and stared at the ceiling, which was how I spent most of my teenage years. But instead of the usual thoughts of the meaning of Fleetwood Mac lyrics swimming through my head, I was swamped by feelings of bitterness and worthlessness. When I calmed down and started to digest the news in a more-or-less rational way, I thought to myself, two dollars was a lot of money back then, a lot more than what two dollars is worth now. Immediately, my self-esteem started to return.

Fast forward several years. Now as a man I adopted my own child. I found him homeless and living in a shop in a sketchy part of town. I convinced the shopkeeper, his de-facto guardian, to sell him to me for two dollars. It’s been the best two dollars I’ve ever spent. (I hope my parents felt the same way about me.) The child’s name is Trent, but I’ve decided to call him Ricky. I feel closer to him by calling him Ricky. When he reaches five-foot, five inches in height, I’ll start calling him Rick. Ricky just doesn’t sound like a name for someone who’s taller than 5’-5”.

When I found Ricky, he was wearing a black football jersey. In fact, he’s always wearing that jersey. Football is his passion. So the first thing I did was sign him up to play in the local Pee Wee League. He seemed so happy playing in his first game. Never mind that he fumbled the ball twice and ran the wrong way on the field about half the time. In fact, Ricky was the single biggest reason his team lost the game. I wanted to point this out to him. I don’t believe in all this everybody-is-a-winner lie that parents tell their kids. It doesn’t really prepare kids for the real world, which, face it, ruthlessly divides people into winners and losers. So I was prepared to point out everything he did wrong to Ricky after the game so he could learn from this experience. But when I saw his beaming smile, I didn’t have the heart to tell him about all his mistakes. I just patted him on the head and said, “Way to go, tiger!” The cold truth will have to wait.

(Note: The label Serious Fun is a pending trademark of rocky dennis, llc.)