This is a photo of a great horned owl at the Cameron Zoo in Waco, Texas. The ultraviolet lights were on at the time.

It’s a brilliant zoo. Definitely much more than was expected for Waco (no offense). Lions, tigers, elephants, rhinoceroses, giraffes, orangutans, jaguars, an ocelot, crocodiles and three Galápagos giant tortoises — it’s pretty awesome. They’ve got a 50,000 gallon saltwater reef aquarium featuring fish native to the Flower Garden Reef in the Gulf of Mexico.

Absolutely worth the drive from Austin.

The above photo was taken June 2010 in Waco, Texas. See it here in my Flickr photostream.

This is an awesome visual exploration of the physical environment of New York. The City We Imagined / The City We Made Includes the Bronx, Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn and Manhattan. This is the sixth in an ongoing series of Architectural League exhibitions about contemporary architecture in NYC.

This installment is part of a larger exhibition on view until June 26th in SoHo, NYC.

The above photo was taken November 2009 in NYC. See it here in my Flickr photostream.

Since re-launching this blog last year with an emphasis on visual work, I’ve been concentrating a bulk of my energy on growing and succeeding in my design business. To that end, I’ve been thinking and learning a lot about workflows (design-specific and business-specific), processes and planning methods.

Yesterday, I watched a video of a lecture on Time Management by Randy Pausch that he gave at the University of Virginia a few years ago — I watched his Last Lecture when it became available on iTunes last year and read his book of the same name over Christmas. (Start at 7:30 in, if you want to skip the introductions.) To listen to a man who has a few months left to live talk about time management is, to say the least, inspiring.

One of the many things that hit home for me was when Pausch talked about the importance of having a systemic solution for time management. He said, “[A] solution that says, ‘I’m going to fix things for you in the next 24 hours’ is laughable, it’s like saying, ‘I’m going to cure hunger in Africa in the next year.’” He talks about needing to think long-term and to change fundamental underlying processes because, let’s face it, we just have too many things to do and not enough time to do them.

I’ve also been working through David Allen’s management method outlined in Getting Things Done. And while there’s some merit to his logic, it’s just a bit clunky and regimented for my own purposes.

At Keller Williams, everyone had weekly 411 meetings — this was where we met with our supervisor or team to discuss our goals for the week, these then rolled up into that month and for that year (four weeks, one month, one year). It’s important to distinguish that these were not to-do lists but larger ambitions.

After working with this in my work life for three years, I still don’t know how effective it was but I do recognize that it set a habit, an intention to focus on particular aspects of my job.

What did I learn? I think I learned a lot about bigger picture thinking but I also learned that it’s good but doesn’t always help in the GTD process. And in keeping sight with my own work, I always thought there should be alternate time lines — this month, a month away, two months away and someday/maybe as well as some tie-in to a to-do list. It was about a year ago that I left KW so what now?

Well, I spent some time before and after SXSW Interactive looking into different programs which tap into several arenas with which I am familiar — iPhone, 37 Signals’ Basecamp and Backpack, Remember the Milk, Things, Omnifocus, Todoist, Vitalist, Gmail tasks, even creating a private Wordpress install for project management. Keep in mind that the goal is to help simplify my life, not to tack on another system to gum up the works. And I just don’t know, everything works to some extent but it’s just not quite there.

I know that I need three systems — one, a list of to-do’s for my own time and task management; two, a project management system that my clients can look at, check in with, measure progress and provide feedback to me; and, three, a billing program.

FullClip Creative already uses Basecamp and so I’m going to start there, commit to it, using Encamp for my iPhone sync. I have a product by Market Circle called Billings that I’ve used off and on for my invoicing. And that’s where I’ll start. Let’s call this implementation phase one.

(I took the above photo of Polly Jean six years ago or so, just after rescuing her from the Town Lake shelter. Seems like a million years ago but she’s hardly aged a day. Though she’s become less destructive and a bit more bossy.)

Friday night, I went to what might be the best show of the year. It was at Elysium, yeah Elysium. Astronautalis, who’s been described by All Music Guide as “if Beck were a decade or so younger and had grown up more heavily immersed in hip-hop,” played opener to the Paper Chase, my favorite Kill Rock Stars band right now.

Astronautalis had a great show, doing two freestyle numbers, where he solicits elements from the audience and he makes up the song/story/lyrics on the spot with those pieces. I heard a lot of stuff from his new record (“Pomegranate”) as well as from “The Mighty Ocean and Nine Dark Theaters.” Andy really cut his teeth doing battle rapping back in the day and his show Friday was proof positive of that. What am I saying? Any one of his shows demonstrates that. So damn good.

The Paper Chase, this was the first time I saw them and they didn’t disappoint. John Congleton is a monster on-stage, buzzing with nerves and tension unable to stand still. I generally don’t have much of an opinion about Dallas (no offense) but if this band is an indicator of what this city holds musically, I should give ‘em another listen. Yeah, the whole city. The four piece was tight, thrumming with jagged precision. Visually, the bassist Bobby Weaver gave me some of the best pictures, with his intense beard, height and unassuming glasses.

See the rest of the photos here.

Some peeps and I went to Marfa for Chinati Art Weekend and El Cosmico. Part for the weekend getaway of it, part for the art, part for a pre-birthday and pre-wedding celebration. It was rad.

See the complete Flickr set here.

Jungle smut-core, say it with me. Jungle smut-core. That’s what Austin band the Laughing is calling their sound for their new EP, Jungle, and I say it’s brilliant.

Their last album — Tiger Cry — is a bit moody with the baritone sax and the angular riffs but it’s compelling nevertheless. Like Morphine meets Clap Your Hands Say Yeah meets Dan, the lead singer from Wolf Parade. But this new album, talk about a step forward — they sound more confident, strolling though the halls of their school with a strut, the myriad of instruments don’t sound as though they’re competing for the same corner office and Logan Middleton’s vocals have hit an easy stride. It’s solid, it’s like a war cry, like they’re out for vengeance. From what I’m not sure, but it’s a great ride. (Pictured above is Grant Van Amburgh, the drummer, during their performance at their cd release party Friday at Club Deville. He’s a tremendous talent and he’s got a great freakin’ moustache.)

Click over to see other pictures I took from that night, including Bryan Keplesky painting a mural of cd sleeves (300 or so):

• my Flickr set
• Buy their EP from their label web site — the first 200 or so feature the artwork created Friday night

If you missed ‘em, they play again this Saturday at Beauty Bar with label mates Car Stereo (Wars).

Such a stellar show. “We got so high that the audience looked just ants, I woke up with a backstage pass in my pants,” that’s what it felt like. I was a hoarse, hot, sweaty mess by the end.I told John, Emily and Robert at Jackalope before the show that if the band didn’t play “How a Resurrection Really Feels,” I would jump up on stage and punch the Craig Finn in the face. lucky for him, they played it in their second encore. and I’m not that kind of guy.

• audio from show: Taped and transferred by Lee Hart
• photos: http://flickr.com/photos/skipperchong/sets/72157606597848009/

You can now see our entry for the 48 Hour Film Festival, “Dial ‘P’ for Party, here. We won best costumes, which is fine — but I think we were robbed. It was a good time making it nevertheless.

Shooting the kids was the biggest challenge, they also got a car mount for Sunday and the guys also shot with a Red Rock adapter. So crisp, you can even see that on the optimized version posted online.

On the same tip, check out this film. It’s called “skate” is a short video shot with a RED camera, which employs a “35mm cine sized sensor … with wide dynamic range and color space in 12 bit native RAW.” So pretty.

Sure, summer’s big time in these parts, but nothing helps keep the heat at bay better than an ice cold can of the National Beer of Texas.

This year, I spent the 4th of July in Dripping Springs at Will’s family’s place. That’s Polly Jean’s mouthy mouth. (Yes, I know. She’s cute.)