Wordless Wednesday.

Back in time.

One of the more thrilling things about coming home again, even when you no longer live there (and, in this case specifically, I never did), is that you have the opportunity to re-discover pieces of your past. I mean, I've known we had stacks and stacks of photo albums from my mom's growing up years and many more of our years together. I've known that. What I didn't know is that we had a working scanner that my mom scored for a whole nine bucks or something. I also didn't know we had this Polaroid.

I see so many things in it. Others will say "You look so much like your father," whereas I see an older sister who looked like her fifth and youngest daughter. She's practically her twin. I see a (then) proud, young dad of two standing on an unknown street in Fortuna, California. And, if you're my mom, you see this with different eyes altogether. When she saw it, she simply said: "See? You want me. You're reaching out to me."

I can't quite stop looking at it.

Merry Christmas.

Go listen to this Christmas radio goodness of a show I put together for KRCL this week. Click HERE. Pardon any mistakes on account of faulty equipment or general awkwardness. After all, it's the first time I'd done it since February. True story. And, hey, check out some holiday Devil Whale goodness, too!

The power of inspiration.

This happens to be one of the coolest things I've ever seen our small band of designers do (and not just because my back and beard and loft are in it, either). Sometimes I get to see real magic created at my job, from the beginning (brainstorming and storyboards) right through to the end (weeks and hours of edits and effects), and the end result, well ... it sorta blows minds. Mine being one of them. I brag on them. This is a brag. Braggity brag brag. But go ahead and look and see and judge for yourselves, eh?

Running down a dream.

Today isn't the right day for me to feel entirely optimistic about running all the way from Miami to the Florida Keys next month. The trail run yesterday, while all kinds of lovely (deer and trees and monster-sized pine cones and sand under my feet), has me feeling like I've been run over. And yet! Not having to pay for my way in, being sponsored by the company I work for, taking a road trip with some of my favorite people and getting to run on bridges and next to ocean water and more? All of that will keep me going. So will this video featuring Santa Claus. Ho, ho, ho, indeed!


A Runner's High by Ben Redmond from Mishmash on Vimeo.

Good day, sunshine.

I made a decision last Sunday to take better advantage of this place I get to live in. That, and I wanted to have a good start to my week on the following day. So, I got up when it was still dark outside and drove an hour to the coast to see the sun come up. Just me, some birds and some shells. Yes, it was cold and I couldn't really feel my fingers until about 30 minutes later, and, yes, it was a lot earlier than I'm used to. That aside, I'm glad I did it. And, once it gets a little warmer, there will be more of this. Lots more. Because life really is too short.  

Necessary Kevin Bacon commerical break.

Chilled, not scarfed.

How sweet a thing it is to live inside the sweater weather. It’s easy to take for granted, the days when what you wore morphed so easily into the patched, frayed jeans, the T-shirt by that one band you loved (even do now) and the V-neck sweater, preferably blue or brown, owning up to a tag bragging “100% lambswool” and smelling inexplicably of cedar. Everything else was an addition to that loosely assembled perfection, whether it was the fingerless gloves, the neck scarf it took a full year and a sales associate to fold properly.


You may have 10 years inside that kind of sweatered weather lifestyle, when you can’t help but look fondly toward it in the heat of summer. But, on that 11th one, you may wake up with a closet full of the sweaters, the black ones you could never get enough of, the cable knit, one-button one (it so thick, others would laugh and compare you to some kind of grandpa fisherman), the Mister Rogers cardigans, others. You don’t want to toss them, but you don’t know what to do with them, all the same. You see them as old, comfortable friends you’re neglecting. You peek longingly now and again and hope for 60 degrees.

Wordless Wednesday.