I’ve gotten really into this new yoga studio that opened in Queenstown. It’s a chain that started out of London… maybe you have heard of it before. I like it because it’s pretty chill, they play groovy music, and they encourage you to experiment and fall over and stuff… a very sweet ego-free zone too!
Daily Photo – Belem Tower in Lisbon
This is officially the second place with Rene where he fell into the water. The first time was in Venice, and omg is that an epic story. He actually almost died there because it was the middle of the night. This time, he didn’t die, but he did get a little hurt in a funny way. He had the camera really low to the water and a wave came in and started to carry it away. He ran after it and slipped on the moss, making him land on his ass in a rather hilarious manner. Guys are the worst… we just sit around and laugh whenever our friends get mildly injured by doing something silly.
Have you ever seen this mix before? It’s a Maltese mixed with a Papillon!
Daily Photo – Street Photography in Lisbon
One of my favorite things about street photography is finding interesting combinations of naturally occurring events. It’s a fun “sport” because once you see cool combinations, then you see them all the time, even when you are not taking photos. It adds a nice layer on top of the world!
I urge you NOT to watch this video… It’s so bad that at first, I thought it was a joke.
Daily Photo – Details of Sintra, Portugal
I usually don’t post photos like this, but I actually take them all the time! I do like to get the bigger, epic shots. However, while wandering around, I sometimes try to focus on little details here and there. Also, there’s something about Europe where small vignettes like this just kinda FEEL European… you know what I mean?
You’ll see a little behind-the-scenes from today’s shot in the Lisbon photo walk highlights video below!
Daily Photo – A Hippie and a Seth
I have no idea what this guy was saying to Seth while we were in Lisbon, but you can tell it was pretty intense. We were doing a bit of filming on the way to the photo walk and we came across the band down by the shore. They saw all of our equipment and started really engaging with us. Seth is such a nice guy that everyone talks to him about everything – he must find it exhausting at some point!
This is one of the coolest castles in the world. I actually don’t know if it qualifies as a “castle,” but I like to think of it as one. I don’t know if the Disney castle was inspired by this one or not, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
This was taken with a quadcopter and quite a difficult shot… I had the quad almost three miles away from me, and I kept losing the transmission signal… so there was a lot of guesswork and luck in play!
This guy is absolutely amazing. How does someone have this ability?
Daily Photo – Belem Tower in Lisbon
This was on the must-visit list in Lisbon, Portugal. I went here with Rene, and it was another time that he fell in the water. He doesn’t actually do it that much, but 2/3 times have been with me. One time was in a Venice canal just after we had parted ways. Another time was when he stepped on a sea urchin in front of a girl and jumped randomly into the ocean. This reminds me that I need to get to more water-based locations with Rene.
Here’s a little video I made for my friend Jose in Porto, Portugal! You can find his //photo tours here/..
Daily Photo – Amazing Kuala Lumpur
It was fun to go back to Kuala Lumpur after being gone for over seven years. You still can’t go wrong with a photo of the amazing Petronas Towers and the KLCC area. This one I tried shifting the temperature over into the Incandescent area. This is a good trick to try for a few of your cityscape shots. When you go into that area (called Tungsten in some white balance settings), you get this cool Blade Runner kind of feel.
Matt Mullenweg is not just the founder of WordPress and now Automattic, but he was also my lucky roommate on this week-long 200km hike through Spain. Not only is he warm at night, but he really knows how to work that loofa in the shower.
We share many commonalities including the love of writing, Burning Man, hiking, and experimental and self-exploration use mind-expanding substances. You can see the poor guy has a bit of a limp here, as he had a knee problem that got worse and worse as the days went on. We should have brought more drugs. Anyway…
First time seeing a 360 video? You can grab the screen and move it any way you want! Tired of seeing me and Matt? Spin it around and see where we are going.
What do we talk about?
1:30 His inspiration for WordPress and his mindset
3:30 Comments on Blogs
4:00 What is his main gig now, Automattic?
5:15 Texas boys say hi to their moms
5:55 What did Matt learn that he didn’t expect to learn?
7:20 Meditation and the Stoic philosophers
7:50 Why do we blog?
Below, I’ll share some photos of Matt while we walked along the Camino and some quick thoughts and stories.
Very few people know this, but this is exactly how Matt came out of the womb, beard and all. His mom was like, “Well I’ll be darned!”
One awesome thing about Matt is that when you are talking to him, you’re the only person in the world. Here he is talking with Gia-Miin Fuh, Kevin Kelly’s genius wife that works at 23-And-Me.
No one can rock a scallop shell like Matt. I told him that with those sunglasses that he could be a hardcore pornography director.
A lot like everyone on the trek, Matt seemed to know either a little bit or a lot about everything. On the very first night, we walked across the bridge from Portugal to Spain in the dark. It was quite romantic. We talked all about the different sort of hallucinogens we’ve imbibed and how they have shaped and expanded our minds (for the better).
Here’s Matt Hackett, Hugh Howey, and Matt somewhere in one of the more forested areas of our walk. We would often pair-off or triple-up and have all kinds of interesting discussions, solving all the world’s problems!
Here’s Matt talking to Kevin Kelly at a rest break. By this time, Matt’s knee was really bothering him, and none of us minded having a break. We were in no hurry to get anywhere in particular.
And last, here is Craig Mod giving life to Matt with his noodly appendage.
At first, I didn’t know if I actually liked “The Kominsky Method” but the more I watched, the more I liked it… I like a lot of different comedies, but this is one of the smarter ones.
Daily Photo – Man with Cat in Porto
I entitled this the way an Impressionist painter might entitle their paintings. Their painting titles are often really boring in English, but they sound great in French. For example, Monet’s “Women in the Garden” sounds so much better as “Femmes au jardin.” Renoir’s “Two Sisters on the Terrace” is improved by “Les Deux Sœurs Sur la Terrasse.” The titles sound even better while eating a French pastry, especially when you hear, “S’il vous plaît arrêtez de manger ma pâtisserie.”
If you’ve never tried AirBnB, you should definitely give it a run! I used it about five times during my trip to Portugal and Spain. I was never disappointed. Well, that’s not true. One of them was pretty inexpensive, and it wasn’t really that awesome. For example, the toilet seat had one of those cushion things, but there was an actual NAIL in it or something that would puncture your butt cheek. I forgot about it EVERY TIME I sat on it. I don’t know how I kept forgetting about it, but it both hurt and made me feel very stupid.
Daily Photo – Porto at Night
What a city, eh? This is one of the coolest and most unique bridges in the world because the top level is for pedestrians and trains and the bottom is for cars. It was designed by the Eiffel, the guy who made some tower in Paris or something. Porto is one of my favorite cities to wander around at night with my camera.
