Trevin Chow

I started formal goal setting last year, so to continue that trend, here are the 7 personal goals I’m looking to accomplish in 2009 in no particular order:

1. Drink 64 ounces of water at least 5 days a week: I definitely don’t drink enough water on a regular basis, and given there are so many health benefits, this will help me get back on the healthy rehydration train.
2. Hit the weights at least twice a week: Over the past 6 months, I’ve been the gym at most once a week and can definitely feel myself more tired and stressed out.   I used to go to the gym 3+ days a week to lift weights, but since work and my personal life have gotten much busier in the last year, it’s been harder and harder to find the time.  To make matters worse, the shuttle bus I used to take to work, really took a chunk out of my day and reduced my flexibility with when I could go to the gym even if I wanted to.  With a renewed commitment for fitness and my return to driving my car at least 3 times a week, I’m confident I’ll be able to get back into the swing of things again.
3. Stick to my financial budget 9 out of 12 months: I’ve never been great at creating a personal budget, mostly because of the time investment required to stick to one.  However, I came across the 60% solution earlier this year, which not only aligns with my personal view of budgeting, but also requires far less time than other traditional budgeting solution.  I’m still looking for a great financial tracking solution, and have wafted between Microsoft Money and Mint.com for the past few months.  I love that Money has the 60% solution budget system built in, but despise the fact that it is rich client app with no cloud service for access to my info from different PCs.  I love Mint, but hate the fact that they don’t allow customized root-level categories which is required for the 60% budgeting solution.
4. Start and finish the Strobist and OneLight DVDs: I’ve had these sitting on my shelf for over 2 months and haven’t even cracked either of them yet.  I have no excuse other than just prioritizing other activities over it, so I’ll be going over and finishing the material over the next few months.
5. File my 2008 taxes by the end of February: I am the worst procrastinator when it comes to filing my taxes and it was particularly bad last year with my mailing my 2007 return on the last possible day.  I vow to be less rushed this year and file them before the end of February.
6. Complete the 365 days project: My first go-round with 52 weeks was an utter disaster with me dropping out after only 3 weeks.  I blamed the lack of regularity in my failure, so I took on the 365 days project recently after purchasing my new Nikon D700.  For those that aren’t familiar with this project, it is a photo project where you take a photo of yourself every day for a full year (hence the name “365 days”).  I have a remarkable set of friends that are super supportive of my participation in this project, many of which are doing it themselves.  I’ve had some great photos come out of this project already, and just finished Day 46 on my final day in St. Thomas.  Here’s to finishing up 319 more days!
7. Spend more time with friends: I know this goal is ambiguous and definitely not easily measured, but I’m going to set it anyways.  This past year has been terrible for my time spent with friends, and it is particularly bad when I look at the possibility of my best friend moving away from Seattle.  I’ll be focusing on doing a better job prioritizing time with friends over other work and other solitary activities (except if they are related to #1-6 above )

So there you have it, my goals for 2009.  Any ‘09 goals you want to share?

Our time in Goa has come to an end, and truthfully it was fairly uneventful here. We expected much more partying to happen than actually took place and I’m currently sick which doesn’t help matters. However, I do have to say that the sunsets are gorgeous here, and being on the water it’s not as hot as it could be (which is always a plus in my book!).

New Year’s Eve was marked with attempting to get into various parties unsuccessfully with one threat of getting arrested (long, long story). But the good news is that we avoided foreign police capture, had a great meal at this restaurant called ‘Over the Flames” and marked the coming of 2008 with a toast and talking about our goals for 2008. Here are some of mine:

1. Sell 3 photos to people I don’t know (2007’s goal was to sell 1, which happened in November!)
2. Bike one 50-miler (this is much less a fitness goal and more of a mental one).
3. Ship the new product I’m working on for Microsoft by the end of the year.
4. Take the bus to work at least 4 times a week on average.
5. Go home to visit my family at least 5 times. 2007 was marred with severe out of country travel restrictions due to my Green Card, but that has now passed. I’m anxious to see more of my niece and nephew!

I have some other more personal goals that I’ll opt not so share Hopefully everyone has thought about the coming year and has some goals set as well.
We fly out of Goa tommorow afternoon and, after 2 layovers, will end up in Cochin early evening. Well be spending 3 days there followed by 2 days in the backwaters of Kerala living on a house boat.

Happy New Year everyone!

Thomas Hawk wrote an interesting piece the other day about his goal to publish 500,000 photos in his lifetime. At his current rate of taking 200 photos per day and publish 20 of them, he approximates this to take him another 66 years to achieve the magical 500k goal.

I read this and was utterly shocked at this goal. 500,000 photos at first seemed like a tenable achievement, but thinking about that and doing the math, this is almost absurd to me. It’s not that I couldn’t take more than 20 photos per day, every day. It’s that I find it hard to believe anyone could take that many quality photographs at that rate. Thomas presumes that his rate of photos per day will increase as he gets older because (a) he’ll retire one day which will allow him to take more photos and (b) technology will get better allowing him to be more productive.

After thinking about it more, I’m not sure I’d even want to set this goal. It seems artificial and the value would be begging to be watered down just to meet the sheer quantity of photos required.

What do you think?

I’m excited to announce that I’m showing my photographs for the first time publicly.  I fortunately met the owner of a coffee shop in Belltown a few weeks ago, and it turns out he loved my photographs.  

The onwer of Bellino Coffee has graciously allowed me to show some of my photographs for the next few months.  It was pretty nerve racking choosing which photographs to show, but I settled on 4 of my absolute favorites and hope everyone else will enjoy them as well.

Bellino Coffee is on 2nd Ave in Belltown between Battery and Wall St.  If you’re in the area, I’d love for you to stop by and let me know what you think.  Even better, show some love by ordering a coffee and mention you’re coming by to see the photos

I’m nearly finished my customization of my photo portofolio and uploading a whack of images.  I was previously using Flickr, but it didn’t give me a good way to sell my photos directly to people without having some wonky experience where the buyer would be kicked out to a third party website. Additionally, I couldn’t customize my page as much as I could with Smugmug so I could never achieve a really unique look and store-front.

The last 2 months have been filled with post-processing of photos when I’m able to squeeze time outside of my busy work schedule.  I’ve been able to kick in some volunteer time with the American Diabetes Association.  While I’ve never been too keen on doing event photography, I was the site photographer for the ADA’s family night at the Seattle Aquarium and had a complete blast.  I couldn’t help but continually smile throughout the night with families and kids eager at the change to jump in front of my lens.  I managed to squeeze out a bunch of great photos that I’m sure the ADA will be able to use for promotional material.  Other than my time helping the ADA out, the other upside is that I’m able to get Microsoft to match the hours I volunteered as a separate donation to the ADA. 

I still haven’t sold a single photo yet, but admittedly I haven’t done much promoting of my work outside of telling a few friends and writings on my blog.  I figure I still have a good 8 months left in the year to achieve my 2007 goal of selling a photo to someone I don’t know, so I still have time to get my act together. Wish me luck, and while you’re at it, check out my photos and let me know what you think

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