My Life in a Photo Stream

Technology is amazing, kids. I'm not going to bother trying to deny it. What is also absolutely mind-boggling is my capacity to take pictures (accidentally) of the lock screen on my iPad.

It's also amazing how fast my hair grows. No, seriously. Check this out, people.

By the way, there are a LOT of pictures in this post. Sorry!

Anyway, a few months ago I installed the iCloud thing which allowed all the pictures I take on my iPhone (which, lets face it, is my primary camera anymore) to be automatically uploaded to a file on my computer. They also bounce to my iPad, which is how my iPad (which I left at home all weekend) has all the pictures from this weekend's trips to Arcadia Beach, Manzanita, and Short Sand Beach.

I was fiddling with the Streaming Photos on my computer earlier trying to get it to unlock them so I could use them in posts and things (I'm still fairly new to this, mind you) and I discovered on accident that I have pictures on there going all the way back to March of this year. That's like 6 months of my random photo taking. I realized that, by analyzing my own streaming photos, I could probably learn a lot about myself. Here's what I learned, in no particular order:

#1 - As I said, I manage to take a LOT of pictures of the lock screen on my iPad. I think this happens when I close it without turning off my bluetooth keyboard, but I'm not completely sure.

#2 - There are WAY more pictures of my cat than I'd like to admit. WAY more.

#3 - There are also a fair amount of pictures of the Chamaco and the Old Curmudgeon. (Who I think I shall start referring to in the blog by his Air Force nickname - Train. It's shorter to type.)

#4 - LOTS of pictures of beaches. You'd think we do nothing but go to the beach.

#5 - Also lots of pictures of flowers. I was aware I'd suddenly developed a weird obsession with flower photography (as anyone who follows me on Instagram is probably aware already), but I didn't realize the full extent of my own illness. I have acute floweritis.

#6 - Several pictures of sunsets. It seems I have more appreciation for nature than I was aware of... I'm not what you'd call "outdoorsy".

#7 - Some pictures of my recent culinary experiments. This has been a pretty good year for me and cooking. I'm baking an eggplant as we speak. This time last year I had never actually eaten an eggplant, and now I'm cooking one. I've also learned to make homemade egg foo yung and a decent stir fry. I plan to master hummus before year's end.

#8 - Random pictures from the internet that I thought were funny. (Esmarfon... chortle!)

#9 - Loads of Grumpy Cat. For a while there, Train (See, I started already!) was in a Grumpy Cat phase and I would find new ones he hadn't seen and send them to him at work periodically because it made him happy.

#10 - More work-related pictures than I care to think about. Seriously, I went through (and deleted) a ton of pictures of yards full of dog poop, apartments full of abandoned property I was inventorying, fire damage, and other random damage/violations that I was documenting for work purposes. (For anyone who hasn't caught on yet, I managed apartments for a year and then just recently moved up to what I guess you'd call "middle management". Not administrative staff yet, but getting there!)

#11 - Enough selfies to make you think I think a lot more highly of my looks than I actually do.

Now you might ask, what is MISSING from my Photo Stream? Well, if it's going to be an accurate representation of my life and times, there are a few things that aren't included but should be. Things like:

#1 - My parents. Notice I have no picture here to insert.

#2 - My siblings. Again, I got nothing.

#3 - Work friends. I spend most of my life with these people. Almost everyone I work with, I would socialize with voluntarily outside of work. Where are the pictures? Nowhere, mon frere. 

#4 - Church friends/other friends. Again, no pictures. Either I have a lot of camera-shy friends, or I'm missing some photo ops. 

Here's where we're going to get philosophical, so hang on... If I were to look at your Photo Stream (which is an option, by the way... they are shareable!) what would I see? What would I learn about you? Are there things in your Photo Stream you wouldn't want me to see? Are there things that are missing from your Photo Stream that you feel should be there?

Feel free to express your thoughts on my maunderings in the comments... it lets me know someone's actually reading this stuff I post!