I am a medically retired, 100% Service Connected Disabled Veteran. I suffer from both physical and mental impairments due to my active duty service. While physical therapy has helped with the physical impairments, the mental issues seem to be a much harder hurdle to jump. Nightmares, disassociation, loss of time, disorientation are just a few of the issues I am dealing with, having been found incompetent by the VA. So I am trying to re-integrate myself into the world, and get out of my head, and back into the "real world". The road to recovery is a long journey, I am beginning to learn, and some days, just getting out of bed is an accomplishment, with the physical pain, and the mental challenges.
So to give me a reason to "get back to it" I have come up with some summer projects to help give me a "adventure" everyday.
ATTEND ALL THE SFCityGuide.org Tours
Loft goal I know, but just about everyday I am attending a SFCityGuides.org tour. These are really fun and historically informative tours given by a non-profit organization associated with the SF Public Library. I have leaned so much about San Francisco and California by attending these walking tours, which last about an hour and a half to two hours.
These tours are very therapeutic for me for a couple of reasons. First, they are educational and informative. They also are a good reason to get up, out and do some walking, which is all good. They also allow me to meet new and varied people that I would never come across or meet in my daily life. But best of ALL, I am really enjoying doing them, and it is an achievable goal.
These tours also allow me to exercise my other love, photography. Taking picture of different perspectives and see things from different angles and views. I am really enjoying taking pictures of angles and lines, and Macro shots of ordinary things, making them look extraordinary.
FIND AND VISIT AND PHOTOGRAPH ALL THE Privately-Owned Public Open Spaces
I first learned about the POPOS's on a SFCityGuides.org tour (SF Cityscapes and Hidden Places) where we visited 5 differed POPOS's oin the Financial District. I found these hidden private parks so cool that I did a little research and found that there are some 66 different privately owned parks in San Francisco.
The POPOS were created under a rule adopted by the planning commission to require new developments to set aside a predetermined amount of square footage for general public access. in 2009 the city compiled a list of all the current privately owned parks. And the Planning Commission just passed a new ruling on plaques that must be put on the outside of buildings letting people know there is a Public Open Space inside. . Currently these Open Spaces can be difficult and challenging to find!
So, this summer I plan on finding and photographic all 68 of them! Another Achivable goal.
VIDEO BLOGGING PAUL
I met a nice 25 year old named Paul who was interested in learning about video blogging, and wanted to let the world get to know him and his unique view of the world. Have been a computer professional, and a technical writer I know a thing or two about publishing on the Internet. While I love photography, video is a truly new media for me, so while I teach Paul about video editing software, and publishing tools, I am also getting to experiment with taking videos, and using a video camera, which is fairly new to me. Paul is really fun to work with. His wit, his enthusiasm, and intelligence won me over. He is truly willing to try new and different things ad to experiment. He is very photogenic, and creative, and always trying new and different things. We have published many of our experimental videos to YouTube, and I registered a domain for him .
IN CLOSING ...
I am hoping these three summer projects will keep me busy and engaged.