YOU CAN'T HOLD ME RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS

I have a lot of hobbies.

[josephgutierrez]

I've been posting a lot of my photography on my portfolio website, mournfulbear.com. I'll keep posting some general life updates here though.

[josephgutierrez]

water tower

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[josephgutierrez]

My intention for 2022 is FOCUS.

FOCUS, that's what I'm hoping to center 2022 on. I feel like I've been pulled in a lot of different directions over the past two or three years, which at times, has left me feeling overwhelmed and unable to get stuff done. I'm not sure how this intention will evolve over the course of the year, but here are some things I'll be doing:

Doing less. I feel like I unsuccessfully tried to do this last year. 2022 is a new year though and I'm hoping to let go of some things to give myself the headspace to focus on the things I like/want to do like my hobbies or working with API Middle TN.

More unitasking. I've come to realize doing a bunch of stuff at once isn't one of my strengths. This really applies to the things I do in daily life. I'm going to focus on getting one thing done at a time and carrying tasks through to completion.

More photography. A different type of focus, but focusing nonetheless. So far I started carrying my camera with me everyday and ordered a Fujifilm X-T30 II (just because). I'm also doing an online photography class. To hold myself accountable to this, you'll see a few more photos here and more regularly on @mournfulbear.

Spending more time on stuff I like. It's probably sad that I have to list this, but I know that I haven't taken enough time for myself lately. Just to make sure, I added a time tracking app on my phone just to make sure that I do.

With all that's going on in the world, it's hard to feel good about what this year has in store, but for now, I'll hang on to my cautious optimism.

[josephgutierrez]

working lunch

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[josephgutierrez]

menace

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[josephgutierrez]

pep talk

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[josephgutierrez]

aldi

[josephgutierrez]

Honolulu, July 2021

[josephgutierrez]

Honolulu, August 2021

[josephgutierrez]

Honolulu, July 2021

[josephgutierrez]

Honolulu, July 2021

[josephgutierrez]

I went to Hawaii and did a lot of cool stuff, but the best thing I did was pick up a shirt for my dog.

[josephgutierrez]

A Week in Photos: June 14-20 I feel like I haven’t taken any photos in a while, so to push myself a little, I’m going to try an take a photo each day and then post a summary.  Last week was a little boring, but office dogs and a new taco place make life a little easier.

[josephgutierrez]

I was on the news today.

I was on the news today and I thought it was important to share since I feel like I don't always talk about the work that I do as Executive Director of API Middle Tennessee.  The March 16th murders were a heinous act of violence -- a manifestation of the systemic racism that continues to harm our communities.  More importantly, I felt it was important to say something today because there are some things that we can do as a community:

If it's safe for you, come join us at the Protect Asian Lives - Nashville Vigil on Sunday, 3/21 at 6:15 at Public Square Park to grieve for the lives taken.If you can or can't join us on Sunday, you can show your support for the victims' families in Georgia.  Here's a link that you can use: https://actionnetwork.org/.../support-georgias-asian.../.  

If you're here in Nashville, you can support the work of local organizations like API Middle Tennessee -- or better yet, invest directly in the community by supporting Asian-owned businesses.

Finally, if you're API-identifying here in Tennessee and just need a space to be in community and process what's happened, join us virtually on Monday - API Processing Space - Discussing the Atlanta Shootings.

There'll be a lot more work ahead of us, but this is a place to start.

https://www.wsmv.com/news/protect-asian-lives-event-planned-for-sunday-to-honor-spa-victims-killed-in-atlanta/article_7be1efe6-88f6-11eb-9dbf-07488cba5300.html

[josephgutierrez]

I got a dog last week. Her name is Donut and she's a handful. She likes sleeping and the taste of grass. She dislikes listening

[josephgutierrez]

I got a CNC router.

I’ve been thinking about picking one up for a little over a year now, but figured it was a good time now since I’m spending more time at home.  I ended up grabbing a Shapeoko XXL from Carbide 3D.  I thought about a few other machines like the X-Carve and a Millright, but found the documentation and community around the Shapeoko appealing.

Here it is all set up.  The machine arrived two weeks ago, but I had to build a workbench to put the thing on.  I spent Memorial Day weekend setting it all up.  It was a little difficult to do on my own with how big the machine is, but the directions were straightforward enough.  The wiring was actually less complicated than I thought it would be.  Thankfully, I got it all booted on the first try and didn’t have to go back and find out where I went wrong with it.

I had some ideas what my first project should be but figured I should stick to something simple before putting how well I put the machine together to the test.  I ended up using Carbide Create to put together an organizing tray for router bits and other stuff.  The software was pretty easy and it only took me about 40 minutes to throw the file together.

I used a piece of plywood I had laying around from some shelves I made a while back.  The carving took about 40 minutes.  There’s still a lot of things I need to learn about, but I’m just glad that everything works for now.  I’ll hopefully have some time this weekend to do some fine-tuning to the machine and hope to crank out some more complex projects next week.

[josephgutierrez]

Bucheon, 2013