To get from the back parking lot to my building – you have to walk down the alley. If you’ve never been down Downtown Lawrence alleys, well, you’re in for an all-senses-stimulation (good and not-so-good). Of course, we have run-of-the-mill taggers defacing brick and stone and stucco – but we also have some art that’s a little more clever. Aimee over at artsyville has been capturing the red hand tagger at several places around Lawrence. I’ve shot several red hands, too, but I can’t find the images. So, I pulled up one of my other faves from several years ago – multiple barneys.

I have an appointment at the Apple Genius Bar on Monday to finally get my iPhone camera fixed. There are so many people doing some really cool iPhone galleries, and I’m excited to join in. My first project will be an iPhone alley art gallery. Let’s hope the Genius Bar guys are really genius.

The Obama team has reinvented everything about political branding. This morning I ran across the The Official White House photostream on Flickr. How cool is that? Not only does it feature great photos by White House photographer Pete Souza, but they post full-res images and you can even order prints (for flickr members). You should check it out along with the nifty White House website.

© Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

Everyday driving to work I keep telling myself I should stop and shoot some springiness images. Well, I haven’t done that yet and it won’t be long until all the blooms are gone. My fave spring flowering botanical is the American Redbud. This lovely harbinger of spring has been called “a breath of fresh air after a long winter.” The Arbor Day folks describe the Redbud’s place in history like this:

Early settlers found the blossoms of the redbud a delicious addition to their salads. Early folk healers used the bark to treat common maladies and sometimes even leukemia. And many Native Americans chose the wood of the California redbud for their bows. But the sheer springtime beauty of the redbud may be its greatest hold on the American spirit.

I’ve never eaten the buds (maybe I should), but I still love the way they look in the spring. The photo above was taken on the University of Kansas campus. It’s a gnarly old Redbud with so much character. The University is doing some campus renovation and stupidly decided to take out a number of beautiful Redbuds along Jayhawk Blvd. Where were all the tree-huggers when our Redbud friends needed them?

I’ve made several custom changes to the theme and plan to make more in the near future. I haven’t got my head around the whole RSS and twitter world yet – but hope to soon. I’m anxious to see how blamit* evolves over the next couple months.

I found this Jim Jarmusch quote on swiss miss. And then I “borrowed it.” There you go.

• Flight of the Conchords / Season 1 (HBO)
The guys are the funniest thing going on TV and their music is all kinds of tasty. The video below is Bret and Jemaine performing one of my faves, Beautiful Girl on the David Letterman Show.

• Burn After Reading / a Coen Brothers film
Awesome cast. Razor sharp humor. And some Coen Brothers twists that will surprise you.

• Keyboard Skins / photojojo
Cool, rubber keyboard skins with shortcuts for photoshop, aperture, final cut, pro tools, after effects and more. And the photojojo store has all kinds of other cool gear for photographers.

• Ultra-cool t-shirts / threadless.com
If you can’t find a cool t-shirt you like on this site – you’re just not very cool.

• Plungerhead Wine
I bought 5 bottles as gifts this year. I don’t know if it’s any good, but how can you resist a wine with a goofball name like that. And it’s closed with a Zork.

More doug stuff:

• hotdoug’s (damn, somebody stole my idea)
• doug (the real funny doug)
• bankrupt doug (who woulda thunk it?)
• doug.org (accronyms suck)
• dougie? (girl, his dougie is fresh)
• dougie ride (huh?)
• the dougie (it’s your style, your swag…)