I’ve been back from Los Angeles for 7 days now, yet the city remains on my mind. I can’t shake it. I guess I’m infected with the idea of living in a progressive city where there are palm trees, hacienda style homes and plenty of opportunity for creative minds such as mine.

I’m dreaming. The lonely dreamer, dreaming.

Yesterday, I was pretty hype to hang with friends in Southwest Detroit to enjoy Cinco de Mayo. I planned on smashing Mexican fare all day and of course, margaritas.

Well, none of this really happened the way that I planned or hoped.

The area where the celebration took place was PACKED with people and there really wasn’t anything Mexican about it. Quite frankly, it was a bore. I did have an OK meal with friends but I could have stayed home for that…

By the time I was ready to leave, I got a text that changed the course of the day. Another group of friends were having a small Cinco de Mayo tailgate style jump off nearby.

I made my way over and the rest is the stuff of what a good Saturday is made of: music, conversational bravado, ghetto controversy & people watching etc.

I think you can say that we were parking lot pimping but I’m still not really sure on the definition of that as of yet.

The night ended with me being at some artsy event in a hipster loft on the east side of Detroit eating a Shawarma from Bucharest grill.

Art Credit: Dirty Sanchez by Verlisa / Bear Boy by Otis

So I got ahold of a 2nd generation iPad last week after waiting nearly a month for it to be delivered.

Not sure if I mentioned it here, but I was not feeling the idea of buying an iPad since it was 1st introduced in  spring of 2010 because it seemed like a big ass iPhone without the capability of making voice calls.

Some of my iPad evangelist friends have beat me up saying that the iPad is all that and a bag of chips, but I was not hearing it.

Well, with my official hands on experience, I can confidently say that the iPad is just a big ass PRETTY iPhone without the capability of making voice calls.

Everything that ‘I’ need to do can be accomplished on my super portable iPhone. Honestly!

I found holding iPad awkward at times, especially when lying down. Also, if your in the sun or a bright location, the glare can be an issues. Who wants to read an ebook or blog while being blinded?

I do like the layout and usability of some of the native apps like mail & iCal.  I also like how the official Twitter & Netflix apps function! I won’t talk about Angry Birds on the iPad because I’m still in addiction recovery.

On another note; I let Amelia (5 year old) check out the iPad & she thinks that it’s the best thing since non-singing Justin Bieber.

So yeah, I would not invest the base 500 bucks for an iPad although it’s a pretty little thing. For my 9-5 purposes, it will be good for on the go communication (email, Skype, Facetime), note taking and for presentations.

For my everyday life, the iPhone & my trusty Macbook Pro when I need a serious computer power will serve my purposes. I’m just saying.

Freebie:
Like the wallpaer? You can download the iPhone version here.

Typically, a hour before the doors open for the audience of a runway show at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, you can catch the models doing a practice walk somewhere between their hair and make up styling.

About this time, photographers lucky enough to get early admittance will have the opportunity to get a good standing space & test the lighting to ensure that their cameras capture natural looking colors.

Last season as I waited for the Vivienne Tam show to start, I watched the models being led by fashion show producer Lynne O’Neill do a walk through. It was very standard but I enjoyed seeing and hearing her interact in a very casual way.

One thing that Lynne said to the models that stuck with me was “don’t walk to the music, walk through the music.” Sounds simple but right?

Thinking about walking through the music reminded me of when Nikki Givonni said “people try to speak English instead of trying to speak through it” in her poem “My House.”

Astral traveling though music, language, life seems so much better than just being mindlessly there navigating to someone else’s beat.

I was hearing Adele’s song “Rolling in the Deep” all over the place when I was at fashion week. At that time, I was not sure who made it but I knew that I loved it.

Last week, while getting ready to face the world as I was watching the Today Show, I got the chance to see Adele perform the song. I was like, oh, that’s Adele…

See, I had seen her mentioned on the SoulBounce blog but I never took the chance to discover her as they suggested. My bad, right?

So, now I’m loving the song even more & it is in HEAVY rotation on iPhone.

I went in search of a video and found some really interesting remixes to the song and video interpretations but the one above was like a perfect storm!

I LOVE Chris Isaac’s “Wicked Game” and to hear it mashed with “Rolling in the Deep” & see it played out visually is almost too much.

One great thing about fashion week as a side note is that I always hear great music. This time around, I had some great things to add to my playlist.

A few weeks ago while working in Photoshop (CS4), I accidentally unselected the “resize window to fit” option & had no idea that I did so.

Since them I was trying to figure out what I did to have my open windows not zooming to the sizes that I set my documents to be so I had to resize them manually. This was a mild annoyance until today when I accidentally figured out what was causing the issue.

Had I done some quick Googling, I would have found this answer & saved myself a mini headache. Sometimes I forget the power of the internet. Duh!

Automatically resize the window when zooming

- With the Zoom tool active, select Resize Windows To Fit in the options bar. The window is resized when you magnify or reduce the view of the image.

When Resize Windows To Fit is deselected (the default), the window maintains a constant size regardless of the image magnification. This can be helpful when using smaller monitors or working with tiled views.

Note: To automatically resize the window when using keyboard shortcuts to reduce or magnify an image view, choose Edit > Preferences > General (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences > General (Mac OS), then select the Zoom Resizes Windows preference and click OK.