Today's song is Windmills of Your Mind by Noel Harrison, released in 1968.

The typical warm dry breezes of San Diego are blowing through my home today on this sunny day. Welcome Spring!

It was a year ago that Chuck Shepherd and I started communicating on his use of my Many Moons Ago image for a music project he was working on. Now with the arrival of Spring with a Full Moon, I just had to celebrate the anniversary.

In looking at some astronomical data about the Moon, I see we are just about midway between the times when it is farthest and closest to the Earth. There is something usually to be said about taking the middle position on topics. ;-)

The song I picked today has some deep meanings for me. Circles seem to have a great influence on me. Three of my digital images convey some of my deeper feelings about them: Circles of Life; Wheel Of Fate, and, Taken In.

The Moon is often part of my digital images too. I'm much more of a night person than a day person. Besides, the Moon was mostly present in the sky when many of my important events in life took place. Many of my musical creations deal with events of the night. The digital image, Evening Adventure (shown below) is very telling. What have your evening encounters brought to fruition?

The night has not always been a friend to me at the time, but later because of it, all worked out for the better. This one started something that is still ongoing. It brought me to where I am today.

Sometimes I feel I'm still in the middle, my own midpoint of the spheres of events in life. My own version of being between Perigee and Apogee.

While my wife, Sherry has been in Chicago for the holiday weekend visiting with family, I've been busy having fun back here on the west coast. The following is what I accomplished since she left town.

Last Friday morning I gave a speech at the local Kiwanis Club of San Marcos concerning Toastmasters International and in particular, my club Twin Oaks Toastmasters. Before about 20 members, I extemporaneously spoke for about 15 minutes without uttering any Ah's or Um's. It was a great experience. Thanks Steve for inviting me to speak!

On Friday afternoon, I went to see the recently released movie, 10,000 B.C.. Although much of the accepted historical accuracy was discarded, I did find the movie an interesting story.

Friday night I created a music video, Deer Woman Moon Encounter Quicktime Music Video Snippet. It features a snippet of one of my iTunes Music Store songs, Deer Woman Moon Encounter.

Saturday morning I created two animation videos based on my Encounters of Doubt digital image (shown below). They may be found on my QuickTime Videos page:

• Encounters of Doubt Sun Arc
• Encounters of Doubt Partial Orbit

On Saturday afternoon and evening I worked on new content category for this site. The new Leopard OS for the Mac has vastly improved the Quartz Composer application. Using it, I created the Kover Phlose iTunes Music Visualizer (snapshot shown below).

You can learn more about Quartz Composer from these two articles:

• Leopard Visual Magic: What's New in Free Quartz Composer Tool
• Quartz Composer in Leopard

It was fun and I learned a bit with all those new creations. Having fun is part of the Mac experience. Now one last item to mention as to other content changes.

I recently republished four of my music videos listed below. They are now formatted to display properly on Apple's iTouch and iPhone devices (after downloading and installing into iTunes). You can view/download them from my QuickTime Videos page.

• Digital Passages Amo Tu DVD Track QuickTime
• Digital Passages Don's Theme DVD Track QuickTime
• Digital Passages Thoughts Of April DVD Track QuickTime
• Digital Passages Touch Of An Aries DVD Track QuickTime

My cousin Linda sent me a link celebrating Spring.

Katie and Lil jointly sent me a message about a site that offers a free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. Got to the Breast Cancer site and click the pink button. I did.

My friend Gary, sent me two links about a different way to use older technology:

• Steam-Driven Dreams: The Wondrously Whimsical World of Steampunk
• Steampunk Keyboard Mod

I think the Holi Festival as celebrated in India is very cool. I love the season of Spring and those followers in India do it in style.

There are different ways to proceed on project management projects. No one discipline has a corner on the market. Here's an article about the RUP and PMBOK approaches. Also this one relating PMBOK Practices to Agile Practices. Either way, the Project Charter is very important to develop first, otherwise what are you trying to achieve?

I read about the tuition at the University of Illinois is about to be raised. When I attended there in 1968-69, my tuition was $50 a semester; my room and board $950 for the year; and my total book expenses for both semesters was about $200. Times have certainly changed in the last 40 years...

Found on the web links for March 23, 2008.

Don