Ring Ring

Today I came across a contest for someone to win a new engagement ring if they could show how horrible their original ring was.  I went on a google search and found some more really nasty ones.  I feel bad for these ladies! 

Photo Break

Top Photo: Me in Israel

Remaining Three: Jetset Farryn 

Twobservations

Things I've always said and other people write on twitter:

@misskellyo: im so sick of buying these expensive dresses with cheap zips they always brake!
Anonymous: Why do the clothes in front of the tailors window always look old?

Choppt

After about a year of growing my hair out, I went to the Mark Garrison Salon to participate in the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program.  My friend had donated her hair their and she looks glamorous after the fact so I was confident they wouldn't butcher mine.  Wednesday's are free but I was going to Jamaica so I went for the 50% off any other day, which still is a great deal.  

I knew it would be short, and I know I hate my hair short but it was for someone that didn't even have a choice to have hair, let alone long or short hair.  Alex did the cut.  What do you think?

Nonprofit Motives

Today I was featured in the New York Post Business Section! Can't go without saying a special thanks to my photographer and friend of HSNY, Tiffany!

(I've highlighted the important parts)

Rebecca Meyers worked in the competitive world of entertainment public relations in the competitive borough of Manhattan, striving to get her clients the press coverage on which they feasted.

She worked late nights. She was threatened with termination. She job-hopped firms. And then she had enough.

“It was an extremely cutthroat environment,” she says. “Just very negative energy — nasty people that I didn’t want to be a part of anymore.”

Turning her back on commercial p.r. firms, she took a job at the Humane Society of New York in November. And she’s happier than a pit bull with a T-bone over the move.

“I get to do public relations and I get to work with animals, which is my other love,” she says. “It’s the first job where I haven’t seen myself leaving anytime soon.”

Once stereotyped by some as the province of the righteous, the religious and the revolutionary, nonprofits have become increasingly desirable options for people previously wedded to corporate careers. And such workers are being welcomed at a time when nonprofits increasingly covet business-world skills.

“The new breed of people in nonprofits is much more entrepreneurial, and that’s what nonprofits are looking for,” says David Gruber of the nonprofit-services group EisnerAmper. “Transference can occur quite frequently today.”

So just how many career-changers and job-seekers are looking to nonprofits?

“All of them,” says Bruce Hurwitz, a recruiter who works with nonprofits, only half-joking. “It’s what you do now.”  But just as a thriving ad exec may flounder in the scrappier world of Wall Street, not everyone is suited to work at a nonprofit. Though many are fostering a more businesslike culture, working at the Humane Society is a different animal than working at Ralston-Purina.

So before jumping into the applicant pool, those considering nonprofit work should consider whether they have the right personality.  “It’s a very different culture than the corporate culture,” says Carolyn Miles, a former American Express marketing exec who’s now the COO of Save the Children.  “I’ve seen lots of [former corporate workers] come here and it doesn’t work. They have all the functional skills, but the cultural fit is not right.”

For instance, while take-no-prisoners authoritarians may be valued at top-down corporations, they’re unlikely to thrive at nonprofits, which operate more collaboratively. So if “The Art of War” is your workplace bible, trouble is in store.

“We work as teams. We try to listen to one another,” says Bill Ayres, co-founder of WHY, a 35-year-old nonprofit that fights poverty. “A number of people who’ve come over from the for-profit sector did not have that experience,” he adds with dry understatement.

“Nonprofits are not a one-person band,” agrees Gruber of EisnerAmper. “They’re a team of people working together.”

They’re also environments where a measure of civility is expected that may be foreign to people used to corporate pressure cookers. Even when the heat is on, “You can’t lose your temper,” says Hurwitz. “It’s like customer service — you say, ‘Yes sir, I’ll try to fix it.’”

Another difference is an expectation of emotional commitment. Since nonprofit work is viewed as much as a cause as a job, personal attachment to that cause is considered critical.

“One of the most important qualities is a sense of passion about the issue, whatever it may be,” says Ayres.  But while nonprofits may not hunger for certain for-profit personality traits, they’re increasingly after corporate-world skills.  “They need people who understand business,” says Gruber. “The for-profit sector provides those skill sets.”

The right fit is a two-way street, of course, so for-profit folks looking for a change need to decide if a decelerated, collaborative workplace is right for them.  And the differences aren’t just cultural. While the gap isn’t as stark as it once was, the pay is still lower at nonprofits. And someone transferring from the corporate world may well see a demotion in title.

“Because you’ve been an executive or middle manager in a business does not mean you’ll be a midlevel or senior manager in a nonprofit,” says John Brothers, a principal at Cuidiu Consulting.

But you won’t be living on food stamps, either. Since nonprofits now compete for the same employees businesses seek, they’ve had to up their compensation. And they’re less likely to chain workers to their desks, says Ayres.  “We try to have more balance,” he says. “Not push people to work impossible hours.”

Though fewer hours is often the norm, the fervor people bring to the job can turn that upside down, notes Save the Children’s Miles.  And while some say there’s less stress at nonprofits because there’s less emphasis on bottom-line numbers, others say they breed a different type of stress.  “You’ve got 1,001 bosses: You’ve got your donors. You’ve got the people who participate in your programs. You’ve got your volunteers,” says Hurwitz.

But to many nonprofit workers, such concerns are non sequiturs.  “Every day I feel so privileged to get up and work on behalf of the organization,” says Jerry Silverman, once a top exec at Levi Strauss and now president of the Jewish Federations of North America. “It’s a very different feeling because of this sense of passion in the fact that we’re enabling change.”

He’s echoed by Rebecca Meyers, who says she loves working alongside others who share her passion for animals.  “I’ve never met nicer people in my life,” she says. “These are people who genuinely care about what they’re doing.”

MAKING THE SWITCH

If you’re looking to land a nonprofit job, the best way is to take the nonprofit designation literally. In other words: volunteer.  “Nonprofits are hesitant to hire people from the for-profit world because they believe they won’t understand what nonprofits do and how they do it,” says recruiter Bruce Hurwitz. “So the way to overcome that hesitance is to volunteer.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean working at a soup kitchen, he notes. You could serve on an event committee or give pro bono advice.

In addition to showing commitment, volunteering enables networking, notes Carolyn Miles of Save the Children. And it can lead to a job more directly: many of her group’s hires start as volunteers.

Buddha Chillin

via Gothamist

Keep It Light

I am trying to stay positive in light of the negative things going on in our world.  There have been some powerful photos that only prove a picture is worth a thousand words.

and on March 23, 2011 a bomb went off in central Jerusalem killing one and injuring 31. 

Jamaica in 48 Hours

I started to go to Camp Green Lane in 1996.  I met a lot of great friends there.  Two of which were these twin brothers, Justin and Kyle.  We had some unforgettable times through the years.  Coincidentally Kyle and I went to Ohio State too.  This is where Kyle met Caroline and fast forward 6ish years later and I was attending their wedding at Breezes Rio Bueno, Jamaica.  It was such an incredible wedding.  Everyone had smiles on their faces the entire weekend and the couple is so happy together.  I was truly lucky to be able to share this special time with them.  

This Week In Movies

Bill Cunningham New York

A documentary portrait of the legendary, ascetic New York street photographer.

By Nathan HellerPosted Friday, March 18, 2011, at 6:32 PM ET


Manhattan, it is well-known, is an island nation governed by peacocks. Trolling up and down the city's concrete channels, gazing into restaurants, you see a spread of lavish fabrics boldly worn, garments exotically blended, women gorgeously done-up and men dressed studiously down, each eyeing the other for a moment before rushing headlong back into the throng. For those who can't spend hours wide-eyed on a street corner every day, there is Bill Cunningham. The New York Timesphotographer shoots and curates the paper's "On the Street" and "Evening Hours" photo columns—weekly roundups of sidewalk and nightlife shots beloved by fashion doyens and people-watchers alike—and after more than three decades on the job, his visual chronicles have gained an avid, almost cultish following. This week brings the limited release of the first feature-length tribute, Bill Cunningham New York (Zeitgeist Films), a documentary about the man and his city by director Richard Press. The movie takes us on a tour of Cunningham's eccentric life and stranger social circle, hewing closely, all the while, to its subject's style and ethic: Using the low-key approach that shapes Cunningham's column, Press works up a portrait that's as raw, gentle, funny, and—in the end—irresistible as the pictures themselves.


In this, he has ample help from his subject. The Bill Cunningham captured here is a puckish, eightysomething man with electric energy and a wish to devour all of New York through his camera lens. Aboard his bike, he weaves through lurching Midtown traffic with his left hand while occasionally snapping drive-by pictures with his right. (No helmet is involved.) On foot, he camps out on street corners to assess passing pedestrians, swaying toward passing dresses like someone keyed up for a game of Whac-A-Mole. Then, all at once and with a single swoop, he lunges, snaps, and melts back into urban anonymity. What's he hunting for? "Some marvelous, exotic bird of paradise," he coos, "meaning a very elegant and stunning woman or someone wearing somethingterrific." Back at the Times, Press' cameras find Cunningham surfing frantically on the back end of his deadlines, skipping meals, crossing out negatives, and trying to get his page just so. The curve of someone's hip should echo a draped garment one frame over. Bright colors on a dress should play counterpoint off a nearby coat. Cunningham started as a print journalist and retains a writer's sense of composition, a reporter's eye for news. His photo essays call outpatterns, mark trends, and flow with soft humor, giving space to flamboyant characters oroutlandish excesses. Where most fashion photographers strive for something like sartorial perfection, Cunningham delights in catching well-dressed people splashing messily through slush.


An irony shapes this pursuit, and Press' movie—one that's based in the gap between Cunningham's lush work and his weirdly ascetic life. Although he may be one of the few people alive capable of making Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour go all wobbly inside—"It's one snap, two snaps, or he ignores you, which is death," she exclaims—the photographer himself seems to own about five hangers of clothing (mostly blue), dines on the cheap (his favorite repast is a sausage-and-egg-sandwich special, $3), and is so detached from the glamorous events he covers that he'll refuse even water when he's on the job. The documentary's chief plot point is Cunningham's looming eviction from his tiny studio over Carnegie Hall, a space where he has dwelled for decades. It has no private bathroom or kitchen. When he started taking pictures after hours for the nascent Details in the early '80s, he refused to be paid. When that magazine got bought by Condé Nast, he wouldn't cash his check. "If you don't take money, they can't tell you what to do, kid!" he advises us at one point. "That's the key to the whole thing: Don't! Touch! Money!"


Photographing money is something else: Part of the pleasure of this documentary is being shown not just Cunningham's working process but the world of power brokers, fashion mavens, and well-dressed eccentrics transformed by his camera over the years. It is a colorful bunch. In one interview, Patrick McDonald, aka "the Dandy," explains why he always covers his face while changing hats; in another, Iris Apfel, better known as that lady with the glasses, lovingly strokes a stuffed animal seated on the couch beside her. We meet Editta Sherman, photographer to the stars and fellow Carnegie Hall evictee. (Editta is a self-taught ballerina, too, and in one lick of footage needlessly but irresistibly spliced into the film, we see her performing the dance of the swan from Carnival of the Animals, a thing she liked to do for guests whenever there was a full moon.) Cunningham was the only press photographer invited to Brooke Astor's 100^th birthday, and yet he also mingles his camera with kids clubbing downtown or garment workers picketing in Midtown. By his own account, he doesn't care about famous people, many of whom he doesn't recognize—he has no TV—just their clothes. He comes across as someone who has found his way into the stuffy center of the palace chasing butterflies.


The hidden subject of Bill Cunningham New York is the space between the fashion industry and fashion as it's worn and loved by real people. Cunningham spans the gap between the two, and so, deftly, does Press. Shot with noninvasive consumer cameras and no crew over months, then winnowed, the director's approach is a direct echo of Cunningham's—and his product shares the subject's upbeat, nonconfrontational style. The film's climax, when the neurotically private, self-effacing Cunningham is asked about his past experiences with sex and religion, is filmed on a diagonal, from a distance of a few feet. It's the least dramatic treatment that this crucial interview could possibly have and, as a consequence, the frankest, rawest moment of the documentary. Press seems to know what Cunningham knows, which is that the camera isn't so much a pen (or a sword) as an open ear, an instrument for picking up the moments of quiet greatness real people sometimes create for themselves. Or, as the photographer himself put it, tearing up as he received one of France's top honors in the arts, "It's as true today as it ever was: He who seeks beauty will find it."


Source: http://www.slate.com/id/2288743/

AH-HA!

Steve on Shameless (um, show is so good!) a.k.a. Justin Chatwin has been reminding me of someone and it's finally come to me!  A younger Chris Hardwick (not that he's old).  What do you think?

Shopping "Spree"

I got these from Steve Madden yesterday.  Thoughts?  I get that the whole stilty platform thing is trendy and I do like them but sometimes being 5feet makes me feel a bit redic in shoes like this.  I also can't stop thinking of drag queens...Oh well! 

Also got this dress from Urban Outfitters.  Sparkle & Fade brand for $59.  Pretty cute with my new nude maryjanes.  Just what the Jamaican wedding ordered. 

Josh vs Shia

Just Thinking About What I'll Wear To The Airport

I'm Going To Jamaica For A Wedding and I'm Bringing...

 via Victoria's Secret 

 via Modcloth.com

 via Free People