The Wayfarer Blog

(I began writing this post last week, but got busy and never finished it. Better late than never…)

One of the things that has bothered me about using Flickr to host my pictures is that, short of asking everyone to sign up for a free Flickr account, I have had no way to easily share private pictures on Flickr with family and friends–until now.

Signing up for a Flickr account is a nice thing if you want to share photos and participate in the huge online community. It is a fun and interesting way to view pictures. If you take pictures, or if you want to comment on other people’s pictures, I would highly recommend it. But if you just want to see a couple of my private pictures, it might be a bit of a hassle. Now you don’t have to.

When I create a set of private photos, I can give out a guest pass to anyone who wants it, so all you have to do is go to the link I give you, and you can see them. Of course, you can still join Flickr if you want, but now you don’t have to.

Why is this important? My policy is, I don’t want to post pictures of family and friends publicly, unless they give me permission. I know many people might think that is silly, but I want to respect people’s privacy. I worry that the next time I whip out my camera, no one will want to let me take a picture, because they are afraid everyone in the world will be able to see it!

I have many private pictures that I have been holding back. When I have time, I will get them up and get out guest passes to everyone! If you want to read more about this, check out the November 21st post of FlickrBlog.

When I was in Seattle, I met many Japanese students at the University of Washington. There was a special one-year program, now defunct, called the English-International Business Program (EIBP). I still keep in touch with many of those students, at least sporadically.

A couple weeks ago, I reunited with two of my closest friends, who are now husband and wife, from that program. They met during the program, and got married when they returned to Japan. His family has a clothing business, and now they run it together with his family.

I hadn’t seen them for a long time–far too long. But I was happy to see them again. They had a clothing exhibition. His sister designs all or most of the fashions. It was a small, boutique showing, but very busy. I was able to go between classes and see how their business is growing. I told them I was glad to see them living their dream.

A dream can start small. It might even stay that way for a long time. Sometimes, it seems like we are not making progress, or we are wasting our time. But even if it isn’t readily apparent to others, we should always keep the fire in our heart burning. We should never give up on our dreams.

It’s great to see people living their dream…but it is even better to see yourself living your own dream.