Well well it's Adele

Some days, this whole "work from home" thang is extremely productive for me. From the minute I hit the keyboard in the morning until I close up shop at night, my fingers are flying fast and furious writing spellbinding, innovative, entertaining and motivating copy that sells the spectacular printers, scanners and projectors made by the global technology company I work for.

Afterwards, at the end of the day as the sun takes its bow and gives way to the coming night, a feeling of great satisfaction and accomplishment washes over me, and a smile slowly dials its way up to full brightness as I bask in the glow of a job very well done.

That's some days. Today wasn't one of them.

Instead, today was the other kind—the one where, despite my best efforts, my mind has a mind of its own and decides to be a few miles south of focused as we spiral down a YouTube rabbit hole for hours on end and see where it takes us.

Those days hit every creative person I know. And I think I speak for all of us when I say that when it happens, the best thing to do is just buckle up and go along for the ride.

For some reason, probably because she hosted Saturday Night Live last week, Adele was on my mind. There was a sketch on the show spoofing The Bachelor, and at the end of it Adele starts singing while she walks off the stage and into the audience. It was a great, unexpected moment—especially for the audience.

I'd never describe myself as an Adele fan, but every time I hear her sing I'm dumbstruck at how stunningly beautiful her voice is. And even moreso by how effortless she is in her performance. She doesn't need to go through wild gyrations, have two dozen backup dancers, recorded backup vocals or a blinding laser light show. All she needs to do is stand there, share her gift and belt out her songs in that voice I can't seem to get enough of.

Okay, so maybe I am an Adele fan.

The song in the video up top, When We Were Young, is one of my favorites and a great example of the kind of performance I'm talking about.

I'd also forgotten about it, but today in my YouTube travels I was reminded Adele is also a bawdy Englishwoman with a cheeky sense of humor. I rediscovered a video I'd seen a few years ago of her auditioning at an Adele impersonator contest in disguise. It's funny, poignant and generous of her as the women she's auditioning with are obviously die-hard fans and slowly realize who one of their competitors is.

But then again, once you hear that voice—Hello—it's hard not to.

Picture this

Last night was the high school graduation party for young Mr. Spielberg before he goes off to one of the top ten film schools in the country, and his good friend Trevor, who is graduating with him. It was a fun-filled evening, with many of his friends he’s literally grown up with and known all his life.

I’ve also known most of the kids there since they were in kindergarten. Which was great, because I never get enough reminders of how fast time is going by. Wasn’t it just yesterday they were asking me for 5’s instead of 20’s?

Anyway, besides the portable pizza oven catering the party, candy table, impromptu stage where my son (did I mention he plays five instruments?) sang with Trevor, was a wall with items representing who both boys were, their interests, where they’ve been and where they’re going. My boy was on the left. Trevor was on the right.

Each of our families had room for nineteen pictures. So late Saturday, we went online and had a ton of pictures printed out at Fromex. And they came out spectacularly.

The other thing they did was remind me how much I hate digital pictures. Not digital photography, just digital pictures.

Once you have the pictures in your hand, spending as much time as you want with them, they become time machines. They have the ability to take you right back to the moment they’re showing you.

I think too often we get caught up in the technology of seeing pictures on screen, and lose the meaning of the pictures themselves. I was reminded last night of something I've known but had forgotten - I'd much rather pass hard copies of pictures around than watch a digital slideshow any day of the week.

My beautiful son moves to Texas in August. But thanks to these pictures, and the many more I’ll be printing out, I’ll still be able to hold on to him.