I just finished designing a simple but powerful new system for management of a substantially large photo journal. This record is a great way to peer into my life and try to analyze my life's end. It really is life spilled and frozen in pixel form.

Setting up the system has generated some general principles of life. Each image required tags and comments. With over ten thousand photos this forced reflection was a fascinating exercise of re-experiencing the past ten years of my life. The experience has provoked several thoughts and conclusions.

• Life is much more transient than I had previously thought.
• Most people, even close ones are with you for only a short time.
• Other than death, family is one that never ceases.
• There are three or four friends considered as family.
• There are around ten close friends.
• There are 30 or 40 other friends.
• There are around 700 collected contacts.
• There could be somewhere around 3,000 associations.
• People come into your life quickly and slowly fade out.
• It is valuable to go through hard times. The view on the other-side is worth it. Even if you wish you and others would never go through an issue, you would be without the perspective to see it.
• Continue to experience the many facets and wide variety of life.
• Reflection is important. Building these memories is important. I now agree with what Restak ¹ says about building the continuity between you and your older self. Understanding the continuity is a helpful perspective.
• Gigantic hurdles look small when looking back at them.
• We plan but we react. We barely know what new event will take place next week.
• As I get older, time goes faster but the bigger picture projects become viable. Discipline for 30 days in one area is just a small stepping stone now.
• I see the importance of keeping many balls in the air at the same time.
• I must reconnect with some people.
• I should plan to call a different person of my past once a week.
• Images store so much emotion, memories and reflection with ease. I ought to make an effort to keep this journal going, especially when life becomes busy.
• Reflection is important but easy to squeeze out as non important.
• God sovereignly works. "His footsteps are planted in the sea and he rides upon the storm." ²
• Images are frozen in time. Many people throw away old photographs that remind experiences. The tendency to toss aside is easy than reflection. But leaving foolish and poor experiences in view reminds you of the transformation processes. Mahaney ³ finds living in Maryland a helpful reminder of God's past and future grace.
• The human brain is amazing. Without any effort you can instantly remember if you have seen (memorized) a single image from tens of thousands. It must have been built for this kind of memory to pull in life.
• Language is complex and powerful. Simply tagging each picture with a 6-10 word comment and 3-4 keywords allows plenty resolution to select a single picture.
• There seems to be a few substantial categories in my life that pictures capture: family, friends, awe in nature, birthdays, weddings, parties, documents, projects and tools.
• The pictures tagged with awe, the ones that generate awe, are most often linked with nature.
• Projects unite and enflame a family with purpose and progress.
• Time with friends is expensive and precious.
• Investment in people is important.
• Never miss an opportunity to meet someone new.
• Live your life vigorously.
• Your community shapes your values.
• Community is important! Much of it is the connecting pieces of life.
• Many ministries were simply context for community.
• Of the many pictures, the ones that I treasure most are the earliest family pictures.

The new system is based around iPhoto and is simple and powerful. Using comments and keywords the iphoto_post program automatically generates albums based on unique comments, months and keywords. The albums are stored in a desired directory as static webpages. This system is much easier, quicker, powerful and affordable than a .Mac account. The files can be posted on any server. Ruby is the programming language that generates the albums. It parses the album.xml file and groups comments into unique public albums.