Last Thanksgiving I took a photo of a burning tire repair shop as it lit up the night sky and thrust huge flames over adjacent buildings. I thought this was a pretty cool photograph, so I posted it to Flickr.

Within 24 hours, Gothamist had run a story on the fire using my photo, The Brooklyn Papers contacted me for usage of the photo in their publication and the photo’s views shot up to around 150 views. Over the course of the next couple days, the views continued to rise and after about 4 days the photo slowly crested the 300 views mark. It took about a week for the views to stop coming in, leaving the photo at around 360 views.

In the months since then, it’s gotten around 15 views. Today, one of the better photos I feel like I’ve taken is hovering around 385 views.

Last weekend I posted another photograph, this one of a woman wearing a small bikini standing in front of a blurry sky and sailboat. I posted it because I liked it. I thought it was kind of a cool photo.

Within 5 minutes the views were at 25. Within an hour they were in the 80’s. A day later it was at 245 views! Two days later it was at 365 views! (A feet it took the fire photo about a week to accomplish.) Now, 3 days later, the photo has 426 views!

When I first started to notice the rapid rise in views, I thought about taking the photo down, but decided I was being silly because upon closer inspection, there was nothing lewd or unsavory about the photo. It was just a small black bikini bottom and a hand and a boat and a sky. Of course, the old adage “sex sells” is true, but the attention paid to this unremarkable photo is astounding to me. I mean, what’s the big deal?

I need to remember to put bikinis in all advertising projects I work on…

I saw a blind guy on the train while riding home the other night. Now that’s not something I would go out of my way to remember, but this blind guy was also listening to an iPod and that struck me as odd.

It’s one thing to be blind and rely heavily on your sense of hearing to get around, so why would he cripple his seemingly essential other sense by plugging his ears with an iPod?

The woman sitting next to me reached out and touched him on the arm (which I cringed at because it seemed like such an intrusion into his own world through his last remaining sense) and when he pulled out a headphone, she asked if he wanted to sit. He said no and returned to listening to his music.

When I got out at my stop, I turned around to take another look and saw the guy taking my old seat next to the woman.

The whole thing just somehow struck me as odd… and for some reason, I guess I should remember it.

(On a side note, I should remember to check out more books from Jose Saramago who wrote Blindness about a whole city going blind which I absolutely loved and Seeing… Which I never finished.)

As New York Magazine said about The Spa at Mandarin Oriental: “As close to heaven as a New York spa gets, this 35th-floor spot will leave you and your wallet feeling substantially lighter.”

There’s not much else that can really be said about this place. The sex-specific “heat experience” rooms outfitted with very large jacuzzi-ish “vitality” pools with submerged lounge seating, amethyst-crystal steam chambers, and interesting heat showers with colored lights corresponding to water temperatures are only the beginning to your “journey” at this place.

The services provided and products used are both unbelievable.

And ending the whole 3 hour experience with some time spent in the “relaxing” rooms looking blankly out of floor to ceiling windows at the amazing views from their 35th floor location makes you wonder how you can possibly manage trudging through the grime below again.

Expensive is an understatement, but I should remember to try to get into this place again.