TimWoolery.net Documenting the Journey and the Learning Curve

Archive 2008

09/21/2008

I spent some time in the canyon taking some snaps for a new project I am working on.? It will become obvious soon enough but please enjoy!

You can view the real slideshow here.

And, of course some new Little Man vids - the first is Little Man and The Lady playing around...

The second is a little personal - he's playing with an old A-pitch Marine Band harmonica.? It belonged to his great-Grandmother, the only momento of hers that I have.? I think she'd be very pleased that her great-grandson is enjoying it so much.? I know I am.

09/04/2008

I thought this article was very insightful and said about 85% of what I've been trying to say on the subject of healthy, male relationships.? When you come from a semi-dysfunctional background and the normal rules of interaction aren't taught, you have to come in almost from an anthropological perspective and study people as if they are an alien culture you are trying to document.? All of this isn't for me but rather for Little Man - I still have to ID the touchstones he'll need to grow up happy and healthy.

So the cool things going on with him are: he loves cars, he loves trains, he loves electronics and he loves fire.? All healthy male interests at that age, although on the fire it might be a matter of safety:

Little Man Watching the Fire...

I took someone's suggestion and turned Little Man's old Pack-n-Play that he was too big for into a fort.? Flipped it upside down, cut a flap in the netting and threw some blankets over it.? That's his new Fortress of Solitude and he runs to it every so often.? He's also discovered the joy of squirt guns; we have water fights out in the front yard - him with Mommy's ironing spray bottle and me with an improvised water device - old drinking or 2-liter bottles have their use before they're consigned to the Recycle Bin.

The lesson learned is: It is true that I cannot make up for what I didn't get growing up. ?What I can do now is give that to Little Man and be the person who can experience more happiness in giving than in receiving.

08/28/2008

If I had to give myself a grade for blogging, it'd be an "F" right now. The sum total of my life so far can be wrapped up in the weirdness of today.? Day dawned hot since we're in a season-ending heatwave just prior to the Niles Street Faire that kicks off tomorrow morning at 5. Work was a beast - is still a beast as of this writing (11PM and we're not done yet) and tomorrow I have Little Man all day while The Lady works on two personal projects that will hopefully grow into something that I can talk about here very shortly.

I had to put the Day Job on hold and dash to SF for a meeting with the guys who write Valleywag.? A hot afternoon in North Beach at the Roma reminded me of 8 crazy hours in Paris...the only thing missing was the scent of Gauloises in the warm summer air.? The afternoon is best described in flashes: A game of chess with missing pieces.? Strong coffee.? Cowboy hats and hand-tooled boots.? Fog.? Critical Mass.? 1-800-GOOG-411.? Pizza and beer.? The B-52s.

Still working and hoping to get to sleep by midnight.? The great 28...that's the title of the 'Best of' album of Chuck Berry.? I kept thinking about it all day.

08/16/2008

A bit of a walk down memory lane for me - I took Little Man to Yosemite yesterday.

One of my earliest memories is of my grandfather carrying me on a late-70s-era aluminum pack frame up Nevada Falls.? If you've been up that trail, you know the last 300 yards is up some rough granite steps hacked out of boulders up a very steep cliff.? If your face isn't to the trail, you're looking out at maybe a couple thousand feet of air and my face wasn't to the trail when I was riding papoose-style on my granddad's back at 2 or 3 years old.? All of this was very much on my mind when I had Little Man over my shoulders - I kept thinking to myself "If he could do it, I can do it."

08/12/2008

How much information do you take about yourself from how other people treat you?? I was having this discussion with The Lady the other day.? It's only been recently that we realized how much effect we have on Little Man and extrapolated that to how much our growing-up has affected how we see the world.? If you can see the world through rose-colored glasses, that is, it seems there are also many other colors to choose from.? The question then being, how do you ensure your kids aren't looking at themselves and the world with a mixture of regret and envy, feeling like the spectators and janitors of the game of life?? I struggle with an embedded perception of myself, something that was so pervasive and subtle that it took me many years even to recognize that I was walking around with it.? The idea that you can be convinced of your own value by the way people invest in you personally, or not.?

'The goal of parenting is to give children some bootstraps to pull themselves up with' is sort of what I'm talking about but to put it more literally, you can communicate quite a bit to your own children by what you're willing to do to give them some concrete tools, skills and experiences when they grow up.? You can see the people whose parents took them to sports or traveled or invested in music lessons the kids hated - they've got a greater depth of experience to draw upon when they're older and they also know how to pursue new interests.? The difference is/was apparent to me five or ten years ago and it's even more clear now.? I had to learn how to invest in myself in my early twenties and I'm still learning how to do that - I wish I'd spent the time I had when I was younger taking college classes or learning to play the guitar.? These are things I wish I had time for now but don't and with Little Man in my life, odds are I won't get around to it for a while.

Things are better for me now than they were even 2 or 3 years ago because I've invested in myself in little ways.? The more opportunities you take, the more they seem to be come available.? One stepping stone leads to another - the key is to keep on stepping.

07/31/2008

By the Time You Read This...

I was published again on Valleywag - hopefully this will turn into a regular gig...I like writing.

Whenever I go dark or dim on this place - whenever it is that a couple weeks go by between updates, it's usually because of one thing: I'm too busy.? It's not that I don't have something to talk about [yeah, like that could happen...] but rather I have too much and it's just a grind to get out what I want to say about myself and about my life.? In this case, the projects I'm into - Valleywag, the day job, Nicole's project, the day-to-day activity of being a parent - all of this stuff just cuts into whatever time I'd spend talking here about the chaos in progress.

The fact that we have so much going on is a nice tonic to the otherwise frustrating thought that I get every time I contemplate the road ahead of me.? We have so far to go - it's going to take so much to get there. It's easy, in my position, to be overwhelmed.? Out of being overwhelmed comes the anger, since it's weak to show how afraid I am of the challenges I face.? Get angry, get mad at it - scream at people; it's all there to get me over the hump of fear, frustration and doubt.? We are on the way to a better place: I have no doubt of that.? What I would hope is in the end, we can explain it to Little Man and he wouldn't be disappointed in us.? That's not the only reason, but it occurs to me from time to time.

The film project I was looking at was in the works, then off the list, then back on the list and I can see why: It's a story that someone will tell if I don't and I don't want to live with whatever regret I'd feel by not doing it.? So - the film project that I can't fill you in on, because it's so obvious that I'm afraid I'd lose whatever points for originality by talking about it now - it's coming.? I'll post more details about it soon.

Some Quick Snaps of Summer

The magic of a summer afternoon just happens in moments - these are some moments that I tried to capture...

<- More Pictures in the Gallery; you can reach it on the toolbar...

07/18/2008

Today, I am Awesome

You never get asked "How are you?" when you're having a great day, it seems.? And yet if you did - I'd have to tell you that I'm 4 kinds of awesome.? Note:

• Got published for the 2nd time this week over at Valleywag.? I'm taking my first steps as a professional writer.

• Handled a DSL -> T1 cutover; this will be my 2nd time doing one of these and it went flawlessly.

• On a date with The Lady - gonna see The Dark Night on opening night; although I'll miss Little Man...haven't done this in a while.

The Lady may have some news of her own eventually WRT her own projects.? I have to work tomorrow for the Day Job but since they're giving me Monday off - it all balances out.? So far it's been stressful but we're holding together.? Today I am awesome.? Today I'm living the life I imagined.? You have to take note of the high points because they're always so much easier to ignore than the low points.

07/07/2008

Someone asked me if I worked this weekend and I said "Yes...I worked at being a Dad."? We took Little Man to a place I knew well - the California State Rail Museum in Old Town Sacto on Saturday, to Wall-E on Sunday and hauled him with us to every place we went to in between.? I managed to run The Triple again and it's taking me a little less than 2 hours so I suspect my pace is around 3.2 miles per hour.? Better every time...it's just necessary to figure out how I can make it easy to run because sometimes it's a real grinder.? My hamstrings are constantly knotting up on me now and I've had to do toe-touches several times today to get them to relax.

More Weirdness
The DJ of the grad party I attended over the weekend was someone I knew from way back, years ago.? Actually, that whole grad party I felt like 'one of the old guys from the neighborhood'.? I spent most of the evening keeping Little Man from trouble as he had to inspect every square inch of the venue before setting off to be on the Dance Floor.? I felt...old...I guess the word is.? I hung back from dancing - I'm too out of practice and it takes too long to over the massive load of self-consciousness I get every time.

So after the party - next day we're in Old Town Sac looking at the River King when I see a familiar face.? The DJ from the party the night before is loading amps onto a cart and hauling them down the gangplank.? So surreal - I had to stop and ask him "Why are you everywhere I go?"? He laughed and I laughed...it's weird and creepy...what are the odds?

06/29/2008

Hooray for sensible living.? The gas is still creeping up and up, or maybe we've a respite this week.? I found myself grateful to be only spending $4.43 on a gallon of gas down on Monterey Road in San Jose.? An older gent with a custom Chevy II was filling up opposite me and I said "boy, I bet you're angry."? He laughed instead.? I miss the days of punching your foot into the floor and feeling that motor growl like an angry cat.? Leaping past slower cars with squishy suspensions as I goosed the throttle and flipped the automatic up through the gears.

The gas crisis - it was always there, it's only manifesting itself in ways we can't ignore now - means that those days are over for me.? Even if I had the wherewithal to purchase something sporty, it wouldn't have a V-8.? It's gratifying, at least in hindsight, that I never did pick up that old hot rod off of Craigslist or out of Specialty Sales.? I was cleaning out old bookmarks and found the stack I created back in the halcyon days of The Car Search.? In those days, I was watching for any opportunity to own an old Mopar - a Cuda, a Charger, a Challenger.? Or pick up a GTO or a convertible Camaro.? Learning the difference between 'big block' and 'small block' 350 V-8 motors and whether you wanted a pistol-grip 4-speed or the Dana 727 auto with the Ford 9" rear end. It never amounted to anything.? I guess it's also a bit amusing because, after all these years of seeing classic cars going for 40, 50, 60 thousand (and higher) - I'm still stepping back and letting some other rube with too much cash pick it up.? The whole dream of buying a classic in Scottsdale or Seattle and cruising home with it - it was just a dream after all.? I don't know how to feel about that.? I do know it feels good that I never parted with the better part of a hundred thousand dollars to some cracker out in the Midwest while he extolled the virtues of a PHS-documented GTO versus a thousands-cheaper clone.

You walk a fine balance with the need to be human - to enjoy life and to enjoy hard work with the need to be sensible.? There's no way we could afford to finance $50 to buy a weekend cruiser.? Not with our bills and what we're hoping to accomplish in the future.? Even if we could, would it make sense to buy some Detroit muscle in the days where everyone is whispering "Oil 2.0" or "biodiesel"?? I could never forgive myself for converting a numbers-matching classic to CNG.? Better I perform amateur dentistry by lantern light using only plastic tableware.? I think Little Man would understand, one day, when I say 'I could have bought the car but it would have meant a lot of heartache to us to keep it.'? The goals me and The Lady are striving for now are so much more noble than that.

06/27/2008

An oldie but goodie:

That was from last year's shoot of the "Crazy" commercial that we shot for Nextmedium.? I'm the one in the Long's Drugs 3-dollar warpaint, in case you didn't know.

06/18/2008

I've mentioned that my life involves weird experiences and what happened yesterday takes the cake.? I was working at a client site, installing some software.? I noticed that the software was purchased by the user, who didn't use the business address but rather her home address.? I just happened to glance at it, when I realized it looked very familiar.? "38522 (street name)"...then it hit me and I looked up at her.

"You live at "38522 (street name)?"? She nodded.? "I lived at 38522 (street name)!"? I couldn't believe what I was seeing - this person lived at the same house I lived at and moved out of 26 years ago when I was 5.? She was renting it from someone now, it still had the wooden banister that my Granddad installed years ago over the top of the wrought-iron railing.? I didn't tell her about the time the next-door neighbors broke in, my adventures with the kids in the neighborhood (they're all long-gone anyway) and anything else I could remember about it.? I was 5 when we left and a lot has changed since then.? Everyone was surprised - small world, they said...I knew better.

It was just another example of the weirdness of me.

06/15/2008

I didn't notice this before, but The Lady pointed it out to me.? Since she did, I'm noticing it more and more.? We were walking through the Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton when she pointed out the new line of clothes at the Gap.? "You can't even tell the difference between the genders, anymore."? I took a look myself, I guess the button patterns help you figure it out, but other than that - forget it.? Things are getting more androgynous every day.? Case in point, I got a DVD of "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in", which featured a lot of soon-to-be-famous people, including Goldie Hawn and it made me realize that Aaron Carter was rocking the Goldie Hawn hair cut when he was doing those horrible videos at 10 or 12.? Let's hear it for gender identity confusion!? Going to get some home projects done today.

Here's a Free Tip: Clicking on a website link will not get you a free iPod, laptop or gift card

I'm still cranking out thoughts about the tech industry over at Startupgeek.? In fact, here's a technical tip for you that didn't make the cut over there: You know how you get those offers to submit your email address and score A) an Ipod B) a laptop or C) a restaurant gift card?? I had the opportunity to test the theory when doing some work for a client on a spam solution.? I needed to test a spam filter against real-live spam and it's not like you can just say "Hey, spam me so I can figure out if I can block you!"? So, I took an address and submitted it to a few of those sites.? I filled out fake names but real address info for the office - Dr. Charles Xavier signed up for free Baskin Robbins, Dunkin Donuts, military recruitment info, free laptops and diabetes testing equipment.? I asked the front office to forward me any mail addressed to Dr. Xavier.? After a week, no iPod, no laptop, no gift cards, no diabetes testing equipment.? What did show up?? A packet of information for Dr. Xavier about joining the Navy...it told him he could live 'Full speed ahead'.? I declined the offer for him, I didn't have the heart to tell him that being in a wheelchair meant he couldn't serve aboard a ship.

06/12/2008

This is kind of a cool idea - Google Maps has added a new feature that allows you to look at pictures people have taken from different parts of the world.? I added a few of my own and you can view them here, on Google Maps.? Continuing the wonderfully arduous path of personal growth, usually by locating the nearest wall and running head-first into it.? Life definitely has its ups and downs - when you break down the game film of a bad day or bad week, you start to recognize that a number of negative experiences, which have no relationship to each other, managed to happen at the roughly the same time (a day or a week) and roughly the same place (in the vicinity of you).

It's hard not to take that personally - you get an expectation of what is normal, normal amount of frustration and joy, and with it you start to factor in a plus or minus to answer the unknown.? You generally know what life is going to throw you.? When you start to see one bad thing after another line up, you start to wonder if someone isn't pulling the strings from an unseen place.? You can see why people become superstitious.? I am not superstitious, but I'm licking my wounds after a few shin-kicks.? We're still moving forward in other ways so I know that this, too, shall pass.? Just gotta keep punching, Junior - you're always doing better than you were before.

We caught the Saturday afternoon showing of "The Iron Giant" at the El Cerrito Speakeasy.? It's such an awesome concept that I'm surprised it's not more popular.? Watch a movie in a movie theatre...don't sit in a stadium chair, sit in a sofa.? Drink your beer and let them bring you pizza.? What could be more awesome than that?? To make it Awesome2 is the fact that the Saturday afternoon shows are baby-friendly.? Go ahead and let the little guy scream, no one will give you the Stink Eye!

Before we go, here's a new video.? This was borne out of the fact that Little Man has a great laugh but no one besides me and The Lady have heard it.? We got him going and had the camera nearby this time.

06/03/2008

Got my PMP renewed until 2010.? Yay for me.

As I continue down the path with the new gig, I'm finding myself dealing with psychological roadblocks that I didn't clearly see before.? Is there anything more frustrating than learning you have an unseen character flaw, visible to just about everyone but yourself?? The new job requires that I deal with a variety of complex situations, small to be sure but also very high-value.? Tasks must be completed, projects must be executed - you don't get to take a mulligan with these.

Is it a surprise that this is a high stress gig?? Probably not...the surprising and unfortunately irritating part of it is how unskilled I am at dealing with those kind of situations.? The stress level builds up and I'm fighting a panic attack -- I'm keeping visibly cool but a certain section of my brain is dancing around like a housewife-in-hair-curlers going omigodomigodomigod when her trailer is hit by a tornado.? I hate that section of my head.? I wish I could banish it forthwith.? It's like trying to play a chess match with a marching band in your ear...you can only tune it out for so long.? Every time this happens, I'm getting a little better at keeping it together.? Maybe it's something that only comes with time and experience.

So I'm bouncing around a couple of things this week - dealing with ambiguity and learning not to fret.? There's an interesting article at Microsoft Eduction that deals specifically with this and I wanted to share.? I guess being a Type A personality has its drawbacks.? I'm sure there's a certain amount of ego involved that deals with 'I'm the guy who fixes everything' and having that reality punctured.? I don't want to have to admit that I'm not certain what will happen, whether I will be blamed, when it will all be better again and so forth.? I know that each success I've experienced helps build a sort of assuredness that I'll eventually be successful with this new hurdle, but the screaming mee-mees that echo in my head are no less uncomfortable to endure every single time.? The fretting thing is much more insidious - it takes me a while to realize I'm doing it.? I'm rolling down the road, staring at the sky and a little worm starts crawling in to remind me that maybe the job isn't going so well, maybe the boss doesn't like me, maybe my car is about to break down, maybe this and maybe that until I'm Gene Wilder in The Producers going "I'm hysterical - I'm having hysterics!"

I didn't ask to be this way.? I just want to understand why I am so that maybe, maybe I can go a different direction.

05/30/2008

Adam Carolla on how not to get fired from life...I thought it was significant because I've caught myself on the wrong side of this without realizing it. ?I became the person not included and I didn't realize that it was because making everything into a bigger hassle than it needed to be. ?I'm still working on that, but Mr. C's observations really rang true for me.

05/26/2008

Little Man took a train ride today...

He's proving to be a train nut, same as I was when I was younger.

I still am, but the crowd on board today proved that there are people who are more obsessed than I am.? I guess a better way to say it would be "I like different things but I hate groupies".? Groupies are the people who aren't content to be interested in something, they have to be absorbed in it - whether it's trains, poetry, knitting, music or film.? The guys who walk around the Rail Fair wearing silk-screen t-shirts of different steam engines and rail lines.? The guys who corner the docents and then jaw their ears off with stories.? It's their business what they spend their time on, but you always feel like you aren't qualified to enjoy or participate with them around.

05/25/2008

How's YOUR Weekend?

The Collings Foundation - Wings of Freedom Tour - is at the Livermore Airport through tomorrow.? I caught some pictures and video of the B-25 in startup mode.? Pretty impressive if you've never seen it.

Collings Foundation Warbirds - 05/25/2008

Among other things, just catching up on home projects.? Cleaning up some unfinished stuff from the bedroom update.

We're also moving forward on a new film project - this will be something I'll discuss in more detail on the 105mm Films page when we get closer to it.

05/16/2008

Yes, Yes and Yes

Three great things I saw today that I wanted to share with you:

A Letter to My Son, on Starting Out In Life ? I?m also writing a letter to Little Man. It?s a work in progress that I call ?Dear [Little Man]? and I keep it on Google Docs. In it, I discuss things that I think are important and I talk about things that happened when he is small so that he can read them again when he?s older. The Lady?s mom did this for her and it?s the only link she really has since The Lady?s mother died when she was 10. I want Little Man to have something like this, too ? it reminds me that one day he?ll be off on his own and helps me keep perspective on what being with him really means.

Boot and Fix Your Computer from USB ? Speaks to the geek in me; it?s worth carrying around.

10 Things You Think Are Cool, But Aren?t ? Some not-safe-for-work-or-children?s-ears language, sorry ? passing it along because?well, read and you?ll see why.

05/15/2008

In defense of Jeffrey

Sliding up to ten grand on board a 737 ? I heard a small child crying somewhere in the back. At first, it was low but it grew as we flew higher and higher. I saw the blue-shirted execs pause in their conversation to turn around and look back in annoyance. Two years ago, I would have done the same thing.

You don?t realize you?re changing when you become a parent. The change in progress isn?t discernible; it?s only there after the fact?when you realize you don?t feel the way you used to. I was sitting there, wishing I was home with Little Man and thinking to myself ?someone needs a bottle?. I?m sure the baby was crying because of the air pressure change on tiny eardrums. When you don?t know how to yawn or swallow to clear your eardrums?that pain gets intense.

I wanted to say to the execs who couldn?t have a Power Conversation about Exchange or Microsoft or marketing, ?hey, we were all children once?. They wouldn?t have got it ? I wouldn?t have either. You can make the case that the parent/guardian should be more on the spot but whatever. You can?t plan for everything. I just noticed the difference in me?it?s worth noting when you see it.

The old Bill Cosby routine about Jeffrey, the boy who was ?Fo?years old? sprung to mind. I wonder how I?d react to that now.

05/14/2008

Death by Paul Junger Witt

Got some additional MP3s and among them a collection of 80s show tunes. Spent a half-hour torturing the Lady with songs that sounded vaguely familiar but not immediately recognizable. It?s a fun game; guess the sit com ? the prize for guessing the song is, I stop the music. This might not seem like much, but try sitting through all 2.5 minutes of the theme from ?Perfect Strangers? or ?The Golden Girls?.

Adventures in the Big Brown

Flying at 37,000 feet gives you opportunity to appreciate the massive rock formations of the Mojave. You look at these massive, broken-down mountains that span hundreds of square miles and not a single road or trail visible. Except for, oh wait, a tiny straight line that heads out straight across the country. You can see it connect with other tiny lines and you know that somewhere out there somebody has a road going here or there to do something. It makes you wonder what life is like for that person, what it feels like to travel that road. You can easily start making up stories about who lives there and what they?re like.

In the Phoenix area, life is a little more simple. Big city with big city problems. Traffic, crime, malls that are becoming huge ghost towns. The nice thing is that any chain store I knew in CA is now available in AZ. That means I can stop going to Subway and start cruising around for a Togos. Had dinner at Nathan?s at the Arizona Mills last night. Life is good, I said.

Walking through the parking lot of the Fry?s Electronics on Baseline, I ran into an older gent who wanted to ask some questions about a router. As I was answering him, I noticed the patch on the ball cap he was wearing. It said ?Stalag Luft III?.

?Holy crap,? said I. ?Were you there??

?Yes,? he said. ?I was.?

Had to shake his hand. Never thought I?d meet someone who was at the prison camp where the Great Escape occurred. Reconnecting with old co-workers; some of them are here in the valley and others commute out to the coast and just live here. Either way, there are parts of Phoenix that I like (Tempe) and parts I don?t like (Peoria). It?s ironic that I have to come all the way out here to hear the Adam Carolla show while I podcast episodes while I?m at home.

Little Man misses me.? He?s calling other men driving Jeeps ?Daddy? and taking to pushing on every Jeep hood he passes.? This is a game she started with him ? come out to the garage and ?push Daddy? out.? I start the car and put it into reverse.? While she holds him and he puts his hand on the hood, I back out.? He gets the biggest grin on his face doing it and, it seems, he does it to every other Jeep.? I see a lot of myself in him; I remember running up to the heavy bags at Sears and pushing or punching them when I was 4 or 5.? A big ol? heavy bag and I could move it!? It never impressed anyone else.? Now I?m at Sports Authority with Little Man and the Lady and he must punch on the heavy bags that are on display.? He curls his hand into a weird little fist and punches on it.? I gotta get back home.

5/04/2008

Turned 31 last week.? Mike B said to me 'you must be proud of what you accomplished'.? I'm not sure about that...What I said in response, and maybe this makes me sound like a tremendous blowhard, is that I haven't done half of what I wanted to do.? I haven't traveled to half the places, seen half the things, done half the big projects that I set out to do when I was younger.? This goes into whether I actually know how long anything should take, how hard anything should be to do.? Most of the time, I expect things to work out easily or at least be made to be worked out easily - when it doesn't turn out, I'm unhappy.? It's a matter of expectation, and Mike B was the one to tell me 'expectations are nothing more than premeditated resentments'.

Grace comes from weird places - sometimes you can only take comfort in 5 minutes where no fires are burning.? Job's difficult but worth doing...I spent 13 or 14 hours on Friday moving an office.? Nothing was going well - I had to turn in on myself and work to keep the game face on.? It's getting easier than it used to be - to recognize when I want to blow my stack and then channeling the energy into more productive use.? Got home late Friday night (9:30) and up again on Saturday (6:30) to get to the gym and Mike B.? After he kicks my rear tail feathers in a workout that's part strength, part agility and all stamina, I get home to jump on the road to Ceres where the Blue Shadow Horseback Drill Team has invited us to watch the competition.

Slideshow of the National Horseback Drill Team Association Competition at the Diamond Bar Ranch in Ceres, CA

I feel a certain amount of frustration build up when I'm not caring for the different things in my life that are important to me.? This webpage being one of them - the time I spent away from here built up like a big hard knot in my chest.? If I don't keep up, keep busy, on the things that are core for me - it's like everything else in my life just gets the rug pulled out from under.? I don't need it; don't want it.? We have an interesting life and if I don't take time to write it down, I end up missing things.? I like going back and looking at what we've done - what I have done - in the past 6-12 months.? I like to feel like the mile markers of our lives are moving along, bringing us to the unknown but happy destination a few years from now.? Sorry if that doesn't make much sense.

I'm still expanding my music library - I picked up Best Ofs from Django Reinhardt and Nana Simone this week.? Reinhardts' guitar style was referred to as one of the most significant in Jazz; he's one of the few Europeans with that kind of reputation.? His stuff has really bad production values - everything sounds like it's coming through an AM radio - but it's hard to ignore the obvious talent the man had.? Simone's music gets put into movies every once in a while - that's how and why I first heard her stuff.? Wild, man - that's all I have to say.

I love it when music reaches in and grabs you.

04/28/2008.2

A Quick Cooking Tip

I hate to sound like Heloise but I like a good cooking tip when I find it. ?I found one and am passing it along: ?When grilling meats that you would normally bake ahead of time (chicken or pork) because they tend to char if you leave them on the grill, skip the baking and instead do this. ?Take your coals (when they're white and ready for cooking) and rake them to one side of the grill. ?Put the meat on the grill on the side opposite the fire - cover it and leave the little vent holes on top open so you don't smother the fire. ?This does the same job of baking. ?Next, to keep the meat from sticking to the grill (I've tried oiling the grill, doesn't work well for me) I took an orange from a friend (all your friends with fruit trees are trying to give away their oranges and lemons - take advantage of it) and sliced it up really thin. ?I placed the slices on the grill and the meat on top of the bed of fruit. ?The meat didn't stick and the orange?flavor crept into the meat. ?When the meat was fully cooked, I rolled it to the fire side of the grill and let the fire cook the outside a bit. ?Came out really well - everyone ranted and raved about it.

Yesterday was that close to being a perfect day; good long run on the Triple, barbeque with friends, finish it up with some root beer floats and sink into bed ready for another week. ?Every Sunday should end so well.

04/28/2008

This is the part where I get in trouble.

4 weeks into the new job - the house is adjusting to my new schedule - I'm not writing because there's so much to say but not so much that I can talk about.? This has happened before.

I'm still very much interested in keeping StartupGeek going - although now that my job has shifted to 'consulting engineer', I'm not so much part of a startup, but I'm still elbows deep in the tech.? I think I'll find my pace for writing about IT/Tech-related issues going forward but I also think the quality of what I'm writing has dropped.? I give myself permission not to like everything that I write. With the new job and the new paycheck, we've instituted some changes around the house.? We've kicked off a couple of projects that have been on the back-burner for a while and officially agreed on several others that need to be let go.? The ones that got let go aren't worth talking about.? What is worth talking about is the projects we're taking up:

The Outdoor Living Room - Our house is less than a thousand square feet.? We feel it now and we're going to feel it more as Little Man gets older.? What we've decided to do is make our back patio more like a living space, so we have more space in which to live.? I sprung for some nice furniture, a new outdoor firepit, lights and the big score - sailcloth to make a nice sun shade.? I'll post pictures of what it looks like after it is done.

The Grand Unification of Sound Project - We've got the tunes, but we can't hear them!? That's been my complaint about our current stereo arrangement.? One part of the house sounds like background noise, other parts of the house have plaster falling off the walls.? I want to be able to listen to music no matter what part of the house I'm in, so is the justification for this project.? I've tested a number of methods (Wi-fi to a cheap laptop in the garage, cheap FM transmitter(s)).? I think the next step is an FM broadcast unit and so I'll post what works when/if we find it.

I also bought as a new-job present to myself; a Blu-ray disc player.? A player that is housed inside a PS3.? I guess what I'm saying is, I bought a Playstation 3.? For the first time since our old-when-we-got-it-for-free Atari 2600 was in the house, I have a video game console.? PS3 comes with a lot more than video games and so we're also seeing how to mate that with our other system to run it all as a Media Center. You might have seen Little Man's "Happy Feet" video down below.? Someone lent us the movie with the same title and he watches it no less than 3 times a day.? His words are coming easier now - picks up anything we're saying and so we have to censor ourselves quite a bit.? He stands at the TV and goes "Happ'Feet!"? Woe betide you if you refuse.? Last week, he started practicing his soccer kicks (I had nothing to do with this, he just started kicking the ball around...why complain?).? The simple joy of a trip to the Boardwalk, the process of learning how to slide down a slide - it's all a golden time.

04/06/2008

Charlton Heston has kicked the bucket - although his activism and his later years were kind of ho-hum, he had a part of some really interesting movies in his career.? "Omega Man" and "Soylent Green" spring to mind - they're kind of corny, low-budget sci-fi from the mid-70s with bad production values.? The ideas were what carried them, fortunately.? "Soylent" was the last movie that Edward G. Robinson appeared in and is worth watching, if only for that reason.

First week at the new gig down - it takes a while to appreciate being in among a tight crew.? You have to get a few bad gigs under your belt before you can truly appreciate a good one.? The payday from Uncle Sam came in, enough for us to spring for a dinner down at the Essennay.? With joining a new company comes the inevitable shift in schedule and Little Man has been feeling it.? I've been spending extra time with him after work, walking the cat and just being outside - he's an outdoor kid already.? I idly kicked a pine cone and he pealed into big belly laughs like it was the best joke in the world.

I'm still working on the process of improving myself - however I might accomplish that.? It's led me to some really weird places and it hasn't been an easy process.? Sometimes I get so deep inside myself that it throws me into a temporary depression.? When that comes, the best answer seems to be to focus on other people and stop worrying about the problems that I've yet to find a solution for.? The weather this week has been cold and windy - it keeps threatening to rain but always manages to pull back at the last moment.? Cold and dreary, but dry.? Wish I had a boat or a kite.

And now...a new video! Little Man and His Happy Feet

03/31/2008

New job started today...This is why you didn't hear much from me.

When I left HDS, I discussed the process in detail but this time around I feel compelled to be silent on the topic.? The job is no longer ME, I'm ME and wherever I happen to be working is where I happen to be working.? Ergo, I want a lot less work-driven content when I write about life here.? In the interim, fired my bank (and it feels so good!), got new tires on the Green Monster, got new life insurance (fired the mortgage insurance!) and started on the new house project: An Outdoor Living Space.? We'll be updating the furniture, watering systems, fireplace and grill for the outside - giving us more of an excuse to be outside especially during the hot season.? I'll snap a picture when it all comes together.

Grandmaw is home from the Nursing Home. She's a little worse for wear but glad to be home.? I got a phone call from Grand-dad (who never calls) and he said simply: "When you come see us, honey?"

I couldn't argue with that.

Little Man, The Lady and I visited Sunday afternoon.? I took him some read-along material that I think might help...he's been asking for stuff to help him get better from the stroke (3 years and counting).? I also set him up to watch a kid's show that Little Man watches - it's great for people who are learning to read, or read all over again.? The tough part with the new job will be the new schedule for hitting the gym.? I don't know how it'll work out right now - I just know that I want it to.

The outdoor speakers were installed yesterday - you could tell by my ripped-up forearms.? In choking clouds of dust, I crawled to the outermost part of the attic space and poked 12-gauge wire out the soffit to strip for the new speakers that I hid above the arbor slats.? When I was done, I turned on "Shine On You Crazy Diamonds" by Pink Floyd and thought back to earlier, simpler times while sipping from a glass of wine.

03/18/2008

Okay, let me get off into a little rant here...Is the average person so undereducated that they really need an answer to the question - "Is 10,000 B.C. realistic?" I don't mean that everyone has taken an ancient history class, but aren't we smart enough to know that movies are there to entertain, not educate? ?I'd like to think that out of everyone who saw Barbarella years ago or Ringo Starr as 'Atuok' in Caveman, the vast majority didn't need to be told "Now, remember, this was just a movie!" ? At least, maybe there was a built-in mechanism to indentify such people and remove them from the gene pool. ?Sad to say, because we insist on making the world idiot-proof, we've engineered a generation of functioning idiots.

Seems like it'll be a good year for me after I get done squaring my income with the Military-Industrial Complex. ?At the very least, I don't owe money - which is always a good thing. ?No more to report on Grandmaw - she can't wait to get home from the nursing home. ?I've been there twice and it's simply miserable.

03/13/2008

Grandmaw has settled into her post-op nursing-home-rehab phase. ?I joke with people that Grandma is in 'rehab' and this earns a few raised eyebrows. ?Between that, helping friends with their personal stuff, work, family, projects around the house - there hasn't been much time to update everyone here as to what's going on. ?Apologies...

The Lady and I live in the same place we've shared since we first said "I Do"...less than a thousand square feet, we've had to be creative when it comes to managing what we've got. ?Thanks to the current real estate market, we're not going anywhere anytime soon. ?I'm still glad we purchased a home and I like what we've done with the place. ?Other people also enjoy making smaller spaces work - to be honest I'm not interested in keeping a 2 or 3 or 4,000-sq. foot space decorated and maintained. ?To that end, I enjoy resources like Small House Society and Apartment Therapy to get ideas on how to organize the space we've got. ?Don't get me wrong - I still want a Man Cave. ?I just think I'll have to put that one on hold.

There's a curious balance to be struck when deciding what to pursue at this stage of my life. ?On one hand, I'm sometimes rankled by the lack of consumer goods, fast cars and pool tables in my domicile (I really wanted a pool table...). ?On the other, I realize that there's only so much time to pursue other personally fulfilling goals and projects and that there will never be a better time than now to do so. ?Out of that comes a certain amount of Zen in which I don't mind that I won't be buying a classic convertible (Not at $4 for a gallon of gas, thank you...) and that I'm actually in better shape now, at 30, than I was at 25. ?How weird is that? ?I really expected adulthood to be a slow, steady progression of repressed-desire and laurel-resting followed by the midlife crisis at 45 or 50. ?Learning how to pursue what you want while not losing sight of what's important is a new discipline for me. ?It's one that I'm hoping I can teach successfully to Little Man.

On the front of physical fitness - last week I leg-pressed 680 and I can consistently benchpress 315. ?That's definitely not something I could have done five or three or even one year ago. ?We have some things going for us - not necessarily in the scope of American Middle Class, to be sure - but at least from the perspective of being able to say to Little Man, "we did not go gently into that good night".

And just so you know, that came from Dylan Thomas, not from Bill Pullman.

03/03/2008

I get up early and make hotcakes for granddad.? A lumberjack breakfast just like Grandma used to make - down to the fried eggs on top with the store bought syrup and the oleo.? Grandpa makes terrible coffee but I don't have the heart to tell him.? We were up late the night before enjoying shots of Yukon Gold, shooting the breeze while he speaks Stroke-ese (which is English with a 25% +/- degree of accuracy).? He still shuffles through the house in his old blue bathrobe and I'm 10 years old all over again.

I haven't spent the night at my grandparents house in 15 or 20 years.? It still smells the same, dust and mothballs.? The lights of the cars on the street still climb the wall and ceiling.? The living room couch is still uncomfortable.? The red top can of Wizard air freshener in the hall bathroom will never, ever go away.

Neither will I.

I pulled out Nicole's present - the MP3 player.? Grandpa listened to Jet and the White Stripes and said "This is good music!"? He still doesn't like the Stones and I don't think he ever will.? We roll back to Grandma on the 3rd floor of the hospital listening to the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack - Grandpa loves his bluegrass.? The sun is shining on a cool spring morning.? San Leandro is quiet in the morning, even on a Thursday and Grandpa shows me how to take Washington Blvd. all the way down to East 14th.? I've been here my entire life and I never knew about that.? It's actually going to be hot today - a nice change from all the wet and cold.? I have to get back to the house in time to enjoy a cup of coffee with the Lady and Little Man before rolling to work.? We're building memories to carry us through the stormy times to come.

It's weird how his stroke works - he reads writing better than he hears speech.? With that in mind, I use a whiteboard and a dry-erase marker to talk about Grandma, catch up on different events and tell him about some things I've been researching about his war record.? He starts telling me stories again about the war - about how 3 of the guys on his M-36 Jackson went on patrol while he stayed behind and how he watched them get hit from a distance by a German shell.? I listen to his explanation about how he learned now to care about them and to watch out for himself and how he didn't give a darn...didn't give a darn - he was alive - he looked out for himself.? Grandpa is 87 and he's had at least one stroke - but he knows that much for a fact.

I look at the pictures of the family in the living room - some people are missing.? One day all of this will be behind me and all I will have are the treasured memories of people like my grandfather who did what they had to do in order to come home safely.? I don't know what that will mean for those of us who carry it forward.

02/26/2008

It's February 26 and I'm already sick of hearing about the Presidential election.

There was a time I could last until maybe July or August before I reached saturation depth with all the news coverage but I would have to say that the 2008 Election run-up has set a new record for how quickly I can become sick about hearing who's the front-runner for this party or that one. ?In a moment of weakness I found myself looking for more coverage on Ms. White Trash America - Britney "Don't-Tase-Me-Bro" Spears. I'm also sick of hearing about the eBay boycott. ?Maybe one day we can all get together on what is really important in life and stick with it.

Upcoming events and projects include helping my Granddad, doing some volunteer yardwork, snowboarding and a concert at the Fillmore. ?Helped some friends move out of the area on Sunday and although I'm happy for them, I'm also sad to see them go. ?It used to be that they lived around the corner from us and I regret not making more use of that. ?Everyone should live in a neighborhood where good friends are no more than a block away and our schedules are never too weird or full to get together for dinner.

02/21/2008

One Last Look

Was reading with amusement, not necessarily interest, the Metro article about Bay Meadows closing over in San Mateo. Lots of pictures of jockeys and the malcontents that have the time and inclination to visit the track during the week. It struck me all of a sudden that, locally, there?s a cottage industry in remembering bygone venues, businesses and places to visit.

I?m not here to talk about Bay Meadows ? I?ve never visited there and the whole idea of horse racing leaves me with a rancid feeling in my gut. I?m not here to talk about Bay Meadows ? I?ve never visited there and the whole idea of horse racing leaves me with a rancid feeling in my gut. What I?m thinking about is nostalgia and how much value it has for me these days. In the past 20 years, I?ve seen a number of ?locals mourn passing of another Bay Area landmark? pieces in the paper or on TV. At first I was taken in by it, feeling maudlin for the passing of happier days. Later I started thinking ?why do I care so much??

Well, the answer is ? I really don?t?I just thought I should. Some people make monuments to places around the Bay Area that really weren?t worth much to begin with. Most places in the Bay Area fall outside of the hundred-years-before-we-care rule of historical locales. The older, derelict places of the Bay Area were cataloged by a website called sjunderbelly.com (now only available via Wayback) and that was pretty much a labor of love on the part of the guy who ran it.

Why do we get nostalgic for things? Do we let things go that we should hold onto or do we spend too much time looking back and not enough looking forward? It?s something I haven?t thought much about but it just occurred to me that I?ve spent a lot LESS time looking back than I used to. It used to bother me that not enough attention was being paid to old burger stands, movie theatres or homes when they had their dates with the wrecking ball. I think it actually was less healthy for me to do that because it robbed me of being present (or having the energy to be present) for things that were happening to me at the time.

The answer I?ve come up with is this: I can?t care about everything. I had to start making decisions about what I could afford to care about versus what I couldn?t afford not to care about. There is a difference and it manifests itself pretty quickly when you?re becoming apoplectic about your dead cat and you can?t maintain relationships with other people your own age. It?s like the guy who can?t throw anything away because he sees so much value in everything he owns. Pretty soon, this guy isn?t so much a curator of his life as he is a nutty packrat.

Unconsciously, I?ve been a fan of minimalism. First time I really understood that, I was in a friends house and just thinking how comfortable it was ? no major clutter. Comparatively, my house would have made more sense if I gave up and started turning it into the Punk House I think it wanted to be. I couldn?t do it ? I wasn?t punk and I wasn?t interested in faking it, either. I think this is why we started moving toward, not a minimalist but certainly clutter-free d?cor in our little kingdom.

Back to the point ? nostalgia has its time and place. It?s not an industry, much to the chagrin of hipsters and boomers who frequent Mel?s Diner or Hot August Nights. Nostalgia only works if you can reach back to that time or place and see it for what it was ? not just the squeaky-clean version. Resilience is not a possession of all people, places or things. Sometimes things just need to end?disco, melmac tableware and the phrase ?Sock it to me!? all needed to end.

Learning when to let go is important?

02/18/2008

Little Man and Friends at the Oakland Zoo

And Now, Some Ponderage...

They say I look different.

They say I look bigger.

The weight is easier to lift now.

Everyone goes into the weight room for different reasons.? It?s about time that I talked about mine.? I realized today that this is the 13th year I?ve been going to the gym.? I?ve been working out in one form or another since I was 16.? I think I?ve been holding off on talking about it until I looked like a miniature version of the Governator.? It hasn?t happened yet and oddly enough, I?m okay with it.

As Henry Rollins said in this article, the thing about the weight is that it doesn?t change or get easier for anyone.? ?200 pounds is still 200 pounds,? Mr. Rollins said.? When you?re trying to do something physical that you?ve never done before, it has a way of making you face up to certain things about yourself.? You can?t argue your way up the triple in Fremont and you can?t pout or wish your way up to lifting 225, 275 or 315 pounds.? Having things in your life that require you to address them on their terms has a way of making you re-examine the way you?ve been insisting that everyone address you on yours.

There's a parallel I've been trying to draw between physical fitness and what it takes to be a successful person.? You might be surprised to learn that the most ripped, carved or cut of us are frequently some of the most troubled.? Those are the guys or gals who can sacrifice everything else in life to achieve physical perfection.? That, or they've won the genetic lottery and, to quote Barry Switzer, 'go through life thinking they hit a triple'.? Physical fitness can help you put some things together that you've been mentally struggling with - I guess for me, this is the fruit of that labor.

I was shocked to learn that Abraham Lincoln did not say ?Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.? ?Never mind?it?s the saying I want to talk about and not about who said it.? The older I get, the more I see how attitude and aspiration can drastically affect the outcome.? Sometimes I?ll find myself weighed down over something that might not have affected me so deeply.? The answer lies in what I expected to have happen, not what did happen.? My expectations can sometimes be my own worst enemy.

Most of the progress I?ve made in my life has been against the background of something I would normally refer to as a problem.? Job issues lead to a job search and then later still to a new job which helps me progress forward in my career path.? A new baby on the way leads to addressing the things that made it hard for me when growing up as well as articulating what I want do to about it.? I?ve been constantly chasing after a condition that I?m not sure exists ? the removal of problems in my life.? I?ve been walking around thinking that ?if I could just get this particular monkey off my back ? life would be perfect!? only to fall back again into quivering jelly when the next problem arrives.? The time for doing that has passed ? I can see that now.? The time for being the ship that moves forward despite heavy seas or storms or ice bergs ? that?s where we are now.? I think aspiration and the right attitude will help carry my through.? This might sound a little snotty, so let me break it down.

I've only been able to get so far in my workout - I haven't achieved the goals I set out for me over 12 years ago; not all of them.? It wasn't until maybe 2 years ago that I got within spitting distance of a few of them.? That was because I got angry enough with my lack of progress to throw some ideas about myself out the window.? Ideas like 'I knew all I needed to in order to get where I wanted to go'.? Getting a trainer - my own personal gym teacher - was the best investment I could make.? As I punch through some personal roadblocks - stuff like how much I can bench press or how far I can run - getting to the success has helped me understand that I needed to know how to achieve and not just that I wanted to achieve.

Wanting to achieve is not enough.? It's not enough to want to win - you must know how to.? "How do you know how to win at something you've never tried?"? That was one of my issues...step one - I thought I knew everything.? Step two - I didn't know how to go after things I'd never tried.? It still remains a challenge for me - if I don't think it's possible, I won't try for it.? Experience has taught me that I am sometimes the worst judge of what is possible or impossible.

Add to that something that I didn't understand until recently.? There is a difference, I have learned, between pushing away from something and reaching toward something.? If you don't understand that difference, you might find yourself consistently setting goals that you do not reach.? When I was working out previously, I hated how I looked and I wanted to use that hate and that shame to get to the ripped, cut guy that would land any woman in 5 miles.? I've obviously not gotten there - but let me explain why: I was running from something that I didn't like about myself.? What I didn't realize was that between failure (looking like I didn't want to look) and success (ripped, carved, etc.) was a lot of room.? Room, for example, not to look bad but to still be a long way from washboard ab country.? I'd go in a circle from shame to I'm-doing-fine and back again; I'm surprised that it took me as long as it did to see it as a cyclical process.

Life was giving me hints and clues that this wasn't working.? I think the biggest one was that I was a drag on everyone else - who wants to deal with the kid who can break into fugues worthy of Bach because his relatively comfortable suburban existence isn't fulfilling him on an emotional level?? I'm still building back from that one.? The other clue was the same as what Henry Rollins talked about - the weight doesn't get easier just because I wanted it to.? Life wasn't getting easier because I wanted it to.? There were rules to the game - I needed to learn them and play by them to get ahead.

As things got easier at that level, new opportunities presented themselves.? Along with those opportunities, new challenges.? Every day is an adventure and by 'adventure' I mean 'problem'.? I've overcome some truly interesting and weird problems and because of that, I'm more confident that I can handle whatever is ahead of me.? I don't push down anymore.? I reach up.? Reaching up to something positive instead of pushing away something is a really weird, should-be-simple, shift of the paradigm.? Who knows where this might lead?

02/15/2008

More silly noise...

Why do people feel the need to quantify themselves based on fuzzy data? ?The BBC published this study, which says your sleeping pattern helps tell what type of personality you have. ?This isn't the dumbest what-kind-of-person-are-you reports I've read, but it deserves a special mention since it's in the BBC as opposed to the Rant & Rave section of Craigslist.

The rationale behind this and other 'What-Kind-Of-Person-Are-You' studies, I guess, is to provide some kind of insight into yourself by deciscions you don't think much about. ?What kind of underpants you wear, how you hold your phone, what character you most resemble on Friends - are these the things we want to be thinking about? ?I've paid more than the usual amount of attention to these type of studies because I've had an interest in learning more about myself. ?The more I read these reports (which carefully couch their findings until the suggestions can suggest almost anything) the more I realize that it isn't giving me any helpful information.

The search for self is something that everyone engages in at some point - I think my method of self-location really begins and ends with writing. ?Writing about things I'm thinking about has always been my way of getting my brain out of my head and out here where I can look at it. ?Sometimes I don't like what I see - sometimes having to articulate a viewpoint helps me realize its worth. ?In the process of talking about it - sometimes I realize that it's a very silly thing to think and I can mentally put it out for the trash man.

As I said - posting over at Startupgeek more often than here and with good reason. ?I could never justify writing a piece for TimWoolery.Net on how to deploy application software using open source software tools. ?Over there I can talk about professional and technical issues and over here we can talk about other stuff. ?I think it's been helpful to put what I'm talking about into seperate contexts, like seperating your bins of socks.

02/06/2008

TimWoolery.Net has been in offline mode for several days; in fact I've had issues for about a week out of the first 5 of this year. ?Thanks IPowerWeb!

I originally went with IPW back in 2005 when I wanted to get off of Angelfire or whoever it was at that point. ?$99 a year seemed like a good deal and it's what I have now. ?So I guess I can't really complain when I've lost maybe 5-7 days of service. ?That's what, 27 cents a day? ?Still I'm disappointed and like I told the tech support rep I talked to I'm halfway to pulling it all for GoDaddy.com.

So we're back on the air as of now and hopefully, we'll stay that way. ?A lot of people think the bedroom project went well and I'm happy for that. ?I'm also publishing more over at StartupGeek than I am here because I'm hoping to grow that as a potential source of income. ?I was listening to a podcast by Steve Pavilina on generating income outside of the day job and some of those suggestions make sense.

I've got creative ideas that I come up with from time to time that don't jibe with the day job. ?Additionally, I'll have them and go "Great - this is fantastic. ?Now how do you get it from your head out into the world?" ?I don't have a solid process for that - sometimes I'll have an idea, email it to someone and have it come back with "this is great - now who are you again?" ?The marketplace for ideas, I am finding, is not only for an idea but an idea that can be translated immediately into postive ROI. ?Not a bad thing to have to learn - I'd rather know that it doesn't work than be fooled into wasting my time. ?Nothing is more irritating than one of those guys you meet that immediately hands you a business card with "Entrepreneur" as the title. ?Everyone is an entrepreneur, jackass - come back when your idea makes money.

I talked a bit over at StartupGeek about recession - I can start to see the signs of fear around town. ?The increase in Get-Rich-Quick signs is a telling point to me. ?The other clue is people who have high-end cars with small business window decals all over them. ?The guy with the window business, the mobile notary, the dog walker. ?I think these are the people who were living on the right side of a single-income family who are now taking their first steps in the marketplace to bring in some greenbacks. ?I wish I could get my head around what drives people to jump into the more obvious scams - like, is it a syndrome that we can treat with a pill? ?Scamaleptra - For Suffers of Chronic Scam Syndrome!

The past 2 years or so have been about growing myself as a person. ?So whatever I'm doing, whether it's the job, family, home improvement, creativity - I'm trying to look at what I can do to do it better. ? The happy outcome of that is that, it seems like in every area this attitude has paid dividends. ?For areas where I haven't made as much progress as I wanted to, I no longer feel like my own worst enemy. ?Other areas where I've made progress, I've been able to celebrate these as genuine wins. ?Continuing the process forward - The Lady and I are looking at other areas to grow and as they become worth mentioning I'll be passing them along here.

My Editor-in-Chief is hard at work - he was up at the crack of dawn to help me resolve these web issues:

01/20/2008

I leaned over and punched P in the shoulder.? We were 60 minutes into the nightmare of Cloverfield revealed via DV cam and it showed no sign of letting up.? "Just so you know," I said.? "If this was you and me, I wouldn't be coming after you."

P laughed - "Dude," he said.? "Same page."? Cloverfield is an intense movie - it's been a long time since anything at the cinema twisted me up like this.? When it was over, it was like slamming to a stop at the end of a crazy rollercoaster.? You were back, you were okay but there's no way you were ever going to be the same.? Jabbering like we'd just been in a near-miss car wreck, we talked nonstop about what we'd just seen.? Sorry, no spoilers - I felt like a kid...during the most intense moments I was just laughing and just saying "Yes...yes!"? It was great filmmaking.? It caught you by the throat and didn't let go.

I'd like to think I would be a little smarter than the people in this movie - maybe it's why we watch; it makes us think in those terms and even if you don't mean to, you start subtly to say "Now...if I had to leave, I sure wouldn't do that!"? Not a bad thought...maybe they could have shot those Civil Defense movies of the 50's like that - it would certainly keep us from making fun of them now.? Even still - we have our emergency supplies; we've talked about what we might do in an emergency.? Thinking in any more detail is kind of futile because that's just fantasizing about what a disaster might do to you and yours? The possibilities are too terrible.? Storm clouds and a bitter cold wind cut into us walking back to the car.? Clouds rolling in mean we'll probably see a wet MLK Day.

I've been promising this for a while - a quick slideshow of our Master Bedroom Update.? Started on Thanksgiving; there's still some odds and ends to clean up.

FREE was this weekend; no awards handed out but the gratifying thing was that "What I Should Have Said" was well-received.? Some got it and others didn't.? For the ones that did get it - they loved it.? Since I didn't know when I'd be seeing it, without any notice at all, it was playing.? There was no more prep - my movie was about to be screened before a virgin audience and the only thing I could do was sit back, smile and enjoy it on the big screen with them.? I was pleased to hear laughs along with the jokes - not as many as some of the other pieces got.? I shot for a narrower audience and I hit it...got many compliments afterward.? Skip on over to Startupgeek if you haven't already.? I'm writing there and elsewhere when I am not writing here.

Already working on the next movie...

01/10/2008

Nerd Meditation

If I had a spare ticket to CES, I'd give it to you.
If i had a ticket at all - I'd be going...
I want an iPhone
And I want a booth babe to flirt with me. I want to have drinks with CEOs and expense it
I want to jet all over the country
I want to read the Economist and give a crap
I want to be a part of the culture of business.
$600 shoes and manicures
trophy wives and a house in Portola Valley
$100 shots of vodka
I want to be the guy they spend money to advertise to
I want to give a keynote speech
I want to make a trade video featuring jon heder, bono and Britney spears - they'll poke fun at me and at each other.
I want to have my USB device blue screen on stage with Bill gates
Scratch that - I just want Bill Gates' money
I want to build a new rig, load Halo 3 and spend all night playing video games until my eyes bleed
I want to participate in an A-Round of VC funding
I want to schmooze on Sand Hill road
I want to care about what they care about because I want what they have
I want self-possession, I want the little toys that insulate you from the harsh realities of life
I want to forget about war, disease, hunger, despair because I'm driving a seven-series BM?er.
I want fat, lonely white guys who code in C# to suddenly be the most powerful people in the world.
I want nerds to stop trying to dress like ?Neo?.
I want to some parts of the Silicon Valley to look like street corners out of Blade Runner
I want the future they promised us in the movies.

Endured death, job weirdness this week. ?The death is the harder one but it doesn't freak me out as much as job.