Pre-Resolution Post

This morning I started brainstorming what I wanted to get done/do better/don't do at all in the new year. I'll do the same tomorrow morning and then parade them publicly here. I'm sure there will be some form of sugar reduction pledge on that list so tonight there was a fatal encounter with a pint of Ben and Jerry's American Dream ice cream. So far just fatal for the ice cream. Now I'm going to get a head start on my pledge to read more novels and try to get to sleep. Somehow I'm thinking the neighborhood isn't going to be all that cooperative with the sleeping part this early. 

Went to the Movies

Tonight after work I took the bus to the Metreon and saw The Golden Compass. Although I've been meaning to get around to it, I've never read the Dark Materials books that this movie was based on. Tonight I'm glad for that. I enjoyed the movie although it seemed hard to worry about a girl who has a compass that tells the truth, a giant bear king, a gypsy navy, an air force of witches, a shapeshifting familiar, freaking Sam Elliott and, oh yea, James Bond on her side. I mean really what the hell can't she take with an army like that? Anyway it was good but I'm sure not as deep or complex as the books. Knowing me I would have been pissed as hell if I had an opinion of the stories going in. I mean I still would like to unleash an army like the one I just described on Peter Jackson for leaving out every single one of my favorite speeches in Lord of the Rings and turning Frodo into the whiniest little bitch in the history of cinema. So yea now I'll read the books and have all the cool special effects in my head while I'm getting what they are all really about. Cool for now but I'll probably want to kill someone by the time I'm finished watching the sequel.

John got Married

I still don't believe it. It happened last night right in front of me, but it still feels very surreal. Anyway, I had the longest damned day and am ready to try to catch up on the sleep. Here's a shot from last night of Pascal, Paul, Me, the groom and Danny. I'm going to need another night to sleep on this one.

I Wasn't Even Supposed to be Here Today

I feel one of those Dante Days may be coming on. Today was supposed to be my day off but the person that was supposed to work today is in the hospital. I'm just not feeling all that excited about dragging myself to work this morning. I'll be fine once I get dressed and get out of the house I'm just not feeling it right now. I bought myself a new winter coat last night. It's wool and very toasty. I'm trying to dwell on wearing my new coat to get excited about getting mobile. So far it's not working. What I really want to do is go to work and find another employee there. This will be the eighth straight day that the store has been open and I'm the only one there. That is wearing on me. My desk is buried. The back room has miscellaneous piles of last month's marketing materials. I can't get back there to work on it. It makes me grumbly.

Early News

I did not do what I was supposed to, what I had been prodding myself to do lately this morning. I did not open up Scrivener and start writing before checking to see if anything horrible had happened to the world since I went to bed. Predictably something had and I spent the first part of my morning refreshing the front page of the New York Times watching as Benazir Bhutto had been attacked, was fine, was injured, was critically injured, may be dead, was killed, and finally was assassinated. Television does updates better because it is a very now medium. It is strange to watch the reports come in in the printed media. For a little while I was refreshing the Google News feed by time which laid out the speculation before giving in to the facts. As for the murder itself, what can I say?  The winners are those whose only god is named pain and chaos. More people are going to die.  More suffering is on the way. Freedom from oppression, corruption, fear and uncertainty are farther away for all Pakistanis. An unstable country in an unstable part of the world slips closer to chaos and lawlessness. 

A Change at Christmas

This year at the store we got what has to be our worst Christmas CD ever. I don't think there is anything that is more killing to the spirit of Christmas than the ever present holiday music everywhere you go. By the time the day actually arrives it only takes a couple of jingle bells to make me think about hanging myself. So, I can think of no greater endorsement for a piece of music than the fact that I just went to the iTunes store and paid for one of the songs that we've been playing over and over for the last 6 weeks. That song is the Flaming Lips "A Change at Christmas (say it isn't so)". 

I had a very good, very end of the year productive day yesterday. Over the last two day's I've organized most of the projects in my life (including the one we're working on you slave-driving Frenchman), categorized my expenses for all of 2007 and started a brand new blog. I'm putting my life in order because Change is coming. I am planning for the future but 2008 is the most unwritten page of my life. Love, work, home and family are going look markedly different when I write this same entry a year from now. 

I dreamt of death last night. In at least three dreams I was about to face a violent and brutal death. While there was dread and some fear and even some denial I took it all pretty well. Since my life has been dominated by my personal fear of death I take that as a victory. Colleen and I had a conversation last week about death and the tarot. Death is not a card you don't want to see in your tree. The Tower, The Moon these are the things that you would rather avoid. Death is the sign of change. Only through the death of our old selves can our new ones emerge. 

So this is Christmas

I'm up and down today. On the one hand I'm happy to be out of the store for a whole day, on the other I'm feeling that all alone on the holiday thing. I went out to breakfast this morning at the Persimmon Cafe. I have eaten at least one meal every Christmas since I moved to the city there. That was an up. I did my journal on my phone while waiting for the food to arrive. Then I read the Talk of the Town and the beginning of a story in the new New Yorker. The story was called Alma and the first paragraph smacked me so hard I was afraid to read the rest of the story in case it was a let down. 

As usual my end of year processes are including updating how I do things on my computer. This last month I've been working on finding a good GTD solution. I was all but typing in the debit card number for OmniFocus when I realized that it I wasn't going to be able to utilize to the fullest any task list that I couldn't use on my phone. I like not having to take anything but my phone out and about with me most of the time. I need something that will work on both my desktop and my iPhone. I thought that Easy Task was the solution and it might have been if it hadn't turned out to be the single buggiest piece of software I've ever paid for. $20 down the toilet. Even if it didn't freak out all the time the online site won't update if you complete a project on your phone. That isn't a bug, that's a feature. Thanks but no thanks. 

So, against my internal misgivings I turned to Web 2.0. For the most part I like applications to be in my applications folder and data stored exactly where I tell it to be stored, but the more I use some of these services the more I like the way they are always up to date and always available. I checked out a number of programs, most only took a glance to show me that they were not what I wanted to be looking at everyday to tell me what to do. The three contenders ended up being Remember the Milk, Nozbe, and Vitalist. I really have nothing bad to say about any of the three. In fact even though I went with Vitalist I was very impressed with Remember the Milk. And it has a pretty cool cow favicon. (I've got a bit of a thing for good favicons.) The bottom line was that I've decided to go with Vitalist. I haven't given them any money and I'm not all that happy about paying them $5 or $10 a month for as long as they want to only charge me $5 or $10 a month but the solution is elegant and works exactly how I want it to either on my iPhone or in my desktop browser. 

This was an easier decision because for the past two weeks I've been looking at purchasing a personal finance program. Ending up using a website to track my money was the real leap of trust for online applications. Once I uploaded my checking account registers for the last year onto Wesabe there was no looking back. 

The third new service is actually a blogging platform that has been out for a year but is new to me. That is the blogs from tumblr. Not to panic. I'm not ending this site. This is still where I'm going to write my daily takes on life. I have, however started a parallel blog on tumblr. Here is a nice little blurb on Lifehacker about tumblelogs. So make a bookmark for a new site from me. 

lacadaz on tumblr

The tumblr blog will always have a link back to the latest postings here as well as more little bits of the the net that I come across in my surfing. I'm going to try to keep up with the originality of this site, using it only for my own work and not so much for links and net-minutia. As usual we'll see how it goes but I like the idea of having something that I can just dump whatever strikes my fancy. I've got my flickr, digg and this blog feeding into it as well so it should be a pretty good aggregator of my web life. Check it out if you like and Merry Christmas. 

Getting Better All the Time

Strange day today. Still felt like I was sick but most of my cold symptoms are in retreat. The only one that was full bore on me was my chapped lips. Whatever I was using on them today wasn't working. Brandon thinks that's because the secret ingredient in my $.89 lip balm is fiberglass. The way they were feeling today I'm inclined to agree. They were cracked and bleeding for part of the day. Getting my mouth around the deli sandwich I had for lunch was pretty close to impossible. I bought some Burt's Bee's at Walgreens on my way home and that helped. But that was on my way home and was not so helpful for the day at work.

Speaking of work I didn't sell a damn thing until after one o'clock. For three hours it was busy and then dead again. We'll that's the holiday for you. You never know quite what to expect.

I opened my presents from Karen tonight. Three exotic candy bars and some smoked salmon. What I would give to have a bite that doesn't taste like bees wax. Milk chocolate with Bacon and Salt is as strange as it sounds. Will be better when I open the bottle of wine that Laszlo gave me after I kill off this cold for good. The Creole bar with chicory and espresso is just crying out to be shared with a cup of coffee and the Red Fire bar with it's cinnamon and chipotle chilies is flat out delicious. The salmon will have to wait for the acquisition of crackers.

Well Christmas is only 4 minutes away so Merry Christmas to all and to me a good night.

Those Pills Really Work

So I took a couple of nighttime decongestants last night and I did manage to get what passes for a full night's sleep last night. I even got my morning pages out of the way in the morning before work which I hadn't managed to do in the last five days. Still life is pretty boring when you're sick. Sleep and eat whenever possible and try to stay on your feet at work. That sums up my life this week. We're making money at the store so I'm not gonna complain. I've spent worse holiday seasons. I've felt worse, I've worked more and made less money so this isn't even going to make the bottom 10 worst Christmas's. Not a lot to report though. I've switched browsers back to the latest build of OmniWeb. It seems much faster than Safari 3 and this time around I'm actually liking the drawer for tabs. Oh and I gave up on OmniFocus and started using Easy Task for my GTD task lists. It was the only to-do list that did what I wanted with both a web based screen for my iPhone and an actual application for my MacBook.

I've Got to Get Some Sleep

The last three nights have been a real pain to try to get some sleep. Tonight has got to change that. I bought some of those night-time decongestants. I'm hoping that will be enough to get some sleep. Nighty. Night.

Not Feeling So Well

Just when I've committed to running my store with limited help from anybody else it looks like I'm coming down with a cold. I don't really have much to say other than my eyes hurt and this screen is doing them no favors. I'm hoping that this will bug will pass through fast. I really hate being sick for the holidays.

Missed a Day

I missed a day of blogging yesterday and broke my streak. I had a roller-coaster of a ride of a day yesterday. I woke up with this horrible pain in my neck. This time it was on the opposite side from the pain that has been bothering me since I got back from Kansas. I was sort of hoping that maybe they would cancel their selves out and leave me in peace. So far that is not what is happening. Today I started fighting off a cold. My bosses, bosses, boss is coming by all the city stores. I fell running onto a muni bus this morning. But yesterday I did manage to write 2000 words in my journal and some of them were newly expressed thoughts so there was some learning to be done there and that is good. I hope that I can fight this thing off and have a more productive next couple of days.

Apple Addiction

84%How Addicted to Apple Are You?

Find Ultrasound technician schools near you

Funniest God-Damned Thing

Okay, this feels a little strange to be passing this link on right this minute. I just finished writing a friend that I'm doing a little business with that I have what has got to be the most uncontroversial blog in existence. My target audience is pretty much what my actual audience is (My mom. Hi Mom!) but I just have to share this. This link is the funniest god-dammed thing I've read in a very long time. 

The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses

Money Bomb

So today was the second major Ron Paul money bomb. You may recall that the first one was on the fifth of November in order to commemorate Guy Fawkes night. That first one yielded almost four million dollars. Tonight it looks like he's broken some more records having raised six million dollars from online contributions. Combined with the nearly 5 million he started the quarter it is becoming more and more likely that Ron Paul's candidacy has got the money to start raising it's voice and being heard. I'll tell you the truth I like his chances in New Hampshire. Let's see how the Granite State's notoriously independent voters react. 

Giant Balls of the Day

In the spirt of the Christmas Tree of the Day posts I present Giant (Christmas) Balls of the Day. Tomorrow there will be a new giant ball picture. 

Christmas Tree of the Day

Slow going on the photo editing from the other night. I did manage to get a handful more up on flickr. Here is the best of today's images. Besides this makes it easy to put up a little bit of content and stay merry and bright. This is the tree in front of the Ritz Carlton Hotel. 

Just One of those Days

I just had one of those days that just sort of disappears on you. I mean, I did some chores, I conducted some business, I did some writing but I have no idea how that added up to a whole day. That one just kinda got away. 

Taking Pictures

I took a walk down California Street tonight taking pictures of the Christmas lights. I finally got a decent picture of the tree in front of the Bank of America Building. I've got some more. I'll try get them up to my Flickr account tomorrow. 

Getting Excited

I know I'm a geek, but I'm all excited about my trip to the Apple Genius Bar tomorrow. I'm finally getting off my butt and having the top case replaced on my macbook. The hand rests went black pretty much the week I got it and back in October the front edge started peeling off. The warranty is up in February so I decided if I was going to do it I should do it soon. I have a 10:30 appointment at the Burlingame Apple Store. By noon tomorrow I should have a bright and shiny new look to my laptop. I can't wait. 

Christmas Comes to Alta Apartments

I was starting to feel a little sad about the season. I'm not working
at the Geary store this year so I'm not crossing Union Square every
night on my way home. Union Street is nice but it's not the same. Plus
there have been no decorations up in the lobby of my building so far.
That changed today. Tonight when I left to do a short evening shift
this line of holiday bears was attached to the front railing just
inside the door to the street. It made me smile pretty big.

Read Today

Not much to report today. Went to bed late last night but still woke up before seven. I copied the two days after Thanksgiving 2005 from my Moleskine to the computer and then got back into bed and took a nap. I actually did my morning pages on my phone when I woke up. I worked all day alone and I've got to tell you consumer confidence isn't what it used to be. Nobody seemed able to make up their mind. We had our best Sunday since Thanksgiving but I still had a lot of people unable to pull the trigger. I did manage to defrost the fridge at work which was nice since I bought a dozen bagels and shmear from Noah's this morning to feed Joe and I for the week. So much for my petty day. The only thing I really have to report today is that the December 10th New Yorker is really good. Waiting for the bus this morning I read The very different diaries of Leo Lerman and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The review opens with the image of earth after man has been supplanted by some new race who has no real use for all things uniquely human. A vision of all the unread notebooks hiding throughout the world all thrown on one giant refuse heap made me smile. I'll have my own little useless corner of that particular pile. The other worthy read was what I consumed me on the way home, a rather personal account of William Styron by his daughter. No link you'll just have to buy the magazine. Which is worth it just for this cartoon alone. As soon as it's available I'm getting the shirt made. Oh and a beautiful poem called Picnic by an Inland Sea.  

Keeping the Streak Alive

I'm afraid that this is going to be a bit of a filler post. I've managed to write something here everyday for the past two weeks and I don't want to stop now. The only problem is that it's late, I'm tired and not feeling very creative. Add to that the fact that the two biggest things on my mind right now I don't want to write about publicly. I'm not even sure why I'm worried about sharing, maybe I just don't want to jinx anything. For now I'm just going to leave it with the fact that 2008 may be the most important year of my life. Changes are afoot. My boring life may not be so boring soon. More later. I just can't promise when. 

I'm Early!!??!!

Not like me to be early on anything but I finished my Christmas
shopping this morning. Not only that but I managed to take the boxes
to the post office and get everything shipped. I was even early enough
to send Parcel Post. That's a first. So much cheaper to do it this way.

Car Number 60

I had a pretty active day but not a lot to report. I did my first Christmas shopping which included four different trips to two different H&M's. I had to go do a second interview at our Embarcadero Store and forgot something I was supposed to bring with me. I had to go back home to get it and that entailed multiple trips up and down the California line. The coolest thing about that was my last trip home I rode on Cable Car number 60 for the first time. It is the newest cable car in the world having been built in 2003 by Muni in their shops. It is a beautiful car, easily the best woodwork in the stable. Here is a link to a picture of it from last Christmas. It is decorated in the same manner this year. In case you haven't noticed. I love cable cars.

What is this?

So I have this odd feeling that’s been coming up in me lately. I thought it might have been something I ate or drank. It seemed familiar but far away if you know what I mean. It has been downright strange. I was even thinking about seeing someone about it and if you know my opinion of doctor’s you know how odd that is. Today while I was doing my daily journal pages I figured it out. I’m happy. I’m just plain old happy to be alive. Clear, content and awake. I’ve even been able to localize where this is coming from although I’m not quite ready to write about it here. Karen asked me to put one of the more smiley pictures of me up as my official blogger photo. I’m afraid I’m going to have to oblige. I’m just feeling too good lately to have that be representative of my mood. 

Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!

I got woken up around two by what I had thought was broken glass though it turned out to be a loose pipe that had fallen when some guy crawled down from the rooftop next door to the back carport. I saw the guy trying the back storage door. I couldn't make my mind up to call the police. I should have called the manager or the cops. No I went to investigate on my own. Just when I was getting sold on calling the cops  I did see the manager in the back checking it out. It was him that figured out what had happened. They guy had come in over the rooftop next door. Knocked down the pipe, waking me up and couldn't get into the building so left via the garage door which he left open. You know Its good I'm right there above the garage with the window open all the time listening but it would be smarter if I would do something when I see something out of the ordinary. 

Dictator (Not Quite) For Life

It’s rare that the news can surprise me. Politicians lying, socially conservative Senators involved in gay orgies, economic collapse, French strikes, Russian journalists committing suicide by handcuffing themselves and shooting themselves in the back of the head, violence in the Middle-East, Africa, Oakland are just par for the newspapers. This morning however the newspaper floored me. Hugo Chavez lost his bid to change the Venezuelan constitution in a narrowly defeated referendum and then reacted by saying that, “He wouldn’t have wanted that Pyrrhic victory.” The man was looking for a mandate and instead lost a squeaker of an election 49 to 51 percent. The changes would have changed the Presidential term to seven years and removed it’s term limits. There were however signs that this wasn’t the last word on the subject. At his post election press conference Chavez called the setback “…another ‘for now’”, referring to his reaction when he lost his first coup attempt in 1992. Chavez knows that he has until his present term expires in 2012 to ram these changes through. Still I never expected him to allow this outcome to happen in the first place so who knows what the future brings for Venezuela and it’s oil-rich effect on us all. Besides term limits don’t necessarily mean an end to power. Just take a look at Russia. 

Good News

One of the things I'm trying to do in this latest personal renaissance is read less news. Of all my commitments this one is proving to be the hardest. The problem is that all the news seems so bad all the time. The Chronicle seems to be the worst. Sometimes it seems like they have to dig real deep to find something to be pissy about. Today I was flipping through the latest Esquire and came across a story that was about an idea in education that seemed so good, so positive that it really made my day. I looked it up on line and am passing the link on to you guys. So give it a read. There are people out there making a difference, making the world move a little bit ahead. 

Can Advertising Save Our Schools by Tim Heffernan in Esquire

…and a blue Christmas Tree

More Pictures from Birthday Drive

It was nice to get out of the city and see that yes indeed trees to grow higher than eight feet. It was actually a little disappointing when we started getting near traffic again. I may be an urban guy but I can't forget to get my nature fix every once in a while. Thanks Karen for the reminder.