Wrap It Up, I'll Take It.

It's been quite the year for me. It started with my bankruptcy becoming final and the feeling of release that went with that. A year ago I was concentrating on eating better, losing weight and feeling healthy. I was also paying strict attention to my money. This was a result of turning forty in November and feeling a need to get on with a real life.

As the year went by I got off track with both of those items. I ended up spending like a drunken sailor this year and gaining back all the weight I took off. Still, I'm okay with that. I learned quite a bit during that time. Not the least was that I was totally capable of cleaning up my act and turning my life around whenever I wanted to. Tomorrow I will join many in getting back on the efficiency bandwagon. I'm not unhappy with the way I spent my money. I had a wonderful vacation. I bought exactly the best tools for the job for me with my computers and camera. I lavished gifts and gave to charity like never before. And thanks to having no access to credit I did it all paying cash.

But all of this is besides the point when it comes to 2009. The story of the year was the amazing woman I met, wooed and next year will marry. I never expected to feel this comfortable with anyone. I never expected to find this much happiness. I never saw contentment on my horizon until this year. I'm glad it's called mid-life because I'm just now starting to think that I'm figuring it out.

This is likely to be the last posting on this blog. Change is in my air and I'm ready to stir up everything. This coming year I will move, marry and hit re-set on my life. Maybe a new page and a new setting is in order as well.

Getting Better

I left the house without a cane for the first time in weeks. I took the stairs up to the lobby this morning. I'm riding in the back of the bus. I'm still a little nervous about getting off the back door and I'm really nervous about getting off of the 45 tonight going home but I am turning the corner on my injury. It was a real hellion of a sprain but I'm starting to get a little bit back to normal.

Yesterday was a proper Labor Day in that there was next to no labor involved. Kelly stayed over Sunday night and we stayed in bed until we were in danger of not being set for breakfast at Lefty's. Then back to the apartment for some work on the vacation pictures from July and lots of coffee. We finished the previous night's movie (1776) with a slice of French Silk Pie for me. Then BART to her house take out withCoroline on Pay Per View. A joyfully unproductive day.

The Lost Month

I feel like I’ve lost a month. I spent August feeling like I was underwater peering up at the real world through a distorted lens. I fell coming off the 47 Van Ness Early in the month and sprained my bad (right) very badly. I spent the next five days pretty much living on Kelly’s couch and popping pain pills. The first week back on my own in The City had me feeling pretty darn fragile. I’m still using a cane to get up and down the hill and on and off the bus. I sit in the front of the bus with the elderly and infirm. On the personal front, Kelly and I have had our first couple of rough patches. We worked our way through them quickly and came out with a better understanding of one another. There is something to be said for bringing a lifetime of experiences to a relationship. Here’s to middle age.

Anyway irregardless of what this last month has brought me I’m ready to move on. The usual commitments apply: more writing in my journal, taking and sharing more pictures, tweeting relevant events, eating better, eating at home, writing in my blog, all the greatest hits.

Fuck You John Bolton

I just wanted to send a big “fuck you” to former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton for his condemnation of our securing the release of Euna Lee and Laura Ling from a North Korean prison term. We traded a photo-op for two of our own. That’s it. We give them a handshake and they give 24 years back to two American citizens. I don’t care if you want to bomb Pyongyang this morning. I can listen to that with an open mind and maybe even get brought on board, but screw you for playing politics with this.

Firsts

Well I haven’t been writing much so after reading Paul’s list of firsts I thought I would join in.

1. Who was your FIRST prom date?
Heidi Hitchcock

2. Do you still talk to your FIRST love?
No.

3. What was your FIRST job?
I delivered the Sacramento Union in 1980

4. What was your FIRST car?
1975 Monte Carlo

5. Who was the FIRST person to text (IM) you today?
Kelly Morrison

6. Who is the FIRST person you thought of this morning?
Mom

7. Who was your FIRST grade teacher?
I’m not even sure what school I was at.

8. Where did you go on your FIRST ride on an airplane?
Burbank I think.

9. Who was your FIRST best friend & do you still talk?
Bill Peterson and no.

10. Where was your FIRST sleep over?
Marcus’s

11. Who was the FIRST person you talked to today?
Kelly Morrison

12. What was the FIRST thing you did this morning?
Played Mafia Wars

13. What was the FIRST concert you ever went to?
Bowie I think.

14. FIRST tattoo?
None

15. FIRST piercing?
None

16. FIRST foreign country you've gone to?
Mexico

17. FIRST movie you remember seeing?
Caberet

18. When was your FIRST detention?
Freshman year High School.

19. Who was your FIRST roommate?
Paul Anderson

20. As a kid, what was the FIRST thing you wanted to be when you grew up?
Fireman

21. What happened the FIRST time you were incapacitated?
Knocked out playing Red-Rover in Second Grade

22. Did you marry the FIRST person to ask for your hand in marriage?
Yes

23. What was the FIRST sport you were involved in, aside from physical education classes at school?
Was on the Basketball team in Jr. High.

24. What were the first lessons you ever took?
I’m like this naturally. Never had a lesson.

25. What is the first thing you do when you get home?
Play Mafia Wars (are you noticing a trend)

26. How old were you when you had your first child?
None

27. Who do you think will be the FIRST person to post this after you?
Probably someone I don’t know. These things travel fast.

Fire at the Bus Stop

Looks like half of SFFD are here.

Fireworks!

SF 4th of July Fireworks, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

After last year's fog shrouded fireworks this year we had much clearer skys and I had a better vantage point. Put 20 up on flickr already and have many more good ones to put up later. But first I have to go to work.

Honduras

So I’m trying to figure out how the hell everyone is calling the Honduran affair a coup. Constitution is written specifically to make sure that no one person stays in power indefinitely. President ignores constitution orders an illegal election. Attorney General and Supreme court says you can’t do that. President says fuck you I’m doing it anyway. Supreme court orders military to remove president. Military does just that and then allows congress to name the new president. Which it does. New president is from the same party as the old president. There was about to be a coup in Honduras and it was coming from Manuel Zelaya.

Our Story

I haven't posted anything in awhile here. It was beginning to look like I'd reduced my life to 140 character snippets. While it's true that I've embraced the Twitter mindset that is not the whole story. This last month my attentions have been in a new direction. There is someone new and special and wonderful in my life. While we have not exactly been hiding our fledgling relationship nor have we been shouting it from the rooftops. Last night that dynamic changed when we went through a modern digital rite of passage when first her then I changed our Facebook status to show ourselves in a relationship.

I know that's a bit goofy but Facebook has played a big part in bringing Kelly and I together. In a nutshell here we are.

Our Story

We managed to spend 4 years together at the same high school without ever once speaking to one another. 20 or so years later Facebook notices that and overlapping circles of friends. Kelly adds me as a friend saying that Facebook wouldn't shut up about adding me so she did.

We make comments on each other's posts, share some stuff together, we suggest some books and movies we think the other might like. Typical Facebook stuff only we seem to get the same kick out of the same stuff. Some of the conversations and advise start getting personal so we start private messenging and using email. I decide it's weird to be opening up to someone I've never offically met and ask Kelly to meet me after work sometime.

Some time and negotiation leads us to meeting at Magnolia in the Haight. We have a very pleasant dinner and agree to see each other again. A week or so later Kelly writes on Facebook that one of her vacation goals is to take pictures of the pelicans on the coast. Photography is a passion of mine and I love pelicans too so I suggested we go on a Pelican Quest photo walk. We did end up doing just that and while we didn't do so well on the pelican front we did have a remarkable time together capped off by dinner at the Beach Chalet where it came out that we liked each other. You know. Romantically. Soon we started plotting to spend whatever free time we could with one another and each time we did was better than the last. Since we owed Facebook the debt of bringing us together it seemed a fitting way to announce our relationship.

Briana's Luck

Here is a video clip from Brandon Tyler's show I shot on May 30 at Brain Wash.

Some Thoughts on Spring

Spring is a strange time for me. Like most living things I go through upheaval in the spring. Some of it is good. Some of it is difficult. Some of it is internal. Some of it is external, some internal, some a special cocktail of mixing the two. Externally weather, work and that fucking daylight savings time are the three big influences. Weather and work are sly and a bit unpredictable. I find my enjoyment of spring as a season is directly related to how much rain there is. Too much sunshine really brings me down and these last couple of drought years have not been good to me. Work is the sly one because on one hand it is our slow season. We don’t see a lot of traffic in stores and that can play with your motivation. Numbers are down and frankly you miss the company of the customers. On the other hand the corporation goes through it’s own Spring upheaval. Committee’s, conference calls, pilot programs, new styles, new initiatives and all the time freaking out because business is slow. So I’m busy and I’m not. And Spring often sees changes in personal. That puts some stresses out there too. Bottom line is the job is a little psychotic in Spring. Summer is different. Summer brings in the business and then the focus becomes more direct.

I hated daylight savings time before they changed it two years ago. The new earlier daylight savings time is a freaking disaster for me. I have become a natural early riser. Usually I wake between five and six and I haven’t used an alarm clock in years. Fall is my most creative time. The journal that got abandoned during the dog days of summer gets updated daily usually starting in late October. (Around the time Daylight Savings Time ends.) I can usually keep that running with the gradual changing of early morning light until around the time Daylight Savings Time restarts when my internal clock is thrown completely off and I retreat from the world. It’s probably a rare thing but I’m sure I’m not alone in hating not just that first week of adjustment but the whole length of Daylight Savings. It’s the sunshine. It brings me down.

Fall is usually about creative production. I write more. I observe more. I would take more pictures but unfortunately my favorite creative outlet lives on light. There are fewer non-working hours with daylight. Spring is about mixing up the creative process. Spring is when I make my tech purchases. Camera and computer upgrades all happen in Spring for me. It is also when I run through my software choices. Everyday I seem to ask myself if this is the best way to process information in and out. The struggle lies in the way I learn. Going through the learning and testing process actually turns off a lot of my creative instincts. I’m reminded of the old “the medium is the message” line because I begin to work on the best ways to express myself right at the time that I have the least to say.

On the tech front this Spring I did very well. I adore my new Nikon D90. I upgraded my computer and more than doubled my monitor space. I have become a twitter junkie. I forced an upgrade on Karen and we are staying more connected and having a lot of fun doing it. I’ve spent a lot of time and energy making my desktop, laptop and phone all keep track of the same things with as little oversight as possible. Kudos to Nambu, Tweetie, Instapaper, Evernote, MacJournal, iBlogger, Blogger and of course Apple (including, yes, MobileMe which I did end up signing up for one more time) for making it all possible. And a special shout out again to Griffin for my Power-Mate which I still love to no end.

Bottom line is not that I need to come out from my cave. Bottom line is that I need to stop beating myself up for having gone in in the first place. This is what I do every spring. I move on. No matter where I am I’m going to write again. I’m going to take more pictures. I’m going to share. That’s my ultimate nature. Hopefully next year I’ll remember these things and you’ll be reading “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Spring” on this page.

The Independent Senator

Yesterday I sat down to start writing about why I haven’t switched back to being a Republican now that Bush is gone. I did a couple of paragraphs to warm up and figured I would finish over the next couple of day. Before I could sleep my computer and head off to work the news started to break that Senator Arlen Specter was switching parties.

All of a sudden I was back in political news junky mode the likes of which I hadn’t been since the election. On the bus I followed every twitter link that mentioned Specter. I’ve long been a fan of Arlen Specter. I don’t agree with him on every position true but I think that’s true for every voter and politician. What I like about Specter is that he is notoriously hard on the Whip’s office. The man has his own opinions, his own research and damn it he’s going to vote the way he feels is right. I respect that. Hell, I love that.

Reading the reactions across the political spectrum you would think I was alone in that. To the right he is a traitor that should have been tossed years ago. To the left he is untrustworthy. Both sides seemed convinced that he’s going to screw them on card check. Independence in American politics seems to be the greatest vice these partisan day.

Independent, however, is exactly how an American Senator is supposed to behave. The reason 60 is such a magical number is because that’s how many Senators it takes to block a single Senator’s opposition. The Senate exists to give voice to minority opinion. The rules are there to encourage cooperation and compromise. Durbin and Kyl are supposed to have it rough. That’s a good thing.

Tactically I can’t see this as anything but a loss for the Republicans and a stupid one at that. The Club for Growth is starting to look like a super secret left wing establishment designed to cost the Republican Party as much damage as possible. If the party leaders can’t get Tom Ridge into this race and Pat Toomey is indeed the candidate he’s going to get killed by Specter in the general election. A Specter who will probably broker a compromise on Card Check. A compromise that would not have happened if he was still caucusing with the Republican’s.

Good Morning and Guess What You Just Bought

I started writing a piece in honor of the first 100 days of the Obama Presidency. Mainly because every media outlet seems to be doing it and I don’t want to feel left out. I should finish is a day or two. It’s not really about the administration. In fact I’m probably going to title it “Why I’m Still Not a Republican” and it is more about how despite all my attempts to join back up the GOP continues to put up walls, barriers and entry fees that are simply too much for this middle-of-the-roader to deal with. This isn’t to say that I’m all that happy with all the decisions the President is making right now. Did I wake up to find out that I bought Chrysler? To go along with Citibank? And AIG? I guess that I’m not completely opposed to some government investiture in business. I just think we might want to talk to our broker because most of this stuff looks like real dogs. The conservative principle that the reason you don’t let government invest in anything is because they are really bad at it is looking pretty right on right now. Chrysler? Really? Why would I want to buy a company when there was no way in hell I’d ever buy the product?

Perfecting the Workspace

So how many pictures of this desk over the last couple of years have I posted? I'm thinking this may be the last for awhile. My spring shake-up is done. New mini, keyboard hiding monitor stand, iphone dock/card reader, old school looking light/webcam/mic, new wider-screen monitor, old monitor standing up for status (twitter, chat, email, music), and my favorite my Griffin PowerMate all up and running in harmony. Hardware and software all in place. Now I just have to get off my mental ass and write something. If only it would rain. Been too sunny lately. Sunshine brings me down.

March

March is mercifully coming to a close. I would call it a challenging month. In many ways I didn't rise to the challenge. I stopped keeping up my food journal and resumed eating lunch out. Thus I gained five pounds and killed my food budget. I broke away from my 2009 budget plan and bought a new computer. My ankle gout flaired up sidelining me for a week. I am not going to go into the collapse at work that our SF team is going through that I feel like I'm holding together with scotch tape. I wrote rarely in my personal journal and not at all on my blog.

Still it was only five pounds. I've automated enough tools that I should be able to pick them up and get back on track with money and food with tomorrows calendar change. I simply love my new computer set up and all of the things I bought this month. Bankruptcy has this other benifit of restricting all purchases to cash. As long as I don't spend the rent, lapses in control have little long term effects. I wrote in my journal this morning and here I am on the 3 to work updating my blog. New streaks have to start somewhere. I (well Karen) finally figured out what the hell is wrong with my ankle. It doesn't make it better but it does make me feel a little more settled to know. And right now I'm starting to get that feeling you get when you are starting to feel better after an illness of appreicating all the little things (like being able to walk). All in all I'm getting through the chaos that daylight savings time always brings into my life.

Brandon Tyler at the Guild

In the Red Fog, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

Saturday I broke my no driving streak when I borrowed Karen's car and headed up to Sacramento to shoot Brandon Tyler's show at the Guild Theater to release his new CD "Turbulence" Some of my pictures from the shoot Brandon and I did last year ended up on the CD including the cover. I was pretty pumped to shoot him in action this time.

I met up with the band at Andy Nguyen's on Broadway for the pre-gig meal. We moved to the Starbuck's around the corner from the theater before heading in for sound check. I took a lot of pictures before the show to get the feel of the whole night from the bands perspective. I've started filling up a flickr set in that order. It's hard because I'm still editing and I haven't gotten to the pictures from the show yet. This one is one of two I skipped ahead to do because I just couldn't resist.

Anyway I'm back to work now after a weekend with not enough sleep in it. I'll keep plugging away at the photos and try to get more up every day this week.

Money Well Spent

Water Camo, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

So I went to new Academy of Sciences Museum in Golden Gate Park yesterday. It was my first trip to the new museum. As the old Academy was my childhood museum I was a little concerned. And yes there were some things I missed. I always loved the San Francisco skyline built into the wall at the old Morrison Planetarium although they did keep a piece in the gift shop. And the alligator grotto feels more like a museum exhibit and less like gators had snuck into your steam room and were hanging out with you.

Still the new museum is a wonder. I have no idea if we saw everything because my nature sense of direction was annilited by the rooms and bridges and elevators and passages and such. It is the Winchester Mystery House of museums but I loved it all the same. I bought a membership of course and am looking forward to returning (on a weekday) to take more pictures.

But this entry isn't about the Academy of Sciences. It's about my Nikon D90 that arrived on Wednesday and got its first real workout yesterday. No-flash museum photography especially aquarium photography can be challenging. I was somewhere I had never been before using a camera I only had a couple of nights to work on. Lets just say there was much tweaking of settings and discovery that I had the camera set for a completely different set of light conditions. Despite my befuddlement the camera performed beautifully. I was most struck when I put this picture up on flickr after doing some work in Photoshop and checked the iso setting. I shot this one at 3200 a setting that my d40 simply could not produce useful images. I think I might just love this camera.

New Camera

Coming Out of the Barn, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

Well the camera I've been waiting to get since it was first announced arrived last night. I worked all day so I wasn't sitting on the steps waiting for UPS. That was a good thing because when I got home at 6:20 it still hadn't been delivered. It was a few minutes later but I was pretty cranky for those few minutes. Anyway after an agonizing hour and a half for the battery to charge I spent the evening learning the in and outs. Big thanks to Ken Rockwell's guide for setting it up. Of course Ken's article on jpeg over raw got me re-thinking my workflow for the umpteenth time but that's for another post.

Anyway I got up early this morning and took my no traditional Cable Car Ride down to Aquatic Park and back to break it in. As I'm a little out of practice I didn't have the best shoot but I did get a couple I liked. I'm sorry this one doesn't show off all that the camera can do but I liked this one and this treatment the best. I will say that it was much easier to get it to do what I wanted it to than my D40. This was pronounced because I was trying to shoot from a moving Cable Car mostly before dawn with a very very slow lens. Suffice to say I'm very happy with my purchase and a big thumbs up to Abe's of Maine for delivering as promised with a rock bottom price.

New Pictures!!

Blowing the Horn, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

After the longest absence in well over a year I began posting new pictures to flickr yesterday. It was tough to resist the pull of one of my favorite neighborhood events so Saturday I marched down to Sutter and Kearney and set up shop for a night of picture taking. A number of things contributed to this being a better picture year. First a year with the camera made me a better photographer. Second I learned my lesson and did not try to shoot a parade at night without a flash. Third the worst storm of the year did not happen on Saturday night resulting in me being unable to stop shivering for 48 hours as a result. After blowing $30 on a bleacher seat and then having the parade route being pretty empty because of that storm last year I decided to take my chances on the street. I got to the corner at 5 and ended up with a position about as good as I had last year so that was $30 saved.

The one issue I am having is that as I haven't been working on post production in so long I'm having to re-remember my favorite techniques in Photoshop. That is why the five pictures I've done so far all have a bit of a different look to them.

The next big event is the Valentine's Day Pillow Fight on Saturday. I'm crossing my fingers that I get my tax check today or tomorrow so I can order my D90 in time to use it this weekend. Although I wont feel too disappointed if it doesn't make it as the pillow fight is actually the one event that can be brutal on my camera. I would hate to do damage on the first day out in the field.

88 Lines About 44 Things

Yet another Facebook list has crossed my inbox. Since I've been trying to post more and I don't have anything ready to go tonight I'm going to fill out this questionnaire. 

1. Do you like blue cheese? Yes but only crumbled on a steak or in salad dressing.  

2. Have you ever been drunk? Is this a trick question? Why is it phrased in the past tense?

3. Do you own a gun? No. What the hell would I do with a gun?

4. What flavor of Kool Aid was your favorite? Red. 

5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments? I don't remember. I haven't had a doctor's appointment in maybe 15 years.  

6. What do you think of hot dogs? I like them. Hebrew National, with mustard and cheese and a little bit of relish, perfection. 

7. Favorite Christmas movie? A tie between "The Ref" and "Shop Around the Corner".   

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Coffee.

9. Can you do push ups? I don't know about he plural part of this one.  

10. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? The only piece I wear a Tissot Automatic.  

11. Favorite hobby? Photography.  

12. Do you have A.D.D.? How the hell would I know?

13. What's your favorite shoe? Sperry Top Siders. 

14. Middle name? Anthony 

15. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment?
- I'm so glad I ate Dinner before I freaked out and through my computer out the window. 
- I like this movie (Deconstructing Harry) though the dialogue is really forced. 
- I'm glad it started raining again. 

16. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink? Water, Coffee, V8 

17. Current worry? About a meeting I don't want to go to at the end of the month. 

18. Current hate right now? The way Adobe Bridge copies and pastes metadata. (See throwing computer out the window in #15)  

20. How did you ring in the New Year? I don't remember. I probably slept through it. 

21. Where would you like to go? New York. 

22. Name three people who will complete this? I'm not sold on the chain letter aspect.

23. Do you own slippers? No.  

24. What color shirt are you wearing right now? Grey.     

25. Do you like sleeping on Satin sheets? No. I like to stay put when I sleep. 

26. Can you whistle? Yes. 

27. Favorite color? Grey

28. Would you be a pirate? I'm gonna reserve my 5th amendment rights and skip this one.    

29. What songs do you sing in the shower? I make them up. They are horrible and not to be repeated.  

30. Favorite Girl's Name? Jane 

31. Favorite boy's name? Richard 

32. What's in your pocket right now? Nothing 

33. Last thing that made you laugh? A cartoon from this week's New Yorker. (page 91 '09 Anniversary Issue if you want to follow along at home)

34. Best bed sheets as a child? I don't think I had printed sheets. The white ones. No, the off white ones. I don't know. 

35. Worst injury you've ever had as a child? I was playing on a hill covered with brush and slipped on a board that was under said brush. Unfortunately I sat right down on the nail that was sticking out of the board. Ouch. 

36. Do you love where you live? I do. I love my building and I love the location downtown. Someday maybe I'll move somewhere where I can fit a third person in the room but for now I'm doing great. 

38. Who is your loudest friend? Mike. 

39. How many dogs do you have? None.  

40. Does someone have a crush on you? I really don't think so. 

41. What is your favorite book? "Love in the Ruins" by Walker Percy. 

42. What is your favorite candy? Violet Crumble.

43. Favorite Sports Team? The SF Giants. 

44. What song do you want them to play at your funeral? "Hope" by Bauhaus. "Your mornings will be brighter, Break the line, Tear up rules, Make the most of a million times no"

25 (not so) Random Things About Me

So these lists are making their way around my Facebook circle and I’m in a take stock of myself kind of mood anyway so I decided not to completely blow this one off. But I thought I’m going to do it right. I’m really going to make it 25 random things about me. Not 25 semi-interesting, semi-connected minor factoids. No I was going to make a truly random snapshot of my personality. So I spent a couple of days doing free associative writing. All the events and emotions of my life I could think of were there on a long numbered list. All my plans, dreams, schemes, pains, joys, fears, lusts, triumphs, secrets, shames and embarrassments were all there. Then I plugged the whole thing into a number generator to get a truly random look at me. 

The results were astounding. A quick view snapshot into my very psyche. Publication of such a document could be such a release. A release, for example, from my job. From the small circle of friends I’ve managed to hobble together. From all family ties. Not to mention probable inditement from local, state, and federal officials. Possibly even a war crime tribunal. 

So I did what I had to do. I selected all, and hit delete. And then did a secure empty on my computer’s trash. And then over wrote all the blank space on the drive. Then formated the drive with 7 passes of write zero. Then removed the drive, dismantled it, scratched the beginning of the Gettysburg Address on the platter, took all the pieces on the Larksburg Ferry and dropped them into separate areas of the bay. Then I went home and wrote this collection of semi-interesting, semi-connected minor factoids about me. 

1. I had my 1st pacemaker put in the week of my 4th birthday and mylast one taken out just before I started High School
2. I may not have a phobia about doctors but I sure do avoid them. It's been 15 years since my last office visit. 
3. I mocked my friends for playing MTG when it came out and kicked myself hard about missing all the classic cards when I got into it 10 years in. 
4. I have a pretty dim view of sales and salesmen. Guess what I've done for a living for the past 10 years.
5. The only thing I miss about moving out of the burbs is the Stanford Theater. 
6. I haven't driven a car in over 3 years. 
7. For the first time since I was 18 I have no points on my driving record. 
8. I live a couple of blocks from Union Square. For the year I ran our store downtown I hardly ever ventured outside a 10 block radius. 
9. I used to live on a sailboat that was too small to stand up in.  
10. After that experience my present 250 square foot apartment isn't a space issue. But you can believe it has high ceilings. 
11. I spent the first 20 years of adulthood mucking up my health, finances, romantic and work lives. 
12. So far my 40's are all about repairing the damage of my 20's & 30's. 
13. This is the happiest stage of my life so far. 
14. My wedding day remains the happiest day of my life. 
15. All I wanted to do after high school was get a job and apartment by myself in The City and embrace some kind of artistic expression.
16. The above plan did work out. It just took 20 years longer than I expected.  
17. While I complain about it as much as any other San Franciscian, I secretly love Muni. 
18. I have a 500 movie collection on my computer attached to my TV. 
19. I haven't had cable in over 3 years. 
20. I keep my movie and music collections sorted by year. It's the only way I can find anything. 
21. I went to cancel my land line and they told me it would reset my Internet and I would be unplugged for 3 days. I said forget it, I'll keep the damn phone. 
22. Bankruptcy may have been the smartest thing I've ever done. 
23. I've always been a big history buff. Every school bond issue that comes up makes me remember the American History teacher that gave me an F. My vengance is my no vote.     
24. I've been known to get up for popcorn when the car chase starts. Really I've seen this part before. Get on with the plot and the character development already.
25. My Christmas tree goes on top of the fridge. It's the only place it fits. 

I am forgoing the chain letter aspect of this exercise as I don’t want to inflict the above on anyone else. Even though I remain convinced that this recession came about because someone refused to forward a list of happy thoughts to ten of their friends last spring. 

Happy Birthday

So this post is a special call out to that one reader we can all rely on. Mom. Happy Birthday Mom!

It is a property of our new age that I don't get the "you never call" or "you never write" guilt. I only get the "you never blog" guilt. Don't worry Mom I give myself enough of that already. Yesterday I had a great day off. I planned out a budget for the whole year. I finalized my automatic savings plans. I finally figured out my pension benifit at work. I configured a new home page. I took a long walk and bought my Fast Pass. I had a nice write on a friendly bench overlooking the Bay Bridge on a perfect day. I didn't spend a dime over the Fast Pass cost. I stayed to my diet and lost the weight that spiked up three days ago. By any account that's a good day. But there I was at the end of the day feeling like a failure because I hadn't blogged yet again and no longer have the concentration to do it at night. I did not spend too much time beating myself up. That is another habit I'm trying to get into. Stop listening to me when I start to nag or berate myself. For far too long I've been the one to beat myself into wounded puppydogdom. You know puppydogdom probably isn't a word but it should be.

So in an attempt to get me to shut up I'm going to try to be more dilligent about posting. It is likely that the quality will drop and you the reader will have to suffer. For one thing it will mean more posts written from the 3 bus on my phone with it's limited spellcheck abilities. That combined with my non-existant internal spellcheck abilities may make it less than perfect. But I'll fell better and isn't that what's important anyway? That I feel better? Anyway happy birthday mom

No, Really, I Wrote This

So I've been doing a little research about this strange feeling that keeps popping up in me. Apparently it's an uncommon but not unheard of affliction that's called happiness. It's very odd and keeps throwing me off balance. Well it's supposed to be a new year with some new experiences so I think I'm just going to roll with it. 

What it is coming down to is that the life changing habits that I tried to attach to my 40th birthday are working and making a world of difference. The impending erasure of my debt has me determined not to fall into it's trap ever again. I've spent much of the first couple of weeks of the year setting up different automations to pay my bills and save as much as I can. I have never felt as in control and frankly excited about my financial future as I do right now. (Though I wouldn't complain if my 401K would stop shrinking on a daily basis.)

The other big change was to my diet and tomorrow is a full two months of tracking everything I eat on MyNetDiary. This is also paying off as I've just started using a notch twice removed from the worn one on my belt. I'm down about 15 pounds from my maximum weight and am full of energy. While I'm not thin by any means, I've begun to remember myself as the thin person I used to be. This is big for me. A positive self image is another of those mind-states that I'm just not used to. I'm already thinking about some new clothes for summer. Actually the one piece of clothing I bought this winter was a sweater that bought based on my torso length not width for the first time in a very long time. That was $20 well spent dollars.

I'm on a writing roll too, even if this blog doesn't have much to show for it. I only missed one day in December in my journal and that has meant much to my sense of well-being. I've been trying to keep a dream journal too but that has been hit and miss. Too often I want to just turn over and get back to sleep as quickly as possible.  When I do do it though the payoff is immediate as it usually helps me remember the next dream. 

Along with skipping out on this blog I haven't taken very many pictures in the last two months. My last big day with my camera was my birthday and I have hardly given those pictures a second thought. I am not done with photography by any means but it does seem to have taken a break from the forefront of my consciousness. This is not unusual for me when I'm in what I've taken to calling "process mode". That is a state of mind when I take off my creative hat and put on my technical learning cap. This time it is not so much about a particular piece of hardware or software but more about absorbing as much advise as I can take from the internet regarding diet and personal finance. Being that tis is the season for diet and personal finance blogging there has been no shortage of advise most of which can be summed up as stop eating and buying stupid shit. Writing down what you eat and buy seems to be the preferred method of showing you how much stupid shit you eat and buy. The rest is details. It's been good to read the same things over and over though It's helped cement some habits. I would like to take this time to put a shout out to the site that has done for money what MyNetDiary did for food for me, and that sight is Mint. It is hands down the easiest way of keeping track of my money and budget I have ever seen. Of course both sights have great corresponding iPhone applications to go with them. 

Well that should bring you up to date with where I'm at right now. I'm trying to turn myself into a lean, friendly, money saving machine.