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.

Birthday in the Woods

Taking a drive with Karen we stopped on the way to the coast to take a
walk in the woods.

Late Start

This morning I titled my journal entry “Late Start” because I didn’t wake up until eight. That is a good two hour later than usual for me and I hadn’t even been up that late last night. I had some strange morning dreams though. I seem to remember being Queen Elizabeth’s head butler and being pissed as hell at her over her attitude. I’m not even going to try to figure out what that might mean. Anyway, as I got to writing it started to come out that I was referring to more than the lateness of the hour. You see, I turn 39 tomorrow and I still feel like I’m just starting to figure out my creative side. All my journaling feels like I’ve been sketching for years without ever starting a canvas. Tomorrow feels like it starts a countdown. These are my final 365 days to produce something before I turn 40. It’s funny but I actually feel good about that. Getting back into the habit of writing daily is starting to turn some dividends. Out of the blue this week I’ve had a couple of new ideas about a play that I’ve been mulling around in my head for years. I spent this morning checking out a new writing program to start turning those ideas into something tangible. It would do a lot for me to finish a play in the next year. Even a lousy one. My creative life could use a little completion. 

20,000 Songs

So I hit 20,000 songs scrobbed last night on LastFM. It took just a little over a year to get there. My charts are not entirely accurate though. My last two iPods have not been supported. That isn't a big deal with my shuffle but I've listened to an awful lot of music on my iPhone since I got it, both in Kansas and on my daily commute now that I'm working again on Union Street. Still it is fairly good picture of the evolution of my musical tastes over the last year. Most revealing to me is the number of artists that I discovered over this last year and how high some of them ranked. Three of my top ten I had almost never listened to before in my life, Brian Eno, Tom Waits and the Decemberists. KT Tunstall, I Am Kloot, Rilo Kiley, Doves, of Montreal, Midlake (getting some good airplay this morning), Klaus Schultze, Andrew Bird, Eels, and  Iron & Wine were all new additions to my playlists that made the top 100. The most important musical discovery of the year (maybe my life) was of course Neutral Milk Hotel's, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. This is not to diminish the impact of Tom Waits', Closing Time or I Am Kloot's, I Am Kloot or Leslie Feist's, Remainder. Those last two albums along with In the Aeroplane and Midlake's, The Trials of Van Occupanther are the most under reported because of the iPhone thing. All in all it was a banner year musically and Last FM had a lot to do with it. Similar Artists led to numerous musical discoveries throughout the year. I'm curious and excited for the new year. I got my ear back this year. Thanks Last FM.

Astral Weeks

I was looking at my LastFm charts the other night and thought just how much "writing music" dominates the top of the charts. For years and years my favorite album to put on in the morning when I write has been Victorialand by the Cocteau Twins. For a couple of months it was Brian Eno's Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks. The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions was combined with Victorialand most of last year to kind of nudge me into consciousness in the morning. This week it has all been about Van the Man. I bought my first copy of Astral Weeks on vinyl over twenty years ago. It has remained one of my all time favorite albums through that entire time. If I had to pick a single desert island album it would probably be this one. It just seems to operate outside of time. I like that. I like it when music transports me and this one brings me to places that nothing else does.

Seasons of Light

Another short post this morning I'm afraid. I got up early but Monday is my early day at work thanks to a weekly conference call. I've been trying to work on four projects every day before I do anything else. Sometimes it's tough to get them all in before work. The first thing I try to do is copy at least one of my longhand journal entries onto my computer. I've been writing on the computer since the beginning of 2006 but I have about a thousand pages of longhand that I'm trying to play catch up on. Because I was running late I skipped that part yesterday. I had been working on my September to November 2005 journal but decided to skip around a little bit. I'm going to try to get everything I've written since I moved in here into my iCal by the end of the year. So this morning I started with October 29, 2005. That was a banner day for me. My first morning in my new apartment. It was fun entry to copy. To make up for missing yesterday I did the 30th too. There is a shell-shocked feeling to both of them. I was finding it hard to believe that I had found home. They are happy writings. 

The next thing I do is my morning pages. Since I use a computer now it's hard to keep track of what constitutes three pages. From copying old journals I think that three pages longhand for me ran about 500 words. So I try to put down at least 500 words to start my day. Then I look for a new affirmation. A daily quote to put my day in a positive light. I skipped that this morning. Oh what the hell I should be able to fit that in. I'm typing this sitting next to my Harvard Classics. Let's try the random search method. Carlyle rarely disappoints. Okay, here is a snippet, just a phrase to set a mood, "…most of us, looking back on young years, may remember seasons of light, aerial translucency and elasticity and perfect freedom; the body had not yet become the prison house of the soul, but was its vehicle and implement, like a creature of the thought, and altogether pliant to its bidding." That seems to fit with my fabled nostalgia. 

The last thing I try to do is this. Publish something to my blog. I'm having a good week of it. This is my sixth straight day publishing, and would have been my ninth day journaling if I hadn't lost last Monday's entry in a technical breakdown. Well that's it for me. I'm to work. 

Trouble Sleeping

Short post this morning. I went to bed early last night. I was asleep by ten. The problem with that was that when the bars let out around two I got woken up and couldn't get back to sleep until nearly five. That meant I slept in until eight and their went two of the hours I usually give over to my morning writing chores. Bottom line is that I've got to get my but to work right now so I'll leave you people that have Sunday off with a nice time killing website that helped contribute to this morning's insomnia. 

Not Always Right

I Got Into a Knife Fight With Al Pacino

It may be true that other people's dreams are boring to listen to but they can sure make for some colorful headlines. Plot lines rarely make sense in dreams so I'll just give you some of the images: Al Pacino, the second in command to the General in Woody Allen's Bananas, a daughter I don't really have, a machete and a butcher knife (used by me), the house I lived in as a child in Concord (second and third grade). The thing that woke me up was my failure of nerve when pressed to decapitate Pacino to save my little girl. Weird, wacky stuff. 

After that you're probably wondering what the hell I did last night before I went to be. Let this be a warning to you about 80's music. It can kill Al Pacino. Last night a song I loved came up on shuffle but it was a lame live version I didn't realize I had so I went looking for a better copy of So. Central Rain since my copy of Reckoning was on cassette and I haven't seen it in at least 10 years. As it is one of the great self-indulgent songs about loss I had to have more. So I started a new playlist called broken and started adding. R.E.M led to the Who's Bargain which led to Love Will Tear Us Apart which led to Atmosphere. Somehow over the course of the next hour I ended up with my bluetooth headphones on dancing around my apartment to General Public, Dramarama, Material Issue and even The Outfield. (Yes, Bourbon was involved). In case you have been in my apartment and are having a harder time picturing where in the hell I was "dancing around" than me in a knife fight with Tony Montana, I will just say that my furniture gives it a more authentic, crowded dance floor feeling.

Not So Black Friday

So today kicks off the Christmas Retail season. It's eight o'clock in the morning and many of my friends in retail working for other companies have been at work for four or five hours already. Not me. If fact I went ahead and loaned my only employee to a mall store for the day. I'll be working Black Friday alone. And I can't tell you how little I am stressed about it. That isn't to say that I don't hope to have some business. It's just that where I am and what I sell I feel confident in having a day that I can handle without breaking too much of a sweat. I can't begin to say what a treat that is. It is the "Priceless" moment in the Mastercard commercial.

I spent yesterday in Santa Rosa with my cousin, his girlfriend and a buddy of his from the Coast Guard school. It was a friendly afternoon. We spent the time waiting for the bird to cook playing Trouble. I had no idea that game could get so cutthroat. Anthony even wondered aloud if there had ever been a knife fight caused by the game. What can I say it was silly but it was fun. The food was great and there was plenty of it. All in all the best Thanksgiving I have had in a very, very long time. And a special shout out to Heather, Anthony's girlfriend for driving all over Northern California top pick me up and take me home. Thanks you guys. 

So I'm writing every day in my journal, I'm staying more clearheaded than ever, I've been sneaking down to Mt. View to get adjusted whenever I can, I've started posting here again, and I'm trying to write down one affirmation or wisdom everyday for inspiration. Today was Carlyle's opening line to Characteristics, "The healthy know not of their health, but only the sick." For me it is a reminder to recognize health and happiness when it descends on me. So we may get profitable today but I'm just not going to think about this Friday as black.

Thanksgiving

This morning I spent my Morning Pages stream of conscious writing some of the things I'm thankful for right now in my life. It was a friendly way to start the day. I should try to do it more than just on the National Day of Thanksgiving. Anyway I consolidated it down to a great big run-on list of things in little particular order. Here goes:

Colleen, Karen, Toni, Leslie, Jessica, Isabella, Anthony, Tanya, Susan, Holly, the other Anthony, the other Karen, My Job, Laszlo, My Apartment, Steam Heat, Rent Control, My Store, Union Street, Union Square, San Francisco, Cable Cars, The Bay, The Ocean, Music, the Jazz, Indie Cred and Alternative Nation playlists on my iTunes, My Two Macs, My iPhone, Regina, Jeanes, Seth, Roger, Yvonne, Biljana, Waqar, Mikkel, Troy, Jeff, Brandon, George, Fidel and all my other colleagues, Nicolas (who is becoming an invaluable friend. How the hell did that happen?), the knot in my neck notwithstanding My Health, Allen and the Pan inside of him. And of course John and Sarah who keep me social despite my instinct to be an Urban Hermit. 

I could have gone on I'm sure and in my journal I took some more elaborate notes on each entry but I've got to get ready. I've actually got somewhere to go this Thanksgiving and you better believe I'm thankful for that and especially Anthony and Heather for inviting me. 

My New Desktop

Check out this page on flickr for the whole explanation of how Mumbly Joe got this incredible picture of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. It seems that once a year they light it up with the original kerosene lamps but this year they did it on one of the foggiest nights in memory which led to a hell of a picture. I've replaced my desktop and background on my phone with this one. 

Skating Out of the House

So yesterday I found myself about to spend another day off without leaving my apartment. I've decided since coming back from vacation to avoid this as much as possible. So I put on my shoes and walked down to the Cable Car Stop and rode up to the top of the hill. There I switched to the California line and ended up down at the Embarcadero. I was happy to find that the ice skating rink has been set up at Justin Herman Plaza and people were out skating on a Wednesday afternoon. While I didn't join them today I'm making it a plan to get back down there at least once this season. It looks like fun and I haven't skated in years. I snapped this picture with my phone. I think I'm going to have to return with a real camera next time.

A Couple of Links

I just can't resist adding to the viral nature of this link. It is just too cool. Online shopping should always be this fun.

HEMA

The second is a list of Open Letters To People Or Entities Who Are Unlikely To Respond. I include this because some of you are just twisted and because some of you may find yourself wanting to comment on the activities of certain Oldsmobile coupe owning neighbors after reading letters like, An Open Letter to My Neighbor Who Frequently Sits Alone Inside His Truck.

Election Day

I'm going to the polls in San Francisco for the first time today. Last year I forgot to file a change of address so I trekked down to Redwood City for my Congressional Vote. In what is supposed to be record low turnout in San Francisco I'll be voting on a variety of citywide issues. Here is my scorecard. Of course, it may be December before we know the results.

A - No
B - No
C - Yes
D - Yes
E - No
F - Yes
G - Yes
H - No
I - No
J - Yes
K - No
Mayor - Yes
District Attorney - No
Sheriff - No

For God Sake Would Somebody Do Something Today

I get one of those "This Day in History" emails every morning. It's
usually a nice mix of biography, historical events and cultural
milestones. Today I awoke to find this sentence in my inbox.
"Different Strokes premiers on NBC". Unless I am an executive of NBC
and am looking for the events that have shaped my network this is
pathetic. So somebody do something noteworthy today. Steal the
November 3 thunder away from 1978 because that is one weak way to look
back at the events that matter.

A Non-Halloween Halloween

This entry definitely goes into the "My Boring Life" category. I guess
I echoed the city which had cut out the traditional Castro Street
celebration after growing rowdiness cumulated in eight people getting
shot. Halloween has never been my holiday anyhow. I'm just not a dress-
up kinda guy. I guess I've spent my whole life trying to get a handle
on just who I am. It is far too confusing to figure out who I should
be pretending to be.

Some technical notes. After a week of upgrading, installing, deleting,
crashing, tweaking and in general computer geeking I think I've got
Leopard set up on my laptop how I want it. Despite what wasn't the
easiest upgrade in computer history I'm pretty satisfied with the
result. I know that everyone else was worked up about Time Machine but
I couldn't see what the fuss was about. Yesterday it was the last
major feature I set up. To tell you the truth I was impressed. It
backs up without me feeling a resource hit at all. More importantly it
restores easily. I can't tell you how many times I've spent time, and
computer resources on back-ups that when I want to restore a file
turned out to be absolutely useless. Last night I just popped back in
time a couple of hours and poof restored a file I had deleted. It was
easy and frankly the interface is fun.

The biggest change to my daily computing will be in the upgrades to
Mail and iCal. Having started journaling and blogging using mail on my
iPhone it is nice to be able to then back up my entries to my calendar
easily and quickly. Now if Steve can just get it together with to-do
lists and the iPhone all will be right in my digital world (yea right,
heard that one before).

Anyway today is the beginning of November. And November is my favorite
month. The air is crisp the wind is blowing, the world seems to be in
sharper focus. It has been two years now since I moved to this
apartment. That first month, that first November month, I spent here I
wrote more than any other in my life. It would be a nice to think that
today is the start of another big month of expression. So here is to
Fall days, thoughts expressed, words shared. Here is to November.

Dock of the Bay

Musée Mécanique

Sal

Dock of the Bay

Got a craving for In-N-Out Burger this morning. I decided that I was
likely to spend another weekend hardly stepping out of my apartment
and maybe I should something about that. So I picked myself up and
caught a cable car down to the wharf. I'm out on the pier next to
Forbes Island staring right at Alcatraz. The whole bay is fogged in.
It's cool but not cold. I'm in a light sweater doing fine. This
weather may cool the flesh but it warms my heart. The seals are
barking up a storm at pier 39. I've seen a couple pass in front of me
heading back into the bay.

The Museé Mécanique had moved from its traditional location at the
Cliff House a few years ago before they tore it down and rebuilt it. I
remember they were having trouble finding a place for it. It is here
at Fisherman's Wharf. Pier 45 actually. I took a wander through it
just to be reminded of all the wild old machines. Laughing Sal still
greets you when you walk in. I'll start home soon, go home and do some
housework but I'm starting to remember how to relax. How to simply be.

BTW the soundtrack for today's reading is "Two Headed Boy" and "The
Fool" by Neutral Milk Hotel.

Dreams, poetry, an iPhone and a boy made of gold paper

A little while ago I woke directly from a dream. Since getting my
iPhone I have been grabbing it and using it to record whatever I could
remember from the dream as fast as I could, before I started the
forgetting.

Like all dreams this has some back story. (right now I'm trying to
resist the memory of Debra Winger in Sheltering Sky complaining about
how boring it is to listen to people talk about their dreams)

I have been on a musical discovery kick lately. I've been exposing
myself to a large catalog of music from the last ten years that I had
been ignorant. If you would like to follow along just tap on my lastFM
box and go through my charts for the last couple of months. Jenny
Lewis, Doves, Decemberists, Neutral Milk Hotel, and I Am Kloot are all
artists that I think will be audial companions for years to come. They
were all unknown/ignored by me until very recently.

And what does this have to do with the price of boys made out of gold
paper you might ask? I have been thinking about how poetry and music
so often comes from the young mind. I was thinking about how long its
been since I truly loved anything new from three of the musicians
whose early works all rank among my all time favorates: Paul
McCartney, Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen. I have not bought or
even taken the time to download a new album from any of them in ten
years. That led me to thinking about my own work. I doubt I have
written ten poems in the last decade. And while I have never really
liked anything I have written I am utterly convinced of the
worthlessness of those alleged ten poems. My poetry all seemed to come
out in a short burst in my late teens and early twenties. If anything
my life should be more attuned to all my favored themes. I still long
for old friends and lovers. In fact now I have more of them and they
are farther away in time, space and emotional availabilty than they
ever were when I was young. I would have thought living in the land
beyond redemption would be conducive to writing the kind of poems I
used to. But no, that has not been my experience.

Work is having one of those meetings where the company pretends it
cares that you have other cares besides its profitability. It is going
to be followed the very next day by a meeting reminding all of us
about how the only thing that matters is their profitability. I don't
really mind the hipocracy so much anymore I just wonder if it has to
be so blatant. The touchy-freely meeting has us all bringing a shoebox
filled with momentos and possessions that define ourselves. I am not
all that keen in this particular exercise. For the most part my peers
are good people who I like, respect, and trust. Ditto for my boss. But
like any group there are those few who are duplicitous, selfish, and
mean liars. If there is one thing I have learned in my life it is not
to give away anything of myself to people like that. The other thing I
have learned is that even if your boss has nothing like those
qualities his job description requires them from time to time. The
best you can hope for in a boss is that he takes no pleasure from
their application.

That whole tirade was simply about the fact that I have been thinking
about my poetry lately because the book I self-published 18 years ago
happens to fit in a shoebox. (I put the current odds of me actually
taking it to work at a hundred to one.)

So about this dream of mine. (I could never be a journalist with my
habit of burying the lead in the sixth paragraph) It took place in a
middle school and I was a student. It wasn't one of my junior high
schools, in fact I'm pretty sure I wasn't me. It was more like I was
in a television show about middle school. I'm pretty sure that all of
the people I met in my dream were played by tv actors. Or maybe the
cast of Adventures in Babysitting. I don't know. Except for the Boy
Made of Gold Paper. Him I've never seen before.

It was a dream about adolescence. About sexual confusion, feeling
powerless, and trying to define yourself. It climaxed with me being
interrogated by an assistant principal (is there any title besides
maybe Führer that inspires such revulsion) and having to cold read a
poem that was written on a piece of the Boy Made of Gold Paper. It was
a good reading and the poem wasn't bad. Not at all. I don't remember
it of course but it had a good cadence to it. It read easily and I
felt satisified when I was done. I awoke realizing that I had dreamed
the poem. That it was something completly new. That I has actually
written a poem I liked, albeit in a dream and now totally lost. So I
grabbed my phone and began to take notes. What surprised me was the
form the notes took. Usually my dream notes are very literal and
filled with as much detail as I cab remember. This morning was
different. This mornings notes came out in what I would guess passes
for verse from me. I make no claim to liking it but am simply
surprised to find myself publishing a new poem this morning.

What does this half to do with the iPhone? Only that I am still lying
in bed and never would have written any of this longhand or on my
laptop. But now I have to get up and go to work.

The Boy Made of Torn Gold Paper

I dreamt of a boy made of torn gold paper. And the boy that he loved.
Or maybe the boy that loved him. And a girl. That maybe I loved. Of
friendship. Of betrayal. Of the cruelty and ignorance of authority. I
dreamt of poetry and the absolutness of adolescence. I was once a
poet. I was once a great sight reader. This morning before I awoke I
was both again.

Back to Work

Well I'm back to working at Union Street again. Today was my first
commute in the rain in a long time. You know what that means. Yup,
Cable Cars and Sinatra. The only way to get to work.

My Adopted Bench

Filling In Some of the Blanks

Tomorrow is my last day in Kansas and I guess I should catch you up on
what I've been up to. I think I left off with spending the day at a
café called Mokas. I have in fact just come from there. I'm presently
sitting at a picnic table I discovered in a grove of trees in Burke
Park. I spent most of my afternoons last week here or a hundred feet
or so up the river lying in the grass lisenting to music and writing
in my journal. (Both activities facilitated by my iPhone)

I may not have kept up with the blog but I am happy to report that
I've managed to journal like I was locked in a prison with nothing but
pad and paper. The distance from my daily cares, a little fresh air
and a new toy have done me wonders. I needed this badly. I wonder how
many people who live in heavy tourist areas vacation in the most
mundane places they can find. This world of Wal-Mart, Long John
Silver's, lawn space and being the only pedestrian is such a novelty
to me. I've already vowed to expand my vistas when I get home. I
haven't even bought a monthly bus pass in a year. If I couldn't walk
there, there needed to be a pretty darn good reason why. I wasn't
leaving much of a carbon footprint it's true. I wasn't leaving any
kind of mark at all. I won't go so far as to say that I've recovered
my voice but I might say that I'm starting to remember who I am.

Mokas Coffee, Salina, Kansas

Mokas

Mokas

Before I could takle the aforementioned hill I needed to refresh
myself. As luck would have it my all time favorite fast food was at
the corner at the bottom of the hill: Long John Silvers. I think that
it is criminal that I have to go from San Francisco to Kansas to get
good, cheap, fried fish but that's the way it is.

After lunch I crossed the street to Mokas Cofee which is the only Café
with wireless I could find in town. That it was so close to my mother
and sister's apartments was just pure bonus. Despite the strip mall
exterior it turned out to be a wonderfully comfortable establishment
with good strong coffee, a friendly and attractive barista and
virtually no business on a week day afternoon. I stayed for an hour
and a half writing in my journal. After avoiding my daily pages for
most of the last two months it has been gushing out, out here.

Part of what made it such a sucessful day was the presence of my
latest Apple goodie. Last Tuesday I went to the Apple store to get a
new iPod for my trip. I thought it would be easy. See if the weight an
form factor of the Nano was worth giving up the ability to back up my
entire MacBook with a classic. The problem was that while both devices
were nice they were nothing like holding and using an iPhone. Not even
in the same ballpark. So after much deliberation (and a break for
lunch) I got the iPhone. It has been my single device companion ever
since. Right now I'm sitting on a riverbank typing this. Yesterday I
was sitting in a Café cheerfully typing out a thousand words in an
hour and a half. When I wake up on the middle of the night its right
there to take down my dream notes without getting up or balancing a
five pound laptop on my chest while straining my neck all to hell. As
a person who lived his life on foot reducing my personal tech gear to
a single five ounce gadget is major. More than I wanted to spend for a
phone? Yea, it was. I was hoping when I bought it I wouldn't have any
regrets about the expense. After a week of use I can honestly say it
exceeded my already high expectations.

Hills, Nudges, and the Salina High Country

Hills, Nudges, and the Salina High Country

Yesterday was my first day on my own here in Salina. I slept in for
the first time in recent memory. In fact I think I had a full nights
sleep and I can't begin to tell you how rare that is for me. My mother
goes to my sister's for lunch every day to walk Sadie the dog. I met
her there. I played with the dog while my mother ate her lunch. Then I
caught a ride down "The Hill" the fish and chips shop and what appears
to be the only Café with wi-fi in town.

Now I must comment on this alleged hill. I live on a hill. A sharp
change in elevation from whose crest you are afforded a view of the
surrounding area. My hill happens to be a little famous but that is
not the issue here. What is the issue is the use of the term to
describe a geographical reference point and a set of neighborhoods.
This is not a hill. This a nudge in the earth. My mother actually
expressed concern on my walking back home up "The Hil". Yea, okay. I
took a little snapshot of this alleged high country.

The High Country

Kites on Vacation

I flew into Wichita on Friday afternoon where I was picked up by my mother with whom I made the 96 mile drive north on I-195. Friday was a bit of a blur as I had had to get up at three in the morning to catch a shuttle to the airport at a quarter to four for a six AM flight. By the time I got to my mother's apartment I was pretty beat. My sister and niece came over and hung out for awhile. Then we went back to her apartment and watched Madagascar and played with the dog. My sister fell asleep (despite the fact that I was the one that got two hours of sleep the night before). I went back to my mother's and crashed.

Saturday was a more active day including the obligatory trip to Wal-Mart. You know, I live in one of the finest shopping districts in the country, but I can hardly afford anything. It's more of a finding that cool item you want and saying, how deeply in debt do I want to go or how long do I want to wait for this. In Wal-Mart I was struck by the fact that I could actually afford all this stuff. In the grocery section I had to resist the impulse to smuggle groceries back to San Francisco in my luggage because of the fact that they cost a third less than my corner store. I only got one thing though. Dirt cheap vacation shoes. Six dollar canvas shoes. Shoes that cost less than a shoe-shine. They made me smile.

Saturday afternoon we took my new shoes my Bella's butterfly kite and my mother's mermaid kite (actually it looks more like a carp) out to the edge of town for a little wind therapy. Here are some pictures from that afternoon.

On vacation

New Zogby Poll

So I'm finishing up an online Zogby Poll on language skills when I come to this fairly standard question: "
Do you have a child aged 12-17 living in your household?" What caused me to laugh out loud was the third possible answer of "Not Sure". How in the hell can you be not sure if there is a teenager living in your house. Surely you must have noticed all that food was missing or that your access to the bathroom has been compromised. Polls are stupid.

Wait I think I've got it. It's for cross-tab purposes. Whoever is analyzing the data to know which morons to throw out. You want a good cross section of ages, races, education but you also need be able to say we don't sample people who can't tell whether or not there is a teen-ager in their house.

CRASH!!

I did something stupid and accidentally wiped out my hard drive. I'm trying to rebuild now but I think I lost a month's worth of pictures and a couple of weeks of my journal. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Yes, My Apartment Is Small

Last night when I got home I found a copy of the building's Facility Emergency Plan stuffed through my mail slot. It answered some questions I had been having about my abode. Namely that the building is old (1927), that I have the smallest apartment in it (even the building office is bigger) and that my apartment is really small (254 square feet according to the assessors records). The rest of the 16 page document can be summarized as, "When shit happens get the hell out of the building".

iPhone Envy

So I've been trying to avoid being overwhelmed with iPhone envy as I cannot afford the device for several months at the earliest. I response I went ahead and got my first smartphone and switched my service over to AT&T. I've been happy with Verizon for these last 5 years but I'm sick of the way that they cripple every phone I get from them and how nothing plays nice with my mac. My new Nokia e62 was not the hit that they were hoping for and AT&T has dropped it from their line up. Good news for me as I picked it up from Comp USA for free with a contract. I don't mind the contract because at some point I'm getting an iPhone and I'll be stuck with AT&T anyway.

In the meantime I'm loving this phone. And the plan is much better than Verizon for me. Being able to move my nights up to 7pm was huge. Rollover minutes are ideal for me as I rarely use all my minutes but every 8 months or so I go over and I'm stuck with a phone bill several times my monthly fee. I cut down my land-line so my overall phone bills are going to be a wash except now I have internet and email wherever I go. Sweet.

I've got to go to work now. More later on the subject. I promise.

A Clock to Ponder

Check out this WorldClock. Defiantly food for thought.

Active Week for Me

I haven't written much this week. Not here, not on my other blog, not in my journal. But this is not a sign of retreat. I have been staying active and creative. My rule of doing something creative or something to support my creativity every day has stayed in place. I have managed to finish the banners for both my sites, edit and post more photos of the parade, finish the organization of all my pictures in Aperture, go brush crazy in photoshop and make some serious hardware upgrades to my computer. I doubled the memory and hard drive space on my laptop. I now have 3GB in my MacBook and it is faster than ever. I switch between Photoshop and Aperture to edit my pictures effortlessly. For the more technically enclined of you I can say that all week I've only had 23 page outs and none in the last 3 days. That's worth a woot!

I also managed to have a bit of a social life. Karen and Brad were in town for a couple of nights and I spent Wednesday afternoon and evening with them. I hadn't seen them since their move to Hawaii so there was much catching up to do. I also learned more than I knew was possible about Hawaii social structure and the political structure of the Lutheran Church.

I have to get my butt to work right now but I will try to catch up with this weeks events here soon.

San Francisco Pride Parade

I took the day off to take pictures of the Pride Parade. The first 15 are up on my Flickr page with more to come. I took over 400 pictures and about 10 short videos. I'll be spending the next week or two working on getting more posted.

My camera proved to be a little annoying with all the action going on. The processing delay seems to be over a second so it was difficult to get multiple shots. I've already got my eye on next year's tax return for a new camera. This year will be all about figuring out what features I want and need. A better auto focus comes to mind. I thought for sure that I had got this shot of my California State Senator, Carole Midgen (I-80 Pinball Wizard). My camera decided to focus on the building behind her. Disappointing.

Powell @ Sutter

I've begun uploading to Flickr the pictures I took on Wednesday while sitting on the sidewalk on Powell street leaning against this Stoli sign. I'm not done yet. I'm going to try to add some more tonight after work. I want to move on from this project before parade on Sunday. I think I'm going to be able to watch an hour or two before I have to go to work. I'll try to go early to get a better vantage point than last year.

The Kitties

Yesterday, after I had tagged all my photos, I finally decided to turn in the film rolls that I've had in my desk drawer for the past seven years. They include my trip to the World Series in New York City in 2000 with Allen. Thank god for Photoshop because 7 years in a desk drawer after being taken with my old cheap camera did not produce the best results. I'll try to salvage the New York photos later but their aren't very many good shots. There were some friendly pictures of the Three Kitties. I cleaned them up and put the best ones on my flickr account. I also upgraded my account back to pro so that all my old sets are visible again. I took some city pictures again yesterday but they need some help too. I'll get them up soon.

The Visual Arts

I haven't been writing very much this past week. I even missed two days in my daily pages breaking a two week streak (my longest in a year). But I have stayed busy with creative projects. I continue to work on my Photoshop skills and I have put considerable time into organizing my photo collection on Aperture. I finally have a work-flow down for photography. Hooray!

Tuesday was a pretty tough day at work. I found out that my boss was supposed to fire me. He's managed to stop that but I'm going to be forced out of my store. That made me pretty sad as it had nothing to do with my performance simply my ability to play politics. So I came home Tuesday night with a song from the Muzak going through my head. I downloaded it and ended up playing it all night while messing around with the lyrics in photoshop. That's this picture. The song is "We Will Become Silhouettes" by The Postal Service.

I'm not suggesting any sort of cosmic attachment to the music or lyrics or my interpretation of them. It was, however, a nice piece of art therapy I engaged in. It makes me happy to think that I was able to create something while in a depressed state. This is a big step for me. Catatonic has been a more useful word when describing me when I'm low. I've always liked the concept of catharsis a whole lot more. We'll try that again tonight. Ten years ago today I was getting married.

Learning Photoshop

Work has been getting to me this week. While I've kept up with my personal journal I've missed a couple of days here. Today I made my way through 150 pages of Adobe Photoshop Classroom in a Book as I try to finally teach myself Photoshop. I had a good day of it and actually understand how to do a number of things that had always mystified me when I tried to use Photoshop before. I'm about to go to be but before I do I thought I would upload a little before and after action from a picture I took last year that I turned into a fake movie still. I got the how to from this site.

Feeling Out Of It Today

It was my day off from work today and I skipped my morning routine. I didn't write in my journal. I didn't convert any of my September 2005 to a computer copy. I didn't post on this blog this morning. I didn't even read very much of the news today. I did only a few of the household chores I had planned. I did watch a bunch of West Wing and I cleaned up my desk a little. It wasn't until tonight that I was trying to play a little bit of catch up that I read this snippet in the Mercury News. Nothing made me feel so out of touch like missing the fact that a major presidential candidate was only a block away from my apartment last night. Not that I would have blown the $250 to get in.

Modigliani and Me

I changed my profile picture this morning thanks to the Perception Laboratory's Face Transformer. You can upload a picture and it can age it, change race, sex, or even species. They also have a couple of artist filters. I ran my regular profile picture through it and the best was the Modigliani. I think it makes me look thiner.

I Love Gridlock

The conservative side of me is always happier when our government is divided. As long as the branches are fighting themselves and each other they are doing less to screw up the country and the world. That's why my heart was warmed when I read this article from yesterday's The Hill on the Republican bid to stop changes to the earmark process. Frankly, I have no opinion on the rule change itself. When it comes to money I have long given up trusting either party. The whole purpose of earmarks, no matter when they are slid into the budget, is to hide spending in a document that is too massive for anyone to read before it is voted on. All I know is that slowing down the legislative process in a congress as deeply divided as this one before presenting bills to a president of a different party is going to make it unlikely that they are going to be able to do much of anything. So the Libertarians win without having much of a caucus. Not bad in my opinion.

More Fun Stuff I Missed

I have not been much of a shutterbug lately. Yesterday I added a new San Francisco event that I failed to get pictures of. The Great Gorilla Run is a 4.3 mile event that was started in London in 2003 to raise money and awareness for the endangered Central African Mountain Gorilla. What makes this event interesting is that the participants run the race dressed as Gorillas. I may not have been there but the Chronicle was and took some pictures.

Again I'm Late to the Party

One of the things I love about the internet is that there always seems to be something new to find. Even if it isn't really new just new to you. Or in this case me. Anyway, after hearing about it, scrolling past it on Digg and even being asked about it, I finally got around to watching an episode of Ask a Ninja. And I laughed my ass off. I'm actually standing to write this post because I no longer have an ass. I was actually looking at some videos that explain web concepts for my mom and came across this one for explaining podcasts. I think I watched about 10 episodes before I finally went to bed. Here are some links.

Ask a Ninja

Podcast

Digital Filmmaker on You Tube

The Good News

Nothing I have read in the news has made me this happy in a long, long, long time.

Yesterday Was a Good Day

I've begun to take stock of my days by asking myself "What did I create?" and "What did I do to impact my own future?" I am especially critical of my days off from work. The old, "You had all this time to yourself why didn't you create a masterpiece?" issue. I'm trying to through a whatever into the masterpiece part and concentrate on the create part. Yesterday I wrote in my personal journal, I posted on a couple of things on my blogs, and I made a doodle that I don't actually hate. Good day.

On the "Impact of Future Days" front there was more. They were small but they will make my life better in the days to come. I bought the metal strip in the picture and it's accompaning magnets. I've been thinking about this for quite awhile and now that I've done it I'm very glad I did. I bought some new pens and I'm hoping that I can use that space to inspire myself a little bit more. The strip is on the bookcase that sits right next to my writing desk. I can touch it from here.

Other things that will impact beyond today include determining that Yahoo Pipes is not for me, cleaning up my RSS feeds, and the discovery of Klaus Schulze thanks to Jeff. I've been playing him pretty much exclusively since he stopped by last night. I think you will see that name more often on my recently played list. But the big one is that I've started copying my handwritten journals onto my mac. One of the changes that I finished in the last week was the transferring of my computer journals onto a new program, MacJournal. MacJournal has this thing I love. It's a calender that highlights all the days that there are entries for. It fills me with an irrational level of accomplishment to see those days highlighted. And I want credit for everything I've written. So I started copying old entries, at least one a day. If I keep it up (a big if history tells us) I should be done in about a year. I'll keep you posted. For now I will simply leave you with a small quote from what I copied this morning which is from a dream I had in September 2005.

I just woke from the strangest dream. I changed my commute. It was the middle of the night and I was getting home from the city by means of street luge. Except I don’t think I actually had a luge. I think I was just lying in the gutter flat on my back wearing a brown coat.

Believe it or not it goes on. And gets weirder. Whatever, yesterday was a good day. I didn't get my laundry done but it was still a good productive day.

"Fun" Flash Game

I thought that I was a bit of a geography buff until The Geography Challenge made me feel like a complete idiot. I've spent the last half hour letting it tell me how stupid I am. I got to 70% twice in that time. Good luck.

Update: I just got a 90% on one I hadn't played before. I'm quitting while I'm ahead.

I Want One of These

Take a look at what this guy did to his monitor. Actually, I have the same monitor. It's too bad that I have no mechanical aptitude whatsoever. The keyboard may even be cooler than the monitor. I'm going to have to check back and see what he does with his mouse.

A Nice Take on the Republican Debate

Here is a nice take on some of the foreign-relations quotes in last night's Republican debate, from Juan Cole at Informed Comment.

My First Political Contribution of the Season

Hillary may be my personal front runner at the moment but my first dollars went to a Republican candidate. From Texas. I can hardly believe that I just wrote that but frankly I like where Ron Paul is taking the debate. I think the longer he can stay in this thing the better the rhetoric on all sides. So I slipped him $10 and hope he can keep a campaign going as long as possible. This is probably the closest we will ever get to a viable Libertarian candidate. Check him out on The Daily Show.