Catching You Up

I've got lunch on my mind so I'll try to make this quick. 

I had a great time at the Old 97's at The Fillmore. It was my first time at the Fillmore as well as my first time seeing the Old 97's. Both were impressive. Except for the heat the venue felt comfortable to be in. That's a lot coming from me who feels comfortable practically nowhere. The band was fantastic, one of the best shows I've seen. Absolutely exuberant. Since the show was right after the Laker's getting pummeled by the Celtics (a game I drank my way through) I had one of my happiest nights in a very long time. 

However that night led to one of my least favorite mornings in a long time as the combination of standing all day at work drinking cider non-stop for two hours and then standing and bouncing up and down for another four hours all without any water left me and all my joints dehydrated and aching. I'm still not back to a hundred percent and that makes me a little pissy. 

Friday I went to the de Young and saw the Chihuly exhibit. That was incredible. Like nothing I've ever seen. Beautiful glass objects set in some stunning instillations. The glass pieces lit on black mirrored glass gave the rooms an otherworldly dimension. It reminded me of that magical novel Veronica that I love. Highly recommended. 

I got in touch with an old friend that I hadn't spoken to in over a year. She said she was busy and would call me back shortly. That was two weeks ago. She hasn't responded to any of my texts since then. It's starting to dawn on me that maybe she just hates me. I'm so bad at reading people I really have no idea. I'm feeling a little out there right now I guess. The Unnamable-X is falling in love again. (Hey, she publishes in the public arena and I read it what are you going to do?) This is leading to a resurfacing of completely unjustified jealousy. Not pretty. Not pretty at all. Of course there is the girl I'm trying to spend more time with who hasn't returned any of my calls for the past week. I'm starting to worry that I sleep-phoned something embarrassingly forward to everyone in my phone book and that's why no one will talk to me. 

That pretty much brings you up to date. More later as it happens. 

I Went out to the Bridge on Monday

Saturated Bridge, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

I had to go into the store to process something that was on a deadline so I took the opportunity to jump on the 28 and take it out to the bridge. I tried to catch a shortcut down to Fort Point but ended up in a very steep and wooded area so I had to backtrack. Nothing more embarrassing than getting lost in the woods in the middle of a city. I took a few shots and then headed home. I just finished my two days off and frankly I felt antsy all the time. No, that's not quite true. For a while there I was feeling testy. Yesterday I seemed to use most of my day researching the in's and out's of keywording photographs. I went ahead and signed up for smugmug and I'm starting to get serious about the organization and presentation of my pictures. It is a daunting process to say the least.

Riding out the Storm

They tell me a bad one ripped through the Bay Area today. I heard a little bit of it. But I was ensconced at home on my computer for most of the day. Meanwhile a million people in Northern California lost power, nearly eight inches of rain fell in the Santa Cruz mountains, 101 got closed for five hours, and 100 mile an hour gusts were recorded in the east bay. For a little while I was feeling bad about not really enjoying my first day off since Christmas while working on a project all day. Reading about the storm is giving me a pretty good, "it could have been worse" feeling. I'm ready to pull the plug on today though. I'm going to finish this up and crawl into bed with my book and read till I fall asleep. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Choices

I just found out that Bank of America is giving away free admission to a bunch of museums throughout the month of May. I just switched to BoA a couple of months ago and am very happy with their online offerings. Their billpay site is far better than the site I had tolerated at Washington Mutual for years. So finding out that they are giving away local museum tickets should make me happy right? Well no, actually I'm a little annoyed. May has been the month that I've set up all my automated billing, which means I've been on the BoA site every couple of days and never heard a word of this. I had to get it off of the Consumerist web site.

So the choices are:

1. Staying home and messing around with my computer and websites until I go into some form of shock.
   
2. Walking down to the MoMA and getting the last two hours on BoA.
3. Wading through the crowds for some opening day Pirates of the Caribbean goodness.
   

I think I'm going to declare this "watch like a pirate day" and get out of my apartment for a while.

Computer Mania Continues

I continued to work on setting up my laptop until after three in the morning. I was so wound up that I couldn't get to sleep for another hour or so. So did I sleep in and wake up balanced and refreshed? Of course not. I woke up at six-thirty and immediately tried to figure out why the settings I made in firefox before I went to sleep were no longer there. Hours go by like this. Once again I forget to eat anything substantial. If only I could keep my diet to tea and sunflower seeds I could keep the pounds off. The problem is that I'll eat nothing but until I get wacky in the head and require cheeseburgers.

Since Blogger doesn't really like Safari and Firefox does get along with del.icio.us very well, I've spent most of my time customizing Firefox and getting it to sync between my two computers. I took the screen shot above to show off my latest piece of computing happiness the all favicon toolbar. I know it looks obnoxious and is probably slowing down my browser but I just love having all my sites right where I can see them. The name of the extension that does this is Smart Bookmarks Bar. You can see that I've got my favorite fifty or so sites bookmarked on it.

The website that is on screen is the is the funniest thing I found all morning. Check it out here. It is included because I just hung up the phone with my ever encouraging friend John whose reaction to me saying that I've started a new blog was to ask if I could not make it so boring this time. Bite me John.