Day in the Life
Goodbye, Bill
I’m horribly saddened at the passing of Bill McCauley. I count him among my friends, and am very sad to see that he took his own life.
That really sucks, Bill. I’ll miss you.
BYOBW 2008
The Bring Your Own Big Wheel race was right in front of my house yesterday! It’s a uniquely SF sort of event, and was a lot of fun to watch. I had friends over for beers and laughs. My raw video footage is after the jump…
Small victories, on paper
I’ve succeeded! I previously wrote about making an effort to reduce the amount of junk on my lawn. I put my name in a couple of registries and have a noticeable drop of in junk mail (particularly credit card applications, thank goodness). Additionally, I escalated my problem with The Examiner again and again. After four calls and emails, nothing had happened. Then I decided to go “old school”: for some reason, it seems to be the sort of thing my parents would do, but I called the Better Business Bereau. Sure enough, that got their attention and now I don’t have to throw away a soggy newspaper every day.
It’s the little victories that make one’s day a little happier.
Less junk on my lawn
I just made finished my third contact with the wanks at The Examiner. It’s been 2 phone calls and and email trying to get them to stop delivering their crap little free paper to my house. Maybe it is because I’ve spent too much time in the anti-spam battle, but I’m just getting sick of all the clutter in my life. This one is especially annoying since I have to make extra effort to pick up, dry out (it always gets wet from sprinklers), and then recycle something every day that I have never, ever gotten value from.
It’s time to reduce my junk mail, too. When I think about it I am amazed at how much time I spend shredding credit card applications and recycling coupon mailers. What a waste of resources and my time.
Just an update
There are so many things going on. My friend KX gives me a semi-monthly reminder of the form “Did you realize it has been x months since you blogged?!”. And, yes, I totally realize that. There is so much I want to comment on, but I haven’t. The US is in a silly war. My company is being acquired by Cisco. I visited my family (including a new nephew) over Christmas. I got professional portraits taken by Loic Nicolas. I quit smoking. So much is going on that I really don’t know what to write.
I want to express outrage, joy, fear, frustration, and simple, giddy glee. The question is, though: Is a blog the right place? I really don’t know.
My Beloved Robot Arm
In the second episode of the first season of “Invader Zim” entitled “Parent Teacher Night”, we are given a glimpse into the birthing process for Irkin invaders. A flashback by Zim shows him being extracted from a pod, cleaned, and equipped by a series of machines. Finally a recorded voice booms, “Welcome to life, Irkin child. Report for duty.” In a moment of infantile naiveté, the young Zim leaps up to hug the mechanical arm that has given him life and exclaims, “I love you cold, unfeeling robot arm!”
It seems like a simple joke, but I recently realized that it is an apt metaphor for a disturbing element of my life. I am (in the general case) a caring and giving person, concerned about the well-being of others and giving of myself (as my friend Tim observed) “until there is no more to give.” This works fine for my relationships and friendships, though it tires me out at times and I need to remember to periodically take care of myself before giving to others.
A Wealthy Man
I’m as wealthy as I’ve ever been. Yes, I make good money, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m in a place where I have the richest set of friends I’ve ever had. I have people to laugh with, buddies to veg out with on the couch, shoulders to cry on, and backs to slap at a party.
I’ve had a few little strange freak-outs and anxiety attacks. This is a strange, new, and vivid world of emotion for me. It’s fine, though painful, because it is real. I choose to experience life like this, in all its colors. And I choose to not be overly strong, but to instead rely on the wonderful people around me. This is the right thing to do as it is part a true human experience. And my friend Jeff says, “If your don’t allow people to help you, you are robbing them of something.”
I had a wonderful time last night and this morning (post crash-out) with two of my favorite friends, and I can’t help but feel blessed despite my current exhaustion. I’m a very wealthy man.
More patent/copyright insanity
I really continue to be amazed by the little steps of insanity we are making in our capitalist interest. I recently found out that DC and Marvel hold a joint claim to the phrase “super-hero”. That’s right: the combination of the words “super” and “hero”, perfectly innocuous on their own, is a trademark. And the people that own it are enforcing it! They actually forced a small comic book publisher to rename their comic “Super Hero Happy Hour”.
And does our insanity end there? No. Now apparently you can patent the association of concepts. Just thinking in a certain way about related concepts might cost you royalty fees. And this particular example involves a likely diagnostic path. Can you imagine being a doctor and thinking, “Hey, this guy has low x levels, I should check on his y levels. Damnit! Now I have to send JerkCo $5 for that thought.”?
In the US we continue to find ways to ship actual jobs out of country (not including highly-skilled jobs like mine) and end up doing less and less here. Soon, we’ll just be a nation of lawyers suing each other and passing a stagnant quantity of wealth back and forth. People are getting laid off, companies don’t create they just protect their intellectual property, and nobody is keeping their books honestly. Where the hell are we headed here?
Follow-up: A nice little OpEd piece over at NYT shines a little light on “patent trolls”, another wrinkle in this mess.
Rubbed the Right Way
Today was really the “final” important practical massage class I had. At this point, I have a fairly complete set of tools for making people feel relaxed and good, and even occasionally help them heal. I still have 6 weeks of class left, but that’ll be a lot about refining my skillset. Now it’s just all about practice, practice, practice. I worked with Christine today and we gave each other a massage lasting about 50 minutes. She did great, and I felt fantastic working through my strokes. The jitters are finally gone. I even managed to gracefully do the draping work.
It’s really pretty great to get those little groans of pleasure here and there. It totally feeds some part of my psyche and brings me a great degree of joy.
Demons of Loneliness
I’ve done some stuff to attempt to improve my ability to relate to the fairer sex, and am slowly getting better at it. Confidence is still a big problem for me at times. But I am still regularly pestered by the “demon” of loneliness. But I have never been able to frame the problem of loneliness as well as Waiter Rant has. Kudos, Waiter.
