saturday march 1, 2008
The past month has been pretty eventful in a lot of atypical ways for me. When trying to break it out into categories all I end up with is "Music, Hospitals, Babies, Tattoos and Travel". So let's run through them one at a time to not completely confuse you, the reader (assuming you will even get through the first paragraph).
Music
While Tom and I haven't had a follow-up meal, there has been some more music industry related excitement, for me anyway. Back in early February I got to meet up with Brett and Gina who were in the studio with Rancid while they were recording their new album. Being a fan of both Brett and Gina as well as Rancid, this was an exciting afternoon to say the least.
February was a big month for Glen Hansard and The Frames with Glen and Marketa's oscar win. Being a longtime fan of The Frames I thought I would put up a mix here that has some of my favorite tracks from all of their albums and several of their live shows. I have mentioned the album in the track name in case you are interested in where to find a particular song version. Most of their stuff is available on iTunes, so it shouldn't be a problem to purchase (hint-hint).
Hospitals
On my way home from the recording studio with Rancid I was on the phone with Dara when I experienced two sharp pains in my chest followed by my body entering into shock. Basically I felt as though I couldn't breath, I was very dizzy, my left arm went numb and I began to black out, all while driving down the freeway at 70MPH in the dark. Luckily I managed to focus enough to pull off at the next exit while Dara called 9-1-1. The ambulance arrived and shuttled me to the local hospital where they did the normal rundown of tests and scans. Everything came back clean and I was released about an hour later with no definitive diagnosis.
I have since followed up with a cardiologist who keeps forgetting to return my calls. At this point the most likely diagnosis is a panic attack, which is different than an anxiety attack and can have similar physiological symptoms as a heart attack. Either way, I'm doing fine now and haven't had a relapse or similar experience since.
Babies
As I hinted before, Dara and I are pregnant with our first child, and this week we found out that we are having a boy. We're both very excited (nervous) and looking forward to welcoming our little one into the world on or around July 24th. We're now getting into the naming puzzle and would really love any outside advice on sites that may offer some help. If you know of any, please send an email to nonsense AT blather DOT org.
Tattoos
Ever since my father passed away almost four years ago I have been considering a memorial tattoo of sorts, but I have never really settled on anything. As an attempt to motivate myself, Ferris and I made an appointment a couple of months ago with Henry Lewis over at Everlasting Tattoo. With days left until the appointment, and realizing that Henry is particularly outstanding at birds and lettering, I decided to get a buzzard with the words "March Forth". The day my dad died was March 4, 2004 and I have always thought it interesting that the word can also be interpreted as "forth" or forward. So far I have the outline (which is outstanding on its own) and an appointment for the shading in mid April, so I will post some photos when it's all done. This makes number three, and they keep getting larger, so Dara is slightly concerned about what's next.
Travel
With NY out of the way for now, I have a trip coming up that goes SF, Charlotte, Berlin, Charlotte, SF. In an effort to try to minimize time zone acclimation, I planned it this way. But thinking about the paradigm shifts between North Carolina and Germany, I think that even if my sleep is normal my mind may be a bit twisted up culturally. We also may head to LA near the end of the month to visit some friends instead of the usual business trip.
That's it for now folks and make sure to send me some baby name websites!
saturday february 9, 2008
It's kind of shocking that the year is already more than 10% over. It's been a busy year so far between work and home and everything in between. The holidays were nice and we definitely managed to get a little quit time with family back in Charlotte. While I was there I even managed to meet up with Chandler one afternoon at the gun range with my brother.
In January Dara and I went to New York for a long weekend so I could see the new office and catch up with everyone there. The weather was fair, kinda cold, but bearable. Though I didn't have a chance to make all the usual rounds, I did get to see Johnny and a couple of other old friends. For our trip we flew Virgin America for the first time and I have to say that these guys definitely do a few things right. The whole "Red" system of self-service is just brilliant and truly should have been implemented years ago. If you have ever been that anxious person that waits and watches as the flight attendants slowly make their way to your row with the drink cart, then you will really appreciate VA. Aside from that the relaxing lighting and music along with the entertaining safety video really made the experience enjoyable. In conclusion, I highly recommend seat 3F.
Tomorrow I am off to LA for some meetings early in the week. Again, I'm flying VA and coincidentally I am again in seat 3F both ways, just like NY, which makes me think I should only ever fly VA seat 3F to not ruin "a good thing". The trips to LA have slowly gone from relaxing and friend-filled to in-and-out business frenzies with scattered intersections of friends and food. In the "good old days" it would be a five to ten day run in Venice with a lot of focused development time and relaxation instead of constant freeway cattle drive between meetings and appointments.
Unrelated, we are looking for a seasoned Python/Django adviser/consultant, ideally in the bay area, for a large and quite exciting project that is on the horizon. This project is likely to run for 8-14 months and will be a lot of fun on several different levels. So, if you know anyone that you think might be a good fit, let me know.
One last thing... BOING!
Fixing Up 88 Rivington
saturday december 22, 2007
So it's been a while... and I'm not really sure where to start. Should I dump-off what I have been doing, what I have been working on, what's happening with Cuban Council or maybe what we're looking towards in 2008? Maybe I'll just try and cover it all.
September
As far as I can remember we had a busy September, though I don't recall if there was any travel involved. I think it was mostly the daily grind in SF going and back and forth between the house, the office and the occasional client meeting. According to the old calendar it was a busy month of project work with 4-5 of them getting underway at once in late August. Fortunately we had hired some outstanding folks earlier in the summer otherwise the load would have been completely unbearable. One project in particular that we are eager to see go public is some design work that we did for NASA through Lockheed Martin. Hopefully that will be released in the next month or two and will have maintained at least 95% or better of the design.
October
October started out much like September, though I did manage to get some personal time at the end of the month where Dara and I flew to North Carolina for a family reunion up in Asheville. With a good bit of travel and and great deal of drinking, we had a nice time visiting with everyone. On one of the days up in the mountains Dara and I visited the Biltmore Estate just outside of town. If you ever are in the area and have the chance to go, I highly recommend it. Aside from the sheer grandeur of the property and the house itself, there's a creepy atmosphere that comes with notion that this was an everyday living space.
November
November was a bit more of the same on the work front. I managed to get some maintenance done for both ANTI as well as Astro Gaming. Toke took a vacation to Denmark and the rest of us held down the forts in SF and NY. Once Toke returned, we locked in a new office space in NY, moving from the 42 RIvington spot just down the street to 88 Rinvington. The new space has a lot more room, much more to see from the windows and as of last week a whole new interior.
Later in the month Dara and I attended an art opening with Brett and Gina that was profiling Kellisimone Waits, daughter of Tom Waits, that was hosted down in SOMA at a place called the Luscious Garage. The show was great and afterwards we went with Brett and Gina to Farmer Brown for dinner. Shortly after we got to the restaurant, the Waits family joined us for fried chicken, macaroni and cheese and lots of iced tea. The dinner conversation was light and I learned a lot about the behavior patterns of buzzards from Tom, who seems to be well-informed on all types of interesting topics.
Thanksgiving was the usual event, though this year my brother and his family came out to visit us in SF. We took them to our usual favorite neighborhood restaurants including Tsunami and Nopa. We played a lot of guitar hero with his step-son and we all managed to catch a nasty head cold by the middle of the weekend, which more or less knocked us all out of commission.
December
The month of turning "33" and lots of travel. From Los Angeles to Portland to Seattle and next Charlotte, it's going to be a frequent flyer miles stack-up. Having covered the west coast this month for meetings and meetings following by meetings and more meetings, Dara and I are getting ready to head back to NC tomorrow for a week with my family. I assume we will be laying low for most of the trip, but I've learned that visiting with my family can be a busy time typically not offering much in the way of rest. I assume we will see some friends, shoot some guns and eat/drink a lion's share of beer, wine and cocktails, turkey, stuffing and snacks.
It seemed for me that all of the holiday parties this year were stacked at the end of last week.
First I went to the Kadium party where Rogue Wave played, and though I only faintly heard it, Zach and the band were gracious enough to dedicate a song to me. The next night we went to the KNI party out on the Mission/Potrero border where they had a best holiday punch "punch out" contest complete with gifts for all of the contestants and a special prize for victor. After the KNI party I stopped by the Gravity Mobile party where I ended up staying until 4am. At the end of it all Noah and I grabbed a late/early greasy breakfast before throwing in the towel and putting an end to my holiday party triple-header.
I recently helped a friend who is in involved with Iron & Wine put together a site to sell remastered music from live shows. The site is called Played Last Night.com and so far the only artist in there is Iron & Wine. The key difference for this site over other similar attempts is the quality of the recording and the subsequent audio engineering. The guy behind the whole thing is a master sound engineer for a local animated film company and he has put his love and expertise into the product, that's the pudding.
Tomorrow we are off to NC for a week and then to NY later in January...
While I promise to make a better effort to update more frequently in '08, I think what I really need to do is find a more general topic of interest, because my everyday life reads more like aspirin instructions than anything of interest or continuity. I don't have a poll on here anymore, but I would certainly like to know what you would find more interesting to read about...
- Everyday Life/Travel
- Projects and Clients
- Gadgets and Software
- Something else entirely?
Thanks for listening and happy holidays.
Future Travels / Dopplr
in October, in October, in October, in October, in October, in October, in October, in October, in October, in October
