Story Archive - November 2007

Just a few Movies (11/29/2007)

The world becomes a less lonely place when total strangers tell you they are in your corner. - Andy Ihnatko

I'm getting ready for the annual Holiday-movie-athon this year. It been quite a few years since I've done one, but should be a lot of fun. Three nights. Three movies. Popcorn. Cupcakes. It's a little piece of heaven.

This year's movies are starting out with my two classics, Scrooged and A Christmas Story. Tradition growing up was after Thanksgiving lunch the kids would do the talent show. The older kids, having outgrown the talent show, would flee in our cars back to my father's house to watch Scrooged. This was a ton of fun. The movie is amazingly touching. Put a little love in your heart.

For night number three, it looks like we're rounding things out with a newcomer. Nightmare Before Christmas. Quite a good complete combination if you ask me.

Want to come over? You're invited!

Purses and Red Kettles (11/25/2007)

We belabour, I think, under a very heavy crust of consumerism really. - Emma Thompson

Okay yes. I am aware this is about to feed into a stereotypical rant. It pains me just a tad. See, a month or two ago she and I went to Ikea to buy me some furniture. We stayed in a our workout clothes since it was a "quick trip" and I was planning on being in and out in fifteen minutes. I knew the exact function of what I wanted and I was either going to find it and be happy or not find it and leave happy. They did not have what I wanted, but a couple hours and couple hundred dollars later she had purchased a ton. She would constantly ask, "should I get this? This is cute." All I could think was, "who cares? You don't need it, but if you want to spend money, sure." I don't buy what I don't need and I don't get the need to get random stuff that will just take up space. If there is one thing I don't have enough of it's empty space to put more purchases into. The churn of consumerism just confuses me as I type away on the writing desk my mother used in high school. I despise consumerism and it is likely the most un-American quality that I have.

This weekend, after being stood up by her two days in a row, when the plans on Sunday changed from "coffee at your favorite cafe" to "spiced cider at the Nordstrom's cafe" I should have been suspicious. I got spiced chai; she got spiced soy something-or-other and less than one minute into the "how are you coping?" conversation came the "come look at a wallet with me." We go and look and it's very nice and she debates with me how it will or will not match with various purses and other accessories she has. Than it is followed by the "well let me show you the purse I am going to get" and I am dragged across the mall to the Kate Spade store where she spends forty-five truly mind-numbing minutes debating the somniferous use of each of the bags with the very helpful sales people. Ten minutes seems to be about my limit before the brain rot sets in. In a brilliant move there is no Edge service in the Spade store, so not even my phone can provide me a distraction.

I tell her the purse I like best, it is the not-big-enough-to-carry-a-ham sized bag. She frowns and comments on its high price. I am told the price and my jaw literally hits the floor. "Do you think it's too expensive? I just don't want to buy something cheap that will fall apart after a month." I say, perhaps too loudly and too disgusted in the very crowded store, "can't you buy one that is nearly as good for one-sixth the price and then give the rest of those hundreds of dollars to the Salvation Army people ringing bells outside?" She looks honestly upset, and I cant tell if I have hit a moral chord with her or it's the very awkward hush in our immediate vicinity by her and the two overly-perky sales clerks.

She buys the bag and the wallet. I drop a few bills in the red kettle. Out out damn spot.

Be Thankful (11/22/2007)

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. - Kahlil Gibran

Crap. It's Thanksgiving again? Time to think about what we're thankful for. The holiday started out highly non-secular primed in the recommendations to congress about giving thanks to God. Now it is the glorious secular start to the holiday season. Thanksgiving always reminds me of striking out on your own. The American culture to do like the pilgrims and leave behind your home to set out for the life you want for yourself.

I grew up in Sacramento where my parents still reside, but look at my siblings in D.C., Little Rock, Los Angeles, Bay Area and there's only one who has stayed in Sacramento. It's an emptier nest than either probably expected out of things since both stayed in their hometown of Sacramento mostly their whole life. The world is getting smaller, and that makes me smile, but we celebrate the holiday founded by those who left their homes by having everyone returning to spend time with their family.

So what I am I thankful for this year?

The biggest "success" this year has probably been in line with work. The company is doing fantastic and I am a non-trivial part of that success happening. I grew a team from three to twenty-one this year and saw myself move through two-levels of titles.

Of course, as good as that might be, I struggle to avoid defining myself through work. This year saw the end of a long-term relationship, and while I'm not thankful for that, I am thankful of how happy I was during it and how much confidence it provided to an area of my life I have generally been reserved in. I spent a spring and summer full of social life 2.0: bar hopping, clubbing, first dates and more. Recently I've been unable to resist recidivism and started settling back into my relaxed approach to things.

Friends have been strong as ever. I remain incredibly lucky to have a large number of true friends. We have been having more gatherings, more events and more everything than before. This was the year where we nearly all turned thirty and it was filled with at least one big birthday party every month.

Family is always family. We had a big medical event on my father's side of the family this year and it was amazing to see everyone mobilize. It seemed like the entire family took leave from school and work and gathered from around the country to bring down an enormous force of will. I often use the expression, "I would move the world for those I care about" and I saw and example of the entire family moving the world. It was amazing.

My older brother got married this year as well and that marriage took me to Turkey (only two weeks after my trip to Australia). It was an impressive celebration spanning two countries and three continents. Wonderful to see everyone gather and enjoy.

Go out. Be thankful.

A Sick Week (11/18/2007)

To murder character is as truly a crime as to murder the body: the tongue of the slanderer is brother to the dagger of the assassin. - Tryon Edwards

I've been sick for the past five days. It's been miserable. Partially because being sick is a miserable experience and partially because work doesn't stop when my soul stops. So Wednesday through Friday was not pleasant. Struggling to sleep, struggling to work, struggling to get better.

Than the weekend came and life was good. I slept twelve hours on Friday night. Saturday I went out and bought "Assassin's Creeds" for the PS3 and burned the day away playing that game followed by another twelve hours of sleep. By Sunday, things were good again. I didn't feel very sick at all. I guess I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and get back to work on Monday.

Past Veteran's Day (11/12/2007)

The power structure makes heroes out of dead folks, because dead folks can't lead nobody nowhere. - Judge Eugene Pincham

I am a patriot. I am a patriot of freedom. I am a patriot of truth. I am a patriot of hope. I am a patriot of love. I am very proud of the collective will of my country when it makes choices that support the things it stands for. It doesn't always. That's a tragic part of the process and a patriot deals with it and moves forward however possible to influence for the better.

Veteran's day passed and as I make vague insinuating comments that allow for people to jump to potentially incorrect conclusions while always allowing plausible deniability I am also always sad for a veterans both present and future. I have never served in the armed forces and doubt I ever will, but I have had some unique visibility into parts of the machine that I carry with me. I have been asked to do things for love of country that don't mesh with my own ethics. It is not an emotionally pleasant piece of baggage to hold onto.

When we send out troops into battle, we demand the impossible from them and ask them to carry a ethics burden. We make our citizens into weapons designed to kill people and break things. We ask them to act, not out of personal ethics, but out of national interest. Our military demands they suspend one of the values that is required for humanity: do not kill your fellow man. To suspend that virtue you must make yourself less than human or you must make your enemy less than human. At the same time the populace demands the opposite, rebuking and punishing soldiers when the act as less than human or treat the enemy as less than human.

Take some time this holiday seasons to send something the people serving. There are lots of ways to do it. It's an important message that they are loved and will come back to a nation that cares.

I Love Playing Dress-up (11/06/2007)

I never said to be like me, I say to be like you and make a difference. - Marilyn Manson

I dressed up for Halloween at the office and I dressed up for a post-Halloween party on the following weekend. My costumes where different but shared a similar theme. I dressed up as a specific coworker and then as a specific friend. The latter costume was far more hysterical. I spent the entire night making various references to infamous stories he has told us over the past few years, falling asleep, asking if there was anything to eat and trying to bum a ride home.

You see I have this one friend from high school who was an ally in the gothic subculture of the time. It was before emo had risen enough for people to properly define us that way and when you go to an all boys catholic high school you didn't have to wear a lot of black clothes, skull rings or have very long hair to quickly become one of the five "goths" on campus. My lovely sub-culture journey peaked around freshman year of college when my hair was down to my mid-back and there was no dress code to keep me from wearing the chain belts and torn pants.

I moved on through the "hippie sub-culture" into the "up-and-coming professional culture" and now I'm still mostly there making brief forays into the social life 2.0 culture. But my high school buddy is the front-man for an emo band and still lives the dream. I envy it some days. So I dressed as him for my own indulgence as much as for a good show.

What I found most fun was all my more recent friends who found it so hysterical to see my dressed in that style not realizing there was no purchasing required. Combat boots? Check. Torn black pants? Check. Wallet chain? Check. Studded leather belt? Check. Retro early-90's black anime shirt? Check. Skull rings? Check. Dagger necklace? Check. Black nail polish? Check. Eye liner? Well, I had to borrow this one. I look at the pictures and thinks, "well there is college Jordan!" but many of my coworkers and peons would probably be ridiculously shocked to see it.

I dressed up in the morning and spent the day hanging out around Palo Alto and downtown Sacramento and it was a ton of fun being "that guy." I miss him.

Here is the lolcat inspired photo of me:

11/15: So a week later or so my good buddy shows up to the next party and I mention I dressed as him. He is very very proud to be the inspiration of a costume. We pose him in the same post I was I and snappy snappy. Let me clear, this is EXACTLY what he wore without any "you should dress like I did" the week after:

Shake Shake Shake (11/01/2007)

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. - Jeannette Rankin

I was upstairs working when the shaking started to go. My very first thought was a vision of heavy construction going on downstairs by the mad scientist roommate and "Dammit Ross! What the hell are you doing?" As the rumbling continued I realized that it was less likely a Ross making hydrogen in the house (again) and more likely to be an earthquake. I was pretty impressed with the little sucker until I realized that it wasn't so little. Finally my earthquake training kicked in and I got up from my desk to stand in my bathroom doorway until things settled down.

The quake subsides and we start making wagers on the magnitude. We are all guessing around a five.

What I found more interesting was the Twitter-storm that hit my phone. All of my bay area friends were shooting out tweets about the earthquake and guessing the magnitude. I knew within a minute it had been felt from Los Gatos to Berkeley and that was a pretty cool experience.