Poke him with a stick. Yeah, he's still alive

Oh goodness, it has been a while.

A recent e-mail reminded me that I had a blog, and a quick read over the last post kind of scared me because it seemed a bit depressing.

Things have been changing for me here in Seattle!

For starters, I no longer work at Microsoft. So that's really big news. I think I've already talked to the people close to me about it, so I suppose it's fair to write now.

I want to be really careful and tactful here as I write this, because I can see how this kind of thing could be a sensitive situation. So first and foremost, I think I learned a lot about the time I spent there and I am pretty excited I even had a shot.

So the long and short of it is that things weren't really working out in my team. I will refrain from going into the "why" and so on on a public blog like this. But it does make me realize the importance on working on something that elicits passion for the work. In the position I was in, I didn't feel like I was working on problems I was prepared for in college, nor was I able to get myself excited for what we were doing. Moreover, I didn't feel like I was often able to get traction in the environment I was in. So maybe it just wasn't the place I was meant to be.

In the short time since then, I have been feeling my life flowing back into me. I look around at Seattle and the relationships I've had and I realize I haven't taken much time to enjoy either. I live in a beautiful city, and I really want to stay here and pursue it more.

So where am I going now? Well, the first few days, I spent some time thinking about what I actually like to do. In college, it was easy enough to pick something up and just be good at it. I think there were a lot of things I was good at, but few things I actually took the time to enjoy. I guess in college, I didn't really need to enjoy the work. I just needed to 'dominate'.

So here are the things I have figured out:

• I like working with and helping people


• I like working on things that help people


• I like helping people solve their problems


• I like using communication and project management to walk through a solution
  
  aka I actually enjoy meetings, which is kind of weird


• I like small teams where there is a lot of collaboration


• I still like writing software

So I'm still kind of figuring out what I would 'love' to be doing for work for some time. I still love doing things with music and serving others, but I suppose roles in software engineering are the only things that make sense to me professionally.

For now, I'll focus on getting back on my feet and finding a job that keeps me going here in Seattle.

If anything, this has been more of an exciting time than a depressing time. I am stoked for what the next few months hold.

I'll come up with other things to write sometime soon. It has been an awakening of a realization I have always known, but work is not the only thing that identifies me or that defines my life. I have also gotten to do some cool things with music and other stuff in Seattle in the last few months. I'll write about that soon.

Flub

Work is kicking my butt lately, and I guess it's fair to say life might be too. But I suppose I ought to update my faithful followers, so here goes a dash through the week.

Sunday
Played music for kids ministry and had a good meeting about that. It looks like I get to be somewhat helpful to the people at church, so that's exciting. I also think I'm going to be responsible for a ton of planning, so that will be fun.
I also went out for a drink with my friend Ryan from my building and a new guy named Sergio. He also works at Microsoft. He is also 22. We might as well be clones. Me and all the other hundreds of 20-somethings working at Microsoft and living in Seattle. I feel so special

Monday
I had my weekly small-group thing with the guys. It was my turn to lead the group, and it made me realize what being a PM has done to my life. Seriously, I want to call out action items on every meeting and every second I feel like I'm wasting time bugs me. Like.I'm.Doing.Now.
Well I might as well finish. Anyway, the point of that story is that I like to "PM" the crap out of everything lately until I remind myself to be a normal person again.

Tuesday
Went to the Belltown Community Council meeting to make a park on Bell street from 1st to 5th. I really love the idea. I really didn't love how negative and pessimistic everybody was. But I do love my neighborhood. It's so quirky and I love it. Anyway, safety is a big deal here and Bell street isn't the poster child for the kind of place you want to hang around at night. So hopefully the neighborhood sees that doing nothing other than complaining hasn't improved a damn thing, and perhaps we could use this movement to do some good on Bell Street. We'll see.

Wednesday
Band practice got canceled, so I worked on a spec and a prototype for work all night. Thrilling.

Thursday
Frantic rush at work to get things done. Bad day. Realizing half the crap I designed isn't going through. I was pretty low on sleep at that point.
Later that night, I got invited to a random jam session and drove to Lord-knows-where in SoDo (south Seattle) to find some practice space that looked like an abandoned warehouse. I haven't actually gotten to play guitar with a group in a while--I always end up playing bass. I haven't been in punk mode in a while either, and I feel like I've drifted so far into my jazzy/indie/technical mode that I might not know how to do punk anymore. Well, I figured something out and it was fun.

Friday
Hell. I just need to make it through work and then we'll see what is worth writing about. I want to try to make it to the Belltown art walk tonight, and it would be nice if my plans to hang around and watch movies with some friends at my place go through.

The rest of the weekend
I am taking a group from my building to volunteer at FareStart on Saturday. Turns out recruiting at the McGuire is harder to do than I would have hoped. But that is what I get to do tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to it. I think some people I know are having a wedding reception-type of deal (even though the wedding was a few weeks ago and not anywhere close to here) in the afternoon.
Sunday, I'm just planning on doing kid's music stuff again and trying to reclaim my life.

Wish me luck!

Hello people on the 545. I am, in fact, not dead

I haven't written to you folks in a while. I'm still there every day, but somewhere between being incredibly frantic to get things done at work and desperately grasping at the notion of feeling settled in my not-work life in Seattle, I forget to acknowledge you.

The collective "you" that is one of the few constants in my Seattle social scene (...SNAKES--because the chance to continue the alliteration was just too tempting)

So one time last week, I actually got to speak to one of you.

Girl that works at Nintendo and was reading a book in Japanese: it was a pleasure to meet you and I want to thank you for being one of the first women on the bus to acknowledge my existence.

To recap for the rest of last week, nothing else happened.

One thing I have started to notice: the best way to keep an open seat next to you is to make eye contact with everybody that comes down the aisle. It's like all of a sudden I have the power to make a person realize I exist and I'm not just a warm mass of tissue next to an available seat. 545 commuters, and Seattle in general at times, seem to really just be uncomfortable dealing with you when you exist in their social experience.

Or maybe I'm just that unappealing. Who knows. Either way, I have figured you out and now I get to sit by myself most times :)

It certainly helps in my now almost-certain pass out sessions on the way to and from work. Sleeping on the bus used to really weird me out, but now I kind of love it.

But I'll certainly always wake up the next time Nintendo woman comes or some equally friendly soul walks down the aisle. I seriously doubt every individual that happens to be male on the bus is as creepy as you seem to think they are.

Anyway. I'll try to come up with something more interesting to report soon.

Some thoughts on playing bass

Last night, I helped out with a friend of mine who is trying to put a band together. By "helped out," I mean I got asked to sit in since apparently nobody plays bass, but it seems like these guys are planning on making this long term, so I may be "helping out" for a while.

I have always thought of myself as a guitarist first. My first instrument was a bass, but I always ended up playing guitar more and it's generally a lot more interesting to play when you're by yourself.

I started playing bass back when I listened to Blink 182 and the like pretty religiously. As a result, my bass technique was boring, I grew tired of it, and I gravitated toward guitar. As I grew up, I started listening to more interesting music and realized there was a lot more to bass than I thought, so I went back. Since then, I've learned tons more technique and playing bass is actually a ton of fun. It is maybe one of the less glorifying roles in a band, but most music producers or "HOW 2 B IN A BAND, FOR DUMMIES" books will tell you it's a pretty key role. So here are some things I picked up.

Learn to think like a drummer

When I play bass, I often feel like I am playing what the drummer plays, except I'm also playing notes and making less weird faces. My bass playing got immensely better when I started jamming with talented drummers. Conversely, I always found it incredibly difficult to do anything mildly interesting if the drummer was boring.
Listen to the drummer's kicks. Are you hitting the core notes there? Are you emphasizing the beat, driving the rhythm, and defining the progression with your bass?
Listen to the snares and cymbal work. Are you accenting in a tasteful way?
Listen for the drummer's fills. Do you have a run to complement?
Make sure you pay attention to the drummer. There are times when I shut out the rest of the band and just interact with the drummer and that's really all I need sometimes. It helps when your drummer is cool person because I think there is an important connection between those two roles in a band.
Last night I had the pleasure of jamming with a really talented drummer. He ended up telling me he hadn't jammed with a bassist who accented his high-hat work while also syncing up with the bass drum stuff. I really hadn't thought about that, but it just felt natural and it was actually a lot of fun.

Learn to think like the other musicians in your band

So as a bassist, we're worried about rhythm, but we also can play notes. This part is actually kind of fun if you jam with people who can articulate what they're trying to do. Knowing what movement feels right and what chords or colors are being played helps as a bass player. There is actually a lot of potential to add interesting tension, runs, complements and other musical terms that I was never taught. Bass players don't have to be stupid. Know what minors, modes, scales, and keys are. In my experience, learning to play just about every instrument in the band not only makes you awesome, but it makes you a more complementary musician regardless of the role you fill.

Learn when to be interesting. Learn when to be simple

Ok, there are times where it's appropriate to be boring. I think I make this mistake a lot where I want to play something cool and it just comes out sounding busy and annoying. So maybe you don't need to arpeggiate through the progression or add slap/pop to every song. I've heard recordings of myself where I was playing what I thought sounded really cool but then it just sounded annoying when I listened to the mixed playback. Remember there is an overall sound that you should support, not dominate.

Learn different techniques

So obviously slap/pop is the cool thing bass players "need to learn," but there are other little tricks that are also cool to know. I recently learned what I can only describe as a weird finger slip over strings that lets me play triplets and do string skipping.
For some examples, the bass player from Portugal. The Man does something cool like what I described in the verses for "Lay me back down". The classic crazy bass line that taught me a lot comes from Rush in the song "YYZ".
The bass player from Pinback is also pretty awesome and has a very innovative and unique way of playing bass. Here's a cool song called "Penelope" by them that is a good example. He almost strums it (you'd have to watch something on YouTube to see what I mean).
This final song is called "Roundabout" by a band called Yes. This is an example of going crazy without sounding annoying. The song is absolutely epic and absolutely long, but you should at least listen to what they have (or had?) going on.
Listen to different bass players for the bands you listen to and find out what cool tricks they do. Then learn them. Seriously, watch a lot of YouTube. Even if they don't teach you the techniques, half of the battle is finding out these techniques exist and then working at it until it becomes your own.

Learn to listen to different kinds of music

This should be a given for any musician. Listen to everything. Find out what you like and don't like and internalize everything into your own personal sound. The fun part about being versatile is you can walk into almost any band and contribute something cool. The absolute best is when the band can put multiple styles into one song and still do it tastefully. I think Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground does that very well. In fact, I'm even going to ask you to watch this video to see how a band that big can still put a consistent sound together.
WATCH THIS:


Mmmk, so I drove to work so I don't have a fancy bus post, but hopefully this was somewhat interesting. Granted, I doubt most of you play bass, but maybe you should learn! I have an extra one if you're ever interested :)

THAT'S IT FOR THIS POST.

Dear "People on the 545 route" the morning of 10/21/2009

I fell asleep most of the way.
Sorry guys!

Also, yesterday evening I started playing with the Korg Kaossilator on the bus and lots of people asked me about it. One guy told me he was a DJ and a Producer and wished me luck after he asked me tons of questions about it. Ok.

Last thought. To you children on the bus who have been told sitting there with your mouths hanging open is ok: I'm sorry. It's not.

Or maybe that's the way kids let others know they're cool these days. Maybe I'm wrong.

But I don't think I am. Close your mouth unless you're sick and you can't breathe through your nose.

Dear "People on the 545 route" the morning of 10/20/2009

Can you believe it's almost the end of October? Holy crap.

We had a crowded bus today. I hope those of you who had to stand as we barreled through the fog on the stretch of road spanning Lake Washington have a wonderful day to make up for the inauspicious start.

And I have to thank you for being a little more chipper about the situation than a gentleman on the bus yesterday evening. The bus driver on the way home last night was kind enough to stop for me after he had already pulled out of the Overlake Transit Center bus bay for the 545--even though I sneakily ran around the back way and caught him as he was leaving in my direction. Apparently, the normal long bus had broken down and we were on a normal downtown bus. A little more cozy than normal, but still convenient transportation nonetheless.

Well one fellow saw the bus as we pulled up to give him a ride and he immediately made a point of displaying his disapproval with nasty looks before he even got on. He immediately complained to the driver about "the tiny bus" and shot nasty looks at everybody as he shook his head in disgust. Of course, he ended up standing right in front of me as I also stood in the back of the bus.

Was this free transportation really that bad? Was this situation that far beneath him that he needed to let us know just how disgraced he was? It was really starting to bug me. And then he started being rude to people around him and wouldn't cooperate as we tried to work together like a human Tetris game to shuffle people in and out of the bus. He was seriously a jerk and the way he was treating everybody else was starting to get me mad.

All of a sudden I felt like I was offended as he was offensive to everybody else. As if I should be sticking up for people or the defender of the oppressed. Why, I have no idea, but I mustered up the most stone-cold glare I could manage and prayed we would make eye contact.

And then I realized how foolish I was being. Matching hatred for hatred wasn't going to fix this guy. I started thinking about how I have been on this kick of being kind, loving, and gracious to everybody. Especially the ones that make it hard and difficult. And I felt like a hypocrite for throwing it out the window and weak in my own positions for being affected by this freakazoid on the bus.

I had to check myself a lot the rest of the way home. So maybe I'm not totally awesome at being kind to the least deserving, but what makes any of us deserve kindness anyway?

So yeah, it was a good reminder of the following:

1. Having to stand on the bus is not the worst thing in the world


2. Being kind to some people can be hard


3. I could stand to gain some perspective and not become so enraged or emotionally affected when I see others wronged. Granted, I still think it's wrong and I still want to get involved, but not with an emotional charge because it changes the way I think


4. I really should charge my Zune so I would have something to do when I can't sit and read

So that seemed like a major digression, but the point is that we faced a similar situation this morning and nobody freaked out. Nobody that fit on the bus anyway. So thanks for that guys :)

I also read some really cool stuff about love this morning--what, love? dude you're lame. I know.

Yeah, I still think I'm a ways off from ever figuring that stuff out and how people are even supposed to deal with each other or believe that anybody could love them for no reason. For some people, that just could never make sense and they are convinced they can't be loved and won't allow anybody to love them. Some stare love right in the face each day and can't be convinced that it's real. Others desperately want to believe it's real but maybe can't see it. I don't know. It's all confusing and it's all something I want to believe and understand. So maybe I'll figure it out and then write a disgustingly emotional and terrifyingly boring blog post about it.

Until then, happy bussing. See you tomorrow Seattle-to-Redmond commuters.

More music toys

So in my weekend defined by lack of significant accomplishments, I managed to pick up a new racket-making device for my apartment already filled with too many instruments.

I got myself a Korg Kaossilator and it is already one of my favorite things ever. It's this little machine I can fit in my back pocket and all it has for an interface is a touchpad, a knob, and some buttons. (I don't feel like stealing images today, so you may just have to click the link and see for yourself)

I spent most of my free time in my apartment sitting around with my DL-4 on loop mode--because nobody likes being confined to 8 beats--and jamming out. Only on this thing can you have that much fun with two thumbs. Well, I take that back. You can have a lot of fun with two thumbs on a Nintendo 64, but that's besides the point.

I'm not entirely sure how I could use this with a band. I'm starting to get a better sense of where my fingers should go to deterministically play certain tones, and it is capable of setting keys and the scales within that key. But otherwise I just jack around and hope whatever comes out somewhat complements whatever is being played live or looped.

Hopefully I can be cliche and boring and shoot videos of what this can do--like that hasn't been done already. It might spice up this blog better than daily letters to strangers on a bus could.

Dear "People on the 545 route" the morning of 10/19/2009

Good morning!

There were only about 10 of you on the bus today. That was kind of weird. Maybe I missed the "skip out on work" memo. It's like senior skip day and only the cool kids knew about it.

Sorry I neglected to say anything toward the end of the week. Wednesday, I actually got to ride with one of my friends, so naturally I was excited--I ended up falling asleep on the bus anyway--and forgot to post. Thursday I drove myself. Friday--err, I have no excuse.

But, today, the fault is not my own. Nobody got on the bus.

I can share with you that I tried out taking a thermos of hot tea from home for the first time. My suspicion that it tasted like soap discouraged me from finishing.

I hope to see more of you tomorrow!

Dear "People on the 545 route" the morning of 10/13/2009

We managed to get a short bus today. Strange, eh?

I wonder if I was the only one to wonder if I somehow managed to get on the wrong bus.

I sat in the back, so I didn't get a chance to observe everybody today. I'm sure you all were just lovely though, so thank you for being quiet as I dreamed of passing out over Lake Washington. Somehow, I woke up in sheer panic this morning when my alarm went off. I was absolutely sure everything at work was broken in the split second it took for me to go from being peacefully asleep to being disturbingly awake. Maybe that's why I'm exhausted already.

Thank you for supporting me in my mini-disaster when I realized my little Zune device decided to be out of batteries again.

There really isn't anything interesting to say today, so perhaps we'll close with another quiet celebration that we didn't all die in a horrible fiery bus accident this morning. I hear those happen all the time.

Have a wonderful day bus people,

David

Dear "People on the 545 route" the morning of 10/12/2009

We shared about 45 minutes together getting to work, or wherever it was we were going. If you weren't going to work, well I think I might be jealous. We spend a good deal of time ignoring each other, and that bugs me. Anyway, this is my letter to you.

To the bus driver:
I hope you actually hear me and know that I mean it when I say thanks and I wish you a good day. I want you to feel like you exist, even though we all tend to take you for granted. Seriously, you make the morning so much better since I don't have to drive.

To the guy with the shoes:
I thought it was strange that you sat down right next to that lady when there was a completely empty seat across from me. Maybe you feel uncomfortable in the turny part where the front part of the bus attaches to the extended section, and that is totally understandable. If not, then I just think it's weird the way you sat down with such a flourish and unbuckled the seat-belt that doubles as your man-bag strap. But I will forever recognize you by your shoes. Those black and white, I-belong-in-the-50's things. I bet you're good at the foxtrot or something obscure like that. I'm proud of you for wearing them and I hope they make you feel awesome. I meant that sincerely.

To the guys who stand up way to early:
You really need to get off the bus that fast, eh? I bet it feels really cool to stand at attention and then brush past everybody so you can get to the front. Getting off first is important and all, but last I checked we both made it to the cross-walk at the same time. Whatever floats your boats, homies.

To the people who don't work at Microsoft:
Not that I fault you, but does it feel weird to be on a bus full of people who work at the same place? I sometimes feel like a sheep in the herd being shuttled off to work, and you just sit among us free to go anywhere else. I wonder if that makes you feel free. Or anything. Or if you notice at all.

To the girl I'm pretty sure works at Microsoft:
I'm also pretty sure I might have blown off an e-mail from you because I decided it was too randomizing. Oops.
It's a good thing I've become somewhat invisible on the bus.

To the lady that worked on her laptop the whole time and didn't even close it to get off the bus:
Whoa. Can I buy you a book or lend you my newspaper or something?

To everybody on the bus:
Keep up the good work. Everybody did a great job of pretending everybody else didn't exist.

Until tomorrow,

David

Smorgasbord

Smorgasbord. A word that means "a collection containing a variety of sorts of things"

A word that also aptly describes my mind this evening, so why not blog about it?

Random thought #1
I was watching TV and a lady on a commercial was trying to sell Gold Bond skin lotion. She said something like "I can't feel young when my skin looks old" and I immediately thought, "it's probably because you're old."
I think I may be more practical and literal than I need to be most times.

Random thought #2
Most people, if not all, are gifted with some passion in life. Some passions are quite admirable and inspirational. Others are fascinating and cool. Lately I've been realizing one of my passions is grammar and good language use. I think most people probably find that annoying.

Random thought #3
I've been thinking a lot lately of how I could be more useful and significant with music. I spend enough time thinking about music, arranging songs in my head, and learning new instruments and techniques. I have been considering perhaps I should put it to good use. I'm really excited to figure this out, and I wouldn't be disappointed if this is something I felt drawn to more in the future.

Random thought #4
I wonder how much we let people in our past affect how we treat the innocent and unrelated of the present and future. In my own life, I often still assume nothing I have to say that takes more than 30 seconds would be interesting to anybody. This includes both in social situations and in writing. And I can think of the person in my past that makes me think this way. That person is long gone, so why is it still there? Why do other people do the same thing? I can think of others who let people I will never know affect how they interact with me. Is that right? Do I choose to hold on to those things, rather than forgiving the issue and moving on? This one is a little deeper than the others, and perhaps I'll delve into it more some other time.

Random thought #5
I recently read a book by a woman who I later realized was somewhat feminist. I had never read any "feminist" work before, though I don't know that I would classify it as such nor should anybody. Either way, it was interesting to read as an unassuming male with no background on the author, her intent, or her work. I began unconsciously notice there were no named men other than the powerless, gay, religious, or dying. I honestly don't know if the author even intended for a person like me to read the book. I'm confused by this. I don't think I've ever been exposed to that before, nor have I had the insight into a woman's mind with those impressions of men.

I can't imagine reading one book is going to help me realize just how a woman's mind might work, nor can I assume this one woman is representative of all women. But perhaps I appreciate a bit more why women act in ways I don't get right away. That's another deep one I probably won't delve into in this post.

Random thought #6
It kind of freaks me out when I can actually see somebody actively trying to be someone or something other than what naturally are. Or when I realize I'm doing it myself. Seriously, people facing pressure to be something unnatural to them and then caving--willingly or not--happens. It happens a lot. There are times where identifying something you need to be or improve is appropriate. Change is good. But it still freaks me out if the intentions or motivations aren't right (because that's well defined...).

Ok, now enough of weird random thoughts.

Picture time:
Had to fix this. Twitpic was not impressed with my hot-linking skills
I hit myself in the face taking off my guitar. It sucked. It's usually what I enjoy doing when I have nothing else to do in an evening or if I'm spending time alone. Apparently my guitar wasn't into it and she let me know the hard way :)
Please observe alien looking bump under my right eyebrow.


One of the things I love about my apartment and why I chose this place is that I knew I'd get good views like this in time. Thank God for the sun setting in the West. This makes me think I need a better camera.



Ok, well hopefully you liked the pictures!

And that killed enough time that I feel like going to bed now. This was good :)

Cooking for a cause

CATCHY TITLE, RIGHT?

In my never ending quest to come up with titles that don't make me feel absolutely ridiculous, I find myself woefully inept once again.

But now that that is over, we shall move on. Again, I haven't posted in a while and I probably must forgo the more mundane details that have passed since I last wrote. This post will be around a volunteering opportunity I've found here in Seattle that I actually enjoy.

I went to FareStart a long time ago with my team from work. I can most simply describe FareStart as a food kitchen that prepares meals for homeless shelters in Seattle. It is also a school of sorts where students can enroll and learn about cooking while serving others in their city. Even cooler than that though is the fact that the students are "homeless and disadvantaged" individuals and they are getting a new lease on life through the art of cooking.

I like food. I like helping people. I was sold.

Since the first time I went, I organized a small group of my own friends and we all marched over to FareStart and volunteered this past weekend. I cut up more carrots Saturday than I have in my whole life. I made new friends in a city where it seems harder than it needs to be to make more than "single serving friends" (to borrow a phrase from Chuck Palahniuk). People just seem to bond well when they have knifes in their hands. Who knew?

There was my group which was a mix of friends from church and work. Another group was just a bunch of neighbors in a downtown apartment complex. Another group was just one girl that decided to come by herself. I exchanged numbers with the various groups represented and we may try to organize to go together again.

I also talked to my building management and I guess I'm on point to help organize my own building to go volunteer. It may not be the Peoples City Mission where I served and made such good friends, but I love working at FareStart and I am looking forward to going back and taking new people with me. Learning new cooking tricks doesn't hurt either.

Ok, I'll come up with more things to write about and make a concerted effort to do this more often.

Cheers!

Play that funky music brown boy

So I had my buddy Miranda Rensch up from Portland for Bumbershoot a couple weekends ago. Miranda and I started off at the same uber-nerd program in Nebraska, but she left after a semester to pursue more artistic endeavors. In that semester though, we made friends as musicians in the group.

Reuniting for Bumbershoot was great because we spent the whole weekend jamming out and making music through conventional and not-so-conventional means. Since that weekend, I've been having lots of fun collecting random instruments and jacking around with music. So here's what I have so far.

Instruments

Jackson JS1 Dinky
It looks like a total metal guitar, and it really is, but I've tweaked it enough that I can get some nice blues and jazz sounds out of it. The neck is fast and I love playing it.

Fender Jazz Active Bass
I looooove this bass. I got it to replace my old Danelectro. I went the extra mile to get active pickups because they give me a lot more range to dial in the right sound for various kinds of music.

Yamaha KX49 USB/MIDI Controller
I guess this counts as an instrument. In my senior year of college, I got really interested in sound production with the computer. However, I wanted to prove to all the Mac guys that you didn't have to pay tons of money (or steal) to make music. So I learned to do all that stuff the Open Source way on Linux and it was actually a lot of fun. So I have a decent keyboard to do all that nerdy synth stuff.

Amplifiers and Mixers

Behringer GX210
This amp has served me well for a long time. I've never had a good chance to push it hard, but it works great for noodling around and the onboard effects aren't bad either.

MarkBass Mini CMD 121P
I just picked this up and I love it. So I had a bass amp at home, but I left it thinking I wouldn't be playing much bass in Seattle. I was wrong, so I bought a new one. Thankfully, this thing is small enough to fit in my apartment and it's not more than 30 pounds. What is amazing is that it packs 400 watts in a small package and it sounds great. I love this amp so far. I have the volume set between 1-2 in my apartment and that's already probably too loud.

Behringer Eurorack MX1604A
I picked this mixer up in Kansas City off a guy who tried to use it as a home theater mixer. I got it cheap and it is a solid little mixer. I use this to manage the random mics I have around the apartment, and I've also used it for some recording..

Effects

Line 6 DL4
This is really the only one worth mentioning. It's an awesome delay modeler, but I use the loop machine more than anything else. This is great for running a mic into it, looping some beat box action, and then singing, humming, clapping, or making any kind of racket into the loop. This is truly too much fun and I thank Nathan Kniseley and Minus the Bear for showing me how cool these can be.

WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME ALL THIS? I DON'T CARE!

So all that being said, I met a few guys who are as into molding random noises into music as I am. I hope this eclectic mix of music styles and influences coalesces into something awesome. If it does, I'll be sure to say something about it here.

Take care!

Well, that's a peculiar laugh

I was walking toward my building on my way to work this morning when a lady behind me made a strange laughing noise. Moments later, a goose honked. I was pleased to find they sounded the same. I smiled and walked into my building to start my day.

I've taken to riding the bus to work lately. It's funny that what was once a dreaded nightmare to me is actually quite enjoyable in the mornings. I still avoid taking some of the downtown buses if they look too crowded, but I've been more comfortable relinquishing control of how I get from Point A to Point B.

Riding the bus is funny. People are funny. If movies were any indication of real life, every bus ride would be the start of some wild, whacky romantic adventure where the woman sitting across from me is really the love of my life for 3 weeks and then we break each others' hearts, yet we learn some timeless lesson about boysandgirls and she's still really cool and we're best friends who exchange knowing smiles from opposing street corners blah blah blah. In real life, it's more of a "let's mutually agree the other doesn't exist and I'll read my book and you read yours and hopefully we don't die on the way to our destination." Sounds morbid, eh?

It's funny though, this is maybe day 3 of taking the 545 to Redmond from Seattle and already I recognize some of the regulars on my route.

It has been a really long time since I've last posted. I wrote about riding the bus...

Wow.

Winna Winna Chicken Dinna

I don't suppose I have the time to make this one long, but I threw some scraps together this weekend and it was pretty good! I thought I'd share.

I had some steaks leftover from a dinner thing I hosted last weekend, and I wanted to use it and my other leftovers before they went bad. So here's what I did:

• Cut steak into smaller cubes about a cubic inch


• Throw steak into a bowl along with some olive oil, worschester sauce, ginger powder, and a little curry powder. Mix all that up and let it sit a while


• Heat up my bigger cast iron skillet. Should be big enough to hold a fair amount of food. I sprayed it with Pam or whatever, but I'm not sure if I was supposed. Whatever


• Dump steak in and let it brown real quick. This took under a minute or a minute and a half


• Dump a cup of rice and the cup of water it needed (I have freaky insta-rice, so I don't know if that's the same for other kinds of rice)


• Let the steak and rice cook together in the skillet until the water is mostly gone. I stirred in more ginger and curry powder as it cooked


• Dump all that on a plate when it's done cooking


• Slice 1/2 cucumber and 1 Roma tomato


• Clean off some cilantro


• Arrange it all on the plate all fancy like


• End up with the following:

It wasn't half bad and it definitely filled me up.

Things I'd change:

• Cook the steak seperately or put it in the skillet later. I like my meat more tender and less cooked than what I had


• More tomatoes


• I would like to try other spices with it and see what happens

Give it a shot and see if you like it. If you have a suggestion for a change, let me know.

Cheers

The Science of Traffic

I found a new route to get to work this morning. I finally decided to break the comfort of habit and find a new way to get to I-5 N. See, when I first moved here, I stayed in temporary housing a few blocks south of where I live now. From there, it was pretty simple to go up University until I ran into the I-5 N ramp. Since then, I've been driving through downtown traffic to get to the same ramp. Definitely not efficient, but it was what I knew and it was habit.

So breaking habits is always interesting, but it really paid off. I found a new way to go and it goes through an interesting neighborhood. Oh yeah, and it also saves me so much time.
Note: I used Google Maps on this link because I actually prefer their route to Bing's. I feel guilty/dirty. C'est la vie. I get to work all the same.

On the drive this morning, there was a line of cars on the side of the road in the opposite lane that had apparently been in the same accident. The first thing I thought was "I hope it wasn't impressive enough that people feel the need to look."

There are way too many times when I'm driving here where traffic crawls along until we pass an accident and then people drive normally again. I wonder if police and wrecker crews would be helping traffic along by putting up tarps or something so people wouldn't have anything to stare at when they drove.

I spend a lot of time in traffic. I spend a lot of time thinking about the science of traffic. It seems like a math problem almost. The road has some measure of capacity or bandwidth, and then there is the actual throughput which is present and it's far less. So what goes into the degredation? There are things like human response times, distractions, selfishness, anger, unwillingness to merge or let people merge, bends in the road, and all kinds of reasons to slam on the breaks and ruin everybody's commute. There are just so many variables and human psychology and physics and random factors that must contribute to the reason I spend an hour driving home in the evening and only 30 minutes in the morning. I like to think about the people at the front of the traffic jam and wonder what they're doing to back things up. It's like a whiplash effect where a small action up front translates to major jam-ups miles back.

It got me thinking that traffic is really an interesting problem, and I have more respect for the people that engineer those kinds of things. That being said, I'd still encourage an improvement, but I'd be interested to find out if there is any kind of literature or publications out there about traffic. It seems fascinating to me. But maybe that's just because I sit in traffic too much.

If there is one thing I can say about my commute here is that it is still stunningly beautiful. I hope I never tire of it. From the Seattle skyline, to the grey sheet of water over Lake Washington, to the engulfing trees and mountains as I get closer to Redmond, I find myself able to tolerate the traffic because it gives me more time to take it all in.

Still, somebody needs to invent robot drivers. It would be awesome.

I have returned, and this post is about food

Hey everybody. Sorry about the long hiaitus. I have had a harder time establishing my rhythm since I've moved here, but things are starting to roll right along now. I think the feeling of being "new" is wearing off, as are my excuses to put things off.

So I've got my apartment more squared away. I'm finding things to get involved in. I'm meeting new people and trying to become a part of my community--both in my building and in Belltown at large.

There are tons of things to catch up on, but in true Nebraska spirit, I'm going to toss it all aside and concentrate on food.

I've noticed grocery shopping has become a lot harder. I've always enjoyed shopping for food--in fact it's one of the few ways I can shop that doesn't make me uncomfortable--and I love to cook. The problem is that I live by myself, and I can't often find one person sizes of everything at the grocery store. I've never had to cook for just one person, so this is new and it's kind of an issue. I can't eat fast enough to preserve the food I do buy.

I've also been considering my health a lot more lately. Suddenly, I guess I'm in charge of that kind thing so maybe I should step up. I don't know what it is, but lately I'm highly interested in preserving what potential my body has left.

So I think I need to get better at planning. I would like to have a planning system where I know what meal I'm making for every day of the week and then shop accordingly. I've done this before when I lived with 3 other guys and it worked well. This planning system would be nice if it also encompassed some nutritional analysis. It would be even better if it were smarter than I am, because I know nothing about nutrition--as in, it took me forever to realize carbohydrates and calories aren't the same thing.

Like any good nerd, I looked to see if there were any web apps that could do those things.

• Relish!
  The site looked good and it had a clean design. But it also has a subscription fee. Maybe this service would be something I'd want to pay for in the future, but the knowledge that I could really just sit down and do this with a pad and pen makes it a tough sell for me. I didn't get to learn more about this one. Perhaps a "lite" or "bachelor" version would be useful (*cough* HINT *cough*).
  


• Plan To Eat
  This one looks pretty cool, and it seems like something that would almost persuade me to pay for it. The ability to drag in and import recipes and break them down into grocery shopping lists seems awesome. It also looks like it has Amazon Fresh integration, but I'll spare you my idealogical rants regarding that. Again, it looks like it's subscription based, so I'll pass until I decide this service is worth money to me.
  


• H-E-B
  This one has me very excited. If you're from Texas, you know what H-E-B is. It is the grocery store of all grocery stores! Yes folks, I'm this excited about a grocery store. Anyway, H-E-B has a service where they just plan weekly meals for you and they provide the grocery shopping list. I suppose the more clever name for it is "weekly suggested menus." Either way, the food looks great, and it's free, and it's awesome. On the H-E-B exclusive meal days, I can find my own things to eat. I'm going with this for now.
  

Ok, well that was my triumphant return to the blog scene. And it was about food. I'll run with this for a week or two and see how it goes. Ideally, this makes my grocery shopping more efficient and saves me money while keeping myself fed and healthy.

If you have any suggestions, by all means let me know. It seems like this "living by myself and pretending to be an adult" thing has uncovered lots of places for me to learn and grow.

Cheers!

Just popping in

First, might I just say that coming to this public computer is becoming more and more enjoyable? I like to play this game called "what was the last the person before me copy and pasted". So far I haven't found anything too noteworthy, but the anticipation of some treasure is too irresistable. That and the Dean Martin and other classical music they always have playing in the lobby is pretty solid too.

Ok so anyway, I had my first day of work today. I'm still fried because I didn't really sleep last night. I don't know why, but my body absolutely didn't want to fall asleep. I didn't think I was nervous or anything, but the best I could do was watch the clock tick past 4 am, then 5, then 6, then I got fed up and just got out of bed to get ready. That, and traffic in Seattle is crazy. On the way home, I did a pretty good job reversing my directions until I decided to get on I-5 North instead of South and that was a bummer. Oh well.

Work was the standard fair of "these are your health care options" and "DON'T GIVE AWAY YOUR PASSWORDS" orientation business. The other parts were the more Microsoft specific things and that was pretty exciting. I met a lot of cool people who were from different walks and positions in their lives. All in all, it was a cool day, but 'veddy veddy' long.

I'll have more interesting things to say tomorrow. I think.

Anyway, I decided to treat myself to a real dinner tonight. The past few days I have been sticking to sandwiches. I bought some tomatoes, bread, salami, prosciutto, mozarella cheese, and some various items I haven't been using. Same thing. Lunch and dinner (I rarely eat breakfast).

So tonight I went to a sushi place in the courtyard of Harbor Steps because I saw a sign that said "HAPPY HOUR." I'm pretty sure that's Japanese for dinner salvation because I loved it. I had a bowl of miso soup, a nice salad, and a roll each of salmon and tuna. All for about $10. I'd say that's a pretty good deal regardless, but an amazing deal compared to what I've seen in Seattle so far. I'll probably be dropping by there more often.

Ok that's all I have. I'm going to see if Ice Truckers is on or something because I haven't had much to do lately other than watching geeky television shows. Or I'll read. I just finished a book called "Habitudes" by Dr. Tim Elmore. It was a book about leadership but I don't see why this book could be applied to anybody wanting to manage their lives/time/I-don't-know-what-word-to-use more effetively.

Perhaps I'll provide a better explanation on my take of the book some other time. I need to VEEEEGGGG right now.

Take care everybody!

Wide awake in Seattle

Did you see what I did there with the title!? SO CLEVER!! lolololololol

Seriously though, I can never think of good titles for blog posts. But I am in Seattle now and I am, in fact, awake. So I guess that will have to work for now.

Anyway, I don't really have anything specific to say and I feel weird having to type this at a public computer. I don't actually know if there are people that read this, but in the slight chance that there may be somebody that does and could possibly be interested in what's going on in my life, I figured I would post an update.

I arrived in the Seattle-Tacoma airport at about 1:30, picked up the keys for the rental car, and started out on a wing and a prayer (and some directions I could only hope were right) toward my temporary home. While contending with Seattle traffic, I had to chastise myself over and over for thinking too Nebraskan. My mind was racing with thoughts like "this place is so big" and "there are so many people, so many cars!" and "why is everything so close together"! This is definitely nothing like the busiest parts I've seen in Omaha. Perhaps it was the stress of traveling, but that's all I could think about as I was driving from the airport into the city. I had to check myself and try to overcome all the stress to appreciate the beauty I was driving through. Washington really is a beautiful place, and the weather was stunningly amazing. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, but I hear that isn't really a common thing around here. Either way, I'm pretty thrilled Seattle came up with some good weather to welcome me.

I get to stay at the Harbor Steps apartment complex. I looked up the address before I left Nebraska and I was pretty stoked to see that it was right by the water and right in downtown Seattle (at least I think this is downtown). That being said, nothing could prepare me for how beautiful and impressive the whole thing is. I get to stay on the 21st floor of the North East tower of this complex. I can throw a rock and probably hit the harbor, but odds are I would probably hit an unfortunate person walking on the streets below instead. I can see massive buildings and beautiful architecture. This is definitely a city! As I would come to find in the following days, there is still a homey atmosphere here and the people are so nice.

I spent my first night alone in the apartment. I went out to explore the streets below. It was kind of funny because I opened the door and stepped outside and I was immediately lost. The funnier part of that was I absolutely loved the feeling. I loved being able to just walk around and take it all in. It also helps that my love of having a sense of direction and knowing where North is at all times works out well with the fact that the harbor provides a great landmark (or water mark??) to help me keep my bearings.

I ate dinner by myself at a little Mexican restaurant right outside of the apartment complex called Guayma's. It was actually kind of pleasant to be able to sit by myself to decompress and unwind. It was even more pleasant to enjoy a beer with some chips and I couldn't have been happier in that moment. How wonderful it is to just be happy and feel taken care of even in the smallest things. Anyway, I ordered these ceviche tostadas that is kind of like 'pico de gallo' and a bunch of seafood blended and dumped onto a crispy tortilla. It was pretty good! Hooray for being able to enjoy good seafood again!

I got my little car back on Saturday, and I feel so much better to have that now. I was blessed to be able to rent the Corolla and get me from the airport to the garage of my new digs. Even so, it was still kind of big for my taste and the windows aren't set up as they are in my Scion, so I felt like I was driving a boat with no windows through the crammed streets of downtown Seattle. That's probably just the stress and my hatred of traffic talking though. With my little bean car handy, I feel much more comfortable zipping around the streets now (when I do feel courageous enough to go out without walking). I saw some ridiculously steep hills and for the first time in my life I considered a having a manual transmission to be a bad idea. However, I'll get used to it--just like all the other drivers here...kind of--and I even learned a cool handbrake trick from the truck driver who delivered my car. Hopefully I don't get a ton of chances to use it.

I spent some time walking around while I was looking for a grocery store. The concierge here did me a solid by telling me of the place and giving me directions.

"Sure, you can walk there!"

Actually, next time I'll probably drive. It really wasn't that close at all (View the route here). Either way though, the weather was nice and the city beautiful, so I didn't mind walking and I got to learn some more about the city. I did walk past the Space Needle and the Music Experience Project place and those both seem really cool. I'm excited to check them out someday. I also walked by the future site of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation building and I got pretty excited for that too.

I found a different way to walk back that took me through the Belltown neighborhood and then down 1st avenue to see that whole stretch of restaurants and shops. How much cooler this place will be when I'm not so broke!

Last night I ran into a lady I had met on the elevator on Friday and she invited me to a small work party on the big deck of one of the buildings here. I got to meet some people and they took me out to some pub here in town. I started to realize what a beer snob I had become in Lincoln, but apparently that flies here so I'm in good company. Either way, I hope the USPS is ok with sending beer through the mail because I will be missing Emperean.

I hung out with those guys for a while and then walked a few blocks (more like a mile) to meet up with one of two people I actually know here to a small party for a girl that also works at Microsoft. Turns out Microsoft people like to get together and throw parties and they are just the way I like them: kinda nerdy. I had some fun with that and eventually went home.

This morning I got up and went to Mars Hill church. I checked out a few churches online before coming here and I was really excited to check this place out. Apparently the building used to be a really seedy and problematic club before the city relieved them of their liquor license. The church bought the building and started up a congregation in downtown. To be honest, the building was smaller than I expected and I drove right past it the first time. Inside it was pretty amazing.

Sitting at church, for the first time since I got here, I felt homesick. It was weird though because I felt so at home. It reminded me a lot of the people I came to love and know as family back at Lincoln Berean, but at the same time it was awesome to see people worshiping God the same way we did back home. It was cool to see God's church glorifying His name. It was a good reminder that God definitely is everywhere and that this whole experience is very pervasive. It was kind of an emotional morning for me and it was weird because I rarely get emotional. Either way, I was thrilled to be there.

I came up with this philosophy when I was younger: "don't date the first girl you meet." I figured this out because I moved a lot. Being the new guy. It's pretty easy to work that angle with the ladies. When I moved to Texas though, I starting hanging around with one of the first girls I met there and was immediately locked out of meeting other people in a more natural way. Plus--and this sounds terrible--there is always the danger of jumping the gone and not enjoying the best relationship out there.

I think the same can be said of looking for a church. I want to keep the mentality of checking things out, being open minded, and staying out of the way until God moves me to the right church. However, if I end up sticking around at Mars Hill, I think I'd be a happy camper. We'll see how that goes. I think they have some kind of worship service tonight and they're going to try to get me plugged in to some smaller groups and communities around the city so I can meet some people. I'm looking forward to this.

So this ended up being pretty long, but that was my weekend! Or the things I cared to write down anyway. To the readers back home, I miss you guys! But be happy for me. This is a cool place and I think I'm going to enjoy figuring out what my life is going to be here.

I start work tomorrow so I might spend some time preparing for that.

Take care everybody!

Forgot to mention! I don't take many pictures, and I don't have any cool photo album for you to check out. However, I do take some pictures on my phone and send them to Twitter occasionally. You can follow me on Twitter to catch any pictures I might toss on there

Only in Texas...

Texas high school football is probably everything "Friday Night Lights" tried to convey, if not more. I was there for a few years and I loved it, but looking back I can only laugh at the ridiculousness of some of it.

In exchange for unquestioning and absolute devotion to the football program, the coaches would put these shirts together to encourage us to submit ourselves to physical torture known as strength building and conditioning.

I'm going through old clothes to sort out things I'll give away and things I'll keep before I move. I found a shirt I absolutely can't give away because it's so hilarious.

The front says "IF THE BAR AIN'T BENDIN' THEN YOU'RE JUST PRETENDIN'" with a picture of a heavily loaded bar. The poem on the back is just epic and I thought I'd share it.

THE SQUAT
WAY DOWN THIS ROAD, IN A GYM FAR AWAY,
A YOUNG MAN WAS ONCE HEARD TO SAY,
I'VE REPPED HIGH AND I'VE REPPED LOW,
NO MATTER WHAT I DO MY LEGS WON'T GROW.
HE TRIED LEG EXTENSIONS, LEG CURLS, AND
LEG PRESSES TOO, TRYING TO CHEAT, THESE
SISSY WORKOUTS HE'D DO.
FROM THE CORNER OF THE GYM WHERE BIG
MEN TRAIN, THROUGH A CLOUD OF CHALK AND
THE MIDST OF PAIN.
WHERE THE BIG IRON RIDES HIGH AND
THREATENS LIVES. WHERE THE NOISE IS MADE
WITH FORTY-FIVES, A DEEP VOICE BELLOWED
AS HE WRAPPED HIS KNEES. A VERY BIG MAN
WITH LEGS LIKE TREES.
LAUGHING AS HE SNATCHED ANOTHER PLATE
FROM THE STACK. CHALKING HIS HANDS AND
MONSTROUS BACK, SAID, "BOY STOP LYING AND
DON'T SAY YOU'VE FORGOTTEN, THE TROUBLE
WITH YOU IS YOU AIN'T BEEN SQUATIN' [sic]."


Yeah, sometimes good poems don't have to rhyme the whole way through. Or flow. Or look like poems.

Some of my best memories from high school revolved around football in Texas, and I'm glad I found this shirt. There were many like it, but this was probably the most ridiculous.

"DON'T TEXT AND DRIVE!!"

I've had people yell at me to not text and drive so many times, I find myself doing the same to others now. But it makes a lot of sense. Thanks to the kind police officers pulling me over and sending me to STOP class (for turning right at a red light...how lame is that), I now have gruesome images of maimed bodies and mangled vehicle burned into my head that resurface every time I think about using the cell phone in the car. "IF YOU USE YOUR PHONE IN THE CAR, THIS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU!"

It reminds me of the scene in Mean Girls where the coach says "If you have sex, you will get pregnant and die!" But that's besides the point.

So common sense says horrible things don't necessarily have to happen the instant you touch your cell phone in the car, but the point remains: operating a cell phone in the car drastically reduces your ability to pay attention to traffic and react accordingly. I've even had a minor accident because I was distracted by my phone, but thankfully there was no real damage and nobody got hurt.

So I do a pretty good job now about not using my phone in the car. The other day, I realized there is another activity we tend to do that is just as distracting, yet nobody really says anything about it. We have portable music devices that hook up via auxilary line-in inputs or other adapters. We have thousands and thousands of songs on our iPods or Zunes that we can take with us in the car. The interfaces on them are pretty cool and allow for the browsing of media with just one finger. However, we haven't really improved the way we browse through media in the car.

Back in the "old days," we grabbed a CD and that's what we listened to for half and hour to an hour. In fact, I still do it that way predominantly. Having a whole catalog of music at our disposal allows us to be more picky about our music and often we find ourselves jumping around from artist to artist. And that's a good thing! I think it's awesome we have that kind of technology. However, I was driving around with my dad the other day and watching him go through his media device to look up some artist.

I realized we should come up with a better interface for browsing through artists, songs, and genres in a media library while driving. It needs to be something that will be efficient without compromising the ability to focus on the road. The Microsoft Sync technology seems to be taking a crack at that using voice recognition, but I've never used it so I can't really say much about it.

I was thinking perhaps a HUD interface might work well in the vehicle assuming it wasn't something that distracted too much from looking at the road. If it were the kind of thing that could be manipulated by finger gestures or by buttons on the steering wheel, it would allow the driver to browse for media while keeping hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.

Another interesting idea I thought about would be for the car to sense the moods or dynamics of the passengers in the vehicle and use that information to suggest music. What if it were like Pandora or Last.fm, except it could tell if you were in the mood for something upbeat or something mellow? What if the car were able to tell that I'm driving the car instead of my mother and select music from my favorite artists instead of blasting salsa music? Over time, the car could tell what the driver likes or doesn't like, and could use things like pulse, temperature, or other biometrics to determine what music to play. From there, the driver could make suggestions or alter the music as he or she saw fit.

Even other things like volume control? Perhaps the car can tell when people are trying to talk in the car and then it lowers the volume? There is already technology that can tell how fast you're going and adjust the volume to compensate for road noise. It's little features like that which allow the vehicle to be more responsive to the driver's needs.

Voice recognition technologies also probably have room to improve, and I'm sure there are good ways to leverage that to make selecting and enjoying music in the car a less distracting experience.

So I don't really have any more specific ideas or new directions to take on this, but for sure I see a need to redo the interface for music in the car. As technology allows us to take more music with us, we should figure out how to make the driving experience and the interface get up to speed. We should find a way to maximize entertainment value without compromising safety.

Ok, that's my rant.

What I think would be fun...

Sitting at my parents' home in Bellevue is always fairly relaxing, but over the last couple of weeks I've been realizing it is somewhat isolating. There's not much in the way of kids my age I still talk to. So I spend a lot of time hanging out reading or thinking or playing guitar. I was playing guitar in my parents' living room the other day since nobody was home. The acoustics of the living room had a warmer feel than playing outside on the porch or in some dirty basement. The acoustics of a space add a lot to the subtleties of music and those kinds of things are fun to explore.

Someday, assuming I make a bunch of friends who also enjoy sitting around and making racket with instruments, I would just love to rent out a space and harness it to tease good music out of the atmosphere. I would love to find some cabin or old house out in the middle of nowhere. I would love to just sit around in its living room, or explore the small nooks and crannies of the house, or even just wander around outside. You know how each house has a smell? Perhaps there's more than just a smell in the house, but a general feel or spirit, if you will. Perhaps that can be inspiring enough to make music that carries the same uniqueness of the house.

That's what I want to do someday. Perhaps run into enough cash to rent a place like that and make a few friends that would just want to sit around and make racket all day. I know other bands have used in the same way: Led Zeppelin, Incubus, and a few others who aren't coming to mind. I think it would be fun. Now I just need to scope out some random places in the Pacific Northwest and track down other hippie music freaks.

No I'll never come back down, down from here

If my life ever ends up this way, I could totally live with that

Panic! At the Bookstore

One of the most exciting things about graduating was knowing I had time to read finally. The economics of time when I was school didn't really allow me to read much that wasn't absolutely relevant or necessary to my classes. Well, that's all over and I want to start reading again. So I went to Border's today and it was the weirdest thing. I felt like I hadn't been in a bookstore with no clear purpose in mind and I felt like an idiot that didn't belong there. Book shopping shouldn't be this hard!

I walked through the popular selections area and checked some of them out. I could sense my mind immediately ignoring books that didn't seem like they'd have any impact in my life or that just seemed absolutely useless. Other books I'd look at and I'd feel mildly saddened knowing there's a market for that kind of drivel. Still, I went into a bookstore to get some books and I had no idea what to get.

I finally wandered over to the Christian section which was a new thing to me. I have to shamefully admit I went looking for some books just because people had recommended them to me. I picked up "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell and "The Shack" by Paul Young. Both were recommended to me by a guy I respect a lot, but it still felt weird to get something just because somebody else says so. It kind of goes against my "anti-sheep" mentality. At least I finally had something in my hands.

For some reason, Thoreau popped into my head. Everything I've heard about Thoreau screams "boring" and "long-winded". Well, I'm boring and long-winded, and I've loved the small excerpts I've seen of his work. So now I have a copy of "Walden" and whatever other writings ended up in this book.

Finally, I walked over to where I knew I could find some Palahniuk. This is probably the only author I feel comfortable buying his work and knowing it will do absolutely nothing practical for me. However, he writes well and I love the way he paints such twisted pictures. It's like watching a car wreck or something. I love it.

My trip through the bookstore makes me realize my passion for things practical and useful and how uncomfortable I get when I'm just looking for something that might do me some unmeasurable good. It was strange how at home I felt when I walked over to the technology and computer section and picked through books about Sharepoint, programming languages, and Linux kernels. Have I really become that much of a geek?

Perhaps this can be a new growing point in my life. Either way, I'm stoked I got some new books AND I got a $10 gift card. I have no idea what to do with it. Right on.

Feel free to leave any further reading suggestions.

Things I'd like to do before leaving Nebraska

• Eat at Johnny's Cafe
  I've driven past this place for years on my trips to and from Omaha. It was in some movie that was based in Omaha (About Schmidt maybe?) and I have never been. I must try it.


• Visit Holy Family Shrine
  Another thing I've seen for years driving to and from Lincoln. It's on I-80 near Gretna or Ashland or something. I used to always think it was a witching tower for lack of a better idea. Turns out it's a Catholic shrine or something, but I still want to check it out. It looks beautiful.


• WHAT IT IS AS THE H-D-Z!
  This is Dahv-speak for "I want to go to the Henry Doorly Zoo before I leave." It's probably one of the better Omaha attractions and it's usually a good way to kill a few hours.


• Do something I never found time for in Lincoln
  This one is intentionally vague, but I don't think I really ever made enough time to explore Lincoln and find cool stuff. I've often driven past a lot, and I walked around downtown enough my freshman year to know things are out. Perhaps I'll find them. Any suggestions on something I might have missed? Thinking about Lincoln just makes me want to drink premium beer right now, so we'll see what happens with this one.

Have any suggestions or know something I hadn't even thought of that I should do? Please let me know. Also, I might want company so come join me if you want!

Ok so now what?

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to speak to some high school seniors from my 'alma mater' at Bellevue West. I've remained good friends with one of my teachers from that time, and have come back a few times while I was in college to talk to her classes or work on other projects to facilitate high-school/university relations. I even went back and did some recruiting things at Bellevue West. Part of me says I'm being a good alumnus, but mostly it's because I love talking to younger students and I like to help out my teacher and my friend.

It seems open-ended, and I blogged about it in my last post, but I believe the focus of my talk is to relate my life/college experiences after high school and to offer whatever advice I may have. So I'll be using this blog to organize some thoughts, but moreover, I'm seeking feedback, suggestions, or slap-in-the-face reminders of what I could have missed.

So here are my points of advice that I'll start with tomorrow:

• Keep your eyes and mind wide open
  Ok, so this one seems cliche, but I can think of my first weekend at college. There was so much stuff to take in. I thought I did an ok job of trying to absorb it all, but thinking back, I had a girlfriend to distract me and my own social agenda to fulfill. That first weekend was truly a blast, and I still think it should be. However, it is also really important to start learning about your environment and setting your sights beyond the clique you came with or the booze you can't wait to consume.
  
  At UNL, Big Red Welcome is pretty much designed to do just that. Nearly every organization on campus comes out and hands you free crap in hopes that you'll sign up of something. It took me a couple of years to realize that most of the stuff I picked up I never used or looked at again, but it's a good way to pick up chow and find out what is going on at the University.
  
  Beyond that first weekend, college to me has been about humbling myself to realize I can't possibly know everything and knowing that I was there to learn. Keeping an eye out for new opportunities to challenge myself, learn something new, and growing as a person proved to be an important skill.
  


• If it seems stupid, go learn more about it
  There are a lot of things I think are just plain crap. One thing I learned over the years is that things I used to think were worthless became more valuable as I grew older. Today, if I find myself something is complete crap, I stop and ask myself if I understand it. Have I really taken the time to peer into something and justify my declaration of something as worthless?
  
  I thing we fear or hate that which we don't understand. However, when we to stop to see if we can find value in something, we open ourselves up to a wealth of new value in our life experiences. The same can be true of college or other post-high school experiences. If I thought a way of doing things or an idea was stupid, I found a book or took a class about it. If after the class I find it's still stupid, then I feel satisfied knowing I diligently investigated the issue and I know I've exercised my mind in doing so. In my experience, I came out of things valuing that which I previously thought was stupid more often than not. It seems there is a lot more to learn about life if we only put some effort into seeing its value.
  
  Obviously, there is some discretion in this point. My dad likes to put it "I don't need to jump off a building to know it's not a good idea," and he is totally right. With all things come balance. With all decisions comes a critical evaluation and a weighing of benefits. The same can be said with where how we decide to experience life. Be sure to investigate things intelligently rather than stretch yourself too thin or otherwise harm yourself.
  


• Read, Read, Read
  Having access to information is so easy these days and it is amazing. One of the things I am most excited for now that I am done with school is the ability to kick back and read when I want to. Libraries and book stores are a great place to start and there are plenty of them in Lincoln.
  
  The Internet has made getting information easy as well. If you don't have a Google Reader account or some other RSS aggregator, you should get one. If you want to learn more about finance, seek out financial blogs. If you're excited about city development, see if your city council or some other organization has a blog. It is ridiculously easy to start learning about so many things by following blogs.
  
  Another important thing for college kids is to learn to read the newspaper or watch the news regularly. College can be a fairly isolating community. Now that seems like an odd thing to say, but I remember I was oblivious to the Katrina hurricane because I got so wrapped up in college life my freshman year. Make sure you stay in touch with the rest of the world. Set Yahoo News as your home page. Make it a habit to take a newspaper with you to lunch. Do what it takes to become an informed citizen. I think it's part of growing up and life after high school is a good place to start.
  


• "Eat like a Bird, Poop like an Elephant"
  I've written about this quote before, but I just love it. Birds supposedly eat a ridiculous amount compared to their body mass. Likewise, we should be taking in disproportionately large amounts of information. However, one thing I don't like about college is that students can be tricked into becoming leeches. There is never a push to cycle the information, process it, and create some kind of useful output.
  
  The latter half of the quote seems fairly obvious. If we take in a lot, we should output a lot. This is beneficial both for the individual and for those around them. Be an effective channel of information. Doing so will teach you to communicate effectively and it will solidify concepts in your mind as you teach them to others.
  


• Learn about Leadership
  
When I got to college, I had come from the top of my class and entered into a community where everybody else was at the top of their classes. We were competitive. We all figured we were the best; each figured he or she was a leader. To us, being a leader was about technical proficiency, wrangling every problem into submission, and being better than everybody in the room.

I can't say I was any different when I started, but my view on leadership has evolved since then. I have to say it really changed the way I work with people, how I view myself in the workforce, and how I view others that with whom I work. I learned that being the best in everything isn't necessarily possible, but to be able to inspire others to bring their best to the task at hand and leverage the strengths of the group is a true skill. I'm probably still working on that today.

This is huge. Learn what leadership really is. It's not about what color personality you have. It's not about finding some label to excuse your behavior, or even taking a test. I think there is a positive correlation between maturity and effectiveness as a leader because I certainly discounted everything I learned in leadership classes when I was a freshman. I took another class with some overlapping material as a senior and it blew me away how much more it meant at that point.

If a student is going to UNL, I recommend they find some way to take a class with Dr. Colleen Jones, and hopefully she can point them in the right direction.


• Don't be technically crippled
  Writers love to rant and rave about how pervasive technology is in our society. Yet there are still students who can't find their way around on a computer. If you go to college, chances are high you will use a computer at some point. I'm not saying every student needs to be able to code up a business application, but it is so unlikely you will never have a job where you will use a computer. So it would behoove you to become familiar with technology and not waste everybody's time as you stare dumbly at a computer monitor. A computer can be a tool, and the more you practice with it, the better off you will be.
  


• Learn to do the little things correctly
  This is huge. I've spent too much time working with students who don't know how to put a quick slide show together or format a large document. Even things like formatting a paper MLA or APA style without having to look everything up are skills that will come up in college. These are little tricks and skills most high schools should teach their students if they are able. One should hope that before a student takes a job, they won't need remedial training on how to do the little things correctly. It's an unfortunate waste of time. The faster you learn to do these things without thinking about them, the faster and easier projects and assignments will go.
  
  


• Learn to write well
  This one is also huge, but perhaps I am a little biased. There were times in college where I was just dumbfounded that students were about to graduate and still couldn't write well. I won't go into horror stories with this one, but this is important repeat: important.
  
  Part of my senior assessment before I could graduate from the business college was a writing prompt. I thought it was some kind of joke or trick question. The assignment was to explain why strong writing skills in job candidates was important to businesses. The prompt was written terribly. I couldn't believe it.
  
  Nevertheless, the point remains. Writing well saves time, communicates effectively, and shows respect for the work and for the reader.
  
  Seriously, I don't know how else to put this: learn to write well.
  


• Learn to study and use time effectively
  I'm not the poster child for anti-procrastination. To be honest, I get distracted just as easily as the next person. However, I like to work hard and I can usually make up for time lost.
  
  I've heard that there are students who can study and work efficiently and actually manage to go to bed before midnight. If there were something I wish I were better at, it would be the ability to manage my time effectively.
  
  One skill I learned was time boxing. This is a practice generally related to software development, and it is how it was taught to me. However, the practice of identifying tasks, estimating the time required to complete them, and committing to a schedule was a really effective way of getting things done.
  
  Tools like Thymer or Remember the Milk are great tools for personal task management. I've heard The Hit List is a great tool for Mac. I don't own said status symbol, so I can't say anything about it.
  


• Find a way to get out of the country
  Nebraska isn't exactly the most cultured state in the nation. I know there are lots of kids who haven't been out of the country, been to either coast, or have even left the country. Today's economy is becoming increasingly more global, and being able to relate to a world that doesn't live on Big-Macs and pick-up trucks will be of growing importance.
  


• Learn the balancing act
  My mother did a great job of preaching balance to me my whole life, and I really appreciate it now. I would advise everybody to be well-rounded individuals and not lean too heavily on any one thing (note, this has nothing to do with my thoughts on faith or religion. That's a completely different discussion).
  


• Don't be a sheep
  High school is a pretty social place. Cliques are rampant. Many social activities are scheduled out. Students shuffle off to class together and everything happens according to routine. Things change in college, yet too many people want to continue acting like they're in high school.
  
  Don't do things just because everybody else is. Numbers don't always make something right. Instead, think for yourself. Take pride in being different, because it is often the courage of one person willing to go against the grain that make the most significant change.
  
  With everything that confronts you, think critically. Like I said earlier about labeling things as crap, make sure you understand what is going on before you follow the heard. Make sure it is something you would have done if you were by yourself and nobody could see you.
  
  The same can be said for integrity and ethics. I can think of too many groups or social constructs that cause people to think they can do atrocious things because everybody else does it. History and psychology experiments reveal the sad truth. However, the same things happen in college. Nobody needs to spend a night wrapped around a toilet, yet we have social constructs that encourage it.
  
  Don't be a sheep. Do things because they are right, not because they are popular.
  


• Now, find a group to join
  This seems an odd contradiction directly after the preceding point, yet humans are designed to be social creatures. We are generally wired to function in groups. In a practical perspective, this is useful because a group can do so much more than an individual ever could.
  
  This is related to a true appreciation of diversity. Diversity should be more than skin-deep, as is so popular to preach today. Diversity of thought is what I love to leverage, and a healthy social group will seek out diversity to make sure it can take advantage of each individual's uniqueness.
  
  Thus, as an individual, it would be beneficial for us to join groups so that we can learn to work with people and benefit from the diverse mix of skills, thoughts, emotions, cultures, languages, and so on. The important thing is to join a group that would make you a better individual than you could be on your own. Be sure that the reputation of the group is something you'd be proud to append to your own.
  


• Don't wait too long to be significant
  Thanks to Van Wilder, we love to say "don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive." I do agree with that, and I've learned a lot about being relaxed in the face of life's pressures. However, I've seen too many young people take this idea to the extreme.
  
  At what age do we become accountable to our community? How long is appropriate to wait before we're supposed to give back? How many years before "I'm still in college" is an excuse for wasteful and bad behavior?
  
  The rising popularity of college created this concept of "adolescence." It used to be that kids would quickly become adults when they turned 18, but now we have this period of adolescence where we throw any responsibility to grow up out the window until it's time to graduate. And yet, as graduation approached, I heard so many of my peers absolutely panicked to have to enter "the real world." Indeed, it is a daunting prospect, but why wait until the weeks before your graduation to think about how you will relate to the world around you?
  
  Don't wait too long to figure out who you are going to be. Learn to give back and be a significant individual why you are in college. It's actually kind of fun to do and you'll surprise a lot of people.
  


• Get involved in community service
  We have a surprising amount of talent compared to much of the need in the community and in the world around us. Yet, most of it goes to waste hidden within a college campus. Community service and social activism comes with a huge wealth of benefits and it is the appropriate and reasonable way to relate to the rest of the world. There is little reason to wait and see how you can contribute to the community, region, and world that gave you so much. We are a truly blessed people and we should learn to see how we can put our blessings to work. I also think this is a blast, and it is definitely worth looking into.
  

So that's all I have so far. If there is a point I missed or you think I'm way off, please leave a comment or shoot me a note. I'll check them all out and add them in before I make my presentation tomorrow.

Slides so far:

So does this mean I'm a grown-up?

Well folks, I graduated today!

PROOF: Exhibit A

Graduation took about as long as I expected, and it was one of those things for which I would have been more exciting had I not been so tired. Our guest speaker was a fairly interesting guy. Eugene H. Cordes has apparently been involved in UNL in a big way and has done some impressive things in the realm of biosciences and medicine. Perhaps over my head, but I was impressed nonetheless. He was granted an honorary degree of Doctor of Science. After being honored, he gave the commencement speech for my graduating class. Not bad for a day's work.

His speech was entitled "Learning Throughout Life," and he made repeatedly the point "never stop learning." While not entirely thrilling or overly inspiring, the man said some things I wholeheartedly agree with and that was encouraging. I liked his specific point about scientific literacy. He argues our tax dollars are funding government grants for things like research, medicine, and other scientific endeavors. If we paid for them, the information is ours. Thus, we should seek out and demand to learn the information, internalize it, and metabolize it. Yet, information moves and evolves quickly. Merely relying on what you learned in school doesn't keep you in touch. Thus, constant life-long learning is vital. He argued that we as a society could take advantage of all the progress made by various research committees by things as simple as learning physiology or basic pharmacology. We could learn to work with our doctors and have an active involvement in our own health care.

So yeah, the speech was both generic and specific, inspiring and vanilla, and about the last thing I paid attention to before I zoned out. Thankfully, my college got up first and filed through the ranks to get our diplomas. The rest of it was a waiting game.

I am now comfortably at my parents' house and will hang out here until it is time to move to Seattle.

Past experiences have taught me that I don't like being idle and to be idle at my parents' home is just a recipe for disaster. I stayed in touch with a high school teacher from Bellevue West over the past few years and we tossed around the idea of me coming back to speak to her senior classes. I've spoken to high school students a few times before, but it has been about 2 years and the age gap was never this pronounced.

Yet, I love talking to younger students and sharing experiences I had about growing up and succeeding in higher education while it is still fresh in my mind.

I think I'll want to spend time talking about commitment to the community and learning to give back by leveraging our gifts. I'll probably want to talk about being proactive in self-investment and not "waiting until I'm old enough" to start taking things seriously.

Now, I've heard the Van Wilder quote "don't take too seriously; you'll never make it out alive." I can kind of agree with that, and I have recently begun to verbalize the value of being relaxed about life while still being analytical and critical. Honestly, with the way my mind works, it's the only way I can live life without burning out.

However, I kind of have a small peeve regarding college kids thinking it's fine to continually excuse bad behavior, wastefulness, selfishness, and blah blah blah (I sound like an old man), citing "I'm too young to take this too seriously." Well, at what age do young people all of a sudden become useful, contributing members of society? Is college nothing more than an excuse to be a leech? I hope not.

So I'll try to withhold going too crazy, but those are among my more significant life lessons in college. Everything comes with balance. Self-investment in both work and leisure are important. Community service and caring for one's soul are also important.

So those are my starting ideas. Does anybody else have some thoughts on things you think new to-be-college students should hear?

Realizations Regarding Online Research

This will be brief, but I am reminded why I was taught to include a searchable alternative to any lengthy collection of text I put on the Internet. We break things up to be easier to read and to make better use of screen real estate. However, I'm going through some research on the Internet for a paper, and I know I saw an article that said something about IBM. However, most publishers paginate the information, limiting the effectiveness of my trusty Ctrl+F habits.

Alternative: continue publishing great information, but also include a link to an ugly long-text version so I can search it.

I want to be epic. Let's be epic

This past weekend was wonderful because I did close to nothing but meet with remarkable people and play music.

As school is wrapping up, the Raikes School had their corporate board meeting. I serve as a student representative on the board, so somehow that justified inviting me to a lot of the proceedings and I have to say I had a wonderful time. In my mind, it is really cool to see fascinating, intelligent, and successful people take interest in the progress of a small school in Lincoln, NE. In the back of my mind, I hear the voices of most Lincoln residents who would label us as elitist or something comparable. However, I am proud to say I was counted among people committed to ensuring the success of a generation emerging from higher education and into the workforce.

Most of the meeting was focused around various goals we have achieved over the last year and goals we should have for the future. Without spilling too much of the details, I am proud to see the leaders of the school pushing the group of students in the right direction.

Friday evening, my senior class was invited to the home of Jeff Raikes. First off: what a beautiful home he had. Often I discount Nebraska or the Midwest for having nothing other than flat and uninspiring landscapes. I was blown away by that spot outside of Ashland, NE. Superficial beauty aside, I was so impressed with the conversations I got to have with some of the more noteworthy guests there. I came away from the dinner inspired to do big things like what these people were doing with their lives. Jeff's involvement with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the comments of others at my table for dinner reminded me that success means more than making a lot of money. I saw so much passion for each person's work at the table. I saw a passion for using one's talents and gifts to make the world a better place. I was somewhat starstruck, but perhaps it was the wine.

We also had a benefit concert on Saturday put on by various people within the worship team at church. That was pretty awesome as well, and I actually had a good time playing and singing for a crowd. I actually hadn't done that before. I have the recordings and I still maintain my overly self-critical positions, but I'm happy regardless. We surpassed all goals we had set for the semester and the event pushed us past $6,000 raised by a college group. I am thrilled.

If you'd like to read more about the causes we supported, you should check them out here.

Church on Sunday was beyond amazing. I haven't felt that honored to be a part of something in a long time, and I had an absolute blast playing guitar with the worship team. It was a bittersweet feeling knowing it would be the last time I would play there as a regular member of our team. However, seeing how God was glorified with our service that morning subdued any feelings of sadness I could have had. How can one be sad when such amazing things are happening in that group?

So, if there was one way I could sum up the last few days, I'd just have to say it was "epic." It was a weekend full of experiences that just blew me away with how much we are capable of doing with honorable work, passion and commitment.

This post originally started with me wanting to share a song. I've been listening to this about nonstop since last week. There's just something about the way Manchester Orchestra writes raw emotion into a song. I'm still picking through the lyrics and trying to glean some kind of meaning or significance from the song. Yet, I still just feel blown away every time I put a decent pair of headphones on and let the music envelop me for 6 minutes.


I've embedded the song, and hopefully Grooveshark cooperates, but the combination of all these experiences lately really makes me want be epic. I want to do something significant with my life. I want my life and my work to be used for something greater. I want the music I write to move people and to mean something.

Perhaps these are lofty goals. Yet, I'm at a major turning point in my life. I spent most of today working with the various moving companies to put dates to my final days in Nebraska. My desire is that I'd hit Seattle running at full steam and that I'd do something epic with my life. We'll see.