5/31/2006

It's like the Godfather part two.

"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid" - Epictetus

5/29/2006

For the child in you

Remember reading Shel Silverstein's books when you were a kid? Like Where the Sidewalk Ends and A Light in the Attic? So, I found another cool artist at Scarborough Faire this weekend that had a great poem from Shel Silverstein on his website.

Listen to the mustn'ts
Listen to the mustn'ts, child.
Listen to the don'ts
Listen to the shouldn'ts
The impossibles, the won'ts
Listen to the never haves
Then listen close to me-
Anything can happen, child,
anything can be.

- Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

Really amazing - when you go back and read some of those old poems, it's amazing to see how they appeal to the innocence of children - looking at the world in an unbiased manner, taking things at face value. Just welcoming the world. Makes you feel like a chlid again :)

5/26/2006

Huzzah!

Went over to Scarborough Faire today with Jen - it was like Ren Fest, but six months early! :) Turned out to be a ton of fun, and we even got to the see Ded Bob show. Although even funnier was the Mud Show, which featured (get this) one of the three guys from the Flaming Idiots back at the Ren Fest! That was a surprise! Apparently they broke up, and one joined up with the guys at the Mud Show. And to finish the day off, I got my palms read (I was interested since I started to look through the books I had again recently) and a tarot reading done. All I can say is - WOW. I do hold a good amount of belief in a lot of that stuff, but I always try and go in with a little skepticism. Without letting the woman know anything about me, she was able to read just about every facet of my personality like a book, and touched on a lot of my past quite accurately. All within the first five minutes - and in detail on some of the stuff too. I was really surprised. Even more interesting once she started touching on the future and did the tarot reading. (Not that I believe that all fate is defined to every last detail already, but it was incredibly interesting to see what she had to say). She picked up on a lot of stuff that I really didn't see coming. Probably the most convincing reading I've had.

Also, finally went out to another show here in Dallas - was just poking around and ended up in a bar that had a few bands lined up, so Jen and I hung around there for a while Saturday night. Was a total blast - the headliner was Flametrick Subs (who I had actually seen in Austin before and didn't realize it until they got up on stage), although the openers were also great (if not better). I couldn't even listen to Secret Devil Sign: first, they were CRAZY loud angry metal stuff, and second, the lead singer reminded me WAY too much of Sean, if he had decided to be the lead singer in an angry angry metal band instead of going to Westpoint. I just couldn't take them seriously - but it sure was funny. *laughs* And there was also Sidekick Mafia - who actually turned out to be really good. Had a pretty wide range of music, and all the guys were pretty talented. Put on a good live show. :)

And a more of an older update... the artists at work started doing figure drawing classes again (they used to do it a lot more often, but have recently gotten back into it). The first week I did it, I felt like my eyes had been reopened to that passion that I always had - the artist in me totally came out again. (don't get me wrong, I wasn't good at it by any stretch of the imagination - but it was nice to at least get back into it again). Really made me remember what passion I have for that kind of stuff - makes me want to get back into it more. And for a short second there, I really did think to myself, "What would have happened if I decided to go to art school after High School." Strange, no? This last week didn't go quite as well, because I was really tired going into it, and its a three hour session at the end of a workday. One thing I'm really amazed about is how non-sexual of an experience it really is. (we don't do nudes, but it's close) It's just really interesting - because your brain is so concentrated on capturing the mood, the 'feel' of the pose, looking at the musculature and trying to capture that, that the sexual image isn't even a thought at all. It's a really cool feeling to see all the people in the room that empassioned about their art and expressing it in wholly different ways.

Just cuz it's hilarious - exploding G4!

5/23/2006

Work?

Alright, so here's a sample of one of the recent additions to the quotes database from work.

"Alright, now we're in the state where you have no pants."

...

Why is it that sometimes I feel like I'm working with a bunch of college students? lol ^_^

5/22/2006

w00t!

I haven't watched a basketball game in a really long time - but today I went to the gym, and the Spurs v. Mavs game was on, and it was the Playoffs, so I figured, why not get a good seat? So I plopped down on one of the bike machines witha great view of the TV and watched the game. Who would've thought that as the game got interesting, that 24 hour fitness would turn into a sports bar full of people, complete with the raving Mavs fans to the casual watchers to the lone few Spurs fans. Turned out to be a lot of fun. Plus, the Mavs won! Yay western conference champs! ^_^

Also, because I had such a great seat and the game started to get interesting at the end, I tried to stay on the bike for as long as I could - was on for a full 60 minutes, non-stop! 22.6 miles of travel on the bike! Felt great! :) Of course once the game went into overtime, I decided to stop (plus the machine stops your workout at an hour no matter what - who knew?) because I don't think I could have physically gone any longer.

Definitely feels great to workout again - to really push my body to it's limits again. It really helps to clear up the mind - I had forgotten the best thing (for me) to balance a mental workout is a physical workout (and vice versa). Helps to bring the inspiration back into life.

In an attempt to prep for more long distance trips on the motorcycle, I bought some thin, over-ear headphones I was hoping I could wear inside my helmet. (so that there was actual music I could sing along to, instead of singing to myself - which is a lot of fun). I tried it on the way to work this morning, and was really surprised by how it turned out. It really turned out to feel really 'fake' - almost like I was watching a movie with a musical soundtrack in the background. It didn't feel very real, strangely enough. (besides, they were a little uncomfortable under there). I rode back home from work without them and just found the whole experience to be infinitely more visceral - more instinctive. There's just something about hearing the wind go by, feeling the road move underneath me - it made it so much easier to just appreciate everything - all the experiences. Maybe once I start doing the multi-hour trips, I'll look into some more music solutions. But for now, the sound of the world around me is all I need.

There's plenty to appreciate.

5/18/2006

Saturated

I don't know why, but for the first time in a long time, I had an incredibly vivid dream last night - I'm not sure if it's because I've been so tired recently, or what (riding the bike to and from work and working out makes the body feel pleasantly sore). Anyways, I apparently slept so heavily last night (or my body wanted to sleep so heavily) that I had a crazy lucid dream (one of the few that I remember realizing it was a dream). It wasn't anything insanely exciting (as far as I can remember), but so vivid, that when I was awoken by my alarm, my first thought was "Who / where am I?", then it was "Am I still dreaming?", then it was "Why the hell is my alarm going off, it's the weekend" (that one probably makes the least sense) and then I was so exhausted that I slept for another hour (which in turn, made me late to work). I think my brain was actually MORE tired after sleeping because of all the dreaming. How weird is that? Anywho, I'm really curious to see what my mind will be doing in the evenings now... fascinating at the very least.
Uncanny

So this link got sent around work today and sparked off a ton of discussion about the 'Uncanny Valley' - that is the wierd place where technology gets SO close to reality that the tiny little things start to creep us out. Think about things like Elmer Fudd. There's so much character / ridiculousness in his form that we accept it all as 'natural' for him and his actions / movements. But once we start emulating reality - the little things, like the way the cloth moves, or the way the face animates just start to look 'wrong' because we except something more ... real.

However, I DO think it's a gorgeous tech demo, and it fascinating about how far we've come in this sort of thing. Can you even imagine seeing this sort of movie back when we were kids? It would all seem like science fiction. Pretty interesting, IMHO - what do you think? Interesting? Creepy?

5/17/2006

Desire

Find the beauty that you crave. And once you find it, experience it. Live it. Cherish it.

I heard from an old High School friend today (Gautam) who is doing just that - check this out: Sangaticenter - he runs the place and lives on-site full time.

5/15/2006

You know you want to...

Hehehe




Hope is a waking dream. -Aristotle

5/14/2006

Alright, I caved.

So my old fashioned blog is far behind the times, I suppose. So I went ahead and setup a Facebook, Friendster and Myspace accounts, (since it appears noone can settle on only using one of these... >_< So if you're on any of those, add me :)

5/11/2006

Laissez-moi voir votre main

So I'm reading through my uncle's old indian palm reading book again and it's incredibly fascinating. If there's anyone out there that reads this, will you please please please photocopy / take a picture of both of your palms and email them to me? There's nothing more that I would love than to see than how the readings compare to the people I know.

Please? Pretty please? With sugar on top? And maybe a cherry?

kthxbye :)
Charged.

Alright, so I finally got a chance to go to the gym - what, has it been like, a thousand years? I'd forgotten how good it feels to be able to push your body close to it's limits in order to improve it. It really is an odd concept when you think about it - slowly destroying muscles so that they react and rebuild. Weird. That and convincing your body that it's not getting any more food so that it will start to burn the fat off, only to appease it again. Strange how we revolve around tricking our bodies o_O

Anyways, I digress. Tonight I felt like someone was slamming my chest with a sledgehammer from the inside out. It's been so long since I've had a heavy workout I forgot how it felt. After about 20 mins on the excercise bike, I started to cooldown and my heart was beating so hard and fast I could practically see my shirt moving with each thump. Honestly, it was a little scary at the time, but afterwards, and even now, I can feel my heartbeat a little bit more confidently than before. That's definitely good.

Also, I finally got a good picture of me and my bike:



Awesome. More city-to-city trips on it to come soon. ^_^

5/10/2006

Go super repairman, go!

Alrighty, so today was a freakin' super productive day around the house (just a regular day for... super repairman! *insert theme music here*)

Seriously, though - I had to pick up some stuff last night, and some during lunch at work today, but just check out the stuff I got done!

- Replaced a broken off sprinkler head (involving removing a broken pipe fastener)
- Dug up and replaced another sprinkler head in the front lawn (nice 'n deep)
- Fixed both the upstairs and downstairs leaky toilets
- Shutoff the water to the house and removed / fixed the rusted shut valve in the utility closet (the valve wasn't rusted shut, it was essentially rusted open). WD40 and brute force FTW!
- Installed the new washer and tested it out! :)

Freakin' awesome! So much stuff done, and now I can actually wash my clothes and actually walk through my utility closet! Also, a personal thanks to Matt - I still carry around the knife you bought me a billion jillion years ago, and it came in handy many times today :D;

*sidenote - ... I now know I've been at work too much recently - I instinctively ended that last line with a semicolon >_<

I've also come to realize that when a washer says "Quiet Wash" on it, that really means "Holy Freaking Ridiculously Insanely Loud Wash". I guess that didn't fit on the front as well as "Quiet Wash". Go figure.

Little things like this are really starting to make the house feel like mine - like a home. Definitely have sweat and tears in it - no blood yet. (I don't think...)

So now, here I am - filled with a feeling I haven't felt in a long time - the feeling after really working with your hands. From wrist deep in dirt to scrubbing wuth WD40 to attaching parts to lifting the washer with one hand and adjusting with the other to cleaning up afterwards, it leaves your hands tingling, sore and rough on the skin. I miss working with my hands and the way it leaves you feeling afterwards.

Now that I can actually wash my clothes, the trips to the gym will start up again. Perhaps that will help.
Space wipe

Bleh, so UT has finally decided to pull my student webspace from me, so the pics on the left have been pre-emptively purged. That also means that my old posts will have broken links, which is sad. Methinks it's time to at least take a look at myspace and / or friendster. Added to the ever-growing to do list (gets longer quicker with a house...)

5/09/2006

One thing is for sure

It's wonderful to be able to step out above the rooftops and look across the night sky. Being able to step out underneath starlight and take in the world surrounding you is truly enlightening. This entire house is worth it for the back deck alone. I've not found a place better to sit and appreciate everything and just let the mind wander freely, watching the trees dance in the wind or the clouds creep by. Best of all, in the evenings, it's wonderfully quiet. It's a perfect fit for me.

Before crawling into bed tonight, I stumbled across an old journal of mine and for some reason, decided to flip through it. I was amazed - it was like I was reliving some pivotal moments in my life, some of which I didn't even remember writing down. Those were the most interesting, because part of me was remembering the sensations of those moments, while another part was experiencing it like a new story, hanging on to each word. What a beautiful gift - to be able to peek back at my former self like that. I'm glad I jotted those thoughts down when I did. Truly breathtaking.

I learned a lot today. Now it's time to bring the eve to a close.

Oyasuminasai. Yoi yume o.

5/07/2006

Not dead!

Yay! I successfully rode my motorcycle back from Austin today without incident! :)

5/05/2006

I wish I could be...

One nice thing about living in a giant empty house with just you and your cat - when you have a song stuck in your head, you can sing it through the rooms with noone to make fun of you - even if you only remember a few lines ^_^

5/04/2006

Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine.

From what you knew before, there's been a major life change in my life.

Feel free to either draw inferences from these two songs: Sunrays And Saturdays, Every Little Thing You Wanted, or call me.

I've decided to re-embrace the artistic side of myself. I think it's because I'm now loving my job so much that it fulfills my intellect, but seeing all the artwork, that part of me is craving. That being said, I'm going to start going to life drawing classes at work, and am going to start playing the guitar again (and no, Guitar Hero although lots of fun, doesn't count).

Also, I'm heading to Austin this weekend, and will be riding my motorcycle the 214 mi from Austin to Dallas. Now, I'm a lot more confident on my motorcycle this time around, but having had to deal with the pain of a crash once, and never having taken it city-to-city driving, a part of me is absolutely terrified. I'm confident that I can make the drive, it's just all the uncertainties I'm worried about - rain, other stupid drivers, cramps, etc. Here's hoping it's an uneventful ride. Posts like this send shivers down my spine - not because I'm afraid, but because of the fellow bikers that have died like that.

And everyone who hasn't seen my new house (that's all of you), you need to. I'll show you a gorgeous view from my back porch. ^_^ Also, just in case you wanted to know - slipping down stairs while holding a cat SUCKS! Since when did I become clumsy?