The Persistent Blog

Raw Food Diet

2010-05-03T13:31:00.000-07:00

Poverty is surely a problem, and as someone who lives pretty comfortably I feel like I should make an effort and help folks out when I can. Passing people on the street who ask for spare change always makes me uncomfortable because if I give them a few cents I feel like a cheapskate, and if I give more I feel like a sucker. In the end I don't give anything and feel bad about it.

My solution to this has been to start carrying a couple cans of soup (the kind with pull-tab lids - no special tools required) so when people ask for money I can offer them food instead. I like this for a number of reasons:
- Cold soup out of a can tastes fucking GREAT when you're as hungry as these guys look. I know it and so do the students in my lab who watch me scarf one down in section every day. Can a guy get a lunch break? Jeez.
- You can't buy drugs with soup.
- I frequently get turned down. I mean, if you're holding a sign that says "Hungry, anything helps" then take the soup! Money has no nutritional value. Trust me, I ate a nickel when I was a kid and it passed right through me (true story). But seriously, holding out for cold hard cash makes your sign seem kinda dishonest, and if you're going to be like that then I don't feel bad keeping my money.

Anyway, the guy in the picture didn't want my soup either. His reason? Raw food diet. Only in California...

Puttin' the rad back in graduate school

2010-04-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

Software Open Forum with music/MAT professor Clarence Barlow - we're hoping to create a suite of [web-based?] composition applications. In addition, I hope to be parallelizing Clarence's harmonicity analysis program by the end of the quarter (and maybe presenting it at the MAT Year-End Show? I get pretty ambitious when I've got a few [coffees] in me...)

Anyway, SOF meets 4-6 on Wednesdays and this week after Clarence had been sitting behind the exhaust fan of the LCD projector for 90 minutes he decided a round of beers was in order. I expect we'll maintain good attendance and have a productive quarter.

Five Oh

2010-03-27T21:32:00.000-07:00

Rolled over fifty thousand miles in the Element the other day. Hard to believe that I've gone that far already, but then I realize it's been over five years since we drove it out to LA (the picture of me and dad was taken the morning we set out). Kinda seems like a long time ago.

Definitely time for another oil change. And probably a tune-up.

SPriNG bReAK woo!

2010-03-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

Mark made it down to SoCal for spring break - we hung out in LA for a couple days with Talia and then came back up to Santa Barbara. Mostly just wandering around downtown and campus, beach, frisbee, coffee shops, chess, pizza, beer, autotune. Yeah!

Merry Christmas

2010-01-04T21:30:00.000-08:00

Dad came to visit in Santa Barbara over Christmas and we built a deck off the back of the house. Well, there was already a deck there, but it was very small so we made it bigger. I'd say this was a pretty good father/son activity, and now we have a deck!

Day Three

2009-10-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

Today... Today we went to REI and were unable to spend any of Mark's $80 in gift certificates he gets from his employer for being a bus commuter. We split for Fremont and wandered around Gas Works Park and then got the biggest, messiest, vegan sandwiches I've ever seen at a place called Hillside Quickie's Cafe. The service was incredibly slow, but I got a sandwich with a whopping five slabs of smoked tofu - well worth the wait. More wandering around, this time at the University of Washington campus where a Huskies game just got out. I think they won, but, whatever.

Seattle Again

2009-10-23T19:46:00.000-07:00

Day two in Seattle - we went to Pike Place Market, saw the first Starbucks coffee shop, a HUGE bookstore, ate in a vegan hotdog joint, walked around the Seattle Public Library and saw George Legrady's data viz installation above the circulation desk (George is a professor in my department at UCSB). Lots of walking.

Vegan Thai in the Pacific Northwest

2009-10-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

Flew in to Seattle today. Mark met me at the airport and we took the train (and a bus) back to Capitol Hill where he lives. That's a bowl of phad see ew with vegan beef and I had something with peanut sauce and vegan chicken. Then we walked around the neighborhood and ended up at a place called the Stumbling Monk (per Karl's recommendation), drank Scottish ale, played chess.

Happy Birthday Meggers

2009-10-11T13:43:00.001-07:00

Those waffles were pretty damn good. Why do people even bother going out to eat? Home made whipped cream, TJ's pancake mix, real maple syrup and fresh fruit. Yummy. She's easy to please...

Cat Door

2009-10-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

Greg - 1, Door - zilch. Mishu (cat) now has his own entry and no longer has to jump through the window from the garden and spread dirt everywhere. This is good. Now we need to find a nice table to go between those chairs...

Flower Box

2009-10-09T13:19:00.001-07:00

I built a flower box last weekend and Megan and I filled it this week using some soil out of our compost pile. That was pretty satisfying. Now I gotta figure out how to install that damn cat door...

Good People

2009-08-30T01:13:00.001-07:00

Amelia turned 30 today. She's not in this picture, but Karl and Mariano were at her party with me and we all had a nice time. Again.

Moving Day

2009-08-29T20:05:00.000-07:00

This is the kitchen in the new apartment before we moved everything in (except a lonely bottle of Jameson- can you find it?). It's on the second floor of the cottage along with the master bedroom and bathroom. It gets pretty warm up here and the sun shines in the windows in the evening. I wish we got morning light but I suppose this isn't so bad... Oh, wait, I'm actually sitting on the kitchen floor right now and realized there's a window on the opposite wall. I guess we will have morning light after all.

Thursday is the new Tuesday

2009-08-27T22:20:00.000-07:00

Whatever that means...

Back in Santa Barbara

2009-08-09T21:26:00.000-07:00

Having spent almost a month at home in NY, seen my cousin get married in NH, and then driven across the country, it feels good to be back in Santa Barbara. Here are Aaron and Karl in the old apartment on Prospect I moved out of before going home. Then Karl moved out a few days after the picture was taken, so I guess this was his house-cooling party (Karl's joke). Aaron got a job at Electronic Arts and moved up to the Bay Area about a week later. I wonder if we'll ever see him again...

The Forge and Mark's Last Night

2009-06-25T21:18:00.000-07:00

Mom has been cutting down years worth of overgrown hedges and small trees around the yard here in Penfield. The bricks used to cover the ground inside our old dog kennel and now they serve as the walls of a makeshift brush furnace. A few friends came over to hang out by the fire and visit before taking off to various locations around the globe (Seattle, Spain, etc).

Sparks look really cool when the shutter stays open long enough.

Drink More Coffee

2009-06-05T21:26:00.000-07:00

Finals week coming up, lots of work to do, even on a Friday night. Seeta trades sleep for coffee and coding.

Lance in the Piano

2009-06-02T18:23:00.001-07:00

This was right after a Rhythm Seminar rehearsal in Elings Hall, a new building that houses most of MAT and lots of non-MAT engineers. They put a nice Steinway in the lobby and sometimes I play there late at night.

Special Numbers

2009-06-02T18:19:00.000-07:00

I guess this image dates itself. That's ok.

Cubism

2009-05-24T21:10:00.001-07:00

Megan solved the puzzle. I'm the unsolver.

The Eye of Karl

2009-05-21T12:10:00.000-07:00

Rhythm Seminar Laptop Band performance last month at the Media Garden. We need a better name.

Mark, a month ago...

2009-04-22T18:26:00.000-07:00

This guy should come visit more often. amiright?

Santa Barbara? Check.

2009-03-21T10:58:00.000-07:00

Next stop, Berkeley. It's nice here.

The Baristas Smile Down Upon Me

2009-03-07T13:12:00.000-08:00

and sometimes they bring me coffee. Thanks Robert!

9497 Days Old

2009-03-03T20:09:00.000-08:00

February 24th, 2009, turned 26, best birthday in California yet.

Physics 127B

2009-02-26T18:22:00.000-08:00

yay digital electronics! these guys are awesome.

Tea Time

2009-02-17T11:14:00.000-08:00

Rollie Younger's Teapots for the Post-Industrialist. Steampunk art in SLO.

SLO down...

2009-02-16T22:28:00.000-08:00

Was that an alleyway covered in chewing gum? Yep. Gross. Valentines day in San Luis Obispo. How romantic.

Weekly HIllhaven Photo

2008-11-23T18:29:00.000-08:00

40k

2008-11-18T13:11:00.001-08:00

The element turned 40 the other day. Probably time for another oil change.

No!

2008-11-17T20:16:00.000-08:00

I sat there for a little while. Hillhaven is so photogenic.

LACMA

2008-11-16T11:04:00.000-08:00

Fellow MAT student Anil stands amidst lamps at LA County Museum of Art.

Maja & Wesley

2008-10-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

Brother Steve

2008-10-01T23:44:00.000-07:00

What a stud. I think he's growing that hideous mustache so his wife can tell us apart. I get the feeling that she doesn't fully appreciate the gesture...

Hillhaven

2008-10-01T00:47:00.000-07:00

Pink used to be my favorite color. I guess it's still cool.

School Rules

2008-09-29T23:48:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me that the majority of my recent posts indicate that all we do here in Santa Barbara is drink beer, play pool, and eat free snacks. While we have done our fair share of those things this past summer, the time to party is officially over. Classes started last Thursday and this is going to be one hell of a quarter. On top of all the courses I'm taking and TAing, my colleague (and good friend) Aaron and I have tackled the MAT student space on campus that has been grossly underutilized for too long. It's turning into a huge project and we're excited about where it may lead. For starters we're affectionately nicknaming it The MAT Lab (get it?)

Let's Go Home

2008-09-29T23:41:00.000-07:00

That there is Karl, my new roommate. Last week we got stuck at the Mercury Lounge up near campus for damn near 5 hours before we finally decided to take a cab home. It was the night before the first day of classes and everybody else wanted to party. I wanted to sleep. Besides, my pool game was way off and it cost 50 cents per round.
Free popcorn is kinda nice, though.

Mac Party at Elsie's

2008-09-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

We're "working". Free potato chips, free pool, cheap beer, 4-7pm (except on Sundays).

Red Stripe

2008-09-19T14:45:00.001-07:00

We met some new students in our department this evening, but they left before this happened. Shame.

Confucious Says:

2008-09-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

Zen Buddhists are very particular about what goes in their toilets. Every zendo I've visited has explicit instructions posted in the bathroom about what to do/not to do (this example is from SF Zen Center). It fascinates me but I can't explain why.

The Before Picture

2008-09-18T16:09:00.000-07:00

Dinner tonight at my place. Mariano is going to imbue my kitchen with Spanish culinary culture. Careful: the knives are sharp.

EZ Livin'

2008-09-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

Pablo. Trolley. Music festival on the beach. Santa Barbara.

Horns

2008-08-07T11:18:00.000-07:00

A horned lizard we saw on our hike through Red Rock. What a fun day that was.

Been busy...

2008-06-22T12:17:00.000-07:00

Boy, a lot has happened in the last eighteen months since my last post. I took over as manager at the bike shop, took the GREs, got into an MS program at USC but couldn't go because the department doesn't fund masters students, found a cool program at UCSB and started taking classes there as an extension student, applied to that program, got in, left the bike shop, moved to Santa Barbara, and just now I finished my first quarter there.

Now I'm back in Rochester for the first time in over a year, birdwatching over at Java's by the Eastman School. There's some graduation going on in the auditorium that had people lined up around the block (literally). I was in there earlier trying to find an open practice room but all the doors are locked. Hopefully I'll have better luck tomorrow...

My Finger Hurts - Blog Yourself To Sleep

2006-10-29T00:29:00.001-07:00

Tonight, right as we were about to turn off the lights and lock the door, Steve knocked over a bin of headset spacers. It was interesting to watch my work day extend as a function of the "headset spacer dispersion radius". One of the spacers I picked up had a tiny sliver of aluminum leftover from the machining process (called a "chip") that inserted itself deep into the tip of my right index finger. Ouch. So I put a box of x-acto blades into my pocket and headed home to spend the next hour digging a hole in my skin.

Moving on... Tonight I was supposed to get dinner with my friends Brian and Kim at our regular sushi place in Hollywood. But Kim wanted to reschedule for next week. Then I was supposed to go to this costume party up here in the valley, but instead I fell asleep in bed while reading up on passive crossover circuits. Then the phone woke me up around 10, and here it is 1:30 am and I haven't been able to fall back asleep. I made myself a sandwich, drank some tomato juice, and hopefully my blogging will help me fall asleep. Maybe I should have kept reading the EE article instead...

Last, but not least, dad sent me his old Sony digital camera this past week. Finally I can take some really cool pictures for my photo blog! Since this evenings activities were confined to my bedroom, and most of them with the lights out, I have the perfect opportunity to show off the nightvision capabilities of this camera. Check it out.

Okay, rolling over...

My Fingers Hurt - Blog Yourself Awake! - Updated

2006-10-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

Actually, my fingers don't hurt anymore. They hurt last night after I had been playing with my new electric bass that I think I want to buy from a friend of Brad's. I've just been testing it out for the past couple of days. Teddy has been borrowing my guitar and practicing and writing songs. Now I've been reinspired to learn some new instruments so I picked up this electric bass and started practicing drums again.

Lately, I've been leaving a blank blog entry on my laptop at night so I can wake up the next morning and start writing first thing. The idea here is to give myself something to think about and an activity to do to help wake me up and get out of bed (and off to work on time - maybe). It hasn't been working very well so far. I'm a pretty boring person in the mornings. I mean, if I had a camera, I could take a picture of myself with my puffy eyes and dinosaur hair and THAT would at least be entertaining. Alas...

Lately, I've been having trouble blogging because my mood has been up and down (instead of consistently up for an extended period of time, which I imagine is what made me want to start blogging again). So right, that hasn't been the case.

This stuff, right here, is probably most negative, least entertaining stuff I will ever write here. I don't really want to give any sort of insight through this blog. If I'm bummed out, it will only be apparent through my absence from the blogosphere. The only reason I'm saying this to begin with is so I don't come across as too vapid of a character who always seems to be -

I'm really tired and kinda done with this post anyway. Let's leave it at that.

I guess before I go I can post a random pic. This is me and Les in Ithaca NY (long before I attended college there) riding a slightly different version of the buddy bike. I'm glad I'm not as cool as I used to be or else all the women would be way too intimidated.

Eggs for Breakfast

2006-10-07T11:38:00.000-07:00

Saturday mornings are mine again. I used to open up Metropolis (site under construction) five out of the six days I worked every week. Wednesday was my only day off, and then I'd show up in the afternoon on Thursday. This was ok for a while, but Brad got worried about me burning out and Steve wanted to put in a few more hours anyway, so now I don't have to come in until noon or so on Saturdays.

What a boring post this is.

Here's an awesome picture of me and Mark. We're driving his car with a trunk full of beer cans down the hill to Wegmans to redeem them and "get rich".

Mark had come to visit me at school in Ithaca one weekend. During this particular weekend, there was some big football event. Probably homecoming or whatever. It occurred to us that whenever there was a big football game, there would be many tailgating parties. And tailgating parties give jocks the opportunity to drink beer. We then imagined voluminous bins overflowing with sparkling Bud Light cans, thoroughly rinsed and dried. We spent the rest of the day and most of the evening rummaging through filth, only to earn ourselves a whopping nineteen dollars - maybe enough to fill Mark's gas tank for the drive back to Fredonia.

Needless to say, we did not get rich quick. No fancy sports cars. No VIP passes to swanky clubs. No babes. Just an old Saturn with a trunk that probably still smells like beer.

Sleep

2006-10-06T06:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning I woke up at 5:15 to drive to the airport with Teddy to pick up a tombstone from customs. Weird, huh? That and a full day of activity put me to sleep at 8:30 last night. Now here it is 6am and I've already been awake for an hour. I'm kind of hoping that I can get back to sleep here again soon.

Teddy's dad was in Canada last month shooting a film for Lifetime or whatever. The tombstone was a prop that he wanted to keep and so they shipped it back to the states for him.

Here's a picture of me and the tombstone. I think I was crying because it was too heavy and I didn't want to lift the thing into the back of my Element. Seriously, it must have weighed 700 lbs. How do you like my curly hair?

I guess I'm all out of stuff to say. Back to sleep.

So much for my nap...

2006-10-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, so I went to Las Vegas last week for Interbike, the international bicycle trade show. This is the second year I've gone, which is weird because it reminds me that I've been working for the shop for over a year, and living in LA for almost two years.

Anyhow, the bike show was a blast. Saw lots of cool stuff like Timbuk2's new line of Single Speed bags. What makes a Single Speed bag different from, say, a Multi Speed bag? Olive and mulch colored canvas and corduroy, of course. These bags are awesome.

This photo was taken by Jeff Thrasher, one of my single speeder buddies from the shop. He was at the show taking photos for MTBR.com and has his own bicycle photo blog around here somewhere, but he won't give me the link until he updates it. Stay tuned.

I probably walked through the casino in the Venitian five or six times each day going to and from Interbike. Gambling is such a turn-off for me. The taller the buildings and the brighter the lights become in Vegas, the more I'm reminded of who is footing the bill. People who have delusions of striking it rich in a casino crack me up. The odds are SO against you!

We had some time to kill between the end of the show and our dinner date with Brad on Thursday, so Steve decided to hang out and play the slots for a while. He wasn't having any luck until I got a 'vibe' from the machine I was neglectfully leaning against. He feeds it his dollar and BAM, he wins 40 bucks. Not bad for the quarter slots... My eyes probably bugged out when the machines started to count up his winnings. I can see how that could get addicting. Yikes.

Necesito aprender espanol!

2006-10-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

"Es-peak espania?" I hear this probably once every day at the bike shop. "No, I can't fix that. You need a new wheel" is "No, no puedo fijar eso. Necesitas una rueda nueva." Maybe some of what I learned during my seven long years of spanish classes will come back to me.

This should be helpful.

This might help, but may just make me sound like an idiot.

Another exhausting day gone by at the shop, I'm home now, blogging in bed, trying not to fall asleep. I should probably take a nap before I drive out to Venice to retrieve my phone.

Yeah, nap time.

Back again, again. Maybe.

2006-10-01T20:19:00.000-07:00

It should be clear by this point that blogging does not come naturally to me. I guess I lack the proper motivation. Or maybe it's a matter of knowing what the proper motivation is, and then being able to find it. One thing that that helps is surrounding ones self with people who write blogs themselves.

Why do we write these blogs? I ask as if I actually wrote in mine. As if I were actually a member of the blogging community. Am I writing to someone? It's been interesting for me to review my old posts from last year, so maybe a year from now I'll have something more to read.

One last thing. Daniel got a new Mac laptop, and I bought his old one. I can now do things only dreamed of: check email in bed, roll over in the morning and look at porn, blog from the discomfort of my own bathroom. No longer will the call of nature interrupt a conversation on instant messanger. I can now eat at my computer and leave stacks of dirty dishes on the dinner table where they belong, instead of on my desk. Roommates rejoice.

Back Again

2005-11-06T20:43:00.000-08:00

So: I didn't get the job at Marshall. Instead, I took a job at a new bike shop in North Hollywood called Metropolis Transport. It's a pretty wacky place. We sell coffee and tea, unprepared. What does that have to do with bikes? Nothing, and that's the point. ...Right?

Anyhow, I've been working there since July, and overall it's been going very well. The place has a lot of potential to make a lot of money, and I've been fortunate enough to be involved from (pretty much) the very beginning. We have good days and bad days. On good days, I fantasize about buying in when we expand and end up an owner of a successful business before turning 25. On bad days, I ask myself why I'm not doing anything with this goddamn degree in Physics. Why am I changing tires on a bike instead of crunching numbers for another zero at the end of my paycheck? Today I looked up grad schools in the area. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

In other news, I'm learning some new instruments, and re-learning one old instrument. Stay tuned.

2005-06-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

'Nuff said.

2005-06-05T21:55:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since I last posted on here. For some reason I feel more guilty about not posting with each passing day, which then makes it harder and harder to post. You know what I mean.

Anyhow, the Tektronix 556 Dual-Beam Oscilloscope pictured above was one of my acquisitions at Einstein's Attic back in Ithaca, NY. The reason I'm posting this picture is because I'm interviewing at Marshall Electronics out here in LA later this week. If they offer me the job, and I choose to accept, chances are good that I'll be using an oscilloscope similar to this one. The only difference is that the one I'll be using will be about the size of a tissue box and almost as light, whereas the 'scope in the picture weighs in at probably 100 lbs and is the size of a mini fridge. It also needs an ungodly amount of power to run and, as one of my old roommates used to say, begins to smell like "science" after a while. I love it.

2005-05-24T19:38:00.000-07:00

Here's my cool corner computer desk I found on craigslist. It's not much, very simple, but I kind of like it that way. It's also a future project: someone painted it the color of coffee yogurt and I think it's ugly.

2005-05-24T19:35:00.000-07:00

Here's my awesome bed. It's solid oak, and heavy as hell. Dave and I almost killed ourselves carrying that thing inside. Anyway, it's a queen, and the first bed I've ever owned that wasn't so short that my feet hung off the end. Maybe I'm just easy to please, but this is the sort of thing that makes me happy.

While we're looking at this picture, please notice the hideous air conditioner hanging in the window right above my pillows. I gotta get rid of that thing. Also, I'm not sure whose idea this was, but when you pull the blinds open on my window, they collect in the middle (instead of off to the side). It's retarded.

2005-05-24T19:32:00.000-07:00

Just another picture of my bed. Those panals on either side of the headboard open to more compartments. It's so cool. I should mention that I don't normally make my bed; it's just for the sake of the photo. Oh, and four pillows? I feel like a king.

2005-05-23T12:56:00.000-07:00

This is Mark. I don't really have any idea what we're doing here or why this picture was taken, but it's still a good shot of the two of us. He's been wearing that hat for most of the ten years that we've known each other. One day when I was at his house, he opened up a bottle of Snapple and the underside of the cap said "You win a free hat!" So he sent the cap back to the company to claim his prize.

About 5 months later, I was over at his house again and he got a package in the mail. We had entirely forgotten about winning the hat, so when he opened up his box we were both pretty confused as to why Snapple was sending him a baseball cap. It probably took us a week to figure out what on earth was going on.

Mark is also on my list of people I am trying to convince to move out to CA. I think he would love it out here...

2005-05-22T18:39:00.000-07:00

This here is Dave, and that there is about two thousand dollars that we were on our way to hand over as payment for our first month of rent and security deposit on our new apartment. Neither of us had ever held a stack of hundreds like that before in our lives, so we figured we'd better document the rare occurance. The sunglasses and cigar, on the other hand, are pretty much an everyday thing for Dave. Can you believe that I live with this guy?

2005-05-21T21:27:00.000-07:00

Here's another good picture of me and Daniel. Taken probably 7 or 8 years after the Lego picture, here we are, drunk college students. The nice thing about me and Daniel is that even after spending a few semesters at different schools (Ithaca and Yale) we can still get together during breaks and pick up right where we left off. In fact, Daniel is due out here in LA in 4 days and I can't wait to see him.

I seem to remember taking a lot of pictures throughout this evening. Maybe some of them will even get posted here in the future. Then again, maybe they won't.

2005-05-20T17:06:00.000-07:00

So I've decided to start going through the old pictures on my harddrive and posting my favorites on The Persistent Beat. I admit, it's going to take some effort to resist posting them all at once in a masturbatory spurt down memory lane, but I really think that taking the time to devote an entire post to each picture will be more satisfying in the end.

This here is a picture of me and my dear friend Daniel Effron. We're in 8th grade and we just won the Lego Competition by buildling a car (out of Legos) that completed an obstical course faster than all the other entries. This car had four things going for it: tank-like treds, the rubberband suspension system, and the two champs standing behind it. I'd also like to add that the shirt I'm wearing in the picture is my favorite shirt of all time. And I haven't seen it in probably 6 years... I wonder where it went.

Bear with Me

2005-05-17T17:26:00.000-07:00

So as you can see, I've posted a few pictures below. Of course, with the way this blog thing works and all, the pictures are in the reverse order of what I had intended. And yes, I am just whining, I could go back and fix it all, but that seems time consuming. So do me a favor: close your eyes and scroll down to the bottom, then work your way up. Bear with me while I become accustomed to the subtleties of The Blogger; I'll get it right next time.

2005-05-17T17:22:00.000-07:00

Now that's more like it.

2005-05-17T17:20:00.000-07:00

Enough talk, lets eat.

2005-05-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

This is my dining table. It is a table, indeed, upon which sits my dinner, waiting.

2005-05-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

This is Dave's K-Mart bookshelf and my makeshift stereo. It is comprised of my 200-watt computer speakers and 5.5 days worth of music. iPod, you my only friend.

2005-05-17T17:10:00.000-07:00

Here is my blurry, dimly lit kitchen. I promise, it is much sharper in person (but just as dim).

2005-05-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

Yep, this place is a mess. Lucky for me, I have over a week to get my shit together before Krista and Dave get back.

Another Late Night

2005-05-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

So here it is, 10:00 pm (PST) and guess where I am. Am I hanging out with Jesse, watching some silly movie out in her hippie commune bungalo in Pasadena? Or am I in Hollywood seeing some rock show with those folks from Astralwerks like I had planned on when I ran into whats-her-name in Amobea? Nope. I'm at the studio. And I'm probably going to be here for many hours. Why? Certainly not for the money; there isn't any of that around here. I've actually been asking that "why" question a lot recently and I haven't come up with any good answeres. Still, here I am.

Anyone ever hear of "Harold and Kumar Go To Whitecastle"? The producer of that movie, Danny Leiner, was in here recently helping out with the post production on his latest film "The Great New Wonderful". I just killed the leftover bottle of Johnnie Walker he had left hidden behind one of the monitor stands; hopefully it will make this editing process a little more bearable.

Easing into existence

2005-05-06T15:28:00.000-07:00

The click and whirr of my CD player wakes me up every morning. This morning it clicks and whirrs at 5:20 am. Fifteen mintes later I find myself half dressed, eating an unusual breakfast. It's unusual in its normalcy. Cereal and milk. My usual breakfast of bananas and hotdogs is hardly normal, but I ate my last hotdog/banana duo yesterday, so cereal and milk it is.

Today is the day I wake up early to take Dave to the airport so he can fly back East for ten days and graduate. Good for you, Dave. I wish I were going home for ten days. Hell, I wonder if I'll even graduate. As it stands, I'll either have a degree now and a 'withdrawl' on my transcript, or an 'A' on my transcript and a degree in September. I didn't really need that BA in physics this summer anyway. Unless I apply for a job here.

Today is the day I take over as the Facility Coordinator here at Departure Studios. I'm the manager of a recording studio and I haven't even graduated college yet. It's a temporary thing though; ten days. As long as this place is still standing at the end of next week, I'll consider it a success.

Today is also the first day of my blog.