It’s a new week

I was going to write about all my plans for work this week, but then I realized doing that would rob me of even more time. So, just know that I am working hard. When I have more time, hopefully later in the week, I will do an update.

Stay classy.

Opera at the Park = pretty cool

Last night was Opera at the Park. It’s where the San Francisco Opera simulcasts their performance to AT&T Park. This might be my favorite way to watch opera now. Because! Because during the good parts people clap and cheer, which makes it really fun. Also, I was quite impressed with the San Francisco Opera’s production quality. The sets were incredible. It also became freezing cold.

There was one part where Tosca was lamenting her decision she’d have to make; the moon came out from behind the clouds and the birds started flying all around the park. It was, dare I say it, magical.

Tara and I left after the second intermission and walked around, and I took some neat photo’s of the bay bridge.

Photo’s of the evening.

A day late, but here.

Ok, so I sort of missed my Wednesday post. But I’m doing it now, and that’s what matters.

I’ve been doing mostly research related things on the work front, playing with Python and learning its syntax. Also I’m reading “The Unconsoled” by Kazuo Ishiguro, and this book is driving me crazy. Weird things are happening, but I can’t figure out if it is all in the main characters mind or what.. It’s a great read.

Tuesday night our household started running a Dungeons and Dragons, 4th Edition game. We have four players, two of which have never played pen and paper style before. I am the DM, running the story, and so far I am having a lot of fun. I spent hours preparing for Tuesday night, not realizing how long combat encounters can be. I’m prepared for the next couple months now, heh. Justin did his daily sketch on our game, check it out on his site. I think it looks amazing. It is sort of crazy to see something you described through another persons artwork. It’s exactly how I was picturing it too.

Today I want to gain understanding on how plugins for Wordpress are made, and begin work on a plugin for the Wordpress theme Prologue. I’ve made a lot of changes to it, and I think other people might find them useful.

All this means I should really get busy today. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post.

June 2009

It is June, a new month!

Here are my personal tasks that I want to accomplish this month:

• Write here at least every MWF
• Read at least six books; only half can be considered ‘fun’ books
• Finish writing the second half of the children’s story
• Work with some tutorials to learn the basics of Python
• Do final polish on the Caravans & Crossbows story
• Research Desertification to the point that I write up something on it
• Begin work on my section of the HOVER story

As the things I write are finished to a level I am comfortable with, I will post them up here. It’s so revolutionary, but you know the more you write, the better your skills become. Shocking.

The research on Desertification is a part of my “keeping the brain from turning to mush” protocol. It is also something I want to learn more about. I was reading (somewhere on the internet) a counter-argument for why suddenly switching to a simpler way of life as a nation is not sustainable. One of the points it discussed was that simple agricultural methods cause desertification, something I vaguely remember, but I don’t know any details. So, learning will commence.

On the work front, we at cog motive are in the process of renovating our site, and setting up a portfolio of all the work we’ve done. Once that is complete, we will be actively pointing people to it, and acquiring new projects to work on.

Here are some pictures of the new place. At least the outside..

Update time.

I haven’t written on here for a while, because I’ve been reluctant to write all that has happened in the last months. So, instead I will do a quick sum up in one sentence.

I am now living in Berkeley, CA, where I and my friends/housemates/co-owners of cog motive are working to make our company help others and support us.

How about that? There, now that it is out of the way, I will feel more inclined to write here again.

Tea house in the sky

I found this via TOKYOMANGO.

Terunobu Fujimori built this tea house. Apparently you are supposed to build a tea house yourself, so he thought he’d try something different. I thought it was pretty inspiring. More pictures here.

The things I think about.

I’ve had this thought for a a couple days now:

“If man had never seen flying creatures, would he have invented the wing? Would he even had a desire to fly?”

My gut tells me no. The only thing they would see in the air are clouds, or things that are thrown. I could see people wanting to emulate clouds, so balloon’s might be around. Also, I could see projectile invention, such as transportation rockets.

I just don’t know if the concept of “glide” in the air would exist.

Bluetooth headsets, my arch-nemesis

This is a rant.

A couple days ago my good friend maiki twittered about listening to his iPod via a bluetooth headset, and how much he enjoyed it. My response was “I fricking hate bluetooth headsets”. And we are talking the white fury pumping through your veins hatred. It was such a strong response I was a little surprised. I thought I’d sit and talk about bluetooth headsets, and why I am not a fan.

My biggest grievance with bluetooth headsets is I feel they are a waste of electricity and lithium. A corded counterpart will work just fine, but we don’t want to deal with that. After being used for, lets say 300 recharges the inner rechargable battery will be fairly shot, and you’ll have to replace it. I can reconcile using materials like this for devices like cellphones, because they need to be portable. But to use some of our limited resources to make batteries for wireless headphones, just because we don’t want to hassle with cords seems wrong to me.

I am not saying people should throw their bluetooth headsets away; the material has already been used to create it. When it comes time to replace your headset, maybe think about just going the corded route.

That is all; rant is over.

It’s 48 in the back room, and I feel fine.

Wow, turn your head and there goes 19 days since the last update. Since my last entry I have probably eaten at least 100 cookies, since they are being baked in massive quantities by family and friends. I have yet to meet a cookie I haven’t eaten. It just seems impolite.

I have most of my holiday shopping done with, there is just one more present I need to order for my Dad. I know what it is, just haven’t made the order yet.

Speaking of my Dad, him and my Grandmom are coming back to visit on the 29th, so I have under ten days to get the house clean. It isn’t bad, the only part I would consider needing the most help would be the back room, and that is because I use the dinner table to hold all my papers, books and stuff. I need to go through and get rid of what I do not need in the pile.

Monday I am going to go to Loch Raven library, which I haven’t been to since I was ten. They are open 0900 to 2100, and I am hoping to get there when they open and put down some serious word count.

I hope everyone had a good wrap-up of their semesters if they were in school, and are looking forward to the winter break.

Some changes.

Things are moving very quickly for me now. There is a sense of urgency in all my projects I’ve been working on that wasn’t there before. Listlessness is at an end.

I’m not sure how this change came about, but it was definitely a mix of several things. I’m not ready to explain it, because I can’t. Maybe I will one day.

I have so many things I want to do, and the future is uncertain as always. If I can work on these things that I feel are important, and also bring me joy, then why postpone their creation?

Also, I made a pretty big decision a couple weeks ago. In this decision’s aftermath, there has been a sense of peace that I rarely feel. It is similar to when I decided to move to Baltimore one year before I actually did. As soon as I made that decision, it always felt exactly like the right thing to do, and I never second guessed it. It is the same with this decision. Also, I’m running into little things everywhere that reinforce that it was the right decision. It is very calming. I feel like it is a permanent change to the makeup of my character.