Hey. Something sad happened this weekend.. In the grand scheme of things, this building doesn't mean that much - it hasn't been a functioning theater for a few decades, and was close to falling down on its own anyway. I grew up right next door to it, and played in the park outside it every day. I threw rocks at it in middle school, broke into it in high school, and helped try to fix it in college. I spent weekends painting walls that were falling in on themselves, cataloging moldy costumes, laminating old playbills. My family has run a theater program the last 5 years on the grounds of the theater, and have been trying to get the place opened up again, at least so people can see inside of it. They've had some success - we did a play last summer on the balcony of the theater, and opened it up for tours for the local schools. They both work full time jobs and put all their spare time and money into this program. They've gone to every town meeting for 5 years to try and get any support they can, with very little luck. They stayed up all night to watch the fire, because what else can you do? ----- I used to sneak out of my bed and sit on the roof with my brother when I was a kid so we could hear the shows they did on summer nights. We couldn't see anything through the trees, but we could hear the words, and my brothers tried to explain what was going on. I was planning in getting married in the park. Just ordered invitations, too. Going to visit the wreckage this weekend and make some decisions. Anyways, here's a song I wrote. PS: the kicker is that at the last town meeting, people were talking about how now they could finally build condos there.
I'm at Suvarnabhumi airport, Bangkok, Thailand. My friend is already on his plane while I kill a few more hours waiting for mine. I'll be traveling for the next 28 hours to get back to the states--including a 9 hour layover in Narita where I'll take a walk outside to get a small feel for Japan. This enormous chapter just ended. After studying for four months in Seoul, South Korea, I spent two weeks in Thailand, one week in Bali. I met hundreds of people, was inspired to digital nomadism, got my phone and wallet stolen, and saw the sun rise in Burma. I wrestled a baby elephant in knee deep mud in Chiang Mai. I taxied in tuk-tuks through traffic patterns that made my commute at home look absolutely pedestrian. I drove a scooter around Bali and hit 110kph. I met lots of beautiful women, friendly and cheerful men, learned token Thai, Korean, and Balinese. I kissed a lady boy. Ate a smoked tarantula. Had a small Thai woman crack my back so hard I almost fainted. Ate the most mouth-watering street food, and somehow never got sick. I yoga'd and did ecstatic dance in Ubud. Snorkeled in Amed. Surfed in Canggu. I resolve to come back. The trip, as transcendental as it was, didn't much change me, I think. I had precisely the same feelings of self-doubt and insecurity no matter where I was. There were good days and there were bad days. A part of me held out hope that those features of personality disappear with a dramatic change of environment. But that's not how things work. And counterintuitively, the "answer" is always right there in each moment. Gratitude, serenity. Peace. There's no need to search outside yourself. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself. I'm spending a week with my little sister in San Diego, where my mom is already visiting, and I come back home a few days before my last semester of college. A rather abrupt transition, but it will be nice to be back home.
One of my best friends was in Chiang Mai with his brother et al. a few weeks ago. I saw him last weekend so go to hear all about it, and it sounds amazing. His brother threw up on the grounds of Angkor Wat, and my friend has since joked that he hopes to take his brother around to throw up on a few more World Heritage Sites.
It was a tumultuous work week. I feel like I am building up a catch-up post, but there’s too much in the air atm. I’m doing a bit of hardware hacking at FL and it’s fun. I think I have something unique and cool to share once patents are filed. I need to take my family somewhere quiet and warm for a couple of days. I started a painting for mike, which he commissioned. I charged him 1 ETH. A good friend got me that easel as an Xmas surprise. Blew my mind.
Got my tickets! Montreal > Bogota, Lima > Montreal. Time to start planning the 2 months in south america! And right after that, we're going to Africa Burn + roadtrip around south africa. It's getting super exiting! But when I'm back home, it's gonna be time to get back into the groove of things and start working. With my partner being gone, I'll be the only one running the bar tours, so no days off for me. I mean, I'll probably hire some people at some point to help out, but it's still not the same as having a co-owner you completely trust in case there are issues. And I really want to make more money this year. If I can hustle some free money out of the government, I'd like to build some cool plastic recycling machines. And also possibly get a real job at some event management place? I've never really given "that corporate life" a shot, and maybe I should try before it's too late and i'm completely unemployable.
I'm SO excited for your trip! I couldn't agree more with thenewgreen - get to Cusco as quick as you can. It's lovely.Got my tickets! Montreal > Bogota, Lima > Montreal.
Was supposed to be seen at Cleveland this morning.. Spent it vomiting my guts out in the ER from a drug reaction instead. Waiting on discharge, in theory. Discharged. Sent home with orders for gatorade, no exercise other than yoga for at least a week, and a strong recommendation to take a nap at least once a day. Fucking kidneys. JUST WORK AND I WON'T HAVE TO BOMBARD YOU WITH DRUGS.
Had a doctor's appointment, got a referral to a psychiatrist. Made an appointment with a counselor from the school, and I'll ask the psychiatrist for a referral to a proper therapist. Priority number one right now is getting out of this deep funk; then, figuring out how much homesickness is just depression manifested and how much is "real"--in other words, whether I will be able to manage this once I'm healthy, or whether I really need to look into ways of going home. Baby steps. In the meantime, I wrote a poem. splinter (11:29pm) so young they're just splinters. I don't need another home. I got mine. Orange bright across our skyline Hill country of my heart I got roots. I got home. That empty road across your soul that silence before the sunset, this is where my grandfather died, and I couldn't fly in to see him. That's home, motherfucker. Take me back. Doesn't help that I'm writing two presentations and two papers and starting a new job this week. The stress is hell on my mental state, but what can you do. I already put off one presentation and the job for a week, eventually I just have to do it. Wish me luck, y'all. Tear out these new roots,
Life is great and weird.I'm sitting in a classroom waiting for the "School Accountability Committee" meeting to start. SAC. I just like saying I'm headed to "SAC". It's an interestingly boring meeting with a crew of interested parents and staff members who have started to overreach their current roles. They're starting to make more work for the principal... which is not cool. They have a fairly narrow charter, and I think they're getting a bit too big for their britches... and as the board rep on this committee... I think I have to drop the hammer - if for nothing else, I don't need my principal burning out. In other news - my job is fantastic. I am a part of an amazing team. And I have the leeway to do things like buy DOZENS of fancy donuts for them. Still trying to find some time for the bluebird...
Got passed over for promotion at work, which is kind of a bummer but only kinda. I can't say they made a bad choice (the one they picked has been here longer and is good). My main frustration is that she was more productive on our day-to-day stuff, but I did more side project type things...I'd hoped those would matter more (but am not surprised that it didn't, admittedly). I'm also not super invested in my job, and am still kinda hoping I can find something else. But then I remember that it's highly unlikely that I'll find something that'll pay this well for demanding so little. So I just need to figure out what else to do with my time. (I did see a posting about one job that looked interesting, but the only available locations were not anywhere we wanted to live.) Today's the last workday before a four-day weekend, which is not doing wonders for motivation or productivity. Speaking of which, writing and arting seem to be most of it, at least when I'm stuck in an office (outside of which my spawn, kung fu, and gaming still reign). I hate doing creative things a lot more than I used to, largely thanks to figuring out ways to give myself permission to suck. Random aside: my daughter has an inflatable horse that she's started sleeping with. Last night, she decided that he needed to wear a pull-up like her. She was very proud of this. (Four-year-old logic is frequently amazing.) About the only other thing on the horizon is a trip to New York next month for Chinese New Year, which I'll be doing with some of the broader kung fu organization. A celebratory gathering of some kind is part of it, and hopefully I'll be able to get in some extra training. (I'm also hoping it isn't too expensive, but with kung fu stuff you never know.)
Great news! I've started watching the odd chess video on YouTube (especially Chess Network), and I have the "play Magnus Carlsen at various ages" app on my iPad now. I'm happy to say I was able to beat 8-year-old Magnus.
Went to an Earth Strike protest yesterday. Marched around downtown, talked to some people, grabbed some pamphlets and had some hot food with them, which was a welcome addition with all the cold weather we got recently. Went on my way after about an hour, before the protest headed for the office building of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, which they supposedly occupied for a little while before the police cleared them out. Perhaps it was just me expecting something slightly different, but the focus was mostly on the Indigenous issues, primarily the Wet'suwet'en Nation's resistance to the new pipeline being put through their territory. A lot of talk about 'spiritual awakening' and 'Mother Earth', and a lot of protesters who came to protest the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the government in general, rather than ecological issues. The protest didn't strike me as a highly organized or thought-out one - it was rather disjointed, with some speakers talking about our spiritual connection to Gaia, and some calling for the workers to rise up. I am glad I went, but overall it did not strike me as something that has much potential unless something changes by the next planned Earth Strike. 
It's lifted from a hedge fund newsletter (pp.9) that links to Piper Jaffray. I'm assuming it's a report that I don't have access to. We shouldn't see a similar boom and bust. You'll notice that the dividends are much higher comparatively during the dot-com boom/bust but that prices right now are directly related to easy money granted companies via QE and QE2.
Skenderbeg is a weird organization. I have no idea what their "research" would cost; I know that they throw out these random context-free blivets of weirdness about once a month and that the minute Swiss banking secrecy laws took effect they ceased to be based in Geneva and moved to Vaduz, Liechtenstein.
I started my second semester of my accounting masters this week. Only taking two classes since I am working full time. I have an auditing class and a tax class. Took a Financial Reporting class last semester that was worth six credits and got a B-. Let's see how this goes.
I've got that Everly Brothers song in my head. It has been raining for the past couple of days. I found out there is music written about me and the creator in question is slowly building traction. I'm starting to plan for my trip this summer. I still can't believe I am 24.