a) Create an online portfolio. I will most likely be using uxfol.io to create it.
b) Learn how to use Sketchapp better, Protopie, and Principal. Must be done through classes
2) Knowledge goals
I'm going to follow Jon's example and read 10 pages in the morning
3) Health goals
a) 8 hours of sleep. Be in bed by 10:30pm so that I can shoot for an 11:00pm sleep. This will make for 8 solid hours of sleep if i wake up at 7am. Use my CPAP machine every night for at least 5-6 hours.
b) 5 days of exercise per week (at least). Cardio every day, if possible. Strength training 3 times a week. Extra day of cardio if possible, but not mandatory
c) No extra refined sugar. Can have a bit in moderation.
d) Bring lunch to work at least 3 times a week
e) 10 minutes of meditation every morning
f) 10 minutes of stretching in the morning and in the evening.
g) Shoot for 0.75 gallons of water a day
4) Mental health goals
a) Improve relationship with self
b) Practice moving my perspective "outside myself" to help with anxiety
c) Limit social media
d) Do a better job of staying in touch with friends
Note that what I really need help in right now is creating the path/journey towards these goals.
Architects' new album "Holly Hell" has quickly become one of my favorites for 2018. Their music can be described as metalcore or post-hardcore and their lyrics are sometimes a bit hard to comprehend as their vocalist, Sam Carter, utilizes both screaming and melodic choruses. It's kind of like Linkin Park of old but with a heavier edge.
I know very few people like this style of music, but I wanted to try and give a bit of color/complexity to a genre of music that is generally dismissed as angry and shallow.
Background
The band Architects was formed in 2004 by twin brothers, Tom on the guitar and Dan on the drums. Tom was also the principal song writer and lyricist. His lyrics ranged from the low key angsty subjects (After all, he was a teenager when the band was created) to surprising activist stances, anger on global warming, religion and politics. The band had a generally favorable run of albums leading to 2016's "All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us."
In 2012, Tom discovered a mole on his leg that was bothering him - while doctors initially thought it was nothing, after getting surgery to remove it he was diagnosed with melanoma. I'm reading this after the fact, but I don't believe fans were told that he was still battling cancer until on August 21st, 2016 they announced his passing.
While the lyrics in "All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us," were already heavy, in the light of his passing they took on a darker feel. In the song "Gone With the Wind" Tom writes:
I'm always gone with the wind Crawling in and out of my mind God knows I lost all my faith A sickness with no remedy Except the ones inside of me You ever wonder how deep you could sink into nothing at all? Disintegrate, annihilate me
The entire song seems to be about his struggle with mortality. You'll find bits and pieces of it scattered throughout the entire album - especially on the last track "Momento Mori" (Latin expression for "be mindful of death."). More on that later.
Death is Not Defeat // Momento Mori
The album Holy Hell came out just recently (November 2018) and while I enjoyed it after first listen, the music felt the same as their last album (which in hindsight is pretty awesome). I was about to write it off but on a whim I decided to read the lyrics.
Since Tom's passing, the music and lyric duties were given to Dan. In one interview Dan remarks on his brother's death:
Ultimately, there were two choices, feel sorry for yourself and believe the world to be a horrible place and let it defeat you. Or let it inspire us to live the life that Tom would have wanted us to live. I was very worried about people taking away a despondent message from the album. I felt a level of responsibility to provide a light at the end of the tunnel for people who are going through terrible experiences. For me, broadly speaking Holy Hell is about pain: the way we process it, cope with it, and live with it. There is value in pain. It's where we learn it's where we grow.
The first song, "Death is Not Defeat" really blew me away with it's parallels and callbacks to "Momento Mori." In "Momento Mori" Tom wrote in the chorus "Dismantled piece by piece" and then at the bridge "It'll wear you down through skin and bone..."
Here's the chorus from "Death is Not Defeat:"
When I leave this skin and bone Beyond my final heartbeat I'll dismantle piece by piece And I will know that death is not defeat
Dan's opening lines establish a direct link to the song created two years earlier by his brother. It's a great little call back that wouldn't register (or you would think lazy song writing) if you weren't paying attention.
It goes on further...
Momento Mori's second verse:
When my heart skips two beats... I am hidden deep, fast asleep ...the sea will part where oceans meet Finally complete.
Compare that to the first two lines in the bridge in "Death Is Not Defeat" where Dan invokes that imagery:
Now you're finally complete I will see you where oceans meet
It's a beautiful recall - one brother contemplating his death and the other brother with a message of hope. On top of all of this, during the bridge they play the bass line lifted directly from Momento Mori (in half time?) - just to make sure you know it's not a fluke that they're using the same imagery.
For those wondering what the songs sound like, I'll link to youtube videos:
Death is Not Defeat
Momento Mori
I think I have more to say on the subject of grief and loss, but I'll save that for another time. I know this post isn't going to make anyone metalcore fans, but hey, it felt good to write.
Alycia and I woke up at around 2:00 AM to some popping sounds and sirens. At first, I assumed some people were playing with firecrackers around the area but Alycia got up and looked out our window to see an orange glow in the distance. I checked my phone and saw an alert mentioning a fire coming toward Santa Rosa (Thanks creeper Google).
We got dressed and started to assess the situation... I heard our neighbor outside, so I went down. After a quick conversation he mentioned that the fire hopped the freeway and may be headed in our direction. For about 10 minutes, we both hosed down our backyard, fence and sides of the house. As I was doing it, it felt pretty futile. Alycia in the meantime was packing some stuff and gathering the cat... After a bit, we decided to leave so we took off in both cars. Alycia left first while I gathered more items. We came up with a game plan to get off the main road and head to her mom's place about 20 miles away.
The traffic was just as bad as expected, but everyone was being orderly and surprisingly civil. The traffic lights were out but people weren't being jerks. Have you guys seen Silent Hill where the ash is falling from the sky? It's weird to actually be in that situation - I didn't think that was actually a thing. Driving down, I saw a lot of people gathered in parking lots, probably trying to figure out their next move - I assume if we didn't have a place to stay we would have done the same. The drive there was ended up being uneventful other than having a cat who thought the world was going to end.
Once we got settled down, I actually had a decision to make - October 9th was my first day at my new job in SF! I ended up going since there was really nothing to be done other than watch the news. It was a little odd to be at work trying to pay attention to the onboarding presentations while worrying about the house!
Happily everything turned out OK in the end - I did accidentally forget to bring the small fireproof safe that has our passports and little items (we're not ballers stashing $$$) but Alycia went with her friends to pick it up. (side story: After we evacuated the next thing we had to worry about were looters. Yay USA) Some neighbors stayed behind and posted the "you loot, we shoot" around - so now I know some people are packing firepower around here.
I think we got to go back to the house after 4-5 days but we were without gas for another 2. Cold showers are a small price to pay for being so lucky.
Stuff
So I say this in afterthought, but while I was packing I realized I answered the question of what I would take if I only had a few minutes... Turns out I'm not a very sentimental guy (who knew?) all the "stuff" I have really doesn't matter that much to me - Other than the essential clothes and towels I grabbed my external hard drive but left everything else. While waiting to see if the house was still standing or not, I honestly didn't feel that sad about the stuff I left behind. I guess in the end, I could do without the old console games, the monitor, or any smaller things I happen to accumulate throughout the years. I don't think that means I'm going to go all minimalist in the future, but maybe it's something for me to reflect on!
This blog entry might be a bit rough (I apologize ahead of time)
So I mentioned this before to Jon and Brendan, but one of my previous co-workers committed suicide a few weeks ago by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. We had worked together at three different companies - we were both in HR (it's a fairly small community up here!) but it wasn't like I was that close to her. We didn't hang out very much outside of work and I literally haven't talked to her for about a year. But I bring it up again because I had to cross the Golden Gate for the first time since she died.
I couldn't get the picture of her leaving her car, purse and keys behind in the parking lot and walking to a "suitable" spot out of my head. I notice the chain link fences at the start of the bridge. I get irrationally angry about how the suicide barriers haven't been installed yet. I feel maybe a bit sad and lonely that there was no one there to talk her out of it. I don't know if either of those things would have helped. I think about her family and all the love being posted on her facebook wall.
I wonder if she found peace.
I know this is cliche, but if anyone out there is hurting and is thinking about suicide, reach out to SOMEONE. ANYONE. Hell, even me. Even if you feel at your worst, talk it out a bit. It might not solve all problems by talking, but it should at least be a small step in the right direction?
Anyway, I am still working through this - apparently it's still a bit raw.
Time off the blog!
On that cheery note, I completed my 5 day blog challenge! It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be and it did feel good to spend some time with my thoughts (as random as they may be) rather than my usual activities of playing video games or catching up on movies. When I come back maybe I'll try a 10 day challenge!
So my blog today was going to be about extremism. I started doing a bit of internet research but then my mind started wandering. So instead of a serious post, I'm going with random thoughts.
My first distraction was a word I never knew existed in the English language: Exonym. (I would glare at my high school teachers, but to be honest, I may have slept through the lesson.)
exonym
[ek-soh-nim]
noun
a name used by foreigners for a place, as Florence for Firenze.
a name used by foreigners to refer to a people or social group that the group itself does not use, as Germans for Deutsche.
Tangent 1: Exonym is not considered a word according to blogger spell check.
Tangent 2: I can't figure out what service is being used by blogger for spell check. I have no one to blame but blogger/google? Microsoft word recognizes it.
Tangent 3: I guess I'm old school and I need to update my habits but I still put 2 spaces after a colon and at the end of a sentence.
The last few months I've been watching a lot of twitch.tv streams. I've always known that this streaming service existed but never paid too much attention - I'd hop on when they stream EVO (Annual fighting game tournaments) but then promptly forget about it.
On a whim, I decided to browse other streams and came across a few of them that I really enjoy. Most of them are music streams, but I'll start with another gaming one first:
This stream is only active twice a year for one week at a time but there is some amazing content here. The premise is that for 40 hours straight different video game speed runners run though their designated game. There are classics like Zelda 2 in 49:31 or Super Mario Series - Warpless Relay.
Anyway, the reason why I like watching these streams are three fold:
These guys destroy games that took me forever to beat as a kid. There's some perverse satisfaction knowing these games can be beat so quickly.
People can donate throughout the stream to Doctors Without Borders and Prevent Cancer Foundation. I don't know who's watching these streams but there are some insane donations. According to the website they have raised over 12 million dollars in the seven years they've done this. (yes, more than a million dollars raised per year!)
Some of the commentary on these games are actually interesting. Some people go into the logic behind the games and provide some insight to how the games work on the back end that only nerds would love.
Sorry the last three are going to be music streamers! Raquel is a singer/songwriter from Birmingham, AL. She usually streams with a bass player and together they play some fantastic music - her covers are interesting and her original music is pretty great too. She opened for All American Rejects and BoB earlier this month. She will also occasionally stream her gigs as well - it's like sitting front and center at a concert.
Another singer/songwriter but local - she's in the Bay Area. I like her music but her story kinda resonated with me (Probably because I had seen La La Land recently). She had quit her CPA job to pursue music full time earlier this year. She's mentioned a few times that she didn't want to take the safe career route and wanted to follow her passion (music). She is still writing music but what she has so far is pretty good. She plays guitar, piano and flute.
This guy is also a local musician but he gigs with his band (guitar, bass, drums, 3 backup singers). He sings, plays piano and ukulele. I like to catch his stream on Tuesday nights when he streams with his full band. He does a lot of improv work and is pretty interactive with his viewers (he's been known to ask the viewers for song lyrics on the fly). I don't have any lasting samples of his work since he doesn't have any presence outside of archived streams but he has a diverse musical selection.
Musician Streams - Donations
I'll occasionally donate to the musicians - it's crazy to think of how many hours they dedicate to their craft a day! When you're not on top of the heap, there's a ton of grinding for gigs and traveling. Some of these people put in 8+ hours of music streams at a time. What they do for their passion is something I can never do so I live vicariously through their streams!
Anyway, if you find yourself with a few hours to kill, it's interesting to hop on twitch to see what's going on. I ran into a few game development streams that I might follow as well... Twitch is not just for games anymore!
For the past few years (literally), I've been playing with the idea of getting a new monitor. My set up was a 24 inch 16:9 monitor and a 19 inch 4:3 monitor - I've had these monitors since college. They've served me well, however I've been thinking about upgrades...
2014
Monitor upgrades are one of those essential research pieces (much like headphones). We stare at these things upwards of 10 hours a day so it's good to invest in something that's worth it... We also don't upgrade these things as often as other components (I believe I'm on my 3rd computer upgrade but with the same monitor set up).
If I were being traditional (spoiler, I wasn't) I would probably buy two monitors of the same brand and pair them side by side. This way I wouldn't have to deal with weird contrast ratios between monitors and I'd have a uniform set up. I found my problem with this set up was the amount of space on my desk. The riser you see up top won't carry 2x 27 inch monitors. I could try and get 2x 23 inch monitors, but why upgrade if you can't increase your resolution some? I didn't want to grab some 4k monitors either because windows still haven't figured out how to scale things properly.
I ended up going with a 34 inch ultrawide monitor (Dell U3417w) and my life has changed. This thing is amazing and I am going to have a hard time going back to standard dual monitor set up.
For starters, the amount of resolution allows me to do something like this (Don't judge my lack of coding skills):
I can have roughly three side by side web pages (or 2/3's code 1/3 web page) on one monitor. And for all of you spreadsheet nerds out there, you can have ~53 columns of data viewable at once - no bezel to interrupt your flow. If that doesn't make you giddy, I don't know what will. I hear having this extra space also makes editing videos and such a better experience, but I don't have any practical knowledge in that area.
For gaming, having the extra peripheral vision makes a big difference... You won't notice not having the height (because who looks up or down in video games anyway?) and you don't have to break the bank to buy a video card that is beefy enough to power the resolution.
There's also something to be said to going back to having one main monitor on the desk rather than focus on the left or right monitor (ignore the monitor you can sorta see on the left. I'm testing some things there!)
There are a few downsides to these monitors though - there are still some backlight bleed issues. It doesn't bother me, but some of the corners can have a light tint to it. You won't notice it unless you're looking at a pure black screen but some people don't like the idea of it... Also, 21:9 content is still not mainstream (and probably never will be). This means videos on youtube or netflix end up with black bars on the left or right since they're set up for 1920x1080 (which then can lead to annoyance with backlight bleed).
I don't mind the downsides to this monitor though. If you're in the market for a new monitor, head down to a Fry's or something and give it a look. I actually like this so much I may one day mount a second monitor above this one for even more visual space! This monitor typically sells for ~600-800, however you can probably find some deals if you're patient (I ended up getting mine for about 525)
I heard there was some interest in bringing the blog back... Something about us not running into each other frequently or living in different states - we're trying to maintain some public record of friendship?
Blogging Challenges
When Jon mentioned starting the blog again, I had some conflicting emotions and thought about the challenges of going back to the medium. While I like the idea of using a blog to keep in contact (because it's been literally years since I've seen some of you!) it's not easy to write more than 140 characters at a time or come up with something entertaining that doesn't include cat videos. A blog doesn't blast our business to our immediate friends - people actually have to make an effort to come here As writers we have the responsibility to our audience (all 3 of them) to make sure time isn't wasted! (so to be clear, I'll be judging every post from here on out on a wasted time scale)
Another challenge I face is that I honestly don't write anymore. I can count on one hand the number of times I sat down to write something personal for more than 5 minutes. Yet somehow when we were in our twenties, we would write these long posts about baseball, poker, college or life problems. It came so easily too... I remember busting out these posts quickly whereas I think I've spent more than an hour just to get these three paragraphs done.
Why we should do it anyway
For science/inspiration, I read through some of our old posts... Dear god I wanted to poke my eyes out. I've posted things that are so cringe-worthy that if Alycia were to read it, I'm sure she would start questioning her life choices. Yet I think there's still some beauty in it. We're not the same people we were back then, but I can still remember where I was or what frame of mind I was in when writing. It's a painful but truthful record of who we were 15 years ago.
So for the memories, I'll try to keep this up for a bit. I'm going to challenge myself to write a post a day for the next few days to see how it feels - hopefully in 15 years all of these next few posts will be insightful and smart (but I doubt it).
I hope you guys will occasionally write too. I really am interested in hearing from you guys outside of regular conversations - what's going on in your lives, what annoys the crap out of you, etc.
