Nothing to say

Ok, I haven’t got much time, but here’s the deal in a nutshell:
I had a buch of things I wanted to get done between last Thursday and Tomorrow (Wednesday). One full week. I’ve gotten several things done, but not nearly the amount that I could’ve if I’d been more diligent.

Today, however, is going quite differently. A lot of that list was just goals; things I wanted to do. There are a few of those items that I realy need to get done. So last night, after spending most of the day learning how to make color swatches (one of the needed things, relating to putting together the company website, so I can create promotional materials, so I can get local clients, so I can make money, so I can survive, etc), I admitted to myself that I need to really buckle down and take care of a few small things.

So I made a list. And I applied a rough timeframe to it. And so far, it’s working surprisingly well! Now I think the next step is applying some sort of personal accountability to it, and since I’m both an extrovert and a bit lazy when it comes to taking care of personal things, I decided to post my lists here with commentary on how well I did.

Boring, right?
I know. That’s why the rest of this post is below the fold. :)
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We’re helping a friend out with a late document submission, so we ran out to find wifi at nearly 11pm.  McDonald’s was the only option.  even though they’re closed, they left the system on, so we dropped 3 bucks to download, edit, and return the document.

That done, wife’s on the phone with the recipient of our gross benevolence.

We flew into SFO today, got our rental, and went STRAIGHT to Japan town for some noodles and crazy shopping.  The hardware store was closed, but we blew some cash at the discount store.  Yay!

Got lots of random awesomeness.  Felt guilty about every Made in China sticker, but a lot of the stuff was legitimate Japanese products, made in Japan, so that’s good.  For the rest, we made a slight exception.  Just this once.  especially for the hedgehog bag.  It’s top notch.

Alright, it’s time to go.  McDonald’s has been closed for I don’t know how long, and we really don’t want to have to explain ourselves to the cops.

I’m getting started now, at precisely noon.  That wasn’t planned.

I have no idea what to do with my moleskine.  I set it off to the side…

I have a standing file sorter, but didn’t remember what I thought it would be good for.  Now I remember!  Project folders.  I’m starting one now for the wedding thank-yous.

It is now 8:34, and I just finished my inbox!

There are but two facts to consider with that, though.

It actually took me less time, because I got about 2 hours of work in for a client today.

And I actually cheated, because I still have random, newly-created piles scattered about.  Something must be done about them still before I can technically consider myself finished with the processing.  Still, it feels damn good to have that plastic drawer COMPLETELY emptied.

Surprises

• I found a $75 refund check
• I found a business card I’d been trying to find for a couple weeks
• I am recycling a 6″ stack of paper.

I need to work out something meal-related.  Then I’ll finish the pile.

Ok, the whole husband status is still kind of new for me.  There are still firsts.  Like right now is the first multi-day absence I’ve had from my wife (not counting the extra week she stayed in Central America after the wedding).  I’m lonely.

I dropped her off at like 5 this morning, and ended up taking too long of a nap after I got home.  Now it’s a quarter after 4 and I’m still up.  That’s just silly.

I’ve been thinking a lot about focus tonight.  It’s funny that Rob and Big could cause me to be so introspective, but it’s a thoughtful show, and Rob clearly live his life with both drive and purpose.  See, Rob Dyrdek
is a master of living life to the fullest.  He has become somewhat of a role model to me.  I don’t necessarily with to be like him, but there is much I could learn from him.

He is a skateboarder.  This is a vocation that he attacks with purpose, and one at which he is immensely successful.  In one episode tonight, Rob broke 21 Guinness world records, all under the heading of skateboarding.  Long grinds, multiple tricks, etc.  The man is a machine.

Yet he lives like a child.  His second vocation, which he attacks with equal purpose, and at which he is equally successful, is play.  On a road trip to a mini-horse show, where one could only assume his completely untrained horse was going to bomb, they stopped on a random beach, paid a woman $100 to watch the mini horse and his bulldog for half an hour while they rode sand rails around the dunes.  God knows how long later, after the sun had completely set, and the moon was high and bright, they returned to find the woman patiently waiting in the same spot.  That’s the way Rob plays.  And it always works out.  They even managed to place in the horse competition.   After absolutely no planning or preparation.

The problem I have that Rob completely lacks, is wanting to do it all, instead of just focusing on the handfull of things I’m immensely good at and doing those.  He shows me that if I were to focus on doing those things at which I’m best, I could spend the rest of my time having a complete blast with life.

Ok, so there are two lessons in there: focus and confidence.  I never would have tried to show that horse, let alone gotten one in the first place.

He’s relentless.

Today was just great.  We woke up at 6:30, and got to the Boulder Farmer’s Market around 7:30.  Community Cycle held a bike sale, starting at 8am, and we helped get things setup, and then had an early pick on the bikes they were selling.  Kia got a Specialized Hard Rock mountain bike (because she’s such a fan of Brett Michaels, she said), and we got her dad a REI Novara.  Both are really nice bikes.

At the Farmer’s Market, I got Kia a potted iris and a pack of marshmallows made with agave nectar.  I got myself a strawberry plant.  :D  We picked up a bunch of seeds for the garden, too.  We also had breakfast at the Boulder Dushanbe Tea House.  It is such an amazing place, and their brunches are outstanding!  Not surprisingly, the also have an outrageously extensive tea menu (and three coffees).  I got the Ethiopian coffee and the Farmer’s Eggs.  Both were seriously excellent.  It was a marvelous meal in a setting of surreal beauty.

This afternoon, we were “chillaxin’ in da crib” when I got a notion to go to some chocolate shops.  I want to find a logo to use for the business, and chocolates and sweets seem like a good place to seek inspration.  The first place was impossible to find, so we gave up.  At the second place, I ended up getting an $11 box of chocolates, a wine tasting for Kia and I, 2 bottles of wine, and 2 bottles of port.  Then we got pizza.  Then we checked out another chocolate shop, but it was a big chain, so forget that.

Then we came home.  Today was a really good day.

OK, this is awesome. Today, we:

• Got a PO Box in Boulder, CO (just downtown!)
• Got library cards
• Got CO state drivers licenses (they mail ‘em)
• Changed my address at the bank
• Got Verizon service and an Orange env phone
• Quite possibly got a volunteer gig helping with the web site of a local cycling group
• Got snowed on for the first time in over 4 years, and last but certainly not least,
• I SAVED A BUNCH OF MONEY BY SWITCHING MY INSURANCE ADDRESS WITH GEICO

Seriously, my premium dropped by over 77%.  I am now paying less than a quarter of what I was in Miami.  I Told  you the drivers there are insane!
If you want the PO Box or phone number, check my facebook or drop me a comment and I’ll email you.

I wanted to post photos and a couple of paragraphs about leaving Florida, driving to Colorado, and getting settled here, not to mention all the interesting and funny things I’ve noticed since we’ve gotten here. I wanted to write a bit about our plans, and my plans. I was too busy getting settled to really allow time for it, though.

But then …. THIS HAPPENED

See the rest of the photos in the first-snow album on my zenphoto test site.

I just did the simple hosted zenphoto install through dreamhost to try it out. Gallery is just too slow to really be practical for most people. This is allegedly quicker, and so far that seems to be true.

We have LOTS of errands to run today, so I’m out. The short-list:

• Setup PO Box (I’ll post the address when we have it)
• Get CO driver’s license
• Get Library cards
• Check out Verizon Wireless (I’ll let you know if/when I get a number)
• Call Comcast to get cable internet and maybe VOIP setup
• meet someone to give away our old Palm Zires
• come home and update address info with GEICO, etc

We loaded up the car(s), trailer, and truck over the last couple days, and got on the road yesterday (March 31).  Last night, we drove to Naples, FL, where I sold my Cabrio to a very nice family.  The detour added a little over 150 miles to our trip, but it was worth it to find a good home for the car.  I’m very happy with how that worked out.

After a day of driving up I-75, we stopped at the Motel 6 in Gainesville, FL.  Today we plan to continue up through Atlanta toward Nashville.  Kia’s car does not have heat, and we don’t want to drive ourselves to death, so we will be retiring from the road early each day, and taking our sweet time to make sure this trip goes well.

We were expecting to reach Boulder this Thursday, but with all the storm cells moving across our path, we’re thinking it may be Friday.  That’s fine.  Our thoughts are with the families dealing with all the flooding.

Another update if we get wireless again.  Take care, friends, and we’ll talk to you soon.

God Bless the BBC.  Today, they have an absolutely brilliant news article up in File On 4 called Who pays the price of platinum?  It, like all news articles, offers a simplified glimpse of the whole picture.  They talk about Platinum mining, specifically, when it is actually just one of the three expensive noble metals that do the work in catalytic converters.  Palladium and Rhodium are also at play, and all three are often refined from the same ore.

It is hopefully no longer an argumentative fallacy to say that everyone knows mining is environmentally devastating, but this article speaks more generally of the human cost, with particular emphasis on the social devastation of claiming and destroying the homeland of a person, family, or community.

The unfunny irony pointed out in the story is that increased environmental awareness is partly responsible for the increased cost and mining of these metals.  They do a fantastic job of helping the conversion of bad exhaust fumes to … less bad exhaust fumes.  That’s a good thing.  But the mining process is a bad thing.  And reclaiming the metals from spent catalytic converters is not cost-effective.  It’s much cheaper to just move a bunch of South Africans off this valuable ore, and place them somewhere that they’ll surely prefer, if they know what’s good for them.  Then we can pull all that valuable metal out of the ground where God intended us to find it.  Then Riches!

Hooray!

Fret not, my friends.  Soon, we will be rich enough and life will be easy enough that we can truly be happy.

If you ever meet my friend Nathan in Central Ohio, just call him Car Belly.

It’s his nickname, and like all good nicknames, it doesn’t matter where it came from, so long as it’s not a name that he gave himself.  And he didn’t.  Ol’ Car Belly knows you can’t make up your own nicknames.

If I get a good picture of him, I’ll post it.

This is the best comment I’ve ever read on Ralph Nader*.

*though I haven’t read many…

God Bless the Chicago Tribune.

Highlights:

There are basically only two ways to fail, and both of them are the same.  You have to stop trying.  Alternately, you could die, which makes any further effort rather impossible.  But as long as you’re still live, and you still have the will to fight (the eye of the tiger, if you will), then you are NEVER beaten.

That’s all fine and good, but I give up.  I concede defeat to the mighty furrowed brow of Miami.  The anger, aggression,  traffic, lack of common decency, and often open hostility have won.  These things are served daily in greater measure than I can bear.

It has been some time that my girlfriend, then fiancee, then wife and I have been discussing our next move.  We postponed it in the interest of three things.  First, I would like to have a 2-year job on my resume.  Second, she had school.  Third, we were planning a wedding for a stinking year and a half.  It is now with great pleasure that I announce all of these things are behind us.

We are moving.  We have decided on a city.  We have chosen a CSA.  We have, for the most part, chosen what to take with us, what to sell beforehand, and what to give away.  We even have a good idea of when we’re going.  I’m not at liberty to discuss that right now, but that’s not the point.

Ok, I’ll stop being silly and round-a-bout.  The point is that Miami beat the ever-lovin’ hell out of me.  I’ve been magnificently depressed for a while now, even moreso than I realized.  But now, all of the typically abysmal aspects of life here are, for the most part, like water off a duck’s back.  I just look at it and think “Yeah, but I’m moving soon,” and my sunny disposition returns.

Now that we’re actively planning the move, it seems more real and definite.  Now that it feels real and definite, my spirits have lifted immensely.  And I had no idea that I was so down or so … quiet.  Because now, I just can’t shutup.  I feel so good, I’ve become a bit spastic as a result.  What fun!

Homeland security is a joke.  I got two forms on the plane on the way down: immigration and customs.  I filled them both out, and the immigrations and customs people asked me a couple of simple questions and sent me off.  Ask me why, and I’ll tell you I think it’s because I look like a nice, trustworthy guy.  Well, I am, but I just hope these people are all super-good judges of character.

On the way back to the US, on the other hand, I got two pieces of paper to fill out: Customs and Homeland Security.  The homeland security dude was this big, burly, ex-military-looking white guy.  The line was moving slowly but surely along until he got to the family in front of me, who he asked where they were residents.  The United States.  You’re all together?  Yes.  He glanced at the father’s passport and said “Go on,” then glanced at me and said “Go on.” again, as they were moving slowly.  I held out my passport.  He says “I said go on.”  Whisky Tango Foxtrot?

Customs was different.  They were very strict there.  The guy looks at my passport and my customs sheet.  He draws one great big vertical scribble on the paper.  He hands me the customs sheet and my passport and says “You don’t need that any more.”  I glance at my Homeland Security paper on the counter and say “And this?  Will I need it later?”  “Nope.  You just killed a tree.  Have a good night.”

I laughed and walked off with my gross lack of my explosives and contraband.

Oh, in the airport in San Jose, they did a bag check before we could board our plane.  After changing our flight gate about an hour before boarding, they roped off the seating area and made us all get out.  We stood in line and waited for them to call us one after the other to one of two tables where we opened our bags for them and let them go through everything.  He glanced in the top of my laptop bag and was done with it.  Not even a hand went in.  He looked in my marmot pack, moved one smaller bag (Kia’s jewelry from the trip, which I brought back for her) to the side, ignored everything in the bottom, and said “Ok.”  He never looked in my DSLR camera bag.  He never checked the front pocket on my laptop bag or my Marmot.  The whole security thing is embarrassingly half-assed, and designed to deter only the pettiest of criminals.  I really think anyone seriously practiced and determined to do some damage wouldn’t really have much trouble doing it.

Especially if they were white and had honest enough looking eyes.

It’s done.   It was beautiful.  I am so happy.

Pics and details soon.  Love you all.

One Sofa.

Free.

1995 Cabrio.

$2500

Someone is picking up the sofa tomorrow night.
Someone else is picking up the Cabrio around 2:25 Saturday morning.

Now the thing that has me confused is that the person interested in purchasing the Cabrio is in Savannah, and has no reason to come to Miami, other than to pick up the Cabrio.

Lemme ’splain.
Google Maps says, “489 mi – about 7 hours 29 mins”

She’s coming down on a Greyhound (and leaving the driving to them), buying the car, and driving it home. The bus leaves after her Friday class, and she should get home in time for work on Saturday. So what, she’s sleeping on the bus?

This is just crazy. But that’s how my life works, right? Last minute, crazy, and stupidly lucky. So if this pans out, I’ll have another $2500 for the trip to Costa Rica. That’s going to be handily timed, considering we’re leaving Monday.

Barack won the Iowa caucuses.  How awesome is that?

A 95% white state favors a (mostly) black presidential candidate with some (slight) Muslim background.  He admits to having done marijuana and cocaine.  If you read comments on popular news sites, you’ll see all sorts of things about him being secretly Muslim, and enlightening dialog on his plans to gain leadership of this country for the purpose of handing it over to Al Qaeda or the Taleban, or generally “the terrorists”.  And Iowa loves him.  His message of hope and positive change is inspiring.  His charisma is charging.

I’m delighted.

If you don’t already know about Dokaka, you should. Let him introduce you to himself, through the universal language of Nirvana.

New Years Resolutions are kind of a gimmick.  I realize that.  We, as people, make active choices on what to do and what not to do every moment of our lives.  Why should the first day of the year, determined by the seasonal rotation of our planet around its sun, be especially relevant for these choices?

Well, it’s the same reason that we have spring cleaning, fall festivals, summer picnics, and holidays.  January 1 is a day of new beginnings.  It is fresh, rife with opportunity, and clear of transgression.  Forget the missteps or failures of last year.  This is 2008!  This is the year that I will finally:

1. Catch up (and keep up!) on housework
2. Exercise twice a week, EVERY week
3. Get my portfolio in order, and contribute $10 a day to savings

These are reasonable things, that I already kinda keep up on.  Now I’m resolving to be even more diligent about it.  I have a couple 401(k) accounts that I need to consolidate.  From there, I actually need to keep an eye on them.  There were a couple of times where you can kind of sense a general change coming, and it would’ve been good for me to shift some percentage from the aggressive funds to the conservative ones, or from domestic to international.

Alright, that’s enough.  Time to get to diligence and whatnot.

We saw one and a half movies tonight. This was the first. The other I don’t want to mention in the same post as this.

I would recommend this film to absolutely everyone, with a couple of exceptions. First of all, if you’re too young to discuss sex, don’t see this film. Second of all, if you’re old enough to discuss sex, but don’t have anyone mature to discuss it with, who can answer your questions or help you through what can be quite a difficult and mysterious topic, skip it until you can find someone to talk to. They cover a lot of material, and with the exception of Jennifer Garner (who plays a rather flat character, or plays her character rather flatly), they do an absolutely excellent job.

I don’t really follow Jason Bateman’s career, but I can say that this is, without a doubt, the highlight of his entire body of work. By why I mean to say it’s all I can remember him in, though I did know his name before the film. Really, he got an amazing role, and played it beautifully.

We both thoroughly enjoyed this film. It does cover a very sensitive subject, but it is done with emotion, honesty, and tact.

The soundtrack is also excellent. Bummer they had to include Belle & Sebastian, but that isn’t enough to spoil it. Really stellar.