24 February 2010

The Rescues

After a social hiatus of reasonable length I chose an evening out with the
performers of a favourite song of mine "Breakout".

The acoustics and staff of the Troubadour were as always excellent. The
show was a great way to get back in the music scene.

The opener was Lucy Schwartz a talented musician of diverse gifts. And I
would say that even if she hadn't been nice enough to chat after the show.
(Turns out the lady flirting with me was a friend of the band. Small world.)

The best part was the harmony of "My Love". This group has such a powerful
steez that it takes my breath away.

Along the way the took the opportunity to showcase their many talents by
switching off vocal leads, harmonies and instruments. It's quite a talented
group.

In the end, it was memorable night worthy of jumpstarting my membership in
humanity.

Well done guys. Well done.

22 February 2010

Getting To Know. . .Me

Lately, I've found myself ruminating on, well . . . on me.

When you find yourself alone in the quiet and not particularly happy about it, it is common to second guess all those choices, preferences, and habits that make you who you are. And let's be clear, I am definitely a product of my mistakes, misadventures, and missteps at least as much as all the blessings and boons I've bumbled into.

This post is about me. If knowing me doesn't interest you, I suggest you skip this one. I won't be offended but I won't forget either. *wink*

I'm an opinionated, loosely educated, violently disciplined, and thoroughly unsophisticated little boy routinely but not always occupying the space of a large black man. I love good conversation more than good food, and find wine to be prop albeit a tasty one. I don't particularly enjoy beer, but am always down for a round of beer pong. An exception to that rule is Kiltlifter (yummy!).

I loathe exceptions, choosing to adore instead the sweeping generalization. Happy pop punk music, Shakespeare In Love, girls who wear Converse and biting are all tops in my book.

Why yes! I am indeed a hopeless romantic and it is generally understood that I would do unspeakable things to have a modicum of musical ability. If you don't dance, I don't consider you to be alive and I pity you when you aren't looking. If you don't sing, I'll sing loud enough for all of us. Secretly I dream about inviting Jordan Pundik and Cyrus Bolooki over for tacos and Rock Band. And I almost always cheat at Nertz.

Where do I live? A question I hate. Mostly I spend time in a hotel just down the street from you. Or it would be if you lived in LA, Phoenix or Seattle. I once heard LA described as an upholstered toilet, which is a claim I have yet to dispute. Seattle still hasn't figured out it's a big city which explains the slowest light rail known to man and the distinct smell of granola. Phoenix is familiar and fun to drive in, but otherwise un-noteworthy in this particular forum.

If you mention hiking, running, camping, or skiing in the first 3 minutes of any conversation, we will not be friends.

If you want someone to go with you clothes shopping, you should know that I am widely recognized as a fashion-genius, as long as you can ignore the slovenly way I dress myself.

Am I religious? Absolutely not. However I am a committed God-follower and vastly educated in theology; loosely adhering to the practices of contemporary, non-denominational Christianity. Worship, prayer, and community are important to me, even though I find religion as a sweeping generalization to be abhorrent.

I am a deeply infatuated with brunch and dry humor. Quirky people fascinate me and I believe that an honest embrace is the most powerful natural force ever welt by mankind.

For work, I prefer the tech industry to finance, and people over process. Fun problems with interesting people will win over better money, constricting policy, and idiocy, every day of the week and twice on Sunday. The best part of my day would usually involve a whiteboard and someone smarter than I who has time for a lively discussion.

You won't find a faster friend or more ineffective enemy. Just ask Wolfgang Puck who's at the top of my nemesis list. And yes, I keep lists.

I am a counting person by nature and habit. It comes from the long practice of NLP. At any given time, I usually know how many people are in a room, how many times someone recently fidgeted, and certainly how many times you've been deceptive in the current conversation.

Cars that don't have lights that turn on automatically are stupid. Roller coasters are the most fun you can have partially clothed and movie trailers are the highest form of art. I have the attention span of gnat when it comes to trivia, holidays, or anything involving sports.

I don't cry unless you hurt me, or at night when the emptiness looms largest. I think Dill is an under-appreciated spice, and every meal should involve cheese. I prefer to do the cooking, and have an inexplicable love of doing dishes.

There's lots more where that came from. Let's hope I don't feel the need to spew like this again for a while.

03 February 2010

Moving Day...

With the decision by Google to discontinue support for outside hosts for blogs, I've had to migrate my various and sundry blogs to use Google hosting and custom domains.

This turned out to be less onerous then I anticipated, even though I'm still not cool with the idea that I don't have copies of my files sitting on my servers.

In reality, who cares were the files sit? Google promises to allow me to export them at any time, and I assume (as most of you probably do, let's face it, only geeks read the fine print in the EULA!) they'll show good faith with my data and my sites. It's not like I'm really trusting them with anything new anyway. I'm just another step removed away from my files. *harumph*

When it's all said and done, I understand they've got a business to run, and they seem to be making the right noises to reassure the restless inmates (myself included!) who tend to run generally amok in this particular zoo.

Feel free to point out broken links, missing images, or other things that seem odd. Except about my writing of course. That has been and will remain, very, very, very odd.