This post has been a long time in the making (some might even say a year long!). But here it is. I’m sure I missed stuff, and there’s probably photos, videos, twitters, etc. that could be referenced, but I’m not going to take the time to track them all down. I’ve tossed in some related media for some things though.
January 2008
* Rang in 2008 in Joshua Tree, camping with friends, blowing out tires on the highway, and getting pulled over for our driver eating Funyuns. (pics)
* Refused to grow up and spent my 28th birthday jumping on trampolines with friends.
* Bought myself a Macbook Pro, my first Apple computer in several years.
* Moved in with Heather into a great apartment. (pics)
* Experienced Audium
* Got a full tour of the Armory thanks to Nicole
February 2008
* Valentine’s Day Pillow Fight (pics)
* Nicole’s massive Lego party
* My cat, Bunki, got really sick (hepatic lipidosis) and we nursed her back to health via nasal-esophageal tube and several thousands of dollars.
April 2008
* Housewarming party for our new apartment once we were finally unpacked. (pics)
* T-Mobile Grammy Tour wherein I flew across the country 3 times to meet people including Missy Elliott, Seal, Busta Rhymes, John Legend, etc. and blogged about it. The best part was T-Mobile paid for it all. (pics)
* Saw The Crucible‘s fire ballet. This year it was Firebird.
* Went for a hike on Mt Tam with Heather (pics)
* Took a great ride in the south bay for our annual Bicycle Day (pics)
May 2008
* Worked on 2pir and then ran it at Maker Faire (pics)
* Went to a Zappos.com party after getting details via Twitter.
* Saw Point Break Live!
* Pretended to be a tourist and spent a day on Alcatraz (pics)/Videos
* Changed my hair from red and black to blue. (pics)
* Went to Lightning in a Bottle down in Santa Barbara. Spun a lot of rope dart.
* Flew to Vegas to see My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult and Everything Goes Cold. (pics)
June 2008
* Fire Jam at NIMBY like back in the day.
* A week long camping trip across Southern Utah which included a stop at the high school I graduated from, multiple National parks, and a ton of photos. A great write-up of our trip from Heather.
July 2008
* Celebrated the 4th of Juplaya in Black Rock Desert with friends and quite a bit of explosives, propane, and 2pir. My first (and only) GPS drawing while driving around with 10 people crammed in my car. (pics and video), Heather’s write-up
* Changed my hair from blue to red.
* Heather’s Birthday party. (pics)
* Went to Heather’s 10 year high school reunion in Monterey.
* A trip to the Monterey Aquarium (pics)
* My mom and her husband came out to California and spent some time with us, met Heather’s parents, and did some touristy stuff. (pics)
* Decided to pick up an iPhone 3G and started a (very) slow move away from the Sidekick as my primary device.
August 2008
* Attended the START conference as a prelude to becoming a full-time “entrepreneur”.
* Got my 3 remaining wisdom teeth pulled. (Luckily I never have to do that again!)
* Massive Zombie Flash Mob in San Francisco photo by Audrey
September 2008
* Got incorporated as Free For All Media, Inc.
* Watched friends start Noisebridge, an SF hacker space, and chipped in a bit of time and money. (video)
* Camping with Kai and Jason in Bolinas/Pt Reyes
* NIMBY caught fire and was shut down, leaving us with nowhere to work on our fire art.
* Arse Elektronika
October 2008
* Started doing time-lapse videos with my DSLR and a calculator.
* Went to Santa Barbara for a wedding
* 24 hours of sf0, which we still haven’t posted proofs from.
* LTJ Bukem and Planet of the Drums Tour (AK1200, Dara, Dieselboy). Two shows that encompassed a large portion of the music I love.
* Heather finally gave in and Zelda got her lion cut!
* Karen’s awesome birthday party in Pacifica (pics by netdiva)
* Held our own “Vegan Goth” Orphan Thanksgiving Party (pics)
* Thanksgiving in Monterey
December 2008
* Packed up NIMBY and prepared to move to the new NIMBY space.
* My sister came out to San Francisco to visit.
* Headed to North Carolina for an early Christmas with my family.
* Watched in horror as my camera blew over on its tripod and was destroyed while attempting to make a timelapse.
* 18+ mile bike ride with Nicole and Heather (video snippet)
* Closed out the year at Violet Blue’s New Year’s party
Whew, what a year. I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to do all of this as well as the chance to share it with an awesome group of people. I wonder what the next year will bring!
When I turned 25 it suddenly dawned on me that if I wanted to be successful and actually do something with my life I was solely responsible for making that happen. The next 3 years of my life saw me sitting down and building up a network of websites. It started as something I enjoyed doing in my free time, and over time it started to eat up more and more of my free time. It opened new doors and also provided some supplemental income. It allowed me to move to San Francisco. It let me buy new gadgets and toys. I longed for the day that I would be able to actually make a living off of all this work. I wanted to answer to nobody but myself. I wanted the excitement of actually creating something. That day has finally come.
Today is my last day at [large software company]. I’m walking away from a great team of people, a nice paycheck, a good working environment, and the security of health benefits, 401(k), vacation time, etc. I’m walking into the unknown of working for myself 100%. Life is good, life is exciting, and it is sure to be an adventure.
Prompted by 6 months of lack of updates on MySpace, I put together a quick “What’s happened in the last 6 months” post. I noticed later that I had already done a few of those months on this site. Oh well, consider this partially a rerun. 🙂
Here are the last 6 months of my life in list format:
October 2007
– Arse Elektronika – How many times in your life can you say you got to see a tongue chainsaw in use?
– LTJ Bukem at Temple (omg) – Incredibly good show that had me dancing even after the rest of the crew left, leaving me alone and smiling.
– Heather’s radioactive treatment for the remainders of the thyroid cancer. She did not gain any new super powers, but everything went well.
– Modeselektor (omg) – tiny little show that was unbelievably good. Dancing until we were dripping with sweat and couldn’t dance any more.
– UNKLE (meh) – finally saw UNKLE live and was unfortunately disappointed.
– Launched www.sklxthemes.com – After months of rewriting the code base I used for sk3themes.com, I launched my first site (www.sklxthemes.com) using the templatized code. Currently the site hovers between 8-9,000 visitors a day. My code stands strong so far! My bandwidth bills ended up shooting through the roof though, but luckily ad revenue still covers it.
November 2007
– Kai’s birthday in Monterey – Went down to Monterey with a group of friends to run around the Monterey aquarium in honor of Kai’s birthday
– Launched www.skslidethemes.com – Second site using my new code! Not as popular since the Slide had a lower adoption rate, but still not bad.
– Said goodbye to Gabby.
– Double date with Mella/Nicole that sparked a Top Gun obsession
– Thanksgiving with Heather’s family
– Mike Doughty – I finally got to see Mike Doughty, the man behind Soul Coughing who’s music I love.
December 2007
– Saw Bladerunner on the big screen – The final cut was released into theaters and we somehow managed to organize 20+? people to get to the theater and see it all together.
– San Jose art trip – Running around San Jose checking out art.
– Early Christmas in NC with my family – Heather and I flew out to NC to stay with my mom and celebrate Christmas early with them. I got to show her around my old high school stomping grounds and she got to meet everyone.
– Heather and I celebrated our anniversary at the top of the Mandarin Oriental – An expensive night, but a gorgeous view with a gorgeous woman that made it worth every bit!
January 2008
– New Years celebration in Joshua Tree – Spent the New Years weekend in Joshua Tree, camping in the backcountry. Millions of Joshua Trees, climbing mountains, freezing, fitting everyone into one tent, and lots of fun.
– Went and ‘heard’ Audium
– Rewatched The Wizard with friends. I love the power glove, it’s so bad.
– Trampolines and Sushi for my birthday (Wow, I actually made it past 27! Now what?)
– Work on 2pir started back up
– Heather and I moved in together into an awesome 2 bedroom right down the street from my old place and across the street from Rubin!
February 2008
– Day trip to LA for work – I love working in the Video Games industry.
– Nicole’s crazy Lego party – So many legos. I didn’t know anyone ever owned that many legos. We managed to put together a couple of sets, but spent most of the time organizing. Rubin made a cool time-lapse video of the afternoon.
– Annual Valentine’s Day Pillow fight in SF – Fun as always
– Snowboarding trip to Yosemite – Spent the weekend with one of Heather’s friends in her cabin in Yosemite. Finally got a chance to go snowboarding after so many years and found out that I still could do it. Next year, more snowboarding trips!
March 2008
– Danger Weekend – shooting semi-automatic weapons and skydiving. I got a chance to shoot an original issue AR-15 and loved it. It’s weird, I never thought I’d be interested in guns.. No interest in shooting anything other than targets though. We also went skydiving the next day. My second jump and it was a lot of fun.
– Bunki got sick (hepatic lipidosis) and had a feeding tube put in! 🙁 We’re not sure why she stopped eating, but she lost 40% of her body weight and her liver wasn’t functioning right. She seems to be on the mend and is eating by herself now. She hates the e-collar though.
– The new and improved Interpretive Arson webpage got built and launched!
– Pi Day (3/14) party at Peter’s – Last minute celebration of Pi day
– Sara’s Arcade Birthday party – A bunch of 20-30 year olds running around an arcade. What’s not to love? Tons of skee ball and crane games.
– (Pre)Easter dinner with Heather’s parents
Whew… Lots of stuff, I’m sure I forgot something or other, but that should be good for now.
I just noticed that I hadn’t posted on here since November and figured maybe it was time for a little update. I’ve been busy, like everyone else in our circle of friends it seems. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s been going on:
January:
My 28th birthday Macworld
I caved and bought a Macbook Pro (no pictures taken for possible future deniability)
Experienced Audium Moved into a new place
Work started back up on 2pir
In more generic news…
The job is going well, the website empire is doing very well, and things are good all around.
I had to make the decision to send my best friend on her way tonight. For 11 years, Gabby has always been there for me. Plopping down next to me on the bed, wrestling her way into my lap, delivering loving head butts, or waking me up in the morning with sandpaper kisses to the face. She’s lived in NC, OH, IL, and CA with me as I moved around. She’s been there during and after just about every serious relationship in my life. She waited patiently for me to finish 4 years of college so that she could live with me again. She put up with Annabelle and Bunki and a number of dogs to hang around. She was quite possibly one of the sweetest cats in the world. She gave so much unconditional love, treating me as if I were one of her kittens to watch over and take care of.
This evening after a beautiful sunset, we took her down to the emergency vet since she had been having significant trouble both breathing and moving and figured it was time to help her out and prevent any more discomfort. I thoroughly enjoyed the last decade or so with this cat in my life. She was always there on my bed when I came home from college or plopped at my side when I was depressed. And her last day was also nice as I got to spend 24 hours with her right by my side, all the way up until the end. I will miss the hell out of her, and I doubt I’ll ever find another cat like her.
Monday evening I got home from work and spent the evening working. I remember noticing Gabby (my 11 year old cat) missing her little window sill ledge in what I thought was just a misstep. You know, the kind that cats do and then quickly look around to make sure nobody was watching. I didn’t think anything of it until it was time to head to bed. I laid down and Gabby jumped off the couch and up into bed and promptly fell over. I got concerned and noticed that not only was she skinnier than usual, but she was having a lot of trouble with her balance. I ended up giving her some wet food, which she ate and actually kept down (normally she just throws it up after enjoying it). After quite a bit of concern I finally caved and called Heather at 2am and we headed in to the Emergency vet in Berkeley.
We ended up at the vet until past 5am, talking to the vet on duty, who basically said it was vertigo. I ended up leaving Gabby there overnight so she could see the neurologist in the morning. The next morning the neurologist didn’t have too much to say about what exactly was going on. The bloodwork all came back normal, and he recommended some more serious tests like an MRI. (Even in the seriousness of the situation I couldn’t help but chuckle when he said “a CAT Scan might help figure out what’s going on”) Apparently there is only one MRI machine in the Bay Area for cats, and it’s in Redwood City. So, tomorrow morning Gabby is going in to her normal vet to see what he has to say.
After quite a bit of digging around on the web I finally stumbled across Feline Vestibular Syndrome. The first result on Google was a blog post that seemed to be right on track. Jacqueline describes her cat’s symptoms as:
* She was listing to the left and was kind of trembly (Gabby seems to list to her right more)
* Her eyes were darting like a metronome from left to right, left to right. (I haven’t noticed this in Gabby, but her eyes do appear dilated. Several people explained that this symptom went away early with their cats, so it’s possible that Gabby may have had this while I was out of town this weekend)
* She would fall over if she tried to walk and generally seemed dizzy and disoriented. (This is exactly how Gabby is acting. She just seems dizzy. She is falling off laps, couches, etc. When she walks, she stumbles and catches herself.)
The good news is that a lot of pages on the web are saying that most cats recover within 72 hours, and almost all are better within a few weeks. Here’s hoping that’s the case with Gabby.
Last night was an interesting evening. After meeting up with Rubin, Jake, and Audrey we headed to get sushi, only to find that BART was closed due to a suicide. Then during sushi at Miyabi, we thought we heard someone drop something in the kitchen. The sound was questioned, and we stopped eating to notice that the ground was kind of swaying. I looked up and saw the lights swinging from side to side. The other diners paused for a minute and you could see everyone waiting to see if things were going to subside or get worse. This was the first quake that I’ve been able to ask “Is this an earthquake?” instead of “Was that an earthquake?”. Being in the moment and realizing what was going on felt slightly more comforting. I even had a chance to flip open my Sidekick and send a Twitter message during the actual earthquake. Unfortunately for my “geek cred” Dan beat my to it by 4 seconds (I blame the Sidekick’s slow SMS sending).
Of course afterwards, we were all looking up info on the magnitude, watching the after shocks register, checking on friends, and deleting Twitters and IMs from just about everyone in the Bay Area. But everything is fine, very little to no damage around and as we waited for BART I noticed that the signs in the station said that there was an “earth tremor” and that trains were slightly delayed as tracks were being checked.
My favorite photo of the damage (as pointed out by s4xton) was this one:
Immediately after the 5.6 rumble, there were a number of after-shocks. These have continued through the night and today ranging in magnitude from 0.7 to 2.8. There are also forecasts of a 30% chance of an aftershock of 5 or greater. Hang on everyone!
Friday, August 3rd
– I miss my cats
– Topless photos are apparently normal for German newspapers
– T-shirts that are US centric are not uncommon over here
It’s weird walking into the condo, half expecting Bunki to be waiting just inside the door for me. It’s taking some getting used to. I’m lonely but more adventurous and interested in getting out and doing something. Spent a good portion of the day thinking about what I should do for the weekend.
The morning was a bit of a surprise when I noticed a German guy in the cafe/gas station reading a newspaper with a large picture of an attractive topless woman. I had noticed previously that they kept the Penthouse and Playboy mags out in the open, but I had no idea that European newspapers were as uncensored. Refreshing to see that other governments aren’t as ridiculous as ours when it comes to things like this.
Even though hardly anyone speaks English around here, they definitely have some US inspired fashion. On Friday I saw two different t-shirts, one with the state of Kentucky, another one for Oklahoma. And of course there’s all the brand names, Nike, Reebok, etc. I also saw a shirt on a guy that said “I want ur sex” (no joke). I’m curious as to where the European fashion is, as most people here dress pretty similar to the states.
Thursday, August 2nd
– Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have an American to talk to
– There doesn’t seem to be anyone under 40 or over 18 here. This is apparently where you go to vacation if you’re old or have kids.
Thursday was a rough day for me. The jet lag was causing me to be grumpy and depressed. Combined with the overwhelming of both work and social interaction in a different language, I was in a not so good mood. Add on to that my poor diet as I couldn’t read most menus and didn’t know what may or may not have dairy in it and I was just miserable. I spent a lot of time just walking up and down the street in front of the beach, wandering past restaurants and people giving me odd looks.
From what I’ve seen, body piercing isn’t too uncommon, however nobody has stretched ears. I’m sure my tunnels are interesting to a few people, and I’ve caught quite a few kids staring. Or maybe it’s my mix of bleached and black hair that gets them. Who knows. One thing that I have noticed is that the mullet is in style over here. I kid you not. There are tons of high school/college age boys running around with mullets, even going so far as to shave the sides to further accentuate this stylish choice in hair. Granted the back is short, but it’s still a mullet. I’ve also spotted a few rat-tails. It’s hard not to stare.
