posted Dec 12, 2006, 10:11 AM | 4 Comments
I try to work 7 - 3 here at my home office, keeping the same basic company schedule as my east coast peeps. It's great. I've always said that 9 to Noon are the best hours of the day, and now I feel like my whole work day builds up to free time (instead of whittling away at my evening). Important, sunshine after work.
I hit up the Santa Barbara DMV yesterday to renew my Cali license. It felt like a luxury cruise compared to some experiences I've had (talk to me after you've spent 3 hours at the Van Nuys DMV) but I still had to wait for the usual red tape - numbers to be called, people exasperated at rules that can't be bent, English mixing with Spanish.
I stood in the "Start Here" line, form in hand, and looked over at the wall. There, staring sternly down at all of the dozens of people waiting to get out of there, was this portrait of Arnold Shwarzenegger. I actually laughed out loud. In a split second my mind ran threw every possible reason why a portrait of Arnold might be hung in a DMV (a symbol of strength and efficiency; whining will not be tolerated; an inside joke; one of the counter ladies is a huge fan; someone found it in the parking lot; pure irony). Then I remembered the real reason: he watches over this bureaucracy.
Picture it. Two dozen people sitting in blue chairs, standing at brown counters. After everything he's accomplished, Arnold hangs on the wall of the DMV.
posted Dec 5, 2006, 01:29 AM | 8 Comments
As I drove up the coast on the 101 late last Thursday night (In 'N Out milkshake in hand) it occurred to me that there's a lot of great stuff going on in my life these days. I've also been thinking a lot about something Alison wrote - how in the old days she would ask herself, "When I sit down tonight to write about today, what will I say?"
I was the same way, 5 years ago. Until I'm better embracing the part of me that remembers creation is mandatory, here's a list of what I've been up to. Sometimes you've gotta dump the brain cache of potential posts to make room for fresh material, for life.
- 8/9: Bachelor party in Vegas. Cracks me up to think about it.
- 8/12: Married Jenny on a truly beautiful day. All wedding receptions should have a bouncy castle. Check out 94 formal photos from the wedding. Or thumb through 600 candids from our wedding day. Or hold your breath until we pick a manageable set of 50.
- 8/17 - 9/1: Honeymoon in Thailand. Fun and relaxing.
- October: One of the best New England autumns I can remember. I made it a point to go jogging for a few minutes each day. The sun, the air.
- 10/6: Started a new full time job with PlusThree after considering multiple offers. They've got me doing interface design (Photoshop, XHTML, CSS), big rollouts for political campaigns & non-profits. It's great working from home with structure and project management. (designed book site for Edwards, working on this). Thanks to Rusty for helping me get the job. (again).
- 10/7: Spent the day in Salem to celebrate my friend Hollis's 30th birthday. What a nice, witchy town.
- 10/21: My PC died its final death when I sat down (under the influence) to show my friend Jake the video for Peanut Butter Jelly Time. Shut down and never turned on again. Good riddance.
- 10/22: Bought a 24" iMac from the Apple Store in Braintree, MA, along with a copy of Parallels to browser-check XP in realtime. With me second monitor, it's the ideal system. Wish I could have done this years ago.
- 10/26: Rigged the "Stuff I have Created" section atop the Sixfoot6 front page to load random items on refresh. More coming.
- 11/7: Flew to NYC with Rusty to visit the company office and see friends. Fantastic to be there for the elections - all our candidates won. Such optimism, the mood at the Drinking Liberally party on election night. Sipping coffee while staring out of a 27th floor window, in NYC on business, it occurred to me that I'm an adult. It's nice, and I'm not bad at it.
- 11/10 - 11/17: After 13 wonderful months, left Massachusetts behind (again) and drove west. A crying mother is never an easy thing to bear. I miss my parents, my backyard, downtown Plymouth, Molly, Josh and Dave. A good drive, my 7th cross country leg - Boulder and salt flats in Utah were highlights.
- 11/23: Thanksgiving in Santa Barbara. I played with my nephew and our friends' daughter, Etta. Back in Mass, my parents had no children around for the holiday : (
- 11/30: The first of three McPilgrim shows at the Lounge Theatre in Hollywood. Catch us at 9pm on Dec 7th or 14th, performing with another comedy troupe. Felt good to be on stage again.
- 12/1: My Nintendo Wii arrived, a housewarming gift to ourselves. Best thing ever. Tennis! Zelda! I agree with Jason's Wii thoughts. And once i figured out how to catch fish, Zelda has been a blast.
- 12/2: Jenny and I moved into our new house here in Santa Barbara, a beautiful 3 bedroom home near the Santa Barbara Mission. It's good to have warm weather and our own space again. Now we just need to unpack.
Now I need to massage my somewhat creative brain. And buy some groceries.
