photo credit: Tawni Rae

Every year I make a list of things to do that year. I refuse to call them resolutions because no one ever does those anyway. I am slightly OCD and organized in life (otherwise I procrastinate horribly) but it's written on a list, I'ma friggin do it. It's a weird little compulsion that I've harnessed as a way to Get Shit Done(TM). At some point, an enterprising young woman will figure this out and try to write "propose to me" on a piece of paper and slip it to me. Meh. Might be easier than doing it on my own. At any rate my equivalence of resolutions is a public list of all the stuff I want to get done for the year. This year's was actually not half bad. I was going to link it in this post to give an example of my weird to-do list mentality when I realized- holy crap, I've accomplished most of my list already. The year is barely half over and I've got like 2.5 items out of 10 to go.

So what does this have to do with anything? Other than pointing out to all you slackers how much I've done so far, I was going to announce that I took my first stab at surfing today and could cross it off the list. That's when I noticed- it wasn't even on the damn list. I had put it off in the past because I thought I wasn't in good enough shape or coordinated enough (newsflash, I'm still not!) but the idea was still kicking around in the back of my mind. "Must be a bucket list item or something", I thought. Not that I maintain one, or even like the idea of one mind you, but I've been kicking around the idea of learning ever since a friend offered to teach me. While we're on the subject, had anyone even heard of the phrase before the Jack Nicholson movie came out? I certainly hadn't and now it's a cemented into everyone's vocabulary to the point you couldn't get it out with an Urban Dictionary sized crowbar. I've come to the decision that I hate this damn phrase and everything it represents.

Because it makes people lazy, that's why.

Life is about goals people. Wait, no, I take that back. Life is about having and accomplishing your goals. This "bucket list" bullshit encourages people to put their desires on a magical list and get to it before they die. It's the ultimate New Year's resolution / procrastinator bastard love child. It's resolutions for lazy people- don't worry about accomplishing them this year, you have your whole life. You don't need that kind of pressure man!

F that. I got junk to do and no magical "eventually" wish list is going to make it happen for me. There is a list, it is short, it has an expiration date, and shit is getting done man. Each year's list builds off the previous years. Bucket list. Whatever.

And yeah, I'm going surfing against next weekend. Probably every weekend from here on actually, until I can actually manage to stay upright on the board for longer than 0.2s. I will however be buying a rashguard because right now my chest looks like a slab of raw meat.

I really need to make better lists. 2010's already needs more stuff on it.

Peace out!

(heh, I said rectify.)

First things first: let me start by telling you who I am NOT talking about. I am not talking about the homeless, the unfortunate, the downtrodden, the Girl Scouts, the Shriners, or the poor. I'm not saying that each of these are not worthy causes, or that they don't do great things. They do. Who I am talking about, is you. Yes. you. All of you reading this, but you in particular. Don't look behind you because there's no one there. I'm talking to you so pay attention. I'm writing about this nasty little trend of "my life is not my fault", aka the Cult of No Responsibility, that seems to be taking over our society. It's time to quit being whiny wonders and start taking responsibility for both the good and the bad parts of your life. It can be overt or it can be insidious; it can be intentional or unknowing, but one way or another everyone out there (including you and me) have at some point tried to escape blame for something. I'm here to say stop. Stoppit right now.

It's sometimes difficult to know when you're one of these people. Quite often it takes a dramatic life event to shake your world view enough to make you realize what you're doing. Mine happened in 2004; I ended up spending 10 days in jail because I was basically a dumbass. I went through life running from my problems instead of taking care of them and tried to hide. When everything finally caught up to me I had time to sit, figure out what I was doing wrong, and decide how to fix it. Ever since then my personal mantra has been that you can't take credit for your successes without also taking credit for your failures. If I see the former without the latter I'm immediately on my guard in either a personal or professional setting. On the flip side of this, you can go too far and be paralyzed by the "it's all my fault" syndrome. I've made a list here of the little rules that I've learned over the last six years so hopefully it helps someone out by posting it here too.

• Nearly everything in your life is under your direct control. Events themselves may not be results of your direct choice, but 99% of the time you made a choice that put you on this path.
• Understand that while your choices put you in a situation, your choices can also take you out of it too. Sure, your sucky life may be all your fault and you know it. But as you put yourself there you have to be the one to pull yourself out too.
• Admit your mistakes. People will generally help you work through it and you'll probably learn something new to boot. This generally only works once per person. Abuse it and you'll lose what friends and family you have left.
• If you DO make a mistake, don't try to cover it up. It invariably backfires and you look worse than ever.
• There is no such thing as luck. I have heard so many times how lucky I am. Let's set the record straight: I was not born clutching a winning lottery ticket. I grew up strictly low-middle middle class. My dad often worked multiple jobs to provide for us, and my mom worked too as soon as we were old enough. My sisters and I worked around the house, had jobs as soon as we turned 16, and were expected to bring home good grades too. Everything I'm good at today, from my job expertise to my friend making ability to my fitness level I've had to work my ass off for. The only thing in life that I've EVER had without working for is my limited ability to draw.
• There is no such thing as talent. There IS such a thing called inclination. Nature and nurture can combine together in weird ways to give someone a formative edge over someone else in niche xyz. The biggest thing that comprises that which is commonly referred to as talent is "time vested". Also known as practice. Using my ability to draw I mentioned above, it's nothing more than a trick of good hand / eye coordination, my brain acts like a photocopy machine. To this day I can't sit down and draw things out of my head.
• The expedient thing and the right thing are seldom the same thing.
• You HAVE to try new things. Always. How else do you know what you'll enjoy? I'm horrible at writing but I keep plugging away here because it's cathartic, and I think I'm getting better. My website traffic is going up to, so that seems to be a good sign.

Further good reads on this topic:
How to be Resilient - Part 1 : The Art of Manliness
Bosting Your Resiliency - Part 2 : The Art of Manliness

So what brought all this on? It's a long story at this point but I've discovered it's not an uncommon phenomenon in the tech world. Whether your IT or IS (ie, computer guy or programmer), there is such a wealth of knowledge and specialization that it's easy to be tempted to cover your mistakes. IT in general is a high pressure career vs the old days circa 2000; no longer gods, IT people are leashed to the MBAs of the world and can't treat everyone as a "n00b". There will always be someone better and/or cheaper than you, so at the end of the day it's your people skills and respect that are the ONLY things that will save you (and your job).

Click here to download. You probably wanna right-click save as.

photo credit: dougtone

I suspected that moving cross country would involve tons of new and exciting experiences for me, not the least of which would be able to see the sky for more than 5 minutes continuously. For those of you not familiar with Mobile, AL it rains a lot. How much do I mean by "a lot?" you ask? There's used ark lots every few miles and the day after I flew out it began raining and did so every single day for the next 22 days. I wish I could act shocked but this is actually pretty common.

As a side result of growing up in a city that could pass for Atlantis to the ancient Greeks, I feel my driving skills (especially in this stuff called "weather") are pretty respectable. I'm not talking stunt car driving here; I think I'm somewhere halfway between that level and the level that every male over the age of 16 thinks he is. Pretty aight in other words yeah? Despite my ninja-like reflexes and cool demeanor under pressure, it still took me about three months to learn the unwritten rules of driving in San Diego. In an effort to save visitors some time and frustration in the future I've compiled my wisdom here. Without further ado, the 10 Rules to Driving in San Diego

1. All Mercedes are driven by women and all BMWs are driven by men. This is an important thing to know because Mercedes will run you off the road Mad Max style, whereas BMWs will drive faster than you no matter what.

*exception: Older model Mercedes can be driven by men and older model BMWs can be driven by women. My theory is that men have to buy their wife new car and get stuck with her old Merc, or they buy themselves a new car and foist their old one off on the wife. Interestingly enough this theory has its roots in geeks and new computer systems.



Old men and luxury cars? Napping on the freeway!

2. Always follow an Audi when speeding. Every Audi owner in existence drives 10-15 mph over the speed limit and thinks he's an Indy car superstar.
3. The closer you get to LA, the faster you will drive. LA has its own speed-gravity well that will make you drive faster. The exception to this is of course rushhour(s) which is from 4am to 3:50am every day.
4. If you see other lanes moving faster than yours DO NOT change lanes, I can't emphasis this enough. Everyone else sees it just like you and they're all going to jump into it making it the new slow lane. Stay where you are and your turn to be the fast lane will come. Then everyone will want in YOUR lane (just stay outta mine).
5. Wrecks will ruin your commute, period. It doesn't matter that it's just a fender bender in the carpool lane because all traffic will be stopped at least 5 miles before it and possibly after it. Even longer if there's flashing lights.
6. The carpool lane. Oh, the carpool lane. Where else do we spend millions of dollars to build something that most people never get to use? Probably 5% of people use it regularly, and any time one starts, ends, or there's a wreck, it completely @#$@# up the flow of traffic for the other 95% of us. Hoorah.
7. Weather. Hoooly crap weather. San Diegians are great with sunshine and fog and cloudiness. They are not so great with rain. In their defense it's pretty hard to be a good driver in conditions that you see maybe twice in your life. Coupled on top of that is the fun fact that on the whole, San Diego doesn't have storm drains. The ground doesn't absorb it either; the roadside is so tough that rainwater runs back on the road in an effort to find somewhere soft to hide. Since it doesn't rain that often the rainwater picks up the layer of oil and emissions on the road and the freeway is now a ghetto recreation of the Icecapades with two ton death machines with squealing tires instead of highly trained singing dancers.


Hey I know, let's reenact Footloose!

8. Every Prius you see (and there are plenty) will attempt to cut you off. No question. Just be ready for it and don't expect the blinker.
9. Blinkers are optional, but highly advisable. If you cut someone off with your blinker on they'll wave and smile politely like they intended for you to get over. If you don't use a blinker and try this you get flipped the bird.
10. The best lane to pass in is the upcoming exit lane, especially if it's an exit only lane. By far these are the least populated lanes on the freeway making them ideal for quick acceleration and maximum anger-inducing in your fellow drivers.
11. Pedestrians have the right-of-way no matter what. This was a bit of an adjustment for me personally since the Alabama law states "on a crosswalk" at the end. Not so much here- people feel perfectly safe crossing parking lots while playing hopscotch or say, trying to perform handstands, and have no fear of getting hit by a car. By comparison bicyclists do not enjoy the same immunity and are supposed to be treated like any other vehicle. It's always fun to slam on your breaks and watch an obnoxious cyclist go flying over your trunk and hood.


Hahah..wait, that's not funny.

photo credit: craigemorsels

If the average American is anything like me you can't avoid the recent deluge of Asian influence in our culture. By recent I mean the last 5 years or so, and by Asian I mean Japanese. I figure the average American likes to generalize like I do but just incase I got real specific for you non-average haters out there.

It's not that I dislike Japan or its culture or its people. Nothing against any of that whatsoever. It's just that the land of Japan is so damn scary. If the Internet and popular media is to believed, Japan is full of ghosts, evil witches that enslave your parents, random rampaging monsters, and sentient tentacles that do things to you that require a doll and a psychologist to explain (no I am not linking to that).

Doesn't everyone play peekaboo with the undead?

Sure, I hear what you're saying. That's all make believe right? Keep in mind that even if it is, SOMEONE thought it up. Do you want to meet the people who think this stuff up?!

Aside from the frightening imagination of Japanese people, there's the threat of the islands native flora and fauna. It's not a wonder that the average Japanese imagination is so out there when reality is filled with things like this:

The Aokigahara Forest. Also known as the Sea of Trees, apparently it's the world's third most popular suicide spot and ranks #6 on Cracked.com's Creepiest Places on Earth list. More than 500 people have died in this forest since the 1950s. Urg.

Giant Wood Spiders. I don't like to think of myself as a pansy, but these spiders are omfgholyshit horrible. Don't believe me? As a member of the golden orb family of spiders (due to the color of their silk) guys have the strongest spider web of any spider. How strong? Uh..it's not uncommon for birds to be stuck in their webs. And then eaten. We have similar spiders in the US, smaller versions commonly called garden or banana spiders. What makes the Japanese ones worse? Well, besides being 6-8inches in size they're considered lucky if seen in the daylight, so you don't see people disturbing them even if their giant 2-4 foot webs are stretched over a sidewalk or path. I wonder how many Japanese children vanished before they learned to respect these giant killers. The spiders probably blame it on the Aokigahara Forest.

Honey have you seen the kids lately?

Last on the list is the Japanese Hornet. The wikipedia article does a fantastic job of summing up why these hornets are the devil incarnate, but in case you're too lazy to click it let me sum it up for you:

• Masato Ono, an entomologist at Tamagawa University near Tokyo, described the sensation of being stung as feeling "like a hot nail being driven into his leg."
• Each year in Japan, the human death toll caused by Asian giant hornet stings exceeds that of all other venomous and non-venomous wild animals combined, including wild bears and venomous snakes.
• The venom contains at least eight distinct chemicals, some of which damage tissue, some of which cause pain, and at least one which has an odor that attracts more hornets to the victim.
• An allergic human stung by the giant hornet may die from an allergic reaction to the venom, but the venom contains a neurotoxin called mandaratoxin[5] which can be lethal even to people who are not allergic if the dose is sufficient.
• Like all hornets it has a barbless stinger, allowing it to sting repeatedly.

YOU argue with him.

photo credit: carolyntiry

A lot of people don't like to make New Year's resolutions for a variety of reasons. I'd like to think that I've heard every excuse there is at this point but people continually find new ways to surprise me. The two most common (to date) that I've heard are:

1. "Oh, I don't need a reason to make goals, I have them year-round."
2. "People never stick to resolutions anyway so why bother."

There's a whole slew of ways to argue these points, but for me it just isn't worth it. While I agree with the first statement in principle, New Years and its associated traditions provide a logical, easily remembered point in time to set goals for yourself for the coming year. If you're committed enough to not need such a landmark date that's great, but I'll stick with what works for me.

In years past I never bothered setting goals for myself. Sometimes (infrequently) New Years was a good time to look over what happened to me in the last year and try to figure out what went wrong. The past two years were the first times I tried setting concrete goals for myself and it worked out pretty well. I think that where this practice fails for a lot of folks is that they don't set concrete enough goals. If you don't know your goal, how can you judge your progress or success / failure?

Now without further pontificating- my goals for 2010.

Fitness

• I want to maintain a 30-31 inch waist.
• Make it to the gym 4 days a week at least every other week, if not every week.
• Reduce my bodyfat. My scale currently says I'm at ~8-9%, but I wonder how accurate that is. That might be true overall, but most of my bodyfat is concentrated around the 'ole waistline. Needs to even out!
• Be able to squat 160lbs, bench press 180lbs, and do 100 pushups. Not necessarily all of these back to back

Hobbies

• Read at least 3 books a month (or 36 books for the year) with at least half being non-fiction. I'm great at tearing through fiction but I'm slow on the nonfic.
• Draw more. I haven't actively sketched anything in years, and the LA Ink marathon I watched while fighting off the deadly ninja sinus virus ..thing rekindled the creative urge in me. I haven't decided what I'm going to draw yet but I want to have at least four finished pieces by the end of the year.
• Photography. I definitely want to take more pictures, and I've started on that by joining the 365 Project. It's not a competition- you just take a picture every day and post it. I also want to enter at least two photo contests this year.
• San Diego Exploration. At least once a month, try something new around town. This includes hiking.

Self Improvement

• Learn a foreign language. This is one of my failed goals from last year, sadly. Logically enough I'm starting with Latin American Spanish since it's the second most popular language here. I'd also like to be able to talk to the nice smiling people who run the 24 hour burrito drive thru near my house.
• Add a new technical skill / certification. I'm leaning strongly toward PHP here due to my increasing WordPress involvement. Currently I'm more of a talented amateur hacker at it than anything else.

So thems my goals for the year. The fitness ones should be a breeze, the hobby ones a bit harder, and I think that the self improvement ones will be the hardest of all.

So my planned New Year's post didn't make it up because my New Year's day hike decided to infect me with a deadly ninja sinus virus. In lieu of that I have this nifty panoramic picture for your viewing pleasure. Just right click and save as.

Thumbnail Size (400x114)
Regular-ish Size (1500 x 427)
ZEE BIG SIZE (7692 x 2188)

photo credit: nDevilTV

Traditionally this is the time of year that I do the typical year in review type post. I broke tradition the past several years by either not posting at all or posting my todo list / resolutions for the year. Since the todo thing worked out well last year, I'm going to be wild and do both this year, though not in the same post. I'm writing this amid dirty looks and calls of "see you next year!" at a crowded Starbucks. The dirty looks are probably because I'm taking up an entire couch thingy with my feet propped up. Too bad! It's near a power outlet. Finders keepers and all that.

2009 in Rewind
I don't think there's any way I can describe 2009 other than frelling awesome. (Yes, I used frelling in a sentence. I'm aware it's a made up word. So is grok and I plan to use that at some point too so shove off.) Overall I think 2009 has gone well for me

Where I succeeded:

• I got in better shape. It hasn't been as quick as I wanted but I think I had some pretty unrealistic expectations going in. I've still got a long way to go but now I'm educated. I know more about muscle groups, exercises, and nutrition which will make this year even easier. It's like running downhill I think; the further you go the easier it gets. Daily Burn and my trainer Dennis were vital parts of this process as was the support of my friends and family.
• I was better at managing my money. I've setup automatic transfers into savings each pay check and a small spending stipend for things like books and movies. Mint.com has been a huge bonus to getting this done. Mint is like an automated version of Quicken allowing for automatic transaction categorization and alerts for a variety of situations (pending credit card payments, over budget, etc).
• Get more into my hobbies. Another one for the "win" column. I've been delving more and more into amateur digital photography/art, even to the point of opening my own store to sell prints. I've read more too, thanks to the Kindle app for the PC and iPhone, and I'm keeping up with it all via GoodReads. I rebuilt my website into something I like and I'm willing to maintain. As a side benefit I've learned a ton more about WordPress and I've actually done some custom site work and hosting. Hiking and camping excursions continue to grow, though not quite to the level I'd like. Moving out to San Diego will probably help that quite a bit.
• I moved to San Diego. Oh yes, this was a goal and it was most definitely met.

Where I failed:

• Self improvement. I didn't add a new technical skill or certification to my repertoire, and I didn't learn a new language. Gonna have to bump this one into this coming year.

Everything else:

• I bought a new car.
• I got invaded by ants.
• I had a few issues with the neighbors.
• I (unsuccessfully) tried Rogaine. More on this later.
• Attended MetaCon '09. Words cannot describe this event, ever. Probably because of the gag order from the judge. This year's MetaCon 2010 promises to be better!
• I got a job with Sony and moved to San Diego.
• Got told the truth a lot. Example: : patience (you don't have) is a virtue (again which you don't have)
• Did a fair amount of blogging. God, I hate that word. How about we say writing instead?
• Gained (and lost) a roommate.
• Went camping twice. Must do more!
• Got closer to my family. (Yeah, a win/loss there right? )
• Did I mention I took a lot of pictures?
• Got inspired by a pretty awe-inspiring blog post related to Harry Potter. I kid you not. Thankfully it's mostly due to the writer not the Harry Potter aspect.

Stay tuned for the 2010 todo list! Here's to another awesome year.