Pain and suffering

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Rode 103 miles yesterday with Tim. The horror, the horror! Key mistake? Forgot to put on sunblock before leaving home. Thank god I at least had a long sleeve shirt on under my jersey so my arms, which were already mildy burned from Spain, didn't get any worse. I might be in the hospital today. As it is, I woke up this morning and my legs were bright red and stinging badly. I hate sunburns, not so much because they hurt but more because of the idea of damage from the sun, skin cancer, all that.
My legs hurt inside, too. Hadn't ridden anywhere close to that all season, and I'd ridden 30 pretty hard miles Saturday, so I was in some serious pain yesterday. In fact, with the exception of cramping, I think that's the most fatigued I've ever been on a bike. Many times during that last 25 miles I just wanted to be home. I had two flats. My back tire is hosed, I think that's the same tire I rode in STP last year, and it's covered with cracks.
My legs really hurt inside today, too. It's more of a dull, throbbing soreness.
I have a love hate thing going on with road riding. It can be slow suffering. Climbing up a mountain with your cadence at 40, slogging along at 6mph, unable to lift your head up because you're straining so hard, your legs as heavy as sand, it's somewhat sadistic. Maybe I just need to ride in more events, which tend to be fun. On the other hand, it was a beautiful day and it's a great way to see the countryside. I think having people to ride with of comparable or slightly better ability definitely helps.
I don't know how I'm going to finish RAMROD at 156 miles. Well, it wouldn't be nearly as interesting or good for me if it was easy, and I still have 3 weeks of hard core training to prepare for it. Tim is in good shape, he's put in the miles, he'll be ready.
We got lost a few times on the way back from Enumclaw, and some road closures around Sammammish threw us for a loop, literally. We spent way too much time in Issaquah, we decided.
The Tour de France starts Saturday. Can't wait. That may motivate me in my training a bit. Did you know that the Tour is the third most watched sporting event in the world, behind World Cup and the Super Bowl? Few people in the U.S. watch cycling. It's like soccer. But I recommend some of you catch a stage or two this year. The first stage, an individual time trial, is a good one. Or try and catch the team trial, which is one of the most beautiful things to watch in sports, in my opinion.
Saw Ottmar Liebert at the pier yesterday, kicking off Robert and my summer pier concert series. Beautiful night to sit by the water's edge and watch the sunset while listening to some Spanish music. Music was great, and we topped it off with a fat meal at Wild Ginger. I was dying by the time we reached the restaurant, as I'd had just a bowl of cereal and Clif bars and a 6-inch sub all day while riding. Oh, one more good thing about riding: you can eat basically whatever you want because you burn thousands of calories when you're out for six to eight hours on your saddle. I need to shed lots of pounds for RAMROD, it will be a high burn, high consumption month.

A dream

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While it's fresh in my mind, a recap of a dream I just had:
I'm wandering around these gothic towns. Everything silent. Not sure why. Examining these rooms. For a reason. Not sure what. But some reason related to art.
Then, Howie and Mark have sent me a blind date to some event. Not sure what. No, maybe I am in SF? Anyway, I meet her. Quiet, somewhat pretty Asian girl. I shake her hand and start showing her around this mansion Mark lives in. Point out all the fancy appliances in the kitchen (hey, sort of like Sang's kitchen!). Then the huge living room with vaulted ceiling (like home in Naperville). The yard out back. The giant swimming pool. Room with a chess (Chinese chess? Go?) board. Then basement, which is not finished, just a storage room (again, this is my experience from the past). Howie wants me to wear this strange type of suit with a short with no buttons or collar. Then I ask Mark to borrow the phone b/c I'm going to call my mom, who I've forgotten to call for several days while I've been away from home.
Then I'm in a high school, wandering around a gym area, around the halls. Then a teacher approaches me, asks me what I'm doing here. I'm about to enroll, I'm just checking out the facilities. But, she says, what year are you. I admit I've got a few year's of college under my belt. I say two. Wait, as we walk towards an escalator (??), a huge escalator, and ride down from this gym locker area, I realize I've finished college. Maybe I can teach. She says great, that would take a huge burden off of her so that she could work more with crafts.
Now we're at the bottom of this huge long escalator (am I riding down from the sky? It's like a mall, Pacific Place, with shops off to the right. Now I'm at the bottom, and Joannie and maybe Karen and maybe an uncle are there in a room. They're in this room, and I see these crazy creatures inside. They're robotic pets, small dinosaurs, but they're crazy. I know this about these types of pets, they attack people and chew up clothes, slobber, jump all over you. They're miniature and insane. The teacher opens the door to this room they're in and all the animals run out. The dog is at my leg immediately, slobbering all over me. I'm holding something, and one of the dinosaur robots starts eating it and runs off with the item halfway down its throat. Some lady at a desk fends one of these creatures off. Ugh, I hate these things. Why don't people get ride of them.
Joannie and them were watching a movie. They've just finished watching it. Joannie says it was very good, they just watched Alibi /ah luh bee/. I say, "It's Alibi /a leh by/." No, she says, the theme song was Alibi /ah luh bee/ . I'm thinking of that movie, Her Alibi? Starring that model, what was her name, I'm sounding it out, and Joannie says something like Corretja, some Spanish model? No, I'm thinking Stephanie... (after waking up just now, I realize I knew her face, and it's Paulina Porizkova). Hmm, but maybe it was some other movie. Alibi. Sounds like a murder mystery?
I wake up, realize I've been exhausted ever since my trip to Spain. I fell asleep again this morn after my alarm went off. Rush to computer to jot down this vivid dream, which I know will be gone from my mind shortly. Not an easy to understand dream.

Back in the saddle

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First day back at work today. Around 1100 e-mail messages. Took me most the day just to get through it all. Whew!
Woke up at like 4:30 in the morning after passing out cold the night before. Haven't been that tired in a long time. Went for a 26 mile bike ride before heading into work. Damn, I am slow now. Felt so heavy. Very frustrating. RAMROD is a month away, and I am not close to ready. But the vacation was necessary, and I will just have to ride my ass off this month. Tim wants to meet at 6am on the bridge tomorrow for a ride. That guy's an animal on two wheels! He may be the type of gung-ho bike marine I need to beat me into shape.
It's tough to get motivated for riding this year. Fewer folks to ride with as most folks I rode with last year aren't doing the biking thing again. Lonely and boring to go on long rides alone. Todd and Rachael have dropped out of RAMROD this year, so I think it's down to Jessie, Tim, and myself. I'm not even sure I can keep up with those two, so July 26 might be a long day of hanging out with myself.
Traveling alone in Madrid after splitting off from Toni and Erin and John, I was reminded of Hannibal Lecter, living alone in Italy. Goody goody.
Back on the subject of aesthetic sensibilities, I'm going to change the art hanging up in my room. Bought a few prints out in Spain, and an original painting. Also just got most of my framed German Crouching Tiger posters back and they look great in their frames. My whole room is going to undergo some simplification, just like my life.
So many phone calls today from folks. Derek might swing through Seattle early August. I have to decide if I'm going to make Peter's wedding in Prague. Really would like to go, but Derek's visit would overlap. I don't have that Prague ticket yet, and it will be pricey. But would love to see Peter get married, and have wanted to see Prague for many years.
So much more to write, but I gotta get up early to ride with Tim. Can't lose discipline just one day back from vacation.

le sangria-froid

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Hola mis amigos. I'm back. My body exists in its own state of biological synchronicity, thus I am up at 5 in the morning. It's always easier for me to fight jet lag by staying up late, as is usually the case on the journey home, than to try and sleep, which is the case on the way over. Still, it will be a long day. Lots to catch up on around the house.
Oh, I'm loving this American keyboard. I was thinking, maybe they use punctuation in different ways, thus leading to a different optimal keyboard design. Fewer questions, less need for colons, stuff like that. I'm glad to say I fought that design for my week and a half there and continued to punctuate as necessary.
[Aside: Speaking of grammar and punctuation I've been browsing through my
new copy of Garner's A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, which is genius, and must point out a useful entry on the misuse of "aggravate for annoy or irritate." Garner recommends that this usage "be avoided in formal writing" as "strictly speaking, aggravate means 'to make worse, exacerbate'". I only note this because I heard it used on the trip a few times...if some of the Spaniards I encountered could speak English, they would be saying "gringo dumb American, you aggravate me." I would not have had the heart to correct them.]
My roomie Rich has taken a new job and is leaving for New York to study finance for five months. So much change happening around me. I'm glad I took a vacation, otherwise I'd feel like a slug considering the life changes folks around me are diving into (job changes, marriage, kids). Getting away helped me to clear my head and think some more about what my next steps are. One idea I had was to make a movie--I even have an idea for a short film. And an idea for the female lead, though I wonder if she'll want to act in it. Hmmm. As most amateur film directors know, finding good actors is one of the elements most out of their control and thus one of the most frustrating things about that field. I wonder which of my friends would make good actors.
I think my entire trip has influenced my aesthetic sensibility. I had a dream just now, before I ran to the computer, where I saw in a Spanish traffic circle the perfect composition for a photograph, and I woke up desperately groping around my bed for my camera. I started to hone my sense of composition with the camera while overseas. Don't know why I didn't think of it before, but I tried to make it a conscious consideration more. It's part instinct, of course, but I'm still a novice so I have to experiment and play around and see what I come up with. But I definitely think my photos from this trip will be better than those I got in Africa. My first few rolls of transparencies (i.e. slides) show some promise, though I got some vignetting in the upper right corner of my shots. Damn. Must have been the two filters I put on my lens. I definitely have to figure that out.
Flipping through some photography compilations, like that of William Klein, has helped me with my own feel for photography.
So so nice to put vacation messages on voicemail and answering machine. Come back to very few phone messages. E-mail, on the other hand, is another story. I'm not even going to begin downloading messages until I get into the office tomorrow.

Saville

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Okay, this keyboard in Saville is a bit closer to those in the U.S. So I can type a bit more. Arrived in Saville tonight by bus from Lagos in Portugal. I love Saville! Reminds me of Florence in some ways. Spent the night wandering the streets of Saville, drinking local beer and sangria and eating tapas. Am slightly intoxicated as I write, so the fluorescent light off this screen is giving me a headache. Yeee-ha!
Salema in Portugal was nice. Remote fishing town, like Cinqueterre in Italy. Spent time on the beach, just lounging with the locals. Windy out there. The Portuguese have a little brother/big brother complex with Spain, so actually my French came in handy.
Staying at Hotel Amadeus in Santa Cruz here in Saville. Right next to the cathedral, which is magnificent at night. I was so relaxed tonight. Just wanted to sit and soak it all in. It feels like the city is vibrating under my feet. The food and drink is great.
I

The Pugilist at Rest

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I'm off to Spain. Well, actually, first to Vancouver, then to Portugal, and then to Spain. But it's like saying you're from Chicago when you're actually from Naperville. Broad brushstrokes we're painting here.
Up all night packing and finishing up stuff for work. Vacations are always like this for me. Up all night, half coherent by the time I'm in the air, and somewhat nervous that I've forgotten to bring something important--underwear, passport, plane ticket. Frantic phone calls from well-wishers that you field while folding laundry in the other hand. Wishing you had left more time to call other people.
It's a true getaway. I really need one, and now that it's here, I feel so relieved. My hope is to come back stronger, more in control, and ready to go. But also, more relaxed, more at peace. The pugilist at rest.
If I find a computer over there, I'll try and post some updates here. But if not, I'll try and snap lots of photos and post both those and my shots from Africa when I return. And I'll have time to do so, because I'll have achieved that work/life balance again.
Ironically, I ordered some Spanish software from Amazon and it just arrived today. A lot of good it will do me sitting on my desk these next two weeks.
See you soon, folks.

Paralysis

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I haven't written in a long time. I just haven't felt like it. I can't remember the last time I've felt like writing anything. Not a good place to be. This must be what Samson felt like when he got that haircut.
Work has been extremely busy. Nothing new there. I feel like I'm reacting, rather than in control. Haven't ridden my bike in two weeks. I can't remember the last time I worked out. I feel like wallpaper at the high school prom. Even I have to admit that for once, I have crossed the line between healthy and unhealthy work/life balance. My e-mail inbox is almost over a thousand, now, and my voicemail box is backed up. It's all just a bit too much.
When I leave for Spain next week, I will be escaping. I don't even know where I'm going yet. Toni and Erin have planned it all out. I'm just going to throw a toothbrush in my bag and leave. Maybe somewhere over there I will figure it all out, hear the sirens calling, something like that. Sometimes you just survive and hang on, and then some epiphany strikes. It's not the most glamorous way to live. I'm quite Clark Kent right now.
But when you don't feel like writing, that's when you should, because it's a job. I should take my own advice.
Let's see...
I think two friends of mine started dating this past month, fell in love, and got engaged. It can happen...happiness can just overtake you like a fever. Wow. Unbelievable. Hope. That's the eighth engagement I've heard of this year, all people I know. Some have taken only a month, and one was 10 years in the making. At some point you have to stop and think, am I missing something here?
I was thinking just now, I always get misty-eyed in that one segment of the Oscars where they show all the folks in showbiz that died that past year.
When I was young, I used to always want to stay up past bedtime to watch movies when they were shown on network TV on weeknights. It could be a movie I'd seen many times before. A movie I had on video that I hadn't cared to watch in ages. But put it on TV and suddenly it became irresistible. It had to do with the sense that all these other people around the world were watching it as well. This desire to be part of the global community of voyeurs. Not very healthy. But I don't have that feeling anymore because there are so many channels you don't really feel that anything is really must-see anymore. The Oscars are an exception. But with cable, satellite, the Internet...it's harder to feel like one is part of a larger community. Maybe it explains some of this isolation I feel.
Rachael took me to see Baraka at the Seattle Int'l Film Festival the other day. It was very very good. One of those times you enter the theater without very high expectations and come out blown away. No narrative either, just an essay of pictures and music in 70mm. Rachael is about the only person other than my office mate and my roommate I've seen on a consistent basis this past month. I'm a wraith.
I watched two Kiyoshi Kurosawa films at the film fest, and both starred Koji Yakusho, who I'd only seen in Shall We Dance before. I guess he's a big star in Japan. He's everywhere.
My dad is thinking of perhaps taking one of the early retirement packages from Lucent. He asked me what I thought, and it was strange. I was somewhat jealous that he even had the option.
Played my first softball game yesterday. I'm on a team that's already played five games, and I may only make one game all year. Sang stuck me at third base, the hot corner. I hate playing third on that crappy infield on Mercer Island. You never get a true hop and huge lunky guys are hitting lasers at you all night. So of course, some hot one-hopper takes a nasty bounce and hits me in the face, on my nose and upper lip. I have a nice red mark on my upper lip and a big cut in my mouth, but mostly I'm sore. There goes my stage face.
Living ugly...

Crisis of faith

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Currently going through some soul searching. Haven't felt like writing in my blog. I think I really need to get to Spain. I'm totally out of focus.
A few random thoughts.
Watch Wong Kar Wai's BMW Film Follow just to hear the rendition of "Unicornio" he uses on the soundtrack. Lovely. Not sure if you can buy that version, but the original is pretty good.
William Klein's photos of New York are great.
Supreme Court ruled that Casey Martin could ride a golf cart on the PGA Tour. The sad thing isn't that he won the decision. The sad thing is that the Supreme Court had to rule on that on the first place. The PGA Tour should've given Casey Martin an exemption long ago. Then it wouldn't have gone to court, and the PGA wouldn't look so inhumane. I play golf. Letting a guy with a handicap like Martin use a cart is not a big deal. If a pro golfer can't walk the course when he doesn't even have to carry his own bag and still compete with Martin, who can barely practice b/c of his handicap, under those types of conditions, shame on him.
I've been thinking...

Thanks

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Wait, I really didn't complete my last weblog. I have to get a few more things out.
I have to thank all the people who helped launch my project. Meg, my program manager. She's great. Always cheerful. Optimistic, patient. High energy. She was my right hand. Robert was my left hand. He had one of the toughest jobs, because he had to request things from other people, and handle lots of intense personalities. He'll claim to not be tough, but don't believe it. He can grind with the best of them. Audrey and Erin, my clever web devs. Just cranking through bugs like machines. I hadn't worked with Erin before. She's sharp as a tack. Poor Audrey had a problem with her eye at the end. It was all red and highly sensitive to light and pressure. We finally just had to kick her out and send her home.
Jim, our search guy. A true professional. Sam, my tech lead. Very level-headed. Mark, our editor. A gamer. Put up with all our last minute edits. Pete, our primary designer. Again, able to put up with crazy people like me, keep us laughing, and crank out designs at all hours. Again, able to keep his cool even under high stress situations. Rob, my catalog ops guy. Always smiling. Always. Has never never complained about any job in all the years I've worked with him. Never! What does that guy eat for breakfast?!? AlexG, Boris. Two newer web devs, thrown into the fire. Barb and AlexP, who stepped up to help me deliver and send one of the more ambitious, complex e-mails in the history of the Internet. Again, cool under pressure.
Ryan, who used to be on my team, now on the marketing team, helping us get our e-mails right. Chandra. Murray. Jason. David. Of course, Bean, who we had to call back in yesterday night at 2 in the morning to fix another bug. I see Bean more at work now than I do outside work, which is kind of sad. One of these days I have to take her to a movie and get some mashed up ice cream and brownies and strawberries. It's like To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, an unfulfilled mission between us. Actually, I've been a pretty lousy friend to almost everyone these past six weeks.
I think the one thing in common about almost everyone on the team was that they were level-headed and cool under pressure. Focused on fixing problems, able to set aside the frustrations of a tight timeline. They just all kept their cool even though the demands were so extreme. Oh, we had the occasional fit, but then it was done and we were back at it. I'm so proud of all of them.
I wish my mom could see the site today. She probably wouldn't really understand what it was all about, but she'd still be excited. Every mother's day I fall into this melancholy. Nostalgia laced with guilt. I remember when my mom had cancer, I bought her a copy of Still Me by Christopher Reeve. I bought it from Amazon. I thought his story might give her some encouragement and hope in her own fight. I asked her one day if she had read much of it yet. I knew she had picked it up once or twice and tried to give it a go.
By then she was too tired to say too much. She just said, "There are too many words in it." She was joking, of course, but also half serious. She never did make it any farther into the book. But I remember many moments like that, when between her pain and her suffering, her old sense of humor managed to poke through. Those are the stories that always choke me up. Damn, I miss her a lot.

Weddings, launches, remembrances of things

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It's been a long time since I posted. My project neared its launch date, and that was the end of my free time. And you know what? It launched. Last night. Late. I got home at 4AM this morning. Check it out.
I would talk about it some more, but I'm too drained to think about it right now. Plus, it's work. Can't talk shop outside the office. Emily in PR would have my head on a platter. But let me know if you have any thoughts about the site, about the e-mail. I'm a little too close to it all right now.
The last 6 weeks have been a blur because of this project. Let's see, I attended a wedding last week. John and Irene. Because they're both from Stanford, I saw a ton of old classmates there. Some folks I haven't seen for ages. Tina. Shanon. Rob. Elaine. Su. Jeff. Grace. Cindy. Jon. Actually, I never see any of those guys, so it was strange even running into Howie and Sharon and Alan and Mark. No one seems to have changed, though. I guess 5 years out of school, most people don't morph remarkably. Gosh, I'd hate to think I'm down evolving.
The wedding took place at a beautiful setting, but being from Seattle, I brought the cursed rain with me. The wedding was held outside at the Ritz Carlton at Mission Viejo (sp?) south of Los Angeles. We were on a cliff by the ocean, and on the beach below 50 to 60 people were out there surfing.
John wrote his own vows, and for a tough guy, I was pretty impressed. It takes a lot of courage to declare your feelings for the woman you love in front of a big crowd. He even got a little choked up, which for John is somewhat of a surprise.
For the most part, everyone looks great. Phew. I'm glad I haven't packed on too many pounds since graduation.
Lots of former couples at the wedding. For the most part, we were all pretty civil and good about it, but at times it was a bit odd.
My step-brother-in-law Jeff is a babe magnet. There's no getting around it. I wish I had his height and his angular face. He really should just take up modeling full time. Sigh.
Howie gave me his first demo CD! It's pretty impressive. I don't know too many people who take up DJ'ing late in life. It's good to see him indulging his hobbies. Since he doesn't watch movies, sometimes I worry he'll get bored.
Joannie and Karen both graduated that weekend. I couldn't make it all the way home because I had to get back to Seattle for work on Sunday. The whole time at the wedding, I kept logging into the site to do more alpha testing. I'm pretty proud of both of them. Joannie for finishing law school as part of law review and nailing that clerkship. Someday soon she'll be making a lot more money than I will. And she'll be married, too! Karen, for finishing that Computer Science degree. When I suggested it to her, I was half serious. I never thought she'd really choose to do that. I admire programmers. And she nailed an extremely high paying job with Raytheon, too. They're all growing up.
My website is #1 in Google if you search for Eugene Wei now. As Steve Martin said in The Jerk: "The new phone book's here! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity I need! My name in print! That really makes somebody! Things are going to start happening to me now."
I've been at Amazon over 3.75 years now. I didn't even realize it when it happened. I actually missed the day. That's a long long time. With folks like Jen taking leaves, everyday I feel more and more like a fifth year senior at Amazon. I see fewer and fewer of the old-timers around, and the people I work with seem to get younger and younger.
I know, I sound like a broken record. I do feel the passage of time like a strong current around me. I guess it's better than hanging around too long, though. Like The X-files, which is coming back for one more season without Mulder. They should have just ended it this year. I love the show, and it's still better than most of the stuff out there, but really, it's past its prime. I hate seeing the things I love lose their luster. That's part of why I hope Jordan doesn't try and come back. He'd be good, but I like to remember him great.
Haven't ridden my bike in two weeks. Ugh. I'm not loving myself right now.
I'm rambling. I'm tired. I'm going to sleep. Must remember to discuss why I'm so impressed with Microsoft tomorrow.

Polly

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Polly called me today. She's engaged to Ed! Wow, that's a lot of engagements in the past half year. And here I can barely plan my next vacation.
Observations from looking at my website's logs:

  • Google dominates the search engine market right now. It's not even close. Some 75% of searches that end up on my site are from Google. Having Yahoo as a customer certainly helps, but two other things they have going for them. The simplest interface of all, and a smart way of sorting results to surface the most relevant results high up on the page. It will be interesting to see if they can hold their lead or if another search engine will come along and take that next quantum leap in search relevance.

  • Lots of people looking for paper ideas on my site. Lots of searches for "paper topics on remains of the day" or "paper ideas for Tobias Wolff" or stuff like that.

  • Still lots of perverts out there. Wonder how Scott would feel about all the hits to his Big Sexy page if he knew people were getting there through searches for "Naked frat boys" or something like that. C'mon people.


Work is very busy right now. Near the end of projects, tension levels tend to rise. People get stressed out, and I can sense different folks on my team walking on the edge. I'm trying to keep my cool, keep everyone focused but even-keeled. I find generally that too much emotion at the workplace can be a negative, though a surplus of enthusiasm is generally a plus. Over time, the pros separate themselves by their ability to stay unemotional while continually pushing towards a solution. Some people are just gamers, true professionals. It's fun working with those types of folks.
Read this brief article in Sunday's NYT about this backlash against workaholics. I have to agree with the writer. This revolt has gone a little too far, to the point where we're idolizing folks who always work a normal 8 to 5 workday. Work/Personal life balance is great, but I haven't run into too many great things in life that weren't attained through some level of obsession and workaholism. I even read this article about how people admired Bush b/c he works much shorter hours than Clinton. That's fine if he does, but calling that a good thing is going too far, in my opinion. He's the president of the largest democracy in the world. If he doesn't have enough to think about every day for the next four years, something's wrong.
I got this letter in the mail the other day. It contained a single piece of paper, with an article written across both sides. It looked like a page from a magazine. On it was stuck a post-it with a hand-written message to me:
"Eugene, try this. It works!"
That's it. Some article about leadership or productivity, or something like that. I can't remember. Another scam to try and get me to read junk mail. I hope it isn't cost effective to hire someone to sit and write all these post-it notes. I really hope people are smart enough not to fall for scams like this. If I could reduce the number of random catalogs I receive but never signed up for and the number of credit card applications I'm sent each day, my mail would be reduced by 50% to 75%, and I'd have about forty fewer pounds of paper to recycle each month.

Where have all the cowboys gone?

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Today, someone I've known for a long time decided to take a leave of absence from work. Someone I respect a great deal. It saddened me. Thinking back now to the early early days, many of the people I started with now are gone, and many of the people I work with today are younger, from a different generation. I always joke that I feel old around them, but today, I really do feel old. Like a student who stays around in college to do a Masters, and then a PhD, who sees all his or her classmates graduate and leave. Hard to keep fighting when you feel like the last of a dying breed of gunfighter.
Maybe this is just how folks feel before they leave companies they joined when they were startups and have now become goliaths. It feels very lonely at work many days.
Maybe this project I'm on now is just wearing me down. I got home tonight and I didn't feel like eating, or going out, or anything. Just somewhat empty.
I also think it has to do with being a manager. I read something Colin Powell said about leadership, and it rang true. Being a leader can be a lonely job. You have to make decisions for the good of some greater group, and you will anger people, and you must accept that you will never get everyone to agree with you. It's just a little harder to do when many of your friends are the people you work with on a daily basis.
On a separate note, software is frustrating me to death. Especially my browsers. I keep trying to watch Quicktime trailers and they continually crash IE. So I use Netscape, but for some reason in Netscape my weblog software menu is missing a lot of buttons which makes it difficult to post entries. Sheesh, would someone just build some reliable, bug-free web browsers.
I have to decide if I can get away to attend John's wedding next weekend. I'd like to, but my project is keeping me swamped. If I do attend, I will run into a ghost from the past, someone I share much history with. Whether I'm ready or not, I have this feeling I am skating towards a sudden collision with the past.
The other day I dreamed I was at work, running around checking on my team, all stressed out. And I went into someone's office, I can't remember whose now. Maybe Bean's, or Robert's...anyway it was of course not the real office we work in but some random dream office. And the person there, I think it was Bean, was watching a movie on a small black and white television sitting on a desktop. In this movie, a man who believed himself to be an angel had strapped on some man-made wings and then launched himself down a runway and off a ramp in an attempt to fly. He attempted this over and over again, and continued to crash into the ground. It was like those old black and white videos of man's early prototypes for airplanes, getting a few feet off the ground before shattering on the ground.
And in my dream, I forgot why I had walked into Bean's office, and I stood there watching this movie, this man who thought he was an angel, and it moved me.

Surprise

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Threw Jason a surprise 30th birthday party tonight at Waterfront. We got him good. He thought he was going to Hawaii yesterday, but instead his whole family showed up at the airport. He thought we were going to do something for him on his actual birthday, which was Thursday, but we didn't do anything. He was bummed. It was pretty funny. He came over to my house with Jamie to borrow some things from me for Hawaii, and he expected a huge surprise party, but instead he found me folding my laundry. Hah! I think he had a pretty good time tonight. Bought him these cool Adidas tearaway pants for basketball. I need to get a pair of those myself. Adidas clothes are sweet.
Rode with Todd and Rachael this morning. Did this ride up to Edmonds and back. It was about 62 miles. Got nailed by a rainstorm that just drenched me. My feet and hands were frozen, and if Rach hadn't let me a rain jacket I'd probably have pneumonia right now. Wind was blowing sideways, and the latter half of the ride home was slow, wet, and extremely painful. My legs were shot and I barely made it home. That weather made things really unpleasant.
I'm pooped.

Spring breeze

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It's been sunny and pleasant this week in Seattle. It was a long winter, in more ways than one, and I can't remember a time when I was more happy to see the sun. I love the feel of a cool spring breeze.
I think the long hours at work and my reclusive lifestyle these past two to three months have left me feeling, I don't know, nostalgic? Lonely? Tired, for sure.
Rode the Daffodil Classic on Sunday. You can read my account of it on my RAMROD blog. 70 miles in the rain and cold. Not pleasant, but maybe rides like that will toughen me up. I remember a few of those last year early in the season, and if you want to be a cyclist in Seattle, I guess you just have to get used to it.
But my cycling diet is leaving me grumpy. Salads just don't satisfy me. Still, I need to get down a few pounds for RAMROD. Blech.
Jenny asked me for a review of the X-files Season Three DVD on Friday, and she said she needed it Monday. So of course, late Sunday night, I finally open the DVDs and leave it on in the background while surfing the web for plot synposes. It was like cramming for a college exam again. I put on the soundtrack, put the DVD on, scoured the web, pulled out my fountain pen, and started just jotting random notes down. Writing short reviews aren't easy. I fell asleep on the sofa, then I had to whip out the review in an hour at work using all my notes. Don't tell Jenny. But I think it turned out okay, and now that I remember season three, I suggest you pick it up. That was good stuff.
Finally got around to reading this article about Microsoft and his inner cadre of technical advisers. It was in the business section of an old NYT. The article talks all about Bill Gates' inner cadre of technical advisors. Seems like Bill is the type of businessman who still derives more pleasure from engineering than from running the business. I think I might be that type of manager, if I stayed in business. Anytime I read an article about these Microsoft senior folks, I feel stupid. They all have PhDs in computer science, have written all sorts of crazy software, play chess in their spare time, random stuff like that. But then I encounter some idiotic feature of some Microsoft application, and I realize that it takes more than raw smarts to design a good application.
Case in point. The other day, I was using Powerpoint, and I went to the File dropdown menu and all the save and print commands were gone. How can you hide the save and print commands? Those should never be hidden since you have to use them everytime you edit a file. This is a new feature in Office 2000, in which the application remembers the most recent commands you've used and only displays those commands. Sounds potentially smart, but it's annoyed me everytime I've encountered it. I wonder if they even user tested it. Everytime I use those menus, the commands I want are in a different place. The idea of an interface that adapts to your usage patterns sounds good in theory, but no one's nailed it yet. Consistent user interfaces still rule in my book most days.
Of course, to turn off this smart logic, I had to dig all around the menu system to find the on/off switch which took me another five minutes or so.
Saturday, I played golf with Robert, Ryan, and Kord. I haven't seen Kord for years, since my college days. He still looks the same, and he's still doing the med school thing. Gorgeous day out at Gold Mountain. I still stink at golf. I will become good at that sport one day. Maybe this is the summer to do it.
I watched Yi Yi. Winstar, respecting good cinema, actually put their screener in widescreen. What a great film. It took me three nights to finish, it was such a long film. I've never seen anything by Edward Yang before, and it's always exciting to discover a new director whose work you enjoy. I definitely need to find some of his other work. Asian cinema holds a particular appeal for me because so much of it reminds me of my own family and childhood. Yang has a very distinctive directorial style. He definitely qualifies as a director whose work, as Peter Bogdanovich put it, lets you know "who the devil made it." Interesting use of medium shots. Very few closeups. Whole scenes are shot at a medium to long range. You see characters talking inside a house, and the camera is shooting in through a window. The camera rarely moves or pans. Almost like watching a play.
Watching that film by myself over 3 nights reminded me that I need a movie buddy. I am currently without a movie buddy, which makes it tough to keep up on movies. Maybe I just have strange taste in films. Rachael could have potential, but she goes to bed way too early. Same with Bill. That would never work with my schedule. Audrey loves to watch movies, but her problem is she stays up too late. Rich only likes movies like Cool Hand Luke. His tastes are pretty narrow. Dan's got the free time, but he would also drag me to see stuff like Tomcats. So would Jason. Aaron had pretty good taste, but he's in London now. Howie doesn't really watch movies; I have no idea what's wrong with him. Jenny was pretty open-minded about movies, but she's engaged now. Bean has pretty similar tastes, but everytime I watch a movie with her she falls asleep. I must bore her to death.
Oh well, maybe I don't need a movie buddy. Maybe I can get Karen to move out to Seattle. I used to drag her to all sorts of movies. A willing soul she was.
Jason bought me a new rolling backpack/luggage thingy. My garment bag, I have to admit, was looking pretty pathetic. The wheels don't roll, the side of the bag has torn completely open. It's the end of an era. I had that thing since my consulting days. It was the first piece of luggage my mom ever bought for me. Strange, how you'll replace certain things which are in perfectly good condition, just because they bore you, while you'll remain loyal to the most beat up, trivial things like a pair of bike gloves which would cost a pittance to replace.
Went to Peter's engagement party on Sunday. Finally got to meet his fiancee Klara. He's been staying with a woman who has been here in Seattle for years and has many ties to UW and the Seattle art community. That house was amazing! Some of the artwork hanging on the walls has toured through museums like MOMA in NYC. Chatting with all of Peter's acting friends, I realize I have a large gap in my life now that most of my friends are from work. I lack melodramatic, eccentric artist friends. Chatting with people like that is so easy. They're always on stage.
I wanted to just stay in that house. It was like an artist's womb.

Pynchon

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Heard from Ken today. Haven't chatted with that boy in a while. Anyway, I have to reprint this rant from him. It was in response to a short, innocent line in which I suggested I should read something by Pynchon to be hip with modern lit. And off he went:
"DUUUUDEEEE don't get me started...because I can't seem to finish a Pynchon book. First, instead of smoking, I suggest injesting some magic mushrooms, peyote, or other "natural" hallucinagens. You have to be in that state of mind to read Pynchon. The dude is crazy. That's really the only way I can put it. He's like a shizophrenic/depraved/bizarre version of J.D. Salinger. No one knows what he looks like. There has never been a picture of him. Get this...before they found Ted Kaczynski...people thought Pynchon might have been the Unabomber. Now, that's crazy. Okay, ready to read him yet? I started Gravity's Rainbow three years ago, got through half of it, read 25% of it twice...still don't know what the hell is going on. I'm waiting until I finish Ulysses, Remembrance of Things Past, and the Oxford English Dictionary before I tackle Gravity's Rainbow again. His writing is virtuosic but it borders on innane rambling. He can give an introduction to a character...go inside his head...and then trace his backstory from his childhood and then return to the scene at hand. Of course it takes him 150 pages to get you back to the present setting. Another thing about Pynchon is that he's a allusory (is that a word) as Eliot. Unlike Eliot though, Pynchon does not use literary allusions, he has a encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture, not only of America, but of other continents. It's amazing what he comes up with. I bought a companion book just to try to straighten out the references.
Ready to start yet?
I'm such a sucker for self punishment that I bought another book by Pynchon over Winter Break. It's called Vineland. Want a brief synopsis? Written in 1990, takes place during the Reagan years. It's supposed to be a critique of the period. Okay, this dude is an old hippie who has been on the run from the federales all his life. He has a daughter and is estranged from his wife. Wife actually left hippie dude for dude's arch enemy, an FBI agent. Anyways, the FBI agent is on dude's trail again so dude has to send his daughter on the hippie underground to escape FBI agent. Daughter meets an array of characters including a female ninja with special powers who is currently her protector, members of a surf band, FBI agents addicted to watching TV ("Tubies"), among others. Vineland is supposed to be his most accessible book.
Critics say Pynchon is "funny." I say, Pynchon is crazy assed lunatic who has scammed the publishing industry into publishing his ramblings. However, when I finish Vineland, I will staple the book to my forehead and try to pick up chicks. I'll probably be one of five people in St. Louis who have read the book. There was a headline in the Onion a couple months ago..."Man on Subway, Blatantly Displays Copy of Pynchon Book For All To See." I thought it was the funniest thing the Onion has ever done because I'M THAT GUY. Sometimes, I went on the DC Metro reading Gravity's Rainbow, just so other people could see that I was reading Gravity's Rainbow. Finish a Pynchon book and wear it with pride.
So, are you going to read him or not?"
Okay, now I just have to buy a copy of Pynchon and display it on my desk at work.
You can bid on one of Lance Armstrong's Trek bikes. He used this one in 1999 racing and 2000 training seasons. Too bad cycling is not a bigger sport in the U.S. Lance should be a god at this point.
Finally caught up on some old Sunday NYTimes lying around. Had to take a break from work stuff after getting home. Interesting article on intelligent design. Didn't know too much about it, but was curious enough to surf the web a bit to see what Google turned up. Found lots. It's a hot topic which has spawned entire websites and some interesting articles. Whether or not it's a legitimate theory or just creationism dressed up in intelligent discourse, it did prove to me once again how limiting public school education can be. I look back on junior high and high school, and there's so much they never even covered. Never studied any world history, or barely any. Yet some of the things you learn in those days can bias you for life. I can see how some people just decide to teach their kids themselves (though who would want to deprive their children from the cruelty of their peers). You just need to get intelligent people to the point where they're brave enough to think for themselves.
Played volleyball for the first time in years on Tuesday night. Played with Katie, Jordan, Jason....folks from work who are in a league. Boy, I was rusty. Felt like I was in slow motion on the court, and my timing on hits was so off. Depressing. I was much more talented in my youth. I'm regressing.
Saw the play Art last night with Franklin, Bean, Juli, and Macho. It started a bit slow, but I warmed up to it during the night. Not brilliant, but entertaining in parts. About 3 friends whose friendship falls under pressure when one of them buys a completely white painting for an exorbitant amount. One of the characters reads a quote from his psychiatrist (I think) which I found interesting. And I enjoyed the way the play ends, with one of the characters talking about the painting as being about a skier who appears and then fades into the snow.
Went riding early yesterday morning, and got poured on. Miserable, just riding in the rain. But work colors everything. If I were living out in the countryside or something, and all I was doing was training on my bike, I would've been in heaven. My physical health is like my part-time hobby, the novel unwritten, the vacation never taken.
If I had a fortune right now, I'd buy the freedom of myself and a few close friends, build a small little commune where we would all live and attempt to be artists. Writing, painting, directing films, and working out.
Most days, I feel like an idiot.

Orage Big Air

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At the last minute, Bill talked me into going to Whistler this past weekend. It was the last hurrah for skihaus 2001, as our lease ended this weekend. I really didn't think I'd go, because Mark and Marie were in town, and I had a ton of work to do. But at work, I just reached the end of my tether, and I just needed to escape. I rushed home, packed, Bill pulled up, and we were off.
It's a misnomer to say I ski with Bill. He's way too good. It would be much more accurate to say, Bill proposes we take a route which scares me to death, I concur and put on a brave face, he proceeds to ski to the bottom and wait for me to roll and tumble down the hill, then he skis off to the lift and sits there and waits for me. He was pretty damn patient. As usual, my legs felt like jelly after chasing him around all day, and my left big toe, sans toenail, was throbbing. It's still bugging me today.
The weather was beautiful. Sunny, unlimited visibility. So strange, to have snowy alpine conditions up top (at one point 3 degrees celsius at the top of Blackcomb), and balmy sunny weather down low (63 degrees in the village). Spring skiing is sweet. Dress lightly, no need to wear a hat or goggles, just shredding through snow the consistency of chunky mashed potatoes.
This happened to be the weekend Whistler was hosting the World Ski and Snowboarding festival. We caught the Orage Big Air competiton and the Alpine Slopestyle competition. Those skiers are absolutely insane. I watch them and immediately am resigned to the fact that I will never have the guts to do anything like that. Going in backwards, launching yourself 20 feet in the air, and doing a 1080 and landing backwards...and most of the contestants were in their teens. One entrant was thirteen years old! It's something I may have lost growing up, or it might just be something I never had.
Driving back from Canada, Bill and I reminisced about all those crude video games we used to play in the old days. TRS-80, Intellivision, Atari 2600. We cranked his stereo up and sang loudly and badly the whole trip back. The Clash, Bob Dylan, David Gray, U2...now that Bill's heading up music merchandising, he gets all sorts of free music. He even cranked up some Bedrock. Pretty hip for an old guy.
By the way, Bill is also the junk food king. He loves the stuff, he knows it better than anyone. He took me to A&W just before the border and introduced me to the Mama Burger. Everyone restaurant we passed, he could cite the gems of the menu by heart. Dairy Queen--hot fudge sundae. Arby's--they butter their buns. And so on.
Getting away was a good call. Up there in Canada, I don't really think of work. Bill brought up a screener of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? and we laughed our asses off. Just sleep, eat, ski and board, listen to some tunes, roast by the fire, and read. I've been way too wrapped in work recently, and it was bringing me down. I've got to remember, no matter how tired I am, how busy my schedule, I have to set aside time to work out, read a little, listen to some music. I went for a quick ride at around 6 tonight. Zipped around Mercer. Then I went back to work. It felt great.
Have problems removing those damn seals on the top of new CD cases? Here's a little secret: just pry the front door off the CD case from the side opposite the sticker and pry the sticker off by flipping the front door over the top of the case.
I've noticed lots of people use the following phrase recently:
"Are you wanting to..." I wonder why? What effete sentence structure.
Don Baylor is just a bad manager. He publicly criticizes his players, he's not a great tactical manager...it's despite him, not because of him, that the Cubs are winning right now.
Little sis Karen got a job offer from a company in Boston. Her first year salary is insane! Makes the salary I made coming out of college look like minimum wage. Congrats to her. Both Joannie and Karen are pretty set for next year. Maybe they'll be ready to support the old man soon (that would be me).
Little babies all growed up.