Still at the airport dammit. One movie, lots of useless net browsing, and a bit of a nap later my flight is now scheduled to depart at 10:05.
Anyways, in the last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about my vegetarianism. My views on going veg have changed a lot in the past years, there is definitely a growing awareness of the purely environmental reasons that once led me down this path. You can totally eat meat these days without ever participating in the factory farming process, which is cool and something that I’m glad is now a reality.
Despite that, I’ve also been aware that it still feels right for me to be a veg. Specifically, I’ve started to think of the practice as a Karma Yoga, which has been feeling more and more appropriate to me as of late.
This article makes me feel even better about it:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060424/veggies_pla.html?source=rss
Two seperate causes have been connected in a way I never even considered before. Cool.
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My flight got delayed. From leaving at 7:15pm to 9:47pm. Some traffic controller thing malfunctioned thus causing massive delays here at O’hare. Joy Joy Joy. At least I’ve found a power outlet and have a netflix movie though……A Tale of Springtime it’s time to finally watch ye.
Missouri was a bit of a blur, the wedding was fun and I had a great time seeing cousins and family. Somehow managed to down a six pack of Fat Tire Friday night on an empty stomach. Really quite surprised I survived!
The only thing that really sucks about the flight delay is that Mr. Michael Arens, an old high school friend is in denver for the evening. The plan was that he’d get out of his meeting around 9pm then swing by the airport and we’d kick it in Boulder for the night. So damn you O’hare for cutting in on my quality time with Mike.
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1) I’m looking for pictures of Santa Cruz. Specifically, if anyone has any photos of campus, trees, landmarks, ocean, surfers, pacific street……any of that strikingly santa cruz ‘esque stuff please email them! I’m going to give a travel/adsense website a crack, and don’t know when I’m going to be able to fly out there to get some photos explicitly for the site. It’s alright if there’s people in the shots and stuff….
2) “What does the non-profit you work at do?”
A freaking tough question really, but Ken himself provides the answer in some of his books and it really couldn’t be simpler….
we are trying to “cultivate mind, body, and spirit in self, culture, and nature.”
That’s also something good to practice on a personal level as well.
peace out from missouri………cousin’s getting marrrrried.
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A cold front started sweeping through Boulder on Sunday night, resulting in SNOW on Monday. It had pretty much all melted by Tuesday night, and today it was once again beautiful, sunny, and warm. I’d heard that it had snowed last year on May 1st, which was hard to believe after the warmth of last week. I’m now finally starting to get all the jokes about Boulder weather……sometimes it changes in the same day!
Unfortunately I’m feeling kind of stressed out today, trying to finish some updates for my cousin’s website before leaving for the weekend tomorrow to attend a different cousin’s wedding in Missouri.
More then that, I’ve nearly spent all the savings I brought from Illinois, meaning that very soon I’m going to have to find a way to make ends meet on my current meager salary. I’ve already started scanning monster/careerjobs/hotjobs/craigslist again, on the small off chance I can find some amazing semi high paying job that would also allow me to keep working my current job. The chances of that happening are pretty slim to none, which is really bumming me out.
Since I started college I’ve always had this horrible shadow of debt lurking over me, out of state tuition started it all, and then working for a low pay non profit in a place as expensive to live in as Santa Cruz simply compounded the problem. Thus I wised up a bit at some point and moved back to Illinois for the last year and a half or so. I definitely consider my efforts during that time pretty heroic, 60 hours a week for months on end did allow me to pay off a fair chunk of that dark cloud.
But then the weddings came, and suddenly I had the opportunity to go to both Germany and Chile to attend the weddings of some truly amazing friends. Those trips, the holidays, and the move have sadly put me pretty much back to exactly where I was when I first moved back to Illinois. Except that now my income is less than half what it was last year, even less then in Santa Cruz, and my bills have gone up since I’m living in my own place again. I got a thing in the mail about debt consolidation yesterday that had pretty fair terms, but even they rejected me this morning.
It’s definitely frustrating, as I don’t really regret a single choice I’ve made and wouldn’t exchange those memories for anything in the world. For better or worse whenever its come down to it I’ve always chosen experience over fiscal responsibility. Traveling, concerts, bachelor parties, nights out with friends, I’ve always been of the mind that those experiences are far more valuable to me in the long run then wealth. But now it feels like the consequence of many of those choices is that I’m going to have a decision I’d never have to make; do what I love regardless of pay, or take a job I don’t particularly care for but that allows me to make ends meet. I sincerely hope that oneday my passions will align themselves with a job that also pays well.
I’ve been very lucky in life so far, in that in the end things have always seemed to work out exactly as they need to. I’m still holding on to that belief for now, but sense a growing unease in myself that for once it just might not work out. Either than, or its bread and cheese for the rest of my life. and I might have to quit WoW. NOOOOOOOO! Oh well, enough ranting. I’m pretty sure I’ve enough to cover life and rent through Early June. So doom isn’t exactly imminent quite yet………
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Another beautiful weekend. Friday felt like summer with a nice warm 73 degrees. Went in to the office, got a fair amount done, and then went and got Burritos with some of the gang from work. A few hours and few more tasks later, we declared it was time for a frisbee module and walked up the block to the local park to toss around the frisbee for a an hour or so. It felt great being barefoot in the grass! Hippies do it for a reason!
After work, went home and tidied up a bit then headed out for the evening. It seemed like the whole world was outside as I strolled down to Pearl street, people walking, hanging out on porches, bbqing, running, town was abuzz. Met up with my coworkers Casey and Rollie at The Lazy Dog. Apparently it’s Stanley Cup time in the NHL. Rollie’s from Calgary and quite the avid fan, so it was fun to watch the game with someone who knew what was going on! A few more friends and coworkers strolled down and suddenly we had quite a posse watching Rollie watch hockey.
A few beers, one fantastic veggie burger, and a Calgary win later, we hit the road. Rollie, Eric, and I headed up to Casey’s house for the night to do some hardcore video gaming! Casey’s house is just up in the mountains, and has an unbelievable view! It was silent as could be, and all of Boulder (and even Denver) was beautifully lit up on the horizon. After a few more beers and some nasty Jager we settled in and the 4 of us took on the computer in Rise of Nations. We got promptly whooped, regrouped, and 3 hours later it was about 5am and we were victorious! Hurrah!
After some more egg burritos and Big Lebowski, we headed back into town. I washed up and gathered my stuff together before Ballard picked me up to head into Denver. Our co-worker Robert is an avid Capoeira practicioner, and Saturday was the Batizado for his Denver based group.
If you’ve never heard of it, Capoeira (I heart wikipedia!) is a beautiful practice that integrates communal singing/music playing with an amazing acrobatic dance. (here’s a google video). It’s truly an Integral Practice that I’m seriously considering taking up at some point! It looked like so much fun, and pretty amazing exercise.
Ballard and I headed up the efforts to video tape this amazing event, with him manning the three cameras on the second floor and me handling the main floor camera. My arms and back were pretty exhausted by the end, but time just flew by as each game/dance was like a little story of its own. Capoeira masters from all around the country (and even Brazil) were there, and I feel truly blessed that I was able to witness such an amazing event!
Oh yeah, here’s my front door, if I ever get stuff on my walls I’ll get some photos of my room up:
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Don’t officially have the video section up yet, but just happened to find this DVD while cleaning up a bit. Shot right after I first got my DV100a (which I promptly broke less than a week later shooting the next installment and was in repairs for months). Stupid, pointless, and fun. Lee & I shot it one sunday after going to the Tacqueria on Soquel. We used Daniel’s famous stuffed discount halloween rat, Bernard. Shot at Oceanview Park, just up the block from the ‘ol broadway house.
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Yesterday kinda blew, I spent the day trying to setup TWiki on Godaddy for our company. Godaddy’s hosting blows, so it was pretty much a wasted day. I then went over to a coworkers house to help her with some internet problems, and while I fixed those I managed to lock her out of her computer, and she didn’t know her administrator password. Consequently I took her laptop home for the night and worked on it until the wee hours of the morning when I finally got everything sorted out. Sometimes IT work sucks because in trying to make things better for someone you can very easily make things much worse. I got lucky this time, but who knows about the future?
Today was much better though. I got a different wiki running (MediaWiki which powers the famous Wikipedia) and then went over to a coworkers for a bit during the afternoon to celebrate the day’s holiday ;^)
Anyways, about being a man. This evening I attended my second (third week, but i missed the first week due to the bachelor party) Man Night. Some coworkers and mutual friends have started a Men’s Group together, which I was very stoked about. We’re loosely basing it on the work of David Deida
Anyways, we spend a little time each week checking in, discussing issues we’ve faced during the week, and setting goals which we hold each other accountable for. The last part in particular is what I think will be most beneficial. We’re just doing week to week goals for now, but discussed incorporating longer term ones in the future which should be excellent. For example, my goals/tasks for last week were to get a book/journal that we could keep meeting notes/goals logged in, and also to join a gym (gym, what’s a gym? oh a gym) which i’ve been putting off since I got here. Our punishment as of now for not fulfilling a set goal is that we get our picture posted on a “wall of shame” so that everyone knows we didn’t fulfill our goal for the week. Other common practices are paying $5 to a fund or have to do X amount of pushups.
Whether it be running, going to the gym, getting up early, or any other challenging task, I’ve found I’m far more likely to get it done when someone else is holding me accountable. As luck would have it, all of us that set goals for the week accomplished them!
So I’m really stoked on the group, as in simple terms its only purpose is for us to challenge each other to reach our full potential. Whether or not we all suceed, it certainly feels good to finally be trying (a little harder that is).
Also, just to make this longer: checkout my google ads, amazon links, and DONATE to NILES movie!
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Ever wanted to help make a movie but just never had the time? Here’s your chance! My dear friend Niles, whom I first met in Santa Cruz and had many adventures with is getting ready to shoot an amazing piece in Chile. I went to Niles’s’s’s wedding in January, and while there he started telling us about an amazing abandoned village he stumbled across while traveling for a previous piece in Chile. Chacabuco is a deserted mining town in Northern Chile that was used as a concentration camp during the Pinochet regime. After Niles recounted his story and it became apparent how important a place Chacabuco was in Chilean history, I immediately pledged $100 if it would help him make the documentary happen. For the full story, checkout the full details of the project at http://www.chacabuco.org/.
If you want to support this amazing project you can make a donation HERE.
It doesn’t take much, just $5 or $10 will go a long way to helping him reach his budgetary needs!
Niles will be traveling with another friend, Will Sherman, who’s blog you can check out here: http://c.hileno.com/
Help preserve history and make this film happen! Niles is an amazing filmmaker and individual, check out some of his previous work at http://www.lanina.cl/
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It’s been an incredible week. Saul Williams came to the CU campus in Boulder this evening. I’ve seen him few times before, twice at Power to the Peaceful and once at Coachella. His spoken word blows me away each and everytime I hear it.
Saul’s done a number of things on Integral Naked in the past, and was kind enough to give us permission to film his show this evening. So not only did I get to see him perform, but I got to particpate in a four camera shoot while doing it. The sun and surrounding clouds were doing some pretty funky things as we were loading the car, providing for my first picture of the day. Fantastic. Even cooler, Saul has been playing some shows with Nine Inch Nails over the last year, and leaked that his new album is being produced by none other than Mr. Trent Reznor himself. An awesome collaboration of two performers who are both tops in their fields.
Afterwards me and some of the gang from work went out to
Trilogy. It was pretty crowded but we got a table and some delicious orange tic tac flavored shots. We had a very attractive waitress who was having a very bad day, which my cohort Ballard attempted to remedy by buying her a shot. After paying our tab and crawling out the window…..we strolled down the main strip for a while looking for another bar and somewhere to pee. Pearl street was absolutely buzzing with people tonight, which I was really stoked about. It’s nice to be back in a town that feels alive again, even if half the people are drunken college kids. The annual flowers have been planted as well, so the street was lined with countless beautiful tulips and various other flowers.
We tried to get into a rather swanky bar Robert had been to called “Upstairs”, but they were unforunately closing by the time we got there. As it had been a long day, we decided to call it a night, though not before Ballard was kind enough to bring to my attention how incredibly close I live to the MORK AND MINDY house! I thought nothing would top living next to the former location of the Psycho house (514 broadway i’ll never forget you), but this comes pretty damn close.
Anyhoo, as I began to unload my gear from Ballard’s car I finally realized I had a tripod on hand and tonight’s moon might be a good chance to give my digital a crack at a proper nighttime scene. Not fantastic, but a step in the right direction:
This blogging thing is turning out to be way harder than I imagined it would be. Hopefully the quality of these posts will increase over time……..;^)
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Buckethead re-entered my life Wednesday night at the Fox Theater. I haven’t seen him since leaving Santa Cruz, and it definitely brought back a lot of memories of the various places and faces I have associated with him.
The first time I saw Buckethead was in January of 2003. I had just started working at the Listen Foundation and some crazy guy named Corey invited me to see Colonel Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains along with his friends Katie and Brian. I immediately caught the bug and saw him again everytime he played the Catalyst.
Consequently, Buckethead quickly becamed deeply entwined with many of my memories in post college CA, especially of saying goodbye to Santa Cruz. Just before I left town, Katie and Brian married and Buckethead played at their wedding party, which was an incredible night in so many ways. I then saw him play the Catalyst one last time a few days later just before I moved back to Illinois.
In moving to Boulder I feel like I’ve started to reconnect to a lot of what I left behind in Santa Cruz. Seeing Buckethead is just one manifestation of that in my mind. It just never felt right seeing him while I was in the burbs, but it felt totally natural walking to the theater and seeing him here. It feels like all the chaotic threads of my life are finally coming together…
Anyways, he’s pretty much one of the most incredible guitarists ever, and his music definitely induces various state experiences for me whenever I see him.
Watch his Fingers: 1
Nunchucks and the Robot: 1 | 2
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Google has FINALLY released their calendar. And it rocks. The potentials it offers are amazing, and its all done in an open source format (unlike Microsoft). I’m super stoked for personal & professional reasons. Personally, it’ll finally help me organize my own shit, and that I might even try to alter brett dennen’s site so the tourdates system runs off of it.
Professionally I’m stoked because we had a major exchange server crash over the weekend (while I was backpacking, so I got off easy) bringing everyone’s emails to a screeching halt.
A lot of time and energy has been put into that exchange server, and it just doesn’t perform. Consequently, some of us here have decided to spearhead the idea that we should drop exchange and move everyone to Gmail. Google now offers corporate domain hosting for gmail accounts (so you can have yourname@yourcompany.com instead of @gmail.com) and our application was accepted.
However, one of the major objections to that has been that we’d lose Outlook’s calendar function. Myself and a coworker spent all yesterday hunting the internet for screenshots and any tidbits of what a google calendar would be, and BAM we wake up this morning and there it is. Everything truly does arise exactly as it should. I heart Google.
Anyways, nerdy post over. Fun post about last night’s Buckethead show coming up soon. (with pictures!!! and videos!!!!)
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Seth’s bachelor party was a complete success. Despite the rain, soggeyness, alternating cold/hotness of the trip, and realization that I’m way way out of shape, I still had a fantastic time. The smokey mountains are gorgeous and we had a fantastic group of guys. Perfect blend of old people I knew and new people I’m now glad to know.
The flood of emails in my inbox when I got back was defintely a bit of a surprise; so I went into work as soon as I took a shower and was pretty successful in getting myself caught up.
The best email I got was definitely the one from a friend who was gracious enough to buy me Pearl Jam tickets for denver when they went on sale last friday morning. They’re playing with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers both nights, so I was a bit scared they’d sell out fast. So I was very pleased to see that it all worked out and I got tickets to both nights in July. Fantastic.
It was definitely a long weekend, the span of time between catching the shuttle at 3:30 thursday morning and getting back to my house today at noon felt like far more than 4 days. I think that’s what I like about travelling though, it totally exposes the relative nature of time. Tonight I sleep in my Boulder bed, last night I slept in my Illinois bed, and 3 nights of various Tennesse beds before that.
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It’s 6:25am and i’m sitting in the Denver airport waiting for my flight to begin boarding. had to get up at 3am to catch a shuttle from a hotel near my house. so i’m a bit tired.
I’m flying to chicago, and my friend Alan is going to pick me up and we’re driving straight down to the grand ‘ol smokey mountains of Tennesse to go backpacking for the weekend. My friend seth is getting married in May and this is his last stand as a bachelor.
it’s going to be nice to be unplugged from the internet for a while, though i was a little distraught to discover that Denver tickets for Pearl Jam go on sale tomorrow morning. Luckily a fellow Ten Club member is going to try to get them for me….
i had a really nasty airport egg croissant for breakfast, but i’m still hungry. maybe they’ll throw me a bone on the plane and give me some peanuts.
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This last weekend was pretty fantastic all around. I did a lot of work on the new version of BrettDennen.com, which I hope to roll out by month’s end. There’s a number of things I’m hoping to add that I have no idea how to do, but that’s how I’ve found I learn to do things best, out of sheer necessity.
Saturday afternoon I logged on to World of Warcraft, and spent a few hours questing with my guild. The phenomena of online gaming is becoming more and more interesting to me each day, and something I’m growing increasingly interested in studying and exploring. We attempted to clear the Upper Blackrock Spire, and got our asses handed to us by the boss. Nonetheless it was good fun, and an interesting way to spend time with a community of people spread between here and Australia.
That night I went to my second Boulder house party, which was great. This one was a bit closer than the first and I didn’t wake up with a fever the day after, so that was definitely a plus. It was another great opportunity for me to get to know some co-workers a bit better, outside of the context of work and I had a great time overall.
Sunday was an incredible day in its own right. One of the first groups I’ve become involved out here with is a Ken Wilber study group, and one of the offshoots of that we’re forming (tentatively called Integral Seekers) is a group that goes around experiencing the amazing gifts each of the great lineages has to offer. We just started a few weeks ago and have so far attended a beautiful Candlelit Catholic mass that is held near the CU campus every Tuesday night. It’s an amazingly contemplative service unlike any church service I’ve attended before, beautiful music, moments of silence, and a sharing of the peace all combine to make a powerful 60 minutes.
Back to Sunday, however, our group went to our first Kirtan, which is a devotional practice and an important aspect of the path of Bhakti Yoga. It’s 3 hours of devotional chanting set to various melodic ragas, and it really really rocks. It was basically 3 hours of what is usually my favorite part of any great concert: collective crowd energy. The chants are all short and fairly easy to pick up on and tend to last from 5-20 minutes each. I definitely had a great buzz by the end, and its something I’ll definitely be taking part in again. (they do it EVERY Sunday!) It’s truly mind blowing to me that its been done before in settings of nearly 10,000 people.
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It’s been a little under two months since I moved out to Boulder, and so far so good. I found a place I really like which is just two blocks off the Pearl Street Mall and within walking distance of my job. So far I’m successfully living without a car, and hope to keep it that way. (not that I have money for a car anyway).
I have two housemates, Shawn and Sarah, and Shawn has two cats, Porter & Cash. The four of us are getting along fabulously so far. Shawn owns the place, which makes it convenient as I live with my landlord. Sarah went to school out here and just moved out from Ohio permanently last month.
I’m currently working part-time for the Integral Institute. It’s the job I wanted moving out here, so I feel very fortunate to have gotten it. The pay is the only problem, as its quite minimal. Despite that, it looks like I might be going to fulltime, doing a multitude of things:
So I’m pretty excited, as I’ve always enjoyed doing a multitude of things. There’s a lot of potential for me to contribute a number of my gifts in a lot of different areas.
Outside of work, I’m looking to start volunteering for a local organization that works with Developmentally Disabled kids and adults, which is something I’m defnitely excited about making part of my life again. Even when I was burnt out and left the group home in Santa Cruz, I always knew it wasn’t the work I was tired of, just how much I was doing it.
I’m also hoping to checkout some Boulder Digital Arts events in hopes of networking with some local folks (outside of the ones I work with) that are interested in film production. I’d optimally like to find a group that works together on short films a few times a month, with everyone shifting roles and getting to try out the different positions. And hopefully I’ll finally start to do some writing of my own.
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