So, blog post 306:

I work at Pelago.
It makes Whrrl.
Whrrl launched in the Apple App Store today.
The 5th screenshot has my name, kinda.
But a colleagues picture.
But the name is used on my email address on my business cards!

Here I am in Malmo, Sweden, enjoying being very very tired and a bit sunscorched (not really burned).

Then, after Sweden and my never-ending-walk around it, I went back to Copenhagen, and got stuck on a mostly never-ending walk around Christania, the community of pot-smoking squatters who claimed some nice land for themselves. This particular never-ending walk ended with me finding that I had indeed walked to the middle of nowhere, but fortunately there was a bus stop there, and 3 minutes later the bus came. Hallelujah! Here I am before I get lost in the !#$%#! backtrails of defiant hippie land.

Here I am yesterday on the bridge, just about insane for hunger but still with wits enough about me to insist on having my picture taken. It took 3 Czechs, and the final one (the male in the group) said in a tired voice that spoke volumes "the last picture is the only good one. there are others, but they have... problems." Ah, l'amor!

Okay, starving again. Bye!

-j

I'm renting Boomtown's computer to aid with this, and scoffing at my upload speed (had some notion to backup my pictures in case my camera gets stolen, but I'd be here for 2 hours just getting the pics that were taken BEFORE I left up. Oh well, something to chew away on, I suppose.

This my new home:

Yup, middle top. Rules.

And here's the only picture of me so far from the trip. Need to remember to ask people to take pictures, darn it!

Okee, thats all I've got for now. Stay tuned?

But it has been brewing for a year, and now it's finally drinkable!

It HAS to be republicans. Only they can arrange such confusing opposites with such frequency!

I've been a bad blogger of late, swayed by the ease of Facebook status updates and hindered by ye olde busy lifestyle. So there's a lot to catch up on, and I will deliberately EXCLUDE my business trip to Denmark for another post.

Lesseee. What do you care about? Ah yes, you don't. ;) In that case, I'll choose! In no particular order:

Lauren turned 21! When I've explained that I was excited about this, most people looked at me suspiciously, but Lauren is among my favoritest dancing partners. But she couldn't go to over half the dancing venues, and the "kiddie" dances, as some snooty Old People call them, really are less high quality over all. So no more compromising! Here she is with Kristin (of OneWorld Now!) at the beginning of the Birthday Dance. Her first, and my first time participating too (aie, nerve wracking dancing in front of the hundreds of people there). Most impressive was the announcement Hallie (owner of the Century Ballroom) gave before the dance started, calling out how never had she known some one so excited to be there, and that CB should give her a warm welcome. Awwww!

In other news, I've the last single son in my family. I can't tell if that means I should raise my price, or if I'll be showing up in the spring clearance sale. But none the less, this situation came about through some very nice nuptials between my brother Chris and his now-wife Bevin.

The food was WAY too good for wedding fare, and the AMAZING cake was undersubscribed to. That bothered me a bit since I had loaded it all in my car in a half panic while wearing way too much of suit on a spontaneously VERY HOT day for April. But then I got to eat it again at work, since I took a whole sheet cake home! Talk about party favors! :)

Despite going from vaguely disoriented to very-damn-sick in the preceding 16 hours, I dragged myself out of bed the next day and joined Abby and some good friends of hers visiting from out of town on a short jaunt to Snoqualmie Falls. It was unexpectedly pleasant in that way that unsuspecting out-of-town guests seem to bring upon themselves.

And that wouldn't be the end of my intrepid outings while sinking into despair inducing levels of lost voice and found mucus production. Monday evening placed me at University Washington Foster School of Business with my (just now former) colleague Rob Hruska participating in a well run and stimulating before/after dinner classes in Brand Marketing/Management and Pricing Competition. We had an enjoyable Prisoner's dilemma based group competition exercise, and my team profited wildly (initially 35%, then 2000% when we won the highest score award) from my experience from undergraduate economics class in Strategic Behavior at Bates. The game depends on good collaboration/collusion, but ultimate victory comes from well-timed betrayal, and we pulled it off nearly perfectly. My overly moral team couldn't handle going back to the negotiation table and attempting to persuade the competition to cooperate again, but that would have definitely been the ultimate move in a zero sum game! :) Anyway, the tuggings on my heart strings, er brain strings?, to go to BSchool were definitely present. For me to be awake before and AFTER dinner listening to a lecture is a good indication how interesting I find this stuff. Then I went home and collapsed.

But do I learn from my mistakes? NOPE! Not even close. Tuesday night, after falling asleep on the couch after dinner, I got put together and went out to meet Lauren salsa dancing on her 21st birthday. I got lost trying to find Club Havana, so was walking around like a regular man whore on capital hill, carefully walking each block looking in doorways, carrying my dance shoes in a very unflattering bag. Bah! Anyway, Lauren came to the rescue, driving up in a stretch limo. Girl, turning 21, in stretch limo... you'd think a raging party, right? WRONG! Lauren and roommate emerge. Hilarious! We find Havana, it is NOT salsa. So downbeat techno and a later-on appearance of Vassili made it celebratory anyhow. Then I go home and collapse again.

Enough? Nope. Wednesday is after-work drinks with the former Mobile Services crew. I miss the first 90 minutes, and catch them in time to go to the Olde Spaghetti Factory(?!?!) for more drinks. Then Brent and I catch dinner. Then I go back to the office and work until 11:30. And go home and collapse.

But never say die! Thursday is the before-mentioned birthday dance night. I barely made it out, let me tell you. If it wasn't a burly asian thug dragging myself by the collar to the car, I probably would have just turned in early. But thugs have poor decision making facilities in general, and this one left CB ... and went to Lo Fi for a couple hours of awesome jamming, including a surprise appearance of the West coast beatbox champion (name unknown) ripping up a microphone like you wouldn't believe. Then I go home just shy of 3 am. And collapse... and get right back up at 7 am for a 7:30 conference call. Gah!

Enough is enough, I stayed home last night, despite calls for salsa dancing.

What's coming up? Well, I'm sulking because nearly all my favorite dancing partners are gone right now, but Sharon is returning from Peru and Lauren from Idaho in the next few days. And depending on shoulder health I may crash some CB classes to cheer myself up tomorrow. But for now, I need to run off to my brother's (shhhhhh) top secret surprise birthday party! Yay!

What does that have to do with anything? I dunno, thought of it.

I'm on my second week of wearing glasses that neither fit nor are what I want to be seen wearing, at least when outside when UV light causes them to morph into smoky sunglasses. I can't wait until the lenses I ordered show up and I can get the frame adjusted to not fall off when I whip my head around. Oi.

It's been a lot of working, dancing, and brief spurts of martial intensity, as usual. The fact that "working" is on the list again makes me more happy than you might think sane. I was so happy to find myself up at 2 am the other night, working, cause I WANTED to do that work. I wanted it done, and I wanted the output available to the people who could use it.

This is a tribal tattoo I painted on myself right before going dancing. Just sorta made i up as I went along, and I kinda like it. But it was ruined far before it's 7-10 day lifespan was realized, thanks to the rigors of Monday night grappling class. Grr.

Dancing, too, has been good. I'll hopefully post some videos to Youtube so you can see the kind of stuff I'm working on. I've got quite a bit going on in the salsa world at the moment. I'm continuing to develop my foundation where I first started, at Century Ballroom. I'm still taking the level 3 classes, which take so long to go through that by the time I finish a circuit I've pretty much needed the refresher anyway. Plus it's a great way to figure out who is fun to dance with. :) This and part of last session, I added the Follow's Technique and Styling class, which is basically a class for the ladies to help them with a variety of topics not focused on in the patterns classes. Usually I'm the only one in the room wielding a Y chromosome, which is fine with me; it's only if there was a few more Y chromosome's in the room that I'd be at much risk of getting beaten up. ;) Then I've learning salsa from a completely different angle at Salsa Con Todo with Vassili. The intermediate classes are an exercise in being humbled every week, and the private lessons are an exercise in realizing that the intermediate class wasn't really humbling in comparison to the degradation of ego that happens if the spotlight is on me alone. Oi! But I've gotten better, both from the classroom, and the always available salsa venues every day of the week (M-Su: Halo, See Sound, Babalu, CB, Halo/Oasian, CB, See Sound).

Went to the Betz Winery today. If I had known I was going to still be in the States this late, I would have picked up at least a half allotment of Le Perrain but sadly I misjudged and didn't order before it sold out. Gah! But I'm sure Dad and Josh would let me have a sip if I wait the 10+ years it will take them to feel like opening one.

So instead I tasted the immature version of what they'll have in a decade, and stewed in my own planning misfortune. Lovely food and wine pretty much drowned that sorrow.

Speaking of sorrow, I'm sorry that next Monday will arrive an hour sooner than expected. Gah, lousy Day Light Savings... it gives such a kindness in the fall, but OOOooOOooO that jerk of a spring...

Okay, time to hit the hay, this monkey has a packed week:
M: BJJ/Vale Tudo/Salsa
T: Salsa
W: Salsa in Vancouver
Th: Teaching BJJ, maybe salsa?
F: collapsing? :)

Lovely thing to find in the morning daylight. 4 or 5 bright orange paintballs were neatly applied to my big white house last night. I'm the one person in Seattle who could go for some heavy rain with a strong wind driving it at a 45 degree angle towards east right about now.

Grumble.

First it was turning 30, then hunting for a new job existence, then starting a new job ... all the while salsa dancing & martial arting it up. I still don't know when I leave for Denmark, but if it's much longer I may pop from impatience. Plus there are many things I'd sign up for, if I knew I'd be in Seattle for the next while.

Anyhoo, the most interesting thing I've done of late is take a weekend Tansu making class with Josh. We really just worked in the Ballard Woodworking facility with two capable instructors aiding us. Since none of us cared if we finished during the weekend, we just did everything our own way.

So I have more to do, someday, when I have time. Haha!

The big one is real Tansu, the little thing on top is what I spent 16 hours partially making. Whee!

'Nuff said.

I did it with far more style and flourish than even I expected, simply by going down to Portland for Pink Martini's 10:30 pm show at Arlene Schnitzer hall. Our seats were on the edge aisle of a middle section, row A. There were two rows of folding chairs in front of us, but none directly in front because there wasn't space for much. Had I succumbed to my urge to run on stage to lead China Forbes through some dazzling steps of on-1 salsa dancing, it would have only taken two or three steps before snipers would have known for sure I was breaking the rules.

The geriatric security guard wouldn't have slowed me down. He took a nap through most of it. Probably likes heavy metal and techno and can't stand Pink Martini.

Anyway, fantasies aside.

With the upclose seats, I made the startling discovery that the diminutive band leader's white hair did not make him a candidate for the geriatric security guard's job as I'd thought when sitting in the 2nd to last row at the Moore theater for a Pink Martini show a couple of years ago. No. He's young, feisty, gay, and has dyed his hair most blondly. Also to my surprise, the whole band has faces. And they used them animatedly; these guys enjoy making music and when you're near enough to really see it as well as hear it, the effect is that much more contagious. I was quite literally overwhelmed.

It wasn't your standard "promote a new tune, get some crowd reactions with our big hits" kind of night, either. Probably half the time or more was allotted to abnormal events - three special featured guests performed. A spunky older conductor by the name of Norman Leyden came up and did some clarinet magic (he was on the Hang on Little Tomato album too). Jane Powell, a famous actress with many movies in the 50's, came up and narrated while the Martini entourage plus a few extras did a fun-filled rendition of Peter and the Wolf, replete with shotguns blasts. Accomplished by colorful percussion section, and an artist flown up from Los Angeles, whose job it was to stand behind the piano looking dapper... and on three separate occasions to lift his right hand holding a pistol that extended a flag reading "Bang" while casting a left-handful of snap-its to the ground. Musical hilarity ensued.

Then Jane gave a rare treat; although she stopped singing professionally years ago, in a duet with China Forbes, she gave this ninja monkey a song he couldn't have thought to beg for. Twice thru, second time at maximum speed:

Way down in the Congoland
Lived a happy chimpanzee.
She loved a monkey with long tail
(Lordy, how she loved him!)
Each night he would find her there,
Swinging in the cocoanut tree,
And the monkey gay,
At the break of day,
Loved to hear his Chimpie say:

"Aba, daba, daba, daba, daba, daba, dab,"

Said the Chimpie to the Monk,

"Baba, daba, daba, daba, daba, daba, dab,"

Said the Monkey to the Chimp.

All night long they'd chatter away,

All day long there were happy and gay,

Swinging and singing in their hunky-tonkey way.

"Aba, daba, daba, daba, daba, daba, dab,"

Means "Monk, I love but you."

"Baba, daba, dab," in monkey talk

Means "Chimp, I love you, too."

Then the big baboon one night in June,

He married them and very soon,

They went upon their aba, daba honeymoon.

So, duck and wolf hunting done, monkey business exhausted, there was little left to do other than to honor the choir director of Grant high school (whose choir was all present and a-talented-for). The director is hidden behind the blur of Jane. Have I mentioned I hate the camera on the iPhone? Yeah.

Another concert goer & Portland Gazette staff member captured this YouTube video of the Brasilian Samba number. You can't see me because I'm right up front by the stage and there are taller people in the way.

Anyhow. It was a fantastic way to spend the new year's eve, and my temporarily Portland based concert companion agreed.

Before and after the music bliss, I had lots of good soulful alone time at my dad's river house in Woodland, WA. I made fires in the fireplaces, food on the stove and in the oven, split wood, read, slept, and drew. T'was peaceful and restorative. And I'm am SO charged up for 2008. Watch out, cause if you're in my way, you might get trampled!

1) Prepared and ate 3 meals
2) Straightened and cleaned various parts of the house
3) Took a few baby steps on longer term house projects
4) Practiced Italian for a couple of hours
5) Practiced guaguanco, salsa turns, and salsa patterns
6) Studied and drilled salsa technique
7) Studied and drilled mambo body isolation technique
8) Danced happily to latin music
9) Went to Jiujitsu with the dial turned to 8 or 9.
10) Did five 3 minute rounds of boxing/kickboxing on the bag
11) Read most of a book
12) Caught up on a bunch of email
13) Prepped 8 interview questions
14) Played my turn on all asynchronous turn based Facebook games in progress
15) Watched Pride 26 & did hundreds of crunches and boxing handwork while doing so
16) Blogged, haha!

This mode of hyperactive productivity is rarely something I can just impose on myself. No, it requires a higher power than me to keep it all in motion.

That's right. A System!

And this system, like many good ones, is simple. I wrote down the work things I wanted to do, and the fun things I wanted to do, and I measured them out in bite sized chunks. Numbered them. And then whenever I'd finished something, I'd walk to the list, decided if I was going to do work or play, and then roll a die and immediately commence whatever numbered item chance had ordered me to do.

Elegant. Simple. Brainless.

And wicked productive. So much so I had to take a nap in the middle of the day, but only for 20 minutes.

So there it is, if you want to lead a frenetic life like yours truly, figure out how to trick yourself into being motivated, and watch what happens! :)

Max & Jess wasted no time making worthwhile news as the clock ticked down. If you can't figure it out from the picture, never mind. Clicking on it might help. The note was placed in my stocking, and Max rather aggressively suggested I should open it right away. Good thing I wasn't combative about being bossed around, or I would have ruined the whole spirit of it all. :)

In other news, Erik ruined my streak of not having parties at my house (excluding a very calm two pair dinner a year ago) by inviting over a food savvy crew of friends, which made for a fun and very full night.

And the holidays brought some good dining... too much good dining in fact, so I am hungry and cranky today to compensate.

Here Dad reveals his true feelings about dogs, and field nature photographer John Furukawa captures an elusive hot dog photo.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I'll see you all on the other side.

Tis certainly deserved, and I am relieved to not have to tap out to him as a white belt any longer.

I made it to 30! And you hosers thought I wouldn't :P

I've reflected a great deal on what it is to be 30, and in short, it appears to be the same as being 20 but not nearly so 1) lost, 2) prone to making bad decisions, and 3) boring. And yes, injuries take longer to heal. Blah blah.